It is official: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced the beginning of the global climate heating event El Niño on July 4, which means that extreme weather events will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people on all continents from now until midyear 2024. El Niño is considered the biggest climate oscillation on Earth. It occurs when winds and water temperatures change periodically in the Pacific Ocean. The last occurrence was in 2016, which according to the WMO remains the hottest year on record.
What can we do to mitigate El Niñoâs effects in the food systems that sustain livelihoods in the Global South?
August 2 is Earth Overshoot Day 2023, which marks the date when humanityâs demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.
Wheat harvest in Juchitepec, State of Mexico. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
âClimate change is already affecting agrifood systems,â said the director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Bram Govaerts. âEfforts to protect food and crop systems from things like rising temperatures and drought are part of the overall solution to reverse ecological overshoot; however, we must work hard to ensure these efforts are collaborative, inclusive and sustainable. We want to reach climate goals without compromising food security.â
To harmonize climate change mitigation efforts, CIMMYT and the CGIAR Climate Impact Platform jointly hosted a webinar on July 11, 2023, for relevant stakeholders to discuss the latest findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC is an organization of governments that are members of the United Nations and provides regular assessments of the risks of climate change and options for mitigation.
âClimate change in agrifood systems presents special challenges. There are adaptation challenges, but even more importantly, reducing emissions while also protecting the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers is a huge challenge that requires scientists and practitioners working together,â said Aditi Mukherji, director of the CGIAR Climate Impact Platform. âAction based on science is needed and IPCC and CGIAR came together in this webinar to present those challenges and solutions.â
The webinar summarized key findings from the IPCC on how climate change effects agrifood systems, including potential adaptation measures and strategies for mitigating the effects of climate change on agri-food systems, how food system management can be part of the solutions to mitigate climate change without compromising food security. Participants also identified potential collaborations and partnerships to implement IPCC recommendations.
âOn this acknowledgement of Earth Overshoot Day, the IPCC report is an important milestone as we enact sustainable solutions to protect against climate change and work toward pulling back overshoot,â said Claudia Sadoff, the executive managing director of CGIAR. âAll strategies must be under-pinned with reliable data to let us know what is happening now and also in the future.â
The webinar kicked off with presentations from Alex Ruane, co-Director of the GISS Climate Impacts Group, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and IPCC author, Mukherji, and Jim Skea, IPCC Co-Chair.
Challenges Ahead
Ruane examined the current impacts of climate change on agrifood systems and presented findings regarding future effects; knowledge that can help guide priority-setting among relevant stakeholders.
Alex Ruane presented on the current and future impacts of climate change on agrifood systems. (Photo: CIMMYT)
He detailed the perilous state of agrifood systems, as they need to sustainably increase production to provide healthy food for growing populations, adapt to climate change and ongoing climate extremes, mitigate emissions from agricultural lands and maintain financial incentives for agriculture.
Answering those challenges requires the development of models that can track all potential climate drivers. A co-development process with robust data-sharing is vital to provide context for risk management and planning for climate adaptation and mitigation.
Adaptation
Mukherji examined current adaptation efforts within agrifood systems. The IPCC data showed that the people and regions seeing the most adverse effects of climate change have also emitted the fewest amount of greenhouse gases.
Aditi Mukherji delivered a talk on climate change adaptation in the agrifood sector. (Photo: CIMMYT)
There are multiple opportunities for scaling up climate action. CGIAR is working on such responses in the areas of efficient livestock systems, improved cropland management, water use, agroforestry, sustainable aquaculture and more.
Maladaptation can be avoided by flexible, inclusive, long-term planning and implementation of adaptation actions, with benefits shared by many sectors and systems.
Mitigation
Skea investigated the demand and supply side synthesis: land use change and rapid land use intensification have supported increased food production and food demand has increased as well.
He also summarized the IPCC findings regarding land use mitigation efforts, like reforestation (restoring trees in an area where their population has been reduced), afforestation (establishing trees in an area where there has not been recent tree cover) and improved overall forest management, quantifying each action on agrifood systems.
Panel discussion
Moderated by Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT/ CGIAR and IPCC scientist, with panelists Kaveh Zahedi, director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment, FAO; Jyotsna Puri, associate vice-president, International Fund for Agricultural Development; Jacobo Arango, thematic leader, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT/CGIAR and IPCC author; Louis Verchot, principal scientist, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT/CGIAR and IPCC author, and Jim Skea, the panel discussed the IPCC findings and examined crucial areas for targeted development.
Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by the Global Footprint Network, an international research organization that provides decision-makers with a menu of tools to help the human economy operate within Earthâs ecological limits.
Leading crop simulation models used by a global team of agricultural scientists to simulate wheat production up to 2050 showed large wheat yield reductions due to climate change for Africa and South Asia, where food security is already a problem.
The model predicted average declines in wheat yields of 15% in African countries and 16% in South Asian countries by mid-century, as described in the 2021 paper âClimate impact and adaptation to heat and drought stress of regional and global wheat production,â published in the science journal Environmental Research Letters. Climate change will lower global wheat production by 1.9% by mid-century, with the most negative impacts occurring in Africa and South Asia, according to the research.
âStudies have already shown that wheat yields fell by 5.5% during 1980-2010, due to rising global temperatures,â said Diego N.L. Pequeno, wheat crop modeler at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the paper. âWe chose several models to simulate climate change impacts and also simulated wheat varieties that featured increased heat tolerance, early vigor against late season drought, and late flowering to ensure normal biomass accumulation. Finally, we simulated use of additional nitrogen fertilizer to maximize the expression of these adaptive traits.â
Wheat fields in Ankara, Turkey, where data was used for crop model simulation (Photo: Marta Lopes/CIMMYT)
The wheat simulation models employed â CROPSIM-CERES, CROPSIM, and Nwheat within the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer, DSSAT v.4.6 â have been widely used to study diverse cropping systems around the world, according to Pequeno.
âThe DSSAT models simulated the elevated CO2 stimulus on wheat growth, when N is not limiting,â he said. âOur study is the first to include combined genetic traits for early vigor, heat tolerance, and late flowering in the wheat simulation.â
Several factors, including temperature, water deficit, and water access, have been identified as major causes in recent wheat yield variability worldwide. The DSSAT wheat models simulate the impact of temperature, including heat stress, water balance, drought stress, or nitrogen leaching from heavy rainfall.
âGenerally, small and low-volume wheat producers suffered large negative impacts due to future climate changes, indicating that less developed countries may be the most affected,â Pequeno added.
Climate change at high latitudes (France, Germany, and northern China, all large wheat-producing countries/region) positively impacted wheat grain yield, as warming temperatures benefit wheat growth through an extended early spring growing season. But warmer temperatures and insufficient rainfall by mid-century, as projected at the same latitude in Russia and the northwestern United States, will reduce rainfed wheat yields â a finding that contradicts outcomes of some previous studies.
At lower latitudes that are close to the tropics, already warm, and experiencing insufficient rainfall for food crops and therefore depending on irrigation (North India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), rising heat will damage wheat crops and seriously reduce yields. China, the largest wheat producer in the world, is projected to have mixed impacts from climate change but, at a nation-wide scale, the study showed a 1.2% increase in wheat yields.
âOur results showed that the adaptive traits could help alleviate climate change impacts on wheat, but responses would vary widely, depending on the growing environment and management practices used,â according to Pequeno. This implies that wheat breeding for traits associated with climate resilience is a promising climate change adaptation option, but its effect will vary among regions. Its positive impact could be limited by agronomical aspects, particularly under rainfed and low soil N conditions, where water and nitrogen stress limit the benefits from improved cultivars.
Extreme weather events could also become more frequent. Those were possibly underestimated in this study, as projections of heat damage effects considered only changes in daily absolute temperatures but not possible changes in the frequency of occurrence. Another limitation is that most crop models lack functions for simulating excess water (e.g., flooding), an important cause of global wheat yield variability.
This study was supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat agri-food systems (CRP WHEAT; 2012-2021), the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP115 Project), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the Mexican government through the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) project, and the International Treaty of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and its Benefit-sharing Fund for co-funding the project, with financial support from the European Union.
Maize under conservation agriculture (CA) in Malawi (Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT)
With many stresses facing agricultural food systems, including climate change, disease epidemics, growing populations, there is not one solution that will answer all the challenges. However, a foundational part of any attempt to strengthen food systems is the effort to conserve crop diversity. Maintaining a robust set of plant varieties serves as a building block for developing favorable traits, like increased yield, increased disease resistance, and drought tolerance, among others.
