Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food production. In the latest episode of the BBC radio show Witness History, Rebecca Kesby interviews Ronnie Coffman, student and friend of Norman Borlaug.
Among other stories, Coffman recalls the moment when Borlaug was notified about the Nobel Prize â while working in the wheat fields in Mexico â and explores what motivated Borlaug to bring the Green Revolution to India.
“We are talking about testing whether it is possible to use information available in the genome to predict how productive a variety of wheat will be, if it will be drought- or heat-resistant and what quality its grain will have,” explains Carlos GuzmĂĄn from the University of Cordoba who participated in the study via his work as head of the Chemistry and Wheat Quality Laboratory at CIMMYT in Mexico.
Pioneering research on our three most important cereal grains â maize, rice, and wheat â has contributed enormously to global food security over the last half century, chiefly by boosting the yields of these crops and by making them more resilient in the face of drought, flood, pests and diseases. But with more than 800 million people still living in chronic hunger and many more suffering from inadequate diets, much remains to be done. The challenges are complicated by climate change, rampant degradation of the ecosystems that sustain food production, rapid population growth and unequal access to resources that are vital for improved livelihoods.
In recent years, a consensus has emerged among agricultural researchers and development experts around the need to transform global food systems, so they can provide healthy diets while drastically reducing negative environmental impacts. Certainly, this is a central aim of CGIAR â the world’s largest global agricultural research network â which views enhanced nutrition and sustainability as essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. CGIAR scientists and their many partners contribute by developing technological and social innovations for the worldâs key crop production systems, with a sharp focus on reducing hunger and poverty in low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The importance of transforming food systems is also the message of the influential EAT-Lancet Commission report, launched in early 2019. Based on the views of 37 leading experts from diverse research disciplines, the report defines specific actions to achieve a âplanetary health diet,â which enhances human nutrition and keeps the resource use of food systems within planetary boundaries. While including all food groups â grains, roots and tubers, pulses, vegetables, fruits, tree nuts, meat, fish, and dairy products â this diet reflects important shifts in their consumption. The major cereals, for example, would supply about one-third of the required calories but with increased emphasis on whole grains to curb the negative health effects of cheap and abundant supplies of refined cereals.
This proportion of calories corresponds roughly to the proportion of its funding that CGIAR currently invests in the major cereals. These crops are already vital in diets, cultures, and economies across the developing world, and the way they are produced, processed and consumed must be a central focus of global efforts to transform food systems. There are four main reasons for this imperative.
Aneli ZĂĄrate VĂĄsquez (left), in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, sells maize tortillas for a living. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
1. Scale and economic importance
The sheer extent of major cereal production and its enormous value, especially for the poor, account in large part for the critical importance of these crops in global food systems. According to 2017 figures, maize is grown on 197 million hectares and rice on more than 167 million hectares, mainly in Asia and Africa. Wheat covers 218 million hectares, an area larger than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined. The total annual harvest of these crops amounts to about 2.5âŻbillion tons of grain.
Worldwide production had an estimated annual value averaging more than $500 billion in 2014-2016. The prices of the major cereals are especially important for poor consumers. In recent years, the rising cost of bread in North Africa and tortillas in Mexico, as well as the rice price crisis in Southeast Asia, imposed great hardship on urban populations in particular, triggering major demonstrations and social unrest. To avoid such troubles by reducing dependence on cereal imports, many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have made staple crop self-sufficiency a central element of national agriculture policy.
Women make roti, an unleavened flatbread made with wheat flour and eaten as a staple food, at their home in the Dinajpur district, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
2. Critical role in human diets
Cereals have a significant role to play in food system transformation because of their vital importance in human diets. In developing countries, maize, rice, and wheat together provide 48% of the total calories and 42% of the total protein. In every developing region except Latin America, cereals provide people with more protein than meat, fish, milk and eggs combined, making them an important protein source for over half the worldâs population.
Yellow maize, a key source of livestock feed, also contributes indirectly to more protein-rich diets, as does animal fodder derived from cereal crop residues. As consumption of meat, fish and dairy products continues to expand in the developing world, demand for cereals for food and feed must rise, increasing the pressure to optimize cereal production.
In addition to supplying starch and protein, the cereals serve as a rich source of dietary fiber and nutrients. CGIAR research has documented the important contribution of wheat to healthy diets, linking the crop to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and colorectal cancer. The nutritional value of brown rice compared to white rice is also well known. Moreover, the recent discovery of certain genetic traits in milled rice has created the opportunity to breed varieties that show a low glycemic index without compromising grain quality.
Golden Rice grain (left) compared to white rice grain. Golden Rice is unique because it contains beta carotene, giving it a golden color. (Photo: IRRI)
The major cereals have undergone further improvement in nutritional quality during recent years through a crop breeding approach called âbiofortification,â which boosts the content of essential vitamins or micronutrients. Dietary deficiencies of this kind harm childrenâs physical and cognitive development, and leave them more vulnerable to disease. Sometimes called âhidden hunger,â this condition is believed to cause about one-third of the 3.1 million annual child deaths attributed to malnutrition. Diverse diets are the preferred remedy, but the worldâs poorest consumers often cannot afford more nutritious foods. The problem is especially acute for women and adolescent girls, who have unequal access to food, healthcare and resources.
It will take many years of focused effort before diverse diets become a reality in the lives of the people who need them most. Diversified farming systems such as rice-fish rotations that improve nutritional value, livelihoods and resilience are a step in that direction. In the meantime, âbiofortifiedâ cereal and other crop varieties developed by CGIAR help address hidden hunger by providing higher levels of zinc, iron and provitamin A carotenoids as well as better protein quality. Farmers in many developing countries are already growing these varieties.
A 2018 study in India found that young children who ate zinc-biofortified wheat in flatbread or porridge became ill less frequently. Other studies have shown that consumption of provitamin A maize improves the bodyâs total stores of this vitamin as effectively as vitamin supplementation. Biofortified crop varieties are not a substitute for food fortification (adding micronutrients and vitamins during industrial food processing). But these varieties can offer an immediate solution to hidden hunger for the many subsistence farmers and other rural consumers who depend on locally produced foods and lack access to fortified products.
Ruth Andrea (left) and Maliamu Joni harvest cobs of drought-tolerant maize in Idakumbi, Mbeya, Tanzania. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
4. Wide scope for more sustainable production
Cereal crops show much potential not only for enhancing human heath but that of the environment as well. Compared to other crops, the production of cereals has relatively low environmental impact, as noted in the EAT-Lancet report. Still, it is both necessary and feasible to further enhance the sustainability of cereal cropping systems. Many new practices have a proven ability to conserve water as well as soil and land, and to use purchased inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) far more efficiently. With innovations already available, the amount of water used in current rice cultivation techniques, for example, can be significantly reduced from its present high level.
