Archives: Projects

Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA)

Written by mcallejas on August 14, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

About ACASA

Increasing climatic risks make it imperative to identify spatial and temporal risks that are likely to impact agriculture. Adaptation options are thus needed to mitigate the negative impacts. Considering this, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) is working with national agriculture research systems in South Asia to develop the Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA).

This comprehensive Atlas aims to provide granular-scale information for South Asian countries at the village scale by integrating various spatially explicit data sets together. It covers climate hazards, and the exposure of smallholder populations, farms, and crop and livestock enterprises to hazards. It will also look into the vulnerability of these populations to climatic risks, impacts on critical commodities in the region, and evidence of the effectiveness of different climate adaptation interventions.

The ACASA offers a unique set of tools that can facilitate improved investment targeting and priority setting, and support stakeholders’ decision-making and investments in agricultural technologies, climate information services, and policies. The intended beneficiaries of this Atlas include governments, insurance and agri-food industries, international and national donors, and adaptation-focused entities.

Driven by science and data, explore ACASA’s approach to safeguard South Asian Agriculture

P. Malathy, Director General of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka, delivering keynote address during ACASA Project Inception Meeting.

ACASA Objectives

Increase the quality, availability, and utility of data and evidence.
Improve climate adaptive capacity of agricultural systems and guide stakeholders on location-specific adaptation options, including gender-informed technologies, practices, and climate information services to address risks.
Increase the resilience of small-scale producers to climate variability and change.

ACASA Workstreams

Climate Risk Assessment

Gridded risk analysis using historical crop yield data and satellite signatures; indicators of current and future hazards, exposure, and vulnerabilities.

Assessment of Climate Impact on Commodities

Climate impact on commodities under current and future climate

Portfolio of Adaptation Options

Decision trees, crop/livestock models, statistical and econometric models, and expert consultations

UI/UX Development

An open-source, web-enabled, interactive, and dynamic Atlas development

Capacity Strengthening of Stakeholders

Training materials, tools, tutorials, and country/regional level workshops

ACASA Advisory Panel

The advisory panel established under ACASA will identify potential users, use cases in different countries, and guide and review Atlas’ progress. The constituted panel will have the scientific advisory committee (SAC) and South Asia’s country team leaders, who will be instrumental in hosting and adapting the Atlas. Explore the dynamic team of ACASA’s advisory panel.

Reports

ACASA Project Inception Report

To discuss ACASA and its development, a 3-day inception meeting was held in Delhi, India, from 25th to 27th April 2023, marked by 70 distinguished guests from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India discussing the various aspects of Atlas. The inception meeting provided some valuable recommendations/highlights that will be instrumental in building the Atlas.

ACASA Use Case Report

The ACASA project places significant importance on the practical applications of the Atlas. Various stakeholders could utilise Atlas to enhance investment in agricultural adaptation technologies and climate information services. Drawing from the diverse perspectives of the panellists during the inception meeting, a consolidated report was prepared on how ACASA team and its partners will be prioritising and developing use cases based on geographical and thematic considerations.

ASEAN – CGIAR Innovate for Food Regional Program

Written by mcallejas on July 28, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

The primary focus of this project is on regenerative agriculture practices, including circular economy principles, co-identified and digital decision-support tools co-designed for at least two priority production systems (one upland and lowland rice-fish production system and another upland system), enabled by policymakers, and used by scaling partners in at least three Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states.

The project aims to align with the Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 5 – Gender Equality; SDG 13 – Climate Action; SGD 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.

Participation Agreement for Supply of Materials-CAIGE Project

Written by mcallejas on July 25, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

The CAIGE Project seeks to offer the University of Sydney and Australian grain breeders access to provider sites, materials, and data at times to be agreed by the parties. Offer support to the recipient and Australian grain breeders to choose materials from CIMMYT and enter into supply orders.

The project aims to align with the Sustainable Development Goals: Contributing to SDG 2 – Zero Hunger.

Every alternate year, a set of elite spring wheat lines is shared with the CAIGE program in Australia.
Joint evaluation of CIMMYT & Australian lines across Australia, October 2022 (N=312 lines).

Data provided

Grain yield under full irrigation and drought
TKW under full irrigation and drought
Quality traits (protein, sedimentation volume etc) under full irrigation
Disease traits: Leaf and Yellow rust, and soil borne disease
Stem rust (Debre Zeit – Ethiopia and Njoro –Kenya

2022/23: Additional set of new cohorts of lines sent to Australia for quarantine and seed increase process.

