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Breaking Ground: Lara Roeven delves into complex gender dynamics

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Features.

Lara Roeven completed her undergraduate degree in social sciences at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where she focused primarily on political science in a program that combined this with the study of psychology, law and economics. “I liked it a lot because it gave me an interdisciplinary look at how social injustice manifests itself.”

Having worked on gender and social inclusion issues in the past, she had already heard of CGIAR and its research portfolio, but it was the interdisciplinarity of CIMMYT’s approach that prompted her to apply to the organization at the end of a study abroad program in Mexico. “I had a strong interest in agriculture and I’d always wanted to look at how gender and social inclusion issues affect women and marginalized groups within the context of rural, environmental or climate change, so this role seemed like a good fit.”

Since joining CIMMYT’s Gender and Social Inclusion research unit in January 2019, Roeven has been part of a team of researchers analyzing the ways in which gender norms and agency influence the ability of men, women and young people to learn about, access and adopt innovations in agriculture and natural resource management.

So far, Roeven has mainly been supporting data analysis and helping to produce literature reviews. She has contributed to a number of studies simultaneously over the past year, from the feminization of agriculture in India to changing gender norms in Tanzania. “It’s very interesting because you learn the particularities of many different countries, and the extent to which gender norms can differ and really influence people’s opportunities.”

Searching for nuance

A lot of research follows a similar pattern in highlighting the relationship between women’s work and empowerment, but realities on the ground are often more nuanced. In India, for example, well-established social structures add another layer of complexity to gender dynamics. “What I found interesting when we started looking into the ways in which gender and caste interrelate was that nothing is straightforward.”

Women from higher castes can actually be more isolated than women from lower ones, she explains, for whom it can be more accepted to pursue paid work outside of the home. However, lower-caste women also frequently experience high levels of poverty and vulnerability and face social exclusion in other realms of life.

“These dynamics are actually a lot more complicated than we usually think. And that’s why it’s so interesting to do this kind of comparative research where you can see how these issues manifest themselves in different areas, and what researchers or development practitioners working at ground level have to take into account in order to address the issues these women face.”

Eventually, Roeven hopes to pursue a PhD and a career in academia, but for the time being she’s enjoying working on research that has so much potential for impact. “There are many studies showing that gender gaps need to be closed in order to increase food security and eliminate hunger,” she says. “I feel like many interventions, extension services or trainings don’t always have the desired effect because they do not effectively reach women farmers or young people. Certain people are continuously left out.”

Conducting this kind of research is a crucial step in working towards empowering women across the world, and Roeven would like to see more researchers incorporating this into their work, and really taking on gender as a relational concept. “We can keep on conducting research within the Gender and Social Inclusion research unit, but it would be interesting if our approaches could be mainstreamed in other disciplinary areas as well.”

Though it might not be easy, Roeven emphasizes that it is necessary in order to have an impact and prevent innovations from exacerbating gender and social inequality. “Besides,” she adds, “I think it’s great when research has a social relevance.”

Hafiz Uddin, a farmer from Ulankhati, Tanpuna, Barisal, Bangladesh. He used seeder fertilizer drills to plant mung beans on one acre of land, which resulted in a better yield than planting manually. (Photo: Ranak Martin)

Policy brief highlights opportunities to promote balanced nutrient management in South Asia

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

Hafiz Uddin, a farmer from Ulankhati, Tanpuna, Barisal, Bangladesh. He used seeder fertilizer drills to plant mung beans on one acre of land, which resulted in a better yield than planting manually. (Photo: Ranak Martin)
Hafiz Uddin, a farmer from Ulankhati, Tanpuna, Barisal, Bangladesh. He used seeder fertilizer drills to plant mung beans on one acre of land, which resulted in a better yield than planting manually. (Photo: Ranak Martin)

Over the last few decades, deteriorating soil fertility has been linked to decreasing agricultural yields in South Asia, a region marked by inequities in food and nutritional security.

