CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds presents a new proposal for expanding the wheat network to include other major food crops and speed farmers’ adoption of vital technologies. Photo: CIMMYT archives.
A little-known global research network founded 50 years ago and supported by diverse funders — including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia — has helped keep the daily bread of over 2.5 billion resource-poor consumers from disappearing under the onslaught of rising temperatures and virulent new crop disease strains, to mention a few threats. Nowadays, the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN) shares and tests as many as 1,000 breeding lines yearly at 700 field stations representing the world’s 12 major wheat-growing environments.
Now, a Financial Times editorial by CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds presents a new proposal for expanding the wheat network to include other major food crops and speed farmers’ adoption of vital technologies that can end hunger and address climate change. The idea has the support of experts from leading funding and development agencies.
There are no easy fixes nor can business as usual continue, if humankind is to reduce the climate footprint of global agriculture while intensifying farming to meet rising food demands, according to an international scientist who has studied agriculture and climate interactions for nearly three decades.
“Climate change is a threat multiplier, intensifying the challenges of population growth, food insecurity, poverty, and malnutrition,” said Clare Stirling, a scientist in the sustainable intensification program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “With almost 60% of global food production coming from rainfed agriculture and more than 650 million people dependent on rainfed farming in Africa alone, our food system is already highly vulnerable to changing climates.”
Stirling, who is CIMMYT’s liaison with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), believes that agriculture—including smallholder agriculture—can play a key role in meeting greenhouse gas emission targets, but only with combined and coordinated efforts that cross institutional and disciplinary boundaries.
CIMMYT contributes through a systems approach to developing and promoting climate smart technologies—including drought tolerant maize and wheat varieties, conservation agriculture, and precision nutrient and water management—as well as research on climate services, index-based insurance for farmers whose crops are damaged by bad weather, and data and models for greenhouse gas emissions in India and Mexico.
“Take the case of India, the world’s second-largest food producer,” Stirling explained. “Mitigation options for crops, of which rice-wheat systems are a major component, include improved water management in rice, more precise use of nitrogen fertilizer, preventing the burning of crop residues and promoting zero or reduced tillage, depending on local conditions and practices. With the right policies and training for farmers, these options could spread quickly to reduce emissions by as much as 130 Megatons of CO2e per year from the crop sector alone. The big challenge is achieving large-scale adoption for significant mitigation to occur.”
Science needed for local mitigation targets
Born in Malawi and having spent her early childhood in Zimbabwe, young Stirling also lived a year with her parents and siblings in a house trailer on a farm in Devon, United Kingdom. “Most of my childhood and teen years were spent living in villages, riding horses, and working on farms during school holidays. Out of this came a desire to work in agriculture and overseas.”
Stirling obtained a bachelor’s degree in plant science and a doctor’s degree in environmental crop physiology at Sutton Bonnington, University of Nottingham, U.K., performing fieldwork for the latter at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderbad, India.
As a Ph.D. student at Nottingham, she also joined a research group under the late Professor John Monteith that was quantifying relationships among crop growth, radiation, and water use. The resulting equations underpin many of today’s crop simulation models. “My research since has focused on environmental interactions and crop growth, so climate change became an important part of this, starting with an M.Sc. course on the topic that I set up in Essex University in the 1990s.”
Among the intractable challenges Stirling sees is soil degradation. “Unless this is addressed, it will be impossible to sustainably intensify or build climate resilience into food systems,” she explained. “We must manage limited organic matter and fertilisers better and more efficiently, to achieve healthier soils.”
She is also concerned that the climate science to support national and local climate change adaptation planning is much less certain than that which informs long-term global scale targets. “CIMMYT has an invaluable role with its global and strategic research mandate to develop technologies that will raise productivity and resource use efficiency in future, warmer climates,” Stirling asserted.
“Local climate predictions are likely to remain uncertain and adapting to current climate variability may not be enough for long-term adaptation in many places, with the surprises that may be in store,” Stirling added.
“International organizations such as CIMMYT need to offer stress-tolerant, high-yielding germplasm and sustainable management systems, as well as harnessing big data and digitization, to transform adaptation to deal with future, more extreme climates. Finally, future farmers will need to get the most out of good conditions and good years because, the way things are headed, there may be little hope for coping in bad years.”
Read about research by Stirling and colleagues:
Click here to read “Tek B. Sapkota, Jeetendra P. Aryal, Arun Khatri-Chhetri, Paresh B. Shirsath, Ponraj Arumugam, and Clare M. Stirling. 2017. Identifying high-yield low-emission pathways for the cereal production in South Asia.Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change DOI 10.1007/s11027-017-9752-1.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – A scientist whose work is projected to significantly increase wheat production for smallholder farmers around the world has won the 2017 Ted Crosbie MBBISP Impact Award presented by Monsanto.
Bhoja Raj Basnet, who heads a hybrid wheat-breeding program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the award on the sidelines of World Food Prize celebrations in Des Moines, Iowa.
Basnet was recognized as the former recipient of Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program (MBBISP) whose work since graduation has developed beyond his academic experience. The program provided support for his doctoral studies at Texas A&M University.
“He received the award for the impact his work has had and will continue to have on smallholder farmers,” said Bonnie Finger, Jen Jacobs and Stella Salvo, the Monsanto team that liaises with Ed Runge, director of the scholars program at Texas A&M University.
“Monsanto truly wants to improve lives through better harvests, and the aim of this award was to improve the lives of smallholder farmers,” Finger said. “Dr. Basnet’s work on hybrid wheat has the potential to make a huge impact.”
Runge tracks the progress of Beachell-Borlaug alumni and led the judging panel, which was comprised of world-renowned scientists and World Food Prize laureates, with Finger, Jacobs and Salvo. Since 2008, 89 scholars have received $13 million in funding through the program.
Basnet, who grew up on a one-acre subsistence farm in southeastern Nepal, studied plant breeding at Texas A&M University, receiving the Beachell-Borlaug scholarship in 2009 and graduating with a doctoral degree in 2012.
Since 2014, Basnet has led CIMMYT’s research to develop tools and technology to produce commercially viable hybrid wheat varieties, which could lead to a 15 to 20 percent improvement in yield potential.
