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Tackle food insecurity with homegrown education, Food Prize delegates say

Written by on October 17, 2016. Posted in Features.

mk-bg-wfp — CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff (L) and Bram Govaerts, strategy lead for sustainable intensification in Latin America and Latin America Regional Representative, in the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines attending the 2016 World Food Prize ceremony. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins

DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Africa must develop a strong educational infrastructure to address the challenges of poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity, said experts at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, recommending reforms at both the institutional and individual level to help smallholder farmers.

Almost 220 million people of the 1.2 billion people who live in Africa are undernourished. In sub-Saharan Africa, which lags behind regional and global trends, hunger affects about one out of every four people, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

“African countries must become more self-reliant when it comes to education, building on historical achievements to establish a strong infrastructure – not focused only on academic research, but with a practical ‘science for impact’ component as well,” said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“Many people think education and capacity building are just about training or earning a doctoral degree, but it’s more extensive than that. It’s important to develop a proper framework for training individuals and institutions to ensure countries can achieve development goals.”

CIMMYT trains scientists throughout the developing world to become maize and wheat breeders. In Africa, where CIMMYT conducts 40 percent of its work, a screening facility for maize lethal necrosis disease and a center for double haploid breeding are also used as training facilities for capacity building, also helping to bolster national agricultural systems.

Kropff, who served as rector of Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands before joining CIMMYT in 2015, is laying the groundwork for a “CIMMYT Academy.” The academy will pull together a range of existing training programs, uniting them into a coherent set of activities affiliated with universities throughout Africa to help breeders learn a variety of skills that can broaden their knowledge base.

“The key is to take a unified approach, sometimes a maize or wheat breeder needs also to learn technological and socioeconomic aspects of the work — we need integration – a more well-rounded approach – to really have impact,” Kropff said, adding that each innovation has a socioeconomic component and technological component.

“If we want to help countries in Africa struggling to establish a functional seed distribution system, we have to involve the private sector, so we also need to train people to become entrepreneurs,” he added.

FOUNDATION AND GROWTH

In the 1960s and 1970s, the international community helped set up the first educational development programs throughout Africa creating leadership candidates who subsequently trained many people, said Gebisa Ejeta, the 2009 World Food Prize laureate whose drought-resistant sorghum hybrids have increased food supply for millions of people throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Over time, these programs have provided the necessary foundation upon which to build institutions, he said.

“Nothing is more foundational for development than having native capacity at the human level as well as at the institutional level to really take more experiential learning forward and that way also to benefit greatly from development assistance,” Ejeta added. “Otherwise, it becomes an activity of external programs coming in and out.”

Africa has benefited over the past 10 years from being part of a new global landscape, Ejeta said, pointing to the expansion of infrastructure resulting from assistance from China, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Simultaneously, Africa is also beginning to invest directly internally.

“Africa needs to benefit from valuable lessons from China, India and Brazil,” Ejeta said. “Each one of them is different, but the common denominator is that they all invested systematically in human and institutional capacity building in their countries to really drive involvement processes taking place to bring about transformative change.”

We need to shift the center of gravity to African governments and scientists, said Joyce Banda, who served as president of Malawi from 2012 to 2014, adding that a major challenge is a lack of extension – many people don’t know how to properly grow crops, use technology or about improved seeds due to a lack of farmer education.

Good agricultural production goes side-by-side with good governance, Banda said. “We need to fight and make sure that our resources are safe for the benefit of agriculture and food security across Africa. Africa needs to educate for change because men are eating first, best and most, but women are growing the food, storing the food, processing the food, cooking the food and eating last and less.”

The average age of an African farmer is 60, but 65 percent of Africans are young people, Banda said, adding that it is a lost opportunity if young people aren’t introduced to agriculture and trained.

CONFRONTING RISKS

Comprehensive individual and institutional capacity building can demonstrate modern agricultural techniques to inspire younger people to embrace farming, said Bram Govaerts, strategy lead for sustainable intensification in Latin America and Latin America Regional Representative at CIMMYT.

“Farmers must be made aware of new farm technology, taught how to apply scientific research to agricultural practices and get opportunities to innovate – education can facilitate the creative process, said Govaerts who won the 2014 Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation and presented by the World Food Prize foundation.

“We need to first make sure partners can produce enough nutritious food for their families and then connect them to networks that can track data and crops all the way from farm to consumer,” he said. “We need to take a holistic approach to innovative post-harvest processes.”

For example, a small sensor placed in a post-harvest storage silo could measure temperature and humidity to protect the crop, but can also connect to a market network, allowing farmers to easily find buyers and prevent food waste.

“Millions of farmers in African countries are suffering from poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity, and a lack of technology prevents them from maximizing their potential contributions to their families and communities,” Govaerts said.

“I’m more and more convinced that change is going to come from innovation networks and the enabling tools that will generate them.”

Wheat training foundation offers hope to end rural poverty

Written by on October 13, 2016. Posted in News.

Roy Cantrell, Jeannie Borlaug Laube, Perry Gustafson, Jessie Dubin, Manel Othmeni , Amor Yahyaoui, panelists from the global wheat community on the "Training for the Future" session at World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue. — Roy Cantrell, Jeanie Borlaug Laube, Perry Gustafson, Jessie Dubin, Manel Othmeni , Amor Yahyaoui (L to R), panelists from the global wheat community on the “Training for the Future” session at World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue.

DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) — In her youth, Tunisian Manel Othmeni developed an interest in interacting with plants, a fascination that later grew into a passion for wheat research.

Now, with the help of the Borlaug Training Foundation and Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program, Othmeni is a doctoral student studying abroad with Ian and Julie King, two top global wheat scientists, at Britain’s University of Nottingham.

“If not for the training funds, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Othmeni on the sidelines of the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Nowadays a Ph.D. costs a lot of money – the training gives more chances to people from developing countries.”

The Borlaug Training Foundation is an independent, non-profit foundation educating scientists from developing countries to improve food production in vulnerable areas. In the short term, the foundation aims to raise $800,000 to support global training at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). In the long term, the goal is to raise a $30 million endowment to expand training opportunities to other crops.

“We need to provide hope for eliminating poverty – no child should ever have to go to bed hungry,” said Jeanie Borlaug-Laube, vice president of the foundation and the daughter of the late wheat breeder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug.

Scientist Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, led efforts in the mid-20^th century to develop high-yielding, disease resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties that helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world.

“You are the ones who must continue my father’s legacy,” Borlaug-Laube said in an address to conference delegates. “Harness biotechnology, but don’t abandon traditional techniques.”

The foundation also aims to boost training for women scientists, develop partnerships between research institutions and universities in developed nations, provide mentorship opportunities. Wheat studies will focus on plant breeding, genetics, biotechnology, plant pathology, plant physiology and statistics.

“Going out in the field and sweating is one of the best things you can do,” said Jesse Dubin, a plant pathologist who was hired by Borlaug and retired from CIMMYT in 1999 after almost 25 years working with the wheat program.

“This kind of training is critical today and there is no funding for it. The important thing is that we’re working with the whole plant and people, not just the genome.”

Over eight years, Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program has awarded 89 students with rice or wheat breeding fellowships, 52 of them in wheat breeding. The award is named in honor of Borlaug and rice breeder Henry Beachell.

