A new study by CIMMYT, published in Global Change Biology, reveals that ancient wild relatives of wheat, which have adapted to extreme environmental conditions for millions of years, could be key to securing our future food supply. These wild varieties offer valuable genetic traits that can help modern wheat resist diseases, build climate resilience, and reduce agricultural emissions, making them essential for adapting to increasingly challenging growing conditions.
Dr Sieg Snapp is Program Director, Sustainable Agrifood Systems, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Climate change is upending weather patterns across Africa, presenting dire challenges for farming communities. In Zambia, the impact is particularly harsh. Agriculture is the lifeblood of the economy, with two-thirds of the country’s workforce employed in agriculture, and 78% of these workers are women.
The country faced a severe El Niño during the 2023/2024 season, causing a severe drought that devastated over 1 million hectares of cropland. The president declared it a national disaster. El Niño events typically result in catastrophic drops in crop yields, often reducing maize harvests by 30-40%. These events not only impact food security but also hinder economic growth, with the agricultural sector’s contribution to Zambia’s GDP dropping from 9.4% to 3.39%.
The devastating El Niño-induced drought in Zambia is starkly illustrated by the story of Melody Limweta, a 31-year-old farmer. She and her husband, Collins Manenekela, have seen their already fragile livelihood pushed to the brink by severe water shortages. Typically, they rely on dry season gardening and small-scale farming, including raising chickens, during the rainy season. However, the drought has dried up local water sources, making gardening impossible and sharply reducing their income. The couple’s practice of planting maize in the same field each year with recycled seeds and traditional methods has worsened their situation, as the El Niño-induced rainfall deficits have led to poor yields. Their primary source of food and income has withered in the field due to insufficient rainfall.
A consortium of partners led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have joined together as a rapid delivery hub for these challenging times, providing vital support to rural communities and families such as Melody and Collins. Farmers have a strong voice in this unique delivery mode. With support from the people of the U.S. government, the Southern Africa Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I) is promoting access to drought-tolerant crops, climate-busting and nutritious legume seeds, agricultural advice and early warning systems to combat climate change. AID-I provides critical support to ensure that millions of smallholder farmers in the Haut-Katanga region of DR Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia have access to information and innovations needed for gains in food production that help buffer drought, flood and rising food, fuel, and fertilizer prices.
Speed and Scale: planting drought-tolerant maize
The idea of the ADI-I as a rapid delivery hub is to make available innovations and agronomic information at both speed and scale. Traditional farming methods and crops struggle with climate extremes like El Niño, which bring prolonged dry spells and heatwaves. Drought-tolerant maize varieties offer a promising solution by enhancing agricultural resilience. These adapted maize varieties yield 30-50% more than traditional ones under drought conditions, as demonstrated in recent trials during El Niño periods. However, these improved varieties are only useful when in farmers’ hands.
Working with local partners, AID-I is scaling drought-tolerant maize varieties to help Zambian farmers manage unpredictable weather patterns. In the 2023/2024 season, approximately 27% of Zambia’s smallholder farmers saw a significant boost in their maize harvests, benefiting over 900 thousand people in drought-affected regions, owing to drought-tolerant maize varieties. Over six hundred thousand households planted drought-tolerant maize varieties and produced 235 thousand metric tons of maize, accounting for 19% of Zambia’s maize production in the 2023/2024 season. This is huge return, as only 10% of the maize-growing area being planted with these resilient varieties.
Crop diversification for family nutrition
In addition to drought-tolerant maize, studies indicate that diversifying with legume crops is crucial for managing weather extremes, especially droughts and for improving soil health. Planting legumes helps spread the risk with varied planting and harvest times, cushioning the impact of erratic rainfall on crop yields. Women can feed their families due to crops like peanuts that mature early and need less rainfall. The benefits are sustained over time, as combining legumes with cereals improves overall nutrition and soil health, even amid unpredictable weather.
