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Allen McHugh reports on conservation agriculture in China

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caunews_-China3The past few weeks have been busy and interesting in China: preparing for the International Conservation Agriculture Forum in Yinchuan and work travels to Beijing, Yangling (Shaanxi province), and Xuchang (Henan province) are a sure way to keep oneself occupied.

Strengthening partnerships in Beijing

I travelled to Beijing during 2-4 May to discuss future cooperation between the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) and the China Agricultural University (CAU) at a meeting with Jan Thomas, USQ vice-chancellor, and K.E. Bingsheng, CAU president, accompanied by the USQ delegation and CAU senior professors. What does this have to do with CIMMYT? Part of my mandate in China is to forge new partnerships, especially with universities seeking to expand internationally. This requires putting on the CIMMYT uniform to demonstrate presence and reinforce linkages with old and new colleagues. As a result, we hope to see a memorandum of understanding and the facilitation of staff and student exchanges between these universities, Ningxia institutions, and CIMMYT.

Water-use efficiency in Yangling

The Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University in Yangling hosted the final review of the ACIAR “More effective water use by rainfed wheat in China and Australia” project led by Tony Condon (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO), in which the Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences is a partner (led by Yuan Hanmin). The project aims to improve and stabilize farmer returns from growing wheat in dry, rainfed environments in northwest China through development of higher-yielding wheat germplasm that uses water and soil resources more effectively. I spent 6-10 May first hearing about and seeing the extensive breeding work with Australian and Chinese lines, and later discussing the role of conservation agriculture and soil management in breeding with the reviewers and other participants, including Greg Rebetzke from CSIRO. During a Combined China-EU-Australia Workshop on Phenotyping for Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Water-Use Efficiency in Crop Breeding, which followed the review, Richard Richards (CSIRO) presented a very pertinent paper on “Opportunities to improve cereal root systems for greater productivity.” His focus on below-ground processes provides considerable and significant support for conservation agriculture and associated management practices in improving root system functions.

Farm mechanization in Xuchang

The 30th anniversary of the Henan Haofeng Machinery Manufacturing Company in Xuchang, Henan province, provided an excellent opportunity to present conservation agriculture and small machinery requirements for developing countries to 4 academicians, about 10 high level officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Henan Provincial Government, and many highly regarded Chinese mechanization scientists and extension workers.

During 16-18 May, the factory hosted two forums, one focused on combination of wheat agricultural machinery and agronomy, and another on scientific innovation and development of Chinese agricultural machinery. Although the language of the forums was Chinese, my presentation in English was understood by the senior people, some of whom later inquired about the new Chinese Turbo Happy Seeder developed by CIMMYT. The discussion on conservation agriculture per se was limited, but I was able to meet many old Chinese friends and strengthen new relationships for CIMMYT and the Global Conservation Agriculture Program.

Australia’s Grains Research & Development Corporation praises CIMMYT

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In a recent interview on Ground Cover TV, John Harvey, Managing Director of Australia’s Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC), described CIMMYT’s high value to the global wheat research community, calling it among other things “…a Mecca for wheat researchers.”

An Australian statutory corporation founded in 1990, GRDC is one of the world’s leading grains research organisations, responsible for planning, investing and overseeing research and development, delivering improvements in production, sustainability and profitability across Australia’s grains industry. As of 1994, GRDC has supported CIMMYT with a focus on targeting, importing, and evaluating CIMMYT wheat germplasm for use in Australia. More than 90% of the wheat grown in Australia is descended from varieties contained in CIMMYT’s genebank, yielding a net benefit to Australian farmers of nearly A$ 150 million per year. By the same token Australia, which has been renowned for wheat breeding for more than a century, has contributed high-quality germplasm and crucial technical expertise to CIMMYT in numerous areas of our work. The last minute of the video is devoted to CIMMYT .

