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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.

Renewing and reinforcing partnerships in South Asia

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As part of global efforts to strengthen CIMMYT’s presence with key partners in important maize and wheat production regions, in recent weeks Tom Lumpkin met with high-level agricultural research directors and other CIMMYT friends in India and Pakistan.

In Pakistan during 25-28 June, discussions with Dr ME Tusneem, Chair of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), covered renewed collaboration on topics such as research to combat Ug99, the new strain of stem rust that is moving out of eastern Africa to threaten South Asia’s wheat crops. CIMMYT and Pakistan are also developing a new memorandum of understanding on partnerships and moves to reopen the center’s office in that country. Important contributions to the work and discussions have come from former CIMMYT wheat cytologist, Dr Mujeeb-Kazi, who led CIMMYT’s efforts to develop synthetic wheats, and Dr Mushtaq Gill, long-time CIMMYT partner and champion of zero-tillage in Pakistan.

In meetings in India during 30 June-01 July, it was agreed with Dr Mangala Rai, Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), to develop a new five-year workplan that will be signed at the CIMMYT BOT meeting in India in October. Lumpkin also visited with Dr Gautam, ICAR DDG for Crops; Dr Mishra, Director of the Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR), and Dr Dass, director of the Directorate of Maize Research (DMR), and interacted with directors and staff of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), and the Directorate of Maize Research (DMR).

Lumpkin thanked Olaf Erenstein, CIMMYT agricultural economist and liaison officer in India, for organizing the visits and accompanying him, in representation of the center. “Olaf arranged very productive programs in Islamabad and Delhi that should greatly reinforce CIMMYT’s stature in South Asia,” he said.

Bright times ahead: summary from the Board meetings

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CIMMYT Board of Trustee meetings of 06-09 April 2008 ended on a high note, with a presentation to Staff from the Chair of the Board, Lene Lange. Lene began by welcoming CIMMYT’s newest Board member and in-coming Chair of the Audit Committee, Tom McKay, and bidding a fond farewell to the Committee’s outgoing Chair, Edwina Cornish.

She also spoke enthusiastically about new Director General Tom Lumpkin and the sense of direction and energy he will bring to CIMMYT. She welcomed his emphasis on building on respect for staff to make CIMMYT a great place to work—attracting, recruiting, and retaining high quality staff, particularly female scientists, and maintaining high morale.

“CIMMYT is so important for the world that we need the very best,” said Lene, and staff need to be happy and motivated to be able to give their very best. It will take time, she said, but “it looks like we are getting up and setting up for really good times, where we will have leadership and at the same time build on consultation and transparency.”

Lene spoke of the challenging times facing the center and the need and opportunities for change, including CGIAR reforms, improving CIMMYT’s relevance, responding to the changing funding landscape, and implementation of a new intellectual property rights policy.

On the topic of stronger and broader partnerships, Lene spoke of making efforts to better explain and document CIMMYT’s value for Mexico and Mexican farmers and fighting for the best possible conditions, as well as fostering new collaborations with Mexican institutions. She also discussed the importance of improving and sustaining relationships with strong developing-country NARS such as India and China, and CIMMYT’s potential to act as a broker leveraging their research for the benefit of the poor of the wider world.

Lene ended by emphasizing the need for good internal communication, with dialogue between the Board and the NRS and IRS Committees, and recognizing CIMMYT staff in Kenya and Zimbabwe for their excellent work under difficult conditions. Finally, she thanked her fellow Board members and discussed future appointments, including maintaining a strong representation of women and members with a scientific background, and seeking connections with China. “It is a privilege and an honor to serve on the Board of CIMMYT, and we are doing our very best,” she said.

This was Lene’s final Board meeting at El Batán, and Julio Berdegué, Vice-Chair of the Board, spoke of her as both forceful and flexible, with a clear idea of where she wants to go but always willing to listen and build consensus. “She is a person who sees opportunities where many of us see a crisis,” he said. He recognized Lene’s many achievements, particularly building a cohesive, high-performing Board that CIMMYT can be proud of, and leading the transition in CIMMYT’s leadership.

