Honoring a legacy of innovative development in Zambia and looking forward to meeting the nation’s goals for food security, Bram Govaerts, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), along with CGIAR Board Chair Lindiwe Sibanda, visited facilities and met with southern Africa collaborators of the Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub on June 2 and 3, 2023.
Bram Govaerts visited field experiments with the head of science at Zamseed (Photo: Katebe Mapipo/CIMMYT)
“CIMMYT’s work in Zambia and the region is geared to help national governments build resilience to climate change, diversify maize-based farming systems and improve productivity and production to address reduce hunger and poverty,” said Govaerts.
Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub aims to provide critical support to over 3 million farming households in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia via targeted interventions for demand driven seed scaling, improved soil health and fertilizer use efficiency, and rapid delivery of critical agricultural advisory services deep into rural communities.
CIMMYT research and innovation supports Zambia’s medium-term goal of “Socio-Economic Transformation for Improved Livelihoods” and its 2030 Vision of becoming “A Prosperous Middle-Income Nation by 2030.”
Govaerts and Sibanda toured Afriseed’s factory in Lusaka and its wheat field trials in Ngwerere. They also attended a field demonstration of Purdue Improved Crop Storage bags in the nearby district of Chongwe organized by the Catholic Relief Services, a local partner promoting low-cost post-harvest technologies for small-scale farmers in Zambia.
The delegation visited private partner Zamseed, a company commercializing and releasing CIMMYT-bred, Fall Armyworm tolerant maize seeds.
Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub has enabled the release of nearly 10,000 metric tons of certified maize and legume seed, which have been harvested by Zambian seed companies and community-based seed organizations, directly benefiting a million semi-subsistence farmers.
Govaerts also hailed Zambia’s commitment to creating a transparent seed system. “Thanks to this conducive policy environment, Zambia is a major hub in sub-Saharan Africa for hybrid maize seed production and export in Africa.”
Kevin Kabunda opened a partner meeting in which Bram Govaerts met AID-I farmers and partners from seed companies, educational institutions, CGIAR centers, and micro-finance and tech companies. (Photo: Katebe Mapipo/CIMMYT)
Besides Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub, CIMMYT and the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute have been collaborating for over two decades along with public and private partners in Zambia through different investments designed to create sustainable interventions that strengthen food systems and directly reach small-scale farmers.
The devastating disease wheat blast is a threat to crop production in many South Asian countries. In Bangladesh, it was first identified in seven southern and southwestern districts in 2016, and later spread to 27 others causing significant damage. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is working with the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI) and other national partners to conduct research and extension activities to mitigate the ongoing threat.
From March 1-10, 2023, a group of 46 wheat researchers, government extension agents, and policy makers from ten countries — Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Sweden, and Zambia — gathered in Jashore, Bangladesh to learn about and exchange experiences regarding various wheat diseases, particularly wheat blast. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the first in-person international wheat blast training held in Bangladesh. It focused on the practical application of key and tricky elements of disease surveillance and management strategies, such as resistance breeding and integrated disease management.
Training participants get hands-on practice using a field microscope, Bangladesh. (Photo: Ridoy/CIMMYT)
“This is an excellent training program,” said Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC), during the opening session. “Participants will learn how to reduce the severity of the blast disease, develop and expand blast resistant varieties to farmers, increase production, and reduce imports.”
This sentiment was echoed by Golam Faruq, director general of BWMRI. “This program helps in the identification of blast-resistant lines from across the globe,” he said. “From this training, participants will learn to manage the devastating blast disease in their own countries and include these learnings into their national programs.”
Hands-on training
The training was divided into three sections: lectures by national and international scientists; laboratory and field experiment visits; and trips to farmers’ fields. Through the lecture series, participants learned about a variety of topics including disease identification, molecular detection, host-pathogen interaction, epidemiology and integrated disease management.