Irrigation scheduling, laser land leveling, drip irrigation, conservation tillage, precision nitrogen fertilization, and cereal varieties tolerant to drought, flooding and heat are among the most promising options. In northwest India, scientists recently determined that optimal practices can reduce water use by 40%, while maintaining yields in rice-wheat rotations. There and in many other places, the adoption of new practices to improve cereal production in the wet season not only leads to more efficient resource use but also creates opportunities to diversify crop production in the dry season. Improvements to increase cereal crop yields also reduces their environmental footprint; using less land, enhancing carbon sequestration and biodiversity and, for rice, reducing methane emissions per kilo of rice produced. Given the enormous extent of cereals cultivation, any improvement in resource use efficiency will have major impact, while also freeing up vast amounts of land for other crops or natural vegetation.
A major challenge now is to improve access to the knowledge and inputs that will enable millions of farmers to adopt new techniques, making it possible both to diversify production and grow more with less. Another key requirement consists of clear signals from policymakers, especially where land and water are limited, about the priority use of these resources â for example, irrigating low-value cereals to bolster food security versus applying the water to higher value crops and importing staple cereals.
Morning dew on a wheat spike. (Photo: Vadim Ganeyev/CIMMYT)
Toward a sustainable dietary revolution
Future-proofing the global food system requires bold steps. Policy and research need to support a double transformation, centered on nutrition and sustainability.
CGIAR works toward nutritional transformation of our food system through numerous global partnerships. We give high priority to improving cereal crop systems and food products, because of their crucial importance for a growing world population. Recognizing that this alone will not suffice for healthy diets, we also strongly promote greater dietary diversity through our research on various staple crops and production systems and by raising public awareness of more balanced and nutritious diets.
To help achieve a sustainability transformation, CGIAR researchers and partners have developed a wide array of techniques that use resources more efficiently, enhance the resilience of food production in the face of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while achieving sustainable increases in crop yields. At the same time, we are generating new evidence on which techniques work best under what conditions to target the implementation of these solutions more effectively.
The ultimate impact of our work depends crucially on the growing resolve of developing countries to promote better diets and more sustainable food production through strong policies and programs. CGIAR is well prepared to help strengthen these measures through research for development, and we are confident that our work on cereals, with continued donor support, will have high relevance, generating a wealth of innovations that help drive the transformation of global food systems.
Martin Kropff is the Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Matthew Morell is the Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
As the calendar turns to October 16, it is time to celebrate World Food Day. At the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), we are bringing you a few facts you should know about maize and wheat, two of the worldâs most important crops.
According to 2017 figures, maize is grown on 197 million hectares. Wheat covers 218 million hectares, an area larger than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined. The total annual harvest of these two crops amounts to about 1.9âŻbillion tons of grain.
A little girl eats a freshly-made roti while the women of her family prepare more, at her home in the village of Chapor, in the district of Dinajpur, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
2. Of the 300,000 known edible plant species, only 3 account for around 60% of our calories and proteins: maize, wheat and rice.
Farmers Kanchimaya Pakhrin and her neighbor Phulmaya Lobshan weed rice seedling bed sown by machine in Purnabas, Kanchanpur, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
3. CIMMYT manages humankindâs most diverse maize and wheat collections.
The organizationâs germplasm bank, also known as a seed bank, is at the center of its crop-breeding research. This remarkable, living catalog of genetic diversity is comprised of over 28,000 unique seed collections of maize and 150,000 of wheat.
From its breeding programs, CIMMYT sends half a million seed packages to 800 partners in 100 countries each year. With researchers and farmers, the center also develops and promotes more productive and precise maize and wheat farming methods and tools that save money and resources such as soil, water, and fertilizer.
Shelves filled with maize seed samples make up the maize active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. Disaster-proof features of the bank include thick concrete walls and back-up power systems. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
4. Maize and wheat are critical to a global food system makeover.
High-yield and climate-resilient maize and wheat varieties, together with a more efficient use of resources, are a key component of the sustainable intensification of food production needed to transform the global food system.
Miguel Ku Balam (left), from Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, cultivates the traditional Mesoamerican milpa system. “My family name Ku Balam means ‘Jaguar God’. I come from the Mayan culture,” he explains. “We the Mayans cultivate the milpa for subsistence. We don’t do it as a business, but rather as part of our culture â something we inherited from our parents.” (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
5. We must increase maize and wheat yields to keep feeding the world.
By the year 2050, there will be some 9.7 billion people living on Earth. To meet the growing demand from an increasing population and changing diets, maize yields must go up at least 18% and wheat yields 15% by 2030, despite hotter climates and more erratic precipitation.
Farmers walk through a wheat field in Lemo district, Ethiopia. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
6. Climate-smart farming allows higher yields with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Decades of research and application by scientists, extension workers, machinery specialists, and farmers have perfected practices that conserve soil and water resources, improve yields under hotter and dryer conditions, and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and pollution associated with maize and wheat farming in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Kumbirai Chimbadzwa (left) and Lilian Chimbadzwa stand on their field growing green manure cover crops. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
7. Wholegrain wheat is good for your health.
An exhaustive review of research on cereal grains and health has shown that eating whole grains, such as whole-wheat bread and other exceptional sources of dietary fiber, is beneficial for human health and associated with a reduced risk of cancer and other non-communicable diseases.
According to this study, consumption of whole grains is associated with a lower risk of coronary disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and overall mortality. Eating whole and refined grains is beneficial for brain health and associated with reduced risk for diverse types of cancer. Evidence also shows that, for the general population, gluten- or wheat-free diets are not inherently healthier and may actually put individuals at risk of dietary deficiencies.
8. Biofortified maize and wheat are combating âhidden hunger.â
âHidden hungerâ is a lack of vitamins and minerals. More than 2 billion people worldwide are too poor to afford diverse diets and cannot obtain enough critical nutrients from their staple foods.
To help address this, CIMMYT â along with HarvestPlus and partners in 18 countries â is promoting more than 60 maize and wheat varieties whose grain contains more of the essential micronutrients zinc and provitamin A. These biofortified varieties are essential in the fight against âhidden hunger.â
A 2015 study published in The Journal of Nutrition found that vitamin A-biofortified orange maize significantly improves visual functions in children, like night vision. (Photo: Libby Edwards/HarvestPlus)
9. 53 million people are benefiting from drought-tolerant maize.
Drought-tolerant maize developed by CIMMYT and partners using conventional breeding provides at least 25% more grain than conventional varieties in dry conditions in sub-Saharan Africa â this represents as much as 1 ton per hectare more grain on average.
These varieties are now grown on nearly 2.5 million hectares, benefiting an estimated 6 million households or 53 million people.
One study shows that drought-tolerant maize varieties can provide farming families in Zimbabwe an extra 9 months of food at no additional cost.
10. Quality protein maize is helping reduce child malnutrition.
Bread wheat improvement using genomic tools will be critical to accelerate genetic gains in the crop’s yield, disease resistance, and climate resilience. (Photo: Apollo Habtamu/CIMMYT)
Using the full wheat genome map published in 2018, combined with data from field testing of wheat breeding lines in multiple countries, an international team of scientists has identified significant new chromosomal regions for wheat yield and disease resistance and created a freely-available collection of genetic information and markers for more than 40,000 wheat lines.
