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Location: Americas

CIMMYT has several offices in the Americas, including global headquarters in Mexico and a regional office in Colombia. Activities are supported by an additional 140 hectares of stations in diverse agro-ecological zones of Mexico. CIMMYT’s genebank in Mexico stores 27,000 maize and 170,000 wheat seed collections – key to preserving the crop genetic diversity of the region. CIMMYT projects range from developing nutritionally enhanced maize to mapping regional climate change hot spots in Central America. The comprehensive MasAgro project aims to increase wheat production in Mexico by 9 million tons and maize production by 350,000 tons by 2030. CIMMYT promotes regional collaboration and facilitates capacity building for scientists, researchers and technicians.

Sculptor captures demeanor of Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug

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Sculptor Katharine McDevitt (R) stands in front of the bronze sculpture she created of Norman Borlaug with his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube. (Photo: Marcelo Ortiz/CIMMYT)
Sculptor Katharine McDevitt (R) stands in front of the bronze sculpture she created of Norman Borlaug with his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube. (Photo: Marcelo Ortiz/CIMMYT)

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Artist Katharine McDevitt, creator of a new bronze representation of wheat scientist Norman Borlaug, is fascinated by sculptures representing pre-Hispanic deities – so much so that she relocated to Mexico from the United States to learn more about the ancient art form.

She studied, and then taught, sculpture at “La Esmeralda,” the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving in Mexico City, where renowned Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera taught in the 1940s.

Almost 40 years later, McDevitt is still in Mexico where for the past 21 years she has worked at the Chapingo Autonomous University of agriculture and the National Museum of Agriculture as a sculpture instructor and artist in residence.

The Chapingo campus, in the city of Texcoco about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Mexico City, is home to a mural painted by Rivera in the 1920s titled “Fertile Land.”

Sculptor McDevitt says her personal pre-Hispanic favorite is a 16th century basalt depiction of the Aztec earth goddess Coatlicue, associated with agriculture, the cycle of life, the mother of the moon, stars and Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, sun and human sacrifice. The 2.6-meter (8.5-foot) tall sculpture, housed in Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology, represents Coatlicue decapitated, snakes emerging from her neck, clad in a skirt of snakes and a necklace of human hearts, hands and a skull.

“I’m always very moved by pre-Hispanic sculpture, I find it very powerful – it’s a language that speaks across boundaries of culture, you can feel the tremendous energy,” said McDevitt, who has also made her own pantheon of deities, including the Diosa del MaĂ­z statue at Chapingo.

The massive stone Coatlicue sculpture is a far cry from her own gentle tribute in bronze to a more contemporary agricultural giant – 1970 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug – which was unveiled in the presence of his daughter Jeanie Laube Borlaug and members of the international wheat community at CIMMYT headquarters near Texcoco last week.

Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, led efforts that began at CIMMYT in Mexico to develop high-yielding, disease-resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties in the mid-20th century. His successes, which earned him the title “Father of the Green Revolution,” are estimated to have helped save more than 1 billion lives in the developing world.

The life-size sculpture is based on an emblematic photograph of the scientist, McDevitt said. Borlaug, originally from Iowa, is wearing a familiar hat, jotting down notes in a book and wearing a class ring from the University of Minnesota where he earned his graduate degrees. The wheat stalks at his feet were made from casts of wheat plants of the varieties used for the Green Revolution, McDevitt said.

“This is the most inspiring figure I’ve ever had the privilege of doing,” McDevitt said, adding that she considers Borlaug a modern god of agriculture. “This project has been the greatest honor of my career. There was a lot of input from CIMMYT staff who knew Dr. Borlaug well. They offered suggestions, useful comments and tips on how to make the sculpture more life-like, how to make it more faithful to who Dr. Borlaug was.”

McDevitt also designs and produces pre-Hispanic rituals at the Chapingo Autonomous University, including a graduation ritual designed around Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, water, lightning and agriculture. Each August, McDevitt designs a welcome ritual for new students based around the story of Xilonen, the corn goddess.

In 2001, Borlaug participated in an interactive seed sowing-ritual inspired by Rivera’s murals. As part of the ritual, which occurs every year on Agronomy Day on February 22, a hand – created by McDevitt – emerges from furrows of earth, laid out in the National Agricultural Museum.

Three life-size versions of McDevitt’s Borlaug statue exist. One is in Ciudad Obregon in the northern Mexican state of Sonora and the other is in Delhi, India. A small number of miniature replicas have been distributed to recognize important achievements of key contributors to global food security, including 2014 World Food Prize laureate Sanjaya Rajaram, a former student of Borlaug’s at CIMMYT.

“First Lady of Wheat” in Mexico to celebrate her father, Norman Borlaug

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The late wheat breeder Norman Borlaug was so dedicated to his work that he was away from home 80 percent of the time, either travelling or in the field, recalls his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube.

Photo: Alfredo SĂĄenz/CIMMYT

Scientist Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, led efforts in the mid-20th century to develop high-yielding, disease resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties that helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world.

Wheat breeders, scientists and members of the global food security community celebrated his birthday at a week-long meeting hosted by CIMMYT in the vast wheat fields of the Yaqui Valley near the town of Ciudad Obregón in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora.

Each year, CIMMYT Visitors’ Week serves as an opportunity to brainstorm, exchange ideas and celebrate Borlaug’s legacy on the anniversary of his birthday.

Borlaug, who would have been 101 this year, started work on wheat improvement in the mid-1940s near CIMMYT headquarters outside Mexico City.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 partly for his experimental work, much of which took place in the hot, dry conditions of Obregón, which resemble conditions in many developing countries where CIMMYT works.

This year, his daughter, who is co-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, a partnership to study and and control devastating stem, yellow and leaf wheat rust disease, spoke on women and agriculture at the event. She is also involved with the Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum Mentor Award, which honors mentors of both genders who aid women working in Triticum species and near relatives. Additionally, she sits on the board of directors of the Borlaug Training Foundation, established to provide agricultural education and guidance to scientists from developing nations.

She shared her views in the following interview.

Q: What is your current involvement in agriculture?

I’m not officially in agriculture – I’m a Spanish teacher. I taught for 40 years in high school until I retired three years ago. In the last 25 years of my career I had started a community service program at two different schools in Dallas and ran it. This involves 750 kids a year out doing community service. I still taught one Spanish class but my basic job was community service director. I haven’t been involved in agriculture directly. Indirectly, I have been because I was Norman Borlaug’s daughter so I’ve been around it, but I wasn’t raised on a farm, never lived on a farm, didn’t study agriculture or science in school.

What is your current involvement with wheat?