In his closing talk, Tom Lumpkin spoke of making Mexico a partner rather than a client, and reassessing CIMMYT’s relevance to Mexico and Latin America as well as many other places in the world. He reflected on the globalized food economy and the need for a new, more flexible approach building on the ideas and knowledge within CIMMYT.

“We have a fabulous mission and…opportunities to take on some of the greatest challenges the world is facing,” he said. “Let’s work together, let’s rebuild, reshape this place, and a couple of years from now let’s look back and see a CIMMYT that’s got even more passion, and that’s busting at the seams with new people and new ideas and new activities.”

India breeders choose outstanding maize from CIMMYT

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Immediately upon his return after Science Week on 10 March 2008, P.H. Zaidi, breeder in CIMMYT’s global maize program, led a field day on ICRISAT’s campus in Hyderabad, India, that was attended by some 70 maize scientists from India’s public and private sectors. Dr. Sain Dass, Director of India’s Directorate for Maize Research (DMR), leader of the Indian Maize Program, and a visiting scientist at CIMMYT in 1996 and 2004, along with several DMR colleagues, participated. “Dr. Dass was delighted to see our ongoing activities, especially on QPM and drought stress tolerance,” says Zaidi. “There were about 25 scientists from SAU’s maize program and 30 scientists from private seed companies. After a brief introduction about breeding activities in our Asian regional maize program, participants toured maize germplasm nurseries and selected the best entries as per their own requirements. Among other outcomes, we obtained lists of breeder selections from a nursery we sent them.”

Also contributing to the success of the event were Mehraj UdDin, CIMMYT-India research assistant who received CIMMYT’s 2007 Most Valuable Employee Award, and Gaurav Yadav, also of CIMMYT-India and associated with the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains. “Apart from the germplasm we are working on here, there was lot interest in the speciality corn,” says Zaidi. “Many partners suggested circulating a form to collect views and prioritize the emerging germplasm requirements in the region. We are working on developing a form for collecting this feedback, so that our products will be truly demand-driven.”

Visit of VIP from the Chinese Embassy

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Mr. Qingqing Zhao, head of Science and Technology issues in the Chinese Embassy in Mexico, visited CIMMYT on 29 January 2008 to broaden his knowledge of China and CIMMYT’s long-time, fruitful partnerships. This was his first visit, and fulfilled an intention he’d had since his arrival in Mexico in September 2007. Zhao was welcomed by Director General Masa Iwanaga, and also met with staff including Thomas Payne, Kevin Pixley, Erika Meng, Peter Ninnes, and Suketoshi Taba to learn more about China-CIMMYT collaboration and discuss how the Chinese Embassy can support the efforts. Highlights of his tour of the facilities included the germplasm bank and the Applied Biotechnology Center, and he also met with CIMMYT staff from China: Huixia Wu, Jianbing Yan, Shibin Gao, Xiaoyun Li, and Yunbi Xu.

CIMMYT researcher helps find cheaper way to Vitamin-A enhanced maize

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In a development reported this week in Science magazine and which could enhance the nutritional status of millions of people in developing countries, a team of plant geneticists and crop scientists including CIMMYT’s Jianbing Yan pioneered an economical approach to boost levels of provitamin A in maize. ‘Provitamin A’ describes substances that are converted to vitamin A upon consumption. The team showed that variation at the lycopene epsilon cyclase (lcyE) locus—favorable alleles of which can be selected using molecular markers—controls biosynthesis pathways for Vitamin A precursors in maize.

Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of eye disease and other health disorders in the developing world. Some 40 million children are afflicted with eye disease, and another 250 million suffer with health problems resulting from a lack of dietary vitamin A. Selecting for provitamin A in maize normally involves expensive lab analyses, so the ability to use DNA markers for this purpose should reduce costs significantly.

