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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.

CIMMYT-Colombia maize enters the coffee zone

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The June 2007 edition of the Colombian publication “Agricultura & Ganadería” (www. agriculturayganaderia.com) carried a report on the recently-released maize hybrid FNC 3056, developed for cropping between coffee rows in fields where coffee plants have been pruned. The practice was adopted with government support several years ago by Colombian coffee growers, who would previously leave the unused rows to weeds, and has added to their profits and to the incomes and food security of the many thousand laborers they employ. Like several other maize varieties for this niche, the hybrid was developed by Colombia’s National Federation of Cereal and Legume Producers (FENALCE), as part of its long-time partnership with CIMMYT, and drew on CIMMYT germplasm.

“The varieties are high-yielding and resistant to two locally harmful maize diseases—tar spot and gray leaf spot,” says Luis Narro, CIMMYT maize specialist in South America.

According to the publication, the area sown to maize in coffee-growing zones of Colombia has increased from 30,000 hectares in 2003 to more than 60,000 in 2006. Eight-tenths of that area is sown to the variety ICA V305, released in 1993 and developed from CIMMYT sources.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has said he would like to see 120,000 hectares of improved maize grown in coffee zones by 2008. If this occurs, it will be due partly to the productivity and quality of the maize varieties, which under the coffee farmers’ excellent management yield as much as 9 tons per hectare, and to excellent partnerships with FENALCE and the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (FEDERECAFE).

Borlaug: green revolution to gold standard

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On Tuesday at a ceremony in the United States Congress, Norman Borlaug was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award the American government can give.

Global Wheat Program Director Hans Braun represented CIMMYT at the ceremony. “It was a fantastic setting for a fantastic honor,” he said. “It was his will, his bold vision, and the solutions of science, by which Dr. Borlaug used the timeless resources of one farmer and one field to feed more people than ever before,” said speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who with President Bush presented the gold medal to Borlaug.

In his remarks Bush said “Wealthy and prosperous nations have a moral obligation to help poor and struggling people find their own paths to progress and plenty.”

In accepting the medal, Borlaug agreed with Bush and challenged the United States to stop its own funding reductions and put funds back into agricultural research for development.

“My plea today to the members of Congress and to the Administration is to re-commit the United States to more dynamic and generous programs of official development assistance in agriculture for Third World nations, as was done in the 1960s and 1970s,” he said. “Ever-shrinking foreign aid budgets in support of smallholder agriculture, and especially to multilateral research and development organizations such as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) where I have worked for 40 years, as well as its sister research institutes under the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), are not in our nation’s best interest, nor do they represent our finest traditions.”

Borlaug joins civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. of the United States, Mother Teresa of India, Nelson Mandela of South Africa and World War II Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel as a recipient of three prestigious awards — the Congressional Gold Medal, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Borlaug to receive highest US honor

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Norman Borlaug will receive the highest civilian honor the United States of America can bestow at a ceremony in Washington DC this coming Tuesday, 17 July. The Congressional Gold Medal will be presented by President Bush and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. An original gold medal has been created by the United States Mint commemorating Borlaug’s achievements.

The United States Senate first passed the legislation on September 27, 2006. The United States House of Representatives voted to honor Borlaug with the Medal, on December 6 last year in the final days of the 2006 legislative session.

The first Congressional Gold Medal was awarded in 1776 to General George Washington. Borlaug will join an illustrious list of recipients that includes Thomas Edison, Pope John Paul II, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Texas A&M students step out into the wider world, visit CIMMYT

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During 19-29 June 2007, eight students from the Faculty of the Soil and Crop Science Department, Texas A&M University toured CIMMYT-El Batán and talked with center staff as part of an introductory trip to learn about international agricultural research. Accompanied by Ronald Cantrell, former Director of the CIMMYT Maize Program and Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and Steve Hague, Texas A&M Professor in Cotton Breeding, the students are expected among other things to develop an understanding of the challenges and opportunities in underdeveloped agriculture systems. Their program included visits to the facilities of Mexico’s National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) and of Pioneer-Hibred in Mexico, as well as interacting with subsistence farmers in Tlaxcala State.

The trip came about when Cantrell was invited to give a seminar for Soil and Crop Science Department graduate students. “Participants expressed interest in study abroad,” Cantrell says, “and this coincided with a grant from Dr. Norman Borlaug for this purpose. They decided to use the grant to visit an international center, and asked me to coordinate it. Students applied for this ‘scholarship,’ and these are the ones chosen.” The group includes students from the undergraduate through PhD levels, and crop breeders, agronomists, and molecular biologists.

Dhananjay Mani, arrived at the University a year and a half ago from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India, and is studying for an MSc in plant breeding. He likes the emphasis on breeding at Texas A&M and the opportunity for contact with the University’s Distinguished Professor, Norman Borlaug. “Regarding CIMMYT, I observe one thing,” he says. “Everyone here is talking and thinking about the whole world, not just local issues, and especially people who really need agriculture.”