SIMLESA: Celebrating two years of achievements, defining the future

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During 19-23 March 2012, over 200 researchers, policy makers, donors, seed specialists, and NGO representatives from Africa and Australia gathered in Arusha, Tanzania, for the second SIMLESA (Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa) Annual Regional Planning and Review Meeting. Representation from the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), which generously supports the work, included nine members of the organization’s Commission for International Agricultural Research.

Participants shared lessons from the last two years and discussed better ways to design and implement future activities. Ten sessions addressed issues including project implementation, Australian-African partnerships, program and partner progress and lessons, and communications and knowledge management.

SIMLESA

A key message was that SIMLESA had consolidated and strengthened activities across all objectives, maximizing gains from integration, innovation, information, and technology diffusion for greater impacts on livelihoods and agroecosystems. It was noted that the use of integrated systems can foster productive intensification of agriculture and, indeed, the Innovation Platform Framework, supported by science and partnerships, can contribute to productive, sustainable and resilient maize-legume systems. For even greater impact, the program should rely on stronger leadership from agribusiness, while supporting the public sector’s role, and ensure a farm-income focus to reduce poverty.

Another key message was to strengthen Australian-African partnerships through better delivery of research products, capacity building under any of ACIAR’s four thematic areas, bridging research and extension, strengthening policy and socioeconomic research, and building individual and institutional capacity.

SIMLESA25Speaking at the SIMLESA’s second “birthday party,” Joana Hewitt, chairperson of the ACIAR Commission for International Agricultural Research, reiterated the Australian government’s commitment to long-term partnerships with African governments. Participants also heard of the new SIMLESA Program in Zimbabwe, focusing on crop-livestock interactions. During the dinner, Kenya and Mozambique were recognized for their efforts in promoting and strengthening local innovation platforms.

In addition to SIMLESA’s program steering committee and the mid-term review team, the event drew representatives from USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program, from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) of South Africa. SIMLESA is centered in five countries— Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique—with spillovers benefiting Uganda, Sudan, and Zambia. Representatives from all those countries interacted at the meeting.

A SIMLESA “village” and poster presentations allowed partner representatives and researchers to showcase achievements, and visits to Karatu and Mbulu—Tanzanian sites where SIMLESA is present— demonstrated how the project is transforming agriculture.

9th workshop on QTL Mapping and Breeding Simulation well received at University of Sydney

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A three-day workshop on QTL Mapping and Breeding Simulation was held during 7–9 March 2012, at the Plant Breeding Institute of the University of Sydney, Cobbitty, Australia. It was attended by 35 participants, included plant geneticists, breeders, and graduate students from across Australia. The workshop was the ninth in a series organized by CIMMYT’s Jiankang Wang with the help of the CIMMYT Biometric and Statistics Unit and his team in China. Previous workshops were held in China, Mexico, and at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

taller-QTL-EQ

The workshop format included lectures, practice exercises and discussions. The themes covered included: an introduction to plant breeding and quantitative genetics; linkage analysis and genetic map construction; QTL mapping methods; and principles of breeding simulation. The practice exercises provided for comments and suggestions on using the QTL IciMapping software and QU-GENE simulation tools, and allowed for closer interaction between the trainers and participants.

Primary lecturers at the workshop included Richard Trethowan (University of Sydney), Jiankang Wang (CIMMYT-China and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences), and Luyan Zhang (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and CIMMYT consultant). Richard worked at CIMMYT from 1996 to 2006 as head of wheat breeding for rainfed environments, and continues to be a valued collaborator and member of the CIMMYT family. Jiankang is a quantitative geneticist based in Beijing, and Luyan is currently working with him on QTL mapping methodology.

CIMMYT features in GRDC’s Ground Cover magazine

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The November-December 2011 issue of the Grains Research and Development Corporation’s (GRDC) magazine, Ground Cover, stressed the importance of continued funding of wheat research, and highlighted the role of Australian institutions such as the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in advancing CIMMYT’s research.