Reported today in Nature Genetics, the results will speed up global efforts to breed more productive and climate-resilient varieties of bread wheat, a critical crop for world food security that is under threat from rising temperatures, rapidly-evolving fungal pathogens, and more frequent droughts, according to Philomin Juliana, wheat scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new study.
âThis work directly connects the wheat genome reference map with wheat lines and extensive field data from CIMMYTâs global wheat breeding network,â said Juliana. âThat network in turn links to over 200 breeding programs and research centers worldwide and contributes to yield and other key traits in varieties sown on nearly half the worldâs wheat lands.â
The staple food for more than 2.5 billion people, wheat provides 20% of human dietary calories and protein worldwide and is critical for the nutrition and food security of hundreds of millions of poor persons in regions such as North Africa and South Asia.
âFarmers and societies today face new challenges to feed rising and rapidly-urbanizing populations, and wheat epitomizes the issues,â said Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat breeder and corresponding author of the study. âHigher temperatures are holding back yields in major wheat-growing areas, extreme weather events are common, crop diseases are spreading and becoming more virulent, and soil and water are being depleted.â
Juliana said the study results help pave the way to apply genomic selection, an approach that has transformed dairy cow husbandry, for more efficient wheat breeding.
âMolecular markers are getting cheaper to use; meanwhile, itâs very costly to do field testing and selection involving many thousands of wheat plants over successive generations,â Juliana said. âGenome-wide marker-based selection can help breeders to precisely identify good lines in early breeding generations and to test plantlets in greenhouses, thereby complementing and streamlining field testing.â
The new study found that genomic selection could be particularly effective in breeding for wheat end-use quality and for resistance to stem rust disease, whose causal pathogen has been evolving and spreading in the form of highly-virulent new races.
The new study also documents the effectiveness of the global public breeding efforts by CIMMYT and partners, showing that improved wheat varieties from this work have accumulated multiple gene variants that favor higher yields, according to Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYTâs global wheat program.
âThis international collaboration, which is the worldâs largest publicly-funded wheat breeding program, benefits farmers worldwide and offers high-quality wheat lines that are released directly to farmers in countries, such as Afghanistan, that are unable to run a full-fledged wheat breeding program,â Braun explained.
The study results are expected to support future gene discovery, molecular breeding, and gene editing in wheat, Braun said.
Together with more resource-efficient cropping systems, high-yielding and climate-resilient wheat varieties will constitute a key component of the sustainable intensification of food production described in Strategy 3 of the recent EAT-Lancet Commission recommendations to transform the global food system. Large-scale genomics will play a key role in developing these varieties and staying ahead of climate- and disease-related threats to food security.
Funders of this work include USAIDâs Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics. Contributing to the research described are research teams engaged in wheat improvement at CIMMYT, and the lab of Jesse Poland, Associate Professor at Kansas State University and Director of the USAID Applied Wheat Genomics Innovation Lab.
For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:
New research shows that smallholder farmers in Ethiopia used various coping mechanisms apart from fungicides in response to the recent wheat rust epidemics in the country. Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) call for continuous support to research and extension programs to develop and disseminate improved wheat varieties with resistant traits to old and newly emerging rust races.
Rising wheat yields cannot catch up rising demand
Wheat is the fourth largest food crop in Ethiopia cultivated by smallholders, after teff, maize and sorghum. Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa and average farm yields have more than doubled in the past two decades, reaching 2.74 tons per hectare on average in 2017/18. Farmers who use improved wheat varieties together with recommended agronomic practices recorded 4 to 6 tons per hectare in high-potential wheat growing areas such as the Arsi and Bale zones. Yet the country remains a net importer because demand for wheat is rapidly rising.
The Ethiopian government has targeted wheat self-sufficiency by 2023 and the country has huge production potential due to its various favorable agroecologies for wheat production.
However, one major challenge to boosting wheat production and yields is farmersâ vulnerability to rapidly evolving wheat diseases like wheat rusts.
The Ethiopian highlands have long been known as hot spots for stem and yellow wheat rusts caused by the fungus Puccinia spp., which can spread easily under favorable climatic conditions. Such threats may grow with a changing climate.
Recurrent outbreaks of the two rusts destroyed significant areas of popular wheat varieties. In 2010, a yellow rust epidemic severely affected the popular Kubsa variety. In 2013/14, farmers in the Arsi and Bale zones saw a new stem rust race destroy entire fields of the bread wheat Digalu variety.
In response to the 2010 yellow rust outbreak, the government and non-government organizations, seed enterprises and other development supporters increased the supply of yellow rust resistant varieties like Kakaba and Dandaâa.
Fungicide is not the only solution for wheat smallholder farmers
Two household panel surveys during the 2009/10 main cropping season, before the yellow rust epidemic, and during the 2013/14 cropping season analyzed farmersâ exposure to wheat rusts and their coping mechanisms. From the survey, 44% of the wheat farming families reported yellow rust in their fields during the 2010/11 epidemic.
Household data analysis looked at the correlation between household characteristics, their coping strategies against wheat rust and farm yields. The study revealed there was a 29 to 41% yield advantage by increasing wheat area of the new, resistant varieties even under normal seasons with minimum rust occurrence in the field. Continuous varietal development in responding to emerging new rust races and supporting the deployment of newly released rust resistant varieties could help smallholders cope against the disease and maintain improved yields in the rust prone environments of Ethiopia.
The case study showed that apart from using fungicides, increasing wheat area under yellow rust resistant varieties, increasing diversity of wheat varieties grown, or a combination of these strategies were the main coping mechanisms farmers had taken to prevent new rust damages. Large-scale replacement of highly susceptible varieties by new rust resistant varieties was observed after the 2010/11 epidemic.
The most significant wheat grain yield increases were observed for farmers who increased both area under resistant varieties and number of wheat varieties grown per season.
The additional yield gain thanks to the large-scale adoption of yellow rust resistant varieties observed after the 2010/11 epidemic makes a very strong case to further strengthen wheat research and extension investments, so that more Ethiopian farmers have access to improved wheat varieties resistant to old and newly emerging rust races.
How to track adoption and assess the impact of maize and wheat varieties? Some of the methods used until now, like farmersâ recall surveys, have various limitations. In addition to relying exclusively on peopleâs memory and subjectivity, they are difficult to replicate and prone to errors.
DNA fingerprinting, on the other hand, allows objective evaluation and is considered the âgold standardâ method for adoption and impact assessments.
It consists of a chemical test that shows the genetic makeup of living things, by separating strands of DNA and revealing the unique parts of their genome. The results show up as a pattern of stripes that can be matched against other samples.
This technique is extremely helpful in tracking crop varieties and monitoring their adoption. It can be used to assess the impact of research-for-development investments, guide breeding and seed system strategies, implement the intellectual property rights of breeders, assess the use of crop genetic resources, and informing policy.
