Tag: drought

A seed company representative explains to farmers the merits of the variety on this plot. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Seeing is believing

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on April 3, 2020. Posted in Features.

Nancy Wawira strolls through a small plot of maize at Kithimu, in Kenya’s Embu County. She is charmed by the attributes of a maize variety that can yield 2,700kg per acre or more. The variety can endure drought-like conditions, matures in less than 120 days and has potential for double-cobbing.

Wawira is visiting a demonstration farm to witness the performance of several high yielding, early to medium maturing, drought-tolerant maize varieties.

By coming to this demonstration farm, Wawira hoped to identify a newer maize variety she could plant on her quarter-acre of land to get higher yield. The plot she stood on was the exact replica of what she was looking for. “Occasions such as this field day are very important for me and I always endeavor to attend them, as there is always something new to see or learn,” she says.

On her farm, she has been planting one of the old but popular commercial varieties suitable for this mid-altitude ecology. She normally harvests 4 bags of maize, of 90kg each, every season. However, if there is not enough rain or if there are pests or diseases, which is often the case, she harvests just 2 bags or less. This is hardly enough to meet her family’s food requirements for the year.

Switching to the maize variety she was interested in, and applying recommended farming practices, she could harvest 6 bags per season or more.

“Today, I have learnt how to improve my farming,” says Wawira. “Even when I access the variety that is high yielding, drought-tolerant and can mature in about three and a half months, as I witnessed on one of the plots, I still need to pay attention to proper crop husbandry related to spacing, timing of the planting, seed, fertilizer and pesticide application besides weed control,” she says.

Nancy Wawira examines maize in one of the demo plots. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Made-to-order

Wawira was one of the more than 400 farmers from nearby Manyatta sub-county visiting the demonstration farm on February 7, 2020. They were able to see varieties and learn about their traits, invited by the Seed Trade Association of Kenya (STAK) with the support of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The demonstration is a continuation of the work started under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project and later under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project.

Officials from Embu County, led by its minister in charge of agriculture Jamleck Muturi, were present during the farmers’ visit. Ten seed firms, some of which use CIMMYT’s germplasm for seed propagation and marketing, participated as well.

“Several of our member seed companies are showcasing the varieties developed through CIMMYT’s breeding pipeline,” said Duncan Ochieng’, the chief executive officer of STAK. “The maize varieties showcased on these demo farms were designed to be drought-tolerant, high yielding and range from early to medium maturing. These varieties are juxta-posted with other commercial varieties suitable for this region.”

During visits to demonstration farms, farmers give feedback on their variety preferences. Seed companies can then align their breeding, germplasm-access requests, seed production or marketing plans with farmers’ expectations.

Some of the farmers who participated in the field day in Embu County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Jackline Wanja in one of the demo plots of the variety she liked. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

A seed company representative shows seeds to a farmer during the visit to the demonstration farm. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

STAK chief executive officer Duncan Ochieng’ examines a maize cob in one of the demo plots. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Dire traits

Farming stresses such as pests, diseases, heat and drought have made targeted breeding a critical necessity.

Young farmers are increasingly choosing varieties that can mature faster, typically in less than three months. They also favor varieties that offer higher yield than the popular commercial varieties, many of which have been on the market for at least a decade. Other sought-after traits are good performance in low or erratic rains, tolerance to maize lethal necrosis, reduced lodging, and efficiency in nitrogen use.

Jackline Wanja, 25, relies on her one-acre farm for survival. “On average, I harvest about 25 bags per acre. On the demo farm, I got to know of a variety than can yield at least 30 bags per acre. I also learnt that the variety is not only drought-resilient but can also mature in about three and a half months. This is the variety that I plan to plant my farm next season,” Wanja said.

For John Njiru, 52, a higher-yielding variety with a lot of foliage, which remains green even after the maize cob has dried, is what he came looking for. For this farmer with 12 acres of land, the green maize foliage is a significant source of income when sold to livestock keepers. Njiru feeds his own livestock with it, making substantial savings on animal feed expenditure. “If this variety is as high yielding as I have been made to understand and can offer me at least 30 bags per acre, I would be a happy farmer. My farming would be very profitable,” he says.

John Njiru on a demo plot of the variety he liked. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

In new hostile climate, drought-tolerant crops, systems needed on unprecedented scale

Written by Mary Donovan on March 12, 2020. Posted in In the media.

Last year, droughts devastated staple food crops across the developing world, cutting production by about half in some countries. A stream of reports from Central America, Eastern and Southern Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific region painted a grim picture of suffering and upheaval.

Extreme weather, with its appalling consequences, demands an extraordinary response. Redoubled efforts must focus on building resilience into the developing world´s major food systems.

Agricultural solutions to tackle humanity’s climate crisis

Written by Mike Listman on December 3, 2019. Posted in Features.

More than 11,000 scientists signed on to a recent report showing that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency and the United Nations warned that the world is on course for a 3.2 degree spike by 2100, even if 2015 Paris Agreement commitments are met.

Agriculture, forestry, and land-use change are implicated in roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Agriculture also offers opportunities to mitigate climate change and to help farmers — particularly smallholders in developing and emerging economies who have been hardest hit by hot weather and reduced, more erratic rainfall.

Most of CIMMYT’s work relates to climate change, helping farmers adapt to shocks while meeting the rising demand for food and, where possible, reducing emissions.

Family farmer Geofrey Kurgat (center) with his mother Elice Tole (left) and his nephew Ronny Kiprotich in their 1-acre field of Korongo wheat near Belbur, Nukuru, Kenya. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Climate-resilient crops and farming practices

53 million people are benefiting from drought-tolerant maize. Drought-tolerant maize varieties developed using conventional breeding provide at least 25% more grain than other varieties in dry conditions in sub-Saharan Africa — 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 in the continent. One study shows that drought-tolerant maize can provide farming families in Zimbabwe an extra 9 months of food at no additional cost. The greatest productivity results when these varieties are used with reduced or zero tillage and keeping crop residues on the soil, as was demonstrated in southern Africa during the 2015-16 El Niño drought. Finally, tolerance in maize to high temperatures in combination with drought tolerance has a benefit at least twice that of either trait alone.

