A Financial Times editorial by CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds presents a new proposal for expanding the wheat network to include other major food crops and speed farmers’ adoption of vital technologies that can end hunger and address climate change. The idea has the support of experts from leading funding and development agencies.
https://www.ft.com/content/b3d07616-c3d3-11e7-a1d2-6786f39ef675
TEXCOCO, Mexico (CIMMYT) — A new collaborative program promising to train Chinese Ph.D. and postdoctoral students annually at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) builds on the three decade relationship the organization holds with China.
The memorandum of understanding was signed during China’s Vice Premier Liu Yandong’s visit to CIMMYT on 9 August by the Secretary General of the Chinese Scholarship Council Liu Jinghui and CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff.
“In the face of climate change, water shortages and other challenges, innovative strategies to agricultural development are necessary for China’s future development,” Yandong said. “We hope to strengthen cooperation with CIMMYT — this will have a tremendous effect on both China and the world.”
Since 1970, more than 20 Chinese institutes have been involved in germplasm exchange and improvement, conservation agriculture and capacity building, with 56 Chinese researchers receiving their doctoral degrees with CIMMYT. Since the CIMMYT-China Office was opened in 1997, 26 percent of wheat grown in China has derived from CIMMYT materials.
During the visit, the vice premier discussed China’s new five-year plan (2016 – 2020) that focuses on innovation, international cooperation and green growth, to modernize agriculture in an environmental friendly way over the next 20 to 30 years.
Benefits of three decades of international collaboration in wheat research have added as much as 10.7 million tons of grain – worth $3.4 billion – to China’s national wheat output. Eight CIMMYT scientists have won the Chinese Friendship Award – the highest award for “foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country’s economic and social progress.”
On 12 April 2013, CIMMYT director general Thomas Lumpkin and José Ortega Cabello, chairman of the Campo de Tejada cooperative in Spain, signed a five-year extension of a collaborative agreement between Agrovegetal S.A. and CIMMYT dating back to 1998. The objective of the agreement is to develop improved durum wheat, bread wheat, and triticale varieties.
Agrovegetal is an association of several farmer cooperatives and other entities, whose objective is to offer quality seed to farmers in the Andalucía region of Spain. To that end, it channels resources and efforts towards strategic research and development priorities and activities aimed at developing improved varieties.
Ortega Cabello, Ignacio Solís Martel, Agrovegetal’s technical director, and Rafael Sánchez de Puerta Díaz from the Andalucian Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, met with Hans Braun, CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program director, to define the specific durum wheat, bread wheat, and triticale research activities that will be conducted to develop high-yielding, highquality, drought-tolerant, and disease-resistant varieties.
Among the alliance’s successes to date is the development of materials with high yield stability and resistance to downy mildew and leaf rust, as well as durums with high pasta-making quality and bread wheats with good baking quality and yellow rust resistance. It has also produced triticales with high protein content, high specific grain weight, and resistance to foliar diseases (downy mildew, rusts, and septoria).
Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT director general, and Honorable Joseph Made, Minister of Agriculture and Mechanization of Zimbabwe, signed a new memorandum of understanding on 29 October 2012 to strengthen the relationship between CIMMYT and the government of Zimbabwe.
During the ceremony, Made expressed gratitude to CIMMYT for its continued support of Zimbabwe during the past 10 years of economic hardships. “For so long CIMMYT has been a visitor, but from today it will remain a permanent resident in Zimbabwe and our region — Southern Africa. The Government of Zimbabwe appreciates CIMMYT’s confidence in Zimbabwe to retain its Southern Africa Regional Office and its scientists during the difficult periods we underwent,” said Made. Lumpkin then thanked the Government of Zimbabwe for providing a favorable working environment and support for CIMMYT’s activities. Lumpkin confirmed that CIMMYT would continue to bring cutting-edge science to Zimbabwe and the region as a whole to ensure sustainable maize production. Special focus will be on cooperation in breeding drought and heat tolerant maize varieties, crucial in the face of climate change particularly in sub- Saharan Africa.
The ceremony was attended by a team of senior government officials from the ministry of Agriculture and Mechanization, CIMMYT staff, and Lindiwe Sibanda, CIMMYT Board of Trustees member. During the event, Lumpkin presented the 2012 Award for the Best Maize Breeding Team to Made and the Zimbabwean breeding team for the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. The Zimbabwe team has won this award for the third consecutive year. The DTMA team also received a new pickup truck from Made to facilitate the field breeding work around Zimbabwe.