Hybrid wheat is created by intentionally crossbreeding two genetically distinct wheat lines to produce offspring that combine the best traits of the parents, a process that can take many years. Traits are chosen to achieve such characteristics as increased grain yield, heat, drought or stress tolerance.
“I’m thrilled to receive the award,” Basnet said. “I’m truly honored that my team’s work, which has massive potential to increase wheat production globally, has been recognized in this way. It’s so encouraging to receive support for our project and my work since graduation.”
The award honors the memory of Ted Crosbie, former vice president of Global Plant Breeding and leader of Integrated Farming Systems for Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology company, as well as Iowa’s chief technology officer, who died at age 65 in 2016.
In Nepal, collective action helps improve farmers’ incomes. Photo: CIMMYT.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study examines the role of collective resource management in conflict.
Climate-induced migration can spur competition for resources such as cropland and freshwater, and stress or undermine existing social institutions according to the authors of the new study. The food security crisis and international ‘land grabs’ have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor.
The study focuses on how collective action in natural resource competition can strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict.
The scientists identified three action recommendations: using policy interventions to promote collectively managed natural resources, support natural resource management institutions to expand their ability to support collective action in response to competition and increase measures to affect the action arena by shifting incentives toward cooperative resolutions of resource conflicts and enhancing conflict resolution processes.
The authors note that stakeholders cannot write collective action into existence, but that collective natural resource management under effective guidance has been an effective peacebuilding mechanism.
Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management. Ratner, B.D.; Meinzen-Dick, R.; Hellin, Jon; Mapedza, E.; Unruh, E.; Veening, W.; Haglund, E.; May, C.; Bruch, C.. International Journal of the Commons 11 (2): 877-906. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.768Netherlands. Uopen Journals.
Land use and agricultural change dynamics in SAT watersheds of southern India. Ahmed, I.M., Murali Krishna Gumma, Shalander Kumar, Craufurd, P., Rafi, I.M., Amare Haileslassie, In: Current Science, vol. 110, no. 9, p. 1704-1709.
Linkages and interactions analysis of major effect drought grain yield QTLs in rice. Vikram, P., Mallikarjuna Swamy, B.P., Dixit, S., Trinidad, J., Sta Cruz, T., Maturan, P.C., Amante, M., Arvind Kumar, In: PLoS One, vol. 11, no. 3: e0151532.
Long term effect of conservation agriculture in maize rotations on total organic carbon, physical and biological properties of a sandy loam soil in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains. Parihar, C.M., Yadav, M.R., Jat, S.L., Singh, A.K., Kumar, B., Pradhan, S., Chakraborty, D., Jat, M.L., Jat, R.K., Saharawat, Y.S., Yadav, O.P. In: Soil and Tillage Research, vol.161, p.116-128.
Maize maintains growth in response to decreased nitrate supply through a highly dynamic and developmental stage-specific transcriptional response. Plett, D., Baumann, U., Schreiber, A.W., Holtham, L., Kalashyan, E., Toubia, J., Nau, J., Beatty, M., Rafalski, A., Dhugga, K., Tester, M,. Garnett, T., Kaiser, B.N. In: Plant biotechnology journal, vol.14, no.1, p.342-353.
Mapping of spot blotch disease resistance using NDVI as a substitute to visual observation in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Suneel Kumar, Roder, M.S., Singh, R.P., Kumar, S., Ramesh Chand, Joshi, A.K., Kumar, U. In: Molecular Breeding, vol.36, no.95, p.1-11.
Independent introductions and admixtures have contributed to adaptation of European maize and its American counterparts. Brandenburg, J.T., Tristan Mary-Huard, Rigaill, G., Hearne, S., Corti, H., Joets, J., Vitte, C., Charcosset, A., Nicolas, S.D., Tenaillon, M.I. In: PLoS Genetics, v.13, no.3: e1006666.
Maximizing maize quality, productivity and profitability through a combined use of compost and nitrogen fertilizer in a semi-arid environment in Pakistan. Iqbal, S., Thierfelder, C., Zaman Khan, H., Hafiz Muhammad Rashad Javeed, Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Shehzad. In: Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, v. 107, p. 197-213.
Modeling preference and willingness to pay for Drought Tolerance (DT) in maize in rural Zimbabwe. Kassie, G., Awudu Abdulai, Greene, W.H., Shiferaw, B., Tsedeke Abate, Amsal Tesfaye, Tarekegne Sutcliffe, C. In: World Development, v. 94, p. 465-477.
Nitrogen transformations in modern agriculture and the role of biological nitrification inhibition. Coskun, D., Britto, D.T., Weiming Shi, Kronzucker, H.J. In: Nature Scientific reports, v. 3, no. 17074, p. 1-10.
Occurrence of wheat blast in Bangladesh and its implications for South Asian wheat production. Chowdhury, A.K., Mahender Singh Saharan, Aggrawal, R., Malaker, P.K., Barma, N.C.D., Tiwari, T.P., Duveiller, E., Singh, P.K., Srivastava, A., Sonder, K., Singh, R.P., Braun, H.J., Joshi, A.K. In: Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, vol. 77, no. 1, p. 1-9.
Maize (also known as corn) seed samples in CIMMYT’s seed bank. CIMMYT/file
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Scientist Kevin Pixley holds a large, clear plastic bottle up to the light to illuminate the yellow corn kernels inside. He is leading a project to catalogue 178,000 corn and wheat seeds at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) seed bank near Mexico City.
“The difficulty farmers and researchers face is that no matter how hard they look they can’t see inside a seed to predict its hardiness – they never know whether it will withstand the growing conditions it will experience,” said Pixley, who will speak at the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue symposium in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 18.
CIMMYT’s mission is to apply maize and wheat science for improved livelihoods around the world.
“Our seed bank provides a sub-zero temperature refuge for the largest collection of maize and wheat seeds in the world,” explained Pixley, who leads CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) project. “Recent technological advances are accelerating our understanding of the inner workings of these seeds, making them ever more useful to researchers and farmers.
“Through conservation, characterization and use of natural biodiversity, we’re not just helping to improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers in the present, but we’re building our capacity to thwart future threats to food security,” Pixley said. “Every year we ship some 300,000 maize and wheat seed samples to farmers and researchers.”
Through the SeeD partnership between CIMMYT, Mexico’s ministry of agriculture (SAGARPA) and the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project, scientists are developing the capacity for farmers to prepare for specific or as yet unanticipated needs.
