Maria Itria Ibba, a scientist at CIMMYT, received the inaugural Heroes Award from the Foundation for Innovation in Healthy Food. She received the award on October 29 at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Ibba, head of CIMMYTâs Wheat Chemistry and Quality Laboratory, received the honor in recognition of her outstanding leadership in launching the foundationâs Coalition for Grain Fiber initiative.
Together with her team at CIMMYT, Ibba works on improving the processing and nutritional quality of the bread and durum wheat lines derived from the CIMMYT spring wheat breeding programs. The research they conduct combines genetics and cereal chemistry, and one of the main focuses is to improve wheat grain dietary fiber. This effort begins with the development of efficient screening methods and the identification of germplasm with unique dietary fiber profiles.
The coalition seeks to improve the nutrition in staple foods without impacting their taste, mouthfeel or consumer price. It is simultaneously dedicated to establishing profit incentives for farmers and other food suppliers that enhance public health by delivering increased nutrient foods.
According to the coalition, improvements in the nutritional content of white and whole wheat flour may ultimately save thousands of lives and billions of healthcare U.S. dollars globally.
âMost people across the world do not consume enough dietary fiber, which is essential in the fight against various diseases,â says Ibba. âIncreasing the dietary fiber content of a staple crop like wheat could have a significant positive impact on the health of wheat consumers. Our goal is to increase dietary fiber intake through the consumption of wheat products with greater fiber content.â
Maria Itria Ibba. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Plant breeders, food scientists, nutrition/health scientists and economists are partnering with the coalition to transform the food industry. They support non-GMO (not genetically modified organisms) approaches to increasing naturally occurring dietary fiber in grains.
Over 50 public and private-sector laboratory leaders in three countries and 23 U.S. states have engaged with the coalition, including from CIMMYT, Rothamsted Research, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, University of California, Davis, Cornell University and Bayer Crop Science.
âI feel humbled to have received the Heroes Award,â says Ibba. âI know that this award not only represents the work I have been doing, but also all the hard work that my team and my organization have been doing for several years.â
About CIMMYT
CIMMYT is a cutting edge, non-profit, international organization dedicated to solving tomorrowâs problems today. It is entrusted with fostering improved quantity, quality, and dependability of production systems and basic cereals such as maize, wheat, triticale, sorghum, millets, and associated crops through applied agricultural science, particularly in the Global South, through building strong partnerships. This combination enhances the livelihood trajectories and resilience of millions of resource-poor farmers, while working towards a more productive, inclusive, and resilient agrifood system within planetary boundaries.
CIMMYT is a core CGIAR Research Center, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security and improving natural resources. For more information, visit cimmyt.org.
About the Foundation for Innovation in Healthy Food
FIHF builds coalitions of stakeholders that support increasing the nutritional value of the foods we consume, while preserving consumersâ food experiences.
About the Coalition for Grain Fiber
The coalition is enrolling grain fiber in the fight against chronic disease. By improving the nutritional content of white and whole wheat flour, it seeks to save thousands of lives and dramatically reduce healthcare costs.
The Sainsbury Laboratory, the John Innes Centre and 21 other institutes are joining forces in a major global effort to monitor plant pathogens. Led by CIMMYT, the initiative aims to strengthen wheat productivity in food-insecure areas of East Africa and South Asia.
The Pakistan-China laboratory has developed wheat varieties that have shown an impressive 8-10% yield increase over local varieties, and CIMMYT has expressed interest in collaborating with the laboratory to further strengthen wheat variety development efforts.
On July 17-18, 2023, 87 wheat scientists gathered to learn about new approaches and methods for wheat improvement in Faisalabad, Pakistan. CIMMYT and the Wheat Research Institute, Faisalabad (WRI-FSD) jointly organized a two-day training. The course covered two topics: high throughput genotyping technologies and high throughput phenotyping platforms. The trainees, who were able to attend in person or remotely and 27% of whom were women, hailed from 17 NARES partners across Pakistan.