In 2010, the GRDC and ACIAR contributed over 10 percent of CIMMYT’s annual budget, and CIMMYT’s Director General, Thomas Lumpkin, expressed his gratitude for their sustained support; a reflection of their many shared values in wheat breeding and development, he said. This investment has a significant return: over 90 percent of the wheat currently grown in Australia has ancestry originating from CIMMYT’s genebank.

To read the full story click here.

Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister praises SIMLESA achievements in Africa

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“Agricultural research will remain pivotal to lifting agricultural productivity in the next 50 years as it has over the past 50 years.”

This was one of the key messages of Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd in a plenary address closing the 5th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture, held in Brisbane, Australia during 26-29 September 2011. Rudd spoke in depth on the importance of agricultural research in ensuring global food security, recognizing the contributions of CIMMYT and other Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers. “Food security requires that governments, global organizations, policymakers, scientists and farmers work in partnership to develop the best possible strategies to rise to this great global challenge of our time.”

The minister singled out the impressive achievements of the initiative on Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) since its launch in early 2010. “This particular project is helping to develop drought and disease-tolerant maize and legume varieties and to educate farmers about new farming technologies in conservation agriculture in five African countries. In the first eighteen months of the program, we’ve helped train more than 150 agricultural researchers from Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania and trialed conservation agriculture in 215 fields owned by local farmers. It’s on track to reaching its target of increasing crop productivity of maize and legumes by 30% on around half a million African small farms within 10 years.”

DSC02242SIMLESA is funded by the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and led by CIMMYT. It is being implemented in collaboration with the national agricultural research systems of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania; the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT); and Australian partners including the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (QDEEDI), Murdoc University, and the University of Queensland. These partnerships with Australian universities, as well as with universities in Africa, have been key to building capacity through short-term training and postgraduate fellowships for researchers. Adopting the Innovation Platform framework, further co-operation with a range of private and public sector organizations, NGOs, and famers’ organizations in Africa has meant the project has been able to quickly and effectively reach farmers on the ground with outputs such as varieties and technologies.

Rudd emphasized the value of investing in partnerships like these, particularly with respect to the growing field of conservation agriculture, the theme of the congress. “Conservation agriculture is one of the newest success stories in this quest to impart Australian knowledge to help feed the world,” he said. He reminded his listeners that Australia is both a world leader in agricultural research and a major international donor, mentioning the country’s role as a core supporter of the CGIAR.

Affirming Australia’s commitment to agricultural research and ending his address, he said “we need a new Agricultural Revolution of the 21st century if we are to feed a further 3 billion members of the human family. As a responsible global citizen, Australia stands ready to play our part.”

Complementing Rudd’s address at the congress, Mulugetta Mekuria, CIMMYT socio-economist and SIMLESA program coordinator, was interviewed by Australian media, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and several radio stations, on SIMLESA’s potential role in contributing to enhanced food security in eastern and southern Africa. He acknowledged the role of partners in national agricultural research systems who are helping to implement activities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania; Australian institutions, regional and international partners for their technical backstopping; the support of the Australian government and ACIAR; and CIMMYT’s leadership of the program. “SIMLESA was designed to have impacts at both the household and regional level”, says Mekuria. “We want to increase food security and incomes while driving economic development through improved productivity from more resilient and sustainable farming systems. Project activities focus on integrated cropping systems, the use of innovation platforms to test and promote promising practices, and ensuring positive and measurable impacts.”

Key Australian farmers visit CIMMYT

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From 19-22 August 2011, CIMMYT hosted six leading Australian grain farmers at Toluca and El Batán. The visit formed part of a tour of farms, private and public research institutes and grain processing facilities in Singapore, UK, France, Canada, USA, and Mexico, which was supported by Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).

At Toluca Research Station the group learned about CIMMYT’s wheat breeding efforts from Wheat Breeder Ravi Singh. Of particular interest were the developments concerning stem rust race Ug99, which has reached South Africa, and risks spreading from there to western Australia, if previous disease trends occur. Stripe rust resistance, increased yield potential, and tolerance to drought and heat were also discussed; GRDC invests in this research in view of CIMMYT’s past and current contributions to higher and more stable wheat yields in Australia.