CAIGE Australia team will visit CIMMYT Obregon March 2024

CIMMYT-Australia Scientists field evaluation, October 2022

Direct release of CIMMYT wheat in Australia

Commercial cultivation of Borlaug 100 wheat in Australia (commercialized by Rebel seeds)

Technical support for sustainable maize and associated crops production in Iguala

Written by mcallejas on July 20, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

The primary focus of this project is on providing technical support to maize and associated crops growers, to develop, validate and implement a working methodology based on a technological menu that responds to the needs of their agri-food systems, aligned with the 2021-2024 government program of the Iguala municipality in Mexico’s Guerrero state.

The project aims to align with the Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 2 – Zero Hunger; SDG 3 – Good Health and Well-Being for People; SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production; SDG 13 – Climate Action; SGD 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.

Direct project scopes:

Technical accompaniment to 40 producers and their impact on at least 80 ha. of maize and associated crops for the adoption of sustainable practices and their linkage to the innovation network, to increase productivity and profitability of the productive process of small, medium and large producers with a focus on sustainable agriculture.
Follow-up during the period of technical attention of 2 modules and 40 areas of impact, to consolidate, maintain and increase the infrastructure where innovations that respond to the needs of producers in the municipality are adapted.
Development of training events for the development of capacities of 30 producers and key actors linked to the innovation network in the municipality.
Operate a solid communication strategy through the institutional media and its outreach, to position the project’s activities and the promotion of sustainable agriculture by the municipal government.

Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Delivery of Legumes and Dryland Cereals in Africa (AVISA)

Written by mcallejas on July 20, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

The Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Delivery of Legumes and Dryland Cereals in Africa (AVISA) project increased demand-driven, gender equitable and timely access to quality seeds and inputs for small-scale producers by strengthening links between seed producers, farmers and grain aggregators, particularly women and young farmers. Partners included national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES), the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), the Center for Behavior Change Communication (CBCC) and the Tanzania Seed Traders Association (TASTA).

The project, which involved 188 NARES scientists from nine countries in East and Southern Africa (ESA) and West and Central Africa (WCA), tested different impact pathways to improve the scalability of dryland crop innovations. They identified 58 regional market segments for crops such as sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, groundnut, chickpea and pigeonpea, of which 28 were prioritized for breeding pipelines. Target product profiles were consolidated and priority traits were addressed through a crop health/pathology network. Breeding programs were implemented through shared pipelines, regional trials were conducted and 2,461 farmers participated in tricots.

Efforts included the formation of a cowpea WCA working group, the identification of 26 common bean market segments in East Africa, and the implementation of awareness and demand generation activities using a variety of promotional methods. Data-driven decisions were prioritized, resulting in the creation of breeding informatics teams, quality assurance/control pipelines, and digitization templates.

The project also established governance structures and steering committees for the two target regions in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as operational committees and elected representatives to ensure the functioning and sustainability of the CGIAR-NARES dryland crops network.

In addition, the project targets the Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 2 – Zero Hunger; SDG 13 – Climate Action; SGD 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.

Reports

AVISA 2023 Annual Report

On-farm-Maize Select

Written by Leslie Domínguez on April 17, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

The On-farm-Maize Select project will pilot a new genomics-driven selection method based on on-farm performance of Stage 1 maize breeding materials that is expected to deliver increased rates of genetic gain to the farmers through:

More accurate selection for the conditions of small-scale producers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially women and the poorest farmers, who often apply fewer inputs.
Improved sampling of the diversity of on-farm conditions across the entire target population of environments (TPE).
Improved understanding of the diversity of socio-economic factors, agronomic management (especially by women), and environmental on-farm conditions across the TPE.
Genomic-assisted rapid recycling of parents (population improvement) to reduce breeding cycle time.
Improved social inclusion in breeding processes, leading to greater gender responsiveness and wider appeal of breeding outputs.

The hypothesis is that generating genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) based on on-farm phenotyping will lead both to increased selection accuracy for performance under farmer management, including challenging conditions that women and the poorest farmers face, and enable rapid cycling of parents by reducing the number of years of testing before new crosses are made. This hypothesis will be initially tested by estimating expected genetic gain on-station and on-farm based on the genetic correlation between on-station and gender-disaggregated on-farm performance of the same set of genotypes, as well as the repeatability of selection on-station versus on-farm. The value of on-farm versus on-station testing for estimating GEBVs for parent selection and early-stage advancement will be confirmed in two selected CIMMYT maize breeding pipelines (one each in eastern and southern Africa – EA-PP1 and SA-PP1) by comparing the performance on-farm of a sample of Stage 1 breeding lines from the second cycle of on-farm vs on-station selection. The efficacy and costs of undertaking on-farm genomic selection versus on-station selection at Stage 1 of the two selected breeding pipelines will also be evaluated.

