Tag: staff

Breaking Ground: Huihui Li links new genetic knowledge with crop breeding

Written by on November 28, 2018. Posted in Features.

Postcard_Huihui Li Breaking Ground

DNA is often referred to as the blueprint for life. It contains codes to make the proteins, molecules and cells essential for an organism’s growth and development. Over the last decade, scientists have been figuring out how specific sections of DNA in maize and wheat are associated with physical and genetic traits, such as grain size and drought resistance.

Quantitative geneticist Huihui Li with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) helps link this new genetic knowledge with traditional crop breeding, to speed up the development of improved maize and wheat varieties. Li’s research uses cutting-edge genomics, computational biology and statistical tools to turn data into useful information for plant breeders.

“Breeders always accumulate big amounts of data, most of the time they need efficient tools to mine the stories from this data. That’s part of our job in the Biometrics and Statistics Unit,” she explained.

Her research helps breeders more quickly and accurately predict which maize and wheat varieties in the CIMMYT gene bank have the traits they seek to create improved varieties. For example, if a plant breeder wanted to develop a hybrid maize variety with high protein levels and pest resistance, Li could help by identifying which parental varieties would have these traits.

It takes about ten years for crop breeders to develop a new hybrid. Removing some of the guesswork during the early stages of their experiments could reduce this time significantly. With increasing environmental pressures from climate change and population growth, releasing better crop varieties more quickly will be vital to ensure there is enough food in the future.

Li says her family and experience growing up in China greatly influenced her career choice.

“Through my grandfather’s experience as the head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry, I learned that there were many people in China suffering from hunger, poverty and malnutrition,” she said.

Li realized that these issues were prevalent throughout the developing world when her mother left China for two years to serve as a foreign aid doctor in Cameroon.

“As a ten-year-old girl, I told myself that I should make my contribution to reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human nutrition in the future,” Li recalled. “I always ask myself, ‘What’s my value to humanity?”

She studied bio-mathematics and quantitative genetics at Beijing Normal University and Cornell University before joining CIMMYT in 2010 as a consultant.

“I wanted to join CIMMYT because it works throughout the developing world to improve livelihoods and foster more productive, sustainable maize and wheat farming,” Li explained. “Also, CIMMYT provided a platform where I could collaborate with scientists worldwide and receive academic and career-boosting trainings.”

She became staff in 2012 and is currently based out of the CIMMYT office in Beijing. In addition, Li is an adjunct associate professor with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). She helps CAAS scientists improve their experimental design and better incorporate genetic information into their crop breeding.

“I love doing research,” Li said. “I’m a curious person so if I can solve a problem, I feel very happy, but I really want my research to have value – not just for myself – but for the world.”

Huihui Li’s work contributes to Seeds of Discovery (SeeD), a multi-project initiative comprising: MasAgro Biodiversidad, a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) through the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project and the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE) and Wheat (WHEAT).

Breaking Ground: Susanne Dreisigacker knows wheat inside out

Written by Courtney Brantley on November 14, 2018. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Through pure coincidence, Susanne Dreisigacker fell into the world of agricultural science and landed in Mexico. Her interest in genetics and biology solidified when she arrived at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) through the University of Hohenheim in Germany to pursue her PhD work. Impressed by CIMMYT’s scientific endeavors and its mission, she found herself permanently back at the institution in 2005 as a resident scientist. Now, as the head of CIMMYT’s Wheat Molecular Breeding Lab, Dreisigacker ensures that wheat breeders use the appropriate wheat material to conduct gene profiling and genome sequencing.

Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. This information helps breeders to develop improved crop varieties that feature those traits.

At its core, her position centers on defining best practices for genomic tool application in the wheat breeding program. These genomic tools serve as “…indirect selection criteria to ultimately assist breeders select improved outputs at the molecular level, such as disease resistance and enhanced nutritional quality in wheat,” explains Dreisigacker. Furthermore, her research amasses data on grain yield and its corresponding components — such as grain weight and other difficult traits to tackle in the wheat breeding world — to help breeders stabilize high yield rates.

On average, over 40,000 wheat lines a year are analyzed on behalf of breeders under Dreisigacker’s direction. The ultimate challenge is organizing this massive data outcome to effectively support the breeders.

Zooming out from the molecular level

*Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. (Photo: Darell Sison)*

Working in an environment with interdisciplinary characteristics such as a breeding program, it can be difficult to prioritize which traits merit the bulk of her time. Dreisigacker stresses that teamwork is paramount, from breeders to pathologists to quality specialists, as they all share mutual goals, so their efforts “need to intersect in order to be beneficial.” Dreisigacker enjoys interacting among the disciplines and sharing her work with the international wheat community.

Progress in the application of genomic tools and the push for their usefulness inspires Dreisigacker to continue her work with wheat at CIMMYT. Her work in the laboratory is the backbone of the transmission of better quality germplasm from breeders to farmers. “There is a need to more efficiently integrate gene profiling and genome sequencing into breeding. The transition from upstream genomic research to the processes of application and adaptability are overlooked,” says Dreisigacker.

When she is not looking at wheat at the molecular level, you can find her spending time with her husband and young daughter or teaching exercise classes in CIMMYT’s gymnasium.

Breaking Ground: Brendan Brown brings research to small-scale farmers

Written by Carolyn Cowan on October 23, 2018. Posted in Features.

Agricultural research for development has tremendous potential for widespread impact in poverty alleviation and food security. However, achieving real benefits for farmers is challenging and many well-intentioned projects fail to achieve large-scale impact. According to Brendan Brown, a postdoctoral research fellow with CIMMYT’s socioeconomics program in Nepal, this is where his work can help.

“There have been decades of work trying to improve agricultural livelihoods, but many of these interventions are yet to have tangible impacts for farmers,” Brown said. “My research seeks to help address this gap, using novel frameworks and applying participatory methods.”

Socioeconomic research at CIMMYT plays a key role at the nexus of agricultural innovations, helping to enhance interventions and initiatives for greater impact. Knowledge from such studies helps to prioritize and target resources, optimizing research capacity and accelerating the uptake of innovations.