“Seeds of Discovery offers the next generation of Mexican scientists the training and technologies they need to support food security,” said Jorge Armando Narvaez Narvaez, Mexico’s sub-secretary of agriculture.
“In some ways our work has only just begun, but we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we would be thanks to applying new technologies to secure the food and nutrition needs of our growing population,” Pixley said.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Without proper control methods, the Fall Armyworm (FAW) menace could lead to maize yield losses estimated at $2.5 to $6.2 billion a year in just 12 of the 28 African countries where the pest has been confirmed, scientists from the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, (CABI) reported recently.
The devastating insect-pest, which originated in the Americas, is capable of causing damage to more than 80 different plant species, although the pest prefers maize, a major food staple in sub-Saharan Africa on which millions of people depend.
Scientists estimate that Africa will need an investment of at least $150 to $200 million annually over at least the next five years to mitigate potential Fall Armyworm damage through the use of effective management options, and to undertake research on strategic areas for devising and deploying an integrated pest management strategy.
“Fall Armyworm is one of the world’s most deadly crop pests, effectively managing this insect-pest requires an urgent multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder response,” said B.M Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.
Prasanna will be participating in the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, and will part of a panel discussion, on October 19, titled “Fall Armyworm: A clear and present danger to African Food Security” to discuss the strategic approach for managing the pest in Africa. This will follow a short presentation on October 18, by Pedro Sanchez, the 2002 World Food Prize laureate, on the status and impact of Fall Armyworm in Africa.
As part of an internationally coordinated strategic integrated pest management approach to tackle the FAW in Africa, CIMMYT and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), together with experts from several national and international research organizations, are currently developing a comprehensive field manual. The manual will provide protocols and best management practices related to Fall Armyworm scouting, monitoring and surveillance; biological control; pesticides and pesticide risk management; host plant resistance; and sustainable agro-ecological management of Fall Armyworm, especially in the African context.
Regional training-of-trainers and awareness generation workshops are also being planned for November 2017 in southern and eastern Africa, and in West Africa in the first quarter of 2018. The training workshops are aimed at supporting pest control and extension actors to effectively scout, determine the need for intervention, and appropriately apply specific practices to control the pest in maize and other important crops in Africa.
For further information or to arrange interviews on-site or remotely, please contact Julie Mollins, CIMMYT communications: j.mollins (at) cgiar (dot) org
WHO: B.M. Prasanna has been director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program since 2010 and the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE since June 2015. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Prasanna leads a multi-disciplinary CIMMYT-Global Maize Program team of 45 scientists located in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. Prior to joining CIMMYT, Prasanna served as a faculty member and maize geneticist at the Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), for nearly two decades. Since 2012, Prasanna has led intensive multi-institutional efforts to effectively tackle Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) in eastern Africa. He oversaw the establishment of a state-of-the-art Maize Doubled Haploid (DH) Facility in Kiboko, Kenya in 2013. He has also led the development of several successful public-private partnership projects and recognized with several awards and honors in India for his contributions to maize research, post-graduate teaching and human resource development.
ABOUT BORLAUG DIALOGUE: An annual three-day conference that attracts more than 1,200 delegates from around the world to discuss global food security and nutrition. The Borlaug Dialogue, which features scientists, policymakers, business executives and farmers, coincides with World Food Day and the awarding of the World Food Prize.
ABOUT CIMMYT: The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center – is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. CIMMYT website: http://staging.cimmyt.org
Global food production must increase by 70 percent to meet a population of more than 9 billion in 2050. India, with a current population of 1.3 billion and rising, is central to this challenge. Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study identifies the key ways to keep up with India’s rising food demand while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.
Global food production must increase by 70 percent to meet a population of more than 9 billion in 2050. India, with a current population of 1.3 billion and rising, is central to this challenge.
As incomes rise in developing countries, many go through ‘nutrition transition’ away from staple crops towards high greenhouse gas-producing foods like meat and dairy. India, however, has a cultural preference for a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet — dairy, eggs, and plant-based products — and is likely to differ in this regard from similar developing countries, like China or Brazil.
In India, the majority of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are produced from agricultural inputs, farm machinery, soil displacement, residue management and irrigation.
Authors in a recent study from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have identified higher emissions from continuously flooded rice, compared to rice which has more frequent periods of water drainage, and a wide range of emissions for other crops due to variation in fertilizer application.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has placed emphasis on mitigation of greenhouse gases from agriculture and a number of strategies have been proposed. Measuring emissions from different crops and management systems can help identify the most efficient way to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions while keeping up with food demand.
Genomic regions associated with root traits under drought stress in tropical maize (Zea mays L.). Zaidi, P.H., Seetharam, K., Krishna, G., Krishnamurthy, S.L., Gajanan Saykhedkar, Babu, R., Zerka, M., Vinayan, M.T., Vivek, B. In: PLoS One, vol.11, no.10: e0164340.
Global challenges and urgency for partnerships to deploy genetic resources. Sukhwinder-Singh, Vikram, P., Sansaloni, C.P., Pixley, K.V. In: Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources, vol. 29, issue 3, p. 351-353.
High accuracy of predicting hybrid performance of Fusarium head blight resistance by mid‑parent values in wheat. Miedaner, T., Schulthess, A., Gowda, M., Reif, J.C., Longin, F.H. In: Theoretical and Applied Genetics, vol 130, no. 2, p. 461–470.
Identification and functional characterization of the AGO1 ortholog in maize. Dongdong Xu, Hailong Yang, Cheng Zou, Wen-Xue Li, Yunbi Xu, Chuanxiao Xie In: Journal of integrative plant biology, vol.58, no.8, p.749-758.
Identification of genomic associations for adult plant resistance in the background of popular South Asian wheat cultivar, PBW343. 2016. Huihui Li, Sukhwinder-Singh, Bhavani, S., Singh, R.P., Sehgal, D., Basnet, B.R., Vikram, P., Burgueño, J., Huerta-Espino, J. In: Frontiers in Plant Science, vol.7, no.1674, p.1-18.
Genomic Selection for increased yield in Synthetic-Derived Wheat. 2017. Dunckel, S., Crossa, J., Shuangye Wu, Bonnett, D.G., Poland, J. In: Crop Science, v. 57, p. 713-725.