Dedicated to conserving crop diversity, the Crop Trust is a non-profit international organization with the mission of making that diversity available for use globally, forever, for the benefit of everyone.
On April 3, 2023, Crop Trustâs Executive Director, Stefan Schmitz, and Director of Programs, Sarada Krishnan, visited the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for the first time to examine CIMMYTâs maize and wheat genebanks, with the goal of establishing a set of standards for genebanks around the world. The parties also discussed future collaborations between the two institutions that will be best amplify each organizationâs strengths.
A key part of the Crop Trustâs mission is support for collections of unique and valuable plant genetic resources for food and agriculture held in genebanks.
âCIMMYT is â and has been â one of the key partners in making sure crop diversity is safe and available for all of humanity,â said Schmitz. âTheir maize and wheat genebanks serve a crucial role in assuring crop diversity, especially in Latin America.â
Maize seed samples, CIMMYT germplasm bank (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT manages the most diverse maize and wheat collections. CIMMYTâs germplasm bank, also known as a seed bank, is at the center of CIMMYTâs crop-breeding research. This remarkable, living catalog of genetic diversity comprises over 28,000 unique seed collections of maize and 123,000 of wheat.
âCIMMYT is honored to host the Crop Trust as any global solution requires global collaboration,â said CIMMYT Director General, Bram Govaerts.
Advances in genebank management
Representatives of the Crop Trust were eager to learn more about CIMMYTâs efforts in Digital sequence information (DSI). CIMMYT is using DSI to analyze structure, redundancies, and gaps within its own genebank and is now working to bring DSI tools to national genebanks in Latin America.
This visit builds on ongoing work, such as the third workshop of the Community of Practice for Latin America and the Caribbean on the use of genomic and digital tools for the conservation and use of Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GRAA) held in November 2022.
In 2020, CIMMYT was the largest contributor to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, providing 173,779 maize and wheat accessions from 131 countries.
The Seed Vault, managed by the Crop Trust, is a repository collection holding duplicates of seeds from over 1,700 genebanks around the world.
CIMMYTâs most recent donation to the Seed Vault was in October 2022.
Colleagues from CIMMYTâs germplasm bank prepare a delivery of 263 accessions of maize and 3,548 accession of wheat. (Photo: Francisco AlarcĂłn/CIMMYT)
âAll CIMMYT staff we met were passionate about their work and welcomed us kindly, generously sharing their knowledge and time with us. We look forward to continuing our collaboration, to strengthen it, and make sure that the crop collections held at the CIMMYT genebank are safe and available, forever,â said Schmitz.
During the recent International Day of Plant Health, a group of experts from across the globe sat together in a webinar to discuss and address the challenges facing plant health management capacity in the Global South.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 85% of the population couldn’t afford an energy- and nutrient-sufficient diet. In the 12 most afflicted countries, World Bank data shows 9 out of 10 people struggle to afford a nutritious meal.
Climate change aggravates risk to make food even more unaffordable and crops more susceptible to crop pests and diseases.
CIMMYT maize research guides startups and nonprofits across Africa to act and put pressure on public and private actors to avert food insecurity and regional instability.
Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT Director General, promotes 5 adaptation measures that can transform global agri-food systems, making them more resilient to climate shocks to help vulnerable regions cope with diminishing yields and forced migrations.
In this article, Temina Lalani-Shariff, Regional Director of South Asia at CGIAR, explores the evolution of CGIAR to meet changing global needs, such as the critical challenge of ending hunger, poverty and inequality across South Asia by 2030 while reaching the climate goals of each country. “A reinvented CGIAR can offer greater flexibility and leadership in three key areas to accelerate the regionâs agricultural development and its multiplier benefits for livelihoods, health and climate action,” said Lalani-Shariff.
Highlighting work by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to target the spread of crop pests and diseases in Kenya, Lalani-Shariff explains how this success can transfer to fighting fall armyworm (FAW) in South Asia. She cites CGIAR’s experience in scaling innovations and solutions in a variety of agroecologies and environments in partnership with national research institutes, as well as examples from the Seeds Without Borders Initiative and climate-smart villages.