“I attempt to understand constraints and opportunities at various scales from farms all the way up to institutional levels,” Brown explained. “I then seek to find pathways to catalyze change that lead to improved farmer livelihoods. Such research is integral to getting agronomic research into farmers’ fields.”

This area of research calls for a mixture of qualitative and quantitative tools and expertise, for which Brown is well suited. He has a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science with a major in Soil Science. “However, after working in agricultural research and development for a few years, I saw a gap in linking agronomy to the contextual realities of smallholder farming, so I opted to pursue a career that bridges the gap between the physical and social sciences.”

A desire to help

Brown grew up in Australia, between Sydney and a family farm on the south coast of New South Wales. He enjoyed being outdoors, “preferably barefoot,” participated in hobby farming, and from an early age showed an interest in social justice issues. A career aptitude test taken towards the end of high school revealed he was suited to be one of three things: a ship captain, a nurse or an agricultural scientist. He opted for the latter.

It was at university that Brown gained the insight of applying his agricultural knowledge to helping smallholder farmers. During a backpacking trip from Cape Town to Cairo, which incorporated some agricultural volunteering, he witnessed first-hand the difficulties farmers face in sub-Saharan Africa. Upon returning to his studies, he resolved to pursue a career that would enable him to help smallholders and, at the same time, address some of the world’s biggest ethical dilemmas.

Research with impact

Newly graduated, Brown worked with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), based in Canberra, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based in Ghana, where he gained hands-on experience working in agricultural systems in developing countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It also inspired his PhD, which explored the disconnect between development work at research stations and the reality experienced by African farmers.

“During my PhD, I collaborated with CIMMYT through the Sustainable Intensification of Maize Legume Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) initiative. I developed a more nuanced approach to what ‘adoption’ actually means in terms of uptake and impact assessments. I also studied communities’ attitudes to conservation agriculture practices and diagnosed key institutional bottlenecks within research and extension systems.”

Brown’s studies allowed him to develop novel mixed methods and participatory impact pathways to promote new farming practices, such as conservation agriculture, to smallholder farmers in Africa. “My work with CIMMYT allows me to contribute to solving some of the world’s biggest issues. Through interacting with smallholders, facilitating conversations and creating new understanding, I hope to contribute to real change.”

Brendan Brown during a field visit. — *Brendan Brown (left) during a field visit.*

Moving to Asia

After spending nearly a decade in and out of Africa, he joined the CIMMYT team in Nepal earlier this year and is relishing the opportunity to explore new contexts in South Asia.

“So much potential exists within the food systems of South Asia given the existence of multiple cropping seasons and diverse markets, as well as exciting developments in the use of mechanization and irrigation that have potential for delivering large-scale benefits, driving improved food security and profits.” However, he points out the integration of such innovations in this part of the world can be challenging due to inherent complex social hierarchies and caste systems. “I still have much to learn within such complex systems.”

Brown’s work in South Asia focusses on understanding the adoption, scaling and impact of sustainable intensification technologies and practices. He is primarily working with the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) initiative, which aims to reduce poverty by making smallholder agriculture more productive, profitable and sustainable while safeguarding the environment and involving women in agriculture.

By studying the portfolio of CIMMYT-led initiatives in the region, he is also developing his understanding of prevailing sustainable intensification practices and the issues farmers face when implementing them. In addition to his work with SRFSI, Brown is soon to embark on a new ACIAR-funded research project aiming to enhance sustainable mechanization of farming systems in two provinces of Nepal by mobilizing strategic planning and collaboration.

“I look forward to sitting down with local agricultural service providers to understand how they run their businesses and how they structure their livelihoods,” Brown expressed. “This will then be paired with the perspectives of farmers, as well as extension officers, researchers and policymakers to build theories of change and pathways to maximize the uptake and impact of sustainable intensification practices.”

He highlights how local ownership of change can be fostered by implementing participatory methods during this process. This can result in transformative change, felt from the institutional level all the way to the smallholder farmer. Brown hopes his work in South Asia will deliver widespread impact for smallholder farmers and he welcomes collaboration and sharing of ideas and approaches with others working towards similar objectives.

Breaking Ground: Santiago López-Ridaura supports farmers facing tough decisions

Written by on August 22, 2018. Posted in Features.

Farmers frequently encounter trade-offs between maximizing short-term profits and ensuring sustainable, long-term production. Santiago López-Ridaura, a senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), says these trade-offs are even more complicated for small-scale farmers who grow a mix of crops and raise livestock. With computer models to play out different scenarios, he and his team are helping them find optimal solutions.

“If you have $100, one hectare of maize, a half hectare of beans and three cows, you have limited resources,” indicates López-Ridaura. “You have to decide how you allocate those resources.”

Should the farmer use the money to buy new equipment or vaccinate the cows? What would happen if the farmer replaced the half-acre of beans with maize? These trade-offs, López-Ridaura explains, are one aspect of a farming system’s complexity.

“The other is that these farmers are trying to satisfy multiple objectives,” he adds. “They want to generate income. They want to produce enough food to feed their family and they may be trying to maintain cultural values.”

For example, a hybrid maize variety may produce higher yields under certain growing conditions, but the farmer could decide to continue growing the native variety because it carries cultural or even religious importance. Seasonal migration for off-farm jobs, climate change and access to markets are just some of the other factors that further complicate the decision-making process. López-Ridaura points out many models in the past have failed to capture these complexities because they have focused on one objective: productivity at the plot level.

“Our models show the bigger picture. They take a lot of time to develop, but they’re worth it,” says López-Ridaura.

Custom solutions to farming challenges

The models start with hundreds of in-depth household surveys from a specific region. López-Ridaura and his team then organize the large pool of data into several categories of farming systems.

“We make a model that says, ‘OK, this farm in Oaxaca, Mexico, has five hectares, 20 sheep and five people,” he explains. “We know how much the animals need to eat, how much the people need to eat, how much the farm produces and how much production costs.”

He and his team can then adjust certain factors in the model to explore different outcomes. For example, they can see how much water the farmer could use for irrigation to maximize his/her yields without depleting the local water supply during a drought. They can see which farmers would be the most vulnerable to a commodity crop price drop or who would benefit from a new policy.