To support this effort, AID-I linked over 2,000 farmers to high-quality seeds for groundnuts (peanuts) and soybeans. On average, each household harvested about 80 kg of groundnuts and 175 kg of soybeans, earning roughly $75 and $58, respectively. Collectively, this initiative produced about 205 metric tons of these crops, accounting for around 14.3% of Zambia’s total production in the drought-stricken season. Farmers had a voice in choosing which crop varieties to grow through a feedback system called ‘let’s chat’ where with an ordinary flip phone farmers could call in and learn from their neighbour’s recorded commentary and testimonials. For the first time ever, farmers could provide comments on which crops they preferred, providing a lifeline of communication with agritraders, government and agricultural advisors.
A recent assessment found that Zambian women made up 60% of those benefiting from cowpeas, 65% from groundnuts, 62% from soybeans, and 36% from drought-tolerant maize.
Forewarned is forearmed – early-warning systems
Weather information services, especially early warnings about upcoming droughts, are vital for helping farmers adapt to climate change. Accurate and timely weather forecasts enable farmers to make informed decisions about planting, resource use, and crop management. This reduces losses and boosts productivity. Research shows that access to climate information can significantly increase crop yields and incomes, with some farmers experiencing up to a 66% boost in yields and a 24% rise in income.
The forecast of an El Niño for the 2023/2024 season prompted an early warning campaign to raise awareness about the hazards associated with El Niño and provide response mechanisms for smallholder farmers. AID-I used an Interactive Voice Response platform hosted by Viamo, a global social enterprise that uses mobile technology to connect people to valuable information and services. This rapid El Niño advisory campaign reached over 500 thousand farmers, with 60% male and 40% female listeners, and 93% of them under 35 years old. The campaign provided crucial advice on planting schedules, drought-resistant crops, and water-saving techniques.
Additionally, AID-I established demonstration sites that showcased effective winter crop production methods and introduced over 2,000 farmers to innovative agricultural practices. These interventions significantly improved farmers’ ability to respond to the drought.
Looking ahead
Scaling the adoption of drought-tolerant maize, improved legumes, and timely advisories is vital to protecting Zambia’s agriculture from climate extremes. The introduction of an AID-I-supported digital advisory campaign in September 2023 was a turning point for farmers like Melody and Collins. By engaging with the content, they learned about improved seeds, crop rotation, and better agronomic practices, which helped them cope with ongoing challenges and protect their resources. Initiatives like this can help families on the margins survive and rebuild agricultural production faster.
AID-I’s impact on families like Melody and Collins shows that investing in rapid delivery hubs is crucial for building resilience in farming communities. Expanding such initiatives will ensure more smallholder farmers have access to the innovations needed to maintain or increase food production amid climatic challenges.
Additionally, studies by organizations like Springer and the American Geophysical Union highlight the importance of integrating rapid delivery hubs into mainstream agricultural programs to enhance climate resilience and food security. Therefore, this necessitates an open call for international development allies—including donors, governments, NGOs, and businesses—to incorporate initiatives like AID-I into broader agricultural agendas, essential for fostering resilience and ensuring the future stability of farming communities in Zambia and beyond.
*Dr. Sieg Snapp is a leading agricultural scientist, renowned for creating the “mother and baby” trial design, a global method that enhances farmer-researcher collaboration, improving genetics and soil management in 30 countries. As Program Director at CIMMYT in Mexico, she oversees sustainable agrifood systems research, leading a large team focused on supporting smallholder farmers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Her work emphasizes gender-aware, inclusive development and has fostered partnerships for sustainable agricultural practices. A Professor at Michigan State University with over 180 publications, Dr. Snapp has also significantly influenced agricultural policy and technology adoption in Africa. Her contributions have earned her numerous prestigious awards, and she holds a Ph.D. from the University of California Davis.
Umm Zeina, a 40-year-old farmer living in El Nahal, in Sudan’s Gadarif State, was not happy with her yield, blaming the poor seeds and traditional techniques she was using. This was until she participated in the extensive seeds production training program organized by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).
