Skip to main content

Location: Europe

Wheat breeding must account for warmer, wetter climates in North America and Russia, new study shows

Written by on . Posted in Press releases.

A wheat crop in northern Kazakhstan. (Photo: Alexey Morgounov/CIMMYT)
A wheat crop in northern Kazakhstan. (Photo: Alexey Morgounov/CIMMYT)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE           

MEXICO CITY — Breeders of spring wheat for North America and Russia need to adapt their varieties to the regions’ changing climates, which are bringing longer and wetter whegrowing seasons, according to a scientific paper published yesterday.

Published by a five-country team of wheat researchers, the study analyzed changes in wheat yields, along with air temperatures and precipitation, on farms and research stations in Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the USA, from 1981 to 2015.

The 22 million hectare study area — nearly the size of the United Kingdom — accounts for as much as 10 percent of global wheat production and exports nearly all its wheat, making it a big contributor to world food markets, according to Alexey Morgounov, wheat scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the paper.

“June, when the grain-holding wheat spike begins to form, turned out to be the critical month for spring wheat,” Morgounov said. “Maximum temperatures for that month rose over the 35 years studied, which hurt yields, but average rainfall increased and boosted grain yield, offsetting the temperature effect.”

Still, breeding for adaptation to higher temperatures will be critical to increasing spring wheat yields, according to Morgounov, who added that there were substantial changes in the dates of planting and harvesting, normally leading to longer growing seasons in the regions studied. “New varieties should be able to take advantage of the longer wheat growing seasons that warming brings.”

Overall, climate changes were more favorable for spring wheat in North America than in Kazakhstan and Russia, with greater precipitation in Canada and the USA and less exposure to extreme, high temperatures. Growing season precipitation increased as much as 15 percent at North American locations.

The two regions covered in this study represent distinct environments. The Kazakhstan and Russia locations are more than 500 kilometers further north than the North American latitudes and experience colder winters, hotter summers, and less precipitation.

“Interestingly, the two regions appear to complement each other, over the period we studied,” Morgounov said. “Higher-than-average wheat yields in one were normally associated with lower yields in the other, helping to foster stability in grain markets.”

“The whole high-latitude, continental climate spring wheat area certainly presents a huge potential for global wheat production,” he added, “and both can benefit from germplasm exchange and cooperation, with emphasis on the climate change challenges and opportunities presented in this paper.”

Morgounov acknowledged contributions for the study from the Prairie Recommending Committee on Wheat, Rye and Triticale, Canada, and other Canadian partners; the USDA-ARS Plant Science Research Unit; the Samara Agricultural Research Institute, the Agricultural Research Institute of Southeast Saratov, the Altay Agricultural Research Institute at Barnaul, the Siberian Agricultural Research Institute at Omsk, the Shortandy Variety Testing Site, and the Siberian Crop  Production Research Institute at Novosibirsk, Russia; and the Karabalyk Agricultural Research Station, Kostanay, Kazakhstan. Finally, Morgounov thanked the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat for its support.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS:

Courtney Brantley
Junior communications consultant
International Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT)
Email: c.brantley@cgiar.org
Tel: +52 55 5804 2004

 

Breaking Ground: Gemma Molero sheds light on wheat photosynthesis

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in Features.

Postcard_Gemma MoleroDespite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”

A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.

“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.

Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT

Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.

“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.

Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.

“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”

She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.

Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light

Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.

“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”

Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.

Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.

“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”

Training youth and improving conditions for young women

From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.

“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”

Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.

“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”

Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”

Seed savers celebrate “Doomsday Vault” tenth anniversary

Written by on . Posted in News.

CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank has its entire collection backed up in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Photo: CIMMYT archives
CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank has its entire collection backed up in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Photo: CIMMYT archives

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — The “Doomsday Vault,” that safeguards fall-back collections of key food crop seeds in the arctic cold of Longyearbyen, Norway, marks its tenth anniversary this year. To celebrate, leaders in the conservation of crop genetic resources are gathering next week to discuss best practices and to encourage sustainable use of the resources.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault sits 1,300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle; the farthest north commercial flights will take you. It is described as the world’s largest secure seed storage and was established by the Norwegian Government in February 2008. Repurposing an abandoned coal mine, the global seed vault is set deep into the natural permafrost of the Norwegian island of Svalbard.

Over the last decade, seed-preserving institutions worldwide have shipped backup collections of seed and other plant parts for storage in the vault, which now holds nearly 900,000 varieties of essential crops, representing over 4,000 plant species, which could be drawn upon to restart agriculture in case of a catastrophe.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the top contributor to the vault, with over 150,000 unique collections containing a total of nearly 50 million seeds and representing roughly 85 percent of the entire CIMMYT germplasm bank collection.

