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research: Sustainable agrifood systems

Harnessing econometric and statistical tools to support climate-resilient agriculture

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Blogs.

Globally, climate extremes are adversely affecting agricultural productivity and farmer welfare. Farmers’ lack of knowledge about adaptation options may further exacerbate the situation. In the context of South Asia, which is home to rural farm-based economies with smallholder populations, tailored adaptation options are crucial to safeguarding the region’s agriculture in response to current and future climate challenges. These resilience strategies encompass a range of risk reducing practices such as changing the planting date, Conservation Agriculture, irrigation, stress-tolerant varieties, crop diversification, and risk transfer mechanisms, e.g., crop insurance. Practices such as enterprise diversification and community water conservation are also potential sector-specific interventions.

Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA) aims to identify hazard-linked adaptation options and prioritize them at a granular geographical scale. While doing so, it is paramount to consider the suitability of adaptation options from a socioeconomic lens which varies across spatial and temporal dimensions. Further, calculation of scalability parameters such as economic, environmental benefit, and gender inclusivity for prioritized adaptation are important to aid climatic risk management and developmental planning in the subcontinent. Given the credibility of econometric and statistical methods, the key tenets of the approach that are being applied in ACASA are worth highlighting.

Evaluating the profitability of adaptation options

Profitability is among the foremost indicators for the feasible adoption of any technology. The popular metric of profitability evaluation is benefit-to-cost ratio. This is a simple measure based on additional costs and benefits because of adopting new technology. A benefit-to-cost ratio of more than one is considered essential for financial viability. Large-scale surveys such as cost of cultivation and other household surveys can provide cost estimates for limited adaptation options. Given the geographical and commodity spread, ACASA must resort to the meta-analysis of published literature or field trials for adaptation options. For example, a recent paper by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) based on meta-analysis shows that not all interventions result in a win-win situation with improvements in both tradable and non-tradable outcomes. While no-till wheat, legumes, and integrated nutrient management result in an advantageous outcome, there are trade-offs between the tradable and non-tradable ecosystem services in the cases of directed seed rice, organic manure, and agroforestry2.

Quantification of adaptation options to mitigate hazards

Past studies demonstrate the usefulness of econometric methods when analyzing the effectiveness of adaptation options such as irrigation, shift in planting time, and crop diversification against drought and heat stress in South Asia. Compared to a simple cost-benefit approach, the adaptation benefits of a particular technology under climatic stress conditions can be ascertained by comparing it with normal weather conditions. The popular methods in climate economics literature are panel data regression and treatment-based models. Subject to data availability, modern methods of causal estimation, and machine learning can be used to ascertain the robust benefits of adaptation options. Such studies, though available in literature, have compared limited adaptation options. A study by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (ICAR-NIAP), based on ‘Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households’ of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), concluded that though crop insurance and irrigation effectively improve farm income and reduce farmers’ exposure to downside risk, irrigation is more effective than crop insurance1.

Statistical models for spatial interpolation of econometric estimates

Since ACASA focuses on gridded analysis, an active area of statistical application is the spatial interpolation or downscaling of results to a more granular scale. Many indicators used for risk characterization are available at coarser geographical units or points from surveys. Kriging is a spatial interpolation method where there is no observed data. Apart from spatial interpolation of observed indicators, advanced Kriging methods can be potentially used to interpolate or predict the estimates of the econometric model.

ACASA’s approach involves prioritizing adaptation options based on suitability, scalability, and gender inclusivity. Econometric and statistical methods play a crucial role in evaluating the profitability and effectiveness of various adaptation strategies from real world datasets. Despite challenges such as limited observational data and integration of econometric and statistical methods, ACASA can facilitate informed decision-making in climate risk management and safeguard agricultural productivity in the face of climatic hazards.

1 Birthal PS, Hazrana J, Negi DS and Mishra A. 2022. Assessing benefits of crop insurance vis-a-vis irrigation in Indian agriculture. Food Policy 112:102348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102348

2 Kiran Kumara T M, Birthal PS, Chand D and Kumar A. 2024. Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services of Selected Interventions in Agriculture in India. IFPRI Discussion Paper 02250, IFPRI-South Asia Regional Office, New Delhi.

Blog written by Prem Chand, ICAR-NIAP, India and Kaushik Bora, BISA-CIMMYT, India

Roots of resilience: my journey as a Conservation Agriculture champion

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Features.

I am Grace Malaicha, a proud native of the Zidyana Extension Planning Areas in Central Malawi, where my journey with Conservation Agriculture (CA) began. In 2005, I observed neighboring farmers practicing CA techniques on their land. Intrigued and inspired, I decided to embark on this path myself, joining the CA program initiated by CIMMYT and Total LandCare in 2006. I started practicing it on my demonstration plot and observed that yields were getting higher from the second year onwards.

My dedication to CA has changed not only myself but also influenced other members of my farming community. As a mother trial host farmer under the CGIAR Initiative: Diversification for resilient agribusiness ecosystems in East and Southern Africa today, I have been implementing different treatments, which include maize doubled-up legume system and improved drought-tolerant maize varieties planted under CA on flat land and comparing it to the traditional ridge tillage system that involves substantial soil movement.