I’m co-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative – I go to the conferences once a year where all the wheat scientists of the world get together. I go to all the conferences and sit and listen and try to learn and follow what is going on with rust and the different problems they are having with wheat. I’m involved with the Women in Triticum Award. I visit and follow up with them and they are the ones who are out in the field learning how to become scientists and continue the profession. That’s how I’m involved in wheat.

Q: What are your views on women in agriculture?

I was in Pakistan last year and the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up a meeting with women who were all scientists working on their doctoral degrees – or already had a Ph.D. in agriculture. The discussions were very interesting as far as the difficulties that women find in this field and the pluses and minuses that are involved with that. It was interesting to hear different aspects of what they were feeling. The academic studies were not a difficult thing for them, but the reality of raising a family and keeping a profession going and taking care of a husband or children at the same time as being away from home presented problems.

No matter what profession women are in, challenges confront them because we have to multi-task. It doesn’t matter whether you are an accountant, a geneticist or a teacher – as a mother or trying to run a family and a profession, I think it’s challenging for a lot of women.

Q: What impresses you about women in agriculture?

I’m always amazed at the women scientists who are out there working at these wheat conferences and out in the in the field and taking care of their families from afar or even before they get married or have children, just the dedication they have to helping feed the world.

Q: What are your views on food security?

I don’t think the general population has any clue as to what goes on with agriculture. As my dad used to say, everybody just thinks the food comes from the grocery store and that’s where it is – it just pops in there. The average person doesn’t have a clue about that.

Q: What has changed since your father’s time?

I imagine he’d be facing the same challenges. I think it would be really interesting if he were still around because he’d be going crazy right now with all of this fighting about gluten-free and over genetically modified plants. He was so dedicated. His mission was to feed the world.

I think it is still the same mission. I think it is probably just a little harder because you have more public opinion and lack of info for what you need. He was changing genes and they are still doing that and they need to because they need to find plants that require less fertilizer and less water and provide more protein. What is amazing to me is to think about how they are working with computers now and he did all this in his head with notebooks.

He’d leave home at five in the morning and get home at eight at night. When he was in town he was gone about 80 percent of the time. When he first started this shuttle breeding program he’d come to Sonora. That was in the 40s – he had to go up through Arizona and back down at first because there were no roads. He’d be up here for three months, then he’d go back down, then he’d go to Toluca and South America, then he started going to India and Pakistan. In later years he was going Africa, so he was never home.

Q: Where did you grow up?

I was raised in Mexico City. My brother was born in Mexico and I came here when I was 14 months old. I lived here until I went to college. I did my schooling down here.

 

Q: Did your father try and encourage women in science and agriculture?

Yes he did. Back then there weren’t very many women in agriculture and scence. I think he’d be very pleased to see the turn with what’s happening with women in agriculture.

Q: What is it like celebrating your father?

It’s really neat. When my dad realized that he was going to die he asked me to bring ashes back to Mexico so I did. The last two years we came before he died, we came in a private jet because he couldn’t travel. It was so hard to get here. I remember I looked at his face as we were approaching Obregón. His face was just pure relief. He loved this place and he’d see the wheat fields and it was magical for him. Coming back is kind of bittersweet, realizing how much he loved the farmers too as they loved him.

Researchers define and measure “sustainability”

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Leading specialists on the sustainable intensification of agriculture tried to hammer out indicators for assessing “sustainability,” a development term that refers roughly to the health and longevity of a system, at a 13 February workshop in San Jose, California.

Sustainability“Sustainable intensification seeks to increase farm productivity while conserving social and ecological resources, said Rishi Basak, consultant for CIMMYT’s Global Conservation Agriculture Program (GCAP) who took part in the event, held during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, 12-16 February.

Santiago López Ridaura, CIMMYT GCAP Systems Agronomist, also attending the workshop, said “We are all interested in understanding and quantifying the impact of our research for development activities on the sustainability of agriculture and rural livelihoods. This workshop brought donors and researchers from different disciplines to discuss a common framework, indicators and metrics to do so. I believe it is an important step forward towards a common goal.”

Measuring sustainability remains a challenge, as it involves complex biophysical, environmental and socioeconomic interactions. “There are no widely-accepted indicators for the various dimensions of neither sustainable intensification, nor thresholds or benchmarks for those indicators,” Basak explained. “Lacking unified metrics for comparisons across initiatives, specialists tend to focus on specific practices— for example, conservation agriculture or agroforestry — rather than overall outcomes of sustainable intensification.”

The framework developed at the AAAS workshop is intended to provide for standardized methods that can be adapted for large- and small-scale farms. It will facilitate cross-program learning and assessment based on a set of indicators that are widely monitored or can be easily integrated into existing programs, such as “factor productivity” and “resilience.” These indicators will be measured by returns to labor and land, and by the variance in gross margin, respectively.

“Thinking about key indicators brought us back to basics: what are we trying to achieve when undertaking sustainable intensification projects and how do we know if we are successful?” Basak stated. “What data should we collect, how do we tell our success stories, and how can we compare results between projects?”

Workshop participants agreed to begin testing the indicators in the field, broaden consultation on the draft indicators and hire someone to provide intellectual leadership and coordination going forward.

“Having a set of indicators to assess our progress towards desired goals is very important. These indicators should not only help us in assessing progress, but also capturing main synergies and tradeoffs involved in our interventions,” said Ridaura.

The workshop immediately preceded a special symposium entitled “Beyond Intensification: Measuring the ‘Sustainable’ in Sustainable Intensification” on 13 February. The symposium was organized by Jerry Glover, Senior Sustainable Agricultural Systems Advisor, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and included the participation of Tracy K. Powell, USAID Agricultural Research Advisor based in Ethiopia; Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development, Imperial College, London; Sieglinde S. Snapp, cropping systems and soil management specialist, Michigan State University; Peter Thorne, crop-livestock systems scientist, International Livestock Research Institute; Cheryl A. Palm, Senior Research Scientist and Director of Research, Earth Institute, Columbia University; and Bruno Gerard, Director, CIMMYT Global Conservation Agriculture Program.

Maize and wheat Super Women campaign highlights diversity

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IWDbuttonEL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A social media crowd sourcing campaign initiated to celebrate the achievements of women has led to more than a dozen published blog story contributions about women in the maize and wheat sectors.

Each year, International Women’s Day gives the world a chance to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. This year, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) put out a call asking for blog contributions from the social media community.

CIMMYT asked readers to submit stories about women who have made a difference in the maize and wheat sectors, including women involved in conservation agriculture, genetic resources, research, technology and related socio-economics.