Trainees at Faisalabad, Pakistan. (Photo: CIMMYT)
After being welcomed by the Director General of Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), Akhtar Ali, and CIMMYTâs Country Representative, TP Tiwari, participants received an update on the status of wheat in Pakistan from Muhammad Sohail, national wheat coordinator for the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC). Subsequently, WRI-FSD Director, Javed Ahmed, discussed wheat research in Punjab, where over 70% wheat is grown in Pakistan. Kevin Pixley, interim director of CIMMYTâs Global Wheat Program, joined the proceedings remotely for a conversation about CIMMYT’s and CGIARâs collaboration with NARES. Participants discussed the modelâs successes, bottlenecks, the role of NARES, and the potential for capacity development. The conversation generated broad interest and suggestions for enhancing the partnershipâs effectiveness. Akhtar Ali, Muhammad Sohail, and Javed Ahmed all spoke very highly about CIMMYT’s support in Pakistan.
This event was organized as part of a collaborative project entitled âRapid development of climate resilient wheat varieties for South Asia using genomic selectionâ that is jointly managed by Kansas State University and CIMMYT with funding from the USAID Feed the Future program.
âTraining emphasized the need for an output-oriented researcher that covered the development of climate-resilient wheat varieties, given the environmental challenges we are experiencing like, drought and heat, and highlighted the importance of innovative methodologies and advanced tools for high throughput phenotyping and genotyping for sustainable and resilient wheat production in Pakistanâ said Muhammad Ishaq, a senior research officer and one of the training participants from Kohat Research Station, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
At the conclusion of the training, Javed, direct of WRI Faisalabad, commended CIMMYTâs support and suggested continuing the pace of training. Dr. Tiwari stressed the importance of such efforts will help Pakistanâs scientists develop and deploy climate resilient, impactful wheat varieties to boost wheat production and reduce wheat imports in the country.
India can applaud a hallmark in national food production: in 2023, the harvest of wheatâIndiaâs second most important food cropâwill surpass 110 million tons for the first time.
This maintains India as the worldâs number-two wheat producer after China, as has been the case since the early 2000s. It also extends the wheat productivity jumpstart that begun in the Green Revolutionâthe modernization of Indiaâs agriculture during the 1960s-70s that allowed the country to put behind it the recurrent grain shortages and extreme hunger of preceding decades.
âNewer and superior wheat varieties in India continually provide higher yields and genetic resistance to the rusts and other deadly diseases,â said Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at CIMMYT, Ravi Singh. âMore than 90 percent of spring bread wheat varieties released in South Asia in the last three decades carry CIMMYT breeding contributions for those or other valued traits, selected directly from the Centerâs international yield trials and nurseries or developed locally using CIMMYT parents.â
Wheat grain yield in Indian farmersâ fields rose yearly by more than 1.8 percentâsome 54 kilograms per hectareâin the last decade, a remarkable achievement and significantly above the global average of 1.3 percent. New and better wheat varieties also reach farmers much sooner, due to better policies and strategies that speed seed multiplication, along with greater involvement of private seed producers.
âThe emergence of Ug99 stem rust disease from eastern Africa in the early 2000s and its ability to overcome the genetic resistance of older varieties drove major global and national initiatives to quickly spread the seed of newer, resistant wheat and to encourage farmers to grow it,â Singh explained. âThis both protected their crops and delivered breeding gains for yield and climate resilience.â
CIMMYT has recently adopted an accelerated breeding approach that has reduced the breeding cycle to three years and is expected to fast-track genetic gains in breeding populations and hasten delivery of improvements to farmers. The scheme builds on strong field selection and testing in Mexico, integrates genomic selection, and features expanded yield assays with partner institutions. To stimulate adoption of newer varieties, the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR, of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, ICAR) operates a seed portal that offers farmers advanced booking for seed of recently released and other wheat varieties.
Private providers constitute another key seed source. In particular, small-scale seed producers linked to the IIWBR/ICAR network have found a profitable business in multiplying and marketing new wheat seed, thus supporting the replacement of older, less productive or disease susceptible varieties.
Farm innovations for changing climates and resource scarcities
Following findings from longstanding CIMMYT and national studies, more Indian wheat farmers are sowing their crops weeks earlier so that the plants mature before the extreme high temperatures that precede the monsoon season, thus ensuring better yields.
New varieties DBW187, DBW303, DBW327, DBW332 and WH1270 can be planted as early as the last half of October, in the northwestern plain zone. Recent research by Indian and CIMMYT scientists has identified well-adapted wheat lines for use in breeding additional varieties for early sowing.