Key Outputs

The genetic correlation between, and accuracy of estimation of, on-farm and on-station breeding values will be measured in terms of ability to predict performance under farmer management. This will enable comparison of the relative efficiency of direct selection on-farm versus indirect selection on-station. We expect that increased on-farm genetic gains will be achieved if the genetic correlation between on-farm and on-station performance is 0.8 or less.
Elite breeding populations improved for on-farm performance will be generated, and products extracted from them will be compared on-farm with those selected the same founder populations using conventional on-station selection (comparison of the products of the pipelines will not be possible until the second project phase, if approved).
Separate GEBVs generated for lines under the management of male and female farmers, with genetic correlations estimated to ensure that performance on female-managed farms is adequately weighted in selection indices.
Genomic-assisted on-farm sparse testing network, experimental design and capacity developed.
Improved representativeness of results due to enhanced gender and social inclusion approaches in the on-farm trial design.

Expected Outcomes

Greater rates of genetic gain delivered on-farm through more extensive sampling of TPEs
Improved accuracy of selection based on performance in farmers’ fields in the TPE.
Incorporation of farmer-preferred traits in selection decisions supports faster replacement of older hybrids with newer products.

1000FARMS

Written by Leslie Domínguez on April 17, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

1000FARMS is an institutional platform of NARES/CGIAR breeding networks whose purpose is to magnify their effectiveness and impact by enabling them to generate sufficient on-farm data and product insights on late-stage maize breeding selection candidates and new releases to ensure they will be high-performing in the hands of farmers, are farmer-preferred and climate-adapted, and can be recommended for scaling by the seed system. The platform achieves this by integrating three primary components:

tricot, or triadic comparison of technology options, a research methodology that helps farmers to identify the most suitable technologies for the local conditions of their farm, engaging them in the testing or validation of new crop varieties and other promising technologies.
ClimMob, a digital public software package developed by the Alliance of Bioversity-CIAT that allows farmers and field agents to record crowdsourced data, such as variety preferences, notes on performance, images, and gender/socio-economic data.
An on-farm trial (OFT) community of practice embedded in the NARES/CGIAR Breeding Networks in Africa.

These tools and methodologies already exist and have been well-tested; the innovation of 1000FARMS is to put all three components together to accelerate the uptake of the OFT approach across CGIAR and NARES breeding networks.

Objectives:

Expand and improve OFT tools to enable streamlined workflows and extract more insights from OFT data.
Implement appropriately scaled on-farm testing programs in partnership with at least 20 NARES/CG crop breeding networks.

CGIAR Initiative: Crops to End Hunger (CtEH)

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on April 4, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

Agriculture offers major solutions to several global challenges – most notably the tightly interlinked challenges of meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on hunger (SDG2), extreme poverty (SDG1), and climate change (SDG13). CGIAR, in concert with a wide network of partners, has a vital role to play in transforming agri-food and land systems in the face of the climate emergency – ultimately benefiting low-income producers and consumers who are most at risk.

What is Crops to End Hunger?

Crops to End Hunger (CtEH) is a CGIAR initiative to accelerate and modernize the development, delivery and widescale use of a steady stream of new crop varieties. These new varieties are developed to meet the food, nutrition and income needs of producers and consumers, respond to market demand and provide resilience to pests, diseases and new environmental challenges arising from climate change.

CGIAR’s plant breeding program has made major contributions to global food security since the mid 1960s, but there is evidence that the rate of adoption of new varieties has slowed. CtEH will support the acceleration of breeding cycles and application of modern breeding methods needed for both productivity gains and climate change adaptation. Farmers need varieties bred in and for the current climate, but are generally using varieties selected 20-30 years ago. In addition, many new varieties are insufficiently improved to induce farmers to adopt them. Prioritization of crops by specific geographies is based on projected benefits to poverty reduction and nutrition, and is an integral dimension of the modernization effort. Using market research, crop breeders gain greater awareness of the traits preferred by men and women farmers, consumers and others along the value chain, integrating them into “product profiles” that guide breeding. Delivery of varieties is done through integrated partnerships and linkages to seed systems in-country, in which national regulatory agencies take responsibility for the release of improved seeds, while public agencies, community organizations and private seed companies undertake multiplication, distribution and promotion to reach farmers’ fields.