“We learned a lot on how to produce seeds and how to control the parasite Striga mixed with crops. The training draws our attention to the fact that the availability of quality seed is the foundation for food production and productivity. As traditional farmers, we had very poor information about the availability, characteristics, and prices of seed of improved varieties,” Umm Zeina stressed.
ICRISAT’s extensive training attracted more than 350 (68 female) seed producer farmers from El Fashaga and El Nahal localities aimed at helping seed producers provide seeds of appropriate varieties for use by different categories of farmers. Farmers were also trained in better selection, treatment, and storage of seed from their own farms. The training also focused on the production of disease-free seeds to support agricultural productivity and success. The training helped to enhance farmers’ demand for improved seeds and eventually aimed to deliver improved seeds to more than 6000 farmers in El Fashaga, El Nahal and other neighboring localities.
This training was held as part of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems Approach for Sudan (SASAS) program, which empowers farmers and herders to reduce the need for humanitarian assistance even in conflict-affected Sudan. In the context of the atrocious food crisis in Sudan, SASAS and partners work to ensure that farmers produce the quality seeds they need to enhance food production amid escalating conflict.
In El Fashaga and El Nahal localities, the seeds production training focused on sorghum, as this crop is widely adapted and drought tolerant as well as it is a staple crop to strengthen food security and contributes to agricultural diversity and economic growth in the regions where it is cultivated.
“During the training, we learnt a lot on how to choose the best seeds to produce improved seeds and how to choose the land, isolation area, and cleanliness to harvest. I was extremely interested to learn more about how to keep the seed to its purest form for replanting purposes and human or animal consumption,” said Tarig Hassan, a farmer living in El Nahal locality.
The seeds production training also aimed at maintaining seeds quality control through training and regulatory systems, and how to multiply and distribute seeds in a timely manner and at a price affordable for farmers. Farmers also learnt to use a revolving seed mechanism to make available seeds for many new seed producer farmers for the next season through farmer-to-farmer seeds distribution.
“The seed production training is not only on how to produce quality seeds and protect loss of seeds, but also about the use of diversified seeds of sorghum, millet and ground nut that serve for both food and nutrition security”, said Gizaw Desta, Senior Scientist in ICRISAT.
SASAS’s objective is to improve food security and access to income-generating opportunities through the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices and the promotion of agri-processing and post-harvest management. It focuses on supporting smallholder crop and livestock farmers to adapt their farming activities to climate change and abiotic pressures by diversifying their crops to further cushion themselves from climatic vagaries, reduce post-harvest loss, and improve market participation, and functionality. Women and youth are supported through training and agricultural and veterinary inputs to increase income generation activities and access to economic resources.
“At SASAS, we strive to train farmers in basic farm seed production. This helps preserve and expand the diversity of the seed on which our food systems in Sudan rely. Considering the dire food security situation in the country, we fully encourage farmers to be engaged in seeds production to provide different and improved seed varieties,” said Abdelrahman Kheir, SASAS Chief of Party in Sudan.
SASAS works with ICRISAT to uplift smallholder farmers and ensure food security in semi-arid tropics. SASAS partners are committed to elevating crop productivity, resilience, and sustainability vital to dryland communities’ prosperity. This steadfast commitment profoundly affects millions in the world’s most challenging agricultural regions.
Wheat breeding strategies for increased climate resilience
With the challenges of climate change already affecting plant breeding, especially warmer days and warmer nights, the time to future proof the world’s food supply is now. In order to make the best-informed changes, scientists at CIMMYT ran simulations mimicking five scenarios that might play out over the next 70+ years.
The researchers used 3,652 breeding line records from six global nurseries administered by the International Wheat Improvement Network, which is coordinated by CIMMYT, and involves hundreds of partners and testing sites worldwide. Researchers ran the data through five different climate change scenarios, ranging from stable to severe.
Along with colleagues from Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China, ICARDA, and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, CIMMYT scientists published their research in Nature Climate Change.