The “Who is Your Maize or Wheat Super Woman?” stories are featured on the CIMMYT website from Monday, March 2, 2015 in the lead up to International Women’s Day on Sunday, March 8, 2015.

Contributions include blog stories about women from Britain, Canada, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, and the United States. Their stories will also be made available in Spanish-language.

SUPER WOMEN BLOG POSTS:

CIMMYT

Central American Agriculture and Livestock Council signs agreement with CIMMYT

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Julio Calderón and Tom Lumpkin stop for a photo as they tour the CIMMYT campus. Photos: Xochiquetzal Fonseca
The CIMMYT delegation provides a presentation for Calderón. From left to right: Felix San Vicente, Víctor López, Lumpkin, Calderón, Arturo Hinojosa and Isabel Peña.

In Texcoco, Mexico, on 03 December, Thomas A. Lumpkin, CIMMYT director general, signed a memorandum of understanding with Julio Calderón, Executive Secretary of the Central American Agriculture and Livestock Council (CAC), for shared work to strengthen the seed sector and to promote seed of improved crop varieties and relevant mechanization for small- and intermediate-scale farmers in the region.

Created in 1991, CAC is part of the Central American Integration System (SICA) established by Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama and helps to link agricultural with other key sectors and agencies, in benefit of farmers and rural inhabitants.

From left to right: Bram Govaerts, Calderón, Lumpkin and San Vicente pause for a photo.
Calderón and Lumpkin sign the memorandum of understanding.

Food security successes earn ‘sultan of wheat’ World Food Prize

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sultan of wheat
Undated file picture shows the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug (L) with 2014 World Food Prize laureate Sanjaya Rajaram.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Scientist Sanjaya Rajaram, originally from a small farm in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh, is now widely recognized by the international agriculture sector for his prolific contributions to food security and poverty alleviation.

He is credited with producing a remarkable 480 wheat varieties, which have boosted worldwide yields by more than 180 million metric tons (200 million tons). These increased yields provide food to more than 1 billion people each year.

The varieties Rajaram developed during his 40-year career have been released in 51 countries on six continents.

They are used by farmers with both large and small land holdings who rely on disease-resistant wheat adaptable to a range of climate conditions.

For those feats and more Rajaram is the 2014 World Food Prize laureate, an honor awarded each year to the person who does the most to advance human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. Rajaram received the award at the World Food Prize ceremony on October 16 in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Rajaram has made a massive contribution to food security – I doubt that one person will ever again be involved in the development of as many widely grown wheat varieties,” said Hans Braun, director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), where Rajaram worked for 33 years.

“As a former colleague once said: ‘It’s amazing what happens, when the ‘Sultan of Wheat’ puts his magic hands on a wheat line’,” he added.

INTERESTS FLOURISH

Rajaram was born in 1943 on the 5-hectare (12 acre) farm in Raipur where his family eked out a living by producing wheat, rice, maize, sugarcane and millet.

His parents recognized Rajaram’s intellectual potential and sent him to school 5 kilometers (3 miles) from home, which at the time was unusual in an area where 96 percent of people had no formal education.

Rajaram excelled scholastically and became the top-ranked student in his district. A state scholarship gave him the opportunity to attend high school, which led to his acceptance at the College of Jaunpur in the University of Gorakhpur, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in agriculture in 1962.

Afterwards Rajaram attended the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, graduating with a Master of Science in 1964.

Subsequently, he earned a doctorate in plant breeding at Australia’s University of Sydney where he first made contact with the superstars of what became known as the “Green Revolution” – Norman Borlaug and Glenn Anderson, who were leading scientists at CIMMYT.

CIMMYT VARIETIES

Borlaug, who was from the United States, died in 2009 at age 95. He is known as the “Father of the Green Revolution” and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Borlaug is credited with saving 1 billion lives in the developing world — particularly in South Asia — as a result of the disease-resistant, high-yield semi-dwarf wheat varieties he developed.

Borlaug had also introduced similar innovations throughout Mexico – where CIMMYT is headquartered – leading to the country’s self-sufficiency in wheat.

Anderson, a Canadian who died in 1981 at 57, was recruited by Borlaug to lead the major “Green Revolution” wheat improvement project in India. In 1971, Anderson became deputy director of the CIMMYT Wheat Program and then its director after Borlaug retired in 1979.

The two recruited Rajaram, who joined CIMMYT in 1969. He was appointed head of the wheat breeding team by Borlaug three years later. He set to work cross breeding select plant varieties, and the yield potential of his cultivars increased 20 to 25 percent.

“His technique was to cross winter and spring wheat varieties, which were distinct gene pools, leading to the development of higher yield plants that can be grown in a wide range of environments around the world,” Braun said, adding that Rajaram’s varieties were disease- and stress-resistant.

“The varieties he developed were eventually grown on a larger area than those developed by Borlaug.”

His varieties could be planted in areas previously uninhabitable for wheat in China, India and in Brazil’s acidic soils, for which he developed aluminum-tolerant wheat. Rajaram also developed wheat cultivars now grown on millions of hectares worldwide with durable resistance to rust diseases, which can devastate crops.

Rajaram spent eight years working for the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). At ICARDA, first as director of the Integrated Gene Management Program, then as special scientific advisor, he oversaw the promotion of new technologies to help farmers in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region.

He developed wheat improvement strategies to tackle some of the challenges facing wheat in dry areas, including stripe rust disease, which can spread quickly and have a devastating effect on wheat.

MENTOR TO MANY

“Rajaram’s research not only led to enhanced productivity, but farmers also saw big increases in profits due to higher yields and disease resistance – they no longer had to buy expensive fungicides to protect their plots,” said Ravi Singh, current head of wheat breeding at CIMMYT, one among many breeders Rajaram mentored.

Now a Mexican citizen and still a firm believer in the value of education, Rajaram continues his affiliation with CIMMYT, recently attending a “trainee wheat boot camp” for students from major wheat-growing nations.

“We know we need to double food production to feed the more than 9 billion people we’re expecting by 2050,” Rajaram said.

“Global objectives for food security can most definitely be met. However, we must be able to rely on guaranteed research funding from both the public and private sectors to address the many challenges we face, including decreasing land availability and erratic environmental changes related to climate change.”

Wheat currently provides 20 percent of overall daily protein and calories consumed throughout the world. Production must grow 70 percent over the current amount by 2050, according to the international Wheat Initiative – an achievable goal if annual wheat yields are increased from a current level of below 1 percent to at least 1.7 percent.

Researchers at CIMMYT are aiming to develop resilient wheat varieties tolerant to the drought, heat, extreme wet and cold conditions anticipated by scientists to grow more extreme as mean annual temperatures continue to increase and weather patterns become more volatile.