In 2017-18, a multi-Funder group, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), agreed to launch a modernization program for public plant breeding in lower-income countries. The CtEH initiative will invigorate breeding for the staple crops most important to smallholder farmers and poor consumers.

How does it work?

CtEH supports focused, science-based, well-resourced and long-term CGIAR Programs and investments in modern plant breeding on priority crops, which build on:

CGIAR’s demonstrated impact on food security and poverty reduction through plant breeding;
CGIAR’s comparative advantages in global public goods research on crop breeding and genetics;
CGIAR’s central role and responsibility for the conservation and characterization of the world’s crop biodiversity, which is held in trust by CGIAR Research Centers for the world community.

This initiative aims to accelerate a transition in CGIAR crop breeding to address very different challenges from those faced in the Green Revolution. Twenty CGIAR crops, including cereals, legumes and root crops, have been chosen for this breeding initiative.

One part of this challenge is for breeding to modernize in terms of its objectives beyond pure yield gain – to address the expanding demand for improved varieties to meet biotic and abiotic stresses, such as climate change and environmental degradation, and to include a wider set of nutritional and market traits, as well as traits relevant to both end-users and value chains, which would increase the adoption rate of newly-bred varieties.

The first step towards modernization of breeding programs is to identify the gaps – the areas that need to be addressed or improved. The Breeding Program Assessment Tool (BPAT) has been developed for this purpose. The deployment of BPAT has been administered by the University of Queensland and has now been used to assess the breeding programs across CGIAR Research Centers. Examples of gaps include cross-CGIAR data management tools, access to low-cost genotyping, and sharing high-quality technical advice across programs and with partners.

What will result?

This process of improvement and modernization of CGIAR breeding programs will provide multiple benefits:

For a given level of investment it is anticipated that each breeding program will achieve increased rates of genetic gain and scale of impact – through adoption of farmer-preferred, market-demanded, climate-resilient varieties.
There will be further opportunity to integrate and support allied CGIAR crop programs, and to apply best practices across CGIAR Research Centers.
A stronger partnership and closer cooperation with national breeding programs, including national research institutes, universities and small and medium-sized enterprises in the private sector in low-income countries, as well as multilateral seed companies and advanced research institutes.
Adopting standardized ways of reporting needs, opportunities and progress will provide Funders with a transparent view of where and how they are getting high rates of return for their investment.

With this new initiative, CGIAR will enhance its contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals towards 2030 through high-priority staple crops tailored for the specific needs of targeted regions and their populations.

Wheat Disease Early Warning Advisory System (DEWAS)

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on March 10, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

The Wheat Disease Early Warning Advisory System (Wheat DEWAS) project is bringing new analytic and knowledge systems capacity to one of the world’s largest and most advanced crop pathogen surveillance systems. With Wheat DEWAS, researchers are building an open and scalable system capable of preventing disease outbreaks from novel pathogen strains that threaten wheat productivity in food vulnerable areas of East Africa and South Asia.

The system builds from capabilities developed previously by multi-institutional research teams funded through long-term investments in rust pathogen surveillance, modelling, and diagnostics. Once fully operationalized, the project aims to provide near-real-time, model-based risk forecasts for governments. The result: accurate, timely and actionable advice for farmers to respond proactively to migrating wheat diseases.

The Challenge

Farmers growing wheat face pathogen pressures from a range of sources. Two of the most damaging are the fungal diseases known as rust and blast. Rust is a chronic issue for farmers in all parts of the world. A study in 2015 estimated that the three rust diseases — stem, stripe and leaf — destroyed more than 15 million tons of wheat at a cost of nearly $3 billion worldwide. Wheat blast is an increasing threat to wheat production and has been detected in both Bangladesh and Zambia. Each of these diseases can destroy entire harvests without warning, wiping out critical income and food security for resource-poor farmers in vulnerable areas.

The Response

Weather forecasts and early-warning alerts are modern technologies that people rely on for actionable information in the case of severe weather. Now imagine a system that lets farmers know in advance when dangerous conditions will threaten their crop in the field. Wheat DEWAS aims to do just that through a scalable, integrated, and sustainable global surveillance and monitoring system for wheat.

Wheat DEWAS brings together research expertise from 23 research and academic organizations from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe, the United States and Mexico.