On June 25, 2019, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) held a half-day workshop in Addis Ababa to discuss the use and application of DNA fingerprinting in Ethiopia for the tracking of crop varieties.
High-level government officials and major players in the agricultural sector were interested in learning more about the policy implications of this tool and how to mainstream its use.
CIMMYTâs Socioeconomics Program Director, Olaf Erenstein (left), talks to Eyasu Abraha, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources (center), and Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.
Introducing DNA fingerprinting in Ethiopia
The main DNA fingerprinting project in Ethiopia has been in operation since January 2016, focusing on the countryâs two major staple crops: wheat and maize. The project covers the Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, and Tigray regions, which together account for 92% and 79% of the national wheat and maize production.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the project, which was jointly implemented by CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Ethiopiaâs Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT).
The main objective of the project was to generate a knowledge base for the practical use of DNA fingerprinting, to mainstream the use of this technology, and to offer policy options and recommendations.
CIMMYT scientists Dave Hodson (left), Bekele Abeyo (center) and Sarah Hearne participated in the workshop.
Better monitoring for wheat self-sufficiency
At the workshop, researchers presented two policy briefs specific to Ethiopia: one focusing on policy implications of DNA fingerprinting for tracking bread wheat varieties and another one on how to revitalize the durum wheat sub-sector.
Speaking at the workshop, Eyasu Abraha, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, noted that the government planned to achieve wheat grain self-sufficiency in the next few years by increasing wheat productivity in the highlands and expanding wheat production to the lowlands through irrigation. In this regard, improved crop variety development and dissemination is one of the key elements to increase agricultural productivity and improve the livelihood of millions of smallholder farmers.
According to Abraha, more than 130 wheat varieties have been released or registered in Ethiopia since the late 1960s, in collaboration with international research organizations. Public and private seed enterprises have multiplied and distributed these varieties to reach smallholder farmers.
Even though adoption studies have been conducted, there is still a strong need for more accurate and wider studies. In addition to tracking adoption and demand, using DNA fingerprinting could help understand the distribution of varieties across space and time.
Members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium Africa (IMIC – Africa) and other maize and wheat research partners discovered the latest innovations in seed and agronomy at Embu and Naivasha research stations in Kenya on August 27 and 28, 2019. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Kenya Agriculture & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) held their annual partner field days to present sustainable solutions for farmers to cope with poor soils, a changing climate and emerging diseases and pests, such as wheat rust, maize lethal necrosis or fall armyworm.
Versatile seeds and conservation agriculture offer farmers yield stability
âMaize is food in Kenya. Wheat is also gaining importance for our countries in eastern Africa,â KALRO Embu Center Director, Patrick Gicheru, remarked. âWe have been collaborating for many years with CIMMYT on maize and wheat research to develop and disseminate improved technologies that help our farmers cope against many challenges,â he said.
Farmers in Embu, like in most parts of Kenya, faced a month delay in the onset of rains last planting season. Such climate variability presents a challenge for farmers in choosing the right maize varieties. During the field days, CIMMYT and KALRO maize breeders presented high-yielding maize germplasm adapted to diverse agro-ecological conditions, ranging from early to late maturity and from lowlands to highlands.
JoĂŁo Saraiva, from the Angolan seed company Jardins dâAyoba, said having access to the most recent improved maize germplasm is helpful for his young seed company to develop quality seeds adapted to farmersâ needs. He is looking for solutions against fall armyworm, as the invasive species is thriving in the Angolan tropical environment. He was interested to hear about CIMMYTâs progress to identify promising maize lines resistant to the caterpillar. Since fall armyworm was first observed in Africa in 2016, CIMMYT has screened almost 1,200 inbred lines and 2,900 hybrids for tolerance to fall armyworm.
âHopefully, we will be developing and releasing the first fall armyworm-tolerant hybrids by the first quarter of 2020,â announced B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYTâs Global Maize Programme and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE).
âThrough continuous innovations to build varieties that perform well despite dry spells, heat waves or disease outbreak, maize scientists have been able to deliver significant yield increases each year across various environments,â explained Prasanna. âThis genetic gain race is important to respond to growing grain demands despite growing climate risks and declining soil health.â
Berhanu Tadesse, maize breeder at the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), was highly impressed by the disease-free, impeccable green maize plants at Embu station, remembering the spotted and crippled foliage during a visit more than a decade ago. This was âvisual proof of constant progress,â he said.
For best results, smallholder farmers should use good agronomic practices to conserve water and soil health. KALRO agronomist Alfred Micheni demonstrated different tillage techniques during the field tour including the furrow ridge, which is adapted to semi-arid environments because it retains soil moisture.
A vibrant local seed industry is needed for farmers to access improved varieties. Seed growers must be able to produce pure, high-quality seeds at competitive costs so they can flourish in business and reach many smallholder farmers.
Double haploid technology enables breeders to cut selection cycles from six to two, ultimately reducing costs by one third while ensuring a higher level of purity. Sixty percent of CIMMYT maize lines are now developed using double haploid technology, an approach also available to partners such as the Kenyan seed company Western Seeds.
The Seed Production Technology for Africa (SPTA) project, a collaboration between CIMMYT, KALRO, Corteva Agriscience and the Agricultural Research Council, is another innovation for seed companies enabling cheaper and higher quality maize hybrid production. Maize plants have both female and male pollen-producing flowers called tassels. To produce maize hybrids, breeders cross two distinct female and male parents. Seed growers usually break the tassels of female lines manually to avoid self-pollination. SPTA tested a male sterility gene in Kenya and South Africa, so that female parents did not produce pollen, avoiding a detasseling operation that damages the plant. It also saves labor and boosts seed yields. Initial trial data showed a 5 to 15% yield increase, improving the seed purity as well.
World-class research facilities to fight new and rapidly evolving diseases
The KALRO Naivasha research station has hosted the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) quarantine and screening facility since 2013. Implementing rigorous phytosanitary protocols in this confined site enables researchers to study the viral disease first observed in Africa 2011 in Bomet country, Kenya. Working with national research and plant health organizations across the region and the private sector, MLN has since been contained.
A birdâs eye view of the demonstration plots is the best testimony of the impact of MLN research. Green patches of MLN-resistant maize alternate with yellow, shrivelled plots. Commercial varieties are susceptible to the disease that can totally wipe out the crop, while new MLN-resistant hybrids yield five to six tons per hectare. Since the MLN outbreak in 2011, CIMMYT has released 19 MLN-tolerant hybrids with drought-tolerance and high-yielding traits as well.
Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) sensitive and resistant hybrid demo plots in Naivasha’s quarantine & screening facility (Photo: KIPENZ/CIMMYT)
A major challenge to achieving food security is to accelerate the varietal replacement on the market. CIMMYT scientists and partners have identified the lengthy and costly seed certification process as a major hurdle, especially in Kenya. The Principal Secretary of the State Department for Research in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, Hamadi Boga, pledged to take up this issue with the Kenya Plant and Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS).