The target is to have 90 percent of the CIMMYT entire collection backed up at Svalbard within two years, according to Thomas Payne, head of CIMMYT’s Wheat Germplasm Bank, which is located in Mexico. CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank, led by Denise Costich, has already reached that goal.

“We send seeds every other year, accumulating packets until we have a critical mass and sending them in a large, single shipment,” Payne said.

Preparing and shipping the seed involves intricate coordination and painstaking work. For starters, seed must be sent in the winter to avoid it sitting on hot airport tarmacs. Additionally, the Svalbard vault opens for new deposits only a few times a year, so shipping logistics need to match up those dates.

The CIMMYT Wheat Germplasm Bank aims to have 90 percent of its collection backed up at Svalbard within two years. Photo: CIMMYT archives.
CIMMYT’s Wheat Germplasm Bank aims to have 90 percent of its collection backed up at Svalbard within two years. Photo: CIMMYT archives.

Only seed of the highest quality is sent to Svalbard, in part to ensure that the stored seed retains as long as possible its ability to germinate.

CIMMYT Germplasm Bank seed collections are regularly tested for germination capacity by placing a batch of seeds in a wet paper towel for 7-10 days. When less than 85 percent of a unique collection is viable, then the entire collection is replaced with fresh seed grown from the viable portion.

“There are seed collections at CIMMYT that still meet the minimum viability standard after more than 50 years under storage,” Payne said, noting that the center’s long-term collections are kept at minus 18 degrees Centigrade and in low humidity.

Payne said the center keeps duplicate collections in Mexico of all the seed it sends to Svalbard and monitors those Mexico back-ups to keep tabs on the viability of its Svalbard deposits.

Payne explained “To check seed viability, we have to take seeds out of storage, representing a loss of several hundred seeds. It’s almost a self-defeating process, balancing viability testing with sufficient quantities of seed to test and distribute.”

Payne said scientists are seeking new, non-invasive ways to test seed viability, potentially by checking seed respiration rates or rapid germination imaging technologies.

The government of Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust cover the cost of storage and upkeep of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, coordinating shipments in conjunction with the Nordic Genetic Resource Center.  Established in 2006, the Crop Trust supports the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide and helps to fund CIMMYT’s work to collect and conserve maize and wheat genetic resources.  The CGIAR Genebank Platform also supports CIMMYT’s maize and wheat germplasm bank.

CIMMYT's Germplasm Bank staff preparing a seed shipment to send to Svalbard. Photo: Alfonso Cortés/ CIMMYT
CIMMYT’s Germplasm Bank staff prepare a seed shipment set for Svalbard. Photo: Alfonso Cortés/ CIMMYT

Learn more about the activities of the Maize Germplasm Bank here, and about the Wheat Germplasm Bank here.

 The Maize and Wheat Germplasm banks at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center are funded by Global Crop Diversity Trust, the CGIAR Genebank Platform and Germany’s development agency.

Agricultural attachés visit CIMMYT

Written by on . Posted in News.

Group photo of agricultural attachés at CIMMYT. Photo: CIMMYT/P.Arredondo

Agricultural attachés from 10 Mexican embassies visited the headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on February 15. Countries represented included, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Spain, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

Annie Tremblay, who was representing the Netherlands, gave a presentation on agriculture in the Netherlands. She emphasized the most commonly traded commodities between the Netherlands and Mexico and said she sees Mexico as a “sleeping giant” in the flower-trading world.

Following Tremblay’s presentation, Martin Kropff talked about how CIMMYT works globally to improve livelihoods. As Kropff explained CIMMYT’s biofortification work, he stressed that in a perfect world people would be able to diversify their diets and get nutrients from all kinds of plants, but that many people CIMMYT serves are living on less than two dollars a day. “This is not the solution, but it is a solution.”

Bram Govaerts gave a presentation about the work Sustainable Intensification Program in Latin America (SIP-LatAm) is doing and discussed the importance of public-private partnerships to the MasAgro program. This underscored Kropff’s points about the importance of public-private partnerships to CIMMYT and the importance of corporate social responsibility.

The final presentation to the group of attachés was by Hans Braun and Carolina Saint Pierre on the Global Wheat Program. They emphasized wheat as a good source of fiber, antioxidants, micronutrients and protein. The presentation focused on global partnerships in the wheat program and meeting future production goals.

The attachés then toured the CIMMYT campus, learning about the germplasm bank and biodiversity, the global wheat and maize breeding programs and goals to improve seeds and crops. They also were introduced to CIMMYT’s work enhancing nutrition, food safety and processing quality in the seed health labs and about sustainable intensification to improve rural livelihoods.

To conclude, attachés discussed the current priorities of their embassies and potential collaborations between their embassies in Mexico and CIMMYT.