Rajaram’s great legacy was to give opportunities to newly graduated doctoral students, Singh said.

“He put us in charge of different parts of the breeding program each season, so we had to learn all aspects of the process for ourselves – we worked many long hours with him in the field developing confidence, which was very important for our professional careers.”

Rajaram intends to put a portion of his World Food Prize winnings, valued at $250,000, into training and education programs.

Is gluten the new villain? The New Yorker covers the rising gluten-free trend

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“The most obvious question is also the most difficult to answer: How could gluten, present in a staple food that has sustained humanity for thousands of years, have suddenly become so threatening?” asks an article published in the November 3, issue of The New Yorker. The article, “Against the Grain” by Michael Specter, examines the gluten-free movement and the various theories surrounding the recent rise in “non-celiac gluten sensitivity,” the name given to those who report discomfort after eating gluten yet do not suffer from celiac disease. According to Specter, “there are many theories but no clear, scientifically satisfying answers.”

Is-Gluten-the-New-Villain
Among the theories is the notion that wheat genes have drastically changed in the past 50 years and the grain can no longer be properly digested by humans, an idea promoted by “Wheat Belly” author William Davis. Little scientific evidence supports this claim however, and the true cause of “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” symptoms remains unknown.

Specter contends that the culprit is more likely to be FODMAPs, a group of carbohydrates present in numerous food items (including wheat) that can cause abdominal pain, bloating and diarrhea; industrial bread additives such as vital wheat gluten; or unhealthy modern dietary patterns. “Although dietary patterns have changed dramatically in the past century, our genes have not,” attests Specter. “The human body has not evolved to consume a modern Western diet, with meals full of sugary substances and refined, high-calorie carbohydrates.”

For those without celiac disease, cutting gluten and wheat products from their diet may not answer the underlying cause of the symptoms, and may do more harm than good. Gluten-free products are often high in sugar and calories to make up for missing ingredients. More investigation and longterm dietary studies are necessary, Specter argues, before blaming wheat or gluten as the culprit of a growing percentage of the nation’s reported dietary sensitivities.

Of wheat, weight, gluten and food intolerances

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Julie Miller Jones is a professor emerita of nutrition in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Science at St Catherine University in St Paul, Minnesota. Any opinions expressed are her own.

A popular dietary trend involves the elimination of wheat- and gluten-containing foods inspired in part by the book “Wheat Belly” written by cardiologist William Davis.

“I’d like to make the case that foods made with wheat make you fat,” Davis wrote. “I’d go as far as saying that overly enthusiastic wheat consumption is the main cause of the obesity and diabetes crisis in the United States.”
Davis claims that wheat is addictive and suggests that a diet eliminating the grain and its relatives, rye and barley is the key to weight loss and a reduction in diabetes.

Davis states that the increase in obesity and diabetes in the United States directly correlates with the increase in the sales of wheat-based products.

There are several flaws in such an interpretation

First, it is an association – the increase in the rate of obesity also directly correlates with the sales of running shoes. Correlations simply show how things vary together. Attributing the increase in obesity to wheat prevents people from addressing the real culprit – caloric imbalance. Calories have increased and physical activity has decreased. The increase in calories does not come from a single food or food group.

“Food available for consumption increased in all major food categories from 1970 to 2008. The number of average daily calories per person in the marketplace increased approximately 600 calories,” according to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The general rise in calorie intake reflects increases in the overall consumption of fats and oils, sugars, cereals, meats, poultry and dairy.

At the same time, physical activity has dwindled to far below recommended levels. Thus, to suggest that wheat is the cause of obesity and that its elimination is the solution fails to address overconsumption of most food types and the under-consumption of fruits and vegetables and inadequate activity.

If wheat consumption were the culprit, Americans would have been fattest in 1880 when consumption was 250 pounds (113 kilograms) per capita. We would have weighed the least in 1960 (110 pounds of wheat per capita) and continued to gain weight up until 2000 when wheat consumption climbed to 145 pounds per capita. Since 2000, we should have been losing weight as per capita wheat consumption has dropped steadily to 133 pounds.

These data show that there is no correlation between wheat consumption trends and obesity trends.
Weight-loss diets that advocate the elimination of an entire food group such as wheat may cause initial weight loss, but – like many fad diets – rarely show long-term maintenance of weight loss.

In fact, studies confirm that the easiest diets to maintain are those that deviate least from normal eating patterns. They are also much more likely to be associated with long-term weight loss and maintenance of the loss.
Further, diets that include a balance of foods and do not have “forbidden” or excluded foods are associated with the greatest success in sustaining the weight loss.

Elimination of wheat and gluten can result in problems because wheat is a major contributor to dietary fiber, B vitamins and other nutrients.

Wheat and gluten in food products is unique among proteins. It performs its “magic” by adding elasticity and structure that holds gas to make delicious bread and baked products.

Allergies, Celiac and Gluten Sensitivity

Davis posits that the gluten in grain is toxic and not fit for human consumption.  While this is true for those with an allergy to wheat and celiac disease, it is not true for the population as a whole.

Medical studies show that while 35 percent of people believe they have a food allergy, only about 3 percent actually have true food allergies. For a true allergy the offending food protein (allergen) and an antigen in the body cause an immunoglobulin E reaction.

Of the 3 percent with allergies, only 0.5 percent of children and adults have been diagnosed with an allergy to one of 27 wheat proteins.

Celiac disease, an inherited autoimmune disease, was shown in 2008 to occur in one of every 133 individuals in the United States and is higher in some other countries. This level is much higher than was previously thought. This is partly due to better diagnostic methods, recognition of many symptoms that may affect systems besides the gut, and a documented increase in incidence. Nonetheless, many of those with the disease are not diagnosed and many who do not have the disease are self-diagnosing.

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity, a situation where a group of symptoms of discomfort occur with the ingestion of gluten, has been added as a potential syndrome. However, there is much disagreement about whether or not it exists, its potential causes and incidence. If it exists, incidence has been thought to be as low as 1 percent and as high as 30 percent with a recent study suggesting it may be 3 percent of the population.

