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Location: Asia

As a fast growing region with increasing challenges for smallholder farmers, Asia is a key target region for CIMMYT. CIMMYT’s work stretches from Central Asia to southern China and incorporates system-wide approaches to improve wheat and maize productivity and deliver quality seed to areas with high rates of child malnutrition. Activities involve national and regional local organizations to facilitate greater adoption of new technologies by farmers and benefit from close partnerships with farmer associations and agricultural extension agents.

Michael Euler

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Michael Euler is a CIM-integrated expert and joined CIMMYT in June 2021. As Agriculture and Resource Economist, he analyzes the diffusion and impacts of agricultural innovations on smallholder farms. One focus of his work includes the assessment of opportunities and challenges of the use of DNA fingerprinting for varietal adoption and impact studies.

Before joining CIMMYT, Michael was with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the German Institute for Development Evaluation and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Michael holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics and a Master of Science in Agricultural Sciences from the university of Gottingen, Germany. Results of his research and evaluation work are published in peer-reviewed academic journals and evaluation reports.

CGIAR Initiative: Securing the Food Systems of Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) for Climate and Livelihood Resilience

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Securing the Food Systems of Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) for Climate and Livelihood Resilience aims to create resilient, inclusive and productive deltas — which maintain socio-ecological integrity, adapt to climatic and other stressors, and support human prosperity and wellbeing — by removing systemic barriers to the scaling of transformative technologies and practices at community, national and regional levels.

This objective will be achieved through:

  • Adapting deltaic production systems by identifying, synthesizing, evaluating, adapting and scaling interventions to ensure systems can adapt to and mitigate the effects of salinity, flooding, drought, terminal heat and sinking land.
  • Nutrition-sensitive deltaic agrifood systems, developed through the promotion of sustainable production and consumption of nutritious foods in Asian mega-deltas, by involving institutional stakeholders in the co-production of nutrition-sensitive interventions.
  • De-risking delta-oriented value chains by assessing the potential of digital climate advisory and complementing services to address climate risks among vulnerable groups, supporting development of improved and inclusive digital and bundled services, and identifying and developing financing models and partnerships to achieve scale.
  • Joined-up, gender equitable, inclusive deltaic systems governance, informed by transdisciplinary research evidence, local knowledge and political economy insights used to coordinate multi-stakeholder dialogues for more coherent water-agriculture-environment policies and strategies; collaborative, networked implementation practices; and gender-equitable and socially inclusive governance innovations.
  • Evidence-based delta development planning at the macro-level to ensure plans/policies incorporate inclusive and climate-proof approaches to food systems transformation.

CGIAR Initiative: Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA)

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Working across South Asia, the Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) Initiative will deliver a coordinated program of research and engagement across the food production to consumption continuum to improve equitable access to sustainable healthy diets, improve farmer livelihoods and resilience, and conserve land, air, and groundwater resources.

TAFSSA aims to propel evidence into impact through engagement with public and private partners across the production-to-consumption continuum, to achieve productive, environmentally-sound South Asian agrifood systems that support equitable access to sustainable healthy diets.

This objective will be achieved through:

  • Facilitating agrifood systems transformation through inclusive learning platforms, public data systems and partnerships: building new and enhancing existing learning platforms; improving the evidence base; increasing quality data availability and accessibility; and demonstrating the value of integrated agrifood systems datasets.
  • Transforming agroecosystems and rural economies to boost income, generate jobs and support diversified food production within environmental boundaries: generating linkages between farmers, landscapes and markets to diversify agricultural production, increase farmers’ incomes and foster rural entrepreneurship within environmental boundaries.
  • Improving access to and affordability of sustainably produced healthy foods through evidence and actions across the food system: creating favorable environments for diversification; improving access to inputs for and marketability of sustainable nutritious food; and improving access to healthy food for the poor through changes in food retail environments.
  • Understanding behavioral and structural determinants of sustainable healthy diets: studying dietary practices of food consumers; identifying determinants of food choices; and testing innovations to support consumption of sustainable healthy diets.
  • Building resilience and mitigating environmental impact: examining how South Asia can produce healthy diets within an environmentally safe and socially equitable operating space, and in consideration of ongoing climate change and farmers’ resilience to shocks.

Saiful AKM Islam

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Saiful AKM Islam is a monitoring, evaluation and learning manager with the Innovation Science for Agroecosystems and Food Systems in Asia research theme in CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program. He has almost 18 years of experience with different organizations in the monitoring and evaluation field. He completed his master’s in social science from Dhaka University, Bangladesh, and post-graduation diploma in development planning.

Islam has a good understanding of monitoring and evaluation and knowledge management systems especially the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) system and compliances. Prior to beginning this position, he worked with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as a program specialist and Save the Children International as manager in research, monitoring and evaluation, and learning.

Masud Rana

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Masud Rana is a Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Officer working with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program based in Bangladesh. He is currently working for the Cereal Systems Initiatives for South Asia (CSISA) project.

Mustafa Kamal

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Mustafa Kamal is a GIS and remote sensing analyst in CIMMYT, leading the GIS, remote sensing and data team in Bangladesh as part of the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program’s Innovation Sciences in Agroecosystems and Food Systems theme across Asia.

Kamal’s core expertise is in earth observation and geospatial data science, scientific and cloud computing, webGIS, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), advance landcover-landuse classification, and tool development. He contributes to research and innovation of irrigation and agro-meteorological advisory, crop identification and yield prediction, disaster and crop monitoring, landscape diversity, and climate analytics. He has published many peer-reviewed papers, reports, and training manuals, and provided teaching/training.

Kamal’s interdisciplinary background in urban and rural planning and disaster management helps him to integrate and lead an interdisciplinary team to provide solutions for sustainable agrifood systems.

Lokendra Khadka

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Lokendra Khadka is a Research associate in the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in Nepal. He currently focuses on scaling inclusive and sustainable irrigation technologies in coordination with the public and private sector.

Lokendra’s research expertise expands from resource conservation technologies related to cereal based cropping systems to scale-appropriate farm mechanization and irrigation.

Sagar Kafle

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Sagar has been working at CIMMYT-Nepal since December 2015, contributing to various projects. His main focus has been on the CSISA initiative, which aims to research and scale up resource-saving technologies within Nepal’s cereal systems. Through his work, he has developed expertise in technology scaling within cereal systems, developing market systems, and strengthening governance in the agricultural research and extension services sector. This is in part due to his strong understanding of local contextual factors that influence the adoption of sustainable intensification technologies, including mechanization.

Since 2024, Sagar has turned his attention to generating innovations, tools and scaling pathways in the mixed farming systems of the mid-hills of Nepal as part of the CGIAR Mixed Farming Systems (MFS) Initiative.

Khandakar Shafiqul Islam

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Khandakar Shafiqul Islam is a hub coordinator with CIMMYT in Bangladesh. He is responsible for implementing different projects at field level involving government, non-government and private sector organizations, along with managing resources.

Md. Mizanur Rahman

Md. Mizanur Rahman

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Mizanur Rahman is a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Officer with the Sustainable Agrifood System (SAS) program’s Innovation Sciences in Agroecosystems and Food Systems theme across Asia. His role involves developing and implementing logical and conceptual data flows for analytical processes supporting decision-making at the project and donor level. He has more than 18 years of progressive experience with 12 years in research, monitoring, and evaluation.

Washiq Faisal

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Washiq Faisal is a Research Associate with CIMMYT’s sustainable intensification program, based in Bangladesh. He joined CIMMYT in 2014 and has been involved in applied agricultural research to tackle food insecurity through improved nutrient-rich, high-yielding varieties and sustainable agronomic practices for nearly 15 years.

Faisal is involved in innovative and multi-disciplinary research focused on the principles of sustainable and ecological intensification in smallholder dominated and tropical agricultural systems in Bangladesh. His current research focuses on climate-driven epidemiology of two crop diseases, Stemphylium blight of lentil and wheat leaf rust.

In collaboration with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension, Faisal learnt how to use Agvisely, an agro-meteorological services tool providing location-specific advice to farmers.

The potential of conservation agriculture in increasing yield and tackling climate change

Written by Celine Lim on . Posted in Publications.

A multitude of research on the benefits of conservation agriculture in South Asia has predominantly focused on favorable environments where farmers have reliable access to energy supporting irrigation and inputs.

In this new publication, scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) explore the performance of conservation agriculture in under-developed coastal environments in southern coastal Bangladesh over a period of three consecutive years, including under rainfed conditions and/or with limited application of irrigation.

Farmers calibrate their machines for strip tillage in communities participating in experiments. (Credit: Ranik Martin)

Responding to the identified research gap, this research tests the hypothesis that seasonally alternating tillage (SAT) practices that alternate between strip-tillage in the winter season for maize and conventional tillage (CT) prior to rice can reduce energy use, increase energy productivity, and reduce yield-scaled emissions while increasing or maintaining yield and profit, even under these challenging conditions.

Working with 35 farmers who managed experiments in partially irrigated and rainfed environments in southern coastal Bangladesh, researchers teamed up with farming communities to compare the full suite of conservation agriculture to SAT practices against CT and farmer’s own practices.

The research found that in these coastal environments, both conservation agriculture and SAT practices have the potential to increase cereal yields and energy productivity while reducing yield-scaled emissions, thereby enabling farmers even in challenging coastal environments to produce more while reducing energy use and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

However, in consideration of farmers’ aversion to the elimination of tillage in rice, the research suggests that adaptations in CA practices and seasonal tillage prior to rice may be a more practical fit for rice-maize systems managed by smallholders reluctant to eliminate tillage for rice in coastal Bangladesh.

This research gives implications for future research and development efforts to take into consideration farmers’ preferences or the trade-offs resulting from significant change to conservation agriculture management in otherwise fully tilled systems. It is also vital to integrate development efforts that focus not only on agronomic management, but also on building supportive value chains to improve availability and affordability of the inputs and farm machinery required to successfully establish crops with such practices.

Read the full study: Adapted Conservation Agriculture Practices Can Increase Energy Productivity and Lower Yield-Scaled Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coastal Bangladesh

Cover photo: Long-term conservation agriculture in Rajshahi, Bangladesh. (Credit: CIMMYT/Sam Storr)

The power of data in improving conditions for female farmers

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Publications.

Despite women’s essential role in agrifood systems, their contribution can be overlooked, with resources instead targeted towards their male counterparts.

However, advancements in technology now allow scientists to generate rich datasets that can aid analysis of the situational factors impacting women farmers’ participation in extension training services.

These developments have enabled scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Michigan State University, and Agricultural Advisory Society, a local NGO, to understand barriers to access and recommend improvements that will benefit women in Bangladesh.

Using a large dataset of 131,073 farmers in Bangladesh, researchers worked to identify ways to tackle gender exclusion in extension training. Scientists used machine learning to understand preferences according to gender and applied optimization theory and identified actionable ways to increase the number of farmers participating in video- and multi-media mediated trainings, while simultaneously improving gender inclusivity in public training events.

The study discovered strong gender specific considerations, such as the training session’s day of the week and time and the gender of the trainer, which prevented women from or encouraged them to take part in educational events.

It also demonstrates the potential for big data to transform our understanding of unstructured and semi-structured data into statistically verifiable insights that can genuinely impact farmer’s lives. Optimizing women’s involvement in agrifood systems can additionally play an important part in efforts to enhance farm productivity, gender and social inclusion, and nutrition in Bangladesh and beyond.

Read the full study: Large-scale rollout of extension training in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunities for gender-inclusive participation

Cover photo: Women in Bangladesh can benefit from improved inclusivity in extension training. (Credit: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

Conservation agriculture practices revive saline and sodic soils

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Publications.

In arid and semi-arid regions, soil salinity and sodicity pose challenges to global food security and environmental sustainability. Globally, around 932 million hectares are affected by salinization and alkalinization. Due to growing populations, anthropogenic activities and climate change, the prominence of salt stress in soil is rising both in irrigated and dryland systems.

Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) employed long-term conservation agriculture practices in different agri-food systems to determine the reclamation potential of sodic soil after continuous cultivation for nine years, with the experiment’s results now published.

Using different conservation agriculture techniques on areas cultivating combinations of maize, wheat, rice and mungbean, the study used soil samples to identify declines in salinity and sodicity after four and nine years of harvesting.

Evidence demonstrates that this approach is a viable route for reducing soil sodicity and improving soil carbon pools. The research also shows that the conservation agriculture-based rice-wheat-mungbean system had more reclamation potential than other studied systems, and therefore could improve soil organic carbon and increase productive crop cultivation.

Read the full publication: Long-term conservation agriculture helps in the reclamation of sodic soils in major agri-food systems

Cover photo: Comparison of crop performance under conservation agriculture and conventional tillage in a sodic soil at Karnal, Haryana, India. (Credit: HS Jat/ICAR-CSSRI)

Afghan wheat landrace shows promise for rust resistance

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Publications.

Rust pathogens are the most ubiquitous fungal pathogens that continue to pose a serious threat to wheat production. The preferred strategy to combat these diseases is through breeding wheat varieties with genetic resistance.

Landraces are a treasure trove of trait diversity, offer an excellent choice for the incorporation of new traits into breeding germplasm, and serve as a reservoir of genetic variations that can be used to mitigate current and future food challenges. Improving selection efficiency can be achieved through broadening the genetic base through using germplasm pool with trait diversity derived from landraces.

In a recent study, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) used Afghan landrace KU3067 to unravel the genetic basis of resistance against Mexican races of leaf rust and stripe rust. The findings of this study not only showcase new genomic regions for rust resistance, but also are the first report of Lr67/Yr46 in landraces. This adult plant resistance (APR) gene confirms multi-pathogenic resistance to three rust diseases and to powdery mildew.

Using genotype sequencing and phenotyping, the authors also report an all-stage resistance gene for stripe rust on chromosome 7BL, temporarily designated as YrKU. The genetic dissection identified a total of six quantitative trait locus (QTL) conferring APR to leaf rust, and a further four QTL for stripe rust resistance.

Although use of landraces in wheat breeding has been practiced for a long time, it has been on a limited scale. This study represents a significant impact in breeding for biotic stresses, particularly in pest and disease resistance.

Read the full study here: Identification and Characterization of Resistance Loci to Wheat Leaf Rust and Stripe Rust in Afghan Landrace “KU3067”

Cover photo: Yellow rust screening takes place at a CIMMYT experimental station in Mexico. (Credit: Sridhar Bhavani/CIMMYT)