Senior scientist Santiago Lopez-Ridaura (left) asks a farmer in Guatemala about his priorities — produce food, generate income, maintain soil health and feed his livestock — and the reasons behind his agricultural practices. (Photo: Carlos Sum/Buena Milpa) — Santiago López-Ridaura (left) asks a farmer in Guatemala about his priorities — produce food, generate income, maintain soil health and feed his livestock — and the reasons behind his agricultural practices. (Photo: Carlos Sum/Buena Milpa)

“The political guys often want a simple solution so they may say, ‘We should subsidize inputs such as seeds and fertilizers.’ In Mexico, for example, you might miss 60-70% of farmers as they don’t use much of these inputs,” López-Ridaura says. “So that’s great for 30% of the population, but why don’t we think about the other 70%? We must be able to suggest alternatives from a basket of options, considering the diversity of farming systems.”

López-Ridaura emphasizes that the models on their own do not provide solutions. He and his research team work with farmers to learn what they identify as their main challenges and how best to support them.

“We have networks of farmers in Guatemala and Oaxaca, and some may say, ‘Well, our main challenge is being self-sufficient with forage crops,’ and we’ll say, ‘OK, why don’t we try a crop rotation with forage crops? Our model suggests that it might be an appropriate option.’”

He and his team can then help the farmers access the right kind of seed and find out how best to grow it. This relationship is not a one-way street. The farmers also provide feedback on what is or is not working on the ground, which helps the researchers improve the accuracy of their models. This approach helps the researchers, farmers and policymakers understand different pathways forward and develop locally adapted, sustainable solutions.

Santiago López-Ridaura and his team work in Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Their funding often comes from development agencies such as IFAD and USAID.

Breaking Ground: Gemma Molero sheds light on wheat photosynthesis

Written by Mike Listman on July 18, 2018. Posted in Features.

Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”

A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.

“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.

Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT

Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.

“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.

Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.

“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”

She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.

Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light

Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.

“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”

Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.

Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.

“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”

Training youth and improving conditions for young women

From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.

“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”

Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.

“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”

Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”

Breaking Ground: Tom Hagen brings IT expertise to crop breeding

Written by on June 21, 2018. Posted in Features.

From an early age, Tom Hagen has enjoyed watching plants grow and solving complex problems. Now, as the enterprise breeding system manager at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Hagen is combining his expertise in crop breeding and IT to help researchers and farmers be more successful.

“You could say I’m a hybrid scientific consultant – IT system architect,” said Hagen. “I will work with breeding teams to appropriately design software and then manage its development and deployment to facilitate breeding operations at CIMMYT and the International Rice Research Institute.”

The software will help breeders more effectively choose seed varieties, design field trials, collect data and analyze their outcomes. It is intended to assist farmers and extension agents as well.

“It will be able to give them advice about the appropriate seeds to use based on their specific environment and economic situation,” said Hagen. “It can also recommend ways to plant and manage their crop for better yields and higher income.”

Hagen’s interest in using computer programing to analyze large sets of biological data emerged shortly after obtaining a doctorate in plant genetics from the University of Georgia. It was the early 1990s, and bioinformatics was a new frontier. Hagen founded and managed the university’s Center for Scientific Computing and Visualization, and helped create the Bioinformatics Graduate Program.

In 1999, Hagen decided to leave the world of academia for the private sector.

“Universities are about inventing things, not applying them,” he said. “It is important to base your practice on theory, but at the end of the day, I personally think you need to apply it because otherwise – well, what is the point of it all?”

Hagen joined DuPont Pioneer, a large U.S. producer of hybrid seeds, where he and a team of designers created different technologies for breeders. Specifically, they worked on technologies that would help breeders develop a line of drought-resistant maize.

“By being in that group, I was both a scientist trying to invent and validate these methods while also designing and building the IT for that,” said Hagen.

During his last two years at DuPont Pioneer, Hagen was the architect of all analytics software. He also conducted research on crop growth modeling for predicting genotype-environment interactions for maize hybrids. This information has helped breeders, extension agents and farmers choose appropriate seed varieties for their specific environmental conditions.

Hagen joined the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) in January 2018. Led by CIMMYT, EiB aims to modernize breeding programs, specifically targeting the developing world for greater impact on food and nutrition security, climate change adaptation and development.

“I’m excited to be part of the work that’s starting to ramp up here at CIMMYT and the other CGIAR centers,” said Hagen. “I’m here to learn and engage, and do whatever I can to help others learn.”

Funding for the Excellent in Breeding Platform comes from the CGIAR, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, national governments, development banks and other public and private agencies. Contributors include CGIAR system centers, the Biosciences eastern and central Africa- International Livestock Research Institute Hub, Cornell University, Diversity Arrays Technology, DuPont Pioneer, the Integrated Breeding Platform, Monsanto and Queensland University.

Breaking Ground: Wei Xiong helps farmers and policymakers make better decisions

Written by on May 30, 2018. Posted in Features.

Farmers and agricultural policymakers frequently encounter tough decisions with complex trade-offs. Selecting which crop to plant next season, for example, would be much easier with a crystal ball. Wei Xiong, a senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), cannot look into the future, but he can remove a lot of the guesswork.

Xiong uses modeling tools to simulate how agricultural systems would respond to different policies, technological innovations and climate change.

“With these simulations, we can show farmers and policymakers different hypothetical outcomes,” said Xiong. “We can help them make better, more informed decisions.”

Xiong and his multi-disciplinary team are interested in looking at new angles of agricultural issues. For one project, Xiong is investigating how climate change could affect global beer prices. He and his team are studying the effects of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as drought, on global barley yields and how this could affect beer production and prices.

“We call the project drinking security,” added Xiong.

Xiong is also interested in the impacts of air pollution on agricultural production and livelihoods in India and China.

“We want to know if air pollution affects yields and whether policies to curb air pollution will have any impact on farmer incomes, food prices and international trade,” he said.

Xiong collaborates with a team of Chinese agricultural scientists and local extension officers on a program called Size & Technology Backyard. The program aims to increase farmers’ yields while decreasing agricultural pollution in the water, air and soil. During each growing season, agricultural students stay in villages to conduct surveys and field research with farmers.