Jennifer Winn, an MSc student from Denton, Texas, USA, became interested in crop breeding after reading an autobiographical account of a medical missionary in Africa who was treating the major diseases that affect the poor. “He’d give his patients medicine, then hear a couple of days later that they died from malnutrition,” she says. “The book makes the point that malnutrition is the main cause of death in the developing world, and this emphasizes the importance of agriculture and agricultural research.” She has been impressed with the level of organization she observes in CIMMYT: “Programs are collaborating on a wide range of work—biofortification at the molecular level, then there’s Ken Sayre’s work at the field level. You cover every aspect of the plant!”

How CIMMYT products reach resource-poor farmers: the case of Saraguro, Ecuador

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Since 1995, staff from Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIAP) have worked with farmers in 17 communities in a remote Andean area to provide them seed of improved cultivars of several crops, mini-credit, and training about profitable and sustainable farming. Subsistence farmers in Saraguro now obtain several times their previous yields for small grains, potatoes, maize, and peas, and their average incomes have increased from US$1 to US$2 per day. With food security assured, farmers are requesting seed of varieties with enhanced market value and moving to cash crops such as onions, tomatoes, or fruits.

The project began when Hugo Vivar, former ICARDA barley breeder posted for many years at CIMMYT, worked with INIAP breeder Jorge Coronel, to introduce a new, highyielding barley variety to the area. On the heels of that barley’s success, Vivar has helped channel seed of improved drought-tolerant wheat from former CIMMYT wheat breeder Richard Trethowan’s research, and an excellent quality protein maize (QPM) variety now being used in food programs for children at two rural schools and sold as green ears by farmers for extra income.

Coronel, who grew up on a farm in Biblian, Cañar Province, Ecuador, studied at the University of Cuenca, in southern Ecuador, has been leading work in Saraguro since the project’s inception, and is a well-known and welcome figure in villages throughout the mountainous Andean valley. As a young researcher in 1991, Coronel took a six-month training course at CIMMYT in Mexico and was especially impressed by the Center’s philosophy concerning the need to work with and for farmers. “I really enjoy what I do here and the fantastic thing is that I get paid for it,” he says.

Rousing homage to Hugo Cordova in Central America

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Distinguished scientist Hugo Córdova Orellana, who will retire in May 2007, received a rousing tribute during the 53rd annual meeting of the Programa Cooperativo Centroamericano para el Mejoramiento de Cultivos y Animales (PCCMCA), a long-lasting network of agricultural researchers from Central America and the Caribbean. The event took place in Antigua, Guatemala, during 23-27 April and was dedicated to Cordova. Presiding over the inaugural ceremony with Córdova were Hector Centeno, Guatemala’s Presidential Commissioner for Science and Technology; Bernardo López, Guatemala’s Minister of Agriculture; Mario Moscoso, PCCMCA President and Director General of Guatemala’s Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología (ICTA); Octavio Menocal, Vice President of the PCCMCA; and the organization’s Executive Director, Mario Fuentes. As part of the ceremony, participants recalled Cordova’s life and work in global and Central American agricultural research and made humorous reference to the strong character and personal drive that have contributed to his success and marked his personal and professional relationships.

The Salvadoran native has worked 37 years in agricultural research, with achievements that include contributing to the development of improved maize varieties sown on 4 million hectares in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and, in latter years, the development and promotion of quality protein maize (QPM). He has indelibly marked the professional development of more than 60 undergrad and graduate students for whom he has served as advisor. During his keynote presentation for the event, Córdova commented that “…much remains to be done in Mesoamerica and I trust that international efforts will continue to address this.” Thanks and congratulations, Hugo!

FAO joins Global Rust Initiative

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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced Thursday that it would join CIMMYT and ICARDA in the Global Rust Initiative (GRI). “Global wheat yields could be at risk if the stem rust spreads to major wheat producing countries,” said FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf. The statement also said that FAO had confirmed the findings announced in January by CIMMYT, ICARDA and the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS) that the virulent wheat stem rust strain known as Ug99 had moved from Africa into the Arabian Peninsula. FAO went on to say that FAO, ICARDA and CIMMYT would support countries in developing resistant varieties, producing their clean quality seeds, upgrading national plant protection and plant breeding services and developing contingency plans. FAO urged countries in the potential path of the airborne fungus to increase their disease surveillance.

The FAO announcement follows close on the heels of the publication of two major stories about the wheat stem rust problem, one in Science and another in New Scientist and on visits to FAO by GRI coordinator, Rick Ward and by DG Iwanaga.

USDA visits CIMMYT

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Michael Yost, Administrator, of the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) paid a brief visit to CIMMYT El Batán on Saturday, 24 March. He was accompanied by Suzanne Heinen the Agricultural Minister-Counselor of the Foreign Agriculture Service at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and Erich Kuss the Senior Agricultural Attache at the Embassy.

After an introduction to CIMMYT given by Peter Ninnes, the group toured both the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center and the Applied Biotechnology Center (ABC). During the ABC visit Marilyn Warburton talked about the support role the lab plays in important CIMMYT research projects as well as the new research that comes out of the lab itself. She also highlighted the limitations imposed by the age of some of the equipment.