Private sector seed distribution vital for food security, World Food Prize delegates say

Written by on October 12, 2016. Posted in News.

arturosilva — Arturo Silva delivers a presentation at the Seed Security for Food Security forum at the World Food Prize conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Public-private collaborations can deliver improved seeds to smallholder farmers faster, speeding up global efforts to meet food security targets, said delegates attending a forum at the World Food Prize gathering this week in Des Moines, Iowa.

Already more than 800 million people go hungry worldwide and by 2050, global population will increase by more than 2 billion people to at least 9 billion. Among the many challenges scientists face in boosting food crop yields to meet demand is the distribution of high-yielding, nutritionally enhanced, often drought-tolerant, crop varieties to smallholder farmers in developing countries.

“We’re hamstrung when it comes to getting improved seeds into the hands of farmers due to a lack of affordable production capabilities,” said Arturo Silva, who leads the International Maize Improvement Consortium in Latin America (IMIC-LA), which is based at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) near Mexico City. “That’s where private sector seed companies come in – we need collaborations to ensure the seed gets to farmers.”

In Mexico, Silva and other CIMMYT scientists collaborate with the government through the MasAgro project – which promotes the sustainable intensification of maize and wheat production – and with private seed companies through IMIC-LA to distribute seeds that flourish in sub-tropical, tropical and highland environments.

“We still have 2.5 million hectares to convert from old products to new hybrids, but we are convinced we can make Mexico self-sufficient in maize,” Silva said. “We must democratize seed through public-private partnerships to help farmers who still lack access to technology.”

Currently, Mexican farmers produce 22 million tons of maize a year, but consumer demand outweighs production, leading to imports of up to 12 million tons of yellow maize from the United States a year at a cost of $2.5 billion.

“The challenge is to produce high-yielding seeds, while preserving genetic diversity and protecting the old indigenous landraces from potential risks and threats,” Silva said.

One way CIMMYT helps boost demand for native Mexican maize landraces is by connecting small-scale Mexican farmers with intermediaries who sell Mexican maize as a niche gourmet food. In response to recent consumer demand, top chefs in North American cities have been buying niche varieties of maize to create specialty tortillas, tlacoyos, tetelas and tamales.

“We have hundreds of thousands of seed varieties,” said Ruben Echeverria, director general of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), which is based in Cali, Colombia.

“The challenge is beyond technical change, it’s institutional change,” he added. “What CIMMYT is doing with seed companies is the way to go.”

“The private sector eventually has to take over,” said Jim Gaffney, global biotech affairs and regulatory lead at DuPont Pioneer, which hosted the Seed Security for Food Security forum. “Wherever the seed industry is healthy and vibrant, the private sector has been involved.”

DuPont Pioneer tops the Global Index of Field Crop Seed Companies and developed its own food security targets in 2012 that it aims to meet by 2020. Since the goals were established, DuPont Pioneer says it has invested $1.2 billion in research and development, introduced 600 new products and engaged with more than 314,000 smallholder farmers.

DuPont Pioneer also sponsored the development of a Global Food Security Index, which measures food affordability, availability, quality and safety in 113 countries and which the company is using to develop economic forecasts and country reports.

“Seed security equals food security,” said John Duesing, the company’s senior research director, adding that achieving food security is the world’s greatest challenge.

“Invisible women” hold key to food security – ex-WFP chief Catherine Bertini

Written by on August 27, 2016. Posted in News.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – In developing countries, 43 percent of income-earning farmworkers are women – a percentage that is even higher if unwaged farm work is included, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Despite the large numbers of women working on farms, their voices are not heard by international development policymakers and funders, which handicaps global efforts to achieve food security, said the 2003 World Food Prize laureate and former head of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

“When policymakers or grant-makers look at community needs, the dearth of women in leadership or spokesperson roles, prevents them from learning what is really required to best support the community,” Catherine Bertini wrote in a special issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“Feedback comes from men, and it predictably centers on what men need,” she added, pointing out that the role of women in the fight for food security is vital not only because they are farmers, but also because they typically oversee nutrition and meal management in the household.

Women and men do not have the same access to agricultural inputs – to seeds and fertilizer, land and extension services, and FAO estimates that if they did, women’s agricultural production would increase up to 20 percent, said Bertini, who will speak at a conference on September 29 in Mexico City to mark the 50^th anniversary of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Additionally, financial resources controlled by women are more likely to be spent on household needs in contrast to financial resources controlled by men, which are more likely to be used outside the household, Bertini said.

In her essay titled “Invisible Women,” Bertini, currently a professor at Syracuse University, cites a gender-specific mix-up with hoes as an example of how things can go terribly wrong when women farmers are not consulted about their needs.

During her tenure at WFP, Bertini visited a rural area in Angola, which was recovering from more than a quarter century of civil war. Farmers said they could not work the fields because they had no farm implements, although there were about a hundred hoes leaning against a nearby fence.

It turned out that the non-governmental organization (NGO) that ordered them was unaware that hoes in Angola were gender differentiated.

“The NGO had not talked to the women,” Bertini said. “In that region of Angola, women were the only people who tilled the fields, but they did not use the long-poled hoes. Women’s hoes, it turned out, had shorter wooden handles and shovel-like spades at the end.”

Women squat to use their hoes because they usually have a baby strapped to their back and it is less cumbersome and causes less stress on the back, unlike the men who stand.

“For me, this story became a metaphor for the importance of always speaking with the people who know what their needs are, and that those who do not specifically seek out women in order to understand their needs may waste their entire contribution to the good they seek to accomplish,” Bertini said.

“It also reminds me that women are generally not in community leadership roles and are too often politically invisible.”

She says for women to be seen and heard, and for society to benefit from their knowledge, changes must occur, including:

Educating girls
Starting research with women’s needs in mind
Enhancing women’s health support
Supporting breastfeeding
Improving women’s literacy
Creating agricultural extension programs that include women
Expanding micro-bank loans and insurance
Creating legal rights for women to own and inherit land
Considering societal gender roles in all development thinking

Some of the thousands of samples that make up the maize collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT's global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)

From A to Z: Developing nutritious maize and wheat at CIMMYT for 50 years

Written by on June 5, 2016. Posted in Features.

This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Maize and wheat biofortification can help reduce malnutrition in regions where nutritional options are unavailable, limited or unaffordable, but must be combined with education to be most effective, particularly as climate change jeopardizes food security, according to researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Climate change could kill more than half a million adults in 2050 due to changes in diets and bodyweight from reduced crop productivity, a new report from the University of Oxford states. Projected improvement in food availability for a growing population could be cut by about a third, leading to average per-person reductions in food availability of 3.2 percent, reductions in fruit and vegetable intake of 4 percent and red meat consumption of .07 percent, according to the report.

Over the past 50 years since CIMMYT was founded in 1966, various research activities have been undertaken to boost protein quality and micronutrient levels in maize and wheat to help improve nutrition in poor communities, which the Oxford report estimates will be hardest hit by climate change. As one measure of CIMMYT’s success, scientists Evangelina Villegas and Surinder Vasal were recognized with the prestigious World Food Prize in 2000 for their work developing quality protein maize (QPM).

“We’ve got a lot of balls in the air to tackle the ongoing food security crisis and anticipate future needs as the population grows and the climate changes unpredictably,” said Natalia Palacios, head of maize quality, adding that a key component of current research is the strategic use of genetic resources held in the CIMMYT gene bank.