But what does CA mean to me? It is more than just a set of principles that I apply like minimum soil disturbance, mulching, and crop rotation. CA reduces drudgery, secures yields, and maintains productivity in times of climate change. CA has changed my approach to farming, transforming my once conventional maize monocrop into a diverse maize-legume system. By intercropping with two crops, I have spread the risk of unanticipated crop failure, while incorporating groundnut, cowpeas, and pigeon pea into the mix, which are more drought tolerant. I increased the land area under CA and tried it on many other crops including different legumes as rotation or intercrops, birds-eye chili, vegetables, and cassava.

Over the years, I have witnessed firsthand the harsh realities of a changing climate in central Malawi, from intense heat to prolonged droughts and erratic rainfall patterns. This year, 2024, has even been worse due to the prolonged dry spells between January and February, and the erratic rainfall during this time. Despite these challenges, our CA plots have continued to thrive, showcasing the resilience and adaptability of climate-smart farming practices.

Grace trains farmers on Conservation Agriculture. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

Recognizing the power of knowledge sharing and from the encouragement by CIMMYT and Total LandCare, I started to train fellow farmers, both locally and across borders. At first, I worked with women groups around my homestead and trained about 100 female farmers on the principles of CA. I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to train other farmers in other districts of Malawi. Since 2008, I have also trained farmers in eastern Zambia and from Mozambique where all farmers speak my language Chichewa. Farmers believe other farmers more and are now realizing the benefits of implementing CA in their own fields.

I enrolled to be a local trainer in CA within my community in 2016. My passion for teaching and catalyzing change has led to the adoption of CA by numerous farmers. I embrace my commitment to ongoing learning through carefully implementing these CA trials and playing an active role during awareness meetings.

My life had changed so much. I was speaking on the radio and television. In 2012, the Minister of Agriculture visited my plot, and I was asked to speak in front of a Parliamentary Committee about my experiences as a smallholder woman farmer in Malawi. I spoke about what women can do in agriculture and what changes I made on my land. From representing my country at high level meetings, each step has shaped me into a resilient and empowered woman.

However, my journey has not been without obstacles, including hardships in my personal relationship. In 2012, I made the decision to join my husband in South Africa where I took up menial jobs to earn a living, abandoning my plot back home. But my true passion lay in farming, and I decided to make the bold decision to come back home, leaving my husband and continue with farming. Through perseverance and determination, I have overcome these challenges, and I am now much stronger.

Grace Malaicha stands in her field. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)

Today, I stand with pride in front of my CA plot, not only sustaining my family but also sending all my children to school. I now converted all my land to conservation agriculture, 3ha are under maize and 2ha under groundnuts. Beyond farming, I have investments in housing, claiming rentals in the nearby town of Salima to sustain my financial income and expand in farming.

I will continue on this path as I learned so much over the years and believe that CA may be the only climate-smart agriculture response in reach of smallholder farmers that everybody can apply, and I will continue to support others as a champion of CA.

Unlocking insights from literature: exploring adaptation options in ACASA

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Blogs.

To address the vulnerability of increased climate risks which impact agriculture, it is imperative to identify location-specific adaptation options. Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA) is working on identifying commodity specific hazards at different geographical regions and the key adaptation options aligned with geography and hazards. This has been done for major cereal crops (rice, wheat, and maize), coarse grains (millets), oilseeds (coconut, mustard), legumes and vegetable crops (chickpea, potato), livestock, and fisheries. In ACASA, Systematic Literature Review (SLR) serves as a fundamental tool to identify key climate adaptation options and assess their effectiveness, considering agroecological factors.

Literature reviews are a customary approach for researchers to grasp existing knowledge and findings. The SLR methodically establishes clear research objectives, employs structured search queries to identify relevant literature, applies defined exclusion criteria, and extracts data for scientific analysis. This structured approach facilitates mapping the literature, validating findings, identifying gaps, and refining methodologies thereby minimizing biases, and ensuring comprehensive coverage of evidence.

Commodity-specific research questions, aligned with the problem/population, intervention, comparison/consequences, outcome, and time PICO(T) framework, have been used to guide the search process. By utilizing keywords specific to these questions, ACASA sourced literature from reputable databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and local databases of South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Local databases and gray literature further bolstered the understanding of local conditions and broadened the coverage of studied literature.

Systematic Literature Review (SLR)

The searched literature was then filtered using the well-established Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analysis (PRISMA) framework. PRISMA provides a minimum set of evidence-based literature to be used for further analysis. Let us look at maize as an example of a commodity under analysis in ACASA. For maize, a total of 1,282 papers were identified and based on four exclusion criteria pertaining to adaptation options, quantitative assessment, hazard, and risk only of which 72 papers were shortlisted. The PRISMA framework supported in getting a manageable dataset for in-depth analysis while ensuring transparency in the overall filtering process.