The results showed that less than one-third of wheat varieties adapted well to the warming the planet has already seen in the last 10 years. As temperatures increased in the simulation, researchers found a clear connection between rising temperatures and lower stability for a variety. As the global wheat-growing area becomes warmer and experiences more frequent heatwaves, breeding programs have to look beyond just yield optimization.
“Stability is key for breeding programs and farmers,” said co-lead author Matthew Reynolds, CIMMYT distinguished scientist and head of wheat physiology. “Knowing that a specific variety works well in a specific environment and produces an expected amount of yield allows farmers better plan their crop futures.”
“We performed the analysis from different perspectives, so that climate effects and appropriate adjustment suggestions for current breeding models can be considered from climate change, gene selection and/or gene–environment interaction perspectives,” said co-lead author Wei Xiong, CIMMYT Senior Scientist and Agricultural System Modeler.
The paradox of breeding elite lines
Local and regional breeding programs, as well as targeted breeding by CIMMYT, contribute to gene pools that overlap for many key agronomic traits, which limit genetic diversity.
“It is an unintended consequence,” said Reynolds. “As conventional breeding focuses on crossing the best and elite material, such focus can actually reduce genetic diversity.”
This ‘paradox’ shows the need to increase genetic variability and environmental diversification in breeding programs that are developing higher-yielding climate-resilient cultivars. Breeding programs also need to target traits associated with improved adaptation to increased temperatures and tolerance to heatwaves, which requires multidisciplinary integration.
Looking to the past for answers
Over the past 10,000 years, the climate has been unusually stable, meaning modern, domesticated bread wheat has not been exposed to wide swings in temperature that are forecast for the next 100 years. Wild wheat relatives, like Triticeae, have had millions of years of experience in weathering changing climates.
CIMMYT has a pre-breeding program that examines wild wheat races and more exotic sources for climate resilience traits. When such traits are identified genetically, new breeding techniques such as gene editing can be employed and breeding models refined.
To activate these new techniques, several barriers need to be overcome, including more sharing of germplasm between countries and breeding teams, the use of faster breeding cycles where appropriate and improved understanding of genes that improve heat tolerance without a yield penalty.
With reduced climate resilience and slow cultivar development, the need to increase genetic variability for climate adaptation is urgent, particularly in developing countries, where warming rate is unprecedented, and breeding cycles tend to be longer than in developed countries.
“Faced with more climate variability, breeders need to revisit their breeding strategies to integrate genetic diversity that confers climate resilience without penalties to productivity,” said Reynolds.
Chris Ojiewo, from CIMMYT, emphasizes the urgent need for African farmers to produce more food within restricted areas to accommodate the continent’s growing population. He advocates for increasing crop productivity by developing resilient varieties and advanced production systems that can thrive in intensified and drought-prone conditions. Ojiewo suggests boosting maize yields from one ton per hectare to higher levels through innovative agricultural practices, highlighting CIMMYT’s role in addressing food security challenges exacerbated by climate change.
CIMMYT collaborates with Indian research institutions like IIWBR to develop climate-resilient wheat varieties, supplying essential genetic materials and leveraging global research initiatives, advanced breeding techniques, and technological tools. This partnership accelerates the creation and distribution of resilient crops, supporting local scientists and smallholder farmers through training, capacity-building programs, and knowledge sharing to ensure sustainable agriculture and enhanced food security in the face of climate change.
Children walk to their shelter at an IDP camp near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, Sudan. (Photo: Shehzad Noorani/UNICEF)
Sudan, the third largest country in Africa, is on the verge of a food crisis of epic proportions. Since the outbreak of civil war in April 2023, the country has descended rapidly into political upheaval, severe economic contraction, extreme social unrest, and rampant violence.
In addition to the estimated 13,000-15,000 people killed and 33,000 injured, some 6.3 million people have been internally displaced and more than 1.7 million have crossed into neighboring countries as refugees. Many are women and children.
The United Nations considers this the largest child displacement crisis in the world. About 25 million people urgently require food assistance, including more than 14 million children. Acute food insecurity is affecting 18 million people, or 37 percent of the population, with another 10 percent in emergency conditions.
News stories are dominated by reports of violent clashes and political maneuverings. So far, coverage of food insecurity has been scant. As is often the case, this topic seems to only get traction when there is outright famine.
This gets the story backwards. Food insecurity is at the root of many conflicts. Moreover, peace remains elusive without well-functioning agricultural systems, and it is unreasonable to expect viable agricultural production without peace.
Anticipating significantly reduced harvests in Sudan, UN agencies are projecting 50-100 percent price hikes for staple grains over the coming months. Following a doubling in food price over the previous two years, Sudan’s need for food aid will grow exponentially, while logistical barriers to humanitarian operations are getting harder to overcome.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has called for peace-building, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief, and agricultural livelihood support. And the World Food Program warns that without substantial intervention, catastrophic hunger is likely to prevail in conflict hotspots by next year’s lean season.
Most of Sudan’s 45 million people rely on farming for their livelihoods. Yet only 3.5 percent of requested donor funding for the 2024 Sudan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan has been provided.
With more frequent and severe droughts and floods degrading agricultural productivity, the income and food security of farming families has become more precarious over recent decades. Concurrent erosion in governance and social protection systems accelerates a vicious cycle of vulnerability, social tension, and maladaptive coping strategies.
In already fragile agricultural areas, displacement of millions of people is severely impacting the agriculture sector, disrupting input supply and agricultural services and limiting labor availability. Producers, input suppliers, processors, and traders all struggle to operate with communication systems interrupted by conflict preventing normal commercial transactions and movement of produce.
Just five years ago, Sudan’s agri-food sector contributed 32 percent to total GDP. In 2023, the country has seen a 20 percent drop in agricultural GDP and employment. If no preventive action is taken this year, an estimated 1.8 million more people will fall into poverty amid the ongoing conflict.
With significant untapped agroecological potential, Sudan’s economic and political stability depends on a transition to productive and climate-resilient agriculture. But this demands investment in farm management capacity, improved use of inputs and irrigation, and increased access to markets and finance, as well as viable governance of rural infrastructure and natural resources. The situation in Sudan is especially challenging given the weakened state of agricultural supply chains and the extension system, the two backbones of the agricultural sector.
To boost food supplies and prevent depletion of productive assets, international organizations are working to provide Sudanese farmers with high-quality seeds, agrochemicals, livestock vaccines, and fuel on an emergency basis. The situation requires the sustained presence of support agencies.
However, the blanket economic embargo placed on Sudan has made it difficult, if not impossible, for local development agencies to access project funds vital for saving lives and sustaining livelihoods.
Extreme uncertainty in conflict zones hampers interventions designed to reduce dependency on food aid and increase the resilience of local farming systems. By sharing knowledge resources, foresight capabilities, and decision frameworks, partner organizations can better anticipate and reduce human suffering and disaster relief costs.
Sudan is facing a complex emergency, which may lead to state failure, mass migration, resource conflicts, and starvation, triggering waves that would be felt across all of northeastern Africa. Sudan is too big to fail.
Climate-resilient agricultural livelihoods are the engine of food security and social stability. This cannot be achieved in one or two years, so the global community must have long-term aspirations to support the transformation of agrifood systems in Sudan.
We need to adapt our strategies to build resilience before, during, and after periods of conflict. By reducing poverty, in-country inequality, and other societal drivers, increased agricultural resilience can help mitigate and moderate conflict.
The victims of the current conflict have no political capital and may have little idea why the warring sides took up arms. To relieve the extreme suffering in Sudan, it is the responsibility of the international community to marshal the political will to achieve a negotiated truce and a sustained ceasefire.
The authors are thought leaders of CGIAR, the world’s largest global agricultural innovation network, and lead respectively CIMMYT, CGIAR, WorldVeg Africa, The Alliance CIAT Bioversity, IFPRI, CIP and ICARDA.