Germinate 3: development of a common platform to support the distribution of experimental data on crop wild relatives. 2017. Shaw, P., Raubach, S. Hearne, S., Dreher, K.A., Glenn Bryan, McKenzie, G., Milne, I., Gordon Stephen, Marshall, D. In: Crop Science, v. 57, p.1-15.
Greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural food production to supply Indian diets: Implications for climate change mitigation. 2017. Vetter, S.H., Sapkota, T.B., Hillier, J., Stirling, C., Macdiarmid, J.I., Aleksandrowicz, L., Green, R., Joy, E.J.M., Dangour, A.D., Smith, P. In: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment v. 237, p. 234-241.
How climate-smart is conservation agriculture (CA)? its potential to deliver on adaptation, mitigation and productivity on smallholder farms in southern Africa. 2017. Thierfelder, C., Chivenge, P., Mupangwa, W., Rosenstock, T., Lamanna, C., Eyre, J.X. In: Food Security, vol. 9, no. 3, p. 537–560.
Identification and molecular characterization of novel LMW-m and -s glutenin genes, and a chimeric -m/-i glutenin gene in 1A chromosome of three diploid Triticum species. 2017. Cuesta, S., Alvarez, J.B., Guzman, C. In: Journal of Cereal Science, v. 74, p. 46-55.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Modern data systems are essential to monitor, manage and plan actions taken by governments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), an advisory body to the United Nations Secretary General, and to the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReENDS), an independent group of international experts working on data-related fields.
However, government officials and policy makers around the world are burdened by the challenge of finding reliable data for sustainable development planning, decision making and program design.
To overcome this obstacle public and private institutions must help governments gather, curate, produce, analyze and disseminate information for SDG planning, implementation and assessment, according to a new study by members of the SDSN TReNDS group published recently at the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD).
Counting on the World: Building Modern Data Systems for Sustainable Development, to which the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) contributed as a member of the SDSN TReNDS panel, recommends a collaborative approach based on multi-stakeholder data partnerships to develop modern statistical systems that can provide policy makers with evidence-based information for SDG work.
The report explains the types of data that are needed to plan for sustainable development and offers a roadmap to build 21st-century data systems to monitor and achieve SDGs. These modern systems are conceived to help governments prepare for and respond to different types of crises, access real-time information for effective action and administration, track progress and adjust course towards the SDGs. Study findings indicate that effective public programs will be the result of informed decision making processes assisted by high-quality, disaggregated and geo-referenced data.
To bring about a data revolution, the report urges governments to invest in education and training, enter into technical partnerships and seek technology exchanges with the private sector to develop statistical capacity. Ultimately, countries should be able to offer high quality data and statistics to public officials, researchers, entrepreneurs and interested citizens by developing such capacity.
In its final section, the report details a roadmap for urgent action that identifies the leading actors who should be responsible for implementing the recommendations and a time frame for reaching concrete results.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — When Francelino Rodrigues started at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in 2013, the majority of the maize and wheat trials were still being carried out by walking through the field and taking measurements manually.
Through a collaborative work initiative with colleagues from maize and wheat breeding programs, and with support from senior scientists, Rodrigues brought a whole new world of digital mapping and proximal high-resolution soil sensing to the center’s trials thanks to his background in precision agriculture.
Precision agriculture makes use of technologies and farmers’ knowledge to determine the quantity, location and time resources need to be applied to grow crops. The information gained allows farmers to farm more sustainably; using less while maintaining and improving yields.
“I first discovered precision agriculture during an agricultural engineering undergraduate in Brazil,” explained Rodrigues. “I was fascinated by the idea of joining technology and agriculture, so I ended up going on to complete a master’s and a doctorate in precision agriculture applying it to coffee, sugarcane, and cereals crops.”
After completing his doctorate with an internship at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), an Australian government agency for scientific research, Rodrigues realized the importance of agricultural research for development and took on his post-doctoral position at CIMMYT within the biometrics team in remote sensing and precision agriculture.
“Remote sensing can provide information at different scales and for a range of applications, from crop management to high-throughput phenotyping and landscape assessment,” said Rodrigues, whose research focuses on the analysis and interpretation of spatial and temporal agricultural data sets built up by the use of proximal and remote sensing technologies, then seeing how it can be applied across CIMMYT’s work.
Preparing for radiometric calibration for a multispectral flight over maize Tar Spot Complex disease screening; CIMMYT’s station, Agua Fria, Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT archives.
Remote sensing devices make it possible to observe the dynamics from single plants up to entire landscapes and continents as they change over time by capturing radiation from across the electromagnetic spectrum.
“Precision agriculture and remote sensing technologies are used by CIMMYT to develop tools and practices to help farmers manage their crops more efficiently, to speed up the breeding process by rapidly assessing plant traits and to better characterize agricultural landscapes as a whole,” he said.
According to Rodrigues, one of the greatest challenges is making precision agriculture accessible to smallholder farmers who don’t have the means to access new and expensive technology. He is currently working on a public-private project using remote sensing data assimilation and crop modeling to build an online platform that farmers can use freely in their fields to make crop management decisions.
“Since I arrived at CIMMYT I have been exposed to a global network of world-class scientists,” said Rodrigues. “It encourages me to pursue my passions and allowed me to do what I love; good science that improves lives.”
Rodrigues is excited about the long-term impact of CIMMYT’s research and positive about the future. “I love to work with a team of scientists from different disciplines and see that knowledge and results we generate contribute to a wider agenda,” he said.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study shows how wheat breeders can more efficiently increase yield and improve their selections by using modern genetic tools.
Wheat is the most widely cultivated crop in the world, and provides one fifth of the protein and calories consumed globally. Demand for wheat by 2050 is predicted to increase by 70 percent from today’s levels due to population growth and dietary changes, but new diseases, diminishing resources and climate change are making it harder for farmers to meet future needs.
Researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently found that spring wheat breeders can incorporate genetic testing with traditional methods to increase yield and quality faster than ever before.
The study’s authors examined the effects different environments had on spring wheat yield. By using genetic selection, they were able to predict complex traits more efficiently than if they had only used the traditional method of pedigree selection, where researchers choose the best plants from each generation to use for breeding the next generation.