Deadly strain of wheat stem rust disease surfaces in Europe

Written by Matthew O'Leary on . Posted in News.

Wheat stem rust was reported by the Greeks and Romans, and the latter sacrificed to the gods to avoid disease outbreaks on their wheat crops. Photo: CIMMYT/Petr Kosina
Wheat stem rust was reported by the Greeks and Romans, and the latter sacrificed to the gods to avoid disease outbreaks on their wheat crops.
Photo: CIMMYT/Petr Kosina

As reported today in Communications Biology, an international team of researchers led by the John Innes Centre, U.K., found that 80 percent of U.K. wheat varieties are susceptible to the deadly stem rust strain. The group also confirmed for the first time in many decades that the stem rust fungus was growing on barberry bush, the pathogen’s alternate host, in the UK.

“This signals the rising threat of stem rust disease for wheat and barley production in Europe,” said Dave Hodson, senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and co-author on the study.

A scourge of wheat since biblical times, stem rust caused major losses to North American wheat crops in the early 20th century. Stem rust disease was controlled for decades through the use of resistant wheat varieties bred in the 1950s by scientist Norman Borlaug and his colleagues. Widespread adoption of those varieties sparked the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

In 1999 a new, highly-virulent strain of the stem rust fungus emerged in eastern Africa. Spores of that strain and variants have spread rapidly and are threatening or overcoming the genetic resistance of many currently sown wheat varieties. Scientists worldwide joined forces in the early 2000s to develop new, resistant varieties and to monitor and control outbreaks of stem rust and yellow rust, as part of collaborations such as the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative led by Cornell University.

Barberry is a shrub found throughout the temperate and subtropical regions. Photo: CIMMYT archives
Barberry is a shrub found throughout the temperate and subtropical regions. Photo: John Innes Centre

The Communications Biology study shows that 2013 U.K. stem rust strain is related to TKTTF, a fungal race first detected in Turkey that spread across the Middle East and recently into Europe. It was the dominant race in the 2013 stem rust outbreak in Germany and infected 10,000 hectares of wheat in Ethiopia’s breadbasket the same year.

Because disease organisms mutate quickly to overcome crop resistance controlled by single genes, researchers are rushing to identify new resistance genes and to incorporate multiple genes into high-yielding varieties, according to Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat scientist who participated in the reported study.

“The greatest hope for achieving durable resistance to rust diseases is to make wheat’s resistance genetically complex, combining several genes and resistance mechanisms,” Singh explained.

Barberry, which serves as a spawning ground for the stem rust fungus, was largely eradicated from the U.K. and U.S. last century, greatly reducing the spread and genetic diversification of rust disease races. Now barberry is being grown again in the U.K. over the last decade, according to Diane G.O. Saunders, John Innes Centre scientist and co-author of the study.

“The late Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug said that the greatest ally of the pathogen is our short memory,” Saunders stated. “We recommend continued, intensive resistance breeding. We would also welcome work with conservationists of endangered, barberry-dependent insect species to ensure that planting of common barberry occurs away from arable land, thus safeguarding European cereals from a large-scale re-emergence of wheat stem rust.”

Click here to read the John Innes Centre media release about the Communications Biology report and view the report.

Seminar seeks to boost wheat production in West and Central Asia

Written by on . Posted in News.

The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia. Photo: CIMMYT
The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia. Photo: CIMMYT

KRASNODAR, Russia (CIMMYT) – The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia.

Wheat is a staple in Central and West Asia and is critical to food security in the region. The biannual traveling seminar allows breeders from across the region to tackle challenges like climate change’s impact on wheat production, the spread of rust disease and improving grain quality.

The seminar was first launched in 2007 by the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP), a partnership between Turkey’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas to bringing together IWWIP members from Central and West Asia to share the results, discuss challenges and develop future plans for cooperation. Previous seminars were held in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Through IWWIP, improved wheat varieties are annually distributed from the Facultative and Winter Wheat Observation Nursery in Turkey to more than 100 partners in 50 countries.  To date, more than 70 varieties have been released in Central and West Asia by IWWIP, covering up to 20 percent of all wheat grown in the region.

The seminar was held at the Krasnodar Agricultural Research Institute and Agricultural Research Center, attracting 74 participants from 17 countries in Central and West Asia, as well as Eastern and Western Europe.

Participants were shown wheat breeding and research plots, as well as multiplication of new barley and wheat varieties. The group was highly impressed by the level of breeding and research activities, the diversity of the germplasm and its yield potential. Varieties from the Krasnodar Institute are grown on several million hectares in Russia and other countries, contributing to regional and global food security. In the afternoon, several presentations were made from hosts and guests reviewing the current status of winter wheat improvement and regional collaboration. Participants also focused on breeding and agronomy activities.

Sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar participants. Photo: CIMMYT
Sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar participants. Photo: CIMMYT

The group also traveled to a farm in Rostov, Russia, that was demonstrating different winter wheat varieties and saw two seed production state farms that multiply the varieties from the Krasnodar Institute. All the fields visited were very well maintained, clean and with yield expectations exceeding 7-8 tons per hectare. More than two million hectares of wheat is grown in Rostov, providing about 8 percent of Russia’s total wheat.

Winter wheat varieties from Russian public breeding programs dominate about 95 percent of the country’s production area, though local and multinational private companies are increasingly emerging as key players in the sector.

A wrap up meeting was held with several presentations by the participants and the IWWIP strategy was presented and endorsed. Participants also stated their appreciation for the organizers, Krasnodar Agricultural Research Institute, and for IWWIP’s activities in developing and distributing germplasm. The event was supported by the Turkish government, the CGIAR Research Program on WHEAT and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Any questions about the seminar? Please contact Alexey Morgounov (a.morgounov@cgiar.org ) Fatih Ozdemir (fatihozde@hotmail.com) or Mesut Keser (M.Keser@cgiar.org)

A ton of seed shipped to the doomsday vault at Svalbard

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in News.

CIMMYT gene bank specialists — shown here with the shipment destined for Svalbard — conserve, study and share a remarkable living catalog of genetic diversity comprising over 28,000 unique seed collections of maize and over 140,000 of wheat (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT).

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Staff of the gene bank of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have sent 56 boxes of nearly 28,000 samples of maize and wheat seed from the center’s collections, to be stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Located on Spitsbergen Island in Norway’s remote Arctic Svalbard Archipelago, 1,300 kilometers south of the North Pole, the vault provides free, “safe deposit” cold storage for back-up samples of seed of humanity’s crucial food crops.

“CIMMYT has already sent  130,291 duplicate samples of our maize and wheat seed collections to Svalbard,” said Bibiana Espinosa, research associate in wheat genetic resources. “This brings the total to nearly  158,218 seed samples, which we store at Svalbard to guard against the catastrophic loss of maize and wheat seed and diversity, in case of disasters and conflicts.”

Thursday’s shipment contained 1,964 samples of maize seed and 25,963 samples of wheat and weighed nearly a ton, according to Espinosa.

The wheat seed came from 62 countries and nearly half the samples comprised “landraces” — locally-adapted varieties created through thousands of years of selection by farmers.

“Of the maize samples, 133 contained seed of improved varieties, 51 were of teosinte — maize’s direct ancestor — and 1,780 were of landraces,” said Marcial Rivas, research assistant for maize genetic resources. “Many landraces are in danger of permanent loss, as farmers who grew them have left the countryside to seek work and changing climates have altered the landraces’ native habitats.”

The government of Norway and the Crop Trust cover the cost of storage and upkeep of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, coordinating shipments in conjunction with the Nordic Genetic Resource Center.  Established in 2006, the Crop Trust supports the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide and helps to fund CIMMYT’s work to collect and conserve maize and wheat genetic resources.  CIMMYT’s maize and wheat germplasm bank is supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Genebanks.

Agricultural researchers forge new ties to develop nutritious crops and environmental farming

Written by Mike Listman on . Posted in News.

rothamsted
Photo: A. Cortes/CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT)—Scientists from two of the world’s leading agricultural research institutes will embark on joint research to boost global food security, mitigate environmental damage from farming, and help to reduce food grain imports by developing countries.

At a recent meeting, 30 scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Rothamsted Research, a UK-based independent science institute, agreed to pool expertise in research to develop higher-yielding, more disease resistant and nutritious wheat varieties for use in more productive, climate-resilient farming systems.

“There is no doubt that our partnership can help make agriculture in the UK greener and more competitive, while improving food security and reducing import dependency for basic grains in emerging and developing nations,” said Achim Dobermann, director of Rothamsted Research, which was founded in 1843 and is the world’s longest running agricultural research station.

Individual Rothamsted and CIMMYT scientists have often worked together over the years, but are now forging a stronger, broader collaboration, according to Martin Kropff, CIMMYT director general. “We’ll combine the expertise of Rothamsted in such areas as advanced genetics and complex cropping systems with the applied reach of CIMMYT and its partners in developing countries,” said Kropff.

Nearly half of the world’s wheat lands are sown to varieties that carry contributions from CIMMYT’s breeding research and yearly economic benefits from the additional grain produced are as high as $3.1 billion.

Experts predict that by 2050 staple grain farmers will need to grow at least 60 percent more than they do now, to feed a world population exceeding 9 billion while addressing environmental degradation and climate shocks.

Rothamsted and CIMMYT will now develop focused proposals for work that can be funded by the UK and other donors, according to Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program. “We’ll seek large initiatives that bring significant impact,” said Braun.