CIMMYT’s efforts to increase diversity and improve disease resistance and productivity through wide crosses with ancestors, using re-synthesized breadwheats and translocations from more distant relatives of wheat were also outlined by Wheat Geneticist David Bonnett. Station Manager, Fernando Delgado, also presented work on CIMMYT’s long-term agronomy trials, including the technique of staggering the planting of maize using offset precision planting discs, in which maize plants in neighboring rows are not planted directly next to each other. This leads to reduced competition between neighbors, and potential yield increases in hybrids of up to 10%, with no additional inputs. The farmers said they are keen to try these ideas on their farms, which are spread across very different production environments, and range from an irrigated 800ha to 5000ha rainfed.

On Monday the group visited El Batán for further talks by Marianne Bänziger (Deputy Director General, Research & Partnership), Etienne Duveiller (Associate Director, GWP), and Peter Wenzl (Project Lead, SeeD). They also visited the Genebank and saw more GRDC-funded rust resistance research in the field, presented by Sybil Herrera-Foessel (Wheat Geneticist/ Pathologist). Finally, Nele Verhulst further explained the long-term agronomy trials.

The visit also included an informal meeting with the Australian Ambassador to Mexico. The Ambassador expressed interest in the links between CIMMYT and Australia, and the global role of CIMMYT in improving the productivity and sustainability of wheat- and maize-based cropping systems. This view was reiterated by the farmers, who were impressed with the value Australia receives from the GRDC’s investment in CIMMYT. The farmers were also accompanied by GRDC’s Communications Manager, and Gregor Heard of Australia’s Rural Press. The farmers themselves will also write a blog post about the visit, which can be found here.

Deadly wheat disease hits primetime Australian TV

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CIMMYT-led international efforts to identify and deploy sources of resistance to the virulent Ug99 strain of stem rust have received coverage on ABC1, the primary television channel of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Stem rust spores, carried large distances by the wind, are no respecters of borders. The battle against the disease is one which requires global collaboration—and is attracting global media interest. “Wheat is our most important crop and [stem rust] is arguably the most damaging of all the pathogens of wheat, it destroys crops,” explained Professor Robert Park of the University of Sydney’s Plant Breeding Institute in an episode of Catalyst, ABC’s flagship science series, aired on 04 August 2011.

Ug99 is able to overcome the resistance of popular wheat varieties, making this new stem rust a major threat to world food security. In East Africa, where Ug99 first emerged, it has devastated smallholder wheat crops. ABC’s reporter Paul Willis visited the Njoro research station in Kenya, where the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) hosts a large-scale program now screening around 30,000 wheat lines from all over the world each year—including those brought from Australia by Park.

“What we’ve got here is materials that we receive from several developing countries. As you can see there’s Australia, there’s China, Nepal, Bangladesh. So everyone wants to test their material and see if it is actually resistant to Ug99,” said CIMMYT molecular breeder Sridhar Bhavani, pointing out plots of wheat in the field at Njoro.

Working together, scientists have made substantial process in understanding Ug99 resistance and developing new wheats. “So far we’ve characterised close to about fifty genes for stem rust resistance,” said Bhavani. Producing suitable varieties and getting them to farmers is an ongoing challenge, but Willis strikes an optimistic note: “This looks like the hope for the future. It’s a strain of wheat called “King Bird” that was developed by CIMMYT and is now deployed all around the world. And it looks like it’s got very high levels of resistance against Ug99.”

The complete video clip, with transcript, is available here.

CIMMYT-China runs third training course on

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Nearly 70 participants attended a four-day training course on quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping and breeding simulation at Sichuan Agricultural University (Ya’an, Sichuan), 11-14 May 2009. This is the third QTL training course CIMMYT-China has organized.