According to the authors, developing genetic selection models is an important step to accelerate the rate of genetic gains and grain yields in plant breeding.
Genome-wide association study in wheat identifies resistance to the cereal cyst nematode Heterodera Filipjevi. Pariyar, S.R., Dababat, A.A., Sannemann, W., Erginbas-Orakci, G., Elashry, A., Siddique, S., Morgounov, A.I., Leon, J., Grundler, F. In: Phytopathology, vol. 106, no.10, p.1128-1138.
Genomic characterization of phenylalanine ammonia lyase gene in buckwheat. Thiyagarajan, K., Vitali, F., Tolaini, V., Galeffi, P., Cantale, C., Vikram, P., Sukhwinder-Singh, De Rossi, P., Nobili, C., Procacci, S., Del Fiore, A., Antonin, A., Presenti, O., Brunori, A. In: PLoS One, vol.11, no.3: e0151187.
Genomic prediction models for grain yield of spring bread wheat in diverse agro-ecological zones. Saint Pierre, C., Burgueño, J., Fuentes Dávila, G., Figueroa López, P., Solís Moya, E., Ireta Moreno, J., Hernández Muela, V.M., Zamora Villa, V., Vikram, P., Mathews, K., Sansaloni, C.P., Sehgal, D., Jarquín, D., Wenzl, P., Sukhwinder-Singh, Crossa, J. In: Nature Scientific reports, vol.6, no. 27312.
Genomic prediction of genotype x environment interaction kernel regression models. Cuevas, J., Soberanis, V., Perez-Elizalde, S., Pérez-Rodríguez, P., De los Campos, G., Montesinos-Lopez, O.A., Burgueño, J., Crossa, J. In: The Plant Genome, vol.9, no.3, p.1-20.
Genomic prediction using phenotypes from pedigreed lines with no marker data. Ashraf, B., Edriss, V., Akdemir, D., Autrique, E., Bonnett, D.G., Janss, L., Singh, R.P., Jannink, J.L., Crossa, J. In: Crop Science, vol. 56, no. 3, p. 957-964.
Genetic gains in yield and yield related traits under drought stress and favorable environments in a maize population improved using marker assisted recurrent selection. Bankole, F., Menkir, A., Olaoye, G., Crossa, J., Hearne, S., Unachukwu, N., Gedil, M. In: Frontiers in Plant Science, v.8, no.808.
Genetic yield gains in CIMMYT’s international elite Spring Wheat yield trials by modeling the Genotype X environment interaction. Crespo-Herrera, L.A., Crossa, J., Huerta-Espino, J., Autrique, E., Mondal, S., Velu, G., Vargas, M., Braun, H.J., Singh, R.P. In: Crop Science, v. 57, p.789-801.
Genome-wide association mapping and genome-wide prediction of anther extrusion in CIMMYT spring wheat. Muqaddasi, Q.H., Reif, J.C., Zou Li, Basnet, B.R., Dreisigacker, S., Roder, M.S. In: Euphytica, v. 213, no. 73, p.1-7.
Genome-Wide prediction of metabolic enzymes, pathways, and gene clusters in plants. Schlapfer, P., Zhang, P., Chuan Wang, Taehyong Kim, Banf, M., Lee Chae, Dreher, K.A., Chavali, A.K., Nilo-Poyanco, R., Bernard, T., Kahn, D., Rhee, S.Y. In: Plant Physiology, v. 173, p. 2041-2059.
1,000 people from across the globe were selected to participate in a 10-day innovation lab in August to find transformative solutions to development. Photo: UNLEASH
“Innovation” may be just another development buzzword, but adopting the principles behind it is crucial if organizations hope to attract funding and achieve lasting impact.
Finding and applying new approaches to solve a problem or unmet need was, like many development concepts, first applied by the private-sector. Innovation is critical for companies to foster an environment where creative ideas are turned into new and successful products, in order to gain a competitive edge.
However, this process is inherently risky – new ideas take time and money to bring to fruition, and experimenting is not a viable option for development organizations with limited funding serving people with limited resources.
That’s why innovation labs – specific areas or events dedicated to brainstorming ideas and working on new products, technological or otherwise – can serve as “safe” spaces for organizations to explore unconventional, even radical ideas to inspire change or uncover new opportunities that could enhance their goals.
Daniela Vega (center in red) and team working on sustainable supply chains in the fashion industry at UNLEASH. Photo courtesy of D. Vega/CIMMYT
“Innovation allows us to explore radical ideas that can potentially create disruptive solutions to some of the big challenges we work with,” said Daniela Vega, a projects coordinator and liaison officer to the Americas at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Vega was one of 1,000 young people from 129 countries who recently participated in UNLEASH, a 10-day innovation lab in Denmark, to develop transformative solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a 17-goal development agenda launched by the United Nations to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all by 2030.
“Creative ideas and innovative solutions to sustainable livelihoods should be a core component of what we do,” said David Guerena, a soil scientist and systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Guerena was part of one of 200 teams that were split across 10 “folk high schools” where they worked through an innovation process with facilitators and experts, then refined their ideas before reconvening in Aarhus, Denmark, to pitch the solutions they had developed for the SDGs.
Farmazon — an e-commerce platform that links smallholder farmers to buyers, agricultural advisers, input suppliers and transport providers – is one of hundreds of new ideas created by UNLEASH participants to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Image credit to D. Guerena/CIMMYT
Farmazon — an online platform that links smallholder farmers to buyers, agricultural advisers, input suppliers and transport providers — was the finished product of Guerena’s team that targeted SDG1 and SDG2 (eliminating poverty and hunger) by reducing inefficiencies in agricultural value chains. Their pitch, which included a skit that involved each member speaking different languages to convey the ways a poor farmer, a restaurant owner and others may struggle to communicate their needs, earned them “Most Collaborative Team.”
“Even though we work in research for development, we need to remember that our discoveries must be commercially viable and deliver value to have a positive impact on society,” said Aziz Karimov, a CIMMYT development economist whose team won second place in UNLEASH’s “Sustainable Consumption & Production” category which targeted SDG 12. A key component of UNLEASH was teaching those participating how to pitch their ideas to investors, like preparing due diligence documents for investors and taking different approaches to fundraising, depending on whether the investor is focused on profit or impact.