As the demand for fertilizers grows, researchers are working with government and businesses to promote balanced nutrient management and the appropriate use of organic amendments among smallholder farmers. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) has published a new policy brief outlining opportunities for innovation in the region.

Like all living organisms, crops need access to the right amount of nutrients for optimal growth. Plants get nutrients — like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, in addition to other crucially important micronutrients — from soils and carbon, hydrogen, oxygen from the air and water. When existing soil nutrients are not sufficient to sustain good crop yields, additional nutrients must be added through fertilizers or manures, compost or crop residues. When this is not done, farmers effectively mine the soil of fertility, producing short-term gains, but undermining long-term sustainability.

Nutrient management involves using crop nutrients as efficiently as possible to improve productivity while reducing costs for farmers, and also protecting the environment by limiting greenhouse gas emissions and water quality contamination. The key behind nutrient management is appropriately balancing soil nutrient inputs — which can be enhanced when combined with appropriate soil organic matter management — with crop requirements. When the right quantities are applied at the right times, added nutrients help crops yields flourish. On the other hand, applying too little will limit yield and applying too much can harm the environment, while also compromising farmers’ ability to feed themselves or turn profits from the crops they grow.

Smallholder farmers in South Asia commonly practice poor nutrition management with a heavy reliance on nitrogenous fertilizer and a lack of balanced inputs and micronutrients. Declining soil fertility, improperly designed policy and nutrient management guidelines, and weak fertilizer marketing and distribution problems are among the reasons farmers fail to improve fertility on their farms. This is why it is imperative to support efforts to improve soil organic matter management and foster innovation in the fertilizer industry, and find innovative ways to target farmers, provide extension services and communicate messages on cost-effective and more sustainable strategies for matching high yields with appropriate nutrient management.

Cross-country learning reveals opportunities for improved nutrient management. The policy brief is based on outcomes from a cross-country dialogue facilitated by CSISA earlier this year in Kathmandu. The meeting saw researchers, government and business stakeholders from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka discuss challenges and opportunities to improving farmer knowledge and access to sufficient nutrients. Several key outcomes for policy makers and representatives of the agricultural development sector were identified during the workshop, and are included in the brief.

Extension services as an effective way to encourage a more balanced use of fertilizers among smallholder farmers. There is a need to build the capacity of extension to educate smallholders on a plant’s nutritional needs and proper fertilization. It also details how farmers’ needs assessments and human-centered design approaches need to be integrated while developing and delivering nutrient application recommendations and extension materials.

Nutrient subsidies must be reviewed to ensure they balance micro and macro-nutrients. Cross-country learning and evidence sharing on policies and subsidies to promote balanced nutrient application are discussed in the brief, as is the need to balance micro and macro-nutrient subsidies, in addition to the organization of subsidy programs in ways that assure farmers get access the right nutrients when and where they are needed the most. The brief also suggests additional research and evidence are needed to identify ways to assure that farmers’ behavior changes in response to subsidy programs.

Market, policy, and product innovations in the fertilizer industry must be encouraged. It describes the need for blended fertilizer products and programs to support them. A blend is made by mixing two or more fertilizer materials. For example, particles of nitrogen, phosphate and small amounts of secondary nutrients and micronutrients mixed together. Experience with blended products are uneven in the region, and markets for blends are nascent in Bangladesh and Nepal in particular. Cross-country technical support on how to develop blending factories and markets could be leveraged to accelerate blended fertilizer markets and to identify ways to ensure equitable access to these potentially beneficial products for smallholder farmers.

Download the CSISA Policy and Research Note:
Development of Balanced Nutrient Management Innovations in South Asia: Lessons from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

The CSISA project is led by CIMMYT with partners the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Halima Bibi stands on her field in the district of Malda, West Bengal, India.

A switch to success

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in News.

Halima Bibi stands on her field in the district of Malda, West Bengal, India.
Halima Bibi stands on her field in the district of Malda, West Bengal, India.