Interested in this subject? Find out more information here:

Dieting and restrained eating as prospective predictors of weight gain. Link

The prevalence of celiac disease in the United States. Link

The incidence and risk of celiac disease in a healthy US adult population. Link
(Green PH, Jabri B. Celiac disease.  Annu Rev Med. 2006;57:207-21;  Rubio-Tapia A, Ludvigsson JF, Brantner TL, Murray JA, Everhart JE. The prevalence of celiac disease in the United States.  Am J Gastroenterol. 2012 Oct;107(10):1538-44; Riddle MS, Murray JA, Porter CK. The incidence and risk of celiac disease in a healthy US adult population. Am J Gastroenterol. 2012 Aug;107(8):1248-55.  Kassem Barada, Abbas Bitar, Mohamad Abdul-Razak Mokadem, Jana Ghazi Hashash, and Peter Green. Worldwide Incidence of Celiac Disease.  World J Gastroenterol. 2010 March 28; 16(12): 1449–1457.)

Worries Over Wheat

The arguments presented by Davis in “Wheat Belly” and in another book titled “Grain Brain” by neurologist David Perlmutter, which states that carbohydrates destroy the human brain, have fuelled a negative view of wheat products.

Both authors claim that the wheat we are eating has been changed by biotechnology or contains genetically modified organisms (GMO).

They also claim that wheat is different from 100 years ago and contains more gluten and that it is more toxic. The statement about GMO content is false as there is no GMO wheat commercially sold anywhere on the planet.

In terms of gluten content, similar studies comparing old and new lines of grain conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture and at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada show that the gluten amount in wheat varieties more than 150 years old and current varieties varies slightly by year but the amount remains well within biological variability.  This shows that the level of gluten has not changes appreciably over time.
Wheat grain provides types of dietary fiber not widely distributed in other foods. For example, the soluble fiber found in oats and barley that has been shown to lower serum cholesterol and attenuate blood glucose is not found in fruits and vegetables to any great extent.

The recommended amount of dietary fiber is 38 grams per day for adult males and 25 grams for adult females. Getting that level of fiber only from fruits and vegetables (which have an average of 2 to 4 grams of fiber per serving), would require consumption of approximately 12 to 13 servings for adult males. That is at least three times more than the amount currently eaten.

Therefore, exclusion of cereal grains – particularly bran-rich cereals – is not only problematic to getting enough of certain fiber types, it also makes it more likely that an individual will fall far below recommended fiber intakes.

From a nutritional standpoint, this is a big concern at a time when only 4 percent of the U.S. population eats the recommended level of dietary fiber given that it is listed as a nutrient of concern by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 issued by the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Wheat area expansion faces a headwind requiring increased spending on R&D to raise yields

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Photo credit: Madan Raj Bhatta

 

Derek Byerlee is a visiting scholar at Stanford University.
Any views expressed are his own.

Over the last 50 years or so, the big increases in agricultural production have come through improved yields largely as a result of the Green Revolution.

From 1961 to 2011, per capita cereal production increased by 40 percent, while the amount of cropland per capita fell by half. In most regions, the total area of cropland has either reached a peak or declined. However, in three tropical regions, land expansion has been and still is a significant source of agricultural growth: Southeast Asia, tropical South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Since 1990, wheat is the only major crop to experience an overall decline in area.

Looking to the future, how much land can be expected to come into production for cropping?

Currently, about 1,500 million hectares (Mha) of land is used for crops.

I project that additional demand for land will be 6 to 12 Mha each year for a total of 120 to 240 Mha increase from 2010 to 2030.

The higher projection allows a greater role for trade and thereby production by the lowest-cost producers who are often located in land-abundant countries.

These estimates are broadly in line with a synthesis by Erik Lambin & Patrick Meyfroidt who also include projections of the loss of land due to expansion of urban settlements and infrastructure as well as losses due to land degradation. Taking these losses into account, Tony Fischer provides an estimate of total additional gross cropland demand from 2010 to 2030 of 160 Mha to 340 Mha. Global models also suggest expansion of cropland to 2050 of about 300 Mha, given projected yield growth.

Is there enough land to satisfy demand? The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’s World Agriculture Towards 2030/2050 report estimates that some 1.4 billion hectares of currently uncultivated land that is not forested or in protected areas is suited to crop agriculture although they note that this is an optimistic estimate. A more conservative estimate of available land with at least moderate suitability for rainfed cultivation in low population-density areas – that is, non-forested, non-protected and with a population density of less than 25 people per square kilometer – is approximately 450 Mha.

At first glance, it would thus seem that projected demand for land (even under the scenarios of the higher demand estimates) over the next two decades can be accommodated by available uncultivated land.

However, most of this uncultivated land is concentrated in a few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and is often far from ports and roads.

A global analysis may also miss key constraints at the local level such as human diseases and unrecorded current land use that reduce effective land supply.

In addition, an expansion of land area of the order of 160 Mha (the lower-bound estimate of the estimated future land needs) could have significant biodiversity costs from conversion of natural ecosystems, even in the non-forested areas considered above.

Indeed, one of the sustainable development goals currently under discussion in international fora is to reduce deforestation to zero by 2030 – implying a closing of the land frontier. Finally with the exception of some areas in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, most of the available land is in the tropics and is unsuitable for wheat production.

Overall then, projections of future land availability for agriculture suggest a growing land scarcity, particularly for wheat, especially when taking into account that demand for food and feed will continue to rise with growing affluence in rapidly industrializing countries, as well as the use of land for biofuel feedstocks.

Growing scarcity together with high commodity prices have combined to stimulate global investor interest in farmland that underlies much of the recent discussion on intensification as a strategy to save land and concerns about a global ‘land grab’ by investors from land-scarce countries.

Wheat area is also being pushed out by other crops in many countries. Over the period 1993 to 2013, wheat area has fallen by 4.5 Mha, exceeded only by other winter cereals (barley, rye, and oats) that have collectively lost over 40 Mha.

During the same period, the area of oil crops (mostly soybeans, rapeseed and oil palm) has increased by an astonishing 100 Mha, maize by a hefty 53 Mha and rice by 20 Mha.

This year for example, North Dakota, a quintessential wheat-producing state in the United States, for the first time planted more soybeans than wheat.

In Argentina, soybeans rotated with maize have also displaced a significant wheat area, while in northern China, increasing maize area appears to be at the expense of spring wheat. Wheat area in the United States and China has fallen by 7 Mha and 6 Mha respectively since 1993. The major exceptions to these trends are India and Australia, where wheat area is up sharply.

All of this, of course, implies that increasing wheat yields will be especially critical to maintain its competitiveness and to save further land expansion into forests.

Norman Borlaug, the pioneer of the Green Revolution, long recognized that increased yields were not only essential to increasing global food security but also to saving forests.

This has now been enshrined in the environmental literature as the Borlaug Hypothesis. The real world is not so simple since there are situations where increasing yields may enhance crop profitability and encourage its expansion at the expense of forests. However, we found that just the CGIAR investment in germplasm is likely to have saved from 18-27 Mha of land from 1965-2000.