Together, the researchers are focused on six interlinked work packages:

Work package	Lead	Objectives
Data Management	Aarhus University; Global Rust Reference Center	Maintain, strengthen and expand the functionality of the existing Wheat Rust Toolbox data management system Create new modules within the Toolbox to include wheat blast and relevant wheat host information Consolidate and integrate datasets from all the participating wheat rust diagnostic labs Develop an API for the two-way exchange of data between the Toolbox and the Delphi data stack Develop an API for direct access to quality-controlled surveillance data as inputs for forecast models Ensure fair access to data
Epidemiological Models	Cambridge University	Maintain operational deployment and extend geographical range Productionalize code for long-term sustainability Multiple input sources (expert, crowd, media) Continue model validation Ensure flexibility for management scenario testing Extend framework for wheat blast
Surveillance (host + pathogen)	CIMMYT	Undertake near-real-time, standardized surveys and sampling in the target regions Expand the coverage and frequency of field surveillance Implement fully electronic field surveillance that permits near real-time data gathering Target surveillance and diagnostic sampling to validate model predictions Map vulnerability of the host landscape
Diagnostics	John Innes Centre	Strengthen existing diagnostic network in target regions & track changes & movement Develop & integrate new diagnostic methodology for wheat rusts & blast Align national diagnostic results to provide a regional & global context Enhance national capacity for wheat rust & blast diagnostics
Information Dissemination and Visualization Tools	PlantVillage; Penn State	Create a suite of information layers and visualization products that are automatically derived from the quality-controlled data management system and delivered to end users in a timely manner Deliver near real time for national partners to develop reliable and actionable advisory and alert information to extension workers, farmers and policy makers
National Partner Capacity Building	Cornell University	Strengthening National partner capacity on pathogen surveillance, diagnostics, modeling, data management, early warning assessment, and open science publishing

Wheat DEWAS partners

Academic organizations: Aarhus University / Global Rust Reference Center; Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University; Cornell University / School of Integrative Plant Science, Plant Pathology & Plant-Microbe Biology Section; Hazara University; Penn State University / PlantVillage; University of Cambridge; University of Minnesota

Research organizations: Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI); CIMMYT; Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bangladesh; Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI); Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR); ICARDA; John Innes Centre (JIC); Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO); National Plant Protection Centre (NPPC), Bhutan; Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC); Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC); UK Met Office; Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI); The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) / GetGenome; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service; Zambia Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI)

CGIAR Initiative: Breeding Resources

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on March 8, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

Crop breeding has the potential to significantly contribute to addressing the global challenges of poverty, malnutrition, hunger, gender inequality, environmental degradation and climate change. Rapid population growth, climate change and market crises in low-income and middle-income countries mean that crop breeding must be far more agile and professional than ever before. Data-driven, modernized breeding with tools and technologies such as genomic selection, quantitative genetics, high-throughput phenotyping and bioinformatics, are needed to accelerate and advance improvement in varieties. 

Across the CGIAR-NARES (National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems) crop breeding networks, there is huge opportunity to reach the full potential to improve the lives of farmers and consumers: to share innovations to their full potential; reduce costs associated with services such as bioinformatics; de-fragment disparate data and incompatible technologies; apply consistent standards; and improve access to tools, technologies and shared services.

This Initiative aims to improve the genetic, economic, social and environmental performance of breeding programs across the CGIAR-NARES breeding network.

This objective will be achieved through:

Undertaking strategic modernization so that breeding schemes are designed using the most up-to-date methods, namely: quantitative genetics and computer simulation, including modeling of adoption and benefits across the breeding network, and budget forecasting for management of the portfolio and operational improvements.
Delivering cost-effective shared services through coordinating services such as genotyping and data management, leading to efficiency and greater bargaining power in purchasing or contracting equipment, software and services, ultimately enabling the generation and analysis of high-quality and consistent data across the breeding network.
Implementing performance management of consistent, connected operations through a dedicated performance management team supporting breeding programs and data management teams in describing, harmonizing and adopting standard operating protocols, workflow charts and quality controls across the networks.
Making smarter use of data, enabling CGIAR-NARES networks to share standardized data, creating larger and more powerful datasets that can be readily analyzed and interpreted.
Promoting innovation and research exchange through developing and implementing change management plans, and supporting region-specific capacity building to increase global adoption of modernized breeding tools, technologies and shared services across the network.

This Initiative will work with breeding programs serving countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, along with Asia and Latin America. High-priority countries for the Initiative include Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia in Africa, and Bangladesh and India in South Asia.

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

Varieties are developed 30% faster for 70% of targeted breeding programs.
Shared services reduce costs by 25% in a majority of target programs, making modernized breeding more accessible across the global CGIAR-NARES networks.
At least 70% of targeted breeding programs make data-driven decisions using genomic, phenotypic and environmental data at more than one major decision point.
At least a 70% improvement of Initiative’s targeted breeding programs in at least 50% of impact area tracking indicators as a result of CGIAR-NARES leadership.
Increased capacity in at least 15 NARES institutions, demonstrated by increased access to tools, technologies and shared services (of more than one type) more than once a year.
A least 70% of the Initiative’s targeted continuous breeding programs increase or add at least one target to their modernization plan.
Standardized protocols shared in a common system.
Harmonized operations enabling consistent data generation.
Adoption of quality management system within facilities.
Establishment of Breeding Pipeline Improvement Monitoring System to support informative performance monitoring that reduces the complexity of breeding activities to the core metrics material for decision-making, as aligned to shared goals.
Establishment of performance monitoring system to track implementation of standardized processes and quality of operations along with modernization progress and the impacts of the resulting breeding program.

CGIAR Initiative: Seed Equal

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on March 3, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

Inadequate seed supply and delivery systems, sometimes also misaligned with user and market demand, mean that smallholders often recycle seed or use older varieties, leaving them more vulnerable to pests and diseases.  Small-scale farmers, especially women and other disadvantaged groups, are particularly vulnerable to climate-related challenges, such as more frequent and severe droughts and erratic rainfall. Additionally, farmers may not be well informed about varietal options available to them or may be reluctant to experiment with new varieties. These challenges threaten agricultural production and can compromise their ability to meet their own food, nutrition and income needs.

Improved varieties, innovations and approaches developed and promoted by CGIAR and partners could transform agrifood systems and reduce yield gaps, “hunger months” and other disparities. However, limited access to and use of affordable, quality seed of well-adapted varieties with desired traits, means these bottlenecks remain. 

This Initiative aims to support the delivery of seed of improved, climate-resilient, market-preferred and nutritious varieties of priority crops, embodying a high rate of genetic gain to farmers, ensuring equitable access for women and other disadvantaged groups.

This objective will be achieved through:

Supporting demand-driven cereal seed systems for more effective delivery of genetic gains from One CGIAR cereal breeding, as well as improving government, private sector and farmer-based capacity to deliver productive, resilient and preferred varieties to smallholders.
Boosting legume seed through a demand-led approach that builds on growing demand for grain legumes. This multistakeholder approach will strengthen partnerships to provide efficient, more predictable and demand-led access to quality seed of new varieties.
Scaling and delivering vegetatively propagated crop seed through sustainable enhanced delivery pathways that efficiently target different market segments and farmer preferences.
Supporting partnerships (including with smallholders), capacity building and coordination to ensure uptake of public-bred varieties and other innovations by providing technical assistance for national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) and foundation seed organizations in early-generation seed production and on-farm demonstrations.
Developing and implementing policies for varietal turnover, seed quality assurance and trade in seeds by leveraging global expertise and experience to generate both the evidence and engagement necessary to advance efficient, sustainable, and inclusive seed markets that promote varietal turnover and wider adoption.
Scaling equitable access to quality seed and traits in order to reach the unreached and provide inclusive access while addressing gender and social constraints and the digital divide.

Engagement

This Initiative will work in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania as a priority, followed by other countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Outcomes

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

Robust tools developed and used by funders, developers, researchers and extension staff to sustainably measure and monitor key seed system metrics.
Increase of 10% in the quantity of quality seed of improved “best-fit” and farmer-preferred varieties available to farmers in representative crops and geographies due to increased capacity of seed companies and other seed multipliers (including farm-based seed actors).
Public and private seed enterprises adopting innovative and transformative models for accessing, disseminating and multiplying quality early-generation seed, reducing cost and increasing output.
Reduction of 5% in weighted average varietal age for priority crops in selected countries.
Government partners in policy design and implementation actively promote policy solutions to accelerate varietal turnover, adoption and quality seed use.

CGIAR Initiative: Accelerated Breeding

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on March 3, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

Resource-poor farmers in low-income and middle-income countries will hugely benefit from improved crop varieties that perform better in terms of nutritional quality, income generation, water and nutrient use, stability of yields under climate change, and the needs of both women and men as farmers and as consumers.

However, many smallholder farmers still grow old varieties, in part because they derive inadequate benefits from recent breeding efforts. To trigger timely adoption, new varieties must be widely available and affordable to farmers, and offer a step-change in performance through higher rates of genetic gain. A faster pace of varietal turnover is critical – to enable farmers to adapt and advance rapidly as climatic and market conditions change.