“Based on that data, we can create an agricultural modeling system that incorporates everything from the crop physiology side, to the socioeconomic side and human dimension side,” said Xiong. “We can project which farmers are most likely to adopt which specific kinds of technology based on everything from their location to their family structure.”

But in China, Xiong explained, agriculture still falls under government control.

“The government has always decided which crop you should plant, which area you should use and how to use the areas,” said Xiong. “Most of the policies are based on suggestions by experts.”

The team will use their simulation models to recommend policies that benefit farmers and the environment.

Xiong effectively links many silos through his work at CIMMYT, in large part due to his diverse educational background. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in geography at Hubei University, he continued with a master’s degree in meteorology from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in Beijing. He later went on to earn a doctorate in agronomy from China Agricultural University.

After ten years as a professor at CAAS, Xiong worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis where he designed large-scale simulations of crop production and the effects of global policy. In 2014, he collaborated with other researchers on a global agriculture systems modeling project through a position at the University of Florida. Last fall, Xiong joined CIMMYT at its headquarters in El Batán, Mexico, working on sustainable intensification.

Xiong will return to China later this year to help establish a new CIMMYT office in Henan and strengthen CIMMYT’s partnership with Henan Agricultural University. The new location will focus on research and training, and will host two international senior scientists with expertise in remoting sensing, informatics, physiology and crop management.

Breaking Ground: Lorena Gonzalez fast-forwards action on hunger using technology

Written by Matthew O'Leary on May 17, 2018. Posted in Features.

Intrigued by the unique relationship our food crops have to their geographical environment, Lorena Gonzalez dedicated her passion for geomatic technology to collect site-specific farm data that is revolutionizing the way researchers and farmers tackle hunger.

Working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as a research assistant, Gonzalez is part of a seismic shift in agriculture, replacing time-consuming manual data collection with technology.

Instead of walking the fields taking measurements by hand, data is collected from a distance through remote sensing. Using cameras on board manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as on ground sensors, Gonzalez gathers information such as plant height, canopy temperature and relative biomass, and evaluates plant health and soil spatial variability in minutes rather than weeks.

Collaborating with farmers and colleagues from maize and wheat breeding programs Gonzalez uses Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to organize and analyze data and patterns related to specific farm locations, making it easier to relate information to growers’ specific needs.

“It is important to make sure that data is properly geo-referenced, this way we know exactly how each crop is impacted by the matrix of factors in its environment,” said Gonzalez. “Collecting crop management and field data such as fertilization rates, irrigations schemes or soil properties provides us with information to understand and improve plant growth.”

The tailored information is used to improve farmers’ decision-making, allowing for more precise agriculture to create sustainable farming systems that produce more food with fewer resources, she said.

Gonzalez’ love for all things data saw her delve into the world of geospatial science studying her bachelor in Geomatics Engineering in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. Her passion for helping farmers achieve food security led her to apply for a job at CIMMYT. Since working with the Sustainable Intensification Program she has developed skills to collect and visualize agricultural data in meaningful ways to inform different stakeholders.

“Farmers, researchers and politicians can make better decisions when we streamline field data using available technology. The path of data from field to farm decision-makers can be streamlined using the available technology creatively and collaboratively, if we dare to build the appropriate systems.”

A UAV is launched to collect data from a field in CIMMYT’s experiment station in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe

With climate change already affecting crop production, GIS becomes an increasingly important tool farmers can use to adapt and maintain crop yields, Gonzalez said. According to PNAS, each degree Celsius increase in global mean temperature is estimated to reduce the average global yields of wheat and maize by up to seven percent. These crops are key to the survival of humanity, providing a major portion of our caloric intake.

Remote sensing and precision agriculture plays a fundamental role in the ongoing challenge to reduce and cope with the effects of climate change and maximize land efficiency. Using quality data presented in useful ways helps farmers improve decision making, she added.

Gonzalez believes providing open access to geospatial decision support tools will allow smallholder famers to gain the information needed to make site-specific decisions on the exact quantity, location and timely application of resources needed to optimize food production.

If the world is to eliminate world hunger and malnutrition by 2030 as set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, smallholder farmers – who produce 80 percent of the world’s food – must benefit from access to remote sensing and precision agriculture, she said. Nine out of ten of the world’s 570 million farms are managed by families, making the family farm the predominant form of agriculture, and consequently a potentially crucial agent of change in achieving sustainable food security and in eradicating hunger in the future, according to UN reports.

Currently, Gonzalez is collecting data for an innovative private-public partnership, Mexico COMPASS, to help Mexican smallholder farmers increase wheat and sugar cane production by identifying factors that cause the yield gap between crop potential and actual performance.

The project aims to improve crop productivity and smallholder farmer incomes while facilitating rural community economic development. The data collected by Gonzalez in Mexico’s Yaqui Valley and in the state of Tabasco contributes to a system that combines earth observation satellite data with captured farm data to create a site-specific decision support tool for farmers. The project will help farmers to make better use of natural resources while monitoring crop health.

Improving smallholder farmer capacity and ability to make informed farming decisions is key to ending hunger and improving livelihoods, said Gonzalez.

Gonzalez’s work with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program on the Mexico COMPASS project is funded by the UK Space Agency and has as partners: Rezatec, The University of Nottingham, Booker Tate and Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS).

Breaking Ground: Terry Molnar uses native maize varieties to find novel traits for breeding

Written by on April 19, 2018. Posted in Features.

Increasingly erratic weather, poor soil health, and resource shortages brought on by climate change are challenging the ability of farmers in developing countries to harvest a surplus to sell or even to grow enough to feed their households. A healthy crop can mean the difference between poverty and prosperity, between hunger and food security.

Terry Molnar, a scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), is helping farmers face these challenges by using the natural diversity of plants to unlock desirable genetic traits inside food crops.

Working at CIMMYT as a Maize Phenotyping and Breeding Specialist, Molnar studies the traits found in different maize varieties found in the CIMMYT seed collections that can be used to strengthen crops and produce healthy food and better livelihoods.