In recent years, due to increasing demand and financial advantage, maize is gaining importance as a significant cash crop in West Bengal, India.

Halima Bibi is one of the farmers who embraced the possibilities of the crop. All the hard work she put into maize cultivation paid off when she learnt that she would receive the Krishi Karman Prize, awarded by India’s Ministry of Agriculture, for best maize production for the year 2017-2018. “I couldn’t believe my ears when officials from the state agriculture department told me that I had won the award,” Bibi excitedly shared.

As most other farmers in the district of Malda, Bibi and her husband Zakir Hossain were growing rice in their 10-bigha (3.3-acre) land, but life was still a struggle for the couple and their two children, trying to make ends meet.

Life took a turn for Bibi and her family when she observed field activities of the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI) project and she realized the importance of no-till maize cultivation. In 2015, she hired a zero-till multi-crop planter and sowed maize in her land. Since then, there was no looking back.

“When I learnt about the high demand for maize, we started cultivating the crop on half of our land, but gradually shifted to growing maize across our entire 10 bighas,” Bibi said. “The agriculture department helped me a lot.”

Rewarding productivity

Sefaur Rahman, a researcher and assistant director of agriculture in the district of Malda, predicted a dramatic growth in maize cultivation in West Bengal in the coming years, because farmers are now aware of the crop’s increased productivity, profitability and cost efficiency.

Through the SRFSI project, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) have reached out to a large number of smallholder farmers, especially marginalized women, to promote conservation agriculture and other sustainable techniques that make farming more profitable. In West Bengal, the project team has worked in partnership with Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya agricultural university and the West Bengal Department of Agriculture, among others.

In the 2017-18 crop season, Bibi produced 16,800 kg of maize from her land. She initially invested 20,000 rupees ($280) per acre, which led to a net profit of 150,000 rupees ($2,113) in total.

A quick lesson learned, the right decision at the right time, and a lot of hard work led Bibi to win the Krishi Karman Prize. These awards are given to the best performing states for raising the country’s food grain production. Taking to Twitter, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, expressed her satisfaction. “I am happy to share that West Bengal has been selected once again for Krishi Karman Award by Govt. of India for the year 2017-18, primarily for maize production,” she said.

As Bibi’s story confirms, embracing conservation agriculture techniques is the way to reap maximum benefits and profits from the farm. In this case, the zero-till cultivation of maize paved a new road towards self-sufficiency and sustainability for the farmers of West Bengal.

District agricultural officers listen to feedback from a maize farmer who grows MRM4070 in drought conditions. (Photo: UAS-R)

Stress-resilient maize, a big relief for Indian farmers

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in News.

District agricultural officers listen to feedback from a maize farmer who grows MHM4070 in drought conditions. (Photo: UAS-R)
District agricultural officers listen to feedback from a maize farmer who grows MHM4070 in drought conditions. (Photo: UAS-R)

Small-scale maize farmers beset by erratic rainfall in the state of Karnataka, India, who adopted a new, drought- and heat-tolerant maize hybrid are harvesting nearly 1 ton more of grain per hectare than neighboring farmers who sow other maize varieties.

The climate-resilient hybrid RCRMH2 was developed in 2015 by the University of Agriculture Sciences, Raichur (UAS-R), Karnataka, as part of the Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project. It was marketed in 2018 under the commercial name MRM4070 by Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) in hot and dry areas of Karnataka, where crops are watered exclusively by rainfall.

“This hybrid is made for our stress-prone areas, as it gives guaranteed yields in a bad year and is inferior to none under good rainfall conditions,” said Hanumanthappa, a farmer and adopter of the variety in Gadag District. “In bad years, it can not only feed my family but also my cattle,” he added, referring to the hybrid’s “stay-green” trait, which allows use of the leaves and stems as green fodder for livestock, after harvesting the cobs.