Lalani-Shariff explains the purpose of CGIARâs Regional Integrated Initiative Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA), which is combining efforts in South Asia to achieve agrifood systems that are more productive and environmentally sound, and support equitable access to sustainable, nutritious diets. Collaboration between CGIAR research centers on Initiatives like this offers opportunities to build effective networks and partnerships for addressing future challenges.
Maize, along with wheat and rice, provides around 30% of food calories to more than 4.5 billion people in 94 developing countries. These statistics declare that maize is an important crop to ensure food and nutritional security for poor communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Limited diversification in dietary food and higher per capita maize consumption indicates that a great proportion of the population in developing countries are lacking in essential nutrients like micronutrients and amino acids.
Rigorous efforts by International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) maize breeder Surinder K. Vasal and cereal chemist Evangelina Villegas in the early 1980s led to the development of an improved maize kernel with higher yield and vitreous appearance by combining the opaque-2 and genetic modifier systems by using backcrossing and recurrent selection. These efforts led to development of an improved maize known as quality protein maize (QPM).
QPM ensures the nutritional security of maize dependent communities. It is described as nutritionally superior maize with high lysine, tryptophan and leucine contents along with high biological value and high protein intake. QPM also has higher contents of non-zein protein (albumin, globulin and glutelin fractions), which are rich in lysine and tryptophan.
The development of QPM was comprised of a series of efforts across many decades to develop promising varieties. CIMMYT described the term QPM for maize genotypes with improved lysine and tryptophan contents and hard endosperm texture. Now, QPM is referred to maize genotypes with homozygous o2 alleles, increased lysine and tryptophan contents, and without harboring the negative pleiotropic effects of soft endosperm.
In recent years, CIMMYT has developed several QPM varieties across many countries with different genetic backgrounds. However, to fast track the deployment of QPM at scale, it needs a vibrant seed system in place and a viable business model which ensures an active engagement of seed producers, farmers and consumers.
This review article discusses the importance and timeline of various events in QPM development and dissemination, genetic basis and systems, breeding strategies, challenges and potential opportunities for QPM adoption. âWe can consider the article as a compendium of QPM where it addresses historical background and scientific breakthroughs which will be useful to researchers, students and others who are looking for a comprehensive information on QPM,â said AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYTâs senior scientist and maize seed systems specialist for Asia, who co-authored the publication.
TAFSSA inception workshops in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. (Credit: CIMMYT/CGIAR)
CGIAR, in collaboration with government agencies and other relevant stakeholders, held country launches of the Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) Initiative in three of its four working locations: Nepal, India and Bangladesh.
TAFSSA, which also operates in Pakistan, aims to deliver a coordinated program of research and engagement, transforming evidence into impact through collaboration with public and private partners across the production-to-consumption continuum. The end result will be productive and environmentally sound South Asian agrifood systems that support equitable access to sustainable healthy diets, as well as contributing to improved farmer livelihoods and resilience, while conserving land, air and groundwater resources.
A vision for South Asian agrifood systems
The three country-level launch events provided a platform for CGIARâS partners to discuss TAFSSA’s five key areas:
Facilitating agrifood system transformation through inclusive learning platforms, public data systems, and collaborations.
Changing agroecosystems and rural economies to increase revenue and sustain diverse food production within environmental constraints.
Improving access to and affordability of sustainably produced healthful foods through evidence and actions across the post-harvest value chain.
Addressing the behavioral and structural factors of sustainable healthy diets
Building resilience and limiting environmental impact.
The three inception events in Nepal, India and Bangladesh also provided a space for open debate on creating partnerships to achieve common goals, through multidisciplinary conversation on each focal area. Breakout sessions were also held according to emphasis area, explaining the initiative and its components clearly and providing opportunities to brainstorm with participants on how to build more stakeholder-responsive activities.
More than 70 participants attended each inception session, both in-person and online, representing government agencies, CGIAR and its research centers working on TAFSSA, international organizations working in the region, academic institutions, and other key stakeholder groups.