Hands-on activities were linked to working on the Precision Phenotyping Platform (PPP), which involves the characterization of more than 4,000 wheat germplasm and releasing several resistant varieties in countries vulnerable to wheat blast. Participants practiced taking heading notes, identifying field disease symptoms, tagging, and scoring disease. They conducted disease surveillance in farmers’ fields in Meherpur and Faridpur districts — both of which are extremely prone to wheat blast — observing the disease, collecting samples and GPS coordinates, and completing surveillance forms.
Muhammad Rezaul Kabir, senior wheat breeder at BWMRI, explains the Precision Phenotyping Platform, Bangladesh. (Photo: Md. Harun-Or-Rashid/CIMMYT)
Participants learned how to use cutting-edge technology to recognize blast lesions in leaves using field microscopes. They went to a pre-installed spore trapping system in a farmer’s field to learn about the equipment and steps for collecting spore samples, observing them under a compound microscope, and counting spores. They also visited the certified seed production fields of Shawdesh Seed, a local company which has played an important role in promoting wheat blast resistant varieties BARI Gom 33 and BWMRI Gom 3 regionally, and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU) in Gazipur to see current wheat blast research in action.
Blast-resistance in Bangladesh
“I am so happy to see the excellent infrastructure and work ethics of staff that has made possible good science and impactful research come out of the PPP,” said Aakash Chawade, associate professor in Plant Breeding at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Rapid development of blast-resistant varieties and their dissemination will help Bangladesh mitigate the effects of wheat blast, not only inside the country but by supporting neighboring ones as well.”
Training participants scout and score disease in a blast-infected wheat field, Bangladesh. (Photo: Md. Harun-Or-Rashid/CIMMYT)
“Besides the biotic and abiotic challenges faced in wheat production, climate change and the Russia-Ukraine crisis are further creating limitations to wheat production and marketing,” said Pawan Kumar Singh, head of Wheat Pathology at CIMMYT and lead organizer of the training. “Due to the development of blast-resistant wheat varieties and its commercial production under integrated disease management practices, the domestic production of wheat in Bangladesh has increased and there is increased interest from farmers in wheat.”
Dave Hodson, a principal scientist at CIMMYT and one of the training’s resource speakers, added: “This is a remarkable success that researchers developed two blast resistant varieties in Bangladesh urgently. It was only achievable because of the correct measures taken by the researchers and support of Government policies.”
However, there are still some barriers to widespread adoption of these varieties. As such, in parallel to other activities, a team from Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) joined the field trip to meet local farmers and conduct research into the socio-economic factors influencing the adoption and scaling of relevant wheat varieties.
Temina Lalani-Shariff explains the importance of mechanization technologies to sustainably manage finite land and water resources but also to enhance food security for a growing world population, in a more equitable manner.
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 “Climate impact and adaptation to heat and drought stress of regional and global wheat production,” 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.
“Studies have already shown that wheat yields fell by 5.5% during 1980-2010, due to rising global temperatures,” said Diego N.L. Pequeno, wheat crop modeler at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the paper. “We 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.”
Wheat fields in Ankara, Turkey, where data was used for crop model simulation (Photo: Marta Lopes/CIMMYT)
The wheat simulation models employed — CROPSIM-CERES, CROPSIM, and Nwheat within the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer, DSSAT v.4.6 — have been widely used to study diverse cropping systems around the world, according to Pequeno.
“The DSSAT models simulated the elevated CO2 stimulus on wheat growth, when N is not limiting,” he said. “Our study is the first to include combined genetic traits for early vigor, heat tolerance, and late flowering in the wheat simulation.”
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.
“Generally, 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,” 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 — 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.
“Our 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,” 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.
By: Professor Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Chair, CGIAR System Board
With conflict in Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere, the relationship between instability, migration and food security is increasingly apparent.
The Russia Ukraine crisis, is affecting food systems around the world, driving up the price of grains and fertilizers with countries that can least afford it hit the hardest. At the same time, broader food insecurity is contributing to forced migration and rising social tensions.
Accelerating climate change amplifies the risks, with yields for some crops in sub-Saharan Africa set to fall by up to 35 per cent by 2050.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has a proven history of improving the lives of smallholder farmers and their families through innovative crop science and strong global partnerships.
CIMMYT celebrates Healthy Eating Week (June 13 – June 18) in the context of strengthening sustainable agrifood systems, which facilitate the production and consumption of healthy foods, against the impacts of climate change and the cost-of-living crisis.
Nutritious diets contribute to human health and productivity. Diversified cropping, whereby staple cereals like maize and wheat are grown in associations or rotations with legume or horticulture crops, help to conserve soil and water. They boost the climate resilience of farms while reducing their ecological impacts, also lowering costs for small-scale farmers and improving the nutrition of rural communities.
Conserving biodiversity in crops, livestock, aquaculture, fisheries, and forestry results in more robust food production systems, able to provide reliable supplies of nutritious grain, meat, vegetables, and seafood.
Rising temperatures, freshwater depletion, more erratic and extreme weather, market swings, and human conflict are threatening agrifood systems as never before, exacerbating food and nutrition insecurity.
Smallholder farmers and their households, which the World Bank estimates to number 0.5 billion globally and comprise a large proportion of humans living on less than $2 a day, produce much of the world’s food. At the same time, they and food system workers disproportionately bear the brunt of environmental and socioeconomic shocks.
To protect them and meet the world’s rising demand for food, CIMMYT joins global calls to leverage agrifood systems to ensure equitable access to food for all, as well as greater investment in and use of technology that supports more intensive, climate resilient, and ecologically sensible food production.
Read four stories about CIMMYT’s efforts to support access to healthy food through seed health initiatives, global partnerships, and crop biofortification.
Seeds of Discovery
The discovery and use of powerful genetic traits from maize and wheat seed collections can strengthen crops, help produce healthy foods, and improve livelihoods.
Science and partnerships are critical to reach G7 food security goals
The recent six-page statement from the G7 warns of the increased global risk of famine. CIMMYT offers innovative science and partnerships to help the G7 achieve its stated ambitions for global food and nutrition security.
Miguel Ezequiel May Ic, San Felipe Orient, Quintana Roo (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
A sustainable solution to micronutrient deficiency
In the absence of affordable options for dietary diversification, biofortification through crop breeding offers a viable way to reduce the micronutrient deficiencies that hamper the health and productivity of billions of humans, particularly in developing countries.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) played a significant role in India’s agricultural development during the 1950s and 1960s. A brief history of this involvement – through the Green Revolution – is useful to understand CIMMYT’s journey of strengthening global partnerships.
The G20 MACS is composed of the ministries or governmental bodies responsible for agricultural research in each G20 state and leading research institutions, including CIMMYT as part of CGIAR, which strategically advise these decision makers. The G20 MACS addresses diverse global challenges in agriculture affecting the people and planet through joint agricultural research and innovation strategies and implementation of initiatives under new cooperation formats.
“CIMMYT is working for a world with resilient agri-food systems and protecting biodiversity with a multi-crop, multi-institutional, and multi-disciplinary approach,” said Govaerts during the recent MACS meeting. “70% of wheat and over 50% of maize varieties sown worldwide are derived from CIMMYT materials, and we are improving livelihoods in over 50 countries.”
Wheat and maize plots at the CIMMYT experimental station in El Batán, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
In its efforts to ensure biodiversity, CGIAR genebanks hold over 770,000 accessions, of which 80% are immediately accessible. As an added measure of security, duplicates of 78% of the seeds reside at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Because wheat provides 20% of the global population’s daily protein intake, protecting it from disease, pests, and the effects of climate change is paramount. And to keep pace with the growing population, yields must increase in sustainable manners. To meet those challenges, CIMMYT coordinates the International Wheat Improvement Network, which involves hundreds of partners and testing sites worldwide. The Network has established a global phenotyping network, with platforms hosted locally so that environments are optimal for specific trait phenotyping.
Battling pests
In efforts to combat the threat of wheat blast, CIMMYT has established a regional collaboration which includes testing centers (over 15,000 lines tested), surveillance networks, and the release of blast resistant varieties in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. In addition, CIMMYT has trained 100 extension agents from 10 countries in wheat blast identification and surveillance protocols.
Examining Ug99 stem rust symptoms on wheat. (Photo: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT)
Fall armyworm, is a voracious pest in both Africa and Asia, has caused up to $13 billion per year in crop losses in sub-Saharan Africa since 2016, threatening the livelihoods of millions of farmers throughout the region. CIMMYT has developed hybrid maize varieties resistant to this pest by identifying and validating sources of native genetic resistance.
International Year of the Millet: 2023
Within its presence in CGIAR, CIMMYT is working in networks with African NARS and private sector partners to share resources and knowledge and innovating sustainable crop and crop-livestock systems. This will directly support the Millets And Other Ancient Grains International Research Initiative (MAHARISHI), inaugurated at the G20 MACS conference. The initiative facilitates research collaboration on climate-resilient and nutritious grains, including millets and other underutilized grains. CIMMYT is also initiating and supporting crop improvement programs for sorghum, millet, groundnut, pigeon pea, and chickpea, in a model that empowers the national research centers.
Malawian farmer in her groundnut plot under conservation agriculture. (Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT)
This work dovetails with the recently announced Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I), in which CIMMYT is catalyzing efforts to scale up existing and high potential innovations, technologies, and business models as opposed to starting new ones in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.
Creating sustainable solutions
CIMMYT is also pioneering the development of a hub network which supports adaptive research and integrated development for sustainable agrifood systems. With particular attention paid to inclusivity, these hubs are changing the perception of women’s roles in agriculture.
“CIMMYT is building towards future-proof solutions that foster empowerment through raising family income and food security, working with partners in the Global South for the benefit of the Global South,” said Govaerts.
Miguel Ezequiel May Ic, San Felipe Orient, Quintana Roo (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
In a world where more than 800 million women, men, and children still go hungry, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) offers proven science and formidable partnerships to help achieve the recently stated ambitions of prosperous nations for global food security and nutrition.
Meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, the weekend of 19 May 2023, the grouping of seven wealthy nations known as the G7 released a public statement recognizing that the world faces the highest risk of famine in a generation and the need of working together to build more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive agriculture and food systems.
“Realizing resilient global food security and nutrition for all is our shared goal for a better future for each human being,” reaffirmed the leaders of Japan, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Comoros, the Cook Islands, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Vietnam, and the European Union, in a joint statement.
The six-page statement lays out detailed actions, policy goals, and partnerships to respond to the immediate food security crisis, in which more than 250 million persons in 58 countries need emergency food assistance, as well as preparing for and preventing future crises.
Research with impacts for marginalized, small-scale farmers
Recognizing the key role of applied research to boost food production while addressing climate shocks, the leaders advocated promoting climate-smart agriculture, including “…agro-ecological, nature-based solutions and ecosystem based approaches and other innovative approaches as appropriate, drawing on the knowledge and evidence base developed by the FAO, IFAD and CGIAR.”
Established in 1971, CGIAR is a global partnership dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources. A founding member and leader in CGIAR, CIMMYT is responsible for major impacts in the productivity of two key food crops, according to Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT.
Celia Agustina Magaña Magaña in her milpa field (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
“Maize and wheat together sustain billions of people worldwide, providing around a fifth of humanity’s nutritional protein and carbohydrates, generating nearly $50 billion in trade each year, and covering 400 million hectares of land — that’s approximately one quarter of the world’s farmland,” said Govaerts. “We stand ready to support G7 efforts.”
“Fully half of the maize and wheat varieties grown in low- and middle-income countries carry CIMMYT breeding contributions,” Govaerts explained. “This and our research on more productive and efficient farming methods for those crops generate approximately $3.5-4 billion each year in enhanced benefits to farmers and consumers.”
As part of its decades-long cropping systems research, CIMMYT has studied and promoted conservation agriculture, a soil- and water-saving approach involving reduced tillage, keeping a cover of crop residues, and growing multiple crops together or in rotations. This approach has become highly relevant for farmers in places such as South Asia, where rising temperatures and fresh water scarcities threaten more than 13 million hectares of crop production. As part of its “cropping systems” approach, CIMMYT has diversified its expertise to groundnut, pigeon pea, chickpea, pearl millet and sorghum, with a strong focus on nutrition and resilience, while maintaining the Center’s foundational work in seed production and seed marketing systems.
The G7 statement cites the importance of dryland cereal and legume crops in settings such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and CIMMYT has undertaken initiatives to improve the livelihoods of small-scale producers and consumers of sorghum, groundnut, cowpea, common beans, and millets. Among other things, the work generates and shares data on the performance and the availability of seed of improved varieties of those crops.
CIMMYT is co-leading the CGIAR initiative Digital Innovation, which is working across 13 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to improve the quality of information systems and strengthen local capacities to realize the potential of digital technologies, thereby boosting small-scale farmers’ adoption of better practices, their incomes, and their resilience to climate shocks, while reducing the gender gap and managing food system risks.
Partner connections and funding power success
These impacts would not have been possible without CIMMYT’s longstanding, effective relationships with hundreds of public and private partners worldwide, a number of which are mentioned in the G7 statement, as well as the global reach of the jointly-generated, freely-shared knowledge from those collaborations, according to Govaerts.
Isaiah Nyagumbo inspects a maize ear at the Chimbadzwa plot (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
“A 2022 study in Nature Scientific Reports showed that the Center’s climate science, associated with some 90% of its research, appears on academic and research platforms as well as in social media and government and international organization websites across the Global North and South, contributing to the decolonization of science and the democratization of scientific debates,” he said.
CIMMYT partnerships with and support for private seed producers and dealers have helped fuel the adoption and spread of drought tolerant maize varieties in Africa. A 2021 study shows that, during 1995-2015, nearly 60% of all maize varieties released in 18 African countries came from research by CIMMYT or the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), bringing yearly benefits as high as $1.05 billion and gaining mention in a blog by Bill Gates.
Regarding support for CIMMYT’s work from prosperous nations, including several G7 members, the Center receives generous investments on the order of $170 million each year from diverse funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the government of Mexico, and CGIAR.
A well-functioning seed system is key to timely access to low cost and quality seed by farmers. Improved varieties are critical to increase grain production in terms of both quality and quantity.
CIMMYT is working with the National Agricultural Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute (NaSARRI) to strengthen seed systems for millet, sorghum, and groundnuts.
In the Indo-Gangetic Plains of northern India, nearly 70% of the population is involved in agriculture and extension services. Despite the abundantly fertile soil and farmers’ resilience, the adoption of agricultural innovations and productivity in the region has been slow.
This slow progress is often attributed to comparatively low levels of agricultural mechanization in the region and small land holdings of individual farmers, which often makes them risk averse to new technologies. However, times are changing.
Farmer Gangesh Pathak, in his recently harvested field using combine harvester machine, discuss Kharif – summer crops – schedule with CIMMYT Agronomist Ajay K Pundir. (Photo: Vijay K. Srivastava/CIMMYT)
Through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), working closely with the local Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and partners, have led the transition from traditional farming to sustainable intensification agricultural practices in the region, helping the region slowly but steadily realize its full potential. Over the years, working extensively with progressive farmers, CSISA scientists have helped optimize the cost of inputs and increase productivity through new technology adoption and capacity building for these farmers.
Krishnamohan Pathak, a farmer in his early sixties from the village of Patkhaoli, first learned about conservation agriculture practices when he attended a field event in Nonkhar village in Deoria district, Uttar Pradesh. CSISA researchers invited farmers from Nonkhar and neighbouring villages to attend a field day event, an exposure activity, on zero tillage wheat and direct seeded rice (DSR) technologies. Zero tillage allows farmers to plant directly without plowing or preparing the soil, minimizing soil movement. Pathak was one of the farmers who got to see first-hand the advantages of these sustainable agricultural practices.
Seeing merit in these practices, Pathak continued to engage with CSISA scientists and in 2013-2014, adopted zero tillage, and directly seeded rice in his family-owned fields.
“The CSISA field team encouraged me to buy a rice planter which has helped manage paddy transplantation on time, and wheat after that through zero till,” Pathak said.
Pathak later participated in other agri-technology events and CSISA field trial activities. In 2018, he joined other progressive farmers from the region who attended a training at ISARC (IRRI South Asia Regional Centre) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh on direct seeded rice, organized by CSISA researchers to build capacity and raise awareness of the conservation agriculture method.
The next generation leads the way
Today, Pathak is one of the key influential farming members in the region. He has now, however, passed the baton to his 37-year-old son Gangesh Pathak. “I have occupied myself with other local leadership activities after my son has been active in the fields. I am not so skilled at using these machines, their maintenance and their services. The younger generation seems much better at adapting,” he said.
Gangesh has been involved actively in farming ever since he finished his graduation, trying to make it lucrative. He has enjoyed recent success growing wheat and rice through new technology and practices. Standing in the fields recently harvested with the new improved wheat variety DBW 187, grown through early sowing – a method which goes against the traditional practice of planting after November – and zero tillage, he is happy with his 5.5 ton per hectare yield.
He spoke enthusiastically about the farming machinery he has procured to reduce drudgery in his farms and the hiring services provided to smallholder farmers in the region. After his father bought the transplanter in 2014, the family added larger machines such as the Happy Seeder, Super Seeder, Laser Land Leveller, Straw Reaper, and Direct Seeded Rice machine.
Farmer Gangesh Pathak explains the use of machinery that has enabled conservation agriculture practices in his fields and helped improve yields and income. (Photo: Nima Chodon/CIMMYT)
According to Gangesh, this has been possible thanks to the support from the local agriculture authorities and guidance from the CSISA team, who told his father about the various schemes offered by the central and state government to support farmers to adopt more productive and sustainable agricultural technologies.
Ajay Kumar Pundir, CIMMYT agronomist, based in Uttar Pradesh and leading CSISA’s efforts, stressed the importance of access to agricultural mechanization and support.
“Our job just does not end at informing and training farmers about better-bet agricultural practices. Along with other public and private stakeholders, we must support and ensure their availability and access – machines, quality seeds, timely information – for farmers to adopt it,” he said.
Custom hiring center help scale mechanization
With so much farm machinery, the Pathaks soon began extending hiring services. Custom hiring is a promising enterprise opportunity for farmers as they can use the machinery on their farms and earn extra income by extending services to other farmers at a reasonable cost, which helps cover diesel and maintenance costs. Gangesh made about 2.5 lakhs (USD $3,033.76) in profit during the 2022-2023 Rabi (winter crops) through hay machine hiring services, where around 250 farmers used these services.
Once the word spread, demand for hiring services by smallholder farmers, challenged by scarce labor for sowing and harvesting, started growing. Gangesh was encouraged by the good profits and was keen to share the benefits of such hiring services to as many farmers as possible, and he helped establish a Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) with his father, Krishnamohan. FPO is a group made up of farmer-producers who are entitled to a host of benefits, including quality seeds, technical support, market access, under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW).
The FPO, started by the Pathaks in 2020, with 75 members (farmers) initially, currently boasts of around 300 farmers. Almost all FPO members have availed the custom hiring services for all farming purposes and various crops. Farmers, “particularly smallholders who cannot afford to purchase these machines for less than a few acres of land, are happy with the custom hiring services. It helps reduce their input cost by almost 50% along with other FPO member benefits,” Gangesh said.
Community-based technology demonstrations by CSISA and KVK and partners are ongoing to scale-out proven technologies and practices like early wheat sowing, zero tillage, and direct seeded rice. Gangesh is hopeful that farmers in the region, despite the emerging climate crisis concerns – already being felt in the region – can produce more and improve their income. He reckons that diversifying between rice-wheat cropping systems, mechanizing and system optimization through better advisories, and improved access to technologies as recommended by agronomists, will help farmers stay ahead of the curve.
About CSISA
Established in 2009, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is a science-driven and impacts-oriented regional initiative for increasing the productivity of cereal-based cropping systems. CSISA works in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. CSISA activities in India focus on the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains, dominated by small farm sizes, low incomes, and comparatively low agricultural mechanization, irrigation, and productivity levels. Learn about CSISA (India) Phase 4.0
AID-I staff inspect germination in Malawi (Photo: CIMMYT)
Accelerated delivery with a difference is underway in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia to ensure access to stress-tolerant seeds for underserved farmers in remote areas. Supported by USAID, the Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I) project brings public-private and civil society together to address the impacts of climate change, pests and diseases, and food shocks on maize and legume systems.
One simple and cost-effective solution to tackle these threats is last mile delivery of stress-tolerant and nutritious seeds. Ensuring that farmers have access to a diverse range of seeds means they can choose the best varieties to suit their needs and their local environment.
Through AID-I, scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are working with over 20 global, regional, national, and local partners to strengthen maize and legume seed systems in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.
So far, in 2023, the team has set up over a hundred mega-demonstrations across Malawi and Zambia, to raise awareness and increase seed production by exposing communities to improved, climate-adapted and nutritious crop varieties. As learning centers, the mega-demonstrations give farmers a chance to see for themselves the advantages of improved maize and legume varieties and better farming practices including conservation agriculture and doubled up legumes systems.
Farmers plant mega-demonstration plots in Malawi (Photo: CIMMYT)
Spotlighted were drought-tolerant and nutritious varieties, expected to play a crucial role in the recovery of regional maize production. The Zambian and Malawian governments have also just released maize hybrids tolerant to fall armyworms, which will be scaled through the AID-I. The fall armyworm is an invasive pest that attacks more than 80 different crops but has a particular preference for maize. Without proper control measures, the pest can decimate crops, threatening food security, incomes, and livelihoods.
Alongside maize, the AID-I team is making seed of improved legume varieties, including beans, soybean, pigeon peas, cowpea, and groundnuts available at the last mile. Legumes are nutritious and good for the soil, providing valuable nutrients like nitrogen (N) so farmers can use less fertilizer, save money, and protect soil health.
AID-I supports strengthening of strategically located seed stockists of improved legume varieties and linking seed growers and buyers. These stockists, called agricultural development agents will also receive training in community seed production. Through connection with hundreds of agricultural development agents in the first farming season with seed suppliers, hundreds of thousands of farmers will be able to access a wide variety of improved seed.
Members of the CIMMYT leadership team with representatives from the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) visit AfriSeed in Zambia (Photo: CIMMYT)
Building strong relationships between public and private sector organizations is an integral part of the project. On January 16, 2023, long-term CIMMYT collaborator and AID-I key partner, AfriSeed hosted senior government officials from the United States Department of State (DOS) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The visitors gained valuable insight into how private seed companies involved in the marketing and distribution of maize and legume seeds operate in Zambia and showed their crucial role in the country’s seed sector.
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 Trust’s 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 CIMMYT’s 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 organization’s strengths.
A key part of the Crop Trust’s mission is support for collections of unique and valuable plant genetic resources for food and agriculture held in genebanks.
“CIMMYT is — and has been — one of the key partners in making sure crop diversity is safe and available for all of humanity,” said Schmitz. “Their maize and wheat genebanks serve a crucial role in assuring crop diversity, especially in Latin America.”
Maize seed samples, CIMMYT germplasm bank (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
CIMMYT manages the most diverse maize and wheat collections. CIMMYT’s germplasm bank, also known as a seed bank, is at the center of CIMMYT’s crop-breeding research. This remarkable, living catalog of genetic diversity comprises over 28,000 unique seed collections of maize and 123,000 of wheat.
“CIMMYT is honored to host the Crop Trust as any global solution requires global collaboration,” said CIMMYT Director General, Bram Govaerts.
Advances in genebank management
Representatives of the Crop Trust were eager to learn more about CIMMYT’s 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.
CIMMYT’s most recent donation to the Seed Vault was in October 2022.
Colleagues from CIMMYT’s germplasm bank prepare a delivery of 263 accessions of maize and 3,548 accession of wheat. (Photo: Francisco Alarcón/CIMMYT)
“All 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,” said Schmitz.