A pack of MHM4070 seed marketed by Mahyco.
A pack of MRM4070 seed marketed by Mahyco.

Droughts and high temperatures are a recurring problem in Karnataka, but suitable maize varieties to protect yields and income loss in the state’s risk-prone agroecologies had been lacking.

Mahyco marketed some 60 tons of hybrid seed of MRM4070 in Karnataka in 2018 and, encouraged by the overwhelming response from farmers, increased the seed offering to 140 tons — enough to sow about 7,000 hectares.

A 2018-19 farmer survey in the contrasting Gadag District — with poor rainfall — and Dharwad District — good rainfall — found that farmers in Gadag who grew MRM4070 harvested 0.96 tons more grain and earned $190 additional income per hectare than neighbors who did not adopt the hybrid. In Dharwad under optimal rainfall, MRM4070 performed on a par with other commercial hybrids.

In addition to providing superior yields under stress, MRM4070 had larger kernels than other hybrids under drought conditions, bringing a better price for farmers who sell their grain.     

Agriculture officers and scientists from the University of Agricultural Sciences observe the performance of MHM4070 in drought-stressed field in Gadag district of Karnataka, India. (Photo: UAS-R)
Agriculture officers and scientists from the University of Agricultural Sciences observe the performance of MRM4070 in drought-stressed field in Gadag district of Karnataka, India. (Photo: UAS-R)

Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with national maize programs, agriculture universities, and seed companies, and with funding from the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Initiative, HTMA was launched in 2012 to develop stress-resilient maize hybrids for the variable weather conditions and heat and drought extremes of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. 

How Haryana cut stubble burning this season

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

Delhi’s fight against air pollution has more failures than success. As the Supreme Court lashed out at Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on November 6, 2019, for not taking enough measures to curb crop residue burning in their farms, it also asked these states to reward farmers who refrained from doing so with Rs 100 per quintal of crop.

So what is Haryana doing right? The state started early, says S Narayanan, member secretary, Haryana Pollution Control Board.

It identified villages where farm fires were rampant last year and just as the kharif season began in June, it started distributing machines that can eliminate crop residue burning. “We did quite well on the technological front and supplied machines like Super sms, Rotavator, Happy Seeder and Zero Till Seed Drill,” he says.

“Any new technology takes time to be adopted,” says Kailash Chand Kalwania of the non-profit CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre). Last year, many farmers were given such machines on subsidy. They used it in small patches.

This year, they saw that the overall cost was less and the yield was high. Read more here.

India pollution: How a farming revolution could solve stubble burning

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

As pollution in Delhi is soaring, agriculture is seen as a big contributor. Farmers are setting fire to their fields to clear excess crop residue in time for the wheat sowing season. CIMMYT scientist M.L. Jat argues that India now needs to undergo a second, “evergreen” revolution, driven by technology such as the happy seeder.

CIMMYT studies show that agricultural productivity can be improved with the use of happy seeders and super sms machines by between 10 and 15%, by reducing labor costs and time and allowing nutrients from the crop residue to be recycled back into the soil. Dr Jat sees it as a win-win situation: “On one side you are increasing your productivity with the happy seeder,” he says, “And on the other you are saving your resources.”

Read more here.

Breaking Ground: Velu Govindan is mainstreaming zinc to combat hidden hunger

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Features.

Velu Govindan will always remember his father telling him not to waste his food. “He used to say that rice and wheat are very expensive commodities, which most people could only afford to eat once a week during his youth,” recalls the wheat breeder, who works at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

As in many parts of the world, the Green Revolution had a radical impact on agricultural production and diets in southern India, where Govindan’s father grew up, and by the late 1960s all farmers in the area had heard of “the scientist” from the USA. “Borlaug’s influence in India is so great because those new high-yielding varieties fed millions of people — including me.”

But feeding millions was only half the battle.

Today, at least two billion people around the world currently suffer from micronutrient deficiency, characterized by iron-deficiency anemia, lack of vitamin A and zinc deficiency.