Project endorsements
At the launch event in Nepal on June 9, Temina Lalani Shariff, regional director for South Asia at CGIAR, described TAFSSA as a gateway to the rest of CGIAR’s global research efforts. She explained, âMore than 100 partners from around the world will exchange their knowledge, skills and expertise through CGIAR’s new platform to work together for agriculture development.â
Purnima Menon, TAFSSA co-lead and senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), presented the project in India on June 15. âThe research portfolio and engagement plan weâre proposing is really intending to cut across the food system,â said Menon. âWe want to engage people in production systems, people in the middle of the value chain, and consumers, to build the research portfolio. The idea is to do so in a way that is interlinked with the five new CGIAR impact areas and that amplifies CGIARâs research on the ground.â
Introducing TAFSSA in Bangladesh on July 18, Timothy J. Krupnik, Initiative lead and senior agronomist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), stated, âThe approach weâve taken while developing this Initiative was to first look at agrifood crisis issues in South Asia. We evaluated key challenges in this region which has worldâs highest concentrations of hunger and poverty.â He highlighted climate change, resource constraints and social structural inequalities, all of which will be addressed by TAFSSA through several focus areas.
Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, Chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC) welcomed these ideas at the TAFSSA Bangladesh launch. âIf we want to create an intelligent society or nation, if we want sustainability, we must provide nutrition for all,” said Bokhtiar. “In this region, I believe that combining science, technology and innovation in the TAFSSA initiative will deliver good results.â
Shariff also attended the launch in Bangladesh, where she remarked, âWe are here to share a common path to work together to confront the challenges. For that, cooperation is the essential component which is common across Nepal, India and Bangladesh.â
At each of the launch events, TAFSSA was announced as a flagship initiative in South Asia by Martin Kropff, managing director of Resilient Agrifood Systems (RAFS) at CGIAR. He expressed confidence that it would be the first regional program to deliver significant development results and acknowledged that the planned collaboration and partnership with national research institutes would ensure TAFSSAâs success.
CGIAR researchers and partners outside the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the workshop took place. (Credit: Enawgaw Shibeshi/CIMMYT)
The Initiative aims to deliver agronomic gain at scale for millions of smallholder farming households in prioritized farming systems, with emphasis on supporting women and young farmers, to demonstrate measurable impact on food and nutrition security, income, water use, soil health and climate resilience.
Co-creation of agricultural solutions with farmers is integral to the Initiative through the engagement of modern tools, digital technologies, and behavioral science.
At the workshop, participants created a shared understanding of the Initiativeâs goals for the region, laid groundwork for in-country planning and implementation, and increased visibility of the Initiative. Attendees agreed on the need to reevaluate beyond the boundaries of traditional agronomic practices and microeconomic challenges, considering policies at national and regional levels.
Roundtable discussions between participants highlight priorities and opportunities for the Excellence in Agronomy Initiative in east and southern Africa. (Credit: Enawgaw Shibeshi/CIMMYT)
Combining expertise from across CGIAR research centers, private sector actors and government agriculture departments, the Initiative takes a data-based approach to offer demand-driven solutions. This was of particular appeal to Eyasu Elias, deputy minister at Ethiopiaâs Ministry of Agriculture, who described the approach as âtruly commendableâ in comparison to conventional supply-driven approaches.
Elias, who was represented by a delegate at the event, highlighted Ethiopiaâs current three priorities: managing acid soils; managing Vertisols so they utilize their natural productive potentials; and adopting practices that mitigate the formation of salt-affected soils.
âAttaining food security will be a tremendous challenge under current conditions,â explained Eliasâ representative. âMore than ever, we need innovative agronomic solutions that enhance nutrient use efficiencies; we need solutions that can be crafted from locally available alternatives. Collaborations that allow co-creation, co-design and participatory technology generation along these lines are appreciated from our end.â
Ethiopian wheat farmers will soon benefit from the CRAFT tool. (Credit: Bioversity)
The negative impacts of climate shocks have undermined the food security of millions of people in Ethiopia, where predominantly rain-fed agriculture and cereals comprise 82% of the crop area and are particularly susceptible to extreme climate events like drought or flooding. Predictions that can account for potential climate events can facilitate efforts of governmental agencies to proactively engage in climate mitigation efforts.
The five-day training workshop exposed select national experts involved in data collection and analysis of crop performance to the CRAFT tool, which is expected to improve accuracy, efficiency, and speed of forecasts.
The participants of the training were experts from the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), National Meteorology Agency (NMA), and Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission (EDRMC).
CRAFT has been developed in collaboration with CIMMYT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and the University of Florida through the Capacitating African Smallholders with Climate Advisories and Insurance Development (CASCAID-II) program. CRAFT is a flexible and adaptable software platform, relying on a crop engine to run pre-installed crop models and on the Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) to utilize seasonal climate predictions to produce crop yield forecasts. The tool has been calibrated, evaluated, and tested under Ethiopian ecological conditions.
In the opening of the training workshop, Esayas Lemma, Director of the Crop Development Directorate at the MoA, emphasized institutions must be equipped with the necessary analytical and decision support tools to enable decision makers to make critical decisions at the right time due to increasing challenges to food security. He added the training organized by CIMMYT through the AICCRA-Ethiopia project was timely and important for enhancing the capacity of the experts drawn from the three institutions and building national capacity in using modern decision support tools.
Kindie Tesfaye, senior scientist at CIMMYT, stated the training was organized to help experts in national institutions in applying decision support tools to equip decision makers with information to help them minimize costs, save lives, and enhance long-term climate risk management and policy options in Ethiopia. âWe hope to bring this technology to other countries following this roll-out in Ethiopia,â Tesfaye said.
âThe training is an eye-opener for me, and this is the type of tool that we have been looking for,â said Mss. Berktawit, a trainee from EDRMC.
âThe CRAFT tool has several applications in the MoA, and we are lucky to have this training. With some additional training, we at the ministry should be able to use it to support our crop monitoring and early warning works,â said Mr. Zewdu, a trainee from the MoA.
A follow up training session will be organized to certify participants as they continue working with CRAFT. âFeedback from these users will be vital to optimize inputs for CRAFT and to develop an intuitive user interface,â Tesfaye said.
In arid and semi-arid regions, soil salinity and sodicity pose challenges to global food security and environmental sustainability. Globally, around 932 million hectares are affected by salinization and alkalinization. Due to growing populations, anthropogenic activities and climate change, the prominence of salt stress in soil is rising both in irrigated and dryland systems.
Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) employed long-term conservation agriculture practices in different agri-food systems to determine the reclamation potential of sodic soil after continuous cultivation for nine years, with the experimentâs results now published.
Using different conservation agriculture techniques on areas cultivating combinations of maize, wheat, rice and mungbean, the study used soil samples to identify declines in salinity and sodicity after four and nine years of harvesting.
Evidence demonstrates that this approach is a viable route for reducing soil sodicity and improving soil carbon pools. The research also shows that the conservation agriculture-based rice-wheat-mungbean system had more reclamation potential than other studied systems, and therefore could improve soil organic carbon and increase productive crop cultivation.
Cover photo: Comparison of crop performance under conservation agriculture and conventional tillage in a sodic soil at Karnal, Haryana, India. (Credit: HS Jat/ICAR-CSSRI)
As we respond to this emergency, there is an opportunityâand a needâto strengthen the kind of strategic investments that will make our agrifood systems resilient to tomorrowâs shocks. âWe cannot be running crisis to crisis,â says Bram Govaerts, Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, or CIMMYT, in this weekâs New Security Broadcast. âWe need to look at the underlying elements that are provoking these ripple effects.â
On the episode, ECSP Director Lauren Risi and ECSP Advisor Sharon Burke speak with Govaerts and his colleague Kai Sonder, head of CIMMYTâs Geographic Information System Unit, about how to address the unfolding food crisis as we simultaneously build food system resilience in the medium and long term. Drawing from their newly-published article in Nature Food, Govaerts and Sonder share approaches that governments, civil society, and private actors can take to tackle todayâs wheat supply disruptions and food insecurity. They also share past success stories and lay out key challenges moving forward.
Beyond the immediate humanitarian aid needed to boost food security, Govaerts identifies intensified wheat production and greater investments in local cereals as essential short-term priorities. Medium-term investments should focus on agricultural production that is agroecologically suitable, policies that support the adoption of improved crop varieties, and data analysis to target the vulnerabilities of smallholder farmers. And with long term goals in mind, Govaerts says that we need to ask âhow can we enhance our ecosystem diversity, resolve the gender disparity [in the agricultural sector] and invest in agrifood transformation from efficiency to resilience?â
Both experts emphasize that these approaches arenât meant to be taken incrementally. âWeâre really saying we need to start today, taking actions with an impact on the short, medium, and long term. It would be a mistake to only focus on the short-term actions that need to be taken,â says Govaerts.