Growing up in New Mexico, in the United States of America, he had a unique opportunity to work with a conservation group preserving seed from Native American and Hispanic communities of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

“Seeing all the diversity there was in the maize, beans, chilies really inspired me to go into genetics and breeding as a career,” Molnar said. Following that inspiration, he earned his bachelor degree at Colorado State University and continued his Masters and doctoral studies at North Carolina State University with a focus on plant breeding.

At CIMMYT, he studies native maize varieties called landraces to identify useful traits such as resistance to heat and drought, which can be used to breed new varieties that help farmers produce more food despite mounting challenges.

The high level of native maize diversity is due to its varied geography and culture in Latin America where it originated. As farmers selected the best maize for their specific environments and uses, it diverged into distinct races. At present, there are over 300 recorded unique races of maize in Latin America alone.

Molnar evaluates the landraces varieties in the field for a large set of characteristics, called the phenotype. Additionally, the landraces have been characterized genetically, called the genotype. Using the phenotype and genotype, Molnar can start to unravel the complexity of important traits such as drought and identify sources of resistance.

“Our projects are trait-targeted, so the first step is to make educated guesses as to which of the landraces might be good for that trait. There are over 25,000 maize landraces varieties in the CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank and we don’t have the infrastructure or money to test them all.”

“We try to cast a wide net and evaluate as many landraces as we are able in the field under the conditions of interest. After this initial evaluation, I keep the best ones and start the breeding process,” Molnar said.

This involves crossing the landrace to elite maize lines that already have desirable traits like high yield, to develop new lines. The final step is to create hybrids from these new lines and evaluate them in yield trials. After several years of testing, anything that is better than the original lines for the trait of interest will be released to breeders and research scientists.

Climate change predictions suggest that in the coming decades, heat and drought will greatly increase in many important maize growing areas of the world. Molnar works to find tolerance traits for drought and heat within landrace maize plants. As well as becoming a growing problem in the future, drought and heat already affect farmers in any given year, he said.

As part of this work, Molnar also looks for landrace varieties with natural resistance to two prevalent maize diseases, tar spot complex (TSC) and maize lethal necrosis (MLN). TSC is an important disease in the southern half of Mexico, Central America and northern South America, and can decrease yields by 50 percent when it gets into fields early in a growing cycle. Most of the farmers in the affected areas are too poor to afford fungicides, so resistance built into varieties is very important. MLN is a large problem in eastern Africa.

“Like TSC, when MLN gets into fields early in the cycle the results can be devastating, with up to 100 percent potential yield loss,” said Molnar. “MLN is spread by insect vectors, and similar to the situation in Latin America, many farmers in east Africa are too poor or don’t have access to insecticides.”

The last trait Molnar looks for is pigmentation, specifically blue and red kernel color. This is part of an effort to develop new end-use markets in Mexico. Pigments in maize are due to increased concentrations of anthocyanin, an antioxidant, which has been connected to decreased cancer risk. Blue and red maize can be used for specialty food products or for industrial use such as the extraction of natural colors for use in other food products. In both cases, the pigmented maize commands a higher price for the farmer and gives them access to new markets.

Molnar finds great satisfaction in his work, both from the difference he makes in farmers’ lives, and from the process of finding the traits in the first place.

“I enjoy being out in the field, looking at maize, meeting and talking to farmers and working with my collaborators,” Molnar said. “I’m fascinated by the incredible variety that exists in maize and its ability to grow almost everywhere under most environmental conditions. Before the Europeans came, maize was already growing from Canada to Chile and from sea level to over 3000 meters in altitude and from the humid tropics to bone-dry desert. It’s an incredibly adaptable species.”

He is motivated by the passion to promote the rich variety of traits found in native maize varieties.

“I’m driven by the doubt of others. A lot of maize breeders working at the private seed companies don’t believe it is possible to derive anything commercially useful out of a landrace since modern hybrid maize has been bred for so long and is now so elite. I would like to prove them wrong,” he said.

Breaking ground: Mike Olsen uses new technology to improve farmer’s yields

Written by Jennifer Johnson on March 12, 2018. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Global challenges to agriculture such as climate change, crop diseases and pests mean that the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is constantly working to develop new, improved, resistant varieties for farmers.

However, crop breeding is expensive, time-consuming work, meaning that it takes several years for farmers to get seed solutions to the challenges they are facing today.

Mike Olsen, upstream research coordinator for CIMMYT maize program, works with scientists to use new technologies to increase breeding program efficiency and genetic gain — developing improved maize varieties with the traits smallholder farmers’ need, such as disease resistance or drought tolerance, using less time and resources than ever before.

“Our whole team is trying to improve genetic gain for various traits, and to deliver more genetic gain with fewer resources, through the application of phenotyping innovation, genomics and molecular markers for crop improvement,” Olsen said. “Our work at CIMMYT assists our breeding teams to be more effective in developing improved products for farmers.”

Originally from the United States, Olsen grew up on a small farm in Wisconsin and would go on to study plant breeding and genetics at the University of Minnesota. “During my undergrad years I had the chance to visit South Africa and saw rural poverty for the first time. At the time, I was taking classes in plant biology and genetics and I was inspired by the idea of using agricultural improvement as a method for poverty eradication—it’s a big part of why I went into plant breeding,” he said. “As a graduate student, I became very interested in the mission of CIMMYT. I was studying at Norman Borlaug’s alma mater — working in Borlaug Hall, in fact — which inspired me to pursue a career at a CGIAR center. CIMMYT was a perfect fit that allowed me to do something I’ve wanted to do since I was 19 years old.”

The farmers he has met around the world inspire Olsen to come into work every day. “Knowing that the outcome of our work is providing income and food security to millions of vulnerable people is what’s so exciting about what we do. Being able to serve as a conduit for bringing advanced technology for crop improvement for resource poor farmers and consumers is incredible,” he said.