Resource-conserving practices promoted by CIMMYT and partners, such as planting wheat seed directly into the unplowed fields and residues from a preceding rice crop, shave off as much as two weeks of laborious plowing and planking.
Weeds in zero-tillage wheat in India. (Photo: Petr Kosina/CIMMYT)
âThis âzero tillageâ and other forms of reduced tillage, as well as straw management systems, save the time, labor, irrigation water and fuel needed to plant wheat, which in traditional plowing and sowing requires many tractor passes,â said Arun Joshi, CIMMYT wheat breeder and regional representative for Asia and managing director of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA). âAlso, letting rice residues decompose on the surface, rather than burning them, enriches the soil and reduces seasonal air pollution that harms human health in farm communities and cities such as New Delhi.â
Sustainable practices include precision levelling of farmland for more efficient irrigation and the precise use of nitrogen fertilizer to save money and the environment.
Science and policies ensure future wheat harvests and better nutrition
Joshi mentioned that increased use of combines has sped up wheat harvesting and cut post-harvest grain losses from untimely rains caused by climate change. âAdded to this, policies such as guaranteed purchase prices for grain and subsidies for fertilizers have boosted productivity, and recent high market prices for wheat are convincing farmers to invest in their operations and adopt improved practices.â
To safeguard Indiaâs wheat crops from the fearsome disease wheat blast, native to the Americas but which struck Bangladeshâs wheat fields in 2016, CIMMYT and partners from Bangladesh and Bolivia have quickly identified and cross-bred resistance genes into wheat and launched wheat disease monitoring and early warning systems in South Asia.
âMore than a dozen wheat blast resistant varieties have been deployed in eastern India to block the diseaseâs entry and farmers in areas adjoining Bangladesh have temporarily stopped growing wheat,â said Pawan Singh, head of wheat pathology at CIMMYT.
Building on wheatâs use in many Indian foods, under the HarvestPlus program CIMMYT and Indian researchers applied cross-breeding and specialized selection to develop improved wheats featuring grain with enhanced levels of zinc, a micronutrient whose lack in Indian diets can stunt the growth of young children and make them more vulnerable to diarrhea and pneumonia.
âAt least 10 such âbiofortifiedâ wheat varieties have been released and are grown on over 2 million hectares in India,â said Velu Govindan, CIMMYT breeder who leads the Centerâs wheat biofortification research. âIt is now standard practice to label all new varieties for biofortified traits to raise awareness and adoption, and CIMMYT has included high grain zinc content among its primary breeding objectives, so we expect that nearly all wheat lines distributed by CIMMYT in the next 5-8 years will have this trait.â
A rigorous study published in 2018 showed that, when vulnerable young children in India ate foods prepared with such zinc-biofortified wheat, they experienced significantly fewer days of pneumonia and vomiting than would normally be the case.
Celebrating joint achievements and committing for continued success
The April-June 2018 edition of the âICAR Reporterâ newsletter called the five-decade ICAR-CIMMYT partnership in agricultural research ââŠone of the longest and most productive in the worldâŠâ and mentioned mutually beneficial research in the development and delivery of stress resilient and nutritionally enriched wheat, impact-oriented sustainable and climate-smart farming practices, socioeconomic analyses, and policy recommendations.
Speaking during an August 2022 visit to India by CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts, Himanshu Pathak, secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) of Indiaâs Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Director General of ICAR, âreaffirmed the commitment to closely work with CIMMYT and BISA to address the current challenges in the field of agricultural research, education and extension in the country.â
âThe ICAR-CIMMYT collaboration is revolutionizing wheat research and technology deployment for global food security,â said Gyanendra Singh, director, ICAR-IIWBR. âThis in turn advances global peace and prosperity.â
India and CIMMYT wheat transformers meet in India in February, 2023. From left to right: Two students from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI); Arun Joshi, CIMMYT regional representative for Asia; Rajbir Yadav, former Head of Genetics, IARI; Gyanendra Singh, Director General, Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR); Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT director general; Harikrishna, Senior Scientist, IARI. (Photo: CIMMYT)
According to Govaerts, CIMMYT has concentrated on strategies that foster collaboration to deliver greater value for the communities both ICAR and the Center serve. âThe way forward to the next milestone â say, harvesting 125 million tons of wheat from the same or less land area â is through our jointly developing and making available new, cost effective, sustainable technologies for smallholder farmers,â he said.