Sonder acknowledges that transforming agricultural systems takes timeâand isnât easy. âYou need to invest in breeding systems. You need to build capacity and identify areas where that is easily possible,â he explains. âBringing out a new variety of wheat or maize or other crop takes up to ten years.â
Introducing new farming technologies can also come with challenges, since it requires making sure those technologies can actually be maintained. âYou have to ensure that there are mechanics who can fix [them] quickly, that thereâs a supply chain for spare parts,â observes Sonder. And securing sustained large-scale investment for research or program activities can prove difficult, as was the case for a study CIMMYT did on the potential for wheat in Africa. âThe ministers were very interested,â Sonder says. âBut other crisis come along, and then the funds go somewhere else.â
Despite the hurdles, there are plenty of examples of agrifood interventions with positive impact. For instance, one of CIMMYTâs current areas of work is in developing risk assessment and disease warning systems to allow people to act quickly before a crisis occurs. Sonder describes how his colleagues in Ethiopia had a recent success in identifying a risk of rust epidemic in collaboration with the government and stakeholders on the ground by using weather models. Â The joint effort allowed the government âto procure and to spread fungicides and to be prepared for that crisis,â he says.
Addressing the challenges that underlie world hunger will take both this kind of strategic medium-term action as well as longer-term transformationsâEven as we respond to the current hunger crisis with much-needed short-term efforts, we can also be reshaping our global agricultural systems for a more biodiverse, equitable, and resilient future.
âFor several years, weâve been building dense data sets with colleagues from the Indian Agricultural Research Council, which have allowed us to unravel complex farm realities through big data analytics, and to determine what agricultural management practices really matter in smallholder systems,â said Andrew McDonald â94, M.S. â98, Ph.D. â03, associate professor of soil and crop sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. âThis process has confirmed that planting dates are the foundation for climate resilience and productivity outcomes in the dominant rice-wheat cropping systems in the eastern sector in India.â
The research was conducted through the  Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA). CSISA, which is led by CIMMYT with the International Rice Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute as research partners, was established in 2009 to promote durable change at scale in South Asiaâs cereal-based cropping systems.
Researchers found that farmers in eastern India could increase yield by planting wheat earlier â avoiding heat stress as the crop matures â and quantified the potential gains in yields and farm revenues for the region. They also found that the intervention would not negatively impact rice productivity, a key consideration for farmers. Rice alternates with wheat on the cropping calendar, with many farmers growing rice in the wet season and wheat in the dry season.
The study also provides new recommendations for rice sowing dates and types of cultivars, to accommodate the earlier sowing of wheat.
âFarmers are not just managing single crops. They are managing a sequence of decisions,â said McDonald, who has a joint appointment in the Department of Global Development. âTaking a cropping systems approach and understanding how things cascade and interlink informs our research approach and is reflected in the recommendations that emerged from this analysis. Climate resilient wheat starts with rice.â
The research is the result of years of collaboration with international groups and government agencies in India, which have identified the Eastern Ganges Plain as the area with the most potential growth in production. The region will become essential, McDonald said, as the demand for wheat grows, and climate change makes production more difficult and unpredictable; just this year, record heat waves in March and April and food shortages caused by the war in Ukraine â both of which prompted Indiaâs government to instate a ban on wheat exports â have highlighted the need for increased yields and more sustainable farming practices.
âIn the bigger sense, this research is timely because the hazards of climate change aren’t just a hypothetical,â McDonald said. âMany of these areas are stress-prone environments, and extreme weather already constrains productivity. Identifying pragmatic strategies that help farmers navigate current extremes will establish a sound foundation for adapting to progressive climate change.â
Poverty is endemic in the Eastern Ganges Plain, and the region is dominated by small landholders, with varying practices and access to resources. The breadth and specificity of the data collected and analyzed in the study â including field and household survey data, satellite data, and dynamic crop simulations â allowed researchers to understand regional small farmsâ challenges and the barriers to change.
âAt the end of the day, none of this matters unless farmers opt in,â McDonald said. âThereâs a spatial dimension and a household dimension to opportunity. If we can  target approaches accordingly, then we hope to position farmers to make management changes that will benefit the entire food system.â
The study was co-authored with researchers from the Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, the International Rice Research Institute, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Bihar Agricultural University. The research was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development through grants to the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia, which is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