Beyond the day-to-day activities of conference calls, travel and airports, the big picture work of what Olsen does is to lead a global team of talented scientists, help with grant writing and project oversight, with a focus on breeding program optimization. “I have been very involved with the Genomics and Open Source Breeding informatics initiative (GOBii), which helps breeding programs efficiently use genetic information, and I’m currently working on a collaboration with DuPont Pioneer on seed production in Africa to deliver higher quality seed to smallholder farmers,” Olsen said. “What I most enjoy about my work is the people. I have to be honest, coming to CIMMYT I was moving out of a hands-on science role into working with people, and the collaborative nature of this job has been really energizing for me. I’ve had the opportunity to mentor some of our talented young scientists into greater leadership roles, and it has been really exciting seeing their professional growth. It’s the CIMMYT mission that gets us all out of bed in the morning, but I really enjoy the people I work and collaborate with.”

Breaking Ground: Good data management key in fight against food insecurity, says Carolina Rivera

Written by on February 14, 2018. Posted in Features.

Over the next 50 years, the world’s population is set to be more than 9 billion. To feed this amount of people food production will need to more than double.

Doing this will require us to grow food faster than ever before, a global task which will be even more challenging if we don’t first improve the way we collect and share information, according to Carolina Rivera, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and data coordinator with the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).

Demand for wheat by 2050 is predicted to increase by 70 percent from today’s levels due to population growth and dietary changes, but the challenges to wheat production are stark and growing. The crop is at risk from new and more aggressive pests and diseases, diminishing water resources, limited available land and unstable weather conditions related to climate change.

“The data tells us that we won’t meet future demand unless we’re able to significantly increase genetic gains,” says Rivera. Current annual genetic yield gains of cereals range from 0.5 to 1 percent, meaning that genetic improvements made to crops by scientists are at best resulting in 1 percent higher yields than the previous year, notwithstanding the possibility of improvements due to crop management which are known to be much harder for resource-poor farmers to implement.

Since Rivera started as an IWYP data coordinator, she’s helped release a new instance of the public database called “Germinate,” which hosts phenotypic, genotypic and other data on wheat collected by CIMMYT staff, IWYP project members, and partners around the world. She seeks to deploy new technologies to capture data and develop better systems to standardize, collect, compile and curate field data gathered by members of her CIMMYT research team and their partners.

“Three years ago, around 80 percent of CIMMYT’s wheat physiology field data in Mexico were collected manually,” said Rivera. “But now, the use of tablets for data collection, improved protocols for data processing, among other tools allow us to have real-time quality control. By standardizing our results and facilitating data curation and analysis, we help scientists make faster, more informed decisions.”

Rivera has a unique perspective in crop data management because she applies her on-the-ground knowledge of wheat research to adopt and adapt new technologies and systems that meet the needs of scientists. As a wheat physiologist, she has identified new traits associated with the optimization of plant morphology aiming to boost grain number and yield.

“Data management can seem like an afterthought to the research, but having more controlled and optimized workflows will become crucial for breeding programs as data volumes increase,” says Rivera. “Achieving high-quality data management is a challenge – like with any change in technology, it requires a huge shift in the way people do their job and tools they use.”

Despite this, more than 2 billion genotypic data from CIMMYT have been made available in the Germinate and Dataverse platforms, and Rivera believes that data sharing will eventually become part and parcel to the work wheat researchers conduct.

Before starting her current position at CIMMYT, Rivera received her doctorate in crop science from the University of Nottingham. Ultimately, she believes that the adoption of better data management practices across research institutions will soon become a cornerstone in the ability to create “ideal” wheat plants that produce more grains, feeding more people.

The International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) is a long-term global collaboration with funding from public and private research organizations that seeks to increase the genetic yield potential of wheat by 50 percent in 20 years. Find a full list of funders here.

Breaking Ground: Leonard Rusinamhodzi on innovating farming systems for climate change

Written by on November 30, 2017. Posted in Features.

TwitterBGLernard Food security is at the heart of Africa’s development agenda. However, climate change is threatening the Malabo Commitment to end hunger in the region by 2025, said Leonard Rusinamhodzi, a systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

Erratic rainfall and increasing temperatures are already causing crops to fail, threatening African farmers’ ability to ensure household food security, he said. Africa is the region most vulnerable to climate variability and change, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Small-scale family farmers, who provide the majority of food production in Africa, are set to be among the worst affected. Rusinamhodzi’s work includes educating African farmers about the impacts of climate change and working with them to tailor sustainable agriculture solutions to increase their food production in the face of increasingly variable weather.

The world’s population is projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, with 2.1 billion people set to live in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates farmers will need to increase production by at least 70 percent to meet demand. However, climate change is bringing numerous risks to traditional farming systems challenging the ability to increase production, said Rusinamhodzi.

Graphic created by Gerardo Mejia. Data sourced form the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. — Graphic created by Gerardo Mejia. Data sourced from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Rusinamhodzi believes increasing farmers’ awareness of climate risks and working with them to implement sustainable solutions is key to ensuring they can buffer climate shocks, such as drought and erratic rainfall.

“The onset of rainfall is starting late and the seasonal dry spells or outright droughts are becoming commonplace,” said Rusinamhodzi. “Farmers need more knowledge and resources on altering planting dates and densities, crop varieties and species, fertilizer regimes and crop rotations to sustainably intensify food production.”

Growing up in Zimbabwe – a country that is now experiencing the impacts of climate change first hand – Rusinamhodzi understands the importance of small-scale agriculture and the damage erratic weather can have on household food security.

He studied soil science and agronomy and began his career as a research associate at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Zimbabwe learning how to use conservation agriculture as a sustainable entry point to increase food production.

Conservation agriculture is based on the principles of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of crop rotation to simultaneously maintain and boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It improves soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability.

It is a sustainable intensification practice, which is aimed at enhancing the productivity of labor, land and capital. Sustainable intensification practices offer the potential to simultaneously address a number of pressing development objectives, unlocking agriculture’s potential to adapt farming systems to climate change and sustainable manage land, soil, nutrient and water resources, while improving food and nutrition.

Tailoring sustainable agriculture to farmers

Smallholder farming systems in Africa are diverse in character and content, although maize is usually the major crop. Within each system, farmers are also diverse in terms of resources and production processes. Biophysically, conditions – such as soil and rainfall – change significantly within short distances.