Wheat rust poses food security risk for global poor, says DFID’s Priti Patel

Written by on . Posted in Features.

David Hodson, CIMMYT senior scientist (L), describes the challenges posed by wheat rust to Priti Patel, Britain's international development secretary, during the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in London. Handout/DFID
David Hodson, CIMMYT senior scientist (L), describes the challenges posed by wheat rust to Priti Patel, Britain’s international development secretary, during the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in London. DFID/handout

LONDON (CIMMYT) – International wheat rust monitoring efforts are not only keeping the fast-spreading disease in check, but are now being deployed to manage risks posed by other crop diseases, said a scientist attending a major scientific event in London.

Although initially focused on highly virulent Ug99 stem rust, the rust tracking system – developed as part of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an international collaboration involving Cornell University and national agricultural research programs – is also used to monitor other fungal rusts and develop prediction models with the aim of helping to curtail their spread.

“We appear to be looking at some shifts in stem rust populations with the Digalu race and new variants increasing and spreading,” said David Hodson, a senior scientist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who showcased the latest research findings at the recent Grand Challenges meeting in London hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Our data reinforce the fact that we face threats from rusts per se and not just from the Ug99 race group – we are fortunate that international efforts laid the groundwork to establish a comprehensive monitoring system,” said Hodson, one of more than 1,200 international scientists at the gathering.

“The research investments are having additional benefits,” he told Priti Patel, Britain’s secretary of state for international development, explaining that the wheat rust surveillance system is now also being applied to the deadly Maize Lethal Necrosis disease in Africa.

“The learning from stem rust and investments in data management systems and other components of the tracking system have allowed us to fast-track a similar surveillance system for another crop and pathosystem.”

In a keynote address, echoed by an opinion piece published in London’s Evening Standard newspaper authored by Patel and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, Patel described the risks posed by wheat rust to global food security and some of the efforts funded by Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) to thwart it.

“Researchers at the University of Cambridge are working with the UK Met Office and international scientists to track and prevent deadly outbreaks of wheat rust which can decimate this important food crop for many of the world’s poorest people,” Patel said, referring to collaborative projects involving CIMMYT, funded by the Gates Foundation and DFID

Patel also launched a DFID research review at the meeting, committing the international development agency to continued research support and detailing how the UK intends to deploy development research and innovation funding of £390 million ($485 million) a year over the next four years.

Wheat improvement work by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers was highlighted in the research review as an example of high impact DFID research. Wheat improvement has resulted in economic benefits of $2.2 to $3.1 billion per year and almost half of all the wheat planted in developing countries.

Farming Systems Intensification in South Asia

Written by on . Posted in News.

WAGENINGEN, Netherlands — Although agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, heartland of the Green Revolution, is essential to the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, it is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change variability. To cope with climate change variability and impacts, several climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) have proved to increase crop productivity, resilience and adaptive capacity in the region’s agro-ecological zones. However, farmers’ perceptions of climate vulnerability and their response to CSAPs vary with their biophysical and socioeconomic circumstances, which can limit technology targeting and large-scale adoption by a diversity of farmers. Research aimed at understanding farming systems level opportunities and challenges has been conducted in order to promote sustainable agricultural intensification and develop a portfolio of CSAPs adapted to local conditions and diverse farm typologies.

With a similar objective, a workshop on farming systems analysis titled “Quantitative tools to explore future farming systems options and formalize trade-offs and synergies for their sustainable intensification in South Asia” was held at Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands, on 5-7 July 2016, under the aegis of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). Students, scientists and professors from ICAR, WUR, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), CIMMYT, the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), and state agriculture universities India participated in the event, which was jointly coordinated by Santiago López and M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, and Jeroen Groot, WUR.

Santiago Lopez welcomed the participants and mentioned the workshop was aimed at promoting, among other things, an understanding of farming systems modeling and its scope in smallholder systems of South Asia; sharing advances on the parametrization of FarmDesign models; sharing results of research undertaken by WUR students on applying quantitative systems analysis in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (Bihar, India); and promoting the exchange of ideas among participants and experts from advanced research institutes on future research and collaboration opportunities.

Bruno Gerard, Director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, highlighted the role farm level analysis plays in the program. Adam Komarek, IFPRI, talked about conservation agriculture and its role in increasing farm profits and reducing risks in western China. M.L. Jat provided his insights on how to promote large-scale adoption across Asia, while Gideon Kruseman from CIMMYT, Mexico, made a presentation on bio-economic modeling.

Jeroen Groot (WUR, FSE) gave a quick overview of FarmDesign and Fuzzy Cognitive mapping tools, while J.P. Tetrawal and H. S. Jat described how they applied the FarmDesign tool at two sites: Kota (India) and Karnal (India). A.K. Prusty and Vipin Kumar, ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research (ICAR-IIFSR), described activities being undertaken on integrated farming systems by ICAR-IIFSR and presented the results of FarmDesign analyses.