The West Africa Regional Consultation Conference, organized by CIMMYT and the African Drylands Crop Improvement Network in Accra, addressed pressing issues in the region’s agricultural sector, notably in dryland farming amid climate change. CIMMYT’s Dr. Paswel Marenya emphasized the need to boost yields of crucial cereals like sorghum and millet through innovative practices discussed at the conference. With 47 scientists from nine countries participating, the event aimed to foster collaboration and drive tangible improvements in food security and livelihoods across West Africa.
Map: BISA works with National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) of South Asia to develop ACASA.
Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA) is different from many projects supported by our team. I would love to dive into the promising features of the ACASA platform and the exciting technical advances being made, but I want to focus here on how the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) has organized this program for greater and longer-term impact.
BISA is a strong regional partner and is the lead institution for the ACASA program. In fact, we could have simply asked BISA to build the ACASA platform and known they would make a great technical product. However, our goal is not just to have great technical products, but also to improve the lives of small-scale producers. For any great technical product to deliver impact, it must be used.
From day one, the ACASA program has not just kept the users’ needs in mind, indeed they have kept the users themselves engaged on the project. By establishing strong, financially supported partnerships with the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, they are achieving four key outcomes, among many others:
Benefit from local expertise regarding national agricultural practices, climate risks, and solutions
Leverage NARS connections to national and subnational decision makers to inform product requirements
Establish national ownership with a partner mandated to support users of the product
Strengthen climate adaptation analytics across South Asia through peer-to-peer learning.
These outcomes lead to more accurate and appropriate products, user trust, and the long-term capacity to maintain and update the ACASA platform. The latter being essential given the constantly improving nature of our understanding of and predictions around climate and agriculture.
If this model of working has such advantages over “if you build it, they will come”, you might wonder why we do not use it in all cases. This approach requires divergence from business-as-usual for most researchers and is not without a cost. The BISA team are not only putting deep emphasis on the technical development of this product, but they are also spending considerable time, effort, and budget to create a program structure where the NARS are catalytic partners. The NARS teams are empowered on the project to contribute to methodologies used beyond their national boundaries, they have the task of making the best data available and validating the outputs, the responsibility of understanding and representing stakeholder requirements, and the ownership of their national platform for long-term use. BISA has developed a structure of accountability, provided funding, facilitated team-wide and theme-specific workshops, and shared decision-making power, which all presents additional work.
In the end, we encouraged this approach because we see too many decision support tools and platforms developed by international researchers who merely consult with users a few times during a project. These efforts may result in building captivating products, meeting all the needs brainstormed by the research team, but their future is sitting in a dusty (and unfortunately crowded) corner of the internet. While this approach seems fast and efficient, the efficiency is zero if there is no value gained from the output. So, we look for other ways to operate and engage with partners, to work within existing systems, and to move beyond theoretically useful products to ones that are used to address needs and can be evolved as those needs change. BISA has been an exemplary partner in building and supporting a strong ACASA team, and we are eager to see how each NARS partner leverages the ACASA product to generate impact for small-scale producers.
Tess Russo is a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, United States.
Researchers, funded by the GRDC, are collaborating with experts from ANU, the University of Adelaide, and CIMMYT to enhance heat tolerance in wheat. Led by Professor Owen Atkin and Dr. Scott Boden, the projects aim to identify genetic markers for breeding heat-resistant varieties. Using advanced phenotyping technology, scientists are exploring biochemical pathways and heat shock proteins to develop solutions for climate change-induced challenges in agriculture.
CIMMYT is combating the effects of El Niño and climate change by fostering climate-smart agriculture, including drought-tolerant crops and conservation practices, to bolster smallholder farmer resilience and productivity. Through partnerships and sustainable farming innovations, CIMMYT aims to improve food security and adapt to environmental challenges, ensuring that advanced technologies benefit those most in need.