The bottom line is that increased spending on research and development (R&D) by national programs and CGIAR is a priority to achieving not only food security but confronting land scarcity.

None of the above considers the negative impacts of climate change, but a recent thoughtful analysis by David Lobell of Stanford University has shown that investing in R&D to adapt to climate change and maintain yields in the face of rising temperatures and increased drought is one of the most cost-effective ways to save forests and therefore mitigate climate change.

Surprisingly, wheat is the crop that faces the strongest headwind from both land scarcity and climate change. Wheat also appears to be grossly underfunded at the international level as measured by the budget provided to the WHEAT CRP – one of the lowest among the 15 CRPs. Tony Fischer, Honorary Research Fellow, at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in a companion piece has shown that there are many promising avenues to higher R&D spending, both to raise yield potential and close large yield gaps.

 

Interested in this subject? Find out more information here:

Alexandratos, N., & Bruinsma, J. (2012). World agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision (No. 12-03, p. 4). Rome, FAO: ESA Working paper.

Borlaug, N. 2007. “Feeding a Hungry World.” Science 318(5849):359–359.

Deininger, K.W., and D. Byerlee. 2011. Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can it Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits? Washington D.C.: World Bank Publications.

Fischer RA, Byerlee D, Edmeades GL. 2014. Crop Yields and Food Security: Will Yield Increase Continue to Feed the World? Canberra: Aust. Cent. Int. Agric. Res.

Lambin, E. F. 2012. Global land availability: Malthus versus Ricardo. Global Food Security. 1; 83-87.

Lobell, D.B., U.L.C. Baldos, and T.W. Hertel. 2013. “Climate Adaptation as Mitigation: the Case of Agricultural Investments.” Environmental Research Letters 8(1):015012.

Stevenson, J.R., N. Villoria, D. Byerlee, T. Kelley, and M. Maredia.  2013. “Green Revolution Research Saved an Estimated 18 to 27 Million Hectares from Being Brought into Agricultural Production.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Available at: 10.1073/pnas.1208065110 [Accessed May 13, 2013].

 

 Go back to: Wheat Matters

 

Overview of CGIAR Development Dialogues

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Overview of CGIAR Development Dialogues

The inaugural CGIAR Development Dialogues will focus attention on the vital role of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, landscapes and food systems in achieving sustainable development. The one-day event will be held at the Faculty House of Columbia University in New York City on 25 September. A by-invitation-only audience of some 300 will attend. Thousands more will be included online through live webcasting and social media channels.

Background

2014 marks an historic opportunity to communicate the importance of research on sustainable agriculture to stakeholders involved in the climate change and development policy processes. In Paris in December 2015, the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 21) will seek to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. In September of the same year, the UN hopes to forge a consensus and agreement on the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and accompanying targets, in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has termed the post-2015 development framework and agenda. These two processes will help define the global development path of donors, civil society and policymakers in coming decades. Shaping, delivering and monitoring the targets set by these agreements will require not only new funding commitments but also the latest knowledge and innovations from the global research and academic community, in partnership with governments, civil society and the private sector.

Why CGIAR Development Dialogues?

The Dialogues present an opportunity to shape research and development for tomorrow’s food systems, landscapes and rural economy. The Dialogues are designed to influence policy and leverage the attention of world leaders, scientists, donors, media, civil society, the private sector, community groups and SDG negotiators on the vital role that agriculture, forestry, fisheries, landscapes and food systems play in sustainable development. The event offers an opportunity to forge a link between the experience of CGIAR, the Centers and CRPs and the implementation and achievement of the emerging SDGs. The event will take place in conjunction with the most important conversations on global development in recent years and will leverage the presence of key players at concurrent events.

Dialogue objectives:

  • Demonstrate the fundamental role of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, landscapes and food systems for achieving each of the emerging SDGs.
  • Highlight key areas of opportunities, including: improving livelihood opportunities for poor rural people; reducing risks in long-term food supply; improving nutrition; enhancing efficiency in food systems and renewable products’ value chains; investing in sustainable landscapes; conserving and wisely using biodiversity; and meeting the challenges of climate change.
  • Point to important gaps in knowledge and the need for public and private investments in research, outreach and capacity development.

Intended outcomes

  • Improved clarity for key decision makers on the importance of agriculture, forestry and fisheries landscapes and food systems in achieving the SDGs and climate agenda.
  • Raised profile for food systems and landscapes as cross-cutting issues.
  • Identification of research gaps to achieve the SDGs and targets under the climate agreement.
  • Commitments to investments in research and capacity development.
  • Strengthened partnerships with CGIAR.
  • Identification of key recommendations for further discussion and debate, to be delivered to the UNGA. 

Panel

CIMMYT and the WHEAT and MAIZE CRPs were asked to develop one of the eight panels that will take place at the Development Dialogues. Other Centers and CRPs (IRRI, ILRI, ICRISAT, the Roots, Tubers and Bananas CRP) were also invited to help develop the panel. The topic that we are developing for the event is “Global food security for 9.6 billion people in 2050: What does agricultural research (including breeding for major crops) have to do with it?”

Panel summary

After identifying key by-2050 food security and rural development challenges related to major crop farming systems, the panelists will discuss how crop production and agricultural productivity can address those challenges and translate them into agricultural research priorities. Panelists will outline the role of publicly funded international agricultural research and that of the private sector research and development in addressing those priorities. Finally, the panelists will discuss where the funding should, or could come from.

Among the key points that will be made during the panel discussion:

  • Crop productivity increases (breeding and agronomy) currently do not keep pace with demand. This will lead to further food price increases.
  • Food price increases will delay efforts to reduce poverty, perpetuate malnutrition and be an incentive for further deforestation.
  • Demand for food will increase fastest in low- and middle-income countries.
  • Most production increases will need to come from the developing world where climate change impacts will also be the greatest.
  • Today’s investment in international agricultural research will determine technologies and know-how available to farmers in coming decades.

Panelists/Key Areas of Discussion

Raj Kumar, the president and editor-in-chief of Devex, will serve as the panel’s moderator. Dave Watson, manager of the MAIZE CRP, will lead the panel. Other panelists include: Timothy D. Searchinger, research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and senior fellow at the World Resources Institute; Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, African Union commissioner of Agriculture & Rural Development; and Natalie Rosenbloom, vice president of Sustainability & Signature Partnerships at Monsanto Corporation. Ashok Gulati, chair/professor of agriculture at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations was also scheduled to be a panelist, but was just asked to serve on an Indian national commission that will be meeting at the same time. A substitute panelist may be added in the near-term.

