CIMMYT training courses play a critical role in helping international researchers meet national food security and resource conservation goals. By sharing knowledge to build communities of agricultural knowledge in less developed countries, CIMMYT empowers researchers to aid farmers. In turn, these farmers help ensure sustainable food security. In contrast to formal academic training in plant breeding and agronomy, CIMMYT training activities are hands-on and highly specialized. Trainees from Africa, Asia and Latin America benefit from the data assembled and handled in a global research program. Alumni of CIMMYT courses often become a significant force for agricultural change in their countries.
AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT seed systems lead, explains the stages of hybrid seed production to postgraduate students at a field trip in Rupandehi, Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Recently, a group of 40 postgraduate students from Nepal’s Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU) were able to learn first-hand about hybrid maize seed production in a field site managed by a partner seed company of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Bringing in a whole new and rare experience altogether, the students got a glimpse of the progress and challenges of the seed industry as of today.
The field trip followed the development of a revised curriculum for AFU’s Seed Science and Technology program, initiated in November 2019, which stresses the importance of creating linkages between university students and private seed companies. Through the USAID-supported Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, CIMMYT is working towards enhancing partnerships between agricultural universities and the seed industry, and revisiting the curriculum has been the first stepping stone.
In collaboration with AFU and Lumbini Seed Company, CIMMYT organized an off-campus participatory learning experience to enrich students’ understanding of hybrid seed production initiatives by the private sector and the opportunities that lie in the various business models of Nepalese seed companies. The initiative is part of a concerted effort by CIMMYT and its partners to alleviate the critical limitations of skilled manpower in the industry.
Subash Raj Upadhyaya, managing director of Lumbini Seed Company, shares his experience in hybrid seed production during the field visit. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
A deep dive into hybrid seed
The program began with an on-site briefing on the recent developments of hybrid seed production by the private sector.
“Nowadays, farmers are increasingly demanding hybrid seeds over open-pollinated varieties due to their higher yields,” explained Subash Raj Upadhyaya, Managing Director of Lumbini Seed Company. This seed demand is almost entirely met via imports.
Since 2018, the company has been successful in producing and marketing hybrid maize seed such as Rampur Hybrid-10, a variety originally sourced from CIMMYT and released in Nepal by the National Maize Research Program with technical and financial support from the NSAF project. Going from one hectare to 25 hectares of hybrid maize seed production in the course of three years, Lumbini Seed Company has demonstrated the capability of local private seed companies building up the country’s capacity in this area.
“The collaboration between public and private seed stakeholders is helping Nepal to realize hybrid seed self-reliance in the foreseeable future,” explained AbduRahman Beshir, seed systems lead for the NSAF project at CIMMYT. “What is needed is competitive products augmented by quality seed production and effective marketing strategies.”
Beshir described the important stages of seed production and the components of robust seed systems, while Hari Kumar Shrestha, a seed systems officer at CIMMYT, detailed the requirements for quality seed production and certification of hybrid seeds as per government guidelines in Nepal. Participating students were then able to practice detasseling and roughing off-type plants from a single row in a hybrid maize production field, under the guidance and supervision of the team from CIMMYT and the seed company.
This was followed by an interactive discussion with representatives from Lumbini about their activities, developments and limitations, and a tour of the company’s seed processing, laboratory and storage for the group to observe the techniques used to produce, maintain and market quality seeds.
Postgraduate students observe the tassels of maize plants in Rupandehi, Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
A nourishing experience
Applying the theoretical learnings of plant breeding and agronomy courses in a practical setting was an eye-opener for the postgraduates.
Student Sadhana Poudyal shared how the event had boosted her confidence in performing critical activities such as identifying the key features of pollen and seed parents. Now majoring in Seed Science and Technology, Poudyal previously worked with the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) and was granted a scholarship by CIMMYT, through the NSAF project, to begin a postgraduate program in 2019. “I was fascinated to learn about the remarkable progress made in hybrid seed production and I feel motivated to work in this sector in the future,” she said. Poudyal plans to use these learnings during her research into baby corn at NARC after completing her studies.
“I have always been keen on learning plant genetics and breeding as I foresee a good scope in this area,” said Lokendra Singh, another student at AFU. “This trip was definitely insightful, and I thoroughly enjoyed receiving a practical lesson on the advantages and limitations of the various types of hybrids including single and three-way cross hybrids. Today’s experience has doubled my enthusiasm to work as a plant breeder after my graduation.”
It is critical to engage students on the recent advances in seed science so that they are encouraged to pursue a career in agricultural research in Nepal. “One of the major challenges is recruiting a workforce with critical skills and knowledge in the local seed industry since many students go abroad after they graduate,” said Upadhyaya. “We look forward to partnering with agricultural universities for many similar on-site learnings.”
Educational experiences in the field, such as this, provide a better picture of the recent advancements and limitations in the seed sector which are usually not reflected in the textbooks. Creating a larger pool of skillful human resources, particularly in hybrid product development, improved seed production technologies and quality seed production, will not only help strengthen the local seed industry but also reduce the country’s dependency on imports in the coming years.
It was clear to Fatima Camarillo Castillo from a young age that her future was in agriculture. She grew up on a farm in a small village in Zacatecas, Mexico, and recalls working in the fields alongside her father and siblings, helping with the harvests and milking the cows. And every year, her family ran into the same issue with their crops: droughts.
“Sometimes the harvest was okay, but sometimes we didn’t have any harvest at all,” says Camarillo. “For us that meant that, if we didn’t have enough harvest, then for the whole year my mother and father struggled to send us to school.”
But they did send her to school, and instead of escaping the persistent challenges that agriculture had presented her family in her young life, she was determined to solve them. “After elementary school we had to leave the farm to continue our education,” she explains. “I knew about all the challenges that small farmers face and I wanted to have an impact on them.”
To this day, Camarillo believes in the power of education. Her schooling took her all the way to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), where she is now not only a researcher, but an educator herself. After her extensive study of plant breeding, genetics and wheat physiology, Camarillo gained a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a PhD from Texas A+M University.
She was a part of CIMMYT’s fellowship program while pursuing her doctorate, and she joined the organization’s wheat breeding team shortly afterward. Camarillo now splits her time between wheat research and organizing the training activities for CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program (GWP) wheat improvement course.
Fatima Camarillo analyzes durum wheat in the field at CIMMYT’s experimental research station in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A special legacy
CIMMYT’s wheat improvement course is an internationally recognized program where scientists from national agricultural research programs (NARS) from around the world travel to CIMMYT Headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico, and then to Ciudad Obregón, for a 16-week training. Participants observe an entire breeding cycle and learn about the latest technologies and systems for breeding.
“A crucial component of having an impact on farmers is establishing good relationships with national programs, where all the germplasm that CIMMYT develops is going to go,” says Camarillo. “But at the same time, these partners need training. They need to know what is behind these varieties and the process for developing them, and we try to keep them updated with the vision, the current technologies and the breeding pipeline.”
The organization’s university-focused training programs are also special to Camarillo for many reasons, having participated in one of them herself. In fact, her first ever exposure to CIMMYT was through the annual Open Doors day which she attended during her first year of university, watching the breeders and scientists that would eventually become her colleagues give talks on germplasm development and distribution.
The courses also give students a chance to see all how their theoretical education can be applied in the real world. “When you are in graduate school you care a lot about data analysis and the most recent molecular tools,” says Camarillo. “But there is something else out there, the real problems outside. By taking the breeding program course you understand these challenges and situations.”
Camarillo remembers being struck by the thought that something that happens in a research station in Mexico can have an impact on the whole world. “CIMMYT cares about how other countries will adopt new varieties, it’s not just about developing germplasm for the sake of it,” she explains. “We’re interested in how new varieties are going to reach the farmers who need them, and for that, training is essential.”
“At the end of the day, these researchers are the ones who will help us evaluate germplasm. If they’re well trained, the efficiency of the whole process will increase.”
Fatima Camarillo (standing, third from the right) in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, with participants on the GWP’s 2019 training program. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Keeping an eye on the breeding pipeline
With one foot in education and the other in research, Camarillo has a unique perspective on CIMMYT’s strategy for bringing tools and findings out of the lab, and towards the next step in the impact pathway. A key part of her work involves helping to research physiological traits by developing new tools to increase phenotyping efficiency in the breeding pipeline.
In particular, she is working on a project to develop high-throughput phenotyping tools, which use hyperspectral sensors and cameras to measure several traits in plants. This can help reflect how the plant is responding to different stresses internally, and helps physiologists and breeders understand how the plant behaves within a specific environment, and then quickly integrate these traits into the breeding process.
“Overall it increases the efficiency of selection, so farmers will have better materials, better germplasm, and more reliable yield across environments in a shorter period of time,” says Camarillo.
Sharing the recipe for success
Camarillo’s role in both breeding and training speaks to CIMMYT’s historic and proven strategy of working with national programs to effectively deliver improved seeds to the farmers who need them. In addition to developing friendships with trainees from around the world, she is helping CIMMYT to expand its global network of research and agriculture professionals.
As a product and purveyor of a great agricultural education, Camarillo is dedicated to it passing on. “I think we have to invest in education,” she says. “It is the only path to solve the current problems we face, not only in agriculture, but in every single discipline.”