Wheat research and development results to date, challenges, and future initiatives occupied the table at the 28th All India Wheat & Barley Research Workersâ Meeting, which took place in Udaipur, state of Rajasthan, August 28-30, 2023, and which ICAR and CIMMYT wheat scientists attended.
Generous funding from various agencies, including the following, have supported the work described: The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of UKâs Government (FCDO), the Foundation for Food & Agricultural Research (FFAR), HarvestPlus, ICAR, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), funders of the One CGIAR Accelerated Breeding Initiative (ABI), and the Plant Health Initiative (PHI).
A dedicated field specialist, on 2 August 2023 retired CIMMYT wheat geneticist Man Mohan Kohli was recognized as âComendadorâ of the Paraguayâs National Order of Merit. In his acceptance speech, Kohli cited the benefits of public-private partnerships to profit farmers and catalyze food grain value chains. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A native of India, where he completed schooling including a Ph.D. in wheat genetics, Kohli worked at CIMMYT during 1971-2004 on topics including spring x winter wheat crosses, resistance in wheat to the rust and other diseases, and the improvement and promotion of triticale, a wheat x rye hybrid.
In 1978 he was assigned to a CIMMYT regional program involving wheat breeding, development and training in collaboration with countries of the Southern Cone of South America, which included facilitating the regional testing and exchange of wheat breeding lines and selection data.
As of 2004, Kohli has been an active part-time consultant with Paraguayâs national wheat program and the Bioceres Group in Argentina.
âFunding ended for CIMMYT wheat research in Paraguay in 1993,â Kohli said. âIn 2003 we started direct cooperation again through a joint venture including the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, the Paraguayan Chamber of Cereals and Oilseeds Exporters, and CIMMYT.”
âBack in 2003, Paraguay was producing about 320,000 tons of wheat each year and importing over 200,000 tons. Now, yearly output is around 1 million tons and the country exports almost a third of that.â
Kohli said the joint initiative had promoted higher-yielding wheat varieties and farming methods, lowered the costs of agrochemicals, and helped form associations involving farmers and millersâthe complete cycle from sowing to marketing for wheat.
Paraguayans eat an average of over 85 kilograms of wheat each year as pasta, bread and other bakery products.
Kohliâs career has led him to work with science luminaries such as M.S. Swaminathan, Glenn Anderson, Joe Rupert, Cal Qualset, Warren Kronstad, Frank Zillinsky, and Sanjaya Rajaram, among others.
âI met CIMMYT scientist and eventual Nobel Peace laureate, Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, in 1967,â Kohli said. âWe continued to meet every year on his visits to India and, when I was about to finish my Ph.D. in 1970, he invited me to join the team at CIMMYT.â
âIt has been a privilege and honor to have worked alongside many dedicated colleagues at CIMMYT and national programs who have contributed significantly to building research capacities and global food security over the last 50 years. This award is dedicated to all of them and the farmers who have been the primary source of inspiration for our workâ.
CIMMYT joins with members of the international development community to mourn the passing of renowned wheat geneticist and âFather of the Green Revolution in India,â Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan who died on September 27 at the age of 98.
Swaminathan devoted his life to sustainably feeding the world. His vision reshaped India almost overnight to a breadbasket for South Asia, through adoption of innovative high-yield wheat varieties and efficient farming techniques for Indian farmers. TIME magazine acclaimed him as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th Century, making him one of three from India to be named alongside Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.
M.S. Swaminathan. (Photo: MSSRF)
Swaminathan began his career in the world of academia. After earning his Ph.D. in plant genetics from Cambridge University in 1952, he moved to the United States to continue his research as a professor; however, his home country India eventually called him back home. With the crisis of a rapidly increasing population and low food production, Swaminathan returned to become a scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), where he later served as Director from 1961 to 1972.