The visit was arranged by Victor Villalobos the General Coordinator for International Affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture of Mexico (SAGARPA).

Chile’s Minister of Agriculture visits CIMMYT

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The Minister of Agriculture of Chile, Alvaro Rojas Marín, spent Friday morning, 23 March 2007, touring CIMMYT’s germplasm bank and the biotech lab and talking with Masa Iwanaga, Director General. He was accompanied by ministry staff, the Agricultural Counselor of the Chilean Embassy in Mexico, Oscar Troncoso Muñoz, the president of the Chilean Exporters Association, and Fernando Valderrábano Pesquera, Subdirector for International Affairs of Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, SAGARPA. Among other topics, Rojas and Masa discussed Chile’s success in commercial agriculture and how that country’s farm sector model might hold relevance for other Latin American nations seeking opportunities in globalized markets.

Advanced wheat improvement

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Eight breeders from developing countries arrived in El Batán this week to attend the Advanced Wheat Improvement course. They come from India, Pakistan, Sudan, Egypt, Ecuador and South Africa and will study wheat improvement techniques in Mexico for the next three months. The new course is currently the longest being offered in the CG system. On Saturday, participants move to Ciudad Obregón, where the real work begins.

The release in Peru of a QPM hybrid with a global reach

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A new single-cross, quality protein maize (QPM) hybrid called “NutriPeru” and designated INIA 611 was released at the Donoso research station, 80 km north of Lima, Peru, on 09 February 2007. Its parents are two CIMMYT maize lines—CMLs 161 and 165—and it yields an average 12 tons per hectare in winter season in Peru’s coastal maize zone, with top yields there of more than 14 tons per hectare. Its intense yellow color is highly valued by the region’s poultry producers, who are the chief consumers of yellow maize in the country. It is also resistant to gray leaf spot (Cercospora zeae-maydis).

Presiding over the release ceremony was Augusto Sayan Gianella, Director General of Promoción Agropecuaria del Ministerio de Agricultura. Daniel Reynosos Tantalean, head of Peru’s Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Extensión Agraria (INIA), formally delivered the new hybrid to some 300 farmers who attended. This achievement occurs in the framework of the current research pact between the government of Peru and CIMMYT.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the same hybrid has been released and is being commercialized in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and probably also India.

Assistance for resistance

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One of the questions Norman Borlaug often asks when talking about rusts in the major cereals is why rice is not susceptible to rust fungi but wheat, barley and other cereals are. That question inspired a workshop on rust immunity systems organized by Ronnie Coffman of Cornell University and held last week at the CIMMYT Obregón station. Among the participants were representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Texas A & M University, Purdue University, the University of Minnesota and of course CIMMYT. Rob Horsch of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also participated. As a result of the workshop, the participants have been asked to prepare a concept note for submission to the Foundation for potential funding for rust resistance work.

Whistle-stop tour

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Sixteen members of the Illinois Farm Bureau paid a brief visit to El Batán on Wednesday. The group included maize, wheat, and soybean farmers and they are on a study tour to learn about Mexican agriculture. At CIMMYT they heard presentations from Kevin Pixley about CIMMYT’s Maize Program, Javier Peña about nutritional enhancement in maize, and Pedro Aquino about our impacts and targeting work in Mexico. The tour was capped with visit to the Wellhausen- Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center with Tom Payne acting as guide. For many the tour was an eye-opener, and the visitors had many questions about agriculture in the developing world. After two and a half hours at CIMMYT, the group moved on to the University of Chapingo.

“Dedication” for a lifetime’s dedication: Cordova honored by Central American network

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The 53rd Annual Meeting of the Central American Cooperative Program for the Improvement of Crops and Animals (PCCMCA)—a network established by Edwin J. Wellhausen and L. Sterling Wortman with Rockfeller Foundation support in 1954—will be dedicated personally to CIMMYT maize breeder and Distinguished Scientist Hugo Cordova.

“This is a great honor and distinction for more than 30 years of support to maize research and development in the region,” says Cordova.

The meeting, entitled “Cambios globales: Tendencias, efectos y perspectives para la agricultura de Mesoamérica y El Caribe hacia el 2020,” will be held in Antigua, Guatemala, during 23-27 April 2007.

Transparency and transmission: wheat quality in the marketplace

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According to Erika Meng, CIMMYT economist and organizer of a workshop on wheat quality held at El Batán during 7-8 December 2006: ‘“We’ve worked on wheat quality at CIMMYT for a long time, but usually from the supply side. What we tried to do at this workshop is bring information from the supply and demand sides closer together, because with urbanization and income growth in developing countries, a more segregated demand for types of wheat products and quality is emerging.” The 20 participants included experts from the US and Canada, to draw on their expertise in enabling wheat quality demands to be transparent and transmitted through the marketplace. Outcomes included a prioritized agenda for research and outlines for three concept notes to seek funding for the work.