A rapid increase in the availability of fine-scale genetic marker maps has led to intensive use of QTL mapping in the study of quantitative traits. QTL are identifiable areas of DNA that are closely linked to genes of such traits. QTL are associated with continuous traits that are caused by multiple genes as well as the environment, and tend to be hard to locate. The QTL mapping course aimed to help scientists better identify and classify QTL—specifically for drought tolerance and yield-related traits—through new software and technology developed by the Crop Research Informatics Laboratory (CRIL) team at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) QuLine, developed by CIMMYT and shared by CIMMYT and University of Queensland, Australia, is a genetics and breeding simulation tool. It integrates various genes with multiple alleles that operate within epistatic networks and interact differentially with the environment. QuLine also predicts the outcomes from a specific cross following the application of a real selection scheme.

CIMMYT’s Wheat Breeding Program has used QuLine to compare selection strategies, to study the effects on selection of dominance and epistasis, to predict cross performance using known gene information, and to investigate the efficient use of marker-assisted selection in pyramiding multiple genes in wheat breeding. The QuLine tool can bridge vast amounts of biological data and breeders’ needs for heightened selection efficiency and gain, using all available tools and information.

The course was sponsored by the Generation Challenge Program (GCP), the National 973 Program of China, and the Natural Science Foundation of China.

Tony Fischer wins 2007 Farrer Memorial Medal

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Former CIMMYT Wheat Program director, Tony Fischer, has won the 2007 Farrer Memorial Medal, an annual award established in 1911 to perpetuate the memory of famous Australian wheat rust researcher William Farrer and to encourage and inspire agricultural scientists.

In announcing the award, Farrer Memorial Trust Chairman Barry Buffier described Tony as the preeminent Australian crop physiologist of his generation. Tony’s main interest throughout his carrier has been wheat yield under both dry and well-watered conditions, with the goal of applying physiological knowledge to wheat improvement through breeding and agronomy. He has published more than 120 scientific publications, including several papers drawing on data from his own property in southern NSW where he kept crop, soil and climatic records for more than 40 years.

Tony received his medal in August at a ceremony in Canberra held to coincide with the Crawford fund 2007 Conference. He then delivered the 2007 Farrer Memorial Oration.

Wheat phenome atlas meetings at CIMMYT

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Wheat scientists met at CIMMYT El Batán to discuss the wheat phenome pilot project on 12 and 13 November 2007. CIMMYT and the University of Queensland have been working together to develop a “wheat phenome atlas” (WPA) since 2006.

“The WPA will be a freely-available online tool for wheat scientists. It will describe which parts of the genome influence the inheritance of all economically-important traits,” says Ian Godwin, molecular geneticist from the University of Queensland. Breeders will be able to go online for detailed information on a small piece of DNA sequence that affects resistance to leaf rust, for example. “This technology could also be applied to other crops such as maize and rice,” adds Godwin. Information for the WPA is obtained through advanced statistical analyses of decades of yield trials and recent data from molecular markers. CIMMYT has 40 years of data from field experiments, and has stored the seeds from these trials in the germplasm bank. Scientists can thus link data from yield trials with genetic analysis of seeds from the trials.

“The WPA will be accessible to anyone in the international wheat community, making the process of developing cultivars faster, cheaper, and more efficient,” says Hans-Joachim Braun, Head of the Global Wheat Program. A basic version of the WPA should be up and running by late 2008, says Godwin.

Left to right: Ian Godwin, Ian de Lacy, Christopher Lambrides (back), and Kaye Basford (all from the Universify of Queensland, Australia).

Wheat agronomy student in the Bell Medal finals

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CIMMYT wheat agronomist Bram Govaerts has informed the editors that Sarah Chambers, a student with CIMMYT’s wheat agronomy team in summer 2005, was one of the finalists of the 2006 Bell Medal of the University of Queensland, Australia. During her internship, Sarah collected data from the long-term sustainability trial at El Batán and interviewed farmers. Her honors project, “An economic comparison of conservation agriculture technologies with traditional farm practices in rain-fed cropping systems of central Mexico,” received special mention from the Bell Medal judges.