Breeding programs also need a greater focus on developing farmer- and consumer- preferred varieties adapted to distinct production environments, markets and end uses. This can be facilitated by smarter design of breeding programs; stronger partnerships between CGIAR, National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) and small and medium enterprises (SMEs); and strengthened organizational capacity.

This Initiative aims to develop better-performing, farmer-preferred crop varieties and to decrease the average age of varieties in farmers’ fields, providing real-time adaptation to climate change, evolving markets and production systems.

The objective will be achieved through:

Re-focusing breeding teams and objectives on farmers’ needs, in particular the needs of women, through achievable product profiles and breeding pipelines targeting prioritized regions and market segments.
Reorganizing breeding teams to drive efficiency gains through the coordinated engagement of specialists and processes using a common organizational framework, stage gates, key performance indicators and handover criteria.
Transforming towards inclusive, impactful CGIAR-NARES-SME breeding networks with empowered partners, along with customized capacity building, standardized key performance indicators, and by dividing labor and resources across partners according to comparative advantage and aligned with national priorities.
Discovering optimum traits and deployments through agile, demand-driven and effective trait discovery and deployment pipelines, and development of elite donor lines with novel and highly valuable traits.
Accelerating population improvement and variety identification through optimizing breeding pipelines (trailing, parent selection, cycle time, use of Breeding Resources tools and services, etc.), with the goal of assuring all programs deliver market-demanded varieties that deliver greater rates of genetic gain per dollar invested.

Engagement

This Initiative will work with breeding programs serving countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, along with Asia and Latin America. Priority countries for the Initiative include Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa, and Bangladesh and India in South Asia.

Outcomes

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

At least 75% of breeding pipelines are oriented towards specific market segments, enabling greater focus on farmers’ needs, drivers of adoption, distinct impact areas and the strategic allocation of resources.
At least 70% of breeding pipelines use a revised organizational framework that provides operational clarity and effectiveness for specialized teams pursuing breeding outputs.
At least 80% of the breeding networks have implemented documented steps toward stronger partnership models where NARES and SMEs have increased breeding capacity, and make greater scientific, operational and decision-making contributions to the breeding process.
At least 50% of breeding pipelines are supported by a dedicated trait discovery and deployment program that delivers high-impact traits in the form of elite parental lines.
At least 70% of breeding pipelines have increased the rate of genetic gain in the form of farmer-preferred varieties, with at least 50% providing significantly improved varieties delivered to seed system recipients.

CGIAR Initiative: Market Intelligence

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on March 1, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

Decisions on how to invest scarce resources in CGIAR-NARES genetic innovation systems have been predominantly supply-driven and therefore potentially out-of-sync with the demands of smallholders, consumers and agro-industry. The turnover of improved crop varieties developed by CGIAR and its NARES partners (National Agricultural Research and Extension Services) has been slow. Small-scale seed businesses lack incentives to actively promote new varieties given weak demand. Little is known about the drivers of varietal replacement and product substitution, and the role of downstream market actors such as traders, processors and consumers in this process. 

There is a clear need for demand- and data-driven processes to guide genetic innovation systems, but efforts to advance this remain incomplete and fragmented within CGIAR. Current product profile design is strongly biased towards agronomic and stress-tolerance traits, with little systematic identification and integration of traits that contribute to wider social impact.

This Initiative aims to maximize CGIAR and partners’ returns on investment in breeding, seed systems and other Initiatives based on reliable and timely market intelligence that enables stronger demand orientation and strengthens co-ownership and co-implementation by CGIAR and partners.

This objective will be achieved through:

Gathering market intelligence by collecting data to map global and regional challenges across CGIAR’s five impact areas, translating them into regional market segments and priorities for genetic innovation by identifying drivers of demand as well as variation by gender, age and social group.
Designing new-generation, gender-intentional target product profiles for each market segment using market intelligence.
Generating behavioral intelligence based on what drives farmers, consumers and private-sector decisions to adopt new varieties and supporting other Initiatives in identifying cost-effective inclusive strategies for accelerating varietal uptake.
Developing pipeline investment cases by estimating the potential impact and return on investment across CGIAR’s five impact areas of the portfolio of breeding pipelines serving the market segments and developing recommendations for the portfolio optimization and prioritization.
Developing institutional scaling and monitoring, evaluation, learning and impact assessment (MELIA) by establishing a collaboration hub across Genetic Innovation Initiatives and partners to develop scaling mechanisms for the adoption of institutional standards and processes in market segmentation and gender-intentional product profile design, and to conduct rigorous MELIA of the portfolio.