Govindan works in collaboration with HarvestPlus to improve nutritional quality in cereals in addition to core traits like yield potential, disease resistance and climate tolerance. His area of focus is South Asia, where wheat is an important staple and many smallholder farmers don’t have access to a diversified diet including fruit, vegetables or animal products which are high in micronutrients like iron and zinc.

“It’s important that people not only have access to food, but also have a healthy diet,” says Govindan. “The idea is to improve major staples like rice, maize and wheat so that people who consume these biofortified varieties get extra benefits, satisfying their daily dietary needs as well as combatting hidden hunger.”

The challenge, he explains, is that breeding for nutritional quality is often done at the expense of yield. But varieties need high yield potential to be successful on the market because farmers in developing countries will not get a premium price simply for having a high micronutrient content in their grain.

Fast evolving wheat diseases are another issue to contend with. “If you release a disease-resistant variety today, in as little as three or four years’ time it will already be susceptible because rust strains keep mutating. It’s a continuous battle, but that’s plant breeding.”

Velu Govindan speaks at International Wheat Conference in 2015. (Photo: Julie Mollins/CIMMYT)
Velu Govindan speaks at International Wheat Conference in 2015. (Photo: Julie Mollins/CIMMYT)

Mainstreaming zinc

When it comes to improvement, breeding is only the first part of the process, Govindan explains. “We can do a good job here in the lab, but if our varieties are not being taken up by farmers it’s no use.”

Govindan and his team work in collaboration with a number of public and private sector organizations to promote new varieties, partnering with national agricultural research systems and advanced research institutes to reach farmers in India, Nepal and Pakistan. As a result, additional high-zinc varieties have been successfully marketed and distributed across South Asia, as well as new biofortified lines which are currently being tested in sub-Saharan Africa for potential release and cultivation by farmers.

Their efforts paid off with the development and release of more than half dozen competitive high-zinc varieties including Zinc-Shakthi, whose grain holds 40% more zinc than conventional varieties and yields well, has good resistance to rust diseases, and matures a week earlier than other popular varieties, allowing farmers to increase their cropping intensity. To date, these biofortified high-zinc wheat varieties have reached nearly a million households in target regions of South Asia and are expected to spread more widely in coming years.

The next step will be to support the mainstreaming of zinc, so that it becomes an integral part of breeding programs as opposed to an optional addition. “Hopefully in ten years’ time, most of the wheat we eat will have those extra benefits.”

There may be a long way to go, but Govindan remains optimistic about the task ahead.

Velu Govindan examines wheat in the field.
Velu Govindan examines wheat in the field.

Born into a farming family, he has fond memories of a childhood spent helping his father in the fields, with afternoons and school holidays dedicated to growing rice, cotton and a number of other crops on the family plot.

The region has undergone significant changes since then, and farmers now contend with both rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall. It was a motivation to help poor farmers adapt to climate change and improve food production that led Govindan into plant breeding.

He has spent nearly ten years working on CIMMYT’s Spring Wheat Program and still feels honored to be part of a program with such a significant legacy. “Norman Borlaug, Sanjay Rajaram and my supervisor Ravi Singh — these people are legendary,” he explains. “So luckily we’re not starting from scratch. These people made life easy, and we just need to keep moving towards achieving continuous genetic gains for improved food and nutrition security.”

Delhi Air Quality Descends to ‘Very Poor’, Worst Yet to Come

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

CIMMYT’s Balwinder Singh, who is with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in New Delhi and who recently co-authored a study on crop burning in Punjab and Haryana, told The Wire that the air pollution problem could be much more severe towards the end of October.

“Harvesting is getting late this year and burning will move into the cooler days of November, which will be more harmful as particulate matter will not disperse in cooler days. Another risk in delayed harvesting is that many farmers will harvest and burn the residue within a short time span towards the time between the end of October and early November, which will increase the intensity of fire events and also particulate matter,” he said. Read more here.