“CIMMYT’s contribution to boosting the nutritional value of maize and wheat is hugely significant for people who have access to these grains, but very little dietary diversity otherwise. Undernourishment is epidemic in parts of the world and it’s vital that we tackle the problem by biofortifying crops and including nutrition in sustainable intensification interventions.”

Undernourishment affects some 795 million people worldwide – meaning that more than one out of every nine people do not get enough food to lead a healthy, active lifestyle, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). By 2050, reduced fruit and vegetable intake could cause twice as many deaths as under-nutrition, according to the Oxford report, which was produced by the university’s Future of Food Programme.

As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to one-quarter of the world’s daily energy intake, and contributing 27 percent of the total calories in the diets of people living in developing countries, according to FAO.

“Nutrition is very complex and in addition to deploying scientific methods such as biofortification to develop nutritious crops, we try and serve an educational role, helping people understand how best to prepare certain foods to gain the most value,” Palacios said. “Sometimes communities have access to nutritious food but they don’t know how to prepare it without killing the nutrients.”

The value of biofortified crops is high in rural areas where people have vegetables for a few months, but must rely solely on maize for the rest of the year, she added, explaining that fortified flour and food may be more easily accessed in urban areas where there are more dietary options.

PROMOTING PROTEIN QUALITY

Conventional maize varieties cannot provide an adequate balance of amino acids for people with diets dominated by the grain and with no adequate alternative source of protein. Since the breakthrough findings of Villegas and Vasal, in some areas scientists now develop QPM, which offers an inexpensive alternative for smallholder farmers.

CIMMYT scientists also develop QPM and other nutritious conventionally bred maize varieties for the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project funded by the government of Canada. NuME, which also helps farmers improve agricultural techniques by encouraging the deployment of improved agronomic practices, builds on a former seven-year collaborative QPM effort with partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

In Ethiopia, where average life expectancy is 56 years of age, the food security situation is critical due in part to drought caused by a recent El Nino climate system, according to the U.N. World Food Programme. More than 8 million people out of a population of 90 million people are in need of food assistance. Almost 30 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line, 40 percent of children under the age of 5 are stunted, 9 percent are acutely malnourished and 25 percent are underweight, according to the 2014 Ethiopia Mini Demographic and Health Survey. The NuMe project is helping to shore up sustainable food supplies and boost nutrition in the country, where the vast majority of people live in rural areas and are engaged in rain-fed subsistence agriculture.

INCREASING MICRONUTRIENTS

CIMMYT maize and wheat scientists tackle micronutrient deficiency, or “hidden hunger,” through the interdisciplinary, collaborative program HarvestPlus, which was launched in 2003 and is now part of the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health program managed by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers.

Some 2 billion people around the world suffer from micronutrient deficiency, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Micronutrient deficiency occurs when food does not provide enough vitamins and minerals. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are most affected by hidden hunger, which is characterized by iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin A and zinc deficiency.

Work at CIMMYT to combat micronutrient deficiency is aligned with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — in particular Goal 2, which aims to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030. The SDG also aims to meet internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and to address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, older people, pregnant and lactating women by 2025.

WHOLESOME WHEAT

The wheat component of the HarvestPlus program involves developing and distributing wheat varieties with high zinc levels by introducing genetic diversity from wild species and landraces into adapted wheat.

Zinc deficiency affects about one-third of the world’s population, causing lower respiratory tract infections, malaria, diarrheal disease, hypogonadism, impaired immune function, skin disorders, cognitive dysfunction, and anorexia, according to the WHO, which attributes about 800,000 deaths worldwide each year to zinc deficiency. Additionally, worldwide, approximately 165 million children under five years of age are stunted due to zinc deficiency.

A project to develop superior wheat lines combining higher yield and high zinc concentrations in collaboration with national agriculture program partners in South Asia has led to new biofortified varieties 20 to 40 percent superior in grain zinc concentration.

“We’re playing a vital role in this area,” said CIMMYT wheat breeder Velu Govindan. “Our research has led to new varieties agronomically equal to, or superior to, other popular wheat cultivars with grain yield potential at par or — in some cases – even superior to popular wheat varieties adopted by smallholder farmers in South Asia where we’ve been focused.”

Scientists are studying the potential impact of climate-change related warmer temperatures and erratic rainfall on the nutritional value of wheat. An evaluation of the effect of water and heat stress with a particular focus on grain protein content, zinc and iron concentrations revealed that protein and zinc concentrations increased in water and heat-stressed environments, while zinc and iron yield was higher in non-stressed conditions.

“The results of our study suggest that genetic gains in yield potential of modern wheat varieties have tended to reduce grain zinc levels,” Govindan said. “In some instances, environmental variability might influence the extent to which this effect manifests itself, a key finding as we work toward finding solutions to the potential impact of climate change on food and nutrition security.”

Additionally, a recent HarvestPlus study revealed that modern genomic tools such as genomic selection hold great potential for biofortification breeding to enhance zinc concentrations in wheat.

IMPROVING MAIZE

Scientists working with HarvestPlus have developed vitamin A-enriched “orange” maize. Orange maize is conventionally bred to provide higher levels of pro-vitamin A carotenoids, a natural plant pigment found in such orange foods as mangoes, carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens and meat, converted into vitamin A by the body.

Vitamin A is essential for good eyesight, growth and boosting immunity. Almost 200 million children under the age of 5 and 19 million pregnant women are vitamin A deficient, and increasing levels through maize kernels is an effective means of boosting it in the diet.

Maize breeders, who are currently working on developing varieties with 50 percent more pro-vitamin A than the first commercialized varieties released, identified germplasm with the highest amounts of carotenoids to develop the varieties. In Zambia, Zimbawe and Malawi, 12 varieties, which are agronomically competititve and have about 8ppm provitamin A, have been released.

Provitamin A from maize is efficiently absorbed and converted into vitamin A in the body. Stores of Vitamin A in 5 to 7 year old children improved when they ate orange maize, according to HarvestPlus research. The study also shows preliminary data demonstrating that children who ate orange maize for six months experienced an improved capacity of the eye to adjust to dim light. The findings indicate an improvement in night vision, a function dependent on adequate levels of vitamin A in the body.

Researchers are also developing maize varieties high in zinc.

Efforts on this front have been a major focus in Latin America, especially in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Colombia. Scientists expect the first wave of high zinc hybrids and varieties will be released in 2017. Further efforts are starting in such countries as Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Results from the first nutrition studies in young rural Zambian children indicate that biofortified maize can meet zinc requirements and provide an effective dietary alternative to regular maize for the vulnerable population.

A woman for wheat: Maricelis Acevedo takes on new role

Written by on May 11, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

This story appeared originally on the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative website. Linda McCandless is associate director for communications, International Programs, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at Cornell University. She also oversees communications for the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project.

“A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for” is Maricelis Acevedo’s favorite mantra. The newly appointed associate director for science for Cornell University’s Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project left her island home of Puerto Rico in 2003 to pursue a career as a pathologist and has been traveling the world ever since.

This past month, Acevedo visited wheat screening nurseries in Kenya and Ethiopia and wheat research centers in India with Ronnie Coffman, director of the DGGW. She feels grateful for the opportunity to lead the scientific component of a project whose goals are to help mitigate the threat of food insecurity in vulnerable regions of the world, especially Ethiopia.

“The job comes with new opportunities and great responsibilities to achieve food security for a growing population,” said Acevedo. “Given the challenges of a changing climate, scarce agricultural resources, and the misinformation about what technology can provide to agriculture in the developing and developed world, I feel privileged to be a voice for farmers, researchers and sponsors in the fight against wheat pathogens.”