âSuch rapid impact is remarkable, but we cannot rest. We need more seed companies to pick up these new improved seeds, so that our research reaches the maximum number of smallholders,ââ concluded Prasanna.
This year opens the Decade of Family Farming (#FamilyFarmingDecade), which aims to improve the life of family farmers around the world. In an earnest discussion, two leaders in the global agriculture community reflect on the challenges facing family farmers, the promises of high- and low-tech solutions, and their hopes for the future.
A conversation between Martin Kropff, Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and Trevor Nicholls, CEO of CABI.
On the unique challenges facing family farms
Trevor Nicholls (CABI): Family farmers come in many shapes and sizes but for me, the words âfamily farmerâ bring a focus on smallholders and people who are starting on a journey of making a farming business. It depends on which part of the world youâre talking about; a family farm in the UK is perhaps very different to a small family farm in Ethiopia. And family farms can grow from just a small plot to being quite large commercial enterprises.
Martin Kropff (CIMMYT): All agriculture started with family farms. Fifty years ago in my home country, the Netherlands, farms were almost all family farms. When we look globally, farms in places like India, Pakistan, and Kenya are very often small, and the whole family is involved.
KROPFF: When the whole family is involved, gender dynamics come out. In a way, family farming is very often the farming done by women. This makes women the most important players in agriculture in many developing countries. Itâs crucial to recognize this and understand their decision-making. For example, our research shows that men and women value different traits in crop varieties. We need to understand this to have successful interventions.
NICHOLLS: Weâve seen something similar through our Plantwise plant clinics, where farmers come for practical plant health advice. We see a definite pattern of men bringing in cash crops for advice, and women looking more at fruits and vegetables to feed their family. But overall, mostly men come into our clinics, particularly in certain parts of the world. Weâre trying to encourage more female participation by timing the clinics so that they fit into womenâs routines without getting in the way of taking care of elderly relatives or getting kids off to school. Sometimes really simple things can open up access and improve the gender balance.
KROPFF: When the whole family is involved, there are also downsides. In Africa, young people do much of the weeding.
NICHOLLS: Thatâs right, they may be pulled out of school for weeding.
KROPFF: This really worries me. Hand weeding is such hard labor, such an intensive use of energy; it seems like it should be something of the past. Children donât want to do it anymore. My wife is from the generation where children still did weeding in the Netherlands. She remembers standing in the fields weeding when the sun was extremely warm while her friends were out doing other things.
NICHOLLS: It starts kids off on the wrong path, doesnât it? If their experience of farming is backbreaking weeding from the age of 8 onwards, itâs highly unlikely to attract them into farming as a career.
A farmer uses a smartphone to access market information.
On keeping young people interested in farming
NICHOLLS: We need to look at things like weed control as a social issue. Itâs possible, for example, to use beneficial insects to limit the spread of certain weeds that infest farmland. Biocontrol and Integrated Pest Management should be seen as ways of reducing the spread of certain weeds, and also as ways to reduce the burden on women and youth.
KROPFF: I agree. Similarly, weâre finding that small-scale mechanization is making a difference for youth, and also womenâs labor in Latin America, Africa and Asia, where CIMMYT has been introducing two-wheel tractors that can be engineered in local workshops. Suddenly, smallholders can harvest the entire wheat crop of 20 families in one day. This saves so much time, money, and effort, eliminating some of the âbadâ labor that may discourage youth and unfairly burden women. Farmers can focus on the âniceâ aspects of the business. Itâs a real game changer for family farming.
NICHOLLS: Yes and this can also be amplified through digital technology. People refer to the âUber-izationâ of tractors, where farmers are able to hire a piece of mechanical equipment for a very short space of time, and maybe it even comes with an experienced driver or operator. Weâre finding that digital tools like artificial intelligence, satellite imaging, smartphones, and other modern technologies, will intrigue youth anywhere in the world. These will hopefully have an impact on bringing more youth back into farming, as they start to see it as technologically enabled rather than straightforward muscle power.
On the transformations that need to happen
KROPFF: If we want to keep youth engaged, and improve farmersâ livelihoods, I think farming needs to become more entrepreneurial. Many family farms are only half a hectare. I think this has to grow somehow, though land rights and ownership are a challenge
NICHOLLS: As farming becomes more business-like in Africa then weâre going to see the same sort of consolidation that we saw in the United States and Europe, whereby farm sizes do get larger even if land ownership remains fragmented.
This could happen through cooperatives, which offer economies of scale and also help farmers spread the costs of things like access to inputs, advice, weather insurance and crop insurance. But we need to view cooperatives as more than a way to infuse new technologies into the farming system. They are in fact a channel for helping farmers gain stronger business skills, so they can get a better bargain for themselves.
KROPFF: In Mexico we are working with 300,000 smallholder farmers in a sustainable maize and wheat sourcing initiative. Rather than âpushingâ new varieties and technologies at farmers, we help them partner with maize and wheat companies to create a local demand for high quality, sustainable products. Real scaling up, especially for wheat and maize, needs more than extension. Farmers need better links to the market.
NICHOLLS: If farms get larger and more mechanized, it means fewer people are involved in the business of farming. This shift means that people will need other rural occupations, so that they donât just leave the land and move to the city. We need investments in other productive activities in rural areas. This could be around post-harvest processing of crops: adding value locally rather than shipping the raw materials elsewhere.
KROPFF: Exactly. Weâve been doing more work on this in the last ten years. CIMMYT works on wheat and maize, and these are products that need to be processed. Doing this locally would also help people save food in the future for more difficult times, instead of selling to someone from the city who may buy it for an unfair price. Farmers these days have access via smartphones to market information, which is empowering. We see it happening in Africa. Itâs really crucial.
NICHOLLS: Weâre certainly seeing the power of digital technologies, which are also helping us move beyond just responding to crop pests and diseases to being able to get better at predicting outbreaks on a micro-scale. By linking ground observations through our Plantwise clinics with satellite observation technology and data, weâve developed a program called PRISE (Pest Risk Information SErvice), which provides farmers with alerts before a pest is likely to reach its peak point, so that they can be prepared and take preventative measures.
KROPFF: Without a doubt, smallholder farmer communities are rapidly entering the digital age, and tools on weather prediction, selection of varieties, market information are very important and transforming the way people farm.
A farmer requests weather information via SMS.
On climate change
KROPFF: Climate change is going to be the issue affecting family farmers, especially in Asia and Africa where the population will grow by 2 billion people who need food that has been produced on their own continents. Yields have to rise and climate change brings yields down. We have to help smallholder family farmers keep doing their job and ensure crop yields, which is why climate change is embedded into 70% of our work at CIMMYT. One major area is developing and testing heat- and drought-tolerant varieties that suit local climates. Last year I was in Zimbabwe, which was experiencing El Niño, and I was very impressed by the difference in maize yields from drought and heat-tolerant varieties compared to the normal varieties.