Challenges faced during FarmDesign parameterization and interpretation were presented by the participants and solutions were discussed. A visit to the computer lab of WUR’s Farming Systems Ecology (FSE) provided hands-on experience in applying FarmDesign. At a debugging session, participants were helped by the expertise of resource persons and helped each other learn specific applications of FarmDesign.

At a planning session aimed at exploring project options, it was decided that a FarmDesign user group should be created for exchanging ideas and helping each other address issues related to the application of FarmDesign. A workshop will be held in India in November, 2016, to review the progress of the work being carried out, explore funding opportunities, and establish a faculty exchange program for capacity building and skill development.

Workshop participants. Photo: CIMMYT

Making Farming Profitable: Scaling Climate-Smart Agriculture through Business Model Innovations

Written by on . Posted in News.

WAGENINGEN, Netherlands — Agriculture is not considered a profit making venture by the farming community. Emerging challenges of climate change hinder growth and make it necessary to disseminate and promote the adoption of technological advances among farmers. Today it is vital not only to increase productivity but also ensure resource sustainability. Hence persuading farmers to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices is critical for sustainably producing higher returns.

Under the aegis of the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), CIMMYT and Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands, undertook activities to develop and scale innovative CSA business models at climate-smart village (CSV) sites in South Asia. To consolidate the work done and plan future activities, a workshop titled “Climate Smart Agriculture: Business modeling and innovation platforms for scaling” was held at WUR on 4 July 2016. Twenty-five participants from CIMMYT, India’s NARS (ICAR, SAU), WUR, KIT and private organizations attended the session.

Setting the objectives and context of the workshop, M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, and Annemarie Groot, Alterra, welcomed the participants. During a brainstorming session on climate smart agriculture as a business model and on how to use innovative platforms to promote it, participants expressed their views and improved their understanding of the issues. Building on the input of participants, Jaclyn Rooker (WUR) provided an introduction to business models and value systems, using the case of the Happy Seeder in Punjab, India, as an example.

The issue of commercialization in agriculture was discussed by participants. The scope and opportunities for developing a business model and addressing challenges to business model innovations were discussed in detail. Local innovation platforms and the success of laser land leveling in India were presented by M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, South Asia, to illustrate how technology adoption can impact livelihoods. “Opportunities for new business models and local innovation platforms need to be further explored,” stated Jat.

Annemarie Groot presented an overview of innovation platforms for business development and scaling and the research undertaken on these subjects. The meeting concluded with a discussion on the challenges of future research on business modeling and innovation platforms for scaling CSA. By sharing work experiences and engaging in participatory planning, workshop participants succeeded in finding ways to change the mindset of farmers while providing necessary support and guidance.

Climate smart agriculture workshop participants. Photo: CIMMYT
Climate smart agriculture workshop participants. Photo: CIMMYT

Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit bestowed on WHEAT independent steering committee member

Written by on . Posted in News.

John R. Porter on the top floor of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) building in Paris. Porter was honored as a Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit at a ceremony on 1 March 2016 at the French Embassy in Denmark. Photo: John R. Porter
John R. Porter on the top floor of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) building in Paris. Porter was honored as a Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit at a ceremony on 1 March 2016 at the French Embassy in Denmark. Photo: John R. Porter

John R. Porter of The University of Copenhagen, the Natural Research Institute of the University of Greenwich, UK, and member of the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee, was granted Knight of the French Order of Agriculture Merit at a ceremony on 1 March.

The Order of Agricultural Merit is awarded to those that have made extraordinary contributions to agriculture via research or practice. The Order, which was established in 1883 by France’s Ministry of Agriculture, is one of the most important recognitions awarded in the country.

To become a knight, a person must be at least 30 years of age and have dedicated at least 15 years of service to the agricultural community, covering both developed and developing country farming.

“France has had an extremely important role in the development of agriculture and food production in Europe and the world. The production of food serves one of the most basic human needs, and this award and its history recognizes that fact,” said Porter in an acceptance speech at the French Embassy in Denmark. “I was extremely honored and surprised when I learned that I would be bestowed with this honor.”

Porter is best known for his pioneering work in the development of crop simulation models that are now regarded as being central to guiding research identifying new crop phenotypes, the impacts of and adaptation to climate change and carbon mitigation to the benefit of agriculture globally. He has also made major contributions to agriculture via his multi-disciplinary work in the response to arable crops, energy crops and complex agro-ecosystems to their environment with an emphasis on climate change, agronomy and ecosystem services.