New Scientist examines the gluten-free trend

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It is estimated that nearly one in three people in the United States are living a “gluten-free” lifestyle (New Scientist, July 2014). This diet trend has been supported and encouraged by celebrities, athletes and influential people around the world. In the past five years there has been an epidemic of self-diagnosed gluten intolerance. Many are claiming gluten is a toxic addictive that causes bloating, various mental disorders, stomach pains, headaches and lethargy.

Gluten intolerance can be the result of a multitude of disorders, including coeliac disease. According to Coeliac.org , “Coeliac disease is caused by a reaction of the immune system to gluten – a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. When someone with coeliac disease eats gluten, their immune system reacts by damaging the lining of the small intestine.” Cutting out gluten means cutting out one of the primary food groups. Many gluten-free foods sold in stores are short on fiber and have higher sugar content, often making these products less healthy for non-gluten-intolerant consumers.
Only about one percent of the United States population suffers from coeliac disease, so why is one-third of the population going gluten-free and swearing off wheat even after the health risks? Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) may be the cause. Many are claiming NCGS as a result of having no immune reaction to gluten but still experiencing bloating and stomach pain that went away after adopting a gluten-free diet.  Small studies have been conducted, and it appeared that NCGS is legitimate. Peter Gibson of the Alfred Hospital and Monash in Melbourne, Australia, was one of the first to study the effects of gluten with randomized tests. Even after his first test came back positive, showing that the participants who ate gluten were experiencing abdominal pains and lethargy, Gibson was not convinced (New Scientist, 2014.)

“The trouble is that wheat has more than just gluten in it,” said Gibson (New Scientist, 2014). What Gibson discovered was gluten in wheat was not causing the illnesses. Results pointed to the fermentable oligo-di-monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPs) found in wheat, which are also present in many fruits, vegetables and dairy products (The Guardian, 2014).

CIMMYT is running an online campaign to dispel myths about wheat, as well as raise awareness about the importance of wheat in the world. For more information visit the Wheat Matters website, and join in on the #WheatMatters conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

University of Wisconsin students experience Mexico’s maize and culture

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The University of Wisconsin students met smallholder farmers in Toluca to view their practices first-hand. Photos: Luis Castilla Zetina/CIMMYT

On 9 August CIMMYT-El BatĂĄn welcomed a group of 22 students and three teachers from the University of Wisconsin for a week-long stay. The students are enrolled in the university’s course for a Global Health Certificate, which introduces students to a preventive, population-level, interdisciplinary approach to health promotion. According to organizers, the trip to CIMMYT served to “open the eyes of the students to the importance of agriculture and nutrition.”

During the last six years, Dr. Sherry A. Tanumihardjo has visited CIMMYT with students to expose them to the realities of Mexican maize and wheat production systems, as well as how the Center’s research is helping smallholder farmers increase their productivity and improve their livelihoods. During the program’s first day, CIMMYT specialists presented the work being done at the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center and the Seeds of Discovery initiative, as well as the objectives and strategies being pursued by the Maize, Wheat and Conservation Agriculture programs.

Genetic Resources Director Dr. Kevin Pixley led a discussion to help the students make sense of the different areas seen during the day and how they all work together to fulfill CIMMYT’s mission. On their second day, the group traveled to the TlaltizapĂĄn experiment station, where Dr. Oscar Bañuelos explained the work being done in the Tripsacum ex situ conservation garden, while Thanda Dhliwayo described in detail the work that is being conducted with biofortified maize.

Later, the group travelled to Cuernavaca to learn about the work being done to reduce Mexico’s obesity and malnutrition problems by Dr. Salvador Villalpando, director of the National Institute of Public Health. On Wednesday, the group continued their cultural tour, visiting the National Museum of Anthropology and the Mexico City Historic Center. Previously, MarĂ­a Elena Campos had taken them to the pyramids in TeotihuacĂĄn so the visitors could get a better sense of Mexico, its origins and its rich history. The day ended at the Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes), where everyone had a chance to relax and enjoy a production of the Ballet FolklĂłrico de MĂ©xico.

Óscar Bañuelos demonstrates maize pollination.

On Thursday, the students visited the Toluca experiment station and were welcomed by Fernando Delgado, senior station superintendent. After briefly explaining what CIMMYT does in Toluca, Delgado took them to meet local farmers, where the students had the opportunity to watch, listen and talk to some of the people that CIMMYT serves, and to gain a better understanding of their problems and needs.

On their last day, the group visited the Santa Catarina field with Arturo Reyes Ramírez and learned about the nixtamalization process from Estela Flores. The experience had a strong impact on the students, who learned first-hand about Mexican maize production and consumption processes, from the fields to the dining table. They left with a greater understanding of how important maize is, not only as food, but also as a cultural phenomenon. Visits like this raise awareness about the importance of the research and work being done at CIMMYT. The students from the University of Wisconsin take home a powerful memory of the work that CIMMYT does to help the world’s poor farmers.

Study shows climate change could negatively Impact maize and wheat yields by 2030

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Global demand for food is expected to grow rapidly leading up to 2050, and the ability to meet such demand is of the utmost importance in order to maintain food security. However, a recent study shows projected climate change threatens to compromise the world’s ability to meet this demand – especially in global cereal yields – as soon as the next 10 years, given that the bulk of the demand will occur in the next two decades.

The authors emphasize the importance of this information for organizations that deal in international food prices, stability and peace. The study “Getting caught with our plants down: the risks of a global crop yield slowdown from climate trends in the next two decades,” published in Environmental Research Letters by David Lobell, an associate director at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, and Claudia Tebaldi, a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, used computer models to examine the potential impact of climate change on food yields in the next 20 years, particularly of wheat and maize.

Photo: A. Yaqub/CIMMYT

The models combined global climate trends with data on weather patterns and crops in order to estimate the likelihood that global agriculture would be able to keep up with increased demand under a changing climate. According to the study, under natural climate shifts the likelihood that agricultural production will take a downturn in the next 20 years is very low, but when projected climate change is factored into the equation the results are quite different. “Climate change has substantially increased the prospect that crop production will fail to keep up with rising demand in the next 20 years,” stated Tebaldi. The study found that “because of global warming, the chance of climate trends over a 20-year period causing a 10 percent yield loss has increased from a less than 1 in 200 chance arising from internal climate variability alone, to a 1 in 10 chance for maize and 1 in 20 chance for wheat.” Maize faces a greater threat from climate change than wheat due to the fact that its main production areas are more geographically concentrated, meaning that “large regional trends can have more influence on global maize than wheat.” It is important to remember that one of the major assumptions of the study is that methods to adapt to climate change are not implemented on a large scale in the next 20 years, i.e. “the locations and seasons of maize and wheat production do not change.”