After filtering through PRISMA, a bibliometric analysis was conducted which contained research trend analysis, regional distribution patterns, adaptation option categorizations, and a co-occurrence analysis. Useful patterns in popularity of studied adaptation options, hazards, and their linkages were observed through this analysis. For instance, drought was the most studied hazard, while pest diseases and economics were major hazard impacts studied for the maize literature. In terms of adaptation options, stress tolerant varieties were the most popular adaptation option. Further, co-occurrence analysis provided linkages between adaptation options and hazards, and demonstrated that researchers have also studied bundled technologies.

SLR helped understand the effectiveness of certain adaptation options. Going ahead, this step will be fully realized through a “meta-analysis” which will be pivotal in quantifying the evidence and prioritizing adaptation options for different agroecologies. SLR has proven to be an effective research method to build a comprehensive database that can be used across different thematic areas of ACASA. Adaptation options enlisted through SLR can be further substantiated through expert elicitations via heurism, crop modelling, cost-benefit analysis, and other important pillars of ACASA to identify efficient and cost-effective options.

SLR also provided the ACASA team with the opportunity to identify certain literature gaps such as uneven geographical coverage and excessive emphasis on certain adaptation options versus the rest. Conceptualization of systematically reviewing climate adaptation options in the South Asian context by integrating bibliometric and meta-analysis adds novelty to the current efforts of ACASA.

Blog written by Aniket Deo, BISA-CIMMYT India; Niveta Jain, ICAR-IARI India; Roshan B Ojha, NARC Nepal; and Sayla Khandoker, BARI Bangladesh

Ghana hosts West African consultative meeting to transform dryland agriculture

Written by dmedina on . Posted in In the media.

The West Africa Regional Consultation Conference, organized by CIMMYT and the African Drylands Crop Improvement Network in Accra, addressed pressing issues in the region’s agricultural sector, notably in dryland farming amid climate change. CIMMYT’s Dr. Paswel Marenya emphasized the need to boost yields of crucial cereals like sorghum and millet through innovative practices discussed at the conference. With 47 scientists from nine countries participating, the event aimed to foster collaboration and drive tangible improvements in food security and livelihoods across West Africa.

Read the full story.

Greater successes through NARS partnerships

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Blogs.

Map: BISA works with National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) of South Asia to develop ACASA.

Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA) is different from many projects supported by our team. I would love to dive into the promising features of the ACASA platform and the exciting technical advances being made, but I want to focus here on how the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) has organized this program for greater and longer-term impact.

BISA is a strong regional partner and is the lead institution for the ACASA program. In fact, we could have simply asked BISA to build the ACASA platform and known they would make a great technical product. However, our goal is not just to have great technical products, but also to improve the lives of small-scale producers. For any great technical product to deliver impact, it must be used.

From day one, the ACASA program has not just kept the users’ needs in mind, indeed they have kept the users themselves engaged on the project. By establishing strong, financially supported partnerships with the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, they are achieving four key outcomes, among many others:

  1. Benefit from local expertise regarding national agricultural practices, climate risks, and solutions
  2. Leverage NARS connections to national and subnational decision makers to inform product requirements
  3. Establish national ownership with a partner mandated to support users of the product
  4. Strengthen climate adaptation analytics across South Asia through peer-to-peer learning.

These outcomes lead to more accurate and appropriate products, user trust, and the long-term capacity to maintain and update the ACASA platform. The latter being essential given the constantly improving nature of our understanding of and predictions around climate and agriculture.

If this model of working has such advantages over “if you build it, they will come”, you might wonder why we do not use it in all cases. This approach requires divergence from business-as-usual for most researchers and is not without a cost. The BISA team are not only putting deep emphasis on the technical development of this product, but they are also spending considerable time, effort, and budget to create a program structure where the NARS are catalytic partners. The NARS teams are empowered on the project to contribute to methodologies used beyond their national boundaries, they have the task of making the best data available and validating the outputs, the responsibility of understanding and representing stakeholder requirements, and the ownership of their national platform for long-term use. BISA has developed a structure of accountability, provided funding, facilitated team-wide and theme-specific workshops, and shared decision-making power, which all presents additional work.

In the end, we encouraged this approach because we see too many decision support tools and platforms developed by international researchers who merely consult with users a few times during a project. These efforts may result in building captivating products, meeting all the needs brainstormed by the research team, but their future is sitting in a dusty (and unfortunately crowded) corner of the internet. While this approach seems fast and efficient, the efficiency is zero if there is no value gained from the output. So, we look for other ways to operate and engage with partners, to work within existing systems, and to move beyond theoretically useful products to ones that are used to address needs and can be evolved as those needs change. BISA has been an exemplary partner in building and supporting a strong ACASA team, and we are eager to see how each NARS partner leverages the ACASA product to generate impact for small-scale producers.

Tess Russo is a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, United States.  

Responsible sourcing: how farmers, companies work together

Written by dmedina on . Posted in In the media.