Focusing on agriculture in the developing world, Porter took the initiative to bring the secretariat and hub of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), to his university in Copenhagen. He has also collaborated with European pasta manufacturers to develop methods to identify high quality sources of durum wheat prior to harvest by using a combination of models and remote sensing technologies.

Porter has published more than 140 papers in reviewed journals and has won three international prizes for his research and teaching. Apart from serving on the WHEAT Independent Steering Committee, he was appointed by the French Ministry of Agriculture and serves as a member of the Science Council of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and previously served as the president of the European Society for Agronomy.

Most recently, Porter was the lead author of a critically important chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on food production systems and food security for the IPCC 5th Assessment Report, which was the scientific bedrock of the COP21 agreement, signed December 2015.

Congratulations to John R. Porter on this prestigious award!

Will we feed humanity by 2050?

Written by on . Posted in News.

Bram Govaerts, Leader of CIMMYT's program on Sustainable Intensification in Latin America, speaks at the Oxford Farming Conference. Photo: CIMMYT
Bram Govaerts, Leader of CIMMYT’s program on Sustainable Intensification in Latin America, speaks at the Oxford Farming Conference. Photo: CIMMYT

“Imagine a sports car designed to travel at high speed on paved highways, running on a gravel road. It’s going to break down, isn’t it? The same thing happens when agricultural technologies are applied without using smart agronomy to increase input use efficiency, protect the environment and ensure sustainability,” said Bram Govaerts, Leader of CIMMYT’s program on Sustainable Intensification in Latin America.

Govaerts presented at a keynote speech titled “Ending hunger: Can we achieve humanity’s elusive goal by 2050?” at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, on 5-7 January. The conference has been held in Oxford for more than 70 years with the aim of contributing to the improvement and welfare of British agriculture. Farmers, researchers, politicians and economists from across the world attend the event. This year, the main theme was “Daring Agriculture,” including such subjects as global agriculture, innovation, sustainable intensification, technology and agribusiness.

As evidenced during the event, there are many challenges in agriculture. We need to produce more food with fewer resources and less environmental impact while reducing world hunger and poverty. In his speech, Govaerts highlighted the main challenges to achieving food security for a world population that is projected to reach nearly ten billion by 2050. These challenges include the growing demand for food, demographic changes and the impacts on agriculture of weather events such as El Niño. Govaerts also mentioned CIMMYT’s efforts aimed at fighting world hunger and how initiatives such as MasAgro are taking science to the farm.

“It was very exciting to talk about the sustainable strategies we’re working on with farmers, technicians, scientists, institutions and partners to be able to produce more with fewer resources and, especially, to produce intelligently by adapting technologies to the needs of farmers, by developing machine prototypes and by using appropriate varieties and post-harvest practices,” said Govaerts.

To see the presentation, click here.

Conservation agriculture expert at Oxford Farming Conference

Written by on . Posted in Press releases. 69 Comments on Conservation agriculture expert at Oxford Farming Conference

BramGovaertsMEDIA ADVISORY

WHAT: Bram Govaerts, strategic leader for Sustainable Intensification in Latin America and Latin America representative at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), will make keynote speech entitled “Ending hunger: Can we achieve humanity’s elusive goal by 2050?” at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, UK.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 10:30 a.m.

WHERE: South School, Examination Schools, University of Oxford, 75-81 High Street, Oxford, UK, OX1 4AS

ABOUT OFC: The Oxford Farming Conference has been held in Oxford for more than 70 years, attracting strong debate and exceptional speakers.

OTHER DETAILS: Bram Govaerts, who will be available for media interviews, will deliver the keynote Frank Parkinson Lecture sponsored by the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust, which aims to contribute to the improvement and welfare of British agriculture. The lecture will examine key challenges for achieving food security for a global population of 9.7 billion, which the U.N. projects will have grown 33 percent from a current 7.3 billion people by 2050. Demand for food, driven by population, demographic changes and increasing global wealth will rise more than 60 percent, according to a recent report from the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience. Govaerts will discuss such risks to agricultural production as:

  • The need for funding and political will to support technological innovations to improve farming techniques for small landholders in the global south
  • How mobile technology could benefit agricultural research, development and relaying innovations to farmers
  • Machinery prototypes, which can help transform agricultural practices
  • How minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation can boost yields, increase profit and protect the environment
  • Climate change: carbon sequestration debate; soil does not sequester the carbon needed to mitigate the impact of climate change as some policy makers suggest
  • Climate change: How CIMMYT is working to produce drought and heat tolerant varieties of maize and wheat
  • Why women are less likely than men to uptake conservation agricultural practices in developing countries
  • How CIMMYT connects smallholder maize farmers in Mexico with top restaurants and chefs in New York City
  • The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: A recipe for success in achieving food security
  • MasAgro: Mexico’s Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture project involving more than 100 organizations, offering training, technical support, seeds
  • Dangerous diseases: How CIMMYT is producing varieties resistant to Maize Lethal Necrosis and Tar Spot Complex