The study suggests that shifting production to cooler regions could help to offset the impacts of climate change on yield, but implies that at the present moment these shifts “are not occurring fast enough to significantly alter the global pattern of maize or wheat production.” While the likelihood of climate change having a devastating impact on wheat and maize yields is not very high, at one in 10 and one in 20 respectively, it is a concern that the odds are considerably higher under “human-induced global warming” than under “natural climate shifts.” It is for this reason that the authors recommend that anyone concerned with food security or international stability be aware of the potential risk climate change poses to global food production. The full article is available at IOPscience.

MasAgro Móvil brings key crop Information to farmers’ mobile phones in Guanajuato

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As of April, farmers in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato are now receiving localized agriculture updates and decision-making advice on their mobile telephones thanks to a service launched by MasAgro MĂłvil. This new development in MasAgro MĂłvil’s service is part of Guanajuato’s plan to modernize agriculture with CIMMYT-developed technologies. MasAgro MĂłvil, a project of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program, along with other MasAgro tools, received an investment of 10.4 million pesos (US$ 804,000) thanks to the support of Miguel MĂĄrquez MĂĄrquez, governor of Guanajuato, who seeks to promote sustainable agriculture in his state.

The head of CIMMYT's GIS unit, Kai Sonder, demonstrating the use of GPS.
The head of CIMMYT’s GIS unit, Kai Sonder, demonstrating the use of GPS.

Javier Usabiaga Arroyo, Guanajuato’s secretary of agricultural development, announced on 31 May that approximately 755,000 farmers in Guanajuato will eventually have access to vital information through e-MasAgro, a virtual ecosystem that connects various agriculture-related information tools on one site, including MasAgro Móvil. Farmers “will receive technical information, recommendations, response to agricultural plagues and diseases and anything else they might need to improve their production,” he told the El Heraldo newspaper.

The regionalized service offered by MasAgro MĂłvil in Guanajuato has the potential to be a game-changer for smallholder and medium-scale farmers. After registering for the service, farmers receive short, simple, timely and free agricultural information on the most innovative and profitable conservation agriculture practices. Each message is compatible with the regionÂŽs agricultural cycle and provides information that is difficult for an average farmer to find. In the past few months, MasAgro MĂłvil has sent various messages specific to Guanajuato, focusing on fertilization and monitoring for diseases. It also began sending weekly weather forecasts, regionalized news and invitations to local events.

Photo: Guanajuato Communication Department

In the future, the service will add price alerts, crop health advice and more market-segmented information. The developers are also experimenting with messages that interact with the users, help retrieve user information and facilitate feedback. Abraham Menaldo, a consultant for MasAgro MĂłvil, said the feedback has been positive so far and farmers are eager to participate and interact. MasAgro MĂłvil’s goal is to expand this model to the rest of the country, which would replace the current service that sends information to each of MasAgro’s innovation centers, known as hubs.

Project leaders are developing collaborations to create parallel services in the states of Tlaxcala and Hidalgo. A communications campaign planned for autumn 2014 will encourage more farmers to use the system. Extension agents will identify places where farmers congregate, and visit in person to help them register on-site. The campaign will include a study of the target group’s perceptions of MasAgro, their livelihood and the future of farming. MasAgro MĂłvil’s website offers detailed information about services, future projects, program activities and CIMMYT’s partner-led mobile development projects around the world.

The site will eventually offer an online registration service to minimize some of the technological problems farmers have encountered, such as autocorrect mistakenly changing the spelling of a key word. MasAgro MĂłvil was recognized by the Inter-American Development Bank as an ideal tool to integrate farmers into the agricultural value chain in its report “The Next Global Breadbasket: How Latin America Can Feed the World: A Call to Action for Addressing Challenges & Developing Solutions.”

CIAT and CIMMYT complete genetic analysis and plant breeding course in Colombia

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By Luis Narro and Janeth Bolaños/ CIMMYT

Dr. Jiankang Wang planted a bread tree at the end of the course, which is a CIAT tradition to mark the close of an international training course.

CIMMYT’s office in Colombia,  in collaboration with the  International Center for  Tropical Agriculture (CIAT),  organized the Genetic Analysis  and Plant Breeding course from  23-27 June. This course has been  offered in Australia, China and  Mexico and reviews plant breeding  methods as well as quantitative  genetics, development of linkage  maps, quantitative trait loci (QTL)  mapping, identification of genes  with quantitative effect and epistasis,  analysis of the interaction QTL x  environment and integration of the  knowledge of the action of genes in  conventional breeding.

CIMMYT scientist Dr. Jiankang Wang, based in Beijing, facilitated the course with funding from the HarvestPlus Challenge Program.  While the course has been offered 10 times, this is the first to include genetic analysis of vegetative propagation species, which are important for CGIAR centers working with cassava, potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Attending the course were 42 scientists (16 women and 28 men), representing public and private institutions from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the United States.

William Viera, head of the Fruit Program at Ecuador’s National Autonomous Institute of Agriculture and Livestock (INIAP), described the course as “very interesting. It includes molecular techniques that will allow us high level scientific studies. In our case, we will start a research project on tree tomatoes, tamarind and little oranges (lulo). With the tools and knowledge we gained, we will be able to develop the project in a positive way, and will identify genes that increase disease resistance and improve fruit quality.”

Rocío Silvestre, coordinator of improved materials for the gene bank at the International Potato Center (CIP), said, “The opportunity to interact with our colleagues from all around the world is a great contribution to our research programs. What we learned in the course will help us to design genetic maps, QTL mapping and morphological data analysis.”

Karen Viviana Osorio, research assistant from the Colombian agribusiness Semillas Valle S.A., thanked CIMMYT for sharing the new technology and biotechnology tools currently used in the agriculture sector. Osorio noted that CIMMYT has “helped people who work in agricultural research to access updated and high-quality information. We have made the most of this course in our daily activities.” Bodo Raatz, a molecular geneticist from CIAT’s Bean Improvement Program, described the course as “what we need to know about improvement and genetic studies. It includes all we need to map QTL.”

The Genetic Analysis and Plant Breeding course drew 42 scientists representing public and private institutions from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the U.S.

CIAT’s Rice, Tropical Forages and Bean programs will benefit from information on the latest advances in the development of elements that facilitate their work with quantitative traits. “With this course we have been able to identity some needs from the national programs, and they have been provided with free access tools for genetic improvement,” said Luis Augusto Becerra, a molecular geneticist from CIAT’s Cassava Improvement Program.

There are tentative plans to organize another course in collaboration with CIP.