It was during this time that he began his collaboration scientist Norman Borlaug, future Nobel Prize laureate and soon to be leader of CIMMYT wheat research. Swaminathan saw the value of the Mexican semi-dwarf wheat varieties, which were developed by Borlaug, for wheat production in India and requested that Borlaug send him a range of breeding materials containing the Norin dwarfing genes. The seeds arrived in 1963 along with Borlaug and the pair travelled the wheat-belt of India. Swaminathan arranged multi-location trials for the varieties and established an inter-disciplinary team to adapt the new varieties for Indian conditions.
Norman Borlaug with Swaminathan and Kohli, key promoters of modern varieties, in a seed production plot, India, 1964. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The next step was convincing local farmers to grow the varieties. By 1966, Swaminathan had established 2,000 model farms where farmers could see for themselves the benefits of the new wheats. Swaminathanâs final act in kickstarting the Green Revolution in India was to successfully lobby the Indian government to import 18,000 tons of the Mexican seed.
Just 4 years later Indiaâs wheat harvest had doubled to 20 million tons, ending the nationâs dependence on wheat imports and saving millions from starvation. Swaminathan continued to work with the Indian government to maintain food security and long-term self-sufficiency across the country and the impact of his work earned him the first World Food Prize in 1987.
Swaminathan held a number of leadership roles in world agricultural and conservation organizations over his lifetime, including the FAO council, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the World Wide Fund for Nature (India), and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He also served as Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), and Secretary to the Government of India at the Department of Agricultural Research and Education from 1972-79, as well as Director General of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines from 1982-88.
A humanitarian at heart
Not just a scientist, Swaminathan was an advocate and humanitarian. Shortly after winning the World Food Prize, he used the award funds to establish a research center, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), in Chennai, India. The MSSRF allowed him to work on his other passion, sustainable development, where he coordinated research and action on conservation of endangered species, protection of coastal ecosystems, precision farming, ecotechnology, community education and technical training, and programs for rural internet access.
M.S. Swaminathan won the World Food Prize in 1987. (Photo: World Food Prize)
He has received 84 honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the world and multiple awards including the Padma Shri (1967), Padma Bhushan (1972) and Padma Vibushan (1989) â the fourth, third and second highest civilian awards in India. He has also won numerous international awards including the 1994 UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize, the UNESCO Gandhi Gold Medal in 1999 and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award in 2000.
âHe was a real gentleman with a sharp memory,â recalls CIMMYT distinguished scientist Ravi Singh. âI always admired his capacity and his ability to link complicated topics into a nice synthesis.â
He was an inspiration to thousands and will be greatly missed for his scientific brilliance, his pioneering advocacy and humanitarianism, and his life mission to reduce world hunger through improved technology for citizens from all levels of society.
The CIMMYT family extends its deepest condolences to the Swaminathan family.
In plant breeding, efforts to increase the rate of genetic gains and enhance crop resilience to the effects of climate change are often limited by the inaccessibility and costs of phenotyping methods. The recent rapid development of sensors, image-processing technology and data analysis has provided new opportunities for multiple scales phenotyping methods and systems. Among these, satellite imagery may represent one of the best ways to remotely monitor trials and nurseries planted in multiple locations, while standardizing protocols and reducing costs.
This is because relevant data collected as part of crop phenotyping can be generated from satellite images. For instance, the sensors onboard the SkySat satellite constellation of Planet Labs have four spectral bandsâblue, green, red, and infraredâwhich can be used to calculate the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), which is a measure of vegetation and its greenness, and various canopy traits like ground cover, leaf area index and chlorosis. It can also be used to monitor plot establishment and phenological parameters.
High-resolution RGB orthomosaic of wheat experiments, assessing the effect of plot size and spacing in the spectral signature, collected from SkySat satellite images. (Photo: Gilberto Thompson)
The use of satellite-based phenotyping in breeding trials has typically been restricted by low resolution, high cost and long intervals between fly-overs. However, the advent of a new generation of high-resolution satellitesâsuch as the SkySat constellationânow offers multispectral images at a 0.5m resolution with close to daily acquisition attempts on any place on Earth. This could be a game changer in terms of the scale at which yield trials can be conducted, enabling more precise variety placement and thereby increasing genetic diversity across farmerâs fields and reducing the probability of disease epidemics. It could also revolutionize the capacity for research in realistic field conditions, since traits can be measured throughout the cycle in a highly standardized way, over multiple sites at low cost. For example, an image which covers 25 km2 can monitor an entire research station at a cost of about US$300.