“If we don’t invest and take the time for education, our future is very uncertain.”
Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) and its counterpart in the United States reached an agreement to promote knowledge sharing and scientific collaboration on agriculture-related issues.
This tribute to the life and work of Sanjaya Rajaram, one of Norman Borlaug’s most impactful collaborators, also flags CIMMYT’s contribution to improving livelihoods and fostering more productive sustainable maize and wheat farming in low- and middle-income countries.
Last month, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) platform handed over digitization equipment to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) as part of ongoing efforts to modernize the public agency’s crop breeding programs. The handover of the equipment, valued at roughly $85,000, took place at KALRO headquarters in Nairobi on March 8, 2021, with representatives from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), EiB and KALRO in attendance.
KALRO received 23 units of equipment including seed counters, label printers, handheld data collectors, tablets and package printers. These will help the organization speed up and enhance the accuracy of various breeding processes, including seed preparation, data collection and data analysis. They will also support inventory management within KALRO’s maize, wheat, rice, sorghum, bean, soybean and potato breeding programs at six of its research centers in Kenya.
(L-R) CIMMYT Regional Representative for Africa and Kenya Country Representatives Moses Siambi, CGIAR EiB NARS Coordinator Biswanath Das, KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger and KALRO Deputy Director General for Crops Felister Makini at the digitization equipment handover event in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Dispensing with laborious systems
A lack of digitization equipment hampers the research efforts of many national agricultural research systems (NARS) across Africa. This adverse situation is compounded by unreliable institutional memory, which constrains NARS efforts to breed an assortment of crop varieties efficiently.
“Currently, KALRO uses very laborious systems including manual layouts and collection, followed by manual data entry into computers. This old age process is prone to data entry errors and delays in analysis, publication and reporting,” says KALRO Director General Eliud Kireger.
“With the equipment we are receiving, information and data can be recalled by a click of a button. The equipment will also significantly reduce research costs related to labor, thus freeing our scientists to focus on core research activities.”
The equipment will also support KALRO’s ongoing efforts to digitize its historical data, especially for the maize and wheat programs using the Breeding Management System (BMS). So far, 20 years of maize historical data has been uploaded onto the BMS platform for ease of access.
Prepped for emerging challenges
The CGIAR EiB platform was established in 2017 to help modernize public breeding programs in the CGIAR and NARS to increase their rates of genetic gain. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in challenges including climate change, population growth, rapid urbanization, changing dietary inclinations, transboundary movement of pests and diseases. These have exerted an enormous strain on food production systems and elicited the urgency to prioritize the adoption of new plant breeding techniques and technologies to address current and emerging threats. This calls for a holistic approach to tackle the issues including better agronomy and policy, according to EiB NARS Coordinator Biswanath Das.
“Modernizing our plant breeding programs to develop new, climate smart, market driven varieties will be at the heart of the solution,” says Das. “We must ensure that public plant breeding programs are not left behind because for many crops in Africa, there is limited private sector interest. Public breeding programs must shoulder the responsibility for ensuring the development and adoption of the next generation of crop varieties.”
CGIAR EiB NARS Coordinator Biswanath Das shares remarks at the digitization handover event in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Already, KALRO breeding programs, in collaboration with international CGIAR centers, have played a leading role in supporting farmers in sub–Saharan Africa to address many emerging plant threats such as wheat rust (UG99), maize lethal necrosis (MLN) and fall armyworm.
As part of its commitment to supporting NARS partners, EiB provided over 10 million Kenyan shillings ($92,000) worth of material and in-kind support to various KALRO breeding operations in 2020. This included genotyping support for maize and wheat, support to adopt the BMS digital data management system, technical support and training of KALRO breeders. Much of the digitization work is driven by EiB’s Operations and Phenoytyping module, led by Gustavo Teixeira. “We’ll continue to consider a whole range of devices and solutions,” says Teixeira. “It’s a part of our culture of continuous improvement, so breeding programs can focus on what really adds value to their clients.”
EiB will continue to support NARS across Africa and beyond to digitize their operations, and is working with partners to secure more equipment, training and resources. With this digitization project, EiB has targeted 24 breeding programs in 14 African countries. These include programs run by AfricaRice, CIMMYT, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
“We want to do more to support centers to improve their operations so they can achieve the most effective and cost efficient phenotypic processes — agronomic practices, seed processing and other areas,” explains Teixeira. “We aim to expand to more programs and partners.”
During the presentation of Mexico’s 2021 Agri-Food Expectations, Bram Govaerts, Director General of CIMMYT, flagged a number of initiatives aimed at supporting the country’s food self-sufficiency and safeguarding the cultