NGO partnership brings new capacity building opportunities. Photo: CIMMYT
In the Indian state of Haryana, women are actively involved in farm operations but do not contribute significantly to decision-making. An effective way to enhance women’s decision-making and promote gender equity is to teach them to use new agricultural technologies and thus generate higher yields and better income. How technological change contributes to women’s empowerment has thus become an important area of study in India’s male-dominated farm sector.
Under the aegis of CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), CIMMYT is working on developing climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) that enable farmers to reduce climate-related risks. As part of this activity, CIMMYT-CCAFS is joining hands with a leading NGO, Arpana Services (www.arpanaservices.org), that seeks to enhance livelihoods in rural areas of the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. More to the point in this case, it works with 830 self-help groups including 11,600 women across 100 villages in Haryana.
CIMMYT will build confidence and awareness among the women’s groups Arpana has formed by instructing them on CSAPs and their use. CIMMYT and Arpana will merge their areas of expertise to promote CSAP adoption among female smallholders, thereby benefiting farm households. They plan to provide capacity building programs aimed at educating female farmers on technical aspects of sustainable intensification and making them realize the importance of nutrition by introducing legumes into their cropping systems.
The women will also be trained to use a farm lekha jokha book, which is an accounting and farm management tool that allows farmers to understand and compare farm expenses that, though important, are commonly neglected. Keeping such records would make women more knowledgeable and help them manage their farms more efficiently, thereby escalating their decision-making authority at home.
Although the CIMMYT-Arpana initiatives target women’s empowerment, they will also lead to other socio-economic changes. For example, successful women farmers could help promote CSAPs and convince government and policy makers to make recommendations based on conservation agriculture. In this way, a model encompassing the pre-requisites of sustainable agriculture could be established with women as torch-bearers of the future of agriculture.
Tsedeke Abate (left), project leader of Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa and CIMMYT Maize Seed Systems in Africa, raises a point during a session at AGRF. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) team led by Director General Martin Kropff joined 1700 delegates from around the globe who participated in the sixth African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) that brought together heads of state and government ministries, development partners, farmer organizations, private sector representatives, eminent thinkers, researchers, and finance and investment leaders.
Titled Seize the moment! Securing Africa’s rise through agricultural transformation, the forum focused on increasing investment in African smallholders to maximize the economic opportunities in Africa’s agricultural sector and bring about a much needed transformation.
The Sustainable Intensification of Maize and Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) program, together with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), hosted a side event focusing on SIMLESA’s work on sustainable intensification practices and its implications for policymakers. Over 30 participants took part in this event.
Martin Kropff taking part in the ‘big debate’ session at AGRF. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT
After receiving a brief from John Dixon, principal adviser for research at ACIAR, SIMLESA project leader Mulugetta Mekuria and a host of other presenters and participants agreed that the challenge of rising population and dwindling land resources makes farming system production practices, such as sustainable agricultural practices that help reduce environmental risks to crop production, a viable option for African farmers.
Mekuria singled out successes of SIMLESA that show that farmers’ food production, profitability and livelihoods as well as family nutrition have improved as a result of the diversity of food crops grown in these farming systems. He called on governments, policymakers and the private sector to institutionalize and include sustainable agricultural intensification in national agricultural development policy to achieve the much needed agricultural transformation.
Mulugetta Mekuria, project leader of SIMLESA, makes a presentation focusing on SIMLESA’s work. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT
A session that focused on harnessing Africa’s potential to create competitive grain value chains benefited from the participation of Tsedeke Abate, project leader of Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa and CIMMYT Maize Seed Systems in Africa. He noted that, despite the availability of improved maize varieties in Africa, 49 percent of maize varieties planted by smallholders are obsolete, yet remain popular in Africa’s seed value chain. Abate emphasized the importance of replacing these with new, improved stress tolerant maize varieties to strengthen smallholders’ food systems.
“Solutions for Africa’s problems are within farmers’ reach. It is therefore important for governments and the private sector to implement holistic workable models that will favor smallholders, like availability of improved varieties, inputs and resources, fertilizers, technology, support programs, sufficient extension to farmers,” said Abate.
Another session on the best way to achieve agricultural transformation featured Kropff alongside former President of the Republic of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete; Svein Tore Holsether, President and CEO of YARA; Joseph DeVries, Chief of Agricultural Transformation at AGRA; and Sheila Sisulu, Former Deputy Director of WFP and Africa Food Prize Committee member.
B.M. Prasanna, Martin Kropff and Stephen Mugo brief Beth Dunford, assistant to the administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Food Security (2nd from left), on CIMMYT’s work at a KALRO/USAID event during AGRF. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT
Kropff explained that the key to unlocking smallholders’ potential is to enable them to access improved varieties, innovative technology and mechanization that will save farmers’ time and boost their capacity to maximize production and reduce food waste, which is rampant in Africa. “As the region faces increasing challenges from climate change, rapidly growing urban populations, and an urgent need for jobs, agriculture offers solutions, providing a clear path to food and nutritional security and employment opportunities for all Africans,” Kropff noted.
With the right policies and investments in place, lives of hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers could be transformed, putting all African countries on the path to sustainable agricultural transformation, concluded Kropff.
Emphasized throughout the forum was the challenge of building on available opportunities to secure investments that will improve lives of smallholders. The good news is that AGRF culminated with commitments of over USD 30 billion to transform African agriculture.
Signing ceremony (L-R) with Pierre Defourny, Urs Schulthess, Kai Sonder, Bruno Gérard and Francelino Rodrigues giving CIMMYT access to the pilot version of the Sen2-Agri processing system and receive training on its use. Photo: Liliana Díaz Ramírez
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to have access to the pilot version of the Sen2-Agri processing system and receive training on its use.
As an ESA “champion user,” CIMMYT will test the ESA prototype system in Bangladesh and Mexico. These two sites cover a wide range of farming systems, from the large wheat fields of the Yaqui Valley to a more diverse system in Bangladesh, where parcel sizes can be as small as 0.05 hectares and farmers grow two to three crops per year on a single field.
“The great unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) expertise acquired by CIMMYT is very complementary to the full exploitation of the new satellite generation capabilities,” says Pierre Defourny, professor at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium who is leading the Sen2-Agri project. “CIMMYT’s two cases will generate products that will support our joint efforts for wheat blast monitoring in Bangladesh and improve data availability for GreenSat in Mexico.”
In the early days of remote sensing, limited availability of data was a major constraint for putting the data to good use. Basic processing of the coarse data was also time consuming and tedious.
Fortunately, this has greatly changed in recent years. Open and free satellite data, such as Landsat 8 and Sentinel 1 & 2, allow for almost weekly coverages at resolutions as fine as 10 meters. Thanks to this new speed and precision, users can now focus on applying the data, deriving information products even for small holder farmers in remote areas.
The Sentinel 2 satellites have a swath width of 290 km. Sentinel-2A is already operational, while Sentinel-2B will be launched in the spring of 2018. Together, they will be able to cover the Earth every 5 days.
For example, the CIMMYT-led STARS project in Bangladesh developed an irrigation scheduling app called PANI, which uses remotely sensed data to estimate crop water use. From this data the farmer receives a simple text message on their cell phone that gives recommendations as to whether a particular field needs to be irrigated or not.
Sen2-Agri is unique compared to other systems in that it simplifies and automates satellite data processing. The system allows for semi-automated generation of products, such as cropland detection, crop classification, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and leaf area index (LAI) based on images taken periodically by satellites Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8.
A signing ceremony was held on 15 August, 2016 to seal the cooperation between ESA and CIMMYT. Bruno Gérard, Director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, sees this agreement as a fundamental game changer for CIMMYT’s geo-spatial work.
“Sen2-Agri will give CIMMYT access to high spatial and temporal resolution quality imagery and related ‘know-how,’ which in turn will enable us to further develop partnership with top-notch institutions in the earth observation field,” says Gérard.
Interface of the Sen2-Agri system, which allows for a semi-automated generation of cropland, crop type, LAI and NDVI maps.
The benefits of the Sen2-Agri are likely to far extend beyond the Yaqui Valley and Bangladesh. After the pilot phase of this project, the high-resolution imagery gathered could be applied to other areas CIMMYT projects are implemented.
In combination with bio-physical and socio-economic data, this will allow CIMMYT and other organizations to improve monitoring and evaluation, better assess and understand changes and shocks in crop-based farming systems and improve technology targeting across farmer communities.
The Sen2-Agri test program is being coordinated by Urs Schulthess. Please feel free to contact him at u.schulthess@cgiar.org if you have questions about or suggestions for future applications of the system.
CIMMYT team and scientists from the Africa Plant Breeding Academy. Credit: CIMMYT
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – “The focus of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program includes elements that are key to many breeding programs in Africa. It has made important strides in sub-Saharan Africa.”
These words were delivered by Rita Mumm, a member of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) board of trustees and the coordinator of the Africa Plant Breeding Academy (AfPBA), which recently benefited from a wealth of knowledge shared by the CIMMYT Global Maize Program (GMP) team in Africa at the AfPBA training program held in June 2016 at the World Agroforestry Center.
The AfPBA is an initiative of the African Orphan Crop Consortium, a partnership of public and private organizations working together to sequence 101 crops of economic and nutritional importance to Africa. Students at AfPBA undergo a 13-month continuing education program delivered in three two-week sessions to learn about principles of plant breeding to enable use of advanced tools and technologies in breeding of crops relevant for Africa.
The CIMMYT team led by B.M Prasanna, director of CGIAR Research Program MAIZE and CIMMYT-GMP interacted with the trainees of the most recent session of the academy. The session was attended by 29 Ph.D. and master’s level scientists – including seven women – from 17 countries across Africa. The focus of the interactive session was to share knowledge on maize breeding work in sub-Saharan Africa and highlight the progress made in addressing various biotic and abiotic stresses affecting smallholders’ maize productivity in Africa.
The scientists learned about maize breeding work to develop improved maize varieties with farmer-preferred traits. In particular, drought tolerance, nitrogen-use efficiency, nutritional enhancement, and disease resistance. In addition, presentation focused on the use of such modern technologies to increase efficiency and enhance genetic gains in tropical maize as molecular marker-assisted breeding and doubled haploid technology for maize improvement.
Students from the Africa Plant Breeding Academy during a visit at the MLN screening facility in Naivasha, Kenya. Credit: CIMMYT
Collaborative efforts to strengthen the maize seed system for African farmers to access the improved new varieties was explained, as was the progress made with partners to increase farmer adoption as well as to replace the old varieties with the new climate resilient maize varieties.
“This is just one example of CIMMYT’s capacity development efforts that gives tremendous satisfaction. These breeding stories and highlights from Africa could have potential positive impact on the young scientists, as they are the key to further developing and deploying products that can make a difference in the livelihoods of the resource-poor smallholders in Africa,” said Prasanna.
The highlight of the training for many of the participants was the tour to the Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) Screening Facility at Naivasha established jointly by CIMMYT and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) to screen germplasm against MLN (under artificial inoculation), including germplasm from several private and public institutions. The participants received hands-on training to identify symptoms of MLN-causing viruses and how to score MLN disease severity by screening germplasm at the site. In addition, a demonstration was conducted on screening for MLN through artificial inoculation.
“Our global and regional mandate gives us the opportunity to support scientists across Africa to build their capacity in plant breeding work as well as in socioeconomics and sustainable intensification practices. Scienstists get the opportunity to learn, share their experiences and grow further. Through such trainings, we see improvements in technology uptake and use in various countries and regions across Africa,” said Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT regional representative for Africa.
In addition to the CIMMYT team, instructors included Lago Hale from the University of New Hampshire, Bruce Walsh from the University of Arizona, Allen Van Deynze from the University of California–Davis, and Rita Mumm from the University of Illinois.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Effective partnerships involving research, public and private sector institutions are key to unlocking the potential of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, said Shamie Zingore, a director at the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), who oversees the region.
Cross-sector partnerships that deliver the results of agricultural research to smallholder farmers, who produce 80 percent of food consumed in the developing world, improve productivity and are essential to providing food security in Africa, said Zingore who will speak at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in September.
IPNI is a non-for-profit, science-based organization dedicated to the responsible management of plant nutrition.
Zingore said partnerships that bring together national governments, agricultural research institutes and industry underpin his organizations’ work to support sustainable crop production intensification in the region.
IPNI’s cross-sector efforts to encourage fertilizer use within integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), which involves the use of locally adapted agricultural practices that can maximize the efficiency of nutrient and water use and improve agricultural productivity, shows the power of partnership combined with the development and dissemination of technologies that have increased yields and protected soil fertility, he said. The role of the private sector in addressing challenges that smallholder farmers face in accessing inputs at affordable prices and the knowledge for their appropriate use must be encouraged, he added.
Zingore will participate in a panel discussion during a session titled “Technical Innovations into Context to Achieve Greater Impact” at the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference which will be held from Sept. 27 to Sept. 29 in Mexico City.
He shared some views on the future of agriculture in the following interview.
Q: What do you hope to contribute to the CIMMYT conference?
The theme of the conference is relevant and timely in the context of the increasingly urgent need to translate agricultural science into practice to support agricultural development and poverty alleviation in the developing world. I’m honored to participate at the conference to share knowledge and insights on the critical role of soil fertility management research in sustainable crop production intensification in sub-Saharan Africa — as well as the processes to achieve impact by adapting agronomic technologies to highly variable and complex conditions on smallholder farms. Effective partnerships between research, public and private sector institutions will be the key to unlock the potential of smallholder agriculture. Representing IPNI, as a fertilizer industry science-based research organization, I also hope to highlight the role of the private sector in addressing the challenges that smallholder farmers face in accessing inputs at affordable prices and the knowledge for their appropriate use.
Q: What is significant about CIMMYT? What role has CIMMYT played in your area of work?
CIMMYT has for many decades conducted innovative and transformational research to improve maize and wheat productivity through the plant breeding, agronomy, farming systems and conservation agriculture and socioeconomic programs. My institution has effectively collaborated with CIMMYT in several initiatives including the CGIAR program on MAIZE and Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale (TAMASA) initiative that have supported wide-scale dissemination of site-specific nutrient management in both conventional and conservation agriculture maize production systems. CIMMYT has played a key role in building effective research and extension partnerships and capacity for delivering agronomic solutions to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Q: What are the key challenges the world faces into the future?
The overarching challenge is the question of how agricultural productivity can be increased to meet the food requirements by a rapidly increasing world population that will reach over 7 billion by 2050. Developing countries that are food insecure, including those in sub-Saharan Africa, will contribute most to the increasing population. Technological innovations will need to be increasingly robust to sustainably increase crop productivity and nutrient quality of food produced in the face of land degradation and climate change challenges.
Q: How does your area of specialization address these challenges?
Poor soil fertility, low fertilizer use and inappropriate fertilizer management practices are some of the key factors limiting crop productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. Yields have remained low despite advances made in developing high yielding crop varieties adapted to growing conditions in the region. Strong partnerships on developing ISFM are focusing on the development and dissemination of technologies that contribute not only to increased yields but also pay attention to maintenance of soil organic matter and soil fertility in the long-term. Our research results have shown that appropriate ISFM technologies enhance nutrient and water use efficiency, increasing crop productivity and resilience to moisture stress. We are addressing the issue of balanced nutrient management, with a focus on micronutrient fertilization, to increase productivity in vast agricultural soils that are deficient in micronutrients. Balanced fertilizer, focusing on the applying the right types of fertilizer at the right rate, time and place will be the basis of increasing yield in an economically viable manner and improving the nutrient contents of food produced by smallholder farmers.
HARARE, Zimbabwe- Smallholder livestock farmers in Zimbabwe are beginning to flip every notion about the country’s industry on its head.
Dairy and beef livestock production play an important economic and nutritional role in the lives of many Zimbabwean farm households. However, rearing livestock has traditionally been expensive as livestock take a lot of space and suck up a lot of money for feed and maintenance, leaving poor farmers to rarely see a significant return on investment in these animals, let alone compete with larger livestock producers in the country.
Zimbabwe’s small-scale livestock producers face a wide range of challenges but key among these is the lack of adequate supplementary feed, particularly during the dry winter months when natural grazing pastures are dry. As a result, productivity of the animals is often very poor, and livestock producers miss out on the prospects of increasing their incomes from beef and dairy cattle production.
In addition, increasing human populations associated with expansion in arable land area continues to put pressure on pastures which continue to dwindle in both quality and area leading to insufficient grazing to sustain livestock throughout the year. Because of this and a decreasing natural resource base, farming systems are under greater pressure to provide sufficient food and to sustain farmers’ livelihoods.
In Zimbabwe’s sub-humid Mashonaland East Province, groups of innovative farmers, extension workers and experts in crop-livestock integration are making livestock sustainable and lucrative for more than 5,000 farmers who are now beginning to increase their profits – for some up to 70 percent – thanks to new efforts led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other partners. This initiative seeks to integrate crops and livestock technologies with a major focus on food, feed and soil.
Joyce Chigama, working in her mucuna field, feeds her six livestock on legume diets. Her animals gained an average of nearly one kilogram (kg) per day for 60 days, allowing her to later sell five of these livestock for USD 3,000. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT.
Together, this consortium is working with the smallholder farmers to introduce forage legumes such as mucuna and lablab using conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification practices.
With this approach, maize productivity for food security is improved through forage and pulse legume rotations under conservation agriculture while livestock benefit from feeding on increased biomass output and conserved supplementary feed prepared from the forage legumes.
Maintaining the availability of adequate feed for livestock is crucial to rural smallholders in Zimbabwe. Most smallholders could not afford to buy commercial supplements for their natural pastures, especially during the long dry winter season when livestock usually run short of feed. Also, they did not know how to produce cost-effective home-grown feeds. Thanks to this agribusiness, the farmers learned to improve on-farm fodder production.
Conservation agriculture is a cropping system based on the principles of reduced tillage, keeping crop residues retention on the soil surface, and diversification through rotation or intercropping maize with other crops. The immediate benefits of conservation agriculture are: labor and cost savings, improved soil structure and fertility, increased infiltration and water retention, less erosion and water run-off–thus contributing to adaptation to the negative effects of climate variability and change. Through improved management and use of conservation agriculture techniques maize yields were increased from the local average of 0.8 tons per hectare to over 2.5 tons per hectare depending on rainfall and initial soil fertility status.
Mucuna (also known as velvet bean), is well-adapted to the weather conditions in Zimbabwe and can grow with an annual rainfall of 300 mm over four to six months. Growing this cover crop is an agroecological practice that helps farmers address many problems such as poor access to inputs, soil erosion and vulnerability to climate change.
Ben Makono (left) has fed his cattle a legume-based diet and seen their selling price rise by an average of USD 200 per cow. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT.
In addition, mucuna’s high biomass yield also smothers weeds so farmers do not have to spend time weeding. Mucuna also improves soil by fixing up to 170 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare and producing up to 200 kilograms of nitrogen from its residues. Moreover, the biomass produced effectively controls wind and water erosion.
Under the conservation agriculture systems employed here, cattle are used for reduced tillage using an animal drawn direct seeder or rippers in the cereal-legume production systems. Cattle manure is also used for fertilization. In turn, cattle benefit from the system through fattening on home formulated mucuna-based diets and feeding on crop residues.
Since 2012, smallholder farmers have received training and technical assistance on improved agricultural and animal husbandry practices for animal breeding, animal health and nutrition, fodder production and herd management. For example, farmers have learned to prepare nutritious feed rations for their livestock using locally available resources such as molasses and maize residues. As a result of these newly acquired skills, farmers have been better able to adapt to the severe drought currently affecting much of southern Africa.
As part of strengthening the project’s multi-stakeholder platform, a workshop was recently held at CIMMYT’s southern Africa regional office in Harare, Zimbabwe. The meeting brought together 40 participants including farmers and personnel from non-governmental organizations, the government and the private sector. The workshop sought to further enhance crop-livestock integration through facilitating agribusiness deals between the private sector and farmers. Farmers clinched a contract farming agribusiness deal with Capstone Seed Company to supply lablab seed. This means farmers have a guaranteed market for their lablab seed.
Makera Cattle Company also offered opportunities to farmers to improve their cattle breeds through crossing their local breeds with pedigree bulls. They agreed to supply bulls as breeding stock to interested farmers on a loan scheme.
Theresa Gandazha is a smallholder dairy farmer whose first cow produced about 12 liters of milk per day. After adopting a legume-based diet for her cow, she has witnessed a dramatic increase in her income due to significantly reduced feed costs. The cow’s milk has increased its yield to 16 liters per day, earning Gandazha nearly $130 per month. Photo: Lovemore Gwiriri/ILRI
Thanks to the spread of the crop-livestock project, Zimbabwean farmers are now able to engage in new market opportunities and improve their incomes by increasing crop and livestock productivity at a sustainable, affordable rate.
By focusing on a commercial approach, the project is ensuring long-term sustainability of the dramatic income increases and other benefits that the farmers have already witnessed. Helping farmers improve their productivity and living standards is an important first step, but the project also has to make sure the farmers have access to reliable markets.
Martínez displays her award at the Autonomous University of Chapingo. Photo courtesy of Tania Martínez.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Tania Martínez, Ph.D. fellow with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the Mexican National Youth Award for her outstanding performance in academic achievement from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Established in 1975, the award recognizes Mexican youth whose dedication inspires peers and exemplifies the values of personal growth and community development.
Martínez is at CIMMYT studying for her doctorate with the Knowledge, Technology, Innovation Group at Wageningen UR University in the Netherlands. She follows technology trajectories and processes of social inclusion/exclusion within them. As part of her research she is studying conservation agriculture, a set of farming practices based on minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil coverage and use of crop rotations, in Mexico’s Bajio region. Under MasAgro – a large Mexico-CIMMYT initiative – she is involved in work that helps smallholder farmers in breeding to improve their prized local maize varieties, and also looks at how farmers can access information through information and communications technology.
In 2001 at the age of 14, Martínez left her home of Tamazulápam Mixes, an indigenous village in the northern mountains of Oaxaca, to study at the Autonomous University of Chapingo in Central Mexico.
Her achievements are noteworthy. Of the more than 15 million indigenous Mexicans – about 15 percent of the country’s population – over a quarter of adults don’t have a single year of education and only 26 percent of women work or take part in other economic activities. Mexico’s indigenous citizens are among the country’s poorest and most marginalized.
“I decided to study agronomy because I was raised in the countryside and rooted to the land,” Martínez said. “In Chapingo, though, I met people who didn’t know there were places in Mexico without electricity, drinkable and sanitary drainage systems or even access roads. “Yes, they exist!’ I would reply. ‘I actually have been in places, they exist in many regions of Mexico”’
Nearly 30 percent of indigenous peoples in Mexico live without running water and 66 percent of households cook with wood and charcoal.
Prior to undertaking Ph.D. studies, she received a Fullbright scholarship to study at the University of Arizona, where she obtained a master’s degree in agricultural and biosystems engineering focusing on water management, irrigation and bioethanol production from sweet sorghum. Martínez then went on to work at CIMMYT as an intern and consultant before beginning her doctoral research with the organization’s socioeconomics program in 2013. Martínez credits meeting Conny Almekinders – her current professor and supervisor at Wageningen – and Carolina Camacho, a postdoctoral fellow with CIMMYT’s socioeconomic program, who specializes in social analysis of agricultural technologies, as the source of inspiration for pursuing her Ph.D. in the same topic.
“I hope more people are willing to help those who’ve not had the same opportunities and support I have had, to help change their reality,” Martínez said. “I’m grateful to all those who’ve helped me along the way, especially CIMMYT and the many researchers and people I have met in this long journey.”
As part of her National Youth Award, Martínez plans to donate books to libraries in marginalized communities and help develop policies that help these communities.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Sustainable agriculture must be adopted globally if natural ecosystems are to be protected as food production increases to feed a projected population of 9.7 billion by 2050, said author and environmentalist Mark Lynas.
An immediate move to transform overall agricultural practices is needed to overcome the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, said Lynas who will speak at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in September.
A former critic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) Lynas changed his mind when he said it became clearer to him that there was a scientific consensus that genetic engineering was safe. In his current role at Cornell University, he now advises on public sector biotechnology in developing countries.
Lynas will deliver a presentation during a session entitled “Future Landscapes” at the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference on Sept. 29, 2016.
He shared some views on the future of agriculture in the following interview.
Q: What are the key challenges the world faces?
Well, it’s become something of a cliche now to talk about how we need to double world food supply by 2050 in order to feed the growing human population. I’m keen to add an environmental perspective to this statement. We need to double world food production but at the same time to shrink the area of cultivated land in order to protect natural ecosystems. With the ongoing crises in climate change and biodiversity loss, we cannot afford to plow up the rain forests or other ecologically valuable areas, so the only viable option is to sustainably intensify existing cultivated areas, hopefully with “rewilding” of spared lands. Obviously, this is a broad-brush assertion, and there is a lot of geographical complexity and nuance underlying this, that we should not forget.
Q: How does your area of specialization address these challenges? What innovation do you see improving agriculture?
I’m particularly focused on biotechnology in agriculture, which can help improve sustainability in many ways. Basically, if you can move from chemistry to biology in addressing challenges, from water use to yield to pest control, so much the better for the environment. An example would be the use of the Bt gene, which produces a protein in the plant that is toxic only to the pest itself and harmless to everything else, including us. That’s a much more sustainable option than indiscriminate insecticide sprays that have serious environmental and health impacts. However, because of their total opposition to genetic engineering, anti-GMO campaigners end up defending continued pesticide use, which is a very strange place for supposedly green activists to be. I’ve seen this at first hand in Bangladesh with the campaign against Bt brinjal. Anti-science superstition of this sort can end up being very environmentally damaging.
Q: What outcomes would you like to see from the CIMMYT conference?
CIMMYT experts were co-authors on a recent paper, “Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 °C target” in Global Change Biology, that challenged the agriculture sector to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions significantly — by 1 billion tons a year — in order to contribute to meeting the 2 degrees C international climate change target. I thought this was a great initiative and I would love to see more attention given to it by other stakeholders at the CIMMYT conference. I really hope it becomes a talked about target that ends up being matched with real commitments and actions in the field.
Javier Valdés is country head at Syngenta Mexico, a global seeds and crop protection company. Any opinions expressed are his own.
Improving productivity, fighting rural poverty and protecting the environment are among the significant challenges the Mexican agricultural sector faces. For Syngenta and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), responding to such demands is a priority and a key component of collaboration projects for promoting sustainable agricultural practices. That is why we have worked together since 2010.
More recently, under an agreement signed in 2013, we strengthened our joint commitment to meet the challenges that Mexican farmers are facing. This public-private collaboration is forged on CIMMYT’s aim to work with various sectors throughout society to establish strategic alliances and on the “Good Growth Plan” an initiative by which Syngenta has made six ambitious commitments with farmers and the environment to contribute to the global fight for food security.
One of these objectives has to do with Syngenta’s commitment to train 20 million smallholder farmers worldwide in the proper use and management of crop protection products, which play a key role in ensuring food security.
In Mexico, CIMMYT-trained technicians working on MasAgro (a research and capacity building project for sustainable intensification of maize and wheat systems funded by Mexico’s Agriculture Department, SAGARPA) are receiving specialized advice from Syngenta experts on the correct use and management of agrochemicals or BUMA, its acronym in Spanish.
To date, Syngenta has offered the BUMA training to 130 technicians of the States of Mexico, Sonora and Guanajuato, who have, in turn, offered advice to groups of about 25 small farmers each. Moreover, CIMMYT’s knowledge-sharing methodology has a multiplier effect on the transfer of knowledge that increases the number of small farmers trained exponentially.
The BUMA training focuses on five key rules of pesticide application: understand products labeling; follow the labeling; regularly maintain equipment used for pesticide application; proper use of protective equipment and safe clean up practices. Furthermore, the training includes additional basic information about what to do in an emergency, and general information on first aid, among other topics.
Crop protection is vital for modern-day farming because it can substitute soil nutrients absent or depleted in poor soils and eradicate pests or control diseases that affect yields. While large scale farmers in developed countries often have access to crop protection products, smallholder farmers in developing countries face the challenges of applying optimal doses of fertilizer or pesticides to make products affordable but also to prevent environmental damage and increase yields.
The overall intention of the Syngenta-CIMMYT collaboration in Mexico is to improve the working conditions of smallholder producers who make up the majority of farmers, provide security for their families, highlight the importance of the role of crop protection and encourage them to continue using them sustainably.
WAGENINGEN, Netherlands — Although agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, heartland of the Green Revolution, is essential to the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, it is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change variability. To cope with climate change variability and impacts, several climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) have proved to increase crop productivity, resilience and adaptive capacity in the region’s agro-ecological zones. However, farmers’ perceptions of climate vulnerability and their response to CSAPs vary with their biophysical and socioeconomic circumstances, which can limit technology targeting and large-scale adoption by a diversity of farmers. Research aimed at understanding farming systems level opportunities and challenges has been conducted in order to promote sustainable agricultural intensification and develop a portfolio of CSAPs adapted to local conditions and diverse farm typologies.
With a similar objective, a workshop on farming systems analysis titled “Quantitative tools to explore future farming systems options and formalize trade-offs and synergies for their sustainable intensification in South Asia” was held at Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands, on 5-7 July 2016, under the aegis of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). Students, scientists and professors from ICAR, WUR, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), CIMMYT, the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), and state agriculture universities India participated in the event, which was jointly coordinated by Santiago López and M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, and Jeroen Groot, WUR.
Santiago Lopez welcomed the participants and mentioned the workshop was aimed at promoting, among other things, an understanding of farming systems modeling and its scope in smallholder systems of South Asia; sharing advances on the parametrization of FarmDesign models; sharing results of research undertaken by WUR students on applying quantitative systems analysis in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (Bihar, India); and promoting the exchange of ideas among participants and experts from advanced research institutes on future research and collaboration opportunities.
Bruno Gerard, Director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, highlighted the role farm level analysis plays in the program. Adam Komarek, IFPRI, talked about conservation agriculture and its role in increasing farm profits and reducing risks in western China. M.L. Jat provided his insights on how to promote large-scale adoption across Asia, while Gideon Kruseman from CIMMYT, Mexico, made a presentation on bio-economic modeling.
Jeroen Groot (WUR, FSE) gave a quick overview of FarmDesign and Fuzzy Cognitive mapping tools, while J.P. Tetrawal and H. S. Jat described how they applied the FarmDesign tool at two sites: Kota (India) and Karnal (India). A.K. Prusty and Vipin Kumar, ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research (ICAR-IIFSR), described activities being undertaken on integrated farming systems by ICAR-IIFSR and presented the results of FarmDesign analyses.
Challenges faced during FarmDesign parameterization and interpretation were presented by the participants and solutions were discussed. A visit to the computer lab of WUR’s Farming Systems Ecology (FSE) provided hands-on experience in applying FarmDesign. At a debugging session, participants were helped by the expertise of resource persons and helped each other learn specific applications of FarmDesign.
At a planning session aimed at exploring project options, it was decided that a FarmDesign user group should be created for exchanging ideas and helping each other address issues related to the application of FarmDesign. A workshop will be held in India in November, 2016, to review the progress of the work being carried out, explore funding opportunities, and establish a faculty exchange program for capacity building and skill development.
A contractor operating his combine harvester in a wheat field in Hetosa district, Ethiopia. Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT
KIGALI, Rwanda (CIMMYT) – The recent designation of wheat as a strategic crop for Africa by the African Union in 2013 reflects the rising importance of wheat production on the continent. Since then, efforts have intensified to incorporate wheat production into existing farm systems and to help smallholders grow it to meet rising demand and reduce the economic impact of the high cost of imports.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is contributing to these efforts through a project launched this month in Kigali, Rwanda. The four-year Enhancing Smallholder Wheat Productivity through Sustainable Intensification of Wheat-based Farming Systems in Rwanda and Zambia (SWPSI) project aims to enhance the potential of wheat produced by smallholder farmers to bolster food security.
“Given the increasing opportunities in wheat research, CIMMYT is happy to work with partners to help farmers adopt improved technologies, establish innovation platforms and strengthen wheat value chains in the two countries,” said Bekele Abeyo, Ethiopia country representative and wheat breeder at CIMMYT.
Zambia and Rwanda rank 46th and 59th respectively in the list of wheat-producing nations, topped by China. Production in Zambia, where wheat grows on more than 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres), is largely undertaken by medium and largescale commercial operations in irrigated conditions with very little smallholder production. On the other hand, in Rwanda wheat is grown on about 35,000 hectares in rainfed conditions mainly by smallholder farmers.
“The contrast between the two countries will help generate wider lessons on variations and give an opportunity to test whether wheat is still a potential crop to produce profitably under smallholder systems,” said Moti Jaleta, CIMMYT SWPSI project leader.
The new project will target 4,000 smallholder farmers in the two countries, with a focus on increasing wheat productivity from the current 2.1 tons per hectare to an average of 4.5 tons per hectare.
Smallholders will also benefit from improved technologies, which include rust-resistant and high-yielding wheat varieties, such good agronomic practices as row planting, precise fertilizer application, plant density and planting dates. Additionally, threshing technologies to enhance grain quality and efforts to link farmers with established traders and millers to help them secure markets for their wheat surplus will be undertaken.
The project mandate includes a scoping study on the potential for smallholder wheat production in Madagascar, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the consortium of agricultural researchers, the CGIAR Research Program on WHEAT, SWPSI will be implemented under the leadership of CIMMYT in close collaboration with the Center for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA), the Rwanda Agriculture Board and the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute.
Speaking during the launch, the acting executive director of CCARDESA, Simon Mwale, noted the rising demand for wheat, particularly in southern Africa, which also has a very conducive climate for wheat farming.
“Inclusion of Rwanda in the project is a unique opportunity for CCARDESA, and it will facilitate strong collaboration and new learning opportunities, being a new country to be covered by CCARDESA,” he said.
Experts hope SWPSI will contribute to the broader focus of the strategy to promote African wheat production and markets.
Some 30 key stakeholders met at a side event organized by CIMMYT at the recent 7th Africa Agricultural Science Week (AASW) to discuss how best to implement the region’s wheat strategy. The AASW and FARA General Assembly is the principal forum for all stakeholders in African agriculture science, technology and innovation to share solutions to some of the most pressing challenges the continent faces. CIMMYT’s SWPSI project is key to supporting the wheat for Africa strategy whose goal is to increase agricultural productivity and food security throughout the region.
Planting rice with the first locally produced multicrop planter in Sheikhupura, Punjab Province, Pakistan. Photo: Irfan Mughal/Greenland Engineering
ISLAMABAD — A new planter that promotes dry seeding of rice, saves water and increases planting efficiency is being used increasingly in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
Many farmers in Punjab alternately grow rice and wheat in their fields throughout the year, and the province produces more than 50% of Pakistan’s rice and 75% of its wheat.
Traditionally, rice planting involves transplanting 4-6-week old seedlings into puddled fields, a process that requires large amounts of water and labor, both of which are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. Repeated puddling negatively affects soil physical properties, decreases soil aggregation and results in hardpan formation, which reduces the productivity of the following wheat crop.
Sustainable intensification aims to increase the productivity of labor, land and capital. Conservation agriculture (CA) relies on practices such as minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of crop rotation to maintain and/or boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It also helps improve soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability.
Father and son Iqbal Mughal and Irfan Mughal are co-owners of Greenland Engineering, which currently manufactures zero-tillage wheat drills for Pakistan’s farming communities. They worked with CIMMYT from 1994-2003 as part of the the rice-wheat consortium. In response to the interest expressed by farmers, they are also producing the new multicrop planter for rice farmers in Daska, Punjab Province. Photo: Mumtaz Ahmed/Engro Fertilizers
Dry seeding of rice (DSR), a practice that involves growing rice without puddling the soil, can save up to 25 percent of the water needed for growing the crop and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. However, the old fluted roller drills used for DSR do not guarantee uniform plant-to-plant spacing and break the rice seeds, requiring farmers to purchase more seed than otherwise needed.
In 2014, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) imported a multicrop, zero-till planter from India that drills the seed and the fertilizer simultaneously while maintaining appropriate spacing between plants without breaking the seeds.
That same year, CIMMYT evaluated locally modified multicrop zero-till planters for dry seeding of Basmati rice at five sites in Punjab. As a result, the plant populations, tillers and grain yields at these sites were 10 percent higher compared to those at the sites where old fluted roller drills were used. During the current 2016 rice season, Greenland Engineering has so far manufactured and sold over 30 multicrop planters to rice growers across Pakistan.
CIMMYT’s initiative to spread the locally adapted, multicrop, zero-till planter throughout Pakistan was made possible through the Agricultural Innovation Program supported by the United States Agency for International Development, in collaboration with Greenland Engineering and Engro Fertilizers. National partners such as the Rice Research Institute Kala Shah Kaku, Adaptive Research Punjab and Engro Fertilizers are also helping to scale out the multicrop planter and other CA technologies throughout Punjab’s rice-wheat areas.
CIMMYT’s initiative to spread the locally adapted, multicrop, zero-till planter throughout Pakistan was made possible through the Agricultural Innovation Program, supported by the United States Agency for International Development, in collaboration with Greenland Engineering and Engro Fertilizers. National partners like the Rice Research Institute Kala Shah Kaku, Adaptive Research Punjab and Engro Fertilizers are also helping to spread the multicrop planter and other CA technologies throughout rice-wheat areas in Punjab.
This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) — When practiced unsustainably, agriculture has led to environmental degradation and famine, which have plagued civilizations through the centuries. Innovations such as irrigation or the plow (since circa 6,000 and 3,000 BC) increased productivity, but often deteriorated long-term soil fertility through erosion and other forms of degradation.
We are now facing historically unprecedented challenges to food security. We must increase food production by 70 percent to feed nine billion people by 2050, without damaging our finite and often already degraded natural resource base. In addition, farmers face more frequent drought and water scarcity, which makes it increasingly difficult to grow crops, and extreme weather events such as the 2015-2016 El Niño, which has already caused large-scale crop failures and soaring maize prices in southern Africa.
Conservation agriculture (CA) practices based on the principles of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation are helping farmers combat growing environmental challenges by maintaining and boosting yields, while protecting the environment and increasing profits for smallholders globally. When CA practices are coupled with water-use efficient and drought tolerant varieties, the benefits are even greater.
Drought is increasingly common in Malawi, leaving an estimated 3 million people in need of urgent humanitarian food assistance this year alone. However, more than 400 farmers and their families in Balaka, southern Malawi, who have been practicing CA over the last 12 years will escape hunger. CIMMYT and its partner Total LandCare have helped more than 65,000 farmers adopt CA systems throughout the entire country. Above, SIMLESA lead farmer Agnes Sendeza harvests maize ears on her farm in Tembwe, Salima District, Malawi. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT
“CA approaches can mean the difference between farmers being able to feed their families or having to starve,” says Christian Thierfelder, senior cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), regarding the recent El Niño – the strongest on record – in southern Africa. To date, approximately 10 million people in southern Africa are dependent on food aid and an estimated 50 million people are projected to be affected, pushing them to the brink of starvation.
Sustainable intensification of agricultural systems and practices such as CA have become a necessity for farmers in Africa, where a combination of climate change and unsustainable agricultural practices are undermining land and water resources. This, coupled with an exploding population, makes increasing productivity while conserving the environment absolutely urgent.
Based on its experience in Latin America, which began in the early 1990s, CIMMYT started its first CA project in Africa in 2004, targeting Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This initial work focused on understanding CA systems in the context of farmers and their environmental conditions and was funded by the German government and the International Fund for Agriculture Development. Its aim was to facilitate the adoption of CA systems by smallholder farmers. This culminated in the establishment in 2009 of a large PAN-African project on Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA).
Farmers in Shamva District, Zimbabwe, are introduced to an animal traction direct seeder which allows seeding and fertilizing directly into crop residues with minimum soil disturbance. Photo: Thierfelder/CIMMYT
Today, CA research at CIMMYT in Africa is increasingly focused on adaptation to the changing climate, which is leading to more erratic rainfall, increased heat stress and seasonal dry spells, in an effort to increase the use of climate-resilient cropping systems. CIMMYT’s work on CA in the region has shown that the practice can significantly increase farmers’ resilience to climate variability and change. Combining sustainable intensification practices with improved varieties has proved to increase productivity by 30-60 percent and income by 40-100 percent under drought conditions.
Despite CA’s successes, many smallholder farmers in developing countries still lack knowledge and understanding of sustainable agricultural practices and often revert to traditional farming practices that are labor-intensive and environmentally damaging. Also, CA systems are difficult to scale out if favorable policies and markets are not in place.
Araujo Njambo (right), a smallholder maize farmer in Mozambique, was used to the traditional way of farming that his family has practiced for generations, which required clearing a plot of land and burning all plant residues remaining on the soil to get a clean seedbed. However, as demand for land increases, this fuels deforestation and depletes soil nutrients. CIMMYT has been working with farmers like Njambo since 2006 to adapt sustainable intensification practices like CA to his circumstances. In the 2013-2014 cropping season, Njambo harvested his best maize yield in the last six years thanks to CA. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT
Mineral fertilizer, for example, is a basic agricultural input, but its adoption and use remain limited in sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers apply less than 10 kilograms per hectare on average due mainly to poor distribution networks (especially in rural areas) and high prices that are 3-5 times those in Europe. Lack of knowledge and training on how to use mineral fertilizer and other agricultural inputs renders them ineffective.
New discoveries in agriculture and breeding must be adaptable and transferable to smallholder farmers. This means improving physical distribution of technologies, training, knowledge and information sharing, credit availability and creating enabling environments for growth.
Just before passing away in September 2009, world-renowned agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug famously implored the world to “take it to the farmer” – a call to action we must follow if we are to sustainably feed the world by 2050. Without a basic understanding of good agricultural practices, most smallholder farmers will not be able to grow enough crops to move past subsistence farming.
Grain yield from a conservation agriculture demonstration plot in Zomba District, Malawi, is measured precisely as part of CIMMYT’s research on the combined benefits of drought tolerant maize and CA. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT
This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Maize and wheat biofortification can help reduce malnutrition in regions where nutritional options are unavailable, limited or unaffordable, but must be combined with education to be most effective, particularly as climate change jeopardizes food security, according to researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Climate change could kill more than half a million adults in 2050 due to changes in diets and bodyweight from reduced crop productivity, a new report from the University of Oxford states. Projected improvement in food availability for a growing population could be cut by about a third, leading to average per-person reductions in food availability of 3.2 percent, reductions in fruit and vegetable intake of 4 percent and red meat consumption of .07 percent, according to the report.
Over the past 50 years since CIMMYT was founded in 1966, various research activities have been undertaken to boost protein quality and micronutrient levels in maize and wheat to help improve nutrition in poor communities, which the Oxford report estimates will be hardest hit by climate change. As one measure of CIMMYT’s success, scientists Evangelina Villegas and Surinder Vasal were recognized with the prestigious World Food Prize in 2000 for their work developing quality protein maize (QPM).
“We’ve got a lot of balls in the air to tackle the ongoing food security crisis and anticipate future needs as the population grows and the climate changes unpredictably,” said Natalia Palacios, head of maize quality, adding that a key component of current research is the strategic use of genetic resources held in the CIMMYT gene bank.
“CIMMYT’s contribution to boosting the nutritional value of maize and wheat is hugely significant for people who have access to these grains, but very little dietary diversity otherwise. Undernourishment is epidemic in parts of the world and it’s vital that we tackle the problem by biofortifying crops and including nutrition in sustainable intensification interventions.”
Undernourishment affects some 795 million people worldwide – meaning that more than one out of every nine people do not get enough food to lead a healthy, active lifestyle, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). By 2050, reduced fruit and vegetable intake could cause twice as many deaths as under-nutrition, according to the Oxford report, which was produced by the university’s Future of Food Programme.
As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to one-quarter of the world’s daily energy intake, and contributing 27 percent of the total calories in the diets of people living in developing countries, according to FAO.
“Nutrition is very complex and in addition to deploying scientific methods such as biofortification to develop nutritious crops, we try and serve an educational role, helping people understand how best to prepare certain foods to gain the most value,” Palacios said. “Sometimes communities have access to nutritious food but they don’t know how to prepare it without killing the nutrients.”
The value of biofortified crops is high in rural areas where people have vegetables for a few months, but must rely solely on maize for the rest of the year, she added, explaining that fortified flour and food may be more easily accessed in urban areas where there are more dietary options.
Some of the thousands of samples that make up the maize collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
PROMOTING PROTEIN QUALITY
Conventional maize varieties cannot provide an adequate balance of amino acids for people with diets dominated by the grain and with no adequate alternative source of protein. Since the breakthrough findings of Villegas and Vasal, in some areas scientists now develop QPM, which offers an inexpensive alternative for smallholder farmers.
CIMMYT scientists also develop QPM and other nutritious conventionally bred maize varieties for the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project funded by the government of Canada. NuME, which also helps farmers improve agricultural techniques by encouraging the deployment of improved agronomic practices, builds on a former seven-year collaborative QPM effort with partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
In Ethiopia, where average life expectancy is 56 years of age, the food security situation is critical due in part to drought caused by a recent El Nino climate system, according to the U.N. World Food Programme. More than 8 million people out of a population of 90 million people are in need of food assistance. Almost 30 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line, 40 percent of children under the age of 5 are stunted, 9 percent are acutely malnourished and 25 percent are underweight, according to the 2014 Ethiopia Mini Demographic and Health Survey. The NuMe project is helping to shore up sustainable food supplies and boost nutrition in the country, where the vast majority of people live in rural areas and are engaged in rain-fed subsistence agriculture.
INCREASING MICRONUTRIENTS
CIMMYT maize and wheat scientists tackle micronutrient deficiency, or “hidden hunger,” through the interdisciplinary, collaborative program HarvestPlus, which was launched in 2003 and is now part of the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health program managed by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers.
Some 2 billion people around the world suffer from micronutrient deficiency, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Micronutrient deficiency occurs when food does not provide enough vitamins and minerals. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are most affected by hidden hunger, which is characterized by iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin A and zinc deficiency.
Work at CIMMYT to combat micronutrient deficiency is aligned with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — in particular Goal 2, which aims to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030. The SDG also aims to meet internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and to address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, older people, pregnant and lactating women by 2025.
WHOLESOME WHEAT
The wheat component of the HarvestPlus program involves developing and distributing wheat varieties with high zinc levels by introducing genetic diversity from wild species and landraces into adapted wheat.
Zinc deficiency affects about one-third of the world’s population, causing lower respiratory tract infections, malaria, diarrheal disease, hypogonadism, impaired immune function, skin disorders, cognitive dysfunction, and anorexia, according to the WHO, which attributes about 800,000 deaths worldwide each year to zinc deficiency. Additionally, worldwide, approximately 165 million children under five years of age are stunted due to zinc deficiency.
A project to develop superior wheat lines combining higher yield and high zinc concentrations in collaboration with national agriculture program partners in South Asia has led to new biofortified varieties 20 to 40 percent superior in grain zinc concentration.
“We’re playing a vital role in this area,” said CIMMYT wheat breeder Velu Govindan. “Our research has led to new varieties agronomically equal to, or superior to, other popular wheat cultivars with grain yield potential at par or — in some cases – even superior to popular wheat varieties adopted by smallholder farmers in South Asia where we’ve been focused.”
Scientists are studying the potential impact of climate-change related warmer temperatures and erratic rainfall on the nutritional value of wheat. An evaluation of the effect of water and heat stress with a particular focus on grain protein content, zinc and iron concentrations revealed that protein and zinc concentrations increased in water and heat-stressed environments, while zinc and iron yield was higher in non-stressed conditions.
“The results of our study suggest that genetic gains in yield potential of modern wheat varieties have tended to reduce grain zinc levels,” Govindan said. “In some instances, environmental variability might influence the extent to which this effect manifests itself, a key finding as we work toward finding solutions to the potential impact of climate change on food and nutrition security.”
Additionally, a recent HarvestPlus study revealed that modern genomic tools such as genomic selection hold great potential for biofortification breeding to enhance zinc concentrations in wheat.
IMPROVING MAIZE
Scientists working with HarvestPlus have developed vitamin A-enriched “orange” maize. Orange maize is conventionally bred to provide higher levels of pro-vitamin A carotenoids, a natural plant pigment found in such orange foods as mangoes, carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens and meat, converted into vitamin A by the body.
Maize breeders, who are currently working on developing varieties with 50 percent more pro-vitamin A than the first commercialized varieties released, identified germplasm with the highest amounts of carotenoids to develop the varieties. In Zambia, Zimbawe and Malawi, 12 varieties, which are agronomically competititve and have about 8ppm provitamin A, have been released.
Provitamin A from maize is efficiently absorbed and converted into vitamin A in the body. Stores of Vitamin A in 5 to 7 year old children improved when they ate orange maize, according to HarvestPlus research. The study also shows preliminary data demonstrating that children who ate orange maize for six months experienced an improved capacity of the eye to adjust to dim light. The findings indicate an improvement in night vision, a function dependent on adequate levels of vitamin A in the body.
Researchers are also developing maize varieties high in zinc.
Efforts on this front have been a major focus in Latin America, especially in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Colombia. Scientists expect the first wave of high zinc hybrids and varieties will be released in 2017. Further efforts are starting in such countries as Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Results from the first nutrition studies in young rural Zambian children indicate that biofortified maize can meet zinc requirements and provide an effective dietary alternative to regular maize for the vulnerable population.
H.S. Sidhu, senior research engineer, BISA, demonstrating laser land leveler technology. Photo: Yogehs Kumar/CIMMYT
DHARWAD, INDIA — Nearly 150 scientists, researchers and extension agents from universities and agricultural departments across the state of Karnataka, India, attended a field training 12-13 April on conservation agriculture and farm mechanization for sustainable intensification. The training was hosted by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, Karnataka, and jointly organized by CIMMYT, UAS and Karnataka’s Department of Agriculture.
South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. Flooding and drought coupled with seasonal rainfall changes are predicted to devastate agriculture, with extreme heat already disrupting the growing season in India and other countries. Wheat production in India’s Indo-Gangetic Plains may decrease by up to 50 percent by 2100, harming the hundreds of millions who rely on the region for food security. India also extracts more groundwater than any other country in the world to support agriculture, with northern India’s groundwater declining one meter every three years.
Karnataka faces these and other challenges, including production system constraints, mono-cropping and lack of access to markets, storage facilities, processing units and real-time information. Other constraints include large post-harvest losses, labor and energy shortages, poor mechanization and fodder scarcity.
J.V. Goud, Ex Vice Chancellor, UAS, Dharwad, described these challenges in his inaugural address and emphasized the need for sustainable agriculture practices to achieve food security in India.
“Courses like this help combat climate anomalies and make agriculture practices drought-proof,” said Goud. Sustainable practices have proven successful in addressing water shortages in agriculture. For example, trainees were introduced to precision land leveling, which can raise India’s wheat yields more than 16% and increase water productivity by 130%.
Training attendees. Photo: UAS-Dharwad
According to M.L. Jat, CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist and an expert in conservation agriculture (CA), “Climate-smart agriculture practices such as CA not only minimize production costs and inputs, but also help farmers adapt to extreme weather events, reduce temporal variability in productivity, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, This is backed up by ample data on conservation agriculture management practices throughout the region.”
Conservation agriculture is sustainable and profitable agriculture based on minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations. It is improving farmers’ livelihoods throughout South Asia and has led to policy-level impacts through the implementation of CA practices covered in the training, such as precision land leveling, zero tillage, direct seeding and crop residue management.
Trainees were taught how to operate a variety of CA machines, including multi-crop zero-tillage machines that can calibrate the amount of seed and fertilizer and control speed for seeding different crops. They also learned about other practices such as weed, nutrient and water management using precision support and sensors.
Scientists and researchers who imparted the training included Jat, CIMMYT agronomist H.S. Jat, CIMMYT hub manager S.G. Patil, CIMMYT consultant Yogesh Kumar Singh, Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) senior research engineer H.S. Sidhu, BISA senior scientist R.K. Jat and Deputy Director of the International Plant Nutrition Institute’s India Program-South Zone, T. Satyanarayana.
Dairy and beef livestock production play an important economic and nutritional role in the lives of many Zimbabwean farm households. However, rearing livestock has traditionally been expensive as livestock take a lot of space and suck up a lot of money for feed and maintenance, leaving poor farmers to rarely see a significant return on investment in these animals, let alone compete with larger livestock producers in the country.
