Anne Wangalachi conveys heartfelt thanks to the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe team for sharing their time, experience, and expertise with her during her three-day visit this week. Wangalachi, a science writer and editor, was on a mission to orient herself about Zimbabwe operations in the region.
She said the team shows enthusiasm, dedication, competence and professionalism for both simple and complex aspects of their work. From variety development to seed shipment; leaf hopper multiplication; conservation agriculture and soil fertility management, to coordinating operationsâall components seem to run like clockwork. âOne feels right at home, regardless of where one is based within CIMMYT,â says Wangalachi.
A hearty Asanteni sana (thank you very much) goes to you all at CIMMYT-Zimbabwe!
Congratulations to Pat Wall (CIMMYT Zimbabwe). He has just been elected as chair of the international agronomy section of the American Society of Agronomy.
And Marilyn Warburton (GREU) is now the ANABAF/ REDBIO Mexico representative as CIMMYT is now part of RedBio Mexico. RedBio is a network for technical cooperation in agricultural biotechnology for Latin America and the Caribbean. It works under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
During 30 January-03 February, members of CIMMYT Project 10, âConservation agriculture for maize and wheat cropping systems,â held annual review and planning meetings in Harare, Zimbabwe.
âThe work we reviewed furthers CIMMYTâs strong tradition of helping partners test and promote diverse resource-conserving practices with farmers, as well as backstopping those efforts with relevant research,â says John Dixon, Director of the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, who presided over the meetings.
Scientists reporting on achievements, challenges, and plans included Pat Wall, who with the help of Christian Thierfelder is leading center projects on conservation agriculture in southern Africa; Paul Mapfumo and Mulugetta Mekuria, who work with partners through the Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa (SOFECSA); Olaf Erenstein, who has coordinated surveys to assess the adoption and impacts of zero-tillage and other resource-conserving practices in South Asia; Mirjam Pulleman, who reported on her work and that of Bram Govaerts and Ken Sayre analyzing long-term conservation agriculture trials at El BatĂĄn and Ciudad ObregĂłn; and Stephen Waddington, maize agronomist for many years in southern Africa and now leading CIMMYT efforts in Bangladesh.
Participants, in the company of extension and NGO partners, paid visits to farmers testing conservation agriculture practices in several villages of central and southern Zimbabwe. The regionâs degraded and sandy soils and crop-and-animal farming systems are among the most challenging for efforts to keep protective, nourishing residues on the land, and work has been under way for only a few yearsâbarely the blink of an eye for such initiatives. But farmer interest is evident and, particularly in Malawi, adoption of zero-tillage and residue retention for maize-based farming has begun.
In an effort to promote quality protein maize (QPM), CIMMYT, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research and Extension Service (AREX) in Zimbabwe, recently held a workshop on QPM awareness. QPM contains enhanced levels of the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which together with other amino acids in maize are essential for the production of protein in the human body. Protein malnutrition is a serious health problem in southern Africa.
In addition to promoting general awareness, the workshop concentrated on sensitizing and educating participants about the usefulness of QPM in both human and animal nutrition. It also stimulated discussion that organizers hoped would get people thinking about how to promote quality protein maize in Zimbabwe.
The workshop was attended by participants from the University of Zimbabwe, University of Midlands, poultry and livestock industry, departments of extension, researchers and NGOs. Presentations covered the development, utilization, and seed production of QPM. During the discussion it was clear that the participants saw the potential of QPM in mitigating malnutrition in Zimbabwe.
At present only one QPM openpollinated variety has been released in the country and there is a need to release more varieties. In the recent past the variety release committee has insisted on presentation of data from animal feeding trials for a variety to be released as a QPM variety.
However, during the course of the workshop (which was attended by several members of the variety release committee) it was agreed that a QPM variety could be released on the strength of its agronomic performance and high values of lysine and tryptophan from lab tests. High lysine and tryptophan in a QPM variety were seen as valueadded traits. It was agreed that feeding trials are no longer necessary as long as there is lab data to show that a candidate variety contains a high level of lysine and tryphtophan compared to non-QPM variety. At present QPM varieties have been released in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia.