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.

Maize opportunities and challenges for Asia

Written by on November 14, 2014. Posted in News.

Compared with other cereals, maize has recorded the fastest annual growth in Asia at around 4 percent, but consumption is rising faster than yields.

When BM Prasanna, CIMMYT’s global maize program director, opened the 12th Asian Maize Conference and Expert Consultation on “Maize for Food, Feed, Nutrition and Environmental Security” in Bangkok last week he said that boosting maize crops would be a key to food security. In China, maize is the number one crop in acreage, covering 35.26 million hectares (87 million acres) in 2013, an area comparable to that of the United States, Prasanna said. The big questions are whether or not China can increase yields before 2020 to avoid being the largest importer of maize and whether Asia can meet the demand for maize “by shortening, widening and improving the breeding funnel,” Prasanna said.

He added that efforts are underway to significantly enhance genetic gain per unit over time: CIMMYT and the University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart, Germany) are utilizing doubled haploid technology; other partnerships are focused on genetic diversity and introgressing transgenic traits under humanitarian license through public-private partnerships.

“Strengthening seed systems is also important for breeding programs to make an impact,” Prasanna said. “The sooner farmers, especially smallholders in unreached areas, have access to improved varieties and a complementary agronomic package of practices, the greater the opportunity to increase productivity.”

Challenges are many. Heat stress and drought stress, among others, are an increasing reality in many maize-growing regions in the tropics. Two promising CIMMYT- Asia heat-tolerant commercial hybrids (31Y45 and DKC9108) are currently being marketed in Asia. Scientists also confirm that a strong pipeline of water stress-resilient, Asia-adapted maize hybrids is ready for deployment in rainfed areas of Asia.

Prasanna concluded by reminding the 350 conference participants that “putting women and children at the center of development will help transform their societies.” Quoting Melinda Gates, he said that by ignoring gender inequities, many development projects fail to achieve their objectives.

As he concluded his remarks with a big smile, Prasanna could not resist sharing, “Nothing looks more beautiful to me than maize.”

Q+A: Young scientist wins award for “Taking it to the Farmer”

Written by on November 13, 2014. Posted in Features.

Taking-it-to-the-Farmer EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Conservation agriculture, which improves the livelihoods of farmers by sustainably boosting productivity, is becoming a vital part of the rural landscape throughout Mexico and Latin America, leading to a major World Food Prize award for Bram Govaerts.

As associate director of the Global Conservation Agriculture Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Govaerts works with farmers to help them understand how minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation can simultaneously boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment.

Govaerts, winner of the 2014 Borlaug Field Award , played a major role in developing a Mexican initiative known as the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro), and in June 2014 the 35-year-old assumed leadership of the project, spearheading the coordination of related initiatives throughout Latin America.

According to Govaerts, there are two choices – “Either agricultural production is going to grow in unsustainable ways, depleting our resources, or we take action now, investing in sustainable agriculture so that it can be a motor for growth as well as a motor for sustainable development.”

MasAgro is a partnership led by Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food and CIMMYT involving more than 100 agricultural research organizations. It offers training and technical support for farmers in conservation agriculture and gives them access to high-yielding, conventionally bred seeds.

The overall aims of MasAgro include raising the yield potential of wheat by 50 percent and increasing Mexico’s annual production by 350,000 tons (318,000 metric tons) in 10 years. Goals also include raising the production of maize in rainfed areas.

MasAgro’s “Take It to the Farmer” component was inspired by a statement made by the late CIMMYT scientist Norman Borlaug who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. He believed that scientists should work closely with farmers, an idea central to CIMMYT’s overall approach to agricultural research and practice. Borlaug led the development of semi-dwarf wheat varieties in the mid-20th century that helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world. He also founded the World Food Prize .

“Take it to the Farmer” integrates technological innovation with small-scale farming systems for maize and wheat crops, while minimizing harmful impacts on the environment. Farmers on more than 94,000 hectares (232,280 acres) have switched to sustainable systems using MasAgro technologies, while farmers on another 600,000 hectares are receiving training and information to improve their agricultural techniques and practices. Techniques include crop diversification, reducing tilling of the soil and leaving crop residue on the fields.

Govaerts, who has also worked on conservation agriculture projects in Ethiopia and India, discussed his work after winning the award.

Q: What inspired the “Take it to the Farmer” component of the MasAgro project?

A: The strategy stemmed from the fact that there’s a great deal of information out there today for farmers, starting with seed varieties. Farmers have many choices to make about technology to increase productivity, but they need to understand how to integrate it and make it sustainable. We work closely with farmers to develop conservation-based agricultural systems so that they can generate high, stable crop yields over time. Doing this offers farmers the best opportunity for higher incomes, but also lowers environmental impact.

MasAgro helps the farmers develop an agronomic system – including the technology. In that way it’s not so much taken to the farmers, but it’s developing a system together with the farmer. We innovate with the farmers and connect them to a working value chain and we then combine what we call our hub approach. We’re connecting research platforms with farm innovation modules and from there we develop systems influenced by farmer knowledge.

Q: Is it possible for this to work on any farm in any location?

A: The key is to adapt to the specific locations of each of the farmers. We have to make the strategies work for specific farming and then on top of that we need to include other technologies to make it work. Technology might simply be hand-planting, not necessarily high-tech huge machinery. It is really about establishing basic conservation agriculture principles and working together to make those basic principles work.

Q: Are you trying to help farmers achieve their agricultural goals by helping them save money by not spending on fertilizers?

A: It depends; if you’re in an area where farmers are over-fertilizing it helps to reduce costs if they don’t use fertilizers as much. On the other hand, some farmers are not using fertilizers at all so there we recommend using them in an integrated manner. There might be areas where production costs go up slightly because farmers were not investing in any inputs or technologies, but because productivity is increased in the end they have a higher return on investment.

Q: Can you give an example of a farmer who has changed practices?

A: Some smallholder farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, are improving their production practices as they raise the local [indigenous] maize landraces. We connected them with a niche maize market in New York City. They are now exporting and selling their specialty maize to chefs in New York who use them in high-end restaurants. So they are not only increasing productivity, they are also connected to markets to sell their extra produce. The challenge now is to take this effort to scale. What we realized is that by only increasing productivity, we’re actually bringing the farmers into a risky situation unless they can find bigger markets.

We helped a novice wheat farmer who is renting land. He’s been adjusting his farming system and is now using conservation agriculture technology. As a result, because he has a slower turnaround time, when he planted his summer crop, instead of planting only 100 hectares, he jumped to 350 hectares. In a strict sense, he was not a smallholder farmer, but we work with big and small farmers.

Another example is the use of mobile phones – farmers can subscribe to a short message service, or SMS text-messaging system. Once subscribed, the farmer receives information on different topics, including technical recommendations or warnings. For example, one of the warnings we sent out during the wheat-growing season was that there was going to be an imminent frost. That led to some of the farmers irrigating their crops because that helped mitigate the damage and saved part of their crops.

Q: What challenges do you face?

We’re working with more than 150 institutions and organizations and we’re connected to more than 200,000 farmers. When Dr. Borlaug was working the world was simpler, we not only have to increase yields but we also have to work in an environmentally friendly manner. We also have to provide environmental services via agriculture and we have to make sure that farmers have sufficient income and this in a complex, institutional.
We can no longer accept that we’re just doing the science and then leave it up to others to apply the science. That’s not how it works – we scientists need to ensure that the technology is actually implemented and that it is expanded by new ideas from farmers, technicians and others along the value chain. We need to take responsibility that our knowledge and science is used and is responding to a real need. Public and private investment in agriculture should increase, especially in Latin America because it’s going to be a motor of transformation.

Q: How do you encourage farmers to change their practices?

A: We do a lot of training. In some areas our first step is bringing new seeds – connecting seed companies with a new variety CIMMYT has developed, making sure the seed system is working. There are some interventions that are rather linear – one-shot interventions. There are methods that from the beginning are going to be complicated and the farmer has to wait five years before changes are seen. That’s quite difficult, but if you can show an intervention where the farmer can store maize better and instead of losing 40 percent he’s only losing 10 percent during storage, that’s an intervention that can then start the dialogue to a more complicated system change. Much of our focus is on knowledge exchange, as well as in training and innovation.

Q: What is the significance of your award for Mexico?

A: The award has a special significance for Mexico. It recognizes Mexico’s bold decision to invest in agricultural innovation and to take responsibility not only for the country but for the region. We are proud of CIMMYT’s achievements within its host country.
Before CIMMYT’s collaboration with the Mexican government there was a real disconnect between agricultural science and the reality of farmers on the ground. As a result, this award is not only a recognition of scientific excellence, but the importance of getting the results out to the farmers. Mexico is a complex country.

Here we have all types of farmers – from large commercial farmers who exploit market opportunities for export to smallholder farmers who do not have access to markets. Mexico also hosts a wide range of unique agro-ecological environments. These circumstances offer CIMMYT scientists a unique laboratory to conduct their research and gives us an opportunity to explore new ways of doing science and connecting with farmers to ensure that science has impact.