CIMMYT challenges the idea that “win-win” partnerships require equals, proving smallholder farmers and large agri-food companies in Mexico can benefit mutually. Through sustainable sourcing, over 1.15 million tons of maize and wheat have been commercialized, benefiting both parties. Initiatives with companies like Bimbo, Heineken, and NestlĂ© enhance environmental sustainability while boosting farmers’ productivity. Led by Director General Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT pioneers sustainable farming, aligning with UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Read the full story.

Women farmers enhance agricultural production in conflict-torn Sudan

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Blogs.

Women farmers show their harvested vegetables, Kassala, East Sudan. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The ongoing conflict in Sudan continues to contribute to a food crisis threatening the lives of over 18 million people. Farmers, especially smallholders and vulnerable women, are facing extraordinary challenges in obtaining needed agricultural inputs, and access to markets is diminishing.

In Kassala State, East Sudan, which hosts hundreds of thousands of people displaced by ongoing armed conflict including Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees, the USAID-funded Sustainable Agrifood Systems Approach for Sudan (SASAS) is working with women farmers to prepare and safeguard the upcoming growing season. This work is critical to help meet the unprecedented demand for vegetables in the region and achieve sustainable development goals.

“At SASAS, we are working to empower women farmers, especially those who lost their traditional livelihood resources, and help them to acquire skills and techniques to increase their agricultural production to help improve food security,” said Abdelrahman Kheir, SASAS chief of party in Sudan.

Women farmers participate in a training on vegetable growing, Kassala, East Sudan. (Photo: CIMMYT)

SASAS works with the El-Haram Agricultural Cooperative, a women-led farmers group, based in Kassala, to help increase vegetable production. SASAS trains El-Haram Agricultural Cooperative members on modern agricultural techniques, irrigation techniques, pest control, and organic fertilizers to increase crop yields.

“SASAS trained us on new ploughing and land preparation techniques, which we never used before and then provided us with improved seeds of okra, tomato, chili, and mallow, and encouraged us to use legumes as organic fertilizers,” said Imtithal Atta, a farmer from the Alsawagi neighborhood in Kassala. “In the past, I used to buy vegetable seeds from the local market, but they grow poorly. The improved seeds given by SASAS are germinating extremely well. My income has doubled; I almost made $250 from my first harvest of vegetables.”

The ongoing conflict has interrupted traditional livelihood activities in many regions. In some areas, farmers missed the harvest, leading to a dramatic reduction in agricultural production and debilitating price increases for cereals and vegetables. SASAS is helping to restore agricultural production in key growing regions by ensuring farmers have timely access to necessary production inputs, including fertilizer and climate-adapted seeds.

SASAS staff examine the germination of vegetables in women-led farms, Kassala, East Sudan. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“For years, I have worked tirelessly on my family’s farm, season after season, without earning a good income, and I was not sure what was wrong. Luckily, this cultivation season, SASAS trained us on new ploughing techniques to better prepare the land for cultivation, using organic fertilizers to enrich the soil and offering us improved vegetable seeds,” said Fatima Ahmed, a woman farmer and a mother of three children from the El-Haram Agricultural Cooperative.

“Thanks to SASAS, both the quality and the quantity of my agricultural products have greatly improved. I am so happy that I got some good money from my vegetables. I feel empowered and now I can have a strong voice within my community. I am more confident and gained the courage to participate in important decision-making processes within my family and express my opinions without fear,” said Ahmed.

A critical part of SASAS are efforts to diversify food production in Kassala, where malnutrition among children under 5 years old, and breastfeeding, lactating, and pregnant women, are prevalent.

Women farmers process their onions, Kassala, East Sudan. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“I used to go to the main market in town to get my daily needs from vegetables, but now I buy what I need from women farmers closer to my home. They are selling me fresh vegetables at a good price. The taste of the vegetables is quite fresh and healthy, this is something I have been missing for a long time,” said Hanan, a resident of Alswagi.

“The vegetables produced by members of the El-Haram Agricultural Cooperative has led to an increased supply in the local market. I buy vegetables from women farmers and sell them here in the neighborhood market. This has cut my transportation cost as I used to buy vegetables from markets a long distance away,” said Osman, vegetables trader, also in Alswagi.

With agricultural diversification, more is better

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Publications.

Over the last seventy years, intensively managed monocultures, focused on maximizing calorie production, have become a dominant approach to global food production. This trend toward simplification in agricultural systems has supported productivity gains but has very troubling consequences for the environment including nutrient pollution and biodiversity loss at a massive scale. Restoring diversity is essential to regaining ecological balance.

Monocultures are generally all the same, turning biologically-rich systems into chemical-intensive engineered ones nearly devoid of life forms other than those yielding a genetically identical commodity crop. Their guiding principle is producing food ingredients as cheaply as possible. Biologically diversified agricultural systems can take many forms. Their guiding principle is recapturing resilience and resource use efficiency while supplying balanced diets and viable livelihoods.

In recent years, there have been many efforts to biologically diversify farming systems. Increasing the number of species and the genetic diversity is associated with improved resilience and resource use efficiency.

A new paper published in Science consolidates evidence from across a wide range of diversification strategies, applied on five continents, to understand how they affect environmental and social outcomes. These strategies encompass many different interventions ranging from crop rotations and cover crops to livestock inclusion to use of compost, hedgerows, and contour farming.

Farmers hold groundnuts as a preferred crop. (Photo: Sieglinde Snapp/CIMMYT)

The study shows that the likelihood of environmental and social benefits goes up when a greater number of diversification strategies are combined. Importantly, the environmental benefits of diversification were found to be greatest in very simplified landscapes with less than 20% in non-crop area.

It also found that applying multiple diversification strategies in tandem reduces tradeoffs. In other words, the path to agricultural win-wins leads to diversified working landscapes, not just diversification strategies on individual farms.

The push toward commodity monocultures has been baked into many agricultural policies, such as subsidies and trade deals, and into land tenure systems. The monoculture bias is also reinforced through pricing, payment, and other supply chain arrangements. Even research agendas have encouraged monoculture with the long-term emphasis on yield-focused breeding.

It’s time to dismantle the structural barriers that leave so many farmers just getting by “against the odds” and at the expense of functioning ecosystems.

Flowers, learning, and a gender-based approach

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Blogs.

Gender and social inclusion are fundamental themes for the Latin American regional initiative AgriLac Resiliente, which is why numerous regions bordering Guatemala and Honduras have been selected to implement priority actions with a gender approach.

In order to integrate a guideline that clears up why gender and social inclusiveness are relevant matters and incorporate it in all InnovaHubs activities in Guatemala and Honduras, social inclusion and gender experts from AgriLac have implemented a participatory process in the South Pacific and Chiapas Hubs to gather information and document research results to facilitate the Hub model for replication, developed by CIMMYT in Mexico and other countries.

In this way, Alejandrina Garcia in Oaxaca, Alejandro Ramirez in Chiapas, and Angela Meentzan, head of the AgriLac Gender and Social Inclusion Team, conducted individual and group interviews to learn how the different actors involved in the hubs perceived their own participation: farmers, workers, managers, and staff of the hubs, as well as partners who participated in this participatory process.

There are numerous and successful cases of rural women’s participation in the centers of Oaxaca and Chiapas that have been collected in this process. “It is expected that these case studies will become part of an annex to the guideline, just to illustrate why the participation of rural women is essential in their own vision,” said Meentzen, who highlights the case of Juanita, a Tzeltal woman from La Providencia in Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico.

“About five years ago, I started working alongside CIMMYT. Before we knew them, we were only planting maize and beans, but then we couldn’t produce any more. The plants stopped growing, and we had a lot of problems with pests, so we used to burn all the stubble. When the engineers came, they invited us to join them. At first, we weren’t that interested, but we let them teach us. They taught us how to grow other crops like sunflowers, peanuts, vegetables, and fruit trees like lemon and soursop,” said Juanita.

“Now we don’t burn all the stubble and we have crops all year round. We also grow other types of plants and use a lot of organic products that they taught us how to prepare. Our production has increased, and we sell more and more at the market. My daughter and I take care of the sale of the crops: beans, corn, vegetables, squash, corn, and flowers; the latter have given us such good results that we have earned some extra money,” said Juanita.

“The benefits we got from our land allowed us to give our children a future. Some of them have graduated from college and have jobs; others are about to graduate, but they have all learned to work the land. It feels a little harder, but I have been able to take care of both: my family and the land. I don’t know how I did it, but I did it,” said Juanita proudly, noting that the scientific knowledge gained from the research platform and Hub modules has had a real and positive impact on her and her family.

Photo: Juanita, a Tzeltal woman from La Providencia in Ocosingo, Chiapas, stands in her field. (Garcia, Ramirez and Meentzen/CIMMYT) 

Mexico safeguards agriculture against invasive pests, diseases

Written by dmedina on . Posted in In the media.

In 2023, Mexico, with CIMMYT’s support, rejected 1,463 risky agricultural shipments, preventing 258 quarantine-worthy pests from entering the country. CIMMYT highlighted climate change’s role in pest spread, emphasizing Mexico’s commitment to safeguarding food production and ensuring global food security.

Read the full story.

Unanswered questions and unquestioned answers

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Publications.

Over the past few decades, Conservation Agriculture (CA) has moved from theory to practice for many farmers in southern Africa. CA is a system that involves minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention, and crop diversification among other complimentary agricultural practices. One reason for its increasing popularity is its potential to mitigate threats from climate change while increasing yields.

However, there are limits to the adaptation of CA, especially for smallholder farmers. Challenges are both agronomic (e.g. lack of sufficient crop residues as mulch, weed control, pest and disease carryover through crop residues), socio-economic, and political (both locally and regionally).

A recent paper, Unanswered questions and unquestioned answers: the challenges of crop residue retention and weed control in Conservation Agriculture systems of southern Africa, published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems in February 2024, led by CIMMYT and CGIAR scientists examines two specific challenges to more widespread CA adaptation: how to deal with trade-offs in using crop residue and finding alternatives to herbicides for weed control.