Norman E. Borlaug stands on a wheat field in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora state, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The man who fed the world

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Videos.

Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food production. In the latest episode of the BBC radio show Witness History, Rebecca Kesby interviews Ronnie Coffman, student and friend of Norman Borlaug.

Among other stories, Coffman recalls the moment when Borlaug was notified about the Nobel Prize — while working in the wheat fields in Mexico — and explores what motivated Borlaug to bring the Green Revolution to India.

Spurt in stubble burning in Pakistan raises heat in Punjab

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

The Punjab government is working on war footing to curb farm fires ahead of the celebrations of 550 birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, but rising incidents of stubble burning in Pakistan, particularly near border areas of Punjab, have raised concern among scientists at Punjab remote sensing center (PRSC) and Punjab agricultural university (PAU).

Experts from Cornell and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in a recent study ‘Tradeoffs Between Groundwater Conservation and Air Pollution From Agricultural Fires in Northwest India’ stated that pollution, particularly caused by stubble burning, leads to an estimated 16,000 premature deaths caused every year in New Delhi capital region, with an aggregate reduction in life expectancy of 6 years.

Read more here.

A young man uses a precision spreader to distribute fertilizer in a field. (Photo: Mahesh Maske/CIMMYT)

Microsatellite data can help double impact of agricultural interventions

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Press releases.

A young man uses a precision spreader to distribute fertilizer in a field. (Photo: Mahesh Maske/CIMMYT)
A young man uses a precision spreader to distribute fertilizer in a field. (Photo: Mahesh Maske/CIMMYT)

Data from microsatellites can be used to detect and double the impact of sustainable interventions in agriculture at large scales, according to a new study led by the University of Michigan (U-M).

By being able to detect the impact and target interventions to locations where they will lead to the greatest increase of yield gains, satellite data can help increase food production in a low-cost and sustainable way.

According to the team of researchers from U-M, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and Stanford and Cornell universities, finding low-cost ways to increase food production is critical, given that feeding a growing population and increasing the yields of crops in a changing climate are some of the greatest challenges of the coming decades.

“Being able to use microsatellite data, to precisely target an intervention to the fields that would benefit the most at large scales will help us increase the efficacy of agricultural interventions,” said lead author Meha Jain, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

Microsatellites are small, inexpensive, low-orbiting satellites that typically weigh 100 kilograms or less.

“About 60-70% of total world food production comes from smallholders, and they have the largest field-level yield gaps,” said Balwinder Singh, senior researcher at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

To show that the low-cost microsatellite imagery can quantify and enhance yield gains, the researchers conducted their study in smallholder wheat fields in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains in India.

They ran an experiment on 127 farms using a split-plot design over multiple years. In one half of the field, the farmers applied nitrogen fertilizer using hand broadcasting, the typical fertilizer spreading method in this region. In the other half of the field, the farmers applied fertilizer using a new and low-cost fertilizer spreader.

To measure the impact of the intervention, the researchers then collected the crop-cut measures of yield, where the crop is harvested and weighed in field, often considered the gold standard for measuring crop yields. They also mapped field and regional yields using microsatellite and Landsat satellite data.

They found that without any increase in input, the spreader resulted in 4.5% yield gain across all fields, sites and years, closing about one-third of the existing yield gap. They also found that if they used microsatellite data to target the lowest yielding fields, they were able to double yield gains for the same intervention cost and effort.

“Being able to bring solutions to the farmers that will benefit most from them can greatly increase uptake and impact,” said David Lobell, professor of earth system science at Stanford University. “Too often, we’ve relied on blanket recommendations that only make sense for a small fraction of farmers. Hopefully, this study will generate more interest and investment in matching farmers to technologies that best suit their needs.”

The study also shows that the average profit from the gains was more than the amount of the spreader and 100% of the farmers were willing to pay for the technology again.