Acevedo believes the world can do better in bringing science to smallholder farmers’ fields. Her new journey on behalf of the DGGW began on March 16 when she helped launch the DGGW project in the wheat fields of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in Ciudad Obregón in Mexico’s state of Sonora. Over the next year she will be visiting farmers and partner agricultural research facilities, including CIMMYT, around the globe.

“For the past eight years, Maricelis has collaborated with the Cornell team on various aspects of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project,” said Coffman, vice-chair of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI). “Maricelis is an accomplished rust pathologist who also comes from an agricultural background. That is enormously helpful in a project whose success is so closely linked to farmer adoption of new varieties. We welcome her with great enthusiasm.”

The new DGGW grant will use modern tools of comparative genomics and big data to develop and deploy varieties of wheat that incorporate climate resilience and heat tolerance as well as improved disease resistance for smallholder farmers.

SMALL FARM ROOTS

Growing up on a small farm in Puerto Rico, in a family that grew plantains, bananas, edible beans, taro, sweet potato, maize and pigeon peas, Acevedo received an early introduction to the agricultural science behind farming. It was her father, now a retired agronomist from the University of Puerto Rico, who first introduced her to the concept of “pathogens.” She remembers watching him spray their fields to protect their crops from disease dressed in a protective suit and face mask. Mimicking his actions as a 4-year-old, she took a small plastic cup and sucked it tight onto her face breaking the capillaries all around her mouth and nose while “spraying” her Mom’s flowers with a watering can — “my first job as a pathologist,” she laughs.

More seriously, she also remembers her father testing farming practices that were going to be introduced to farmers’ fields in following seasons — “participatory breeding and research at its best.” And his first lessons on phenotypic selection of plantains and beans and his eagerness to try the new varieties coming out of the University of Puerto Rico Agricultural Experiment Research Station breeding and crop improvement programs.

Having experienced the devastation of seasonal crops due to drought, hurricanes, diseases and insects, Acevedo said she also knows the heartaches associated with farming. “I will never forget the emotional stress on my dad’s face in those moments.”

UNDERSTANDING HOST-PATHOGEN INTERACTION

During her undergraduate years at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, Acevedo studied biology, genetics, botany and biotechnology, courses that helped her decide to pursue a master’s degree in agronomy where she focused on crop improvement and the genetics of edible beans.

Working on host resistance helped her decide to understand the pathogen side of the disease equation so she joined James R. Steadman’s laboratory in the department of plant pathology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue her Ph.D. in 2003. Acevedo’s research project, partially funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, focused on virulence diversity of edible bean rust pathogens in Honduras and the identification of resistance in wild beans and bean landraces. “That is how my passion for international agriculture and rust research began,” said Acevedo.

Following her graduation in 2007, Acevedo pursued a postdoc at the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service National Small Grain Collection and Potato Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho, and then became assistant professor at North Dakota State University (NDSU) from 2010-2016. She said she will miss her friends and colleagues at NDSU, but credits them — along with her family — in helping her achieve her newest position at Cornell University.

Acevedo was in the first class of BGRI Women in Triticum (WIT) Early Career Award Winners in 2010. “The WIT award help me identify and meet an amazing pool of female scientists who have mentored and encouraged me. We have developed collaborations that go beyond our professional lives.”

Acevedo takes seriously her role as mentor to other younger WIT winners who look to her as a role model for their research and academic careers.

SOLUTION ORIENTED

Acevedo believes her role with the DGGW is the perfect opportunity for her to facilitate how great work done by wheat scientists makes it to the field.

“I look forward to being part of the solutions necessary to deliver higher genetic gain wheat and promote better variety adoptions in key regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South Asia,” said Acevedo. “I also look forward to seeing how we can utilize new technologies such as high through-put phenotyping, genomic selection and early warning systems for pathogen epidemics and implementing them in research and farmers’ fields.

“With the BGRI’s help in capacity building, research and education, we are training the next generation of wheat scientists for their countries and for their regions, increasing wheat production, and helping achieve food security,” Acevedo said. “I am very excited about helping developing countries with high potential for wheat improve their production and yield.”

More on Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat

YouTube interview with Maricelis Acevedo

Global wheat breeding returns billions in benefits but stable financing remains elusive

Written by on April 27, 2016. Posted in Director General's corner.

Martin Kropff is CIMMYT director general and Juergen Voegele is senior director World Bank’s Agriculture Global Practice.

What do a chapati, a matza, or couscous have in common? The answer is wheat, which is a source for one-fifth of the calories and protein consumed globally.

Yet, stable, assured funding for public research for this important food grain remains elusive.

For 45 years, world-class scientists from two research centers of CGIAR – the world’s only global research system that focuses on the crops of most importance to poor farmers in developing countries – have battled the odds to provide wheat and nourish the world’s growing population. Their innovations have helped to boost wheat yields, fight debilitating pests and ward off diseases, improving the lives of nearly 80 million poor farmers.

Wheat plays a big role in feeding the human family. Over 1.2 billion resource-poor consumers depend on wheat as a staple food.

Small Investment, big gains: Research for free public goods shows the way

A new report by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat shows that for an annual investment of roughly $30 million, the benefits gained from wheat research are in the range of $2.2 billion to $3.1 billion each year, from 1994 to 2014. Put another way, for every $1 invested in wheat breeding, $73 to $103 were returned in direct benefits, helping producers and consumers alike. Surely these healthy numbers — which are conservative because they do not include benefits from traits other than yield — would whet the appetite of any hard-nosed economist or bean counter looking for a convincing return on investment.

Science products like improved wheat lines from CIMMYT, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, and ICARDA, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas – both members of CGIAR – are freely available to all and keep the global wheat research enterprise humming. Each year CIMMYT alone distributes half a million packets of corn and wheat seed from its research to 346 partners in public and private breeding programs spread across 79 countries where these crops are mainstays of people’s diets.

Today, the rapid spread of wheat varieties adapted to diverse ecologies is one of agricultural science’s unsung success stories. Almost half the world’s wheat land is sown to varieties that come from research by CGIAR scientists and their global network of partners. Even as wheat-free diets are on the rise in industrialized countries – whether due to personal preference, or medical necessity such as celiac disease – it is increasingly clear that wheat will remain an important grain in the diets of millions of people living in emerging economies.

Food in a changing climate: The future is here

So what could possibly be wrong with the scenario painted above? After all, CIMMYT has been around for five decades, and public funding has kept the wheels of discovery science turning and delivering improved varieties of the food crops that farmers demand and consumers need.

The big outlier, our known unknown, is climate change. For every one degree Celsius increase in growing season temperatures, wheat production decreases by a whopping 6 percent.

To beat the heat, CIMMYT scientists are working to reshape the wheat plant for temperature extremes and other environmental factors. New goals include dramatically enhancing wheat’s use of sunlight and better understanding the internal signals whereby plants coordinate their activities and responses to dry conditions and high temperatures.

Food demand is projected to rise by 20 percent globally over the next 15 years with the largest increases in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and East Asia where the map of hunger, poverty and malnutrition has an overlay of environmental stress and extreme resource degradation.

Climate change is already playing havoc with the global food system.