Wheat yields rise in difficult environments. Nearly two decades of data from 740 locations in more than 60 countries shows that CIMMYT breeding is pushing up wheat yields by almost 2% each year — that’s some 38 kilograms per hectare more annually over almost 20 years — under dry or otherwise challenging conditions. This is partly through use of drought-tolerant lines and crosses with wild grasses that boost wheat’s resilience. An international consortium is applying cutting-edge science to develop climate-resilient wheat. Three widely-adopted heat and drought-tolerant wheat lines from this work are helping farmers in Pakistan, a wheat powerhouse facing rising temperatures and drier conditions; the most popular was grown on an estimated 40,000 hectares in 2018.

Climate-smart soil and fertilizer management. Rice-wheat rotations are the predominant farming system on more than 13 million hectares in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, providing food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions. If farmers in India alone fine-tuned crop fertilizer dosages using available technologies such as cellphones and photosynthesis sensors, each year they could produce nearly 14 million tons more grain, save 1.4 million tons of fertilizer, and cut CO₂-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by 5.3 million tons. Scientists have been studying and widely promoting such practices, as well as the use of direct seeding without tillage and keeping crop residues on the soil, farming methods that help capture and hold carbon and can save up to a ton of CO₂ emissions per hectare, each crop cycle. Informed by CIMMYT researchers, India state officials seeking to reduce seasonal pollution in New Delhi and other cities have implemented policy measures to curb the burning of rice straw in northern India through widespread use of zero tillage.

Farmers going home for breakfast in Motoko district, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Measuring climate change impacts and savings

In a landmark study involving CIMMYT wheat physiologists and underlining nutritional impacts of climate change, it was found that increased atmospheric CO₂ reduces wheat grain protein content. Given wheat’s role as a key source of protein in the diets of millions of the poor, the results show the need for breeding and other measures to address this effect.

CIMMYT scientists are devising approaches to gauge organic carbon stocks in soils. The stored carbon improves soil resilience and fertility and reduces its emissions of greenhouse gases. Their research also provides the basis for a new global soil information system and to assess the effectiveness of resource-conserving crop management practices.

CIMMYT scientist Francisco Pinto operates a drone over wheat plots at CIMMYT's experimental station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT) — CIMMYT scientist Francisco Pinto operates a drone over wheat plots at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Managing pests and diseases

Rising temperatures and shifting precipitation are causing the emergence and spread of deadly new crop diseases and insect pests. Research partners worldwide are helping farmers to gain an upper hand by monitoring and sharing information about pathogen and pest movements, by spreading control measures and fostering timely access to fungicides and pesticides, and by developing maize and wheat varieties that feature genetic resistance to these organisms.

Viruses and moth larvae assail maize. Rapid and coordinated action among public and private institutions across sub-Saharan Africa has averted a food security disaster by containing the spread of maize lethal necrosis, a viral disease which appeared in Kenya in 2011 and quickly moved to maize fields regionwide. Measures have included capacity development with seed companies, extension workers, and farmers the development of new disease-resilient maize hybrids.

The insect known as fall armyworm hit Africa in 2016, quickly ranged across nearly all the continent’s maize lands and is now spreading in Asia. Regional and international consortia are combating the pest with guidance on integrated pest management, organized trainings and videos to support smallholder farmers, and breeding maize varieties that can at least partly resist fall armyworm.

New fungal diseases threaten world wheat harvests. The Ug99 race of wheat stem rust emerged in eastern Africa in the late 1990s and spawned 13 new strains that eventually appeared in 13 countries of Africa and beyond. Adding to wheat’s adversity, a devastating malady from the Americas known as “wheat blast” suddenly appeared in Bangladesh in 2016, causing wheat crop losses as high as 30% on a large area and threatening to move quickly throughout South Asia’s vast wheat lands.

In both cases, quick international responses such as the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, have been able to monitor and characterize the diseases and, especially, to develop and deploy resistant wheat varieties.

A community volunteer of an agricultural cooperative (left) uses the Plantix smartphone app to help a farmer diagnose pests in his maize field in Bardiya district, Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)

Partners and funders of CIMMYT’s climate research

A global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems, CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR and leads the South Asia Regional Program of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

CIMMYT receives support for research relating to climate change from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. Top funders include CGIAR Research Programs and Platforms, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Cornell University, the German aid agency GIZ, the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and CGIAR Trust Fund Contributors to Window 1 &2.

Geoffrey Ochieng’, a smallholder farmer from northern Uganda. He plants the UH5051 variety on his land. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Investing in drought-tolerant maize is good for Africa

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on November 26, 2019. Posted in News. 1 Comment on Investing in drought-tolerant maize is good for Africa

Zambia’s vice-president has recently called to reduce maize dominance and increase crop and diet diversification in his country. The reality is that maize is and will remain a very important food crop for many eastern and southern African countries. Diet preferences and population growth mean that it is imperative to find solutions to increase maize production in these countries, but experts forecast 10 to 30% reduction in maize yields by 2030 in a business-as-usual scenario, with projected temperature increases of up to 2.7 degrees by 2050 and important drought risks.

Knowing the importance of maize for the food security of countries like Zambia, it is crucial to help maize farmers get better and more stable yields under erratic and challenging climate conditions.

To address this, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have been developing hundreds of new maize varieties with good drought tolerance across sub-Saharan Africa. Stakeholders in the public research and African seed sectors have collaborated through the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project and the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative to develop drought-tolerant seed that also incorporates other qualities, such as nutritional value and disease resistance.

A groundbreaking impact study six years ago demonstrated that drought-tolerant maize significantly reduced poverty and food insecurity, particularly in drought years.

A new study from CIMMYT and the Center for Development Research (ZEF) in the main maize growing areas of Zambia confirms that adopting drought-tolerant maize can increase yields by 38% and reduce the risks of crop failure by 36%.

Over three quarters of the rainfed farmers in the study experienced drought during the survey. These farming families of 6 or 7 people were cultivating 4 hectares of farmland on average, half planted with maize.

Another study on drought-tolerant maize adoption in Uganda estimated also good yield increases and lower crop failure risks by 26 to 35%.

A balancing act between potential gains and climate risks

Drought-tolerant maize has a transformational effect. With maize farming becoming less risky, farmers are willing to invest more in fertilizer and other inputs and plant more maize.