NICHOLLS: Thatâs very good. In addition to drought and heat, we see pests and diseases appearing in new places as a result of climate change. Pests and diseases will cause crop losses of up to 40% on average. Stemming those losses is critical. Weâre seeing invasive species, such as fall armyworm, and many invasive weeds and trees that are effectively stealing arable and pastoral land from farmers, as well as water resources.
Pest-resistant crops have great long-term potential, but farmers also need short-term solutions while they wait for new varieties to become available. One of CABIâs strengths is scanning for solutions from other parts of the world. With fall armyworm, we are looking to South America, where the pest originates, for solutions and natural enemies. Weâre also scanning our fungal culture collection for samples that may have properties that can form the basis for biopesticides, and therefore open up a program of biological control.
Hopes for the future
NICHOLLS: Iâm very optimistic for family farmers. They are incredibly resilient and resourceful people, and they survive and thrive in pretty difficult circumstances. But the world is getting more challenging for them by the day. I think the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have framed many of the issues very well, in terms of food security and livelihoods, sustainable consumption and production, and this will help to focus attention on family farmers.
I do see some quite encouraging signs, particularly in Africa, where the CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme) has brought much greater coordination among countries. Weâre seeing more unity in the requests we receive from our member countries to help them address the issues that are in the SDGs. That makes the work of our organizations easier, because weâre addressing a broader set of demands. And in turn, that will benefit family farmers.
Technology, be it biotechnology or telecommunications and ICTs, is becoming so much more affordable over time. The rate that smartphone usage is spreading in Africa and Asia is incredible. In many areas we actually have most of the technology we need today. Itâs about getting it put into practice effectively with large numbers of farmers. So I remain very optimistic about the future.
KROPFF: Iâm an optimist by nature. Thatâs also why Iâm in this job: itâs not easy, but I really believe that change is possible if we have our act together and collaborate with CABI and other international research partners, national systems and the private sector. For a long time, people said that there was no Green Revolution in Africa, where yields remained one ton per hectare. But today we see yields increasing in countries like Nigeria, and in Ethiopia, where maize yields are 3.5 tons per hectare. Good things are happening because of family farming.
I believe that to increase yields you need three components: better seeds for more resilient crop varieties; sustainable intensification to grow more nutritious food per unit of water, land and soil; and good governance, to properly manage resources. We need to invest in all of these areas.
NICHOLLS: I fully agree. We need to work on all these areas, and harness the power of modern technology to help family farmers thrive now, and in the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
This yearâs African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), which took place from September 3-6, 2019 in Accra, Ghana, focused on the potential of digital agriculture to transform African agriculture through innovations such as precision agriculture solutions for smallholder farmers, access to mobile financial services, data-driven agriculture, and ICT-enabled extension.
Committed to a digital transformation of African agricultural that benefits many, not a few.
Despite its importance of the continental economy and untapped resources, African farming sector is still dominated by ageing smallholders cultivating few acres of cropland, using not much inputs and lagging far behind productivity world standards.
Many experts believe digital agriculture could help African agriculture leapfrog to overcome its geographical, social and economic bottlenecks, bringing successful technologies to scale faster, and market opportunities even for remote smallholders. Some countries like Ghana or Kenya are becoming digital hubs for agritech-savvy young entrepreneurs along the food value chains, from drone for Ag, linking farmers to the marketplace, or offering mobile mechanization or financial services.
Improving smallholdersâ resilience through digital innovations
The millions of African rainfed farmers are in a risky business, from rising climate shocks to emerging pests and diseases like the invasive fall armyworm or the maize lethal necrosis. CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff highlighted the importance of digital tools to predict these risks through smart, scalable early warning systems like the award-winning diagnostic tool Marple that helps map wheat rust outbreaks. Researchers can also better predict the farmsâ responses to these risks through accurate modelling. They can for instance better assess the potential yield benefits of drought and heat tolerance under different climate change scenarios.
CIMMYT crop breeders use tablet-based disease scoring applications and test new imagery and high-tech sensors for more accurate and cost-effective data collection. Kropff underlined the key role digital tools play to speed up science breakthroughs and impact delivery at the farm level.
Tailored advice for farmers and policy-makers to enable sustainable intensification
âThe future is no longer where it used to be. Farmersâ reality has become even more unpredictable,â said Enock Chikava, deputy director, agricultural development at the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation during a vivid debate on how to reshape the future agronomic research so it delivers more site-specific and responsive advice.
Much of the agronomy work within the region remains fragmented across research institutes, commodities and projects, and struggles to go beyond blanket recommendations that are most of the time not adapted to local farming conditions.
However, there is a fast-growing wealth of georeferenced data that can describe the diverse farming landscapes and socio-economic context of each African smallholder farmer. The starting point to exploit these data and get the right solutions for each farmer is to ask the right questions.
Moderated by Samuel Gameda, CIMMYT soil scientist, who shared the lessons from the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale (TAMASA) project, this session on Agronomy at Scale discussed what public information goods like crop yield prediction maps or extension apps, such as the maize variety selector, would be the most useful for farmers and large-scale agronomic initiatives to trigger this much needed sustainable intensification of millions of African smallholdings. What investments would make a difference to scale the use of these new decision-support tools?
âAgronomic research must be carried out from a broader perspective of large-scale relevance and application. It is also more and more a joint effort and responsibility between smallholder farmers, the research community and public and private sectors, with each component playing specific and interacting roles. The current era of powerful and accessible ICT tools and big data analytics make this much more feasible and should be incorporated to enable precision agronomy for all, this is my take home message,â said Gameda.
âThis data revolution will only work if we invest in research data quality and data management,â stressed Bram Govaerts, CIMMYTâs Integrated Development Program director. âThat will generate better evidence for decision-makers to guide impact investment plans, deciding on which technology e.g. a new drought-tolerant crop variety and put the money in the right leveraging point,â Govaerts concluded.
The largest forum on African agriculture, AGRF 2019 gathered more than 2,200 delegates and high-level dignitaries, from heads of State and government officials to leaders of global and regional development institutions; top agri-food businesses and local entrepreneurs; financial institutions; mobile network operators and tech leaders, as well as lead representatives of farmer organizations.
Cover photo: Delegation from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) 2019.
Visitors at CIMMYTâs experimental station in Obregon, Mexico, where elite wheat lines are tested for new traits.
For a number of reasons, including limited interdisciplinary collaboration and a dearth of funding, revolutionary new plant research findings are not being used to improve crops.
âTranslational researchâ â efforts to convert basic research knowledge about plants into practical applications in crop improvement â represents a necessary link between the world of fundamental discovery and farmers’ fields. This kind of research is often seen as more complicated and time consuming than basic research and less sexy than working at the âcutting edgeâ where research is typically divorced from agricultural realities in order to achieve faster and cleaner results; however, modern tools â such as genomics, marker-assisted breeding, high throughput phenotyping of crop traits using drones, and speed breeding techniques â are making it both faster and cost-effective.
In a new article in Crop Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics, wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and co-authors make the case for increasing not only funding for translational research, but the underlying prerequisites: international and interdisciplinary collaboration towards focused objectives and a visionary approach by funding organizations.
âItâs ironic,â said Reynolds. âMany breeding programs have invested in the exact technologies â such as phenomics, genomics and informatics â that can be powerful tools for translational research to make real improvements in yield and adaptation to climate, disease and pest stresses. But funding to integrate these tools in front-line breeding is quite scarce, so they arenât reaching their potential value for crop improvement.â
Members of the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) which focuses on translational research to boost wheat yields.
Many research findings are tested for their implications for wheat improvement by the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) at the IWYP Hub, a centralized technical platform for evaluating innovations and building them into elite wheat varieties, co-managed by CIMMYT at its experimental station in Obregon, Mexico.
IWYP has its roots with the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), which in 2010 formalized the need to boost both wheat yield potential as well as its adaptation to heat and drought stress. The network specializes in translational research, harnessing scientific findings from around the world to boost genetic gains in wheat, and capitalizing on the research and pre-breeding outputs of WHEAT and the testing networks of the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN). These efforts also led to the establishment of the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC).
âWeâve made extraordinary advances in understanding the genetic basis of important traits,â said IWYPâs Richard Flavell, a co-author of the article. âBut if they arenât translated into crop production, their societal value is lost.â
The authors, all of whom have proven track records in both science and practical crop improvement, offer examples where exactly this combination of factors led to the impactful application of innovative research findings.
Improving the Vitamin A content of maize: A variety of maize with high Vitamin A content has the potential to reduce a deficiency that can cause blindness and a compromised immune system. This development happened as a result of many translational research efforts, including marker-assisted selection for a favorable allele, using DNA extracted from seed of numerous segregating breeding crosses prior to planting, and even findings from gerbil, piglet and chicken models â as well as long-term, community-based, placebo-controlled trials with children â that helped establish that Vitamin A maize is bioavailable and bioefficacious.
Flood-tolerant rice: Weather variability due to climate change effects is predicted to include both droughts and floods. Developing rice varieties that can withstand submergence in water due to flooding is an important outcome of translational research which has resulted in important gains for rice agriculture. In this case, the genetic trait for flood tolerance was recognized, but it took a long time to incorporate the trait into elite germplasm breeding programs. In fact, the development of flooding tolerant rice based on a specific SUB 1A allele took over 50 years at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines (1960â2010), together with expert molecular analyses by others. The translation program to achieve efficient incorporation into elite high yielding cultivars also required detailed research using molecular marker technologies that were not available at the time when trait introgression started.
Other successes include new approaches for improving the yield potential of spring wheat and the discovery of traits that increase the climate resilience of maize and sorghum.
One way researchers apply academic research to field impact is through phenotyping. Involving the use of cutting edge technologies and tools to measure detailed and hard to recognize plant traits, this area of research has undergone a revolution in the past decade, thanks to more affordable digital measuring tools such as cameras and sensors and more powerful and accessible computing power and accessibility.
Scientists are now able to identify at a detailed scale plant traits that show how efficiently a plant is using the sunâs radiation for growth, how deep its roots are growing to collect water, and more â helping breeders select the best lines to cross and develop.
An Australian pine at CIMMYTâs experimental station in Texoco, Mexico, commemorates the 4th symposium of the International Plant Phenotyping Network.
Phenotyping is key to understanding the physiological and genetic bases of plant growth and adaptation and has wide application in crop improvement programs. Recording trait data through sophisticated non-invasive imaging, spectroscopy, image analysis, robotics, high-performance computing facilities and phenomics databases allows scientists to collect information about traits such as plant development, architecture, plant photosynthesis, growth or biomass productivity from hundreds to thousands of plants in a single day. This revolution was the subject of discussion at a 2016 gathering of more than 200 participants at the International Plant Phenotyping Symposium hosted by CIMMYT in Mexico and documented in a special issue of Plant Science.
There is currently an explosion in plant science. Scientists have uncovered the genetic basis of many traits, identified genetic markers to track them and developed ways to measure them in breeding programs. But most of these new findings and ideas have yet to be tested and used in breeding programs, wasting their potentially enormous societal value.
Establishing systems for generating and testing new hypotheses in agriculturally relevant systems must become a priority, Reynolds states in the article. However, for success, this will require interdisciplinary, and often international, collaboration to enable established breeding programs to retool. Most importantly, scientists and funding organizations alike must factor in the long-term benefits as well as the risks of not taking timely action. Translating a research finding into an improved crop that can save lives takes time and commitment. With these two prerequisites, basic plant research can and should positively impact food security.
Authors would like to acknowledge the following funding organizations for their commitment to translational research.
The International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) is supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in the UK; the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the USA; and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) in Switzerland.
The Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) is supported by the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) Project by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) of the Government of Mexico; previous projects that underpinned HeDWIC were supported by Australiaâs Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).
The Queensland Governmentâs Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in collaboration with The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) have provided long-term investment for the public sector sorghum pre-breeding program in Australia, including research on the stay-green trait. More recently, this translational research has been led by the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) within The University of Queensland.
ASI validation work and ASI translation and extension components with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, respectively.
Financial support for the maize proVA work was partially provided by HarvestPlus (www.HarvestPlus.org), a global alliance of agriculture and nutrition research institutions working to increase the micronutrient density of staple food crops through biofortification. The CGIAR Research Program MAIZE (CRP-MAIZE) also supported this research.
The CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) as a primary research partner. Funding comes from CGIAR, national governments, foundations, development banks and other agencies, including the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
A delegation of the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (IAARD) visited the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to reaffirm their research partnership. Led by the Director General of IAARD, Fadjry Djufry, a group of Indonesian researchers and leaders visited CIMMYT on August 28 and August 29.
CIMMYT and IAARD have collaborated on research since 1981, when an Indonesian researcher participated in CIMMYT trainings. Since 1995, CIMMYT has worked with Indonesia through joint research and donations of inbred lines. CIMMYT has helped the Indonesian Cereals Research Institute (ICERI) in establishing infrastructure for a drought-tolerant nursery and has sponsored ICERI researchers to attend international scientific meetings. The CIMMYT-organized Asian Maize Biotechnology Network supported a satellite molecular laboratory for ICERI.
During the visit, the Indonesian delegation signed a memorandum of understanding with CIMMYT. Visitors also attended presentations on CIMMYT’s progress and strategy, toured the germplasm bank, visited the maize nutrition quality lab, and did a field visit to learn about sustainable intensification and climate change adaptation.
After CIMMYT director general Martin Kropff gave an overview of CIMMYT, the IAARD delegation presented their work and innovations to increase maize and wheat production. Indonesian researchers have released high yielding maize varieties, functional maize varieties and hybrid maize varieties. Farmers are intercropping maize, rice and soybeans. Post-harvest technology, mechanization and mapping have contributed to maize productivity.