“I played a very small part in the study, and more work needs to be done” says Yan, who came to CIMMYT in October 2006 from the China Agricultural University, Beijing. “I helped to re-confirm the markers and fix some tables.” According to Yan, molecular markers associated with lcyE are being used in several institutes around the world, including CIMMYT, for breeding to enhance the vitamin A value of maize. He will give a seminar at El Batán on Monday, 21 January in B115 at 3:30.

Bangladesh visitors’ office

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CIMMYT Bangladesh held an opening ceremony for their new visitors’ office at the Regional Wheat Center at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) on 08 January 2008. Harun-or-Rashid, Director General of BARI, formally inaugurated the office, and Abu Sufian, Director of Research at BARI, attended the ceremony as a special guest.

The visitors’ office will serve as a work space for visiting scientists and international collaborators. Other visitors to CIMMYT Bangladesh will still be received at the office in Banani, Dhaka. The new visitors’ office is located at BARI-Gazipur and will house various documents, books, and publications. The building where the new office is located was built with money from CIMMYT and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and was given to BARI in 1984.

Long-time CIMMYT collaborator ABS Hossain, consultant and in-country coordinator for the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and Enamul Haque, Senior Program Manager for CIMMYT Bangladesh, will be working in the new office space.

Md. Saifuzzaman, Principal Scientific Officer for the Wheat Research Center (WRC) at BARI, presided as chair of the opening ceremony. Directors, division heads, WRC scientists, the IRRI liaison scientist, and CIMMYT staff also attended the opening ceremony.

Two important wheat workshops as part of China-CIMMYT collaboration

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The Chinese National Wheat Quality Conference, jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS), the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), and CIMMYT, was held in Beijing on 13 to 14 December. The program covered market needs and quality improvement, biotechnology applications, quality testing, the development of high-quality varieties, and crop management. In addition to 150 Chinese participants from more than 20 provinces, Roberto Javier Peña and Erika Meng from CIMMYT, Rudi Appels from Australia, and Peter Shwery and Huw Jones from Rothamsted Research were invited to talk on global wheat quality, the health grain project, and wheat transformation.

This is a continuation of CIMMYT-China joint efforts in promoting Chinese wheat quality. Zhonghu He, CIMMYT representative in China, talked about Chinese wheat quality and future trends. More than 8 wheat quality workshops and conferences, including the Sino-Australia Wheat Quality Conference (2002) and International Wheat Quality Conference (2004), with a total of more than 1,000 participants, have been organized by CAAS and CIMMYT during the last 10 years.

The Sino-UK Wheat Workshop, jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Rothamsted Research, and CIMMYT, was held in Beijing on 10 to 11 December. It was coordinated by Zhonghu He, CIMMYT Representative in China, and Peter Shwery from Rothamsted Research. They were more than 40 participants, including 20 from Rothamsted Research, UK, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, John Innes Center, and University of Nottingham, along with participants from 6 Chinese institutes. The presentations covered breeding technologies, sustainability and yield, grain development and quality, and plant pathogens. Lijian Zhang, CAAS vice president, was presented in the opening ceremony. Priority areas for future collaboration were identified and the second Sino- UK wheat workshop will be held in UK in 2009. The workshop was sponsored by UK Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC), the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Nature Science Foundation of China.

2007 CGIAR awards for CIMMYT and partners

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The CGIAR honored the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Science with the 2007 Award for Outstanding Agricultural Technology in the Asia-Pacific Region, for their work with CIMMYT to develop high-yielding wheat varieties with high-quality grain for Chinese food products.

Three wheat cultivars from this work were sown on more than eight million hectares in China from 2002 to 2006, adding 2.4 million tons of grain to Chinese wheat production. China and CIMMYT partnerships go back three decades and around four million hectares in China are sown to varieties that carry CIMMYT wheat in their pedigrees.