Karimov and his team created Sustainable Matching, an online platform that allows buyers and suppliers to find each other and make connections in order to reach sustainable goals with the aim of reducing negative environmental impact. It will be the world’s first and only online supply fair for the textile and fashion industry focused on sustainable materials (including agricultural and forest products).
“I believe actual deals will result from some of the ideas I saw in waste, health and climate,” said Michael Blakeley, managing director of enterprise and industry development at Nathan Associates Inc. “That is powerful for just one week’s time and probably a fraction of the cost of traditional development programs.”
Soil scientist and systems agronomist David Guerena (right photo, 5th from the left) and agricultural and development economist Aziz Karimov (left photo, 5th from the left), represent CIMMYT at UNLEASH. Photos: UNLEASH
Both Guerena and Karimov emphasized development organizations should create spaces for researchers to participate in collaborative exercises like they did in order to challenge traditional approaches and discover out-of-the-box solutions to the challenges they face daily. Funding and capacity building is a core component of development, but fostering an environment open to new solutions can potentially create high-impact, low-cost solutions.
UNLEASH plans to hold annual innovation labs through 2030 dedicated to the SDGs, where young innovators can add value directly and access a unique ecosystem of corporations, think-tanks, foundations, non-profits, angel investors and more. Participants from this year will create a virtual integrated community to stay in touch, receive mentorship, guidance and expertise as well as funding to help them develop their business solutions.
A Kenyan man holds a harvest of a genetically engineered (GE) maize at the KALRO research station in Kiboko, Makueni County. Photo: Nation Media Group Kenya
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — A committee was recently assembled by the US National Academies to assess the benefits and risks of genetically engineered (GE) crops and accompanying technologies.
GE crops – also popularly referred to as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – have been a controversial issue since the public continues to perceive GE crops as unsafe, even though there is scientific consensus about their safety. Opponents of GE crops point to potential environmental concerns, food safety and intellectual property law issues.
The authors focused on individual varieties and traits within GE crops to form individual conclusions, rather than make a blanket conclusion about the safety and benefits of GE crops. The committee was composed of 20 experts from diverse fields and the report reflects over 900 studies on GE crops.
The US National Academies requires all reports to seek input from individuals directly involved in the problem under consideration. The committee on GE crops felt this was especially important given that the public views GE crops as such a controversial issue. The authors held public meetings and webinars, heard from 80 speakers ranging across perspectives and received over 700 comments from their website.
In their 584-page report, the authors answer the questions they determined to be most pressing based on public and scientific input. The report has received criticism from pro- and anti- GE advocates for not overtly backing or condemning GE crops.
The committee said they realize an almost 600-page report is a lot, so they organized the report based on answering questions, this way the public can easily find where their most pressing concerns are addressed. The authors said they hope that the evidence in the report will deepen the level of public conversation around GE crops.
First Report of Hop stunt viroid Infecting Citrus Trees in Morocco. 2016. Afechtal, M., Jamai, H., Mokrini, F., Essarioui, A., Faddoul, Z., Sbaghi, M., Dababat, A.A. In: Plant Disease, v. 100, no. 7, p.1512.
First Report of Wheat Blast Caused by Magnaporthe oryzae Pathotype triticum in Bangladesh. 2016. Malaker, P.K., Barma, N.C.D., Tiwari, T.P., Collis, W.J., Duveiller, E., Singh, P.K., Joshi, A.K., Singh, R.P., Braun, H.J., Peterson, G.L., Pedley, K.F., Farman, M.L., Valent, O. In: Plant Disease, v. 100, no. 11, p. 2330.
Gender as a Cross-Cutting Issue in Food Security: The NuME Project and Quality Protein Maize in Ethiopia. 2016. O’Brien, C., Gunaratna, N.S., Gebreselassie, K., Gitonga, Z., Tsegaye, M., De Groote, H. In: World Medical & Health Policy, v. 8, no. 3, p. 263-286.
Genetic diversity of spring wheat from Kazakhstan and Russia for resistance to stem rust Ug99. 2016. Shamanin, V., Salina, E., Wanyera, R., Zelenskiy, Y., Olivera, P., Morgounov, A.I. In: Euphytica, v. 212, n. 2, p. 287-296.
Genome-wide association study and qtl mapping reveal genomic loci associated with fusarium ear rot resistance in tropical maize germplasm. 2016. Jiafa Chen, Shrestha, R., Junqiang Ding Hongjian, Zheng Mu, C., Jianyu Wu, Mahuku, G. In: G3: genes – genomes – genetics, v. 6, no. 12, p. 3803-3815.
Factors determining household use of clean and renewable energy sources for lighting in Sub-Saharan Africa. 2017. Dil Bahadur Rahut, Behera, B., Ali, A. In: Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 73, p. 661-672.
Gains in maize genetic improvement in Eastern and Southern Africa: II. CIMMYT open-pollinated variety breeding pipeline. 2017. Masuka, B., Magorokosho, C., Olsen, M., Atlin, G.N., Banziger, M., Pixley, K.V., Vivek, B., Labuschagne, M., Matemba-Mutasa, R., Burgueño, J., MacRobert, J.F., Prasanna, B.M., Das, B., Makumbi, D., Amsal Tesfaye Tarekegne, Crossa, J., Zaman-Allah, M. Biljon, A. von, Cairns, J.E. In: Crop Science, v. 57, p. 180-191.
Gender and inorganic nitrogen: what are the implications of moving towards a more balanced use of nitrogen fertilizer in the tropics? 2017. Farnworth, C.R., Stirling, C., Sapkota, T.B., Jat, M.L., Misiko, M., Attwood, S. In: International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, v. 15, no. 2, p. 196-152.
Genetic diversity and population structure of native maize populations in Latin America and the Caribbean. 2017. Bedoya-Salazar, C.A., Dreisigacker, S., Hearne, S., Franco, J., Mir, C., Prasanna, B.M., Suketoshi Taba, Charcosset, A., Warburton, M.L. In: PLoS One, V. 12, no. 4: e0173488.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new paper proposes researchers analyze environmental impacts through “envirotyping,” a new typing method which allows scientists to dissect complex environmental interactions to pinpoint climate change effects on crops. When used with genotyping and phenotyping – typing methods that assess the genetic and in-field performance of crops – researchers can more effectively adapt crops to future climates.