IAARD also outlined its strategy to contribute to the government’s target of food self-sufficiency to become the world’s food basket by 2045.
IAARD suggested future collaboration with CIMMYT to help achieve this goal, including working together on research and development of improved maize and wheat, a double haploid for maize, water management, climate-smart agriculture and data management for genetic resources.
Elite wheat varieties at CIMMYTâs experimental station in Ciudad Obregon, in Mexico’s Sonora state. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
In a new study, scientists have found that genome segments from a wild grass are present in more than one in five of elite bread wheat lines developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Scientists at CIMMYT and other research institutes have been crossing wild goat grass with durum wheat â the wheat used for pasta â since the 1980s, with the help of complex laboratory manipulations. The new variety, known as synthetic hexaploid wheat, boosts the genetic diversity and resilience of wheat, notoriously vulnerable due to its low genetic diversity, adding novel genes for disease resistance, nutritional quality and heat and drought tolerance.
The study, which aimed to measure the effect of these long-term efforts using state-of-the-art molecular technology, also found that 20% of CIMMYT modern wheat lines contain an average of 15% of the genome segments from the wild goat grass.
“Weâve estimated that one-fifth of the elite wheat breeding lines entered in international yield trials has at least some contribution from goat grass,” said Umesh Rosyara, genomic breeder at CIMMYT and first author of the paper, which was published in Nature Scientific Reports. “This is much higher than expected.”
Although the synthetic wheat process can help bring much-needed diversity to modern wheat, crossing with synthetic wheat is a complicated process that also introduces undesirable traits, which must later be eliminated during the breeding process.
“Many breeding programs hesitate to use wild relatives because undesirable genomic segments are transferred in addition to desirable segments,” said Rosyara. “The study results can help us devise an approach to quickly eliminate undesirable segments while maintaining desirable diversity.”
CIMMYT breeding contributions are present in nearly half the wheat sown worldwide, many of such successful cultivars have synthetic wheat in the background, so the real world the impact is remarkable, according to Rosyara.
“With this retrospective look at the development and use of synthetic wheat, we can now say with certainty that the best wheat lines selected over the past 30 years are benefiting from the genes of wheatâs wild relatives,” he explained. “Even more, using cutting-edge molecular marker technology, we should be able to target and capture the most useful genes from wild sources and better harness this rich source of diversity.”
Modern breeders tread in natureâs footsteps
The common bread wheat we know today arose when an ancient grain called emmer wheat naturally cross-bred with goat grass around 10,000 years ago. During this natural crossing, very few goat grass genes crossed over, and as a result, current bread wheat is low in diversity for the genome contributed by goat grass. Inedible and considered a weed, goat grass still has desirable traits including disease resistance and tolerance to climate stresses.
Scientists sought to broaden wheat’s genetic diversity by re-enacting the ancient, natural cross that gave rise to bread wheat, crossing improved durum wheat or primitive emmer with different variants of goat grass. The resulting synthetic wheats were crossed again with improved wheats to help remove undesirable wild genome segments.
Once synthetic wheat is developed, it can be readily crossed with any elite wheat lines thus serving as a bridge to transfer diversity from durum wheat and wild goat grass to bread wheat. This helps breeders develop high yielding varieties with desirable traits for quality varieties and broad adaption.
CIMMYT is the first to use wheatâs wild relatives on such a large scale, and the synthetic derivative lines have been used by breeding programs worldwide to develop popular and productive bread wheat varieties. One example, Chuanmai 42, released in China in 2003, stood as the leading wheat variety in the Sichuan Basin for over a decade. Other synthetic derivative lines such as Sokoll and Vorobey appear in the lineage of many successful wheat lines, contributing crucial yield stability â the ability to maintain high yields over time under varying conditions.
The successful, large-scale use of genes from wheatâs wild relatives has helped broaden the genetic diversity of modern, improved bread wheat nearly to the level of the cropâs heirloom varieties. This diversity is needed to combat future environmental, pest, and disease challenges to the production of a grain that provides 20% of the calories consumed by humans worldwide.
This work was supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) and Seeds of Discovery (SeeD), a multi-project initiative comprising MasAgro Biodiversidad, a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Ministry of agriculture and rural development (SADER) through the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project; the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE) and Wheat (WHEAT); and a computation infrastructure and data analysis project supported by the UKâs Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). CIMMYTâs worldwide partners participated in the evaluation of CIMMYT international wheat yield trials.
For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:
About the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat
The CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) as a primary research partner. Funding comes from CGIAR, national governments, foundations, development banks and other agencies, including the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
About CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
Two hybrid wheat varieties that are resistant to stem rust disease are set to be released to Kenyan farmers later this year. Mandeep Randham, wheat breeder and geneticist at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center said that the two varieties, ‘Kenya Jacana’ and ‘Kenya Kasuku’ have high yields and resistant to stem rust disease known as U99. Read more here.
Maximino AlcalĂĄ de Stefano working at CIMMYT’s wheat international nurseries. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) sadly notes the passing of Maximino AlcalĂĄ de Stefano, former head of the centerâs Wheat International Nurseries service, on August 27. He was 80 years old.
Fondly known as âMaxâ by friends and colleagues, AlcalĂĄ worked at CIMMYT from 1967 to 1992, coordinating wheat international nurseries during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The job included organizing nursery shipments to over 100 partners worldwide each year and collating, analyzing, and sharing results from the nurseries grown.
Maximino AlcalĂĄ de Stefano passed away at the age of 80 in Houston, Texas, USA. (Photo: AlcalĂĄ family)
The printed international nursery report featured an introductory section that described the nurseries, the locations, the statistical analyses used, and an overview of the performance of the breeding lines tested, which comprised the best CIMMYT materials but also germplasm from other sources. The report also carried tables with full data from each location as well as summary tables.
âMax was instrumental in preparing and distributing the printed nursery results, now made available online but which continue to provide crucial input for breeding by CIMMYT and partners,â said Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYTâs Global Wheat Program. âHe also helped start the international nursery database.â
A native of Mexico, AlcalĂĄ completed a bachelorâs in Science at the Universidad AutĂłnoma Agraria Antonio Narro in 1964 and a masterâs at Texas A&M University in 1967. AlcalĂĄ pursued doctoral studies in wheat breeding at Oregon State University under the guidance of renowned OSU researcher Warren E. Kronstad, finishing in 1974.
Maximino AlcalĂĄ de Stefano (second from right) worked closely with Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug (third from left). In the photo, a group of CIMMYT Scientists during a visit to Nepal in 1978. (Photo: CIMMYT)
His professional experience prior to CIMMYT included appointments at Mexicoâs National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) and in the national extension services.
Later in his career, AlcalĂĄ supported wheat training at CIMMYT and helped coordinate visitors services at CIMMYTâs experimental station near Ciudad ObregĂłn, in Mexicoâs Sonora state.
The CIMMYT community sends its deepest sympathies and wishes for peace to the AlcalĂĄ family.
On the transformations that need to happen