Given the varying circumstances, conservation agriculture cannot be promoted as rigid or one-size fits all solution as defined by the three principles, said Rusinamhodzi.

The systems agronomist studied for his doctoral at Wageningen University with a special focus on targeting appropriate crop intensification options to selected farming systems in southern Africa. Now, with CIMMYT he works with African farming communities to adapt conservation agriculture to farmers’ specific circumstances to boost their food production.

Rusinamhodzi’s focus in the region is to design cropping systems around maize-legume intercropping and conservation agriculture. Intercropping has the added advantage of producing two crops from the same piece of land in a single season; different species such as maize and legumes can increase facilitation and help overcome the negative effects of prolonged dry spells and poor soil quality.

Farmer Elphas Chinyanga inspecting his conservation agriculture plots in Zimbabwe. Photo: Peter Lowe/ CIMMYT

“The key is to understand the farmers, their resources including the biophysical circumstances and their production systems, and assist in adapting conservation agriculture to local needs,” he said.

Working with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, Rusinamhodzi seeks to understand production constraints and opportunities for increased productivity starting with locally available resources.

Using crop simulation modeling and experimentation, he estimates how the farming system will perform under different conditions and works to formulate a set of options to help farmers. The options can include agroforestry, intercropping, improved varieties resistant to heat and drought, fertilizers and manures along with the principles of conservation agriculture to obtain the best results.

The models are an innovative way assess the success or trade-off farmers could have when adding new processes to their farming system. However, the application of these tools are still limited due to the large amounts of data needed for calibration and the complexity, he added.

Information gathered is shared with farmers in order to offer researched options on how to sustainably boost their food production under their conditions, Rusinamhodzi said.

“My ultimate goal is to increase farmers’ decision space so that they make choices from an informed position,” he said.

Rusinamhodzi also trains farmers, national governments, non-profit organizations, seed companies and graduate students on the concepts and application of sustainable intensification including advanced analysis to understand system productivity, soil quality, water and nutrient use efficiency and crop pest and disease dynamics.

Leonard Rusinamhodzi works with the SIMLESA project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and the CGIAR MAIZE program.

Breaking Ground: Clare Stirling sees no silver bullets to control agriculture’s emissions

Written by Mike Listman on November 1, 2017. Posted in Features.

ClareStirling_Postcard

There are no easy fixes nor can business as usual continue, if humankind is to reduce the climate footprint of global agriculture while intensifying farming to meet rising food demands, according to an international scientist who has studied agriculture and climate interactions for nearly three decades.

“Climate change is a threat multiplier, intensifying the challenges of population growth, food insecurity, poverty, and malnutrition,” said Clare Stirling, a scientist in the sustainable intensification program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “With almost 60% of global food production coming from rainfed agriculture and more than 650 million people dependent on rainfed farming in Africa alone, our food system is already highly vulnerable to changing climates.”

Stirling, who is CIMMYT’s liaison with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), believes that agriculture—including smallholder agriculture—can play a key role in meeting greenhouse gas emission targets, but only with combined and coordinated efforts that cross institutional and disciplinary boundaries.

CIMMYT contributes through a systems approach to developing and promoting climate smart technologies—including drought tolerant maize and wheat varieties, conservation agriculture, and precision nutrient and water management—as well as research on climate services, index-based insurance for farmers whose crops are damaged by bad weather, and data and models for greenhouse gas emissions in India and Mexico.

“Take the case of India, the world’s second-largest food producer,” Stirling explained. “Mitigation options for crops, of which rice-wheat systems are a major component, include improved water management in rice, more precise use of nitrogen fertilizer, preventing the burning of crop residues and promoting zero or reduced tillage, depending on local conditions and practices. With the right policies and training for farmers, these options could spread quickly to reduce emissions by as much as 130 Megatons of CO₂e per year from the crop sector alone. The big challenge is achieving large-scale adoption for significant mitigation to occur.”

Science needed for local mitigation targets

Born in Malawi and having spent her early childhood in Zimbabwe, young Stirling also lived a year with her parents and siblings in a house trailer on a farm in Devon, United Kingdom. “Most of my childhood and teen years were spent living in villages, riding horses, and working on farms during school holidays. Out of this came a desire to work in agriculture and overseas.”

Stirling obtained a bachelor’s degree in plant science and a doctor’s degree in environmental crop physiology at Sutton Bonnington, University of Nottingham, U.K., performing fieldwork for the latter at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderbad, India.

As a Ph.D. student at Nottingham, she also joined a research group under the late Professor John Monteith that was quantifying relationships among crop growth, radiation, and water use. The resulting equations underpin many of today’s crop simulation models. “My research since has focused on environmental interactions and crop growth, so climate change became an important part of this, starting with an M.Sc. course on the topic that I set up in Essex University in the 1990s.”

Among the intractable challenges Stirling sees is soil degradation. “Unless this is addressed, it will be impossible to sustainably intensify or build climate resilience into food systems,” she explained. “We must manage limited organic matter and fertilisers better and more efficiently, to achieve healthier soils.”

She is also concerned that the climate science to support national and local climate change adaptation planning is much less certain than that which informs long-term global scale targets. “CIMMYT has an invaluable role with its global and strategic research mandate to develop technologies that will raise productivity and resource use efficiency in future, warmer climates,” Stirling asserted.

“Local climate predictions are likely to remain uncertain and adapting to current climate variability may not be enough for long-term adaptation in many places, with the surprises that may be in store,” Stirling added.

“International organizations such as CIMMYT need to offer stress-tolerant, high-yielding germplasm and sustainable management systems, as well as harnessing big data and digitization, to transform adaptation to deal with future, more extreme climates. Finally, future farmers will need to get the most out of good conditions and good years because, the way things are headed, there may be little hope for coping in bad years.”

Read about research by Stirling and colleagues:

Click here to read “Tek B. Sapkota, Jeetendra P. Aryal, Arun Khatri-Chhetri, Paresh B. Shirsath, Ponraj Arumugam, and Clare M. Stirling. 2017. Identifying high-yield low-emission pathways for the cereal production in South Asia. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change DOI 10.1007/s11027-017-9752-1.

Breaking Ground: Francelino Rodrigues on high-tech farming

Written by on September 13, 2017. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — When Francelino Rodrigues started at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in 2013, the majority of the maize and wheat trials were still being carried out by walking through the field and taking measurements manually.

Through a collaborative work initiative with colleagues from maize and wheat breeding programs, and with support from senior scientists, Rodrigues brought a whole new world of digital mapping and proximal high-resolution soil sensing to the center’s trials thanks to his background in precision agriculture.

Precision agriculture makes use of technologies and farmers’ knowledge to determine the quantity, location and time resources need to be applied to grow crops. The information gained allows farmers to farm more sustainably; using less while maintaining and improving yields.

“I first discovered precision agriculture during an agricultural engineering undergraduate in Brazil,” explained Rodrigues. “I was fascinated by the idea of joining technology and agriculture, so I ended up going on to complete a master’s and a doctorate in precision agriculture applying it to coffee, sugarcane, and cereals crops.”

After completing his doctorate with an internship at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), an Australian government agency for scientific research, Rodrigues realized the importance of agricultural research for development and took on his post-doctoral position at CIMMYT within the biometrics team in remote sensing and precision agriculture.

“Remote sensing can provide information at different scales and for a range of applications, from crop management to high-throughput phenotyping and landscape assessment,” said Rodrigues, whose research focuses on the analysis and interpretation of spatial and temporal agricultural data sets built up by the use of proximal and remote sensing technologies, then seeing how it can be applied across CIMMYT’s work.

Preparing for radiometric calibration for Multispectral flight over maize Tar Spot Complex disease screening; CIMMYT’s station, Agua Fria, Mexico. April 2016 Photo: CIMMYT archives. — Preparing for radiometric calibration for a multispectral flight over maize Tar Spot Complex disease screening; CIMMYT’s station, Agua Fria, Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT archives.

Remote sensing devices make it possible to observe the dynamics from single plants up to entire landscapes and continents as they change over time by capturing radiation from across the electromagnetic spectrum.

“Precision agriculture and remote sensing technologies are used by CIMMYT to develop tools and practices to help farmers manage their crops more efficiently, to speed up the breeding process by rapidly assessing plant traits and to better characterize agricultural landscapes as a whole,” he said.

According to Rodrigues, one of the greatest challenges is making precision agriculture accessible to smallholder farmers who don’t have the means to access new and expensive technology. He is currently working on a public-private project using remote sensing data assimilation and crop modeling to build an online platform that farmers can use freely in their fields to make crop management decisions.

“Since I arrived at CIMMYT I have been exposed to a global network of world-class scientists,” said Rodrigues. “It encourages me to pursue my passions and allowed me to do what I love; good science that improves lives.”

Rodrigues is excited about the long-term impact of CIMMYT’s research and positive about the future. “I love to work with a team of scientists from different disciplines and see that knowledge and results we generate contribute to a wider agenda,” he said.

Next generation hunger fighters call education key to a food secure future

Written by on August 10, 2017. Posted in News.

Jonathan Poole tests the color of bread samples in CIMMYT's wheat quality lab. Photo: CIMMYT/L.Strugnell — Jonathan Poole tests the color of bread samples in CIMMYT’s wheat quality lab. Photo: CIMMYT/L.Strugnell

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Education and partnership are essential to improve food security and ensure lasting world peace, two next generation hunger fighters interning at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) said in an interview for International Youth Day.

Research into agricultural innovation and cross-sectoral partnerships are the stepping-stones to overcome challenges that threaten our ability to produce enough nutritious food to meet growing global demand, said Jorge Del’Angel, an agricultural engineering student.

Del’Angel along with fellow intern Jonathan Poole are spending two-months at CIMMYT learning from some of the world’s top agricultural minds as part of the prestigious Borlaug-Ruan Internship program supported by the World Food Prize (WFP).

“I believe that education can fix a lot of global problems,” Del’Angel said. “We all understand that food security is a challenge but to understand that it’s a global problem we’ve got to build connections that allow people to learn and work together.”

With our ability to feed ourselves facing intensifying pressures from resource depletion, mounting inequality and the challenges of climate change, the internship program provides important training for a new generation of agricultural champions, said CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist Ravi Gopal Singh.

“Exposing youth to agriculture early is crucial to shaping their careers,” said Singh, who supervises Del’Angel at CIMMYT.

By taking an interest in agri-food systems, youth learn about challenges facing the world, and become ambassadors for spreading the word about how agriculture builds livelihoods and ensures peace, said Poole, who is shadowing nutrition experts at CIMMYT.

“No matter what age you are you can help tackle food insecurity,” he added.

Achieving a world free of hunger and eliminating poverty are essential conditions to pave the way for lasting world peace and are an essential part of the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The World Bank estimates economic growth from agriculture is up to four times more effective at reducing poverty as growth originating from other sectors.

The United States based internship program is unique in that it engages high school and college students in hands-on contemporary research at world-class institutions addressing food security issues at the a time when they are deciding their academic pursuits and careers, said Lisa Fleming, the Director of International Internships and Career Development at the WFP.

Jorge Del'Angel checks on field trials of beans. Photo: CIMMYT/L.Strugnell — Jorge Del’Angel checks on field trials of beans. Photo: CIMMYT/L.Strugnell

“We endeavor to involve youth participants in ways that allow them to approach food security with a feeling of personal responsibility, understanding and engagement in a fashion that does not bore, frighten or leave them feeling hopeless or fearful for their future,” Fleming said. She added that for interns hosted at CIMMYT in Mexico, “it is evermore inspiring for our young interns to have the opportunity to walk the halls and test fields in Dr. Borlaug’s footsteps.”

Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and original hunger fighter, dedicated his life to working against food insecurity as a lead researcher at CIMMYT and with groups around the world. The Borlaug-Ruan internship stems from his legacy and places youth in real-world science, agricultural and food security issues, helping to build an effective succession plan for identifying and developing new, innovative leaders to feed the world.

CIMMYT has hosted Borlaug-Ruan interns since the inception of the program in 1998, annually hosting numerous summer interns in Mexico with additional students mentored over the years in Turkey and Thailand.