However, taking the decision of adopting new farm technologies in a climate risky environment could be a daunting task. Farmers may potentially gain a lot but, at the same time, they must consider downside risks.

As Gertrude Banda, a lead farmer in eastern Zambia, put it, hybrid seeds have a cost and when you do not know whether rains will be enough “this is a gamble.” In addition to climate uncertainty, farmers worry about many other woes, like putting money aside for urgent healthcare, school fees, or cooking nutritious meals for the family.

Information is power

An additional hurdle to adoption is that farmers may not know all the options available to cope with climate risks. While 77% of Zambia households interviewed said they experienced drought in 2015, only 44% knew about drought-tolerant maize.

This inequal access to knowledge and better seeds, observed also in Uganda, slows adoption of drought-tolerant maize. There, 14% of farmers have adopted drought-tolerant maize varieties. If all farmers were aware of this technology, 8% more farmers would have adopted it.

Because farmers are used to paying for cheap open-pollinated varieties, they are only willing to pay half of the hybrid market price, even though new hybrids are performing very well. Awareness campaigns on the benefits of drought-tolerant maize could boost adoption among farmers.

According to the same study, the potential for scaling drought-tolerant maize could raise up to 47% if drought-tolerant varieties were made available at affordable prices at all agrodealers. Several approaches could be tested to increase access, such as input credit or subsidy schemes.

Read the full articles:
Impacts of drought-tolerant maize varieties on productivity, risk, and resource use: Evidence from Uganda

Productivity and production risk effects of adopting drought-tolerant maize varieties in Zambia

Heterogeneous seed access and information exposure: implications for the adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties in Uganda

These impact studies were made possible through the support provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), funders of the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative.

Local farmers test out the COMPASS smartphone app at the workshop in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora state, Mexico. (Photo: Alison Doody/CIMMYT)

New mobile technology to help farmers improve yields and stabilize incomes

Written by Alison Doody on November 25, 2019. Posted in Features. 1 Comment on New mobile technology to help farmers improve yields and stabilize incomes

An international team of scientists is working with farmers in the Yaqui Valley, in Mexico’s Sonora state, to develop and test a new mobile technology that aims to improve wheat and sugarcane productivity by helping farmers manage factors that cause the yield gap between crop potential and actual field performance.

Scientists have been developing and testing a smartphone app where farmers can record their farming activities — including sowing date, crop type and irrigation — and receive local, precise crop management advice in return.

This project is a private-public partnership known as Mexican COMPASS, or Mexican Crop Observation, Management & Production Analysis Services System.

Research has shown that proper timing of irrigation is more important to yields than total water amounts. Earlier planting times have also been shown to improve wheat yields. Having optimum dates for both activities could help farmers improve yields and stabilize their incomes.

COMPASS smartphone app interface. (Photo: Saravana Gurusamy/Rezatec)

The COMPASS smartphone app uses earth observation satellite data and in-situ field data captured by farmers to provide information such as optimum sowing date and irrigation scheduling.

“Sowing and irrigation timing are well known drivers of yield potential in that region — these are two features of the app we’re about to validate during this next season,” explained Francelino Rodrigues, Precision Agriculture Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Sound data

Technological innovation for crop productivity is needed now more than ever with threats to food security increasing and natural resources becoming scarcer. Farmers are under increasing pressure to produce more with less, which means greater precision is needed in their agricultural practices.

The Yaqui Valley, Mexico’s biggest wheat producing area, is located in the semi-arid Sonoran Desert in the northern part of Mexico. Water security is a serious challenge and farmers must be very precise in their irrigation management.

The Mexican COMPASS consortium, which is made up of the geospatial data analytics company Rezatec, the University of Nottingham, Booker Tate, CIMMYT and the Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS) in Mexico, evolved as a way to help Mexican farmers improve their water use efficiency.

“Yaqui Valley farmers are very experienced farmers, however they can also benefit by using an app that is designed locally to inform and record their decisions,” Rodrigues explained.

The smartphone app will also allow farmers to record and schedule their crop management practices and will give them access to weekly time-series Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) maps, that will allow farmers to view their fields at any time from any location.

“All of this information is provided for free! That’s the exciting part of the project. The business model was designed so that farmers will not need to pay for access to the app and its features, in exchange for providing their crop field data. It’s a win-win situation,” said Rodrigues.

CIMMYT research assistant Lorena Gonzalez (center) helps local farmers try out the new COMPASS app during the workshop in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora state, Mexico. (Photo: Alison Doody/CIMMYT)

Farmer-centered design

The app is now in the validation stage and COMPASS partners are inviting farmers to test the technology on their own farms. A workshop on October 21 in Ciudad Obregon provided farmers with hands-on training for the app and allowed them to give their feedback.

Over 100 farmers attended the workshop, which featured presentations from Saravana Gurusamy, project manager at Rezatec, Iván Ortíz-Monasterio, principal scientist at CIMMYT, and representatives from local farmer groups Asociación de Organismos de Agricultores del Sur de Sonora (AOASS) and Distrito de Riego del Río Yaqui (DRRYAQUI). The workshop featured a step-by-step demonstration of the app and practical exercises for farmers to test it out for themselves.

“We need technology nowadays because we have to deal with many factors. The profit we get for wheat is getting smaller and smaller each year, so we have to be very productive. I hope that this app can help me to produce a better crop,” said one local wheat farmer who attended the workshop.

User feedback has played a key role in the development of the app. COMPASS interviewed dozens of farmers to see what design worked for them.

“Initially we came up with a really complicated design. However, when we gave it to farmers, they didn’t know how to use it,” explained Rezatec project manager, Saravana Gurusamy. The team went back to the drawing board and with the feedback they received from farmers, came up with a simple design that any farmer, regardless of their experience with technology or digital literacy, could use.

A farmer who attended the workshop talks about his experience and the potential benefits of the app. See full video on YouTube.

Sitting down with Gurusamy after the workshop, he outlined his vision for the future of the app.

“My vision is to see all the farmers in Sonora, working in wheat using the app. The first step is to prove the technology here, then roll it out to all of Mexico and eventually internationally.”