With the harmful effects of climate change, including drought and extreme temperatures moving from the abstract into the practical, the development and deployment of sustainable investments and support for climate action in agricultural and food systems must be accelerated.
A hotter and drier world will significantly affect the average yields of key staple crops. Researchers at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) estimate that, without adaptation of climate-smart solutions, each Celsius degree increase in global mean temperatures will cut average maize yields by 7.4 percent and wheat yields by 6.0 percent.
“Those would be catastrophic losses, affecting every part of the global food system,” said CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts “Already we see havoc being caused in food insecure regions like southern Africa. With that in mind, it’s time not only to keep developing climate smart solutions, but we need to speed up the distribution of innovations.”
CIMMYT is a partner in the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C) initiative, which aims to raise global ambition and drive more rapid and transformative climate action in all countries by bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, producers, civil society groups, and scientists and researchers.
The AIM for Climate Summit, May 8-10, in Washington DC, brought together a global coalition of climate partners, including CIMMYT, all working towards the mission of rapid dissemination of climate-smart innovations.
Bram Govaerts delivered closing remarks at IFPRI (Photo: CIMMYT)
As part of its participation in the Climate Summit, CIMMYT is reshaping its strategy for contributing to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The new strategy places CIMMYT research within three main pillars: (1) discovery, (2) systems development, and (3) inclusivity, all within the framework of climate adaptation and mitigation.
“Our new approach ensures that CIMMYT will be a partner of choice and a contributor to science and technology development. All while keeping the focus on smallholder farmers and establishing guidelines to ensure advances are sustainable and fair, as we engage previously underrepresented stakeholders,” said Govaerts.
Establishing frameworks for rapid innovation
At the Summit, CIMMYT updated partners on the progress of two Innovation Sprints, which are key components of the AIM and intended to achieve innovations for climate smart agri-food systems in an expedited time frame.
The Climate-Resilient soil fertility management by smallholders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America Innovation Sprint provides targeted interventions for fertilizer application and overall soil health to smallholder farmers.
Fertilizers are essential for increasing crop yields and ensuring food security, yet fertilizer use for food and fodder is severely skewed at the global level, leading to over-fertilization in some regions and under-fertilization in others.
“We need innovations that promote local adaptation and agency by smallholder farmers. By tailoring fertility management practices to specific conditions, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions,” said Sieglinde Snapp, Innovation Sprint Leader and Program Director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems.
Sieg Snapp participated in a breakout session (Photo: SterlingComs)
Withdrawals from genebanks
CIMMYT’s germplasm bank, also known as a genebank, is at the center of CIMMYT’s crop-breeding research. This living catalog of genetic diversity conserves over 28,000 unique seed collections of maize and 150,000 of wheat. Many other CGIAR institutions hold similar genebanks for other key crops. The Genebank Sprint unlocks potential climate smart solutions lurking in varieties held in genebanks.
Sarah Hearne spoke on the potential of utilizing CGIAR genebanks (Photo: CIMMYT)
Research has developed integrated approaches for six major crops (cassava, maize, sorghum, cowpea, common bean and rice), providing a scalable model for the rapid and cost-effective discovery of climate-adaptive alleles.
“Genetic diversity is a key part of our responses to climate change,” said Sarah Hearne, CIMMYT Principal Scientist. “By utilizing the vast diversity catalogue in our CGIAR genebanks, we can disseminate climate resilient varieties to smallholder farmers around the world.”
Working towards speeding up deployment
In addition, CIMMYT’s Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I), a partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and based on the MasAgro model in Mexico, works toward improving legume seed and maize varieties. So far, 35 local partners are employing solutions in Zambia, Tanzania, and Malawi, and there have been 125 mega demonstrations, a majority managed by women, for farmers of improved seeds.
In conjunction with the Summit’s focus on rapid implementation, CIMMYT is ready to deploy a similar project immediately in Central America, a historically under-funded region, which would improve livelihoods throughout the area.
“CIMMYT is dedicated to accelerating food systems transformation by using the power of collective action for research and innovation to foster productive, inclusive, and resilient agrifood systems that ensure global food and nutrition security,” said Govaerts.
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.