Jain said that many researchers are working on finding ways to close yield gaps and increase the production of low-yielding regions.

“A tool like satellite data that is scalable and low-cost and can be applied across regions to map and increase yields of crops at large scale,” she said.

Read the full study:
The impact of agricultural interventions can be doubled by using satellite data

The study is published in the October issue of Nature Sustainability. Other researchers include Amit Srivastava and Shishpal Poonia of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in New Delhi; Preeti Rao and Jennifer Blesh of the U-M School of Environment and Sustainability; Andrew McDonald of Cornell; and George Azzari and David Lobell of Stanford. 

For more information, or to arrange interviews, please contact CIMMYT’s media team.

Breaking Ground: P.H. Zaidi helps Asian farmers get healthy harvests despite climate variability

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

Growing up on a rainfed farm in India, P.H. Zaidi learned how smallholder family farmers adapted their farming practices to meet weather challenges, such as dry spells or excessive rain. For the most part, small changes to their crop selection and timing of field operations maintained a wholesome harvest.

As time passed Zaidi witnessed farmers in his hometown and beyond struggling against increasingly extreme and erratic weather events. The Asian tropics have now become hotspots for climate change effects and associated variabilities, said the maize physiologist who works with the Global Maize Program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Hyderabad.

“Rainfed farmers produce most of the food for people in Asia, but without sufficient supplemental irrigation systems they are heavily dependent on monsoon rains,” Zaidi said. “Climate variability can be devastating for family farmers who are unable to foresee erratic changes in weather patterns.”

“An extreme weather event can negatively affect household food security and income, which in turn results in a deterioration of capacity to deal with future shocks,” he explained.

Nearly half a billion people in Asia lack access to nourishing food. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) finds climate change-related disasters and a lack of clean water are the main causes of persistent hunger in the region.

Zaidi believes farmers are born innovators and, with the right tools and know-how, they can ensure a healthy harvest despite year-to-year climate variability. He has dedicated his lifework to researching new agricultural technologies that help resource-poor farmers to protect their food and income security.

Stable harvests despite climate change

After getting an undergraduate degree in agricultural science, Zaidi obtained his doctorate at the University of Agriculture Science & Technology in Faizabad, India. He studied how maize physiology interacts with physical stresses, such as severe heat, drought, and excessive moisture. Maize has become an important part of Asian cropping systems, with several countries recording impressive growth rates in maize production and productivity. However, increasing demands — food, feed, and industry — and climate challenges highlight the need for international agricultural research.

In 2002, Zaidi worked as a post-doctoral fellow at CIMMYT in Mexico, where he was mentored by maize abiotic stress experts. He took those research approaches and strategies for breeding stress-resilient maize varieties back home. Working with the Indian government’s maize program, he contributed to developing high-yielding stress-resilient maize for resource-poor maize farmers living in vulnerable agro-ecologies.

With a wealth of knowledge and experience in agricultural systems in Asia, he was employed by CIMMYT as maize physiologist and breeder in 2007. He worked to develop, deploy and scale-out hardy maize varieties that increase yield potential and reduce risk, ensuring a stable harvest despite climate variability. He also developed and standardized screening phenotyping techniques and selection criteria to identify maize germplasm tolerant to stresses including heat, drought and water-logging.

“Through effective collaboration and training, national governments, private seed companies and NGOs are using the varieties with resilient traits in their breeding programs to ensure hardy varieties reach farmers throughout the region,” Zaidi noted.

From 2015 to 2018, a total of 68 such high-yielding stress-resilient maize hybrids were licensed to seed partners in the region, he explained. These partners took them forward for large-scale farmer participatory testing in their respective target ecologies. After extensive testing through the national system, nine stress-resilient maize hybrids have already been released and are being deployed in various countries in Asia. Others will be released soon.

Zaidi has received several awards for his contributions to maize research, including CIMMYT’s Outstanding Scientist Award in 2009.