Q: This year the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue was titled “Can we sustainably feed the 9 billion people on our planet by the year 2050?” What are your thoughts on the topic?

A: This is not just a numbers game. We will need to feed more than 9 billion people while working in a more complicated institutional and political environment and at the same time safeguarding natural resources. These global challenges are moving at a fast pace, so CIMMYT needs to move fast and expand its scientific excellence. We are at a turning point where we have to take advantage of these rapid changes in science and technology, which are becoming increasingly interlinked.

Working to help provide nutritional food for 9.5 billion people will be a collective effort. There won’t be one Norman Borlaug but a consortium of people working together with different expertise to achieve this goal. This will require new collaborations, especially public-private partnerships. CIMMYT is one of the best institutions to create these partnerships but we need to be better equipped for what is needed at this time. Complacency and living in the past is not an option.

Enhancing the nutritional quality of maize

Written by on November 13, 2014. Posted in News.

Malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency, which can cause blindness and stunting, increased infant and maternal mortality and lower IQs, are at epidemic levels in some parts of Asia. People across Asia depend on maize, rice and wheat but they do not fulfil daily dietary requirements and are deficient in vitamin A and essential micronutrients such as iron and zinc.

Biofortified maize varieties have been bred to include considerably high concentrations of essential micronutrients. Maize in Asia is largely used for feed, but direct human consumption is increasing. Scientists at the 12th Asian Maize Conference highlighted several collaborative interventions to utilize the genetic variability in maize for the development of biofortified maize. Promoting biofortified maize in rural areas and developing new food products has been part of this research. The nutritional benefits of biofortified maize can come directly from eating the crop itself or indirectly by consuming eggs from hens that are fed with provitamin A ProVA-enriched maize. Biofortified maize use for feed may also represent economic benefits for farmers.

Breeding efforts in Asia are currently focused on quality protein maize (QPM) and ProVA-enriched varieties. QPM was first developed by former CIMMYT scientists and World Food Prize Laureates Dr. Evangelina Villegas and Dr. Surinder Vasal. CIMMYT QPM inbred lines have been used in several breeding programs in China, India, Vietnam and elsewhere.

Joint efforts between CIMMYT and numerous partner scientists under HarvestPlus have shown that breeding for increased concentrations of ProVA is especially promising because of the genetic variation available in maize germplasm. New hybrids released in 2012 in Zambia showed ProVA levels 400 percent higher than common yellow maize, with the potential to bring widespread health benefits.

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

Written by on November 13, 2014. Posted in Features.

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.

Scientists ship 2 tons of wheat seed samples around the world

Written by on November 12, 2014. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Wheat farmers can boost yields and protect crops from pests and disease by using improved seed varieties, but in the developing world more than 80 percent of farmers use poor quality varieties, losing potential earnings and putting food security at risk, according to research.

Farmers often sell and trade wheat seed among themselves without having much knowledge about the size of the yield they can expect and how a particular variety fares with regard to climate, soil type or disease resistance.

Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are continuously developing improved varieties and each year seed samples — known as International Wheat Nurseries — are sent out to government and university research institutions and national agricultural research systems around the world.

“Wheat plays a vital role in food security,” said Tom Payne, head of CIMMYT’s Wheat Germplasm Bank, which stores almost 145,000 wheat varieties collected over the past 60 years. “We’ve been sending out wheat samples each year since 1974, so if you do the math that’s 367 tons over the years.”

In October, 1,720 kilograms (3,790 pounds) of experimental seeds were shipped to India, one of 75 current recipient countries.

Overall, the 2014 international shipment of seeds delivered in 351,990 sample envelopes weighed 9,230 kilograms. Recent recipient countries included Algeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Sudan.

SORTING SEEDS

Over the past 24 years, Efren Rodriguez, head of CIMMYT’s Seed Distribution Unit has overseen the five-month process of preparing, packaging and shipping of wheat seed samples.

“This year the seed requests we received filled 94 boxes,” Rodriguez said. “Seeds are requested at the end of summer prior to planting season. Each box is filled with envelopes of wheat seed and weighs up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds).”

Seeds arrive at CIMMYT’s headquarters near Mexico City in June in bags weighing from 10 to 35 kilograms from CIMMYT’s research station in Mexicali in northeastern Mexico accompanied with paperwork naming the varieties for inclusion in the shipment.

The seed is sorted according to instructions from the wheat breeders, cleaned with chlorine, rinsed in an industrial restaurant-style dishwasher, doused in protective fungicide, dried, placed in small envelopes by machine, then boxed.

“Research institutions plant the seeds, which have different characteristics designed to solve particular problems – for example, they may be heat, drought- or disease-resistant – and then recommend varieties for general release and sale to farmers,” Rodriguez said, explaining that the seeds tested and selected by the international research programs are incorporated into national wheat breeding or growing programs.

CIMMYT also distributes wheat nurseries as part of a partnership with Turkey and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).

Globally, wheat provides 20 percent of the world’s daily protein and calories.

Research on climate-resilient wheat keeps Green Revolution on track

Written by on November 12, 2014. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Hans Braun, director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), gestures toward an expansive field of green wheat shimmering in the hot sunlight outside his office.

“If we don’t prepare crops resilient to heat and drought, the effects of climate change will increase the risk of worldwide famine and conflict,” he explained. “That’s why CIMMYT is part of an international research program to develop new climate change-resistant varieties.”

As the global population grows from a current 7 billion to a projected 9.6 billion by 2050, wheat breeders involved in the battle to ensure food security face many challenges.
Already, U.N. food agencies estimate that at least 805 million people do not get enough food and that more than 2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiency, or “hidden hunger.”

Globally, wheat provides 20 percent of the world’s daily protein and calories, according to the Wheat Initiative. Wheat production must grow 60 percent over the next 35 years to keep pace with demand, statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations show – an achievable goal only if wheat yields increase from the current level of below 1 percent annually to at least 1.7 percent per year.

The scientists that Braun leads are on the front lines – tackling the climate change threat in laboratories and at wheat research stations throughout Mexico and in 13 other countries.

LIFE-SAVING GRAIN

Wheat is vital to global food security. In particular, since CIMMYT scientist Norman Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, led efforts to develop semi-dwarf wheat varieties in the mid-20th century that helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world.

Borlaug started work on wheat improvement in the mid-1940s in Mexico – where CIMMYT is headquartered near Mexico City. The country became self-sufficient in wheat production in the early 1960s.

Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work, and in his acceptance speech paid tribute to the “army of hunger fighters” with whom he had worked.
However, in contemporary times, some critics have cast a shadow over his work, questioning the altruistic aims of the project that became widely known as the Green Revolution.

They argue that the modern high-yielding crop varieties did not help poor farmers, but caused environmental damage through overuse of fertilizers, water resources and the degradation of soils.

Other condemnations include claims that food scarcity is a mere political construct, that food provision has helped governments suppress disgruntled masses and that vast wheat mono-croplands compromise agricultural and wild biodiversity.
However, a 2003 report in “Science” magazine analyzed the overall impact of the Green Revolution in the 20th Century. The authors, economists from Yale University and Williams College, found that without the long-term increase in food crop productivity and lower food prices resulting from the Green Revolution, the world would have experienced “a human welfare crisis.”

“Caloric intake per capita in the developing world would have been 13.3 to 14.4 percent lower and the proportion of children malnourished would have been from 6.1 to 7.9 percent higher,” authors Robert Evanson and Douglas Gollen wrote.

“Put in perspective, this suggests that the Green Revolution succeeded in raising the health status of 32 to 42 million preschool children. Infant and child mortality would have been considerably higher in developing countries as well.”

Braun acknowledges certain points made by critics of the Green Revolution, but asks how else developing countries would have met the food demands of their rapidly-expanding populations with less environmental impact.

“It’s very easy to look back 50 years and criticize,” Braun said. “People forget that at the time, new farm technologies were an incredible success. We have to put it into context – saving hundreds of millions of lives from starvation was the priority and the Green Revolution did just that.”

CLIMATE-RESILIENT WHEAT

Fast-forward and today much of CIMMYT’s current work remains steadily focused on improving wheat yields, but now with an emphasis on ensuring sustainable productivity and reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint.

Scientists are engaged in an international five-year project to develop climate-resilient wheat. They estimate that in tropical and sub-tropical regions, wheat yields will decrease by 10 percent for each 1-degree rise in minimum night-time temperature, which means that production levels could decline by 30 percent in South Asia. About 20 percent of the world’s wheat is produced in the region.

CIMMYT is collaborating with Kansas State University, Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the project, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative.

Field evaluations are conducted in Mexico, Pakistan and at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in India.

BOOSTING INFRASTRUCTURE

According to Braun, one of the biggest challenges over the next 30 years is to develop better production systems in addition to resource-efficient crops.

For example, a great deal of water is used in food production and demand can and should be cut in half, he said. “We need to focus on sustainable intensification in ways that won’t overuse natural resources.”

To aid in these efforts, CIMMYT has developed international research programs on conservation and precision agriculture.

In conservation agriculture, farmers reduce or stop tilling the soil, leaving crop residues on the surface of the field and rotate crops to sustainably increase productivity. Precision agriculture involves such technologies as light sensors to determine crop vigor and gauge nitrogen fertilizer dosages to determine exactly what plants need.

“This reduces nitrate runoff into waterways and greenhouse gas emissions,” Braun explained. CIMMYT and its partners are also breeding wheat lines that are better at taking up and using fertilizer.

“Wheat in developing countries currently uses only 30 percent of the fertilizer applied,” he said. “There are promising options to double that rate, but developing and deploying them require significant investments.”

“I’m very optimistic that we can produce 60 to 70 percent more wheat to meet demand – society is beginning to recognize that food production is one of humanity’s biggest challenges – today and in the future,” Braun summarized.

“We have or can develop the technologies needed, but politicians must recognize that investment in agriculture is not a problem, it’s a solution – the longer we wait the bigger the potential problems and challenges we face.”

Braun continued, “We also need policymakers to reach agreement that global climate change is a big problem that absolutely must be addressed so that we can gain access to sufficient resources and more fully develop appropriate technologies.”

Strengthening maize policies and public-private partnerships in Asia

Written by on November 11, 2014. Posted in News.

Policies designed to promote maize industry growth require data and information, which is often difficult to obtain in Asian countries. This was discussed during the technical session on improving maize seed systems in Asia at the 12th Asian Maize Conference. David Spielman, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), highlighted that policy-makers often face difficult challenges in promoting seed industry growth – especially in Asian countries that have more smallholder and resource-poor farmers.

Spielman said, “Innovation policies require data on firm-level research and development spending; product pipeline and competition policies require data on market structure and firm behavior.”

Firms often do not share proprietary revenue data and governments may not monitor firm-level activity on a regular basis. One of the factors could be that policy-makers are not sufficiently informed about the opportunities and trade-offs associated with designing laws and regulations that enable the effective governance of seed industry development. Spielman emphasized that a better designed dataset with a finite set of indicators to measure competition and innovation in a country’s seed industry can better inform policy-makers.

The conference highlighted the need for the public and private sectors to work together to provide affordable new seed varieties and deliver new technologies to smallholder farmers. An eminent group of panelists – Arvind Kumar, Rasi Seeds; Shilpa Divekar Nirula, Monsanto; Fan Xingming, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China; John McMurdy, U.S. Agency for International Development; and Bijendra Pal, Bioseed, discussed the opportunities and challenges to ensure a vibrant Asian maize seed sector through public-private partnerships (PPPs).

The panel noted that decision-makers should not look at public vs. private; rather they should learn from models and best practices where the two sectors have worked together successfully.

As a best practice on PPPs, Ian Barker, head of agricultural partnerships at the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), talked about its Seeds2B program in Africa that builds linkages between breeders and seed companies to make more improved seed varieties available to farmers at the right time and price.

He also highlighted that SFSA is now aiming to kick- start the Seed2B concept in Asia – bringing together breeders, seed companies, farmer associations and other relevant players in the Asian maize value chain – to improve access to seed in marginal maize areas. Barker said, “Public-private breeding partnerships can efficiently deliver new affordable and accessible hybrids – correctly positioned and targeted at proven smallholder demand.”

12th Asian Maize Conference

Written by on November 4, 2014. Posted in News.

(From left to right) Anan Suwannarat (Director General, Thai Department of Agriculture), Hiroyuki Konuma (Assistant Director General, FAO-RAP), Raj Paroda (Executive Secretary, APAARI) and Thomas Lumpkin (Director General, CIMMYT) open the 12th Asian Maize Conference by revealing the accompanying Books of Extended Summaries and Abstracts.

The 12th Asian Maize Conference is taking place in Bangkok from 30 October to 1 November, bringing together more than 350 leading agricultural researchers, policy-makers, farmers and service providers from across the public and private sectors. The conference, “Maize for Food, Feed, Nutrition and Environmental Security,” was organized by the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Thai Department of Agriculture, and will culminate in 10 major recommendations to set in place a roadmap for a sustainable intensification strategy for maize in Asia.

The objectives of the conference are to assess specific priorities to enhance maize production and productivity in the region, share the latest knowledge on cutting-edge maize technologies and generate awareness among institutions and stakeholders of better uses of maize as food, feed, fodder and as an industrial crop in Asia.

“This forum provides us with a platform to create synergies among institutions and stakeholders, all of whom recognize the enormous value of maize as a food and feed crop,” said guest of honor Anan Suwannarat, Director General of the Thai Department of Agriculture.

The area, production and yield of maize have increased several-fold over the last 50 years; much of that growth has occurred in the developing world. Compared to other cereals, maize has recorded the fastest annual growth in Asia (around 4 percent). The demand for maize in Asia has been growing in response to changing consumer interests and to feed the growing livestock sector.

“Among cereals, maize offers immense opportunities to address both food and nutrition security in Asia,” said Dr. Raj Paroda, APAARI executive secretary and conference co-chair. “Exciting scientific achievements in the recent past have led to higher annual growth in maize than all other cereals in the region. We now need to effectively harness the existing potential by out-scaling innovations in maize to have greater impact on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.”

At the same time, maize production and productivity in several Asian countries is severely constrained by an array of factors, including lack of access to improved seeds and other critical production-related inputs, lack of training and knowledge transfer for resource-poor farmers, and abiotic and biotic stresses, the magnitude and dynamics of which are rapidly increasing due to climate change. However, there remains great scope to increase the production area of maize in the region, as well as tremendous opportunities for productivity increases and innovations in crop improvement, management and diversification.

According to Dr. Thomas A. Lumpkin, CIMMYT director general and the other conference co-chair, “Sustainably increasing yields and stabilizing prices requires a concerted effort at the policy level, deployment of new technologies and long-term research investments to ensure that Asian farmers are prepared to respond to the enormous challenges facing agriculture.”

China’s wheat production critical to global food security

Written by on October 28, 2014. Posted in Features.

Zhonghu He is country representative in China for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement
Center (CIMMYT), and Qiaosheng Zhuang is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS).

China’s domestic agricultural activities are vital to ensuring food security for its 1.4 billion people and – as the world’s largest wheat producer – the country plays a major role in shaping international markets.

China produces about 120 million metric tons (265 million pounds) of wheat each year – on approximately 24 million hectares (59 million acres) of land, an area similar to the size of Algeria, according to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Wheat makes up 40 percent of grain consumption in China and about 60 percent of the country’s population eats the grain daily.

Cultivated wheat, which was likely introduced to China in the late 6th to early 5th millennium B.C., is the second most important food crop in China after rice. It is the dominant staple food in the northern part of the country where it is used mainly to produce noodles and steamed bread.

In present-day China, more than 95 percent of wheat is sown in the autumn. A double cropping system is used in the Yellow River and Huai River valleys in which wheat is rotated with maize. In the Yangtze Valley it is rotated with rice.

Chinese wheat matures early, so two crops can be harvested each year.

Wheat in China is also exceptionally resistant to high temperatures during the grain filling stage, during which kernel size is determined, as well as such diseases as head scab, septoria and karnal bunt. The wheat cultivar Sumai 3, a plant selected by breeders for its desirable characteristics, is used globally as a source for improving scab resistance.

Current Challenges

Demand for wheat in China is growing due to population increase and rising living standards, but production is challenged by water scarcity, environmental contamination, rising temperatures, droughts, labor shortages and land-use shifts from grain production to cash crops.

Researchers anticipate that in the near future the consumption of homemade steamed bread and raw noodles will decrease in favor of western-style breads and pastries.

Breeding for high-yield potential remains the first priority, as the available planting area for wheat is unlikely to increase.

Overall breeding goals include increasing grain yield, while maintaining genetic gains already made by scientists in grain yield and improving the processing quality without increasing needed inputs to grow healthy crops.

Conventional breeding – in which wheat plants with desirable, or “elite” traits are selected and used as “parents” for subsequent generations – has been in use for more than a hundred years. The technique, combined with an increased application of biotechnology, will continue to play a leading role in wheat variety development.

In addition to powdery mildew and yellow rust, Fusarium head blight has migrated to the main wheat regions in northern China due to climate change and the continuous practice of wheat and maize rotation, posing a major threat to wheat production. Other diseases, such as sharp eyespot and take-all, are also becoming increasingly troublesome as scientists try to increase grain yields. Wheat in the area has a very low resistance to scab, which is creating another challenge.

Scientific Innovation

It is important that foreign germplasm – the genetic resources of an organism – from international research centers and alien genes from wild relative species be explored as potential sources of multiple-disease resistance.

In order to reduce inputs for wheat production, it is essential to breed varieties with higher water, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (N) fertilizer use efficiencies, but this must be combined with high-yielding potential.

Drought tolerance for wheat grown in rain-fed areas must be strengthened, because varieties with drought tolerance and better water-use efficiency are already urgently needed.

Interested in this subject? Find out more information here:Zhonghu He and Alain P.A. Bonjean, 2010. Cereals in China, Mexico, D.F.: CIMMYT.

Zhonghu He, Xianchun Xia a, Shaobing Peng, Thomas Adam Lumpkin, 2014. Meeting demands for increased cereal production in China, Journal of Cereal Science, 59: 235-244.

Fahong Wang，Zhonghu He, Ken Sayre, Shengdong Li, Jisheng Si, Bo Feng, Lingan Kong,2009. Wheat cropping systems and technologies in China, Field Crop Research, 111: 181-188.

Under altered conditions driven by climate change, planting dates have been delayed by 10 days over the last 20 years, but maturity has remained basically unchanged. Climate-resilient varieties are needed.

New genes and genetic resources must be explored with novel tools to realize higher genetic gains. Gene-specific markers will play an important role in facilitating the genes for disease resistance and quality. Genetically modified wheat could offer potential tools in reducing damage from head scab and aphids.

Crop management must play an important role in increasing wheat production. Low-cost farming practices are needed so that wheat can be more competitive in the financial markets and new cropping systems must be suited to machinery operation. International collaboration has contributed significantly to improving Chinese wheat research and development capacity.

The government of China considers the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) an important strategic partner in wheat research and continues to work closely with CIMMYT and other international partners to meet future wheat demands.

Young researchers trained to develop resilient farming systems

Written by on October 26, 2014. Posted in News.

From 27 September to 4 October, scientists from India’s national agricultural research systems attended the “Conservation Agriculture: Developing Resilient Systems” training program at the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) in Karnal, India. Participants learned about crop management technologies based on conservation agriculture (CA) and acquired skills to plan strategic CA research trials.

The training program was organized by CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project in collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and CSSRI. Eighteen researchers from the Division of Natural Resource Management, International Rice Research Institute and CIMMYT attended the course.

Opening the course, ICAR Assistant Director General (Seeds) Dr. J.S. Chauhan, highlighted the importanc eof CA training for improving the productivity of crops and cropping systems in different agro-ecological regions of India. Conservation agriculture can sustain the livelihood of smallholders while maintaining and improving the quality of the environment and natural resources. CSSRI Director Dr. D.K. Sharma explained that CA has the ability to slow the depletion of underground water, declining soil fertility associated with multiple nutrient deficiencies, pest outbreaks and increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. He also focused on how to design diversified and resilient cropping systems that use resources more efficiently, as an alternative to intensive rice-wheat systems.

Globally, the positive impact of CA-based techniques on natural resources, adaptation and mitigation of climate change effects has been widely acknowledged. In India, strategic research on CA such as precise nutrient application, water, cultivars and weed management has been initiated. However, CA still remains a relatively new concept in the country. Andrew McDonald, CSISA project leader, talked about how continuous cultivation of rice-wheat cropping systems for almost five decades in the Indo-Gangetic Plains has caused the degradation of natural resources such as water and soil, thus affecting climate and biodiversity. He said, “This training program offers a unique opportunity for members of the country’s scientific community who are working in the area of natural resource management to help address the issues of water, labor and energy through the use of advanced crop production technologies.”

The training covered basic principles of CA, included field exercises and modern CA techniques for efficient climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, impact assessment of CA technologies and sustainable management of natural resources to ensure food security, profitability and productivity. Participants were given hands-on training on the use of different technologies including the laser land leveler, turbo seeder, multi-crop planter, limit plot planter, bed planter and mechanical transplanter. They also learned how to measure greenhouse gas emissions.

Attendees also participated in strategic research trials at Kulvehri and Taraori in Karnal. H.S. Sidhu, farm development engineer of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and M.L. Jat, CIMMYT Senior cropping system agronomist, talked about the longterm strategic research trial on CA for intensive cereal systems, shared their experiences and outcomes related to BISA research and commented on the development work at Ladhowal, Ludhiana. Jat also spoke about using conservation agriculture and climate-smart agriculture, to achieve food sufficiency by 2050 through input-based management systems in diverse production systems and environments.

Scale-appropriate mechanization: the intercontinental connection

Written by on October 26, 2014. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT aims to improve the livelihoods of poor farmers in the developing world by providing practical solutions for more efficient and sustainable farming. Among the options to improve efficiency, scale-appropriate and precise planting machinery is a crucial yet rarely satisfied need.

Mechanization efforts are ongoing across CIMMYT’s projects, with a strong focus on capacity building of functional small- and medium-scale engineering and manufacturing enterprises. Projects involved include ‘Farm Power and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification’ in eastern and southern Africa, funded by the Australian Center for International AgriculturalResearch (ACIAR) and the Cereal Systems Initiative in South Asia (CSISA), funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID. CSISA collaborates closely with the machinery research and development work done on the farms of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in India, CIMMYT conservation agriculture (CA) projects funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, the Agri-Machinery Program based in Yinchuan, Ningxia, China, and the MasAgro Take It to the Farmer machinery and intelligent mechanization unit based in Mexico.

Applied research scientists and technicians assisting these projects work specifically to tackle problems in diverse farming conditions and for varying production systems. Despite their geographically diverse target areas, this team strives to reach a common focal point from which they can learn and compare technical advancements. These advancements are achieved through mutual machine technology testing programs, exchanging machines and expertise and evaluations of best solutions for scale-appropriate mechanization to boost sustainable intensification for resource poor farmers.

Recently, this collaboration model led to the export of several units of a toolbar-based, two-wheel tractor implement for bed shaping, direct seeding of different crops and precise fertilizer application. They will be tested by CIMMYT projects in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nepal. This multi-purpose, multi-crop equipment was developed to be CA-compatible and has been fine-tuned in Mexico, with design priorities that kept in mind the implement’s usefulness for smallholder farmers in other parts of the world. The machinery will be tested next in Zimbabwe and possibly India and Pakistan.

The team’s goal is to help developing countries and viable business models of local enterprises in specific regions to have access to good quality implements and tools at reasonable prices. This open-source prototyping strategy is based on the free sharing of technical designs and machinery construction plans. The strategy combines patent-free, lowcost replication blueprints of promising technologies with strong agronomical testing as the ultimate ‘make or break’ criterion. This crucial interaction sets CIMMYT’s engineering platforms apart from commercial options that determine research and development priorities based mainly on sales projections and marketing objectives.

The mechanization team strongly believes in the power of cross regional collaboration – a multidisciplinary work environment, connected intercontinentally with social stewardship and the potential to bring transformative changes to farmers’ fields across the developing world.

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

Written by on October 9, 2014. Posted in Blogs.

Photo credit: Madan Raj Bhatta

#WheatMatters

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

CCAFS climate smart village program progress makes news in India

Written by on September 25, 2014. Posted in Features.

The CCAFS Climate Smart Village (CSV) program recently earned significant media attention for its successes in the Indian states of Bihar, Haryana and Punjab where the program is being implemented. The CSVs were featured in BBC News as well as several newspapers in the region. The CSV program is helping farmers in developing countries adapt their agricultural practices to secure dependable food supplies and livelihoods, while also decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sequestration, thereby decreasing future climate change. The project began in 2011 and works with villages in East and West Africa and South Asia. “The Climate Smart Villages program is a community-based approach to sustainable agricultural development,” said M.L. Jat, CIMMYT senior cropping system agronomist and South Asia coordinator of the CCAFS- CIMMYT project.

Annual planning meeting for Wheat Productivity Enhancement Program supported by USDA

Written by on September 23, 2014. Posted in News.

The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) and CIMMYT organized a two-day annual wheat planning meeting at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) in Islamabad. The meeting was in support of the Wheat Productivity Enhancement Program (WPEP), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The objectives of WPEP are to improve wheat though rust surveillance, breeding, pre-breeding, seed production, agronomy and coordination and capacity building. Meeting participants focused on a review of the progress made in 2013-14, identifying emerging opportunities and developing work plans for the coming year.

Dr. Shahid Masood, PARC chief science officer and senior director; Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed, PARC chairman; David Williams, agricultural counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan; Dr. Imtiaz Muhammad, country representative for CIMMYT in Pakistan.

“The United States has a long history of collaboration with Pakistan in the agriculture sector; WPEP has made exceptional progress in the country to develop Ug99-resistant wheat varieties which will ensure food security,” said David Williams, agricultural counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. He also commended the integrated research efforts of national and international partners for the enhancement of the nation’s wheat yields.

David Williams, agricultural counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, addresses the audience.

Imtiaz Muhammad, CIMMYT’s country representative in Pakistan, shared the impacts of WPEP on national and international wheat research systems. He added that CIMMYT’s efforts in the seed component of WPEP are substantial. WPEP has made significant progress; the release of Ug99-resistant wheat varieties (such as NARC-2011, PAK-13 and the upcoming Borlaug-14) will improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Pakistan.

WPEP has played a vital role in developing a wheat rust surveillance system, upgrading infrastructure and improving the research capacity in Pakistan. Collaborative and coordinated efforts through PARC and CIMMYT have enabled the country to develop a rust culture bank. It has built the capacity of provincial wheat breeding programs to secure wheat production against the potential threat of Ug99 races.

During the technical session, partners from across Pakistan agreed that developing Ug99-resistant wheat varieties to replace traditional varieties and making them available to farmers is a critical step in maintaining high yields in Pakistan. Participants acknowledged the support of the USDA, CIMMYT and PARC in wheat research.