Says wheat agronomist Ken Sayre: “Sarah was an undergraduate exchange student at the Technológico de Monterrey and contacted me about doing a project with us. We’d always wanted to put an economic foundation on our research with the long-term trial, so we sent her out with Dagoberto Flores to interview rainfed maize farmers. The data they obtained on production costs and returns went into a spreadsheet model created by Bram, and showed that Mexican maize farmers lose money using conventional practices but can improve earnings significantly by using zero-tillage and leaving residues on the soil.”

Sayre cautions that the study was based on market costs for labor and residues, and should be fine-tuned by taking into account the use of family for fieldwork or the returns to feeding residues to farm animals, rather than selling the residues. The Bell Medal was created in 1985 in honor of Arthur F. Bell, who was a pathologist, Director of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, and the first scientist to hold the position of Under- Secretary of the then State Department of Agriculture and Stock in Queensland.

Tony Fischer awarded the Order of Australia

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Former CIMMYT wheat program director and retired program manager at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Tony Fischer, was awarded the Order of Australia as part of the Queen’s 2007 Birthday Honours List.

Instituted by the Queen in 1975, the Order was established to accord recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or meritorious service.

In his congratulatory statement, ACIAR Director Peter Core said that Fischer’s close connection with CIMMYT had provided “…immense benefits to the Australian wheat industry.” Congratulations, Tony!

Trustee Çakmak given 2007 Derek Tribe Award

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CIMMYT Board member and Professor at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, Ismail Çakmak, has received the prestigious 2007 Derek Tribe Award of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) Crawford Fund, in recognition of his outstanding work and leadership in identifying zinc deficiency as the underlying cause of poor wheat yields in the calcareous soils of the Central Anatolia in Turkey. The award announcement appears on the 29 June 2007 update of the ATSE-Crawford Fund website.

Çakmak’s research led to the rapid uptake of Zn-containing NP and NPK fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) by farmers in the region and their development by fertilizer industries. Use of the enhanced fertilizers rose from nothing in 1995 to a record 350,000 tons per annum in Turkey in recent times. In some locations with extremely low plant-available zinc, their use has raised grain yields six-fold. In addition to boosting cereal productivity and farmers’ profits, the fertilizers improve zinc density in the grain, which should better the health, productivity, and mental development of members of resource-poor farm households who depend heavily on wheat in their diets.

The ATSE Crawford Fund Derek Tribe Award was inaugurated in 2001 to mark the outstanding contributions of Emeritus Professor Derek Tribe, founding director of the Crawford Fund, to the promotion of international agricultural research. The award is made biennially to a citizen of a developing country in recognition of distinguished contributions to the application of research in agriculture or natural resource management in a developing country or countries. The recipient of the inaugural 2001 Crawford Fund Derek Tribe Award was Sanjaya Rajaram, former Director of the CIMMYT Wheat Program.

Australian Nuffield Scholars ask searching questions of CIMMYT researchers

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Eleven winners of the prestigious 2006 Nuffield Farming Scholarships in Australia visited CIMMYT during 5-7 March 2007, as part of a study tour covering three continents and diverse farming systems and market arrangements.

The Nuffield Foundation and Trust both derive from the Lord Nuffield (William Morris, 1877-1963), a British engineer and businessman who founded Morris Motors and donated substantial sums during his lifetime to charity. The Foundation initially supported health and social well-being but, in the years immediately following World War II, expanded its objectives to include agricultural advancement, and the first Nuffield Farming Scholarship was launched in 1947. The Trust now exists as a separate body, independent of the Nuffield Foundation, and promotes agricultural, horticultural, forestry, and countryside management education in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Nuffield scholars gain a deep understanding and global perspective of politics, cultures, and challenges associated with agriculture, and typically go on to become highly influential in their fields. Among the worldwide bodies that support Nuffield Scholars are associations in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, and Zimbabwe. Their questions covered diverse and sometimes challenging topics, such as the purpose and nature of CIMMYT partnerships with private companies, or our methods for conserving diversity in seed collections.