MORE INFORMATION:

Julie Mollins, CIMMYT communications, by email at j.mollins@cgiar.org or by mobile at +52 1 595 106 9307 or by Twitter @jmollins or by Skype at juliemollins

Genevieve Renard, head of CIMMYT communications, at g.renard@cgiar.org or  +52 1 595 114 9880 or @genevrenard

ABOUT CIMMYT:

CIMMYT, headquartered in El Batan, Mexico, is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and wheat- and maize-based farming systems. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat systems to improve food security and livelihoods. CIMMYT is a member of the 15-member CGIAR Consortium and leads the Consortium Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.

CIMMYT website: http://staging.cimmyt.org

CGIAR website: http://www.cgiar.org

BACKGROUND:

Oxford Farming Conference

Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust

United Nations population projections 

Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience

 Q+A: Young scientist wins award for “taking it to the farmer”

Gender bias may limit uptake of climate-smart farm practices, study shows

Race for food security can be won, Mexico agriculture secretary says

Global conference underscores complex socio-economic role of wheat

Click here to follow Bram Govaerts on Twitter

Balancing economy and ecology: agriculture vs. nature

Written by on . Posted in Blogs.

Natural enemies of stem borer – a major maize pest in southern Ethiopia – are more abundant in landscapes with more trees and forest patches. In this picture, Yodit Kebede, Ph.D. researcher co-supervised by Wageningen University and CIMMYT, checks insects in a yellow-pan trap. Photo: Frédéric Baudron

“The prosperous still have a strong carbon footprint. And, the world’s billions at the bottom of the development ladder are seeking space to grow,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his opening speech at the COP21 climate talks in Paris, where world leaders recently gathered to come to an agreement that will slow and eventually stop global emissions of greenhouse gases that threaten the survivability of our planet.

Modi and other leaders have called for climate solutions that reconcile the right of developing countries to grow and environmental protection. If implemented correctly, a solution exists in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), essentially “blueprints” for what post-2020 climate actions each country intends to take based on past contributions, future development needs, and opportunities to exploit alternative energies to fossil fuels. This allows the developing world to balance the need to grow while moving to clean energy by soliciting support through climate finance and other measures from developed countries.

Reconciliation of the right to develop and environmental protection must move beyond global dialogue, and be put into practice in every community struggling with the effects of environmental degradation and poverty.

Seventy percent of the “billions at the bottom” Modi refers to live in rural areas. A majority of these people suffer from land degradation – the long-term loss of an ecosystem’s services – due to climate change in combination with unsustainable crop and livestock management practices.

“Agriculture undermines the very resources it depends on,” says Frédéric Baudron, CIMMYT Systems Agronomist. “A new paradigm is needed to sustainably achieve global food security.” Baudron is a lead author of the chapter “Response Options Across the Landscape” in the recently released global assessment report “Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition.”

Like the INDCs, landscape approaches may offer a compromise to achieve food production, natural resource conservation, and livelihood security goals, according to the report’s chapter. “Landscape configurations exist not only to minimize tradeoffs between conservation and food security and nutrition, but also to create synergies between these two goals,” argue Baudron and his fellow authors.

“Cultivated fields are not green deserts but may be part of the habitat of several species of importance for conservation,” says Baudron. “In many human-dominated ecosystems, some species can be dependent on agricultural practices such as extensive grazing in Europe or shifting cultivation in tropical forests. Conversely, biodiversity may contribute to crop and livestock productivity through the ecosystem services it provides, such as pollination or pest control.”

According to recent research conducted by CIMMYT and its partners in southern Ethiopia, diets of rural families living in diverse landscapes where trees are retained tend to be more diverse than diets of rural families living in simplified landscapes dominated by annual crops. Photo: Frédéric Baudron

“Ongoing research conducted by CIMMYT and its partners in southern Ethiopia’s maize- and wheat-based farming systems suggests that maintaining trees and forest patches in production landscapes is not only good for the environment and biodiversity, but contributes to the maintenance of farming system productivity and resilience,” according to Baudron. “Farms embedded in diverse landscape mosaics also produce much more diverse and nutritious food.”

Landscape approaches are also closely associated with the concept of food sovereignty, which promotes the right of people to define their own food production and consumption at the local, national, and global level. Community level engagement with local food and agricultural systems also creates an ideal setting to engage communities for more sustainable management of food and agricultural systems.

“Ultimately, this is about acknowledging diversity as a fundamental property in the design of more sustainable farming systems,” says Baudron. “The question is: what configurations are optimal in different contexts? Answering this question will require a much higher level of partnership between conservation organizations and agricultural agencies.”