To test the suitability of this technology, a team of researchers from CIMMYT set out to evaluate the reliability of SkySat NDVI estimates for maize and wheat breeding plots of different sizes and spacing, as well as testing its capacity for detecting seasonal changes and genotypic differences.
Both their initial findings, recently published in Frontiers in Plant Science, and more recently acquired data, show that the SkySat satellites can be used to monitor plots commonly used in wheat and maize nurseries. While wheat yield plots usually are 1.2m wide, maize plots tend to consist of at least two rows, resulting in a width of 1.5m. Plot length ranges from 2-4m. The authors also discuss on other factors to be considered when extracting and interpreting satellite data from yield trials, such as plot spacing.
Through the successful collection of six satellite images in Central Mexico during the rainy season and parallel monitoring of a maize trial in Zimbabwe, the researchers demonstrate the flexibility of this tool. Beyond the improvement of spatial resolution, the researchers suggest that the next challenge will be the development and fine-tuning of operational procedures that ensure high quality, standardized data, allowing them to harness the benefits of the modern breeding triangle, which calls for the integration of phenomics, enviromics and genomics, to accelerate breeding gains.
This research was supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, and the One CGIAR Initiatives on Digital Innovation, F2R-CWANA, and Accelerated Breeding.
The worldâs food systems are under threat by escalating armed conflicts, economic stagnation, the effects of the climate crisis and natural resource degradation. Against this backdrop, the next seven years are crucial in meeting the challenges of keeping the worldâs growing population fed and secure.
Recognizing that business as usual will not be sufficient, CIMMYT has embarked on a journey to proactively face the new challenges of the 21st century. This novel approach to agrifood systems is the core of CIMMYTâs 2030 Strategy, which has the potential to shape the future of agriculture.
Ethiopian Seed Enterprise maize crop for multiplying seedlings of DT maize. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
âWe understand that the challenges facing food security are complex, varied and rapidly changing. For instance, the effects of COVID-19 and Ukraine-Russia conflict on food systems are still being felt today. With that in mind, we set out to develop a strategy that is both robust and nimble. The best way to create a sustainable and inclusive strategy was to engage directly with CIMMYT scientists and staff, the people on the front lines of this effort to deliver food and nutrition security to the world,â said CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts.
Looking back to move forward
The first step in crafting the 2030 Strategy was looking at where does CIMMYT want the world to be in 2100. In answering this question, CIMMYT crafted a long-term vision of how it wants to engage in a changing world and achieve the transformation to a food and nutrition secure world within planetary boundaries. CIMMYT has integrated the use of foresight and specifically a set of 2030 Food and Agriculture scenarios to explore potential changes in intervention areas over the strategic period and help prepare engagements in different contexts across the globe. These scenarios are a decision-making tool that has underpinned the development of the strategy to ensure that it is context-driven and focused on the most pressing challenges facing the agrifood systems in which CIMMYT operates.
From the future CIMMYT looks back at its history and examines how its core business has evolved over the years to proactively meet ever-changing needs across the world.
At each stage of CIMMYTâs evolution, it has taken its strengths and the skills it has built and added to its experience, and expanded on what it delivers while maintaining the core strengths.
Norman Borlaug teaching trainees. (Photo: CIMMYT)
In CIMMYTâs earliest days, the mission was developing and improving germplasm and agronomic practices, then CIMMYT began working more closely with farmers (1980s), broadened emphasis in genetic improvements (2000), embarked on sustainable multidisciplinary projects (2010s), and most recently, advancing technologies in participatory innovation systems (2015-2022). All leading to the mission codified in the 2030 Strategy: accelerating food systems transformation by using the power of collective action.
Now, in 2023, CIMMYTâs progress is being shaped by the CGIAR mission statement: âTo deliver science and innovation that advance the transformation of food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis.â
Building the Strategy
To define the 2030 Strategy, CIMMYT responded to the following core questions:
What does success look like?
Where can CIMMYT deliver the most value?
How can CIMMYT deliver value for communities?