Mexican COMPASS is a four year project funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP-UKSA) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT). It is a collaboration between Rezatec, the University of Nottingham and Booker Tate in the UK, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS) in Mexico.

District agricultural officers listen to feedback from a maize farmer who grows MRM4070 in drought conditions. (Photo: UAS-R)

Stress-resilient maize, a big relief for Indian farmers

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on November 21, 2019. Posted in News.

District agricultural officers listen to feedback from a maize farmer who grows MHM4070 in drought conditions. (Photo: UAS-R)

Small-scale maize farmers beset by erratic rainfall in the state of Karnataka, India, who adopted a new, drought- and heat-tolerant maize hybrid are harvesting nearly 1 ton more of grain per hectare than neighboring farmers who sow other maize varieties.

The climate-resilient hybrid RCRMH2 was developed in 2015 by the University of Agriculture Sciences, Raichur (UAS-R), Karnataka, as part of the Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project. It was marketed in 2018 under the commercial name MRM4070 by Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) in hot and dry areas of Karnataka, where crops are watered exclusively by rainfall.

“This hybrid is made for our stress-prone areas, as it gives guaranteed yields in a bad year and is inferior to none under good rainfall conditions,” said Hanumanthappa, a farmer and adopter of the variety in Gadag District. “In bad years, it can not only feed my family but also my cattle,” he added, referring to the hybrid’s “stay-green” trait, which allows use of the leaves and stems as green fodder for livestock, after harvesting the cobs.

A pack of MHM4070 seed marketed by Mahyco. — A pack of MRM4070 seed marketed by Mahyco.

Droughts and high temperatures are a recurring problem in Karnataka, but suitable maize varieties to protect yields and income loss in the state’s risk-prone agroecologies had been lacking.

Mahyco marketed some 60 tons of hybrid seed of MRM4070 in Karnataka in 2018 and, encouraged by the overwhelming response from farmers, increased the seed offering to 140 tons — enough to sow about 7,000 hectares.

A 2018-19 farmer survey in the contrasting Gadag District — with poor rainfall — and Dharwad District — good rainfall — found that farmers in Gadag who grew MRM4070 harvested 0.96 tons more grain and earned $190 additional income per hectare than neighbors who did not adopt the hybrid. In Dharwad under optimal rainfall, MRM4070 performed on a par with other commercial hybrids.

In addition to providing superior yields under stress, MRM4070 had larger kernels than other hybrids under drought conditions, bringing a better price for farmers who sell their grain.

Agriculture officers and scientists from the University of Agricultural Sciences observe the performance of MHM4070 in drought-stressed field in Gadag district of Karnataka, India. (Photo: UAS-R) — Agriculture officers and scientists from the University of Agricultural Sciences observe the performance of MRM4070 in drought-stressed field in Gadag district of Karnataka, India. (Photo: UAS-R)

Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with national maize programs, agriculture universities, and seed companies, and with funding from the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Initiative, HTMA was launched in 2012 to develop stress-resilient maize hybrids for the variable weather conditions and heat and drought extremes of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.

Dorine Akoth, a smallholder demo plot farmer in Gulu, northern Uganda, shows a maize plant on her plot on which she has planted several varieties that have passed through CIMMYT’s breeding pipeline. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Seeds of hope

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on November 15, 2019. Posted in Features. 1 Comment on Seeds of hope

Seed of drought-tolerant maize developed through long-running global and local partnerships in Africa is improving nutrition and food security in northern Uganda, a region beset by conflicts and unpredictable rainfall.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been working with Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and local seed companies to develop and disseminate maize seed of improved stress-tolerant varieties. Under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) projects, farmers are now using varieties such as the UH5051 hybrid, known locally as Gagawala, meaning “get rich.”

For two decades, most of the population in northern Uganda has lived in internally displaced people’s camps and depended on food aid and other relief emergencies for their livelihoods due to the insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Gulu, one of the affected districts, has been on a path to recovery for the past few years. With the prevailing peace, Geoffrey Ochieng’ and his wife can now safely till their 4.5 acres of land to grow maize and other staples. They are able to feed their family and sell produce to meet other household needs.

However, farmers in this region, bordering South Sudan, are facing more erratic rains and the uncertain onset of rainfall. Thanks to new drought-tolerant and disease-resistant maize varieties, the Ochieng’ family can adapt to this variable climate and secure a good maize harvest even in unreliable seasons.

Tolerance is key

“The popularity of this drought-tolerant variety among the farmers has been growing thanks to its good yield and reliability even with poor rains and its resistance to common foliar diseases like northern corn leaf blight and gray leaf spot, plus good resistance to the maize streak virus,” explained Daniel Bomet, a NARO maize breeder. “Maturing in slightly over four months, Gagawala can produce two to three maize cobs, which appeals to farmers.”

Ochieng’ has been planting UH5051 maize since 2015. Before adopting the new hybrid, Ochieng’ was growing Longe 5, a popular open-pollinated variety that is less productive and not very disease-resistant.

“What I like about UH5051 is that even with low moisture stress, it will grow and I will harvest something,” Ochieng’ said. Under optimal conditions, he harvests about 1.2 metric tons of maize grain on one acre of UH5051 hybrid.

With the old Longe 5 variety, he would only harvest 700 kg. “If the rains were delayed or it didn’t rain a lot, I would be lucky to get 400 kg per acre with the Longe 5, while I get twice as much with the hybrid,” Ochieng’ explained.

Thanks to this tolerant maize variety, he can pay his children’s school fees and provide some surplus grain to his relatives.

A worker at the Equator Seeds production plant in Gulu displays packs of UH5051 maize seed. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Out with the old, in with the new

“One key strategy to improve our farmers’ livelihoods in northern Uganda is to gradually replace old varieties with new varieties that can better cope with the changing climate and problematic pests and diseases,” said Godfrey Asea, the director of the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) at NARO. “Longe 5 for instance, has been marketed for over 14 years. It has done its part and it needs to give way to new improved varieties like UH5051.”

The Gulu-based company Equator Seeds has been at the core of the agricultural transformation in northern Uganda. From 70 metrics tons of seed produced when it started operations in 2012, the company reached an annual capacity of about 7,000 to 10,000 metric tons of certified seed of different crops in 2018. Working with dedicated out-growers such as Anthony Okello, who has a 40-acre piece of land, and 51 farmer cooperatives comprising smallholder farmers, Equator Seeds produces seed of open-pollinated hybrid maize and other crops, which reaches farmers through a network of 380 agro-dealers.