From the densely lush landscape of Zambia’s northern province to the arid terrain of the south, a stark reality unfolds, intensified by El Niño. Zambia’s agriculture faces contrasting realities yet potential lies in adaptive strategies, a diversified crop basket, and collaborative initiatives which prioritize farmers. Despite persistent challenges with climate variability and uneven resource distribution, the country navigates unpredictable weather patterns, emphasizing the intricate interplay between environmental factors and adaptation strategies.
A healthy maize and groundnut stand in the northern Province (left) and a wilting maize crop in the southern Province (right). These photos were taken two days apart. (Photo: Blessing Mhlanga/CIMMYT)
Unpacking El Niño’s impact in Zambia
El Niño presents a common challenge to both southern and northern Zambia, albeit with varying degrees of intensity and duration. The 2022/2023 season had above normal rainfall amounts, with extreme weather events, from episodes of flash floods and flooding to prolonged dry spells, especially over areas in the south. In the 2023/2024 season, the southern region has already experienced irregular weather patterns, including prolonged droughts and extreme temperatures, leading to water scarcity, crop failures, and significant agricultural losses. Although the growing season is nearing its end, the region has only received less than one-third of the annual average rainfall (just about 250 mm). Dry spells of more than 30 days have been experienced and, in most cases, coincide with the critical growth stages of flowering and grain-filling. A glance at farmers’ fields paints a gloomy picture of the anticipated yield, but all hope is not lost.
In contrast, the northern province stands out receiving above-average rainfalls beyond 2,000 mm, providing a different set of challenges for crop production. In this region, incidences of waterlogging are prominent although the effects are not as detrimental as the drought in the southern province. In general, crops in the northern province promise a considerable harvest as compared to the ones in the southern province.
Maize stover and its competing use
The scarcity of resources in southern Zambia extends beyond water availability, with the competition for maize stover, a valuable byproduct used for animal feed which can also be retained on the soil surface for fertility improvement and soil moisture conservation. With limited access to alternative fodder sources, farmers face challenges in meeting the nutritional needs of their livestock while maintaining soil fertility and conserving moisture. The struggle to balance the competing demands for maize stover underscores the complex dynamics of resource management in the region. This is further worsened by the low maize stover yield expected due to the dry conditions.
Implementing fodder trials, which include cultivating fodder crops like mucuna and lablab, intercropped or rotated with maize, offers a lifeline to farmers. While maize crops may wilt under the stress of El Niño-induced droughts, leguminous crops such as mucuna, lablab, cowpea, and groundnuts exhibit resilience, thriving in adverse conditions and providing a crucial source of food, feed, soil cover, and income for farmers. The ability of legumes to withstand environmental stressors highlights the importance of crop diversification in building resilience to climate change and ensuring food security in vulnerable regions.
Conversely, in northern Zambia, the abundance of agricultural resources allows for a more sustainable utilization of maize stover. Farmers have greater access to fodder alternatives and can implement integrated farming practices to optimize the use of crop residues. This enables them to mitigate the adverse effects of soil degradation and enhance livestock productivity, contributing to the resilience of their agricultural systems.
Use of more climate-smart crops
Drought-tolerant cassava grown in the northern province. (Photo: CIMMYT)
In southern Zambia, maize stands as the main crop, often supplemented with the integration of some leguminous crops integrated to some extent, to diversify the agricultural landscape. However, the relentless and longevity grip of El Niño has taken a negative toll on maize production, despite efforts to cultivate drought-tolerant varieties. As the dry spell persists, maize plants at the critical tasseling and silking stage face an uphill battle, as the dry and hot air has adversely impacted pollen and silk development.
The dissimilarity with the northern province, where cassava thrives from abundant water, is striking. This resilient crop, known for its drought tolerance, presents a promising alternative for farmers in the southern province grappling with erratic rainfall patterns. As climate change continues to challenge traditional agricultural practices, exploring resilient crops like cassava may offer a lifeline for communities striving to adapt and thrive amidst adversity.