âAs an organization, we have concentrated on strategies that foster collaboration and adapt them for a non-profit international organization whose vision is not to grow as an institution but to deliver greater value for the communities they serve, to innovate for the end users of their products and to ensure a better future for our global community,â said Govaerts.
The tools used to develop the elements of this strategic plan leveraged the framework provided in the CGIAR Research and Innovation Strategy to guide the process. Staff from across the Center engaged in a consultative process to develop the objectives for following strategic components: Excellence in Science and Innovation, Excellence in Operations, Talent Management, Resource Mobilization, Partnership, and Influence.
Developing the Excellence in Science and Innovation component serves as an example of this collaborative, bottom-up approach. Planning was led by the Emerging Thought Leaders Group, made up of 24 early and mid-career scientists across the breadth of CIMMYTâs global and program portfolio. The group worked collaboratively with CIMMYT researchers and staff to first delineate the challenges facing agri-food systems and then workshopped solutions which now serve as the foundation of the 2030 Strategy.
Workshop participants study seed samples in CIMMYT’s Seed Health Laboratory. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
“Each component complements the others,â said Govaerts. âThis is our answer to the core questions. Only by working collectively can we initiate sustainable solutions that reach everyone.â
Together, the components create a network to support CIMMYTâs three pillars: Discovery (research and innovation), SystemDev (working collaboratively to innovate foundational systems), and Inc. (incubating startups and new ways of doing business in the agri-food system space).
CIMMYT is leading the way in shaping a sustainable and prosperous agricultural landscape
The goal to facilitate food security where sustainable agriculture is part of the solution to the climate crisis and agriculture provides an avenue to build household resilience and enables communities to pull themselves out of poverty requires the strategic use of resources. CIMMYTâs 2030 Strategy, built from the bottom up on a foundation over 50 yearsâ experience and the expertise of scientists, staff, and farmers maximizes resources, enhances dynamic partnerships, and both retains and recruits a world-class staff in a world of growing challenges to food security.
The jury of international scientist experts evaluated twenty-three research projects spanning nine countries on four continents for the 2023 Composite Flour Innovation Award. Sidhar Bhavani, senior scientist, head of Rust Pathology and Molecular Genetics at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) enriched the jury of the Awards, aimed to highlight the scientific work around the production and processing of non-wheat flours and their blends with wheat flour.
Brazil is moving towards self-sufficiency, reducing the need for imports and increasing its participation in the international wheat market. The development of adapted wheat varieties with stable yields disease resistance, and wheat strains from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) enabled the consolidation and expansion of cereal crops in the country.
Kansas is experiencing a record-breaking year for hot, dry, windy (HDW) â the nationâs largest winter wheat producer â hit worse than any other state. CIMMYT researchers act to avert food insecurity as temperatures climb, atmospheric pressure increases â generating faster and longer gusts of wind and unpredictable weather conditions.
Wheat is critical to millions of households in Pakistan as it serves a dual role as a foundational part of nutritional security and as an important part of the countryâs economy. Pakistanâs goal to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production is more attainable with the release of 31 wheat varieties since 2021.
These new seeds will help the countryâs 9 million hectares of cultivated wheat fields become more productive, climate resilient, and disease resistantâa welcome development in a region where climate change scenarios threaten sustained wheat production.
The varieties, a selection of 30 bread wheat and 1 durum wheat, 26 of which developed from wheat germplasm provided by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) were selected after rigorous testing of international nurseries and field trials by partners across Pakistan. During this period, three bread wheat varieties were also developed from local breeding programs and two varieties (one each of durum and bread wheat) were also developed from the germplasm provided by the ICARDA. These efforts are moving Pakistan closer to its goal of improving food and nutrition security through wheat production, as outlined in the Pakistan Vision 2025 and Vision for Agriculture 2030.
Harvesting wheat in Tandojam, Pakistan (Photo: CIMMYT)
Over multiple years and locations, the new varieties have exhibited a yield potential of 5-20% higher than current popular varieties for their respective regions and also feature excellent grain quality and attainable yields of over seven tons per hectare.
The new crop of varieties exhibit impressive resistance to leaf and yellow rusts, compatibility with wheat-rice and wheat-cotton farming systems, and resilience to stressors such as drought and heat.