“80% of farmers in northern Uganda still use farm-saved or recycled seed, which we consider to be our biggest competitor,” Tonny Okello, CEO of Equator Seeds remarked. “Currently, about 60% of our sales are in maize seed. This share should increase to 70% by 2021. We plan to recruit more agro-dealers, establish more demonstration farms, mostly for the hybrids, to encourage more farmers to adopt our high yielding resilient varieties.”

The two-decade unrest discouraged seed companies from venturing into northern Uganda but now they see its huge potential. “We have received tremendous support from the government, non-governmental organizations, UN and humanitarian agencies for buying seed from us and distributing it to farmers in northern Uganda and South Sudan, to aid their recovery,” Okello said.

Godfrey Asea (right), director of the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI), and Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) maize breeder, Daniel Bomet, visit an improved maize plot at NARO’s Kigumba Station, in central Uganda. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Social impact

The Ugandan seed sector is dynamic thanks to efficient public-private partnerships. While NARO develops and tests new parental lines and hybrids in their research facilities, they have now ventured into seed production and processing at their 2,000-acre Kigumba Farm in western Uganda through NARO Holdings, their commercial arm.

“Because the demand for improved seed is not always met, NARO Holdings started producing certified seed, but the major focus is on production of early generation seed, which is often a bottleneck for the seed sector,” Asea said.

Aniku Bernard, Farm Manager, examines a maize cob at the foundation seed farm located inside the Lugore Prison premises. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Another innovative collaboration has been to work with the Uganda Prisons Service (UPS) establishments to produce maize seed. “When we started this collaboration with UPS, we knew they had some comparative advantages such as vast farmland, ready labor, mechanization equipment and good isolation, which are important for high-quality hybrid maize seed production,” Asea explained. The UPS facility in Lugore, Gulu, which has 978 hectares of land, produces foundation seed of UH5051.

“Prisons offer a big potential to support the growing seed industry,” he said. “Together with CIMMYT, we should build further the capacity of UPS to produce foundation and certified seeds. It provides much-needed income for the institutions. The inmates, in addition to being remunerated for farm labor, are engaged in positive outdoor impactful activities. This skill is helpful for their future reintegration in the society.”

From left to right: Winnie Nanteza, National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCCRI) communications officer; Daniel Bomet, NARO maize breeder; Byakatonda Tanazio, Assistant Superintendent of Prisons, Lugore Prison, Gulu; Aniku Bernard, Farm Manager at Lugore Prison; and Godfrey Asea, director of NaCRRI, stand for a group photo at the foundation seed production farm inside Lugore Prison. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Mexico City to host Interdrought 2020

Written by Mary Donovan on October 8, 2019. Posted in News.

Droughts affect crop production across the world. A central challenge for researchers and policymakers is to devise technologies that lend greater resilience to agricultural production under this particular environmental stress.

Interdrought 2020 aims to facilitate the development of concepts, methods and technologies associated with plant production in water-limited environments.

The congress will take place from March 9 to 13, 2020, in Mexico City. Early-bird registration is open until October 31, 2019 and abstract submissions will be accepted until November 15, 2019.

The conference will focus on:

Optimizing dryland crop production – crop design
Water capture, transpiration, transpiration efficiency
Vegetative and reproductive growth
Breeding for water-limited environments
Managing cropping systems for adaptation to water-limited environments

This will be the 6^th edition of Interdrought, which builds on the successful series of conferences in Montpellier (1995), Rome (2005), Shanghai (2009), Perth (2013) and Hyderabad (2017).

It will continue the philosophy of presenting, discussing and integrating results of both applied and basic research towards the development of solutions for improving crop production under drought-prone conditions.

To register, and for more information, visit www.interdrought2020.com.

If you encounter any difficulties in registration, or are interested in sponsoring the conference, please send an email to cimmyt-interdrought2020@cgiar.org.

Breaking Ground: P.H. Zaidi helps Asian farmers get healthy harvests despite climate variability

Written by Matthew O'Leary on September 25, 2019. Posted in Features.

Growing up on a rainfed farm in India, P.H. Zaidi learned how smallholder family farmers adapted their farming practices to meet weather challenges, such as dry spells or excessive rain. For the most part, small changes to their crop selection and timing of field operations maintained a wholesome harvest.

As time passed Zaidi witnessed farmers in his hometown and beyond struggling against increasingly extreme and erratic weather events. The Asian tropics have now become hotspots for climate change effects and associated variabilities, said the maize physiologist who works with the Global Maize Program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Hyderabad.

“Rainfed farmers produce most of the food for people in Asia, but without sufficient supplemental irrigation systems they are heavily dependent on monsoon rains,” Zaidi said. “Climate variability can be devastating for family farmers who are unable to foresee erratic changes in weather patterns.”

“An extreme weather event can negatively affect household food security and income, which in turn results in a deterioration of capacity to deal with future shocks,” he explained.

Nearly half a billion people in Asia lack access to nourishing food. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) finds climate change-related disasters and a lack of clean water are the main causes of persistent hunger in the region.

Zaidi believes farmers are born innovators and, with the right tools and know-how, they can ensure a healthy harvest despite year-to-year climate variability. He has dedicated his lifework to researching new agricultural technologies that help resource-poor farmers to protect their food and income security.

Stable harvests despite climate change

After getting an undergraduate degree in agricultural science, Zaidi obtained his doctorate at the University of Agriculture Science & Technology in Faizabad, India. He studied how maize physiology interacts with physical stresses, such as severe heat, drought, and excessive moisture. Maize has become an important part of Asian cropping systems, with several countries recording impressive growth rates in maize production and productivity. However, increasing demands — food, feed, and industry — and climate challenges highlight the need for international agricultural research.

In 2002, Zaidi worked as a post-doctoral fellow at CIMMYT in Mexico, where he was mentored by maize abiotic stress experts. He took those research approaches and strategies for breeding stress-resilient maize varieties back home. Working with the Indian government’s maize program, he contributed to developing high-yielding stress-resilient maize for resource-poor maize farmers living in vulnerable agro-ecologies.