The SIFAZ project is designed around the idea that strip crops and intercrops can add nutritional and economic value to Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems for smallholder farmers in Zambia. While traditional yield metrics provide some insight across the several intercropping treatments being tested on-farm, the true benefits of these cropping systems extend beyond mere output. SIFAZ recognizes the diversification synergy, emphasizing that “two crops are better than one.”
However, the outcomes of the SIFAZ project and the CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa have varied over the years between the two regions, reflecting the discrepancy in their agricultural landscapes.
Notably, regional differences in the adoption and success of these cropping systems have become apparent. In the northern province, crop-centric approaches prevail, leading to a higher concentration of successful crop farmers. Meanwhile, in the southern province, mixed systems that incorporate mixed crop-livestock systems achieve desirable effects. These findings highlight the importance of tailoring agricultural interventions to suit the specific needs and conditions of diverse farming communities.
Navigating the complex challenges of climate change requires a multifaceted approach that acknowledges the unique realities of different regions. By embracing adaptive strategies, harnessing indigenous knowledge, and fostering collaborative partnerships, Zambia can forge a path towards a more resilient and sustainable agricultural future, where farmers thrive despite the uncertainties of a changing climate.
Agrovegetal delegation stands with CIMMYT leaders and researchers. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A new agreement between a leading Spanish seed company, Agrovegetal, and the international research center CIMMYT will help safeguard the regional availability of high-yielding, climate-resilient varieties of wheat, the region’s vital food staple.
The agreement was signed on 21 February 2024 at the Mexico headquarters of CIMMYT, a non-profit organization whose breeding contributions are present in half the maize and wheat varieties sown in low- and middle-income countries.
It comes at a time when severe drought threatens wheat crops in Southern Europe and North African nations such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and imports of wheat grain from traditional suppliers —Russia, the EU, Ukraine, and the US—are costly and constrained.
Since its formation in 1998 as a conglomerate of seed-producing cooperatives and a few industrial partners, Agrovegetal has been testing hundreds of CIMMYT breeding lines of bread and durum wheat (the latter used for pasta and couscous) and triticale (a wheat x rye hybrid) and returning high-quality data each year on the performance of this germplasm.
“The erratic rainfall, droughts, and crop disease patterns of Andalucía in southern Spain, where Agrovegetal tests the lines, are very much like those of North Africa, an important target region for CIMMYT genetics and agronomic solutions” said Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT. “This new agreement, which guarantees the Agrovegetal-CIMMYT partnership through 2028, thus helps ensure CIMMYT’s capacity to offer outstanding, well adapted lines for the Mediterranean region, including North Africa’s national breeding programs, a great boon to farmers and consumers’ economies, food security, and nutrition.”
For its part, after several years of testing, Agrovegetal registers the most promising CIMMYT lines as improved varieties in Spain and markets their seed to members of its cooperatives.
“For us, the contributions of CIMMYT are invaluable,” said Ignacio Solis Martell, the company’s technical director. “Thanks to CIMMYT’s exceptional genetic material, Agrovegetal has become synonymous with resilience in Andalusia. Our varieties are renowned for their performance in the face of adversity, whether it be disease, drought, or other challenges.”
According to Govaerts, Agrovegetal offers an excellent model for burgeoning private seed enterprises in North Africa and elsewhere. “It shows how farmers, seed producers, and industry can join forces, skills, and resources to control seed, a critical factor in food production.”
CIMMYT’s latest study reveals climate change could significantly expand wheat blast’s reach by 2050, threatening a 13% drop in global wheat production. The research highlights the critical need for developing resistant wheat varieties and adapting farming practices to counter this growing threat to food security.
CIMMYT has introduced 20 heat-resistant maize hybrids in South Asia, including Pakistan, to boost resilience against climate change and support smallholder farmers. This breakthrough, achieved after a decade of collaboration with regional research institutes and seed companies, aims to secure food supplies amid rising temperatures. Through initiatives like Pakistan’s Agricultural Innovation Programme, CIMMYT is committed to enhancing maize production and food security, showcasing the power of scientific innovation in addressing global agricultural challenges.