Engagement

This Initiative has a global and regional focus, with countries being prioritized as a result of the Initiative’s work.

Outcomes

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

At least three transdisciplinary teams across CGIAR and partners in prioritized regions are empowered in co-implementation of market and behavioral intelligence and co-design of product profiles.
At least 10 CGIAR partners in prioritized regions adopt institutional standards and processes for market segmentation and product profile design, sharing of market and behavioral intelligence and monitoring of outcomes.
At least five seed suppliers, food companies and NGOs in prioritized regions use market and behavioral intelligence from the Initiative in strategic decision-making.
At least three research leaders and investors make investment decisions using pipeline investment cases and the Initiative’s investor dashboard and the increased availability of information and transparent, holistic analyses of high-impact opportunities attract increased investments in underinvested and new-opportunity market segments.

Southern Africa Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I) Rapid Delivery Hub

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on November 8, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

The Southern Africa Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I) Rapid Delivery Hub is one of the ways in which Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global food security and hunger initiative led by USAID, is taking immediate action to help cushion the blow of high fuel and fertilizer prices on farmers. It’s a two-year rapid response effort that connects farmers to innovative tools and information they need to manage the high costs and input supply disruptions over the next several cropping seasons.

AID-I provides targeted assistance to up to three million African smallholder farmers by improving soil health and fertilizer management; strengthening local seed systems; connecting farmers to financial products and services; and delivering extension and advisory services. AID-I Delivery Hubs focus on areas where the need and potential is greatest: Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.

The Southern Africa Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I) Rapid Delivery Hub is establishing agile, networked rural innovation hubs to enhance the adaptation of technology, co-ownership, and sustainable inputs and outputs for value chains development. The project is fostering diversification through the scaling of productive and resilient agronomic practices and seed systems for cereals, legumes, vegetables and feed/fodder products, and strengthens rural-urban linkages to enable national capacity for cross-network management.

It is being implemented in close consultation with One CGIAR programs and integrates both CGIAR and non-CGIAR innovation partners to support scaling by last-mile delivery partners.

This work contributes to six of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-Being for People
Gender Equality
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action.

What are the project’s primary objectives?

Improve soil health and fertilizer management to grow more, more profitably and with less waste.
Strengthen local seed systems so agribusinesses can reach smallholder farmer customers with a diversity of crop seeds, including climate-resilient and more nutritious varieties.
Connect to financial products and services designed to overcome the unique needs smallholder farmers and small and medium agribusinesses face; and,
Deliver extension and advisory services on good agricultural practices, soil and water management practices, and post-harvest storage solutions so smallholder farmers and small and medium agribusiness owners are more productive and keep more of what they grow.

Video

Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID Resilience Environment and Food Security Bureau, Ann Vaughan, visits an AID-I demonstration plot of drought-tolerant maize varieties in Zambia.

Reports

Buffering the effects of extreme drought in Zambia: New crops and Advisories are helping farmers

Sustainable Agrifood Systems Approach for Sudan (SASAS)

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on November 8, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized.

Sustainable Agrifood Systems Approach for Sudan (SASAS) takes a modular and multi-crop approach, implementing an integrated agrifood system that supports food security, employment, and equity. The project focuses on soil fertility management integrated with agrifood systems based on smallholder farmer productivity gains, leveraging both One CGIAR and non-CGIAR innovation partners to support scaling on the ground by last-mile partners.

SASAS moves beyond humanitarian response and resilience to inclusive agriculture-led economic growth and enables landless and under resourced people to participate in functional and gender-sensitive high-production value chains.

This work contributes to six of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Zero Hunger; Good Health and Well-Being for People; Gender Equality; Decent Work and Economic Growth; Responsible Consumption and Production; and Climate Action.

SASAS Feature Film

Technical Overview: Interventions and Food Security Initiative

Abdelrahman Kheir, chief of party for SASAS, highlights the project’s rapid deployment of agricultural technologies across Sudan.

Imtithal Ali Atta Allah from the El-Harram Cooperative

Ali Atta Allah, a farmer, talks about her recent financial gains from selling vegetables cultivated with SASAS-provided seeds.

Aziza Haroun from the El-Harram Cooperative

Aziza Haroun shares her story working with Mercy Corps and SASAS who have provided her with improved seed, doubling her crop yields compared to previous years.