With a wealth of knowledge and experience in agricultural systems in Asia, he was employed by CIMMYT as maize physiologist and breeder in 2007. He worked to develop, deploy and scale-out hardy maize varieties that increase yield potential and reduce risk, ensuring a stable harvest despite climate variability. He also developed and standardized screening phenotyping techniques and selection criteria to identify maize germplasm tolerant to stresses including heat, drought and water-logging.

“Through effective collaboration and training, national governments, private seed companies and NGOs are using the varieties with resilient traits in their breeding programs to ensure hardy varieties reach farmers throughout the region,” Zaidi noted.

From 2015 to 2018, a total of 68 such high-yielding stress-resilient maize hybrids were licensed to seed partners in the region, he explained. These partners took them forward for large-scale farmer participatory testing in their respective target ecologies. After extensive testing through the national system, nine stress-resilient maize hybrids have already been released and are being deployed in various countries in Asia. Others will be released soon.

Zaidi has received several awards for his contributions to maize research, including CIMMYT’s Outstanding Scientist Award in 2009.

Toolkits to deal with Asian droughts

Written by Mary Donovan on September 23, 2019. Posted in In the media.

In July 2019 ICIMOD, along with its partners and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, launched a web-based Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System for South Asia – an integrated information platform linking weather and climate data with agriculture practices in South Asia. The system provides multiple indices for droughts and seasonal weather outlooks, besides maps and baseline. Read more here.

Seed production innovations, conservation agriculture and partnerships are key for Africa’s food security

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on September 11, 2019. Posted in Features.

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

“Maize is food in Kenya. Wheat is also gaining importance for our countries in eastern Africa,” KALRO Embu Center Director, Patrick Gicheru, remarked. “We 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,” 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.

João Saraiva, from the Angolan seed company Jardins d’Ayoba, said having access to the most recent improved maize germplasm is helpful for his young seed company to develop quality seeds adapted to farmers’ 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 CIMMYT’s 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.

“Hopefully, we will be developing and releasing the first fall armyworm-tolerant hybrids by the first quarter of 2020,” announced B.M. Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Programme and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE).

“Through 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,” explained Prasanna. “This genetic gain race is important to respond to growing grain demands despite growing climate risks and declining soil health.”

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 “visual proof of constant progress,” 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.

Late maturity hybrid demonstration plot at Embu station. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)

Innovations for a dynamic African seed sector

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 bird’s 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).

“Such 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,’’ concluded Prasanna.

Farmers harvest squash in Uttarakhand, India. (Photo: Jitendra Raj Bajracharya/ICIMOD)

New drought monitoring system will reduce climate risks for South Asian farmers

Written by Mike Listman on August 12, 2019. Posted in News. 1 Comment on New drought monitoring system will reduce climate risks for South Asian farmers

To mitigate the food security and economic risks of South Asia’s frequent and intense droughts, scientists and policymakers from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently joined forces to launch an innovative decision support and agricultural planning system that combines remote sensing and climate data analysis for drought monitoring and early warning.

The Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System application was unveiled during a workshop to train experts and policymakers in its use at relevant regional and national institutes in Islamabad, Pakistan, from July 29 to August 1, 2019. The Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System is the product of an ICIMOD-CIMMYT partnership through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) supported SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) programme, in collaboration with Climate Service for Resilient Development (CSRD), led by ICIMOD and CIMMYT, respectively.

“Commonly associated with epic flooding, particularly in the enormous breadbasket region known as the Indo-Gangetic Plains that extends across Pakistan, India, southern Nepal, and Bangladesh, the region also faces droughts driven by rising temperatures and erratic rainfall and which threaten crops, food security, and livelihoods,” said Faisal Mueen Qamer, Remote Sensing Specialist of ICIMOD, which helped develop the system and organize the workshop.

“We expect the system to foster resilience in South Asian agriculture, while supporting future institutional frameworks and policies for farm compensation and adaptation, through decision makers’ access to timely and action-oriented information,” Qamar explained.

With a growing population of 1.6 billion people, South Asia hosts 40% of the world’s poor and malnourished on just 2.4% of its land. A 2010 study found a linear drop of 7.5% in rainfall in South Asia from 1900 to 2005.

“Shrinking glaciers, water scarcity, rising sea levels, shifting monsoon patterns, and heat waves place considerable stress on South Asian countries, whose primary employment sector remains agriculture,” said Mohammad Faisal, Director General for South Asia at Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the workshop opening.

Media reports in early 2019 documented displacement and hunger from Pakistan’s worst drought in years.

Participants at the regional workshop on earth observation and climate data analysis for agriculture drought monitoring in South Asia. (Photo: ICIMOD)

Raising awareness about drought and its mitigation

Twenty-three participants from six South Asia countries plus five expert instructors attended the workshop, which offered presentations and hands-on training on a suite of applications and associated data analysis tools, including the South Asian Land Data Assimilation System (SALDAS), the Regional Drought Explorer, and the National Drought Early Warning System.

Muhammad Azeem Khan, Member of the Food Security & Climate Change at the Planning Commission of Pakistan, said the scale of present and future climate challenges is clearly evident.

“In Pakistan, we regularly see parts of the country in the grip of severe drought, while others have flash floods,” Khan commented during the workshop closing, while commending its organizers. “Frequent drought diminishes agricultural production and food security, especially for people in rural areas. Effectively managing the impacts of climate change requires a response that builds and sustains South Asia’s social, economic, and environmental resilience, as well as our emergency response capacity.”

Through CSRD, a global partnership that connects climate and environmental science with data streams to generate decision support tools and training for decision-makers in developing countries, CIMMYT helped extend the Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System to Bangladesh, from its original coverage of Afghanistan, Nepal, and Pakistan.

“Translating complex climate information into easy-to-understand and actionable formats is core to CSRD’s mission and helps spread awareness about climate challenges,” said Tim Krupnik, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist based in Bangladesh. “This consortium provides strength and technical expertise to develop relevant climate products, including decision-support information for farmers and other stakeholders, thus fostering resilience to climate-related risks.”

A researcher uses a vertical probe to measure moisture at different soil depths. (Photo: CIMMYT)

New manual provides quantitative approach to drought stress phenotyping

Written by Carolyn Cowan on July 22, 2019. Posted in News.