Climate change has significantly shifted weather patterns, which affects a number of farming conditions such as less reliable weather, extreme temperatures and declining soil and water quality. These extreme conditions bring a number of unexpected stresses to plants such as drought and new pests.
How a crop performs is largely dependent on the environment where it grows, making it crucial for breeders to analyze crops in growing areas. However, many breeding tools such as genetic mapping are based on the environment where phenotyping is performed, and phenotyping is often conducted under managed environmental conditions.
Envirotyping allows researchers to apply real-world conditions when assessing the performance of crops. It has a wide range of applications including the development of a four-dimensional profile for crop science, which would include a genotype, phenotype, envirotype and time.
Currently, envirotyping requires environmental factors to be collected over the course of multiple trials for use in contributing to crop modeling and phenotypic predictions. Widespread acceptance of this new typing method could help establish high-precision envirotyping, as well as create highly efficient precision breeding and sustainable crop production systems based on deciphered environmental impacts.
Effects of nitrogen fertilizer and manure application on storage of carbon and nitrogen under continuous maize cropping in Arenosols and Luvisols of Zimbabwe. Mujuru, L., Rusinamhodzi, L., Nyamangara, J., Hoosbeek, M.R. In: Journal of Agricultural Science, v. 154, p. 242-257.
Empirical evaluation of sustainability of divergent farms in the dryland farming systems of India. Amare Haileslassie, Craufurd, P., Thiagarajah, R., Shalander Kumar, Whitbread, A., Rathor, A., Blummel, M., Ericsson, P., Krishna Reddy Kakumanu In: Ecological indicators, v. 60, p. 710-723.
Evaluation of tillage and crop establishment methods integrated with relay seeding of wheat and mungbean for sustainable intensification of cotton-wheat system in South Asia. Choudhary, R., Singh, P., Sidhu, H.S., Nandal, D.P., Jat, H.S., Singh, Y., Jat, M.L. In: Field Crops Research, v. 199, p. 31-41.
Fertilizers, hybrids, and the sustainable intensification of maize systems in the rainfed mid-hills of Nepal. Devkota, K.P., McDonald, A., Khadka, L., Khadka, A., Paudel, G., Devkota, M. In: European Journal of Agronomy, v. 80, p. 154-167.
Detection and validation of genomic regions associated with resistance to rust diseases in a worldwide hexaploid wheat landrace collection using BayesR and mixed linear model approaches. Pasam, R.K., Bansal, U., Daetwyler, H.D., Forrest, K.L., Wong, D., Petkowski, J., Willey, N., Randhawa, M.S., Chhetri, M., Miah, H., Tibbits, J., Bariana, H.S., Hayden, M. In: Theoretical and Applied Genetics, v. 130, no. 4, p. 777-793.
Diallel analysis of acid soil tolerant and susceptible maize inbred lines for grain yield under acid and non-acid soil conditions. Mutimaamba, C., MacRobert, J.F., Cairns, J.E., Magorokosho, C., Thokozile Ndhlela, Mukungurutse, C., Minnaar-Ontong, A., Labuschagne, M. In: Euphytica, v. 213, no. 88, p.1-10.
Direct Nitrous Oxide emissions from Tropical And Sub-Tropical Agricultural Systems: a review and modelling of emission factors. Albanito, F., Lebender, U., Cornulier, T., Sapkota, T.B., Brentrup, F., Stirling, C., Hillier, J. In: Nature Scientific reports, v. 7, no. 44235.
Dissection of a major QTL qhir1 conferring maternal haploidinduction ability in maize. Nair, S.K., Molenaar, W., Melchinger, A.E., Prasanna, B.M., Martinez, L., Lopez, L.A., Chaikam, V. In: Theoretical and Applied Genetics, v. 130, p. 1113-1122.
Effect of the few-branched-1 (Fbr1) tassel mutation on performance of maize inbred lines and hybrids evaluated under stress and optimum environments. Shorai Dari, MacRobert, J.F., Minnaar-Ontong, A., Labuschagne, M. In: Maydica, vol. 62, p. 1-10.
Delegates at the conference called for different sectors to work together to achieve food security. Photo: P. Lowe/ CIMMYT
NEW YORK (CIMMYT) – Food and agriculture have the potential to be major drivers in helping the international community achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, but are currently underutilized, said experts at a side event during the high-level political forum on sustainable development held this month in New York City.
Some 70 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas where agriculture provides the main source of family income, directly impacting the food security, nutrition and livelihoods of millions, said delegates the Agriculture and Food Day to Implement the Sustainable Development Goals, hosted by the International Agri-Food Network on July 13.
Although agriculture is up to three times more effective than other sectors in boosting incomes of the world’s poorest, it only receives 4 percent of global aid, according to Michael Grant, deputy permanent representative of Canada to the U.N.
The session was organized to draw attention to the many challenges that still exist to prevent the realization of SDG2 “Zero Hunger” – which establishes a framework to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture – and consequently several other SDGs. Agriculture is deeply connected to all SDGs that aim to eradicate poverty and promote prosperity, a topic that was discussed by the high-level political forum on sustainable development July 10-19, as the international community took stock of achievements at the two-year mark.
“700 million people continue to live in extreme poverty,” said Peter Thomson, president of the U.N. General Assembly. “We must support global movements that work towards SDG2 so that come 2030, nobody is left behind in hunger or poverty,” he added.
“Despite advances, stunting in children has risen over 20 percent since 1990 in Africa,” said Yemi Akinbamijo, executive director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. Adding that malnutrition results in an 11 percent loss in GDP each year.
Additionally, the sector is the second largest emitter of global greenhouse gas emissions and the largest driver of deforestation, making agriculture one of the top contributors to climate change and biodiversity loss. At the same time, youth globally are turning away from agriculture, just as the world needs to set its sights on doubling food production over the next three decades.
“The United States needs to fill 60,000 agriculture-related jobs, but universities are only suppling about 60 percent of that demand,” said Jaine Chisholm Caunt, director general of the Grain and Feed trade Association.
How the development community addresses these challenges in our agri-food systems will have a significant impact on the success or failure of other SDGs, including those targeting resource management, ending poverty and malnutrition, building resilient infrastructure and empowering women and girls, argued the delegates.
David Nielson, co-chair of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services, cited former wheat breeder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug’s philosophy of knowledge sharing as a critical solution. Often the solution to agricultural development doesn’t lie in new technology, but can be as simple as sharing appropriate knowledge that works and is useful to farmers on their land, he said.
However, critical changes in the way farming communities access land and other resources – currently only 1 percent of women and 9 percent of men own land in Africa – must be made at the policy level so that these solutions can be successful in permanently bringing people out of poverty in the long-term, he added.
“When Kenya’s dairy industry became liberalized, my husband and I were able to build our own processing plant,” said Margaret Munene, co-founder and general manager of Palmhouse Dairies Limited Kenya, a dairy processing plant that has grown into a grassroots foundation of “Kenyans helping Kenyans.”
“The processing plant provided a market to farmers,” said Munene. “Before working there many women didn’t have bank accounts in their own names. We worked with microcredit organizations to improve their grazing units, buy better cows and other inputs. We also provided training to improve milk processing, to integrate dairy farming with other crops and other skills that improve income.”
Delegates at the conference also called for different sectors to work together and approach different aspects of the food security puzzle from a holistic perspective. Akinbamijo credited much of Africa’s food and nutrition challenges to the poor integration of science and production systems, with the latest research often failing to translate into the market.
“Governments and other public institutions must work better with the private sector,” added Rocco Renaldi, secretary general, International Food & Beverage Alliance. “Drawing on the expertise of non-state actors can help create novel solutions to agriculture’s challenges.”
“Farming communities can successfully develop without damaging the environment,” said Maria Beatriz Giraudo, a fifth-generation farmer from Argentina and advocate of no-till farming, an agricultural practice that retains soil moisture, builds up nutrients and improves biodiversity.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) supports the SDG agenda to create a new global partnership based on solidarity, cooperation and mutual accountability to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030 and deliver on the promise of sustainable development. See how CIMMYT contributes to 10 of the 17 SDG goals in the Strategic Plan 2017-2022.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Social inequality, including gender discrimination, hinders the potential for economic development, a key focus of the agriculture for development community.
Women in developing countries make up more than 40 percent of waged farmworkers, a percentage that is even higher if unwaged farm work is included, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Despite their significant representation in the sector, women often experience acute poverty due to unequal access to seeds, fertilizer, land and other agricultural necessities.
The challenges are great, but the aim of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls everywhere by 2030 is entrenched in the international development framework by the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Spurred on by the SDGs, gender has become a key agricultural research and policy focus for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR system research programs in recent years.
“Despite improvement, there are still several opportunities which could significantly decrease inequality between men and women,” said CIMMYT gender researcher Anya Umantseva. “Little data exists on gender roles in rural communities and most importantly, a systematic integration of social components like gender into scientific, data-based research could really help expand outcomes and impacts to more women as well as men.
“Women in rural communities often face very strict gender norms,” said Umantseva, referring to local women’s and men’s expected roles and behaviors. “What we’re trying to do is see how these norms influence the way men and women adopt agricultural innovations, and how adoption of different innovations affects gender norms across different communities.”
Umantseva is one of many researchers working on GENNOVATE – a global comparative research initiative, which addresses the question of how gender norms influence men, women and youth to adopt innovation in agriculture and natural resource management.
Gender norms include restricted access to land and financial resources, or even the social taboo of walking alone as a woman, can make it difficult to have equal access to agricultural trainings and other farming inputs, she explained.
Umantseva grew up in Yurga, Russia during the country’s economic transition to capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union. “Witnessing the abrupt change of political-economic regimes, and the impact it had on society, shaped my interest in social sciences and anthropology,” she said. “I decided that I wanted to study how social norms and culture are historically constructed.”
“Gender in agricultural research for development is not an isolated topic; it is deeply intertwined with social inclusion of disadvantaged groups in general,” Umantseva said. “Gender is not just about men and women, but who these men and women are. Through GENNOVATE we want to go deep into their stories, their socio-economic status, religion, position in the family and more.”
Around 8,000 rural study participants of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds reflected on gender norms and how these social rules affect their ability to access, adapt and benefit from innovations in agricultural and natural resource management.
“GENNOVATE is the first attempt of this scale providing this type of gender-based data for agricultural research for development initiatives,” said Umantseva. “But most importantly, we want to convince the research for development community of the important opportunities, that insights from this kind of data, can bring. It might not always be easy to integrate gender into research, and may require us to do certain things a little differently, but it is necessary if we want to have inclusive development impact.”
Along with other researchers, Umantseva is analyzing GENNOVATE data to produce a series of reports, journal articles and other products so researchers and project managers can begin incorporating GENNOVATE’s findings into their work.
“Right now we’re looking at men and women who have successfully adopted agricultural innovations and what factors their success might have in common, and how men and women differ in adoption. We hope to produce a paper on these findings sometime this year,” said Umantseva.
Umantseva received her bachelor’s degree in linguistics and translation from Russia’s Tomsk State University. She then went on to pursue a master’s at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where she studied minority policies, ethnic relations and gender norms.
Before she joined CIMMYT in 2016, she worked at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, focusing on human trafficking and migration. She currently lives in Mexico City and is based at CIMMYT’s Headquarters in El Batan, outside Mexico City.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – A scientist whose work is projected to significantly increase wheat production for smallholder farmers around the world has won the 2017 Ted Crosbie MBBISP Impact Award presented by Monsanto.
Runge tracks the progress of Beachell-Borlaug alumni and led the judging panel, which was comprised of world-renowned scientists and World Food Prize laureates, with Finger, Jacobs and Salvo. Since 2008, 89 scholars have received $13 million in funding through the program.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Without proper control methods, the Fall Armyworm (FAW) menace could lead to maize yield losses estimated at $2.5 to $6.2 billion a year in just 12 of the 28 African countries where the pest has been confirmed, scientists from the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, (CABI) 
Prasanna will be participating in the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, and will part of a panel discussion, on October 19, titled “
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Modern data systems are essential to monitor, manage and plan actions taken by governments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), an advisory body to the United Nations Secretary General, and to the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReENDS), an independent group of international experts working on data-related fields.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — When Francelino Rodrigues started at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in 2013, the majority of the maize and wheat trials were still being carried out by walking through the field and taking measurements manually.