In 2009, one-fifth of Mexico’s corn production was lost due to drought. In 2011, extreme weather events such as cyclones destroyed one-third of Sri Lanka’s rice crop, and badly damaged rice paddies in Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries. Two successive seasons of poor rainfall from El Niño have decimated Africa’s corn harvest and left millions facing hunger this year.

Looking to the future, rising food demand – driven inexorably by population, rapid urbanization and increasing global wealth – shows no sign of abating. To meet food needs by increasing productivity, cereal yields – not wheat alone – would need to increase at 3 percent a year, a number that is 40 percent higher than the 2.1 percent gains achieved from 2000 to 2013. Alas, plant breeders do not have the luxury of complacency. New varieties take more than a decade to develop, test, and deploy through national certification and seed marketing or distribution systems.

CGIAR crop scientists are rushing to meet the challenges. In a taste of the future, a team of topnotch scientists at CGIAR’s Lima-based International Potato Center and NASA will test growing potatoes under Martian conditions to demonstrate that hardy spuds can thrive in the harshest environments.

As the world’s policy makers begin to grapple with the interconnected nature of food, energy, water and peace, every dollar invested in improving global food and nutrition security is an investment in the future of humanity.

To develop crops, livestock, fish and trees that are more productive and resilient and have a lower environmental signature, CGIAR is calling for an increase in its war chest to reach $1.35 billion by 2020. Is anybody listening?

Severe drought-affected area in Lamego, Mozambique. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

Will El Niño be a wake-up call to invest in food security solutions?

Written by on April 8, 2016. Posted in Blogs.

HARARE (CIMMYT) — In southern Africa close to 50 million people are projected to be affected by droughts caused by the current El Niño, a climate phenomenon that develops in the tropical Pacific Ocean causing extreme weather worldwide — this year, one of the strongest on record. Many of those millions are expected to be on the brink of starvation and dependent on emergency food aid and relief.

However, severe droughts are nothing new to the region. Between 1900 and 2013 droughts have killed close to 1 million people in Africa, with economic damages of about $3 billion affecting over 360 million people. Over the past 50 years, 24 droughts have been caused by El Niño events, according to research by Ilyas Masih. If droughts are so recurrent and known to be a major cause of yield variability and food insecurity in southern Africa, why are we still reacting to this as a one-time emergency instead of a calculated threat?

Unpredictable harvests: Above, yield variability in the world’s top 5 maize producing countries (left) vs. southern Africa (right) Source: FAOSTAT, 2015

Over the past 50 years, donors have focused on the “poorest of the poor” in agriculture – areas where farming is difficult due to low and erratic rainfalls, poor sandy soils and high risk of crop failure. Investments were made in these areas to change farmers’ livelihoods – and yet the numbers of food insecure people are the same or rising in many southern African countries. Once drought hits, most farmers are left with no crops and are forced to sell their available livestock. Due to many farmers flooding the market with poor meat at once, prices for both livestock and meat hit rock bottom. Only when the situation becomes unbearable does the development community act, calling for emergency aid, which kicks in with a stuttering start. Abject poverty and food aid dependency is the inevitable consequence.

A farmer in Zimbabwe explains his challenges with drought and low soil fertility. Photo: Michael Listman — A farmer in Zimbabwe explains his challenges with drought and low soil fertility. CIMMYT/Michael Listman

Short-term relief can help millions of farmer families in this current crisis, and emergency solutions will likely be necessary this year. However, emergency relief is not the solution to saving lives and money in a world where extreme weather events are only going to become more frequent.

We know that the next drought will come within the next two to three years.

Proactive, strategic and sustainable response strategies are needed to increase farming system resilience and reduce dependency on food aid during extreme weather events like El Niño. This starts with improving the capacity of local, regional and national governments to make fully informed decisions on how to prepare for these events. Interventions must reach beyond poor performing areas, but also support higher productivity areas and emerging commercial farmers, who have greater potential to produce enough grain on a national scale to support areas hardest hit by droughts and dry-spells.

Groundnuts in rotation with maize under conservation agriculture can provide food and nutrition despite climate variability in Malawi. Photo: Christian Thierfelder — Groundnuts in rotation with maize under conservation agriculture can provide food and nutrition despite climate variability in Malawi. CIMMYT/Christian Thierfelder

Climate-smart agriculture technologies, drought-tolerant maize, and such techniques as conservation agriculture, agroforestry and improved soil fertility management are approaches to farming that seek to increase food and nutrition security, alleviate poverty, conserve biodiversity and safeguard ecosystem services.

They need to be scaled out to increase resilience to climate variability. This strategy of improved foresight and targeting coupled with adoption of climate-smart agriculture and improved outscaling can lead to increased resilience of smallholder farming systems in southern Africa, reducing year-to-year variability and the need for emergency response.

Learn more about the impacts of El Niño and building resilience in the priority briefing “Combating drought in southern Africa: from relief to resilience” here, and view the special report from FEWS Net illustrating the extent and severity of the 2015-16 drought in southern Africa.

Global wheat breeding provides billions in benefits, CIMMYT study shows

Written by Mike Listman on April 5, 2016. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Almost half the world’s wheat land is sown to varieties that come directly or indirectly from research by a longstanding, global network of crop scientists, according to a new report by CIMMYT.

Yearly economic benefits of that research ranged from $2.2 to 3.1 billion (in 2010 dollars), and resulted from annual funding of just $30 million, a benefit-cost ratio as high as 103:1, the study shows.

Published to coincide with CIMMYT’s 50^th anniversary, the new study tabulates and analyzes the pedigrees of 4,604 wheat varieties released worldwide during 1994-2014, based on survey responses from public and private breeding programs in 66 countries.

Fully 63 percent of the varieties featured genetic contributions from the breeding research of CIMMYT or of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), both members of CGIAR, a publicly-funded agricultural-research-for-development consortium.

In 2014, those varieties — all developed through conventional cross-breeding and selection — accounted for 106 million of the approximately 220 million hectares of wheat harvested worldwide, according to Michael Baum, Director of ICARDA’s Biodiversity and Integrated Gene Management Program and Morocco Platform.

“The fourth in a series of wheat impact assessments first published in 1993, the latest report highlights impressive CGIAR contributions in all wheat-growing regions,” Baum said. “In South Asia, for example, which is home to more than 300 million undernourished people and whose inhabitants consume over 100 million tons of wheat a year, 92 percent of the varieties carried CGIAR ancestry.”

FREE SEED, FUNDING CRUCIAL

CIMMYT and ICARDA depend on donor assistance and national partnerships to achieve meaningful farm-level impacts, but national co-investments do not figure in the current study, according to Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program. “In 2014 alone, CIMMYT distributed free of charge more than 12 tons of seed of experimental lines for testing and other research by 346 partners in public and private breeding programs of 79 countries,” Braun said. “The partners return performance data to us, but can freely use lines they choose for their own breeding and varietal development efforts.”

“Started in the 1950s by the late Norman Borlaug, this global wheat improvement pipeline has been the main source of new genetic variation for wheat yield increases, adaptation to climate change, and resistance to crop pests and diseases,” Braun added. “The latest impact study attests to its continued worth, but reliable and consistent funding is critical, if global wheat breeding is to satisfy rising demand for the crop in developing countries.”

Led by Borlaug, who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions and worked at CIMMYT until 1979, wheat breeding advances during the 1960s-70s helped to spark the Green Revolution from which the 15-member CGIAR arose and to keep food prices at historically low levels for decades.

But by 2050 the current global population of 7.3 billion is projected to grow 33 percent to 9.7 billion, according to the United Nations. Demand for food, driven by population, urbanization, 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.

Experts say that wheat farmers must meet this rising demand from the same or less land area, while confronting more extreme and erratic rainfall and temperatures and using inputs like water and fertilizer much more effectively.

Developing countries received the greatest benefit from CGIAR contributions, particularly in spring bread and spring durum wheat areas, an outcome that aligns with CGIAR’s mandate to help resource-poor farmers and alleviate poverty and malnutrition. Still, adoption of CGIAR-related cultivars was not limited to developing countries and the study highlights significant spill-overs:

In Canada, three-quarters of the wheat area was sown to CGIAR-related cultivars.
In the U.S., nearly 60 percent of the wheat area was sown to CGIAR-related varieties.
In Western Australia, CGIAR-related varieties were used on more than 90 percent of the wheat area.

To view or download a copy of the study, click on the title below:

Lantican, M.A., H.J. Braun, T.S. Payne, R.P. Singh, K. Sonder, M. Baum, M. van Ginkel, and O. Erenstein. 2016. Impacts of International Wheat Improvement Research, 1994-2014. Mexico, D.F.: CIMMYT.

CIMMYT scientist Sarah Hearne talks about gender equality in science. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés Arredondo/ CIMMYT)

Q+A: How women and girls can succeed in science, according to CIMMYT’s Sarah Hearne

Written by Matthew O'Leary on February 25, 2016. Posted in News. 58 Comments on Q+A: How women and girls can succeed in science, according to CIMMYT’s Sarah Hearne

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Scientific change requires innovation and the best solutions emerge when a wide range of perspectives have been considered, if you don’t have representation from half of the population the scope for innovation is narrowed, said a leading molecular geneticist on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

“Women often look at problems from a different angle from men – not better, just different – and like men we have a different gender perspective – all perspectives are valid and of value,” said Sarah Hearne, who leads the maize component of the Seeds of Discovery project at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement.

Her passion for science began in girlhood, stemming from a curiosity about how things work.

“I loved experimenting and figuring out how and why things happen; I used to dissect my grandma’s fish when they died to try to work out why they were floating in the tank – I was six at the time,” she said. “Thankfully my parents weren’t horrified by this and over the years my requests for microscopes, chemistry sets and supplies of organs to dissect were realized by Santa and the village butcher.”

Not all girls receive such encouragement. A study conducted in 14 countries found the probability for female students graduating with a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree in a science-related field are 19, 8 and 2 percent respectively, while the percentages of male students are 37, 18 and 6, according to the United Nations.

In response, in December, U.N. member states adopted a resolution to establish an annual international day to mark the crucial role women and girls play in science and technological communities celebrated for the first time on Feb. 11 this year. The aim is to further the access of women and girls and their participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, training and research activities.

She kicked off her career in adulthood by earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Plant Science at the University of Manchester and a doctoral degree at the University of Sheffield where she focused on work based across the University of Sheffield, the John Innes Center and Syngenta. Since graduating she has worked at two CGIAR centers in Latin America and East and West Africa.

She currently works with CIMMYT in the Seeds of Discovery project where she develops and applies tools to identify and enable the use of the valuable genetic variation present in genebanks for the benefit of farmers and consumers around the world.

She shared her views on women and girls in science in the following interview.

Q: Why is it important to have an increased number of woman and girls studying as well as working in scientific fields?

Girls rock!

Half the population is female but in science careers we are underrepresented, this imbalance becomes increasingly acute as you move up in career structures towards positions of more decision making.

Gender-balanced companies tend to have higher profitability and rank higher in terms of institutional health. This translates to the non-profit sector – impact instead of profitability is the measure of success. More women are needed in scientific research and development at all levels of organizations. This ideal requires a gender-balanced pool of potential applicants – something that is hard to obtain when women are underrepresented in sciences from school to university.

Q: What inspired you to follow a career in science and agriculture?

I grew up in Yorkshire, a rural area in the UK, my dad was an agricultural engineer and my mum still runs her own shop. Farming was an integral part of our community and our lives.

I loved science at school and was one of the few who studied chemistry and physics. Indeed, I was the only girl who studied the four sciences on offer. I enjoyed studying biology and environmental science the most, and after leaving school I deliberated whether to study genetics or plant science at university, eventually deciding to do a degree in applied plant science.

I spent my third year at university working with Zeneca – now Syngenta. My fellow interns and I were plunged into the deep end of applied research with very limited supervision; I LOVED IT! I got to research design, test, evaluate and develop tools and resources that mattered to the company and to farmers; my boss was very supportive and he encouraged me to try out some of my more “wacky” ideas…I was allowed to fail and learn from failure, developing better methods as a result. After earning my B.Sc. I applied for Ph.Ds., all the Ph.Ds. I applied for were focused on different aspects of crop improvement – I wanted to work with plant science that had an impact on people’s lives. The Ph.D. I chose was on maize molecular genetics and physiology working on Striga (a parasitic weed endemic to Africa) and drought. My Ph.D. experiences importantly gave me first-hand experience of the hard reality of the precariousness of food and nutritional security across vast swathes of the human population. When completing my Ph.D. I decided I wanted to be able to contribute to food security through research but I didn’t want to do this within a university setting- I thought that was too far from farmers. I came to know CIMMYT through my doctoral research and I have been working in the CGIAR system of agricultural researchers ever since completing my Ph.D.

Q: What challenges do women and girls face with regard to science today?

Perceptions: Women can face direct sexism related to their choice of class/degree/career not being considered gender appropriate, this often has cultural influence so while a girl may be more or less accepted in one culture she is not in another. Role models also pose a challenge. There are few female role models in many areas; those that exist have often sacrificed much personal life to be where they are. This gives a skewed picture to girls in an image-obsessed world where people are expected to be perfect in all aspects of life. Science is still very male dominated, especially agricultural science. Overt and unintentional sexism is rife in many organizations – women can be made to feel like a “token” staff member..

Being assertive and focused is often viewed very negatively when women display this behavior with gender-specific terms being used. I have been called “bossy, bitchy, emotional, aggressive, ice queen, scary, etc.”, my male colleagues exhibiting the same behavior are “driven, focused, tough, go-getters, etc.” I have never heard them being called bossy….

Inequality at home results in inequality in science. Women still tend to bear the brunt of home and childcare activities and this creates real or perceived impacts. Institutions and national governments don’t always help – shared maternity/paternity leave would be a good starting point.

Q: What is your advice to young aspiring female scientists?

Wow, there are lots of wisdom picked up and passed on I could share, here are a few I have found the most useful:

Personal: Check your own prejudice and ensure you treat others in an equal way. I get tired of hearing statements like “men can’t multi-task”… it is as offensive as “women can’t read maps”. If we want equality we have to ensure we model it ourselves.

Work on self-confidence, self-esteem and develop a good, self-depreciating sense of humor. Build a support network to help maintain these things and give you honest feedback. Don’t be afraid to ask questions; ask lots of questions.

Don’t stress about titles, positions or detailed career paths – career paths don’t usually follow a straight or planned path and you discover more fulfilling things on the journey. Give yourself time to explore and discover an area of science you love and are inspired by; believe me it is worth every second invested. Happiness is more important that a title on a business card.

Pick your partners carefully, life is full of surprises and striving for equality shouldn’t stop in the classroom or workplace.

In school/the workplace, do not accept gender loaded statements; “you are bossy” should be quickly but firmly rebuked with “not bossy, simply assertive”. Speak out about gender bias –be it female, male, bi -or trans gender – and enable and support others to speak out. If someone says something that makes you feel uncomfortable, articulate this to them. In addition, I would advise that you should never, ever accept sexual harassment of yourself or others in the workplace. Report it and if needed shout and scream about it. It is a good idea to build a financial/family safety net for yourself so that you have the freedom to leave situations where there is unwillingness of employers to deal with sexual harassment.

Learn to program Python and a bit of Java. Data is getting easier to capture and as a result the volume of data we are processing grows year on year. Having the skills to manipulate and analyze this is increasingly critical – off the shelf solutions no longer work. Being able to program is an increasingly valuable skill and one many girls are not encouraged to explore.

Try to understand the gender climate of the organization you are working for – or want to work for – and seek out allies to navigate and – hopefully – start to influence the climate to a more gender neutral workplace.

Don’t view every decision as having gender bias – sometimes there really isn’t any- you just don’t like the decision.

Apply for jobs even when you don’t meet all of the requirements – if you can do half of the things well and can learn the others then apply- nothing ventured nothing gained (and few candidates, male or female, tick all of the boxes).

Learn how to negotiate and try not to enter a situation in which you are unaware of the facts about what you are arguing for. Women often feel uncomfortable to negotiate salaries – you feel worse when you realize a male colleague doing the same job is being paid more.

Don’t let anyone shout at you, and don’t let anyone talk over you – calmly, quietly, and privately explain how you want to be treated – if the shouting continues walk away from the situation.

Consider family issues whether you have a family or not; do you need to send an urgent request to someone at 5pm on a Friday? -This helps all colleagues – men have families too and we all need work-life balance.

A farmer in his barren field in Sewena, Ethiopia. (Photo: Kyle Degraw/Save the Children)

Is the next food crisis coming? Are we ready to respond?

Written by on January 3, 2016. Posted in Director General's corner. 1 Comment on Is the next food crisis coming? Are we ready to respond?

One of the strongest El Niños on record is underway, threatening millions of agricultural livelihoods – and lives.

At least ten million people in the developing world are facing hunger due to droughts and erratic rainfall as global temperatures reach new records coupled with the onset of a powerful El Niño – the climate phenomenon that develops in the tropical Pacific and brings extreme weather across the world. Warmer than usual waters in the Pacific have made this year’s El Niño a contender for the strongest on record, currently held by the 1997 El Niño, which caused over $35 billion in global economic losses and claimed an estimated 23,000 lives. These extreme El Niños are twice as likely to occur due to climate change, according to a letter published in Nature magazine by researchers at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

Who is most at risk?

Watch this video to learn more about El Niño's impact on weather globally. (Source: World Meteorological Organization) — Watch this video to learn more about El Niño’s impact on weather globally. (Source: World Meteorological Organization)

Nearly 40 million people will be in need of emergency food assistance this year – a 30 percent increase over previous estimates – due in large part to added stress from El Niño, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

This El Niño has resulted in severe drought throughout Central America, the Caribbean and Ethiopia, and is predicted to lead to flooding in the Horn of Africa and drought in southern Africa in the coming months. It has also disrupted the Indian monsoon and led to drier conditions in Southeast Asia and Indonesia, which has resulted in devastating wildfires across the country.

The El Niño phenomenon is often followed by a transition to La Niña, another driver of global weather patterns. If this were to happen again, it would mean more severe drought in the eastern Horn of Africa, and hurt crops like sugar, palm oil, and rice in Asia.

Responding to and mitigating El Niño’s effects

A shop attendant displays drought-tolerant seed at the Dryland Seed Company shop in Machakos, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Ensuring farmers are equipped with climate resilient varieties that can withstand extreme stresses such as drought or waterlogging is an essential measure to counteract the side effects of El Niño. For example, after planting a drought tolerant maize variety developed by CIMMYT, farmers in Tanzania produced nearly 50 percent more grain than they normally would under the same conditions using other commercial varieties. In South Asia, CIMMYT has developed maize varieties that are tolerant to waterlogging and provide a safety net in years with heavy rains or flooding.

Equipping farmers with good agronomic practices and tools to reap the benefits of these crops is equally important. Ensuring farmers adjust planting times is critical for crops to adapt to changing weather patterns, while smart water management practices such as no-till farming can help raise wheat yields while reducing water and fuel costs. Precision land levelers – machines that level fields so water flows evenly into soil, rather than running off or collecting in uneven land – have enabled farmers in South Asia to save up to 30 percent more water, use less fertilizer and produce more grain yield.

Crop-index insurance is another tool that can serve as both a preventive and responsive measure to support smallholders during natural disasters. It allows farmers to purchase coverage based on an index that is correlated with those losses, such as average yield losses over a larger area or a well-defined climate risk – like drought – that significantly influences crop yields. If implemented correctly, index insurance can build resilience for smallholder farmers not only by ensuring a payout in the event of climate shocks like those caused by El Niño, but also by giving farmers the incentive to invest in new technology and inputs, such as seed.

So – are we prepared for this storm? Since 2003, nearly one-quarter of all damage and losses from climate-related disasters have occurred in the agricultural sector in developing countries. While global food security will likely not suffer another shock like that of 2007-08, primarily because global stocks of maize, wheat and rice are so large, natural disasters resulting from El Niño combined with climate change are playing out into unchartered territory, posing a real threat to people’s lives and livelihoods.

This isn’t the time to be complacent. We need to take preventive measures, and long-term investments in agricultural research will help us be prepared for future shocks and ensure crops and livelihoods can withstand more frequent natural disasters.

CIMMYT marks 50 years of innovation in agricultural science for development

Written by on January 1, 2016. Posted in News. 1 Comment on CIMMYT marks 50 years of innovation in agricultural science for development

Mark your calendars! CIMMYT will celebrate its 50th anniversary during a three-day event from September 27 to 29, 2016.

We will be celebrating throughout the year, with the capstone event to be held in Mexico in September 2016.

We will showcase CIMMYT’s successes, impacts, and partnerships, and we will look toward the future: What will CIMMYT need to become in the next 50 years?

What do the complex challenges of the future mean for agricultural research-for-development at large?

The following themes will be in focus:

Maize and wheat science is fundamental for food security and sustainable development.
CIMMYT has made impacts well beyond the size of our institution, and is a key player in addressing research-for-development challenges of the future.
Our partnerships enable us to make impacts with our research, and we want to highlight and strengthen those partnerships.

We look forward to exploring these topics with CIMMYT50 participants, and to planning for a future with continued impact.

Information about the program and logistics will be available soon.

For any questions about the event, please contact the CIMMYT50 executive committee at cimmyt50@cgiar.org.

Wheat scientists eye USDA $3.4 million in new funds to boost yields

Written by on December 21, 2015. Posted in News. 67 Comments on Wheat scientists eye USDA $3.4 million in new funds to boost yields

CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds describes the technology used for conducting research into heat and drought resilient wheat varieties in Ciudad Obregon in Mexico's northern state of Sonora in March 2015. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins — CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds describes the technology used for conducting research into heat and drought resilient wheat varieties in Ciudad Obregon in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora in March 2015. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Scientists involved in a major global initiative aimed at increasing wheat yields as much as 60 percent by 2050 got a recent boost when the U.S. government announced $3.4 million in new research funds.