CIMMYT Maize Nutrition Quality Specialist, Natalia Palacios, was also honored by the CGIAR, receiving the 2007 Promising Young Scientist Award. The award cites Palacios’ contributions to the development of nutritious and micronutrientdense maize for farmers in tropical areas. Among other things, Palacios was influential in developing and implementing new approaches to test for grain quality traits, such as provitamins A and protein quality, that will ultimately speed breeding for those and other characteristics. Both awards were given at the 2007 CGIAR annual general meetings in Beijing, China, where during 3-7 December more than 1,000 participants, including several CIMMYT directing staff and scientists, discussed how agricultural research and technology and food policy initiatives can more effectively address critical global agricultural challenges, bringing the benefits of agricultural research more quickly to poor farmers in developing countries.

CAAS-China and CIMMYT renew and strengthen partnership

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Building on a long, fruitful partnership, on 04 December 2007 in Beijing the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and CIMMYT signed an agreement for a new, three-year, collaborative wheat breeding program. The chief aim is to develop new cultivars with resistance to stem rust and other diseases, as well as adaptation to climate change, particularly tolerance to heat and drought. According to the agreement, participants will draw upon modern methods such as genomics, marker-assisted selection, and informatics systems. Efforts will focus in part on developing varieties that resist Ug99, a deadly new strain of stem rust that is virulent for most current wheat cultivars and appears to be moving steadily from its point of original sighting, in eastern Africa, toward the major wheat farming areas of the Middle East and South Asia.

 

Work on transgenic drought tolerance

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Takashi Kumashiro (Director, Biological Resources Division) and Kazuo Nakashima (Senior Scientist, Biotechnology Lab of Dr. Yamaguchi-Shinozaki) from the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) visited CIMMYT during 29-30th November for the first mid-year year review meeting of a new five year project funded by the Japanese Ministry of Fisheries and Food (MAFF).

The project is the second phase of a JIRCAS-CGIAR collaborative initiative to develop transgenic drought tolerance in a range of tropical staple crops—an initiative launched by Masa Iwanaga when he was Director of the Biological Resources Division of JIRCAS. The current project involves the use of a second generation of drought responsive elements (DREB genes) generated by JIRCAS scientists and other transgenes (especially transcription factors) generated by the Gene Discovery Research Team of the Plant Science Center of the RIKEN Yokohama Institute. Led by GREU director Jonathan Crouch, the current project is a joint wheat and rice initiative through collaborations between CIMMYT, CIAT and IRRI.

Agricultural research reduces poverty: Byerlee delivers second Havener Memorial Lecture

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Derek Byerlee, Director for the World Bank’s new World Development Report, told an attentive audience in the auditorium at El Batán on Tuesday, 9 October, that there were strong drivers for agricultural research for the poor in developing countries, but that changes in the balance of funding in CGIAR centers like CIMMYT, away from unrestricted toward more special project-oriented money, threatened essential long-term research to benefit the poor.

Byerlee was presenting the second annual Robert D Havener memorial lecture, one of a series sponsored by the research centers of the CGIAR in which Havener had played a major role. Byerlee focused his talk on what he called “Drivers of Demand for Agricultural Research and Development.” He pointed out that growth in the agriculture sector benefits the poorest at more than double the rate that growth in other non-agriculture sectors does and specifically pointed out progress in Ghana, China, and India as examples. He said that investment in agricultural research and development had an impact on reducing global poverty. He also warned that in the future the strong demands from the rapidly growing biofuel sector, climate change, and increasing land degradation and water scarcity were going to shape the agricultural research agenda.

Bob Havener, CIMMYT Director General from 1978- 1985, died in August, 2005. The lecture at CIMMYT was attended by his widow, Liz and his stepdaughter, Emily Sprague. The World Development Report will be released on Friday, 19 October. A video of the lecture will be sent to regional locations.

Afghanistan Minister may visit CIMMYT-Mexico

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Global Wheat Program Director, Hans Braun, recently visited the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) of Afghanistan, O. Ramin. Braun was accompanied by Afghanistan Country Coordinator for CIMMYT, Mahmood Osmanzai.

During the discussions the Minister welcomed Braun and expressed his pleasure at the work CIMMYT is doing in Afghanistan through its office in Kabul. He said he was very pleased to have Osmanzai as the Country Coordinator. Braun extended an invitation to the Minister to visit CIMMYT in Mexico in the near future and the Minister responded positively, saying he would combine it with a visit he was making to Europe.

They did it … Permanent beds take off in northern Mexico

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After years of research, things are starting to happen in the Yaqui Valley. Ken D Sayre and his agronomy team have been doing research on permanent bed planting with crop residue retention at the research station near Obregón. Results are very clear: use of permanent beds with adequate crop residue retention reduces irrigation water use, maintains stable yields, reduces production costs, avoids burning of crop residue, reduces CO2 emissions, and improves soil health. Based on results in northern Mexico and thanks to international training courses, this technology has spread to Turkey, China, India, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other countries.

Ironically, the irrigated, high/yielding areas of Mexico, where conventionally/tilled raised bed planting was developed and is a common practice, have been slow to adopt this next step towards conservation agriculture. But this may be changing. Recently farmer groups and government organizations (federal and regional) have shown interest in the technology. And now the first hectares with permanent beds were planted in farmers’ fields in Obregón, this summer cycle.

Rodrigo Rascón, Obregón Station Manager, Manuel Ruiz Cano, and Jesús Gutiérrez, collaborators in the agronomy team, worked out an agreement with two farmers to plant up to 5 ha each of sorghum on reshaped beds with full straw retention after wheat/ triticale. Only the CIMMYT prototype multi-crop/ multi-use implement was provided to the farmers plus training on planting from Rodrigo and the wheat crop management team.

Pleased with the effort the farmers insisted that a larger area be planted and therefore a total of 55 ha of sorghum was grown this way on the two farms. These plantings are true hallmarks in the efforts to extend conservation agriculture, permanent bed technologies in the Yaqui Valley. Many farmers have already visited the fields and local farmer groups recently held a farmer field day. Examples from other areas in the world tell us that the first 5 ha are the most difficult. Thanks to Rodrigo, Manuel, and Jesús, this first step has been accomplished!

More precise targeting of poverty in South Asia

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In line with the need to target activities where they contribute most to alleviating poverty, CIMMYT and the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains, a CIMMYT-convened network of national programs and other partners in South Asia, have produced the publication “Livelihoods, poverty and targeting in the Indo- Gangetic Plains: A spatial mapping approach,” authored by CIMMYT scientists Olaf Erenstein, Jonathan Hellin, and Parvesh Chandna. It outlines results of work to develop a spatial mapping methodology that can guide priority-setting and targeting within the RWC. The approach draws on data for 18 quantitative, spatially-explicit variables, which serve as indicators of poverty based on the natural, social, human, physical, and financial assets of households, complementing the more conventional monetary approach to measure poverty.

Outputs include district-level spatial poverty maps for the four sub-regions of the Indo- Gangetic Plains in India, covering the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. In addition to its relevance for the RWC, the approach outlined and the results are of potential use for policy makers, researchers, or development practitioners who wish to ensure that agricultural research continues to contribute to poverty reduction and economic growth. The publication will soon be available through the RWC and the publications catalog on CIMMYT’s website.

Award to Jonathan Crouch

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Jonathan Crouch, director of Genetic Resources and Enhancement (GREU) is one of three scientists to win the very first Japan International Award for Young Agricultural Researchers. He is the only one from a CGIAR research center. These new awards, sponsored by the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), recognize the contribution of young agricultural researchers to technological development for the improvement for food security and the environment in developing countries. They commend young researchers who show outstanding performance and research achievements that are expected to lead to future innovation. Jonathan will give a award-acceptance lecture at the United Nations University-HQ (Tokyo) on September 12th.