Battling malnutrition
Malnutrition is rampant in Pakistan and the release of biofortified wheat varieties with higher zinc content will help mitigate its deleterious effects, especially among children and women. Akbar-2019, a biofortified variety released in 2019, is now cultivated on nearly 3.25 million hectares. Farmers like Akbar-2019 because of its 8-10% higher yields, rust resistance, and consumers report its good chapati (an unleavened flatbread) quality.
âIt is gratifying seeing these new varieties resulting from collaborative projects between Pakistani wheat breeding programs and CIMMYT along with funding support from various donors (USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, HarvestPlus, and FCDO) and the government of Pakistan,â said Ravi Singh, wheat expert and senior advisor.
Closing the yield gap between research fields and smallholder fields
Releasing a new variety is only the first step in changing the course of Pakistanâs wheat crop. The next step is delivering these new, quality seeds to markets quickly so farmers can realize the benefits as soon as possible.
Increasing evidence suggests the public sector cannot disseminate enough seeds alone; new policies must create an attractive environment for private sector partners and entrepreneurs.
Field monitoring wheat fields (Photo: CIMMYT)
âPakistan has developed a fast-track seed multiplication program which engages both public and private sectors so the new varieties can be provided to seed companies for multiplication and provided to farmers in the shortest time,â said Javed Ahmad, Wheat Research Institute chief scientist.
Strengthening and diversifying seed production of newly released varieties can be done by decentralizing seed marketing and distribution systems and engaging both public and private sector actors. Marketing and training efforts need to be improved for women, who are mostly responsible for household level seed production and seed care.
A concerted effort to disseminate the improved seed is required, along with implementing conservation agriculture based sustainable intensification, to help Pakistanâs journey to self-sufficiency in wheat production.
Climate change will lower global wheat production with the most negative impacts occurring in Africa and South Asia, reveals a new study released by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Honoring a legacy of innovative development in Zambia and looking forward to meeting the nationâs goals for food security, Bram Govaerts, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), along with CGIAR Board Chair Lindiwe Sibanda, visited facilities and met with southern Africa collaborators of the Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub on June 2 and 3, 2023.
Bram Govaerts visited field experiments with the head of science at Zamseed (Photo: Katebe Mapipo/CIMMYT)
âCIMMYTâs work in Zambia and the region is geared to help national governments build resilience to climate change, diversify maize-based farming systems and improve productivity and production to address reduce hunger and poverty,â said Govaerts.
Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub aims to provide critical support to over 3 million farming households in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia via targeted interventions for demand driven seed scaling, improved soil health and fertilizer use efficiency, and rapid delivery of critical agricultural advisory services deep into rural communities.
CIMMYT research and innovation supports Zambiaâs medium-term goal of âSocio-Economic Transformation for Improved Livelihoodsâ and its 2030 Vision of becoming âA Prosperous Middle-Income Nation by 2030.â
Govaerts and Sibanda toured Afriseedâs factory in Lusaka and its wheat field trials in Ngwerere. They also attended a field demonstration of Purdue Improved Crop Storage bags in the nearby district of Chongwe organized by the Catholic Relief Services, a local partner promoting low-cost post-harvest technologies for small-scale farmers in Zambia.
The delegation visited private partner Zamseed, a company commercializing and releasing CIMMYT-bred, Fall Armyworm tolerant maize seeds.
Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub has enabled the release of nearly 10,000 metric tons of certified maize and legume seed, which have been harvested by Zambian seed companies and community-based seed organizations, directly benefiting a million semi-subsistence farmers.
Govaerts also hailed Zambiaâs commitment to creating a transparent seed system. âThanks to this conducive policy environment, Zambia is a major hub in sub-Saharan Africa for hybrid maize seed production and export in Africa.â
Kevin Kabunda opened a partner meeting in which Bram Govaerts met AID-I farmers and partners from seed companies, educational institutions, CGIAR centers, and micro-finance and tech companies. (Photo: Katebe Mapipo/CIMMYT)
Besides Southern Africa AID-I Rapid Delivery Hub, CIMMYT and the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute have been collaborating for over two decades along with public and private partners in Zambia through different investments designed to create sustainable interventions that strengthen food systems and directly reach small-scale farmers.