For crop residue, the two most prevalent actions are using leftover crop residue for soil cover or feeding it to livestock. Currently, many farmers allow livestock to graze on crop residue in the field, leading to overgrazing and insufficient ground cover. This tradeoff is further challenged by other multiple household uses of residues such as fuel and building material. The most common way to control weeds is the application of herbicides. However, inefficient and injudicious herbicide use poses a threat to human health and the environment, so the research team set out to identify potential alternatives to chemical weed control as the sole practices in CA systems.

“The answer to the question ‘how should farmers control weeds?’ has always been herbicides,” said lead author Christian Thierfelder, CIMMYT principal cropping systems agronomist. “But herbicides have many negative side effects, so we wanted to question that answer and examine other potential weed control methods.”

What to do with crop residue

Previous research from the region found that ungrazed areas had long-term positive effects on soil fertility and crop yields. However, it is common practice for many farmers in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to allow open grazing after the harvest in their communities. Livestock are free to graze wherever they wander, which results in overgrazing.

“Open grazing systems help keep costs down but are very inefficient in terms of use of resources. It leads to bare fields with poor soil,” said Thierfelder.

Maize on residues. (Photo: CIMMYT)

While it is easy to suggest that regulations should be enacted to limit open grazing, it is difficult to implement and enforce such rules in practice. The authors found that enforcement is lacking in smaller villages because community members are often related, which makes punishment difficult, and there is an inherent conflict of interest among those responsible for enforcement.

Controlling weeds

Weeding challenges in CA systems have been addressed worldwide by simply using herbicides. However, chemical weeding is often not affordable and, sometimes, inaccessible to the smallholder farmers and environmentally unfriendly.

Using herbicides, though effective when properly applied, also requires a degree of specialized knowledge, and without basic training, this may be an unviable option as they may pose a risk to the health of the farmers. Thus, alternatives need to be identified to overcome this challenge.

Some alternatives include mechanical methods, involving the use of handheld tools or more sophisticated tools pulled by animals or engines. While this can be effective, there is the possibility of high initial investments, and intercropping (a tenet of CA) forces farmers to maneuver carefully between rows to avoid unintended damage of the intercrop.

Increasing crop competition is another potential weed control system. By increasing plant density, reducing crop row spacing, and integrating other crops through intercropping, the crop competes more successfully with the weeds for resources such as light, moisture, and nutrients. When the crop seed rate is increased, the density of the crops increases, providing more cover to intercept light, and reducing the amount of light reaching the weeds thereby controlling their proliferation.

A holistic approach

“What we learned is that many of the crop residue and weed challenges are part of broader complications that cannot be resolved without understanding the interactions among the current scientific recommendations, private incentives, social norms, institutions, and government policy,” said Thierfelder.

Continuing research into CA should aim to examine the social and institutional innovations needed to mainstream CA as well as strengthen and expand the research on weed control alternatives and focus on the science of communal grazing land management to enhance their productivity.

USAID team lauds PQR value chain process in Bangladesh

Written by dmedina on . Posted in News.

Daily Sun Report, Rangpur

Experts of a visiting team from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have lauded the premium quality rice (PQR) value chain process in northern Bangladesh.

They made the admiration while visiting the Bengal Auto Rice Mills at Pulhat in Dinajpur and exchanging views with its owner, PQR farmers, local service providers (LSP) and traders on PQR production, milling and marketing.

Dr. Zachary P. Stewart, Production Systems Specialist of the Center for Agriculture-Led Growth, Bureau for Resilience, Environment and Food Security of the USAID from Washington led the team during their three-day tour in Northern Bangladesh that ended on Saturday.

John Laborde and Muhammad Nuruzzaman from the USAID’s Bangladesh Mission, Program Director of Sustainable Agrifood Systems at CIMMYT in Mexico Dr. Sieglinde Snapp and CIMMYT Country representative for Bangladesh Dr. Timothy J. Krupnik accompanied by him.

The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia CSISA-III project, funded by USAID and implemented by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has been actively engaged in expanding and enhancing PQR value chains since 2016 in the Khulna division and since 2019 in the Rangpur division in Bangladesh.

The team members visited the entire Auto Rice Mills to observe the process of milling, sorting and packaging of PQR rice.

Owner of Bengal Auto Rice Mills Mr. Zahangir Alam informed that previously he sourced BRRI dhan50 (Banglamoti) from the southern part of Bangladesh.

However, since establishing a connection with CSISA in 2019, he has been procuring 30 percent to 40 percent of the total annual demand for BRRI dhan50 for producing PQR from the CSISA-beneficiary PQR farmers’ groups and others locally.

He highlighted how farmers have benefited from direct paddy purchases from them and obtaining high-quality and admixture-free rice.

“With assistance from CSISA, I have successfully branded this variety using its original name (BRRI dhan50) since 2020,” Zahangir Alam added.

Lead farmer Md. Azad expressed the advantages they have experienced from cultivating BRRI dhan50 through CSISA and higher yield of the BRRI dhan50 variety compared to the BRRI dhan28.

He highlighted their affiliation with the Bengal Auto Rice Mills, which has enabled them to fetch prices 7-8 Bangladesh Taka (BDT) higher per kilogram of paddy than those for BRRI dhan28.

During the visit, Agronomist from Bangladesh Office of IRRI Dr. Sharif Ahmed provided an overview of the PQR initiatives conducted by CSISA.

He also facilitated the tour alongside Md. Alanuzzaman Kurishi, Hub Coordinator at CIMMYT’s Dinajpur Field Office and Abdullah Miajy, a Specialist in Agricultural Research and Development at IRRI’s Rangpur Hub.

Photo: Daily Sun

Crop technology from CGIAR, including CIMMYT seed varieties, contributes US $47 billion each year to the global economy according to fresh analysis of six decades’ worth of data

Written by dmedina on . Posted in In the media.

A recent study in World Development reveals CGIAR’s crop technologies generate $47 billion annually in global economic benefits. From 1961 to 2020, CGIAR, with significant contributions from CIMMYT, enhanced agricultural productivity across 221 million hectares. These innovations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have boosted yields, reduced food prices, and spurred economic growth, highlighting the critical role of agricultural research in ensuring global food security and combating poverty.

Read the full story.

Agricultural research adds billions of dollars to economy

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Publications.

As the world searches for effective solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change while navigating the cost-of-living crisis, delivering food security goals alongside robust economic value is more imperative than ever in agricultural research.

CGIAR plays a vital role in this mission, aiming to transform food, land, and water systems in collaboration with its 15 Research Centers, such as CIMMYT. Now, a new study published in World Development comprehensively analyzes CGIAR’s fiscal impact on global agricultural over nearly 60 years.

The economic impact of CGIAR-related crop technologies on agricultural productivity in developing countries, 1961–2020 suggests that adoption of these technologies equates to US $47 billion annually in economic benefits, with an overall economic benefit of US $1,334 billion for the years covered by the study.

Additionally, investment in productivity gains for staple crops in developing countries has aided entire populations by securing lower food prices and generating large local growth multipliers, thus achieving a greater impact on poverty reduction when compared to productivity growth in other sectors.

CIMMYT contributes 40% of total CGIAR varietal impact

At least 221 million hectares in at least 92 countries were occupied by CGIAR crop technologies in 2020. Between 2016 and 2020, CIMMYT maize varieties accounted for 24.5 million hectares (11%) of this figure, while CIMMYT wheat varieties made up almost 74 million hectares (33%).

An example of how these CIMMYT varieties impact farmers can be seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where using improved maize seed led to an overall average increase of 38.9% in yields to 1,104 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha), equal to an increase of 429 kg/ha. With increased yields come increased profits and employment security for farmers and their families.

The frequency with which technologies are upgraded also signifies the impact of agricultural research and development (R&D) on crop productivity and the economy. On the 221 million ha planting area, many farmers utilize second or third generation technologies. For example, average varietal generation in maize is estimated to be 1.1, meaning that 10% of farmers use a second-generation variety, and most wheat farmers were also using second or third generation modern varieties. This highlights that ongoing crop research continued to impact productivity, even when the size of the adoption area remained constant.

Expanding the impact

As CGIAR’s reach and capacity have grown, economic benefits are now apparent in an increased number of global regions compared to when its work began. Initially, most economic benefits came from wheat and rice farming in Asia; however, 30% of CGIAR crop technologies now occupy sub-Saharan Africa, generating a significant share of its impact. This region remains heavily reliant upon CGIAR-related varieties, so continued investment is encouraged to maintain and build on the positive outcomes achieved to date.

“Considering the urgent need to attain nutrition security, CIMMYT always seeks ways to assure global food systems,” said Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT. “This thorough analysis is a strong validation of CIMMYT’s work and its significance not just for farmers and their immediate families, but for communities and generations into the future. Our collaborative partnerships with CGIAR Research Centers and National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) are integral in delivering successful projects that enable smallholder farmers to maximize the potential of their land.”

While similar studies have been undertaken in the past, this work takes a unique approach by drawing on a wider range of evidence built on country- and crop-specific data, such as the adoption of crop improvement technologies and productivity impacts per hectare, thereby providing a more granular assessment of CGIAR’s economic inputs.

Read the full study: The economic impact of CGIAR-related crop technologies on agricultural productivity in developing countries, 1961–2020.

Sustaining Conservation Agriculture initiatives: lessons from Malawi

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on . Posted in Blogs, Publications.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has experienced the worst impacts of climate change on agriculture over the past decades and projections show such effects are going to intensify in the coming years. Diminished agricultural production has been the primary impact channel given the high reliance on rainfed agriculture in the region. Combined with a growing population, food security for millions of people is threatened.

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a sustainable cropping system that can help reverse soil degradation, augment soil health, increase crop yields, and reduce labor requirements while helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. It is built on three core principles of minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention, and crop diversification.