Since 1900, more than two billion people have been affected by drought worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Drought affects crops by limiting the amount of water available for optimal growth and development, thereby lowering productivity. It is one of the major abiotic stresses responsible for variability in crop yield, driving significant economic, environmental and social impacts.

A new technical manual, “Management of drought stress in field phenotyping,” provides a quantitative approach to drought stress phenotyping in crops. Phenotyping is a procedure vital to the success of crop breeding programs that involves physical assessment of plants for desired traits.

The manual provides guidance for crop breeders, crop physiologists, agronomists, students and field technicians who are working on improving crop tolerance to drought stress. It will help ensure drought screening trials yield accurate and precise data for use by breeding programs.

A sprinkler system irrigates a drought phenotyping trial field in Hyderabad, India. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Based on decades of CIMMYT’s research and experience, the manual covers aspects related to field site selection, effects of weather, crop management, maintaining uniform stress in trials, and duration of stress. It focuses on an approach that standardizes the required intensity, timing and uniformity of imposed drought stress during field trials.

Such a rigorous and accurate approach to drought screening allows for precision phenotyping. Careful management of imposed drought stress also allows the full variability in a population’s genotype to be expressed and identified during phenotyping, which means the full potential of the drought tolerance trait can be harnessed.

Variability among maize genotypes for agronomic and yield traits under managed drought stress. (Photo: CIMMYT)

“Crop breeding programs using conventional or molecular breeding approaches to develop crops with drought tolerance rely heavily on high-quality phenotypic data generated from drought screening trials,” said author and CIMMYT scientist P.H. Zaidi. “By following the guidance in this manual, users can maximize their quality standards.”

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been a pioneer in developing and deploying protocols for drought stress phenotyping, selection strategy and breeding for drought tolerance. CIMMYT’s research on drought stress in maize began in the 1970s and has since remained a top priority for the organization. Drought-tolerant maize is now one of CIMMYT’s flagship products and is a key component of CIMMYT’s portfolio of products aimed to cope with the effects of climate change in the tropics.

Read the manual:
Pervez H. Zaidi, 2019. Management of drought stress in field phenotyping. CIMMYT, Mexico.

The information presented in the manual is based on the work on quantitative management of drought stress phenotyping under field conditions that received strong and consistent support from several donor agencies, especially Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany’s GIZ and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE). The manual itself was funded by the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) platform.

Farmers in Katitu, Machakos County, evaluate maize varieties at a trial plot. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

What farmers want

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on July 19, 2019. Posted in Features.

Tabitha Kamau, 29, is scrutinizing a maize demonstration plot on which 12 different varieties were planted in November 2018. “What I am looking for is a maize variety that produces a lot, even when there is scarce rainfall,” says the single mother of three, who lives in Katheini, in Kenya’s Machakos County, on a quarter of an acre of land.

Together with 350 other smallholder farmers from Katheini and neighboring villages, Kamau is assessing the maize crops and ranking them based on her preferred traits.

Like her peers when asked what makes a good maize variety, she gives high scores to drought-tolerant varieties and those that can yield large and nicely filled cobs despite the dry spell that has affected the area over the last two months.

For five years, Kamau has been planting KDV4, a drought-tolerant open pollinated variety on the family land and another piece of leased plot. This early variety matures in 100 to 110 days and is adapted to dry mid-altitude conditions.

Tabitha Kamau examines drought-tolerant KDV4 maize in her plot in the village of Kavilinguni, Machakos County, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

KDV4 was released by the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) using the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)’s germplasm. It is currently marketed by Dryland Seed Limited and Freshco Seeds, targeting farmers in the water-stressed counties of Kitui, Machakos and Makueni, in the lower eastern regions of Kenya.

The early maturing of varieties like KDV4 presents a good opportunity for its adopters, says Kamau. “If I am able to harvest in three and a half months or less, compared to four months or more for other varieties, I can sell some grain to neighbors still awaiting their harvest who want to feed their families.”

“I heard of new varieties that can germinate well and produce lots of leaves,” explains Catherine Musembi. This farmer from Kivaani looks for maize that performs well even under heat and drought. She likes maize plants with high biomass, as the foliage is used to feed the family’s three cows and two goats.

An enumerator (left) collects a farmer’s details and socioeconomic data before she participates in the evaluation of maize varieties. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Farmers’ picks

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been undertaking participatory maize variety evaluations since 2016 in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Every year, during the main maize growing season, researchers plant on-farm trials that can be evaluated by farmers.

Kamau and Musembi attended a selection trial in Machakos County, facilitated by a team from KALRO on February 18-19, 2019. This exercise was part of the 2018 mid-season evaluations, which were followed up by end-season assessments a month later.

Participatory farmer evaluations are used to give crucial feedback to CIMMYT’s maize breeding work. First, farmers get an opportunity to state what traits are important for them and rank them according to their importance. Then, participants evaluate varieties planted in the trial and give a score on individual trait and the overall performance for each variety planted. And they conclude the exercise by rating the best three plots.

In the drier eastern part of Kenya, farmers might be more interested in traits such as drought tolerance, early maturity and disease resistance. In central Kenya, where dairy farming is commonly practiced, a variety with more biomass could be preferred.

“Our work is to tease out the information regarding which traits contribute to a good score in the overall score,” explains Bernard Munyua, a socioeconomics research assistant at CIMMYT. Statistical analysis of the farmers’ score cards will reveal if the initial rating of criteria plays a strong role in the final overall appreciation of a variety. For instance, farmers may give high importance to height or biomass, yet it may not play a role in their ranking of best varieties.

“Such data is important for maize breeders to support future variety improvement work,” Munyua notes. “Moreover, by disaggregating the farmers opinions by region and socioeconomic attributes such as gender, education and income, we can define the priority traits by region or farmers’ socioeconomic profiles. It helps better target maize breeding work according to the needs on the ground and gives useful knowledge to seed companies for their seed marketing strategy,” he adds.

For instance, in the drier eastern part of Kenya, farmers might be more interested in traits such as drought tolerance, early maturity and disease resistance. In central Kenya, where dairy farming is commonly practiced, a variety with more biomass could be preferred. In western Kenya, they could be more interested in grain yields and cob characteristics to improve their sales after harvest.