Researchers affiliated with the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), focused on developing new high-yielding varieties of wheat to meet demand that will be generated by a projected 33 percent increase in population growth from 7.3 billion people today to 9.5 billion by 2050, will be eligible to apply for the grant money.

“This opens up new opportunities for scientists in the United States to provide invaluable input to the overall project of increasing yields, improving our potential to tackle this vital work to achieve global food security,” said Matthew Reynolds, wheat physiologist at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), one of the founding members of IWYP.

Awards for the new funds announced last Monday by Tom Vilsack, the U.S. agriculture secretary, will be made available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI).

“Wheat is one of the world’s most important staple crops, providing a significant amount of daily calories and protein throughout the world,” Vilsack said.

“By 2050, the demand for wheat as part of a reliable, affordable, and nutritious diet will grow alongside the world population, and continued wheat research will play an important role in ensuring its continued availability.”

IWYP, which targets partner investments of up to $100 million, supports the G20 Wheat Initiative in its efforts to enhance the genetic component of wheat yield and develop new wheat varieties adaptable to different geographical regions and environments.

CLIMATE RISKS

Wheat yields face threats from global warming. Findings in a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state that it is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer throughout the 21st century and rainfall will be more unpredictable.

Mean surface temperatures could potentially rise by between 2 to 5 degrees Celsius or more, the report said.

“Wheat currently provides 20 percent of calories and protein consumed worldwide and current models show that a 2 degree increase in temperature would lead to 20 percent reduction in wheat yield and that a 6 degree increase would lead to a 60 percent reduction,” Reynolds said.

“If we have a 40 percent yield reduction due to climate change, the risks to food security will be increased because wheat production has to increase by 60 percent just to keep up with population projections.”

In addition to CIMMYT, IWYP members include Britain’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Grains Research and Development Corporation of Australia (GRDC), the Department of Biotechnology of India (DBT), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in France and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) in Switzerland.

Applications are due May 3, 2016 and more information is available via the NIFA-IWYP request for applications.

Paula Kantor Award nominees must show gender research success in India

Written by on November 12, 2015. Posted in News. 650 Comments on Paula Kantor Award nominees must show gender research success in India

A farmer at work weeding in a maize field close to the Pusa site of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), in the Indian state of Bihar. CIMMYT/M. DeFreese

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — A new award recognizes contributions to the livelihoods and economic empowerment of women made by a former giant in the field of international gender research.

The inaugural Paula Kantor Award for Excellence in Field Research, to be given to a young female researcher of Indian origin, aims to recognize outstanding achievements in the field of gender and empowerment of women and girls in India.

Kantor, a gender and development specialist working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), died tragically on May 13 at age 46, in the aftermath of a Taliban attack on a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan.

She formerly worked as senior rural development specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). The non-profit organization initiated the award to acknowledge Kantor’s 20 years of experience in executing policy research and programmatic work related to integrating gender into agriculture and rural development.

“Dr Kantor’s work was largely driven by her desire and passion to improve lives in the global south, especially those of women and girls,” ICRW said in a statement issued to solicit nominations.

“She was a prolific researcher who participated in and worked with several initiatives to better the lives and improve livelihoods for women in conflict-prone and terrorist-affected areas.”

The award will be presented to the winner at the ICRW’s 40th anniversary celebrations in New Delhi, India in January. In subsequent years, the award will be open to researchers of all origins and honor research throughout the developing world, the statement said, adding that nominations must be received by December 7.

At the time of her death, she was working on a new CIMMYT research project focused on understanding the role of gender in the livelihoods of people in major wheat-growing areas of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Pakistan.

“Paula’s death was a massive blow to the entire development community,” said Martin Kropff, director general at CIMMYT. “Through her work she was helping to lift up a segment of the global population facing major threats to food security and gender equality. This award serves to recognize the major role she was playing to help empower men and women to determine their own future.”

Although women play a crucial role in farming and food production, they often face greater constraints in agricultural production than men. Rural women are less likely than men to own land or livestock, adopt new technologies, access credit, financial services, or receive education or extension advice, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Globally, if women had the same access to agricultural production resources as men, they could increase crop yields by up to 30 percent, which would raise total agricultural output in developing countries by as much as 4 percent, reducing the number of hungry people by up to 150 million or 17 percent, FAO statistics show.

For more information on how to nominate candidates for the award, please visit the ICRW website

CIMMYT contributions are present in more than 26% of all major wheat varieties in China after 2000, according to a 2014 study by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) of the Chinese Academy of Science. (Photo: CIMMYT)

New paths ahead for agricultural research

Written by on November 4, 2015. Posted in Director General's corner.

Since joining CIMMYT in June 2015, I’ve had the opportunity to learn first-hand the impact of its work around the world, and the appreciation for our work among our peers, partners, and friends.

For example, in China, three decades of partnership with CIMMYT have added $ 3.4 billion to wheat output, and Australia, a donor country, has benefited to the tune of A$ 30 million per year on an in-vestment in CIMMYT of just A$ 1 million. A recent study found that around $33 million invested in CGIAR wheat breeding yields $2-5 billion worldwide. When the devastating maize lethal necrosis disease broke out in eastern Africa in 2011, CIMMYT led a response to get resistant varieties in farmers’ fields within just four years.

Even from such few examples, it is clear that wherever CIMMYT is involved, we have a valuable and unique contribution to make.

There are many challenges to be addressed in the world, from insecurity and population movements to our changing climate. Fundamental to most is the issue of how we practice agriculture to sustainably feed the world, and maize and wheat rank among the most important crops for food security, responsible for 25% of global protein and calorie consumption. What is needed is sustained and increased investment in agricultural research, and organizations such as CIMMYT and its partners to carry it out.

The recently-adopted sustainable development goals respond to this need. Among them are the objectives of ending malnutrition by 2030, doubling the productivity and incomes of small-scale producers, especially women, introducing sustainable and resilient agricultural practices, and ensuring access to the world’s treasure of genetic diversity.

There is a clear consensus between CIMMYT’s work and global priorities identified at the highest level; the question is how we can use our partnerships to effectively mobilize resources in pursuit of these goals.

Traditional donors are rightly concerned about aid dependency, leading a call to move from aid to trade. In practice, this means working more closely with the agrifood sector to ensure that consumers always enjoy access to affordable, appropriate, safe, and nutritious food.
Another answer is that many of the poor no longer live in poor countries. Emerging economies are increasingly important partners in their own development, and in the development of other nations in similar circumstances.

Finally, there is always value in greater coordination and collaboration with new partners. Many development NGOs make extensive use of agricultural research, but too few are closely involved in it.

Agricultural research must be responsive to the needs of society, and can only be scaled out and sus-tained by governments, the private sector, and NGOs. Nonetheless, core funding for agricultural research is essential to the impacts it generates. Funding organizations themselves enable the employment of the brightest minds, development of effective institutional capacities, and the flexibility to engage in overlooked but essential research priorities.

In 2016, CIMMYT will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Fifty years of impact felt in farmers’ fields around the world, of continually expanding our research portfolio and collaboration with partners so that, to-day, CIMMYT is more prepared than ever before to respond to global needs. But it is not enough. New business models, strategies, and partnerships are needed for agricultural research to fulfill its promise to the world. The upcoming CIMMYT strategy for 2016-2030 will set out a framework for our future.