CA was introduced in southern Africa in the 1990s, but its adoption has been patchy and often associated with commercial farming. A group of researchers, led by Christian Thierfelder, principal cropping systems agronomist at CIMMYT, set out to understand the reasons why smallholder farmers adopt CA, or why they might not or indeed dis-adopt. Their results were published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems on March 12, 2024.

Conservation Agriculture plot. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“Conservation Agriculture can cushion farmers from the effects of climate change through its capacity to retain more soil water in response to high water infiltration and increased soil organic carbon. It is therefore a viable option to deal with increased heat and drought stress,” said Thierfelder. However, even with these benefits, adoption of CA has not been as widespread in countries like Malawi.

“There are regions within Malawi where CA has been promoted for a long time, also known as sentinel sites,” said Thierfelder. “In such places, adoption is rising, indicating that farmers are realizing the benefits of CA over time. Examining adoption dynamics in sentinel sites can provide valuable lessons on scaling CA and why some regions experience large rates of non- or dis-adoption.”

Thierfelder and his co-authors, Innocent Pangapanga-Phiri of the Center for Agricultural Research and Development (CARD) of the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), and Hambulo Ngoma, scientist and agricultural economist at CIMMYT, examined the Nkhotakota district in central Malawi, one of the most promising examples of widespread CA adoption.

Total LandCare (TLC), a regional NGO working in Malawi has been consistently promoting CA in tandem with CIMMYT in the Nkhotakota district since 2005.

Results from both individual farmer interviews and focused group discussions revealed that farmers that implement CA saw higher yields per hectare than those who practiced conventional tillage practices. In addition, farmers using CA indicated greater resilience in times of drought, improved soil fertility, and reduced pest infestation.

Why adopt CA?

The primary factors enhancing CA adoption in the Nkhotakota district were the availability of training, extension and advisory services, and demonstration plots by the host farmers. Host farmers are farmers that have been trained by a TLC extension officer and have their own plot of land to demonstrate CA methods. In addition, host farmers train other farmers and share knowledge and skills through farmer field days and other local agricultural exhibitions.

“Social networks among the farmers serve a vital role in CA adoption,” said Ngoma. “Seeing tangible success carries significant weight for non-adopter farmers or temporal dis-adopters which can persuade them to adopt.”

Maize demonstration plot. (Photo: CIMMYT)

During focus group discussions facilitated by the authors, farmers indicated that demonstration plots also removed fear for the unknown and debunked some myths regarding CA systems, for example, that practitioners show ‘laziness’ if they do not conventionally till their land.

“This suggests that CA uptake could be enhanced with increased, targeted, and long-term promotion efforts that include demonstration plots,” said Ngoma.

Similarly, the longer duration of CA exposure positively influenced farmers’ decisions to adopt CA methods as longer exposure might allow farmers to better understand the benefits of CA practices.

Why not adopt CA?

Farmers reported socioeconomic, financial, and technical constraints to adopt CA. An example is that farmers might not have the labor and time available for weed control, a necessary step in the first few years after the transition to CA.

“Weed control is an important challenge during the early years of CA adoption and can be seen as the ‘Achilles heel’ of CA adoption,” said Thierfelder. CIMMYT scientists therefore focused a lot of research in recent years to find alternative weed control strategies based on integrated weed management (IWM) using chemical, biological, and mechanical control options.

Examining the stover in a maize plot. (Photo: CIMMYT)

In most cases, the benefits of CA adoption are seen only after 2 to 5 years. Having such a long-term view is not always possible for smallholder farmers, who often must make decisions based on current conditions and have immediate family obligations to meet.

As a contrast to adopters of CA, non-adopters reported a lack of knowledge about CA as a whole and a lack of specific technical knowledge needed to transition from more traditional methods to CA.

This scarcity of technical support is often due to the lack of strong agriculture extension support systems. Since CA adoption can be complex, capacity building of both farmers and extension agents can therefore foster adoption and implementation of CA. This reinforces that farmer-to-farmer approaches through host farmers could complement other sources of extension to foster adoption.

Next steps

The authors identified three policy recommendations to accelerate CA adoption. First, there is a need to continue promoting CA using farmer-centric approaches more consistently, e.g., the host farmer approach. Using a farmer-centered approach facilitates experiential learning and can serve as a motivation for peer-to-peer exchange and learning and can reduce misinformation. The host farmer approach can be augmented by mega-demonstrations to showcase CA implementation at scale. In addition, rapid and mass extension delivery can be enhanced by using digital technologies.

Second, CA promotion should allow farmers the time to experiment with different CA options before adoption. What remains unclear at the policy level is the types of incentives and support that can be given to farmers to encourage experimentation without creating economic dependence. NGOs and extension workers could help farmers deal with the weed pressure soon after converting from full to minimum tillage by providing herbicides and training.

Third, there is a need to build and strengthen farmer groups to facilitate easier access to training, to serve as conduits for incentive schemes such as payments for environmental services, and conditional input subsidies for CA farmers. Such market-smart incentives are key to induce initial adoption in the short term and to facilitate sustained adoption.