Agnes Nthambi (left) and other farmers evaluate maize varieties developed through CIMMYT’s Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)

Agnes Nthambi, the farmer who hosted the demonstration plot, is very positive about her participation, as she learned about some of the ideal agronomic practices as well as the performance of new varieties. “On this trial, I learned that spacing was about two times shorter than we are generally used to. Even with the more constricted spacing, the maize has performed much better than what we are used to seeing,” she says. She also learned that fertilizer is applied at the time of planting. In her case, she normally applies fertilizer much later after germination has already occurred.

Nthambi says her family cannot afford losing both the fertilizer and the seed in case the rains fail. This time, she expects a good harvest from the one-acre farm, to supplement her family’s income.

People eat local injera flatbread made of maize. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

Ethiopian farmers weatherproof their livelihoods

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on July 9, 2019. Posted in Features.

Many maize farmers in sub-Saharan Africa grow old varieties that do not cope well under drought conditions. In the Oromia region of Ethiopia, farmer Sequare Regassa is improving her family’s life by growing the newer drought-tolerant maize variety BH661. This hybrid was developed by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), using CIMMYT’s drought-tolerant inbred lines and one of EIAR’s lines. It was then officially released in 2011 by the EIAR as part of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and continued under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative.

“Getting a good maize harvest every year, even when it does not rain much, is important for my family’s welfare,” said Regassa, a widow and mother of four, while feeding her granddaughter with white injera, a flat spongy bread made of white grain maize.

Since her husband died, Regassa has been the only breadwinner. Her children have grown up and established their own families, but the whole extended family makes a living from their eight-hectare farm in Guba Sayo district.

Sequare Regassa (wearing green) and her family stand for a group photo at their farm. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

On the two hectares Regassa cultivates on her own, she rotates maize with pepper, sweet potato and anchote, a local tuber similar to cassava. Like many farming families in the region, she grows maize mainly for household food consumption, prepared as bread, soup, porridge and snacks.

Maize represents a third of cereals grown in Ethiopia. It is cheaper than wheat or teff — a traditional millet grain — and in poor households it can be mixed with teff to make the national staple, injera.

In April, as Regassa was preparing the land for the next cropping season, she wondered if rains would be good this year, as the rainy season was coming later than usual.

In this situation, choice of maize variety is crucial.

She used to plant a late-maturing hybrid released more than 25 years ago, BH660, the most popular variety in the early 2000s. However, this variety was not selected for drought tolerance. Ethiopian farmers face increasing drought risks which severely impact crop production, like the 2015 El Nino dry spell, leading to food insecurity and grain price volatility.

Sequare Regassa sorts maize grain. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

Laborious development for fast-track adoption

Under the DTMA project, maize breeders from CIMMYT and the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) developed promising drought-tolerant hybrids which perform well under drought and normal conditions. After a series of evaluations, BH661 emerged as the best candidate with 10% better on-farm grain yield, higher biomass production, shorter maturity and 34% reduction in lodging, compared to BH660.

The resulting BH661 variety was released in 2011 for commercial cultivation in the mid-altitude sub-humid and transition highlands.

The year after, as farmers experienced drought, the Ethiopian extension service organized BH661 on-farm demonstrations, while breeders from CIMMYT and EIAR organized participatory varietal selection trials. Farmers were impressed by the outstanding performances of BH661 during these demos and trials and asked for seeds right away.

Seed companies had to quickly scale up certified seed production of BH661. The STMA project team assisted local seed companies in this process, through trainings and varietal trials. Companies decided to replace the old hybrid, BH660.

Comparison of the amount of certified seed production of BH660 (blue) and BH661 (red) from 2012 to 2018. (Graph: Ertiro B.T. et al. 2019) — Comparison of the amount of certified seed production of BH660 (blue) and BH661 (red) from 2012 to 2018. (Source: Ertiro B.T. et al. 2019)

“In addition to drought tolerance, BH661 is more resistant to important maize diseases like Turcicum leaf blight and grey leaf spot,” explained Dagne Wegary, a maize breeder at CIMMYT. “For seed companies, there is no change in the way the hybrid is produced compared to BH660, but seed production of BH661 is much more cost-effective.”

EIAR’s Bako National Maize Research Center supplied breeder seeds to several certified seed producers: Amhara Seed Enterprise (ASE), Bako Agricultural Research Center (BARC), Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (ESE), Oromia Seed Enterprise (OSE) and South Seed Enterprise (SSE). Certified seeds were then distributed through seed companies, agricultural offices and non-governmental organizations, with the technical and extension support of research centers.

Sequare Regassa stands next to her fields holding a wooden farming tool. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

From drought risk to clean water

After witnessing the performance of BH661 in a neighbor’s field, Regassa asked advice from her local extension officer and decided to use it. She is now able to produce between 11-12 tons per hectare. She said her family life has changed forever since she started planting BH661.

With higher maize grain harvest, she is now able to better feed her chickens, sheep and cattle. She also sells some surplus at the local market and uses the income for her family’s needs.

Sequare Regassa feeds her granddaughter with maize injera. (Photo: Simret Yasabu/CIMMYT)

“If farmers follow the recommended fertilizer application and other farming practices, BH661 performs much better than the old BH660 variety,” explained Regassa. “If we experience a drought, it may be not that bad thanks to BH661’s drought tolerance.”

Regassa buys her improved seeds from the Bako Research Station, as well as from farmers’ cooperative unions. These cooperatives access seeds from seed companies and sell to farmers in their respective districts. “Many around me are interested in growing BH661. Sometimes we may get less seeds than requested as the demand exceeds the supply,” Regassa said.

She observed that maize prices have increased in recent years. A 100 kg bag of maize that used to sell for 200–400 Ethiopian birr (about $7–14) now sells for 600–700 Ethiopian birr (about $20–23). With the increased farmers’ wealth in her village, families were able to pay collectively for the installation of a communal water point to get easy access to clean water.

“Like women’s role in society, no one can forget the role maize has in our community. It feeds us, it feeds our animals, and cobs are used as fuel. A successful maize harvest every year is a boon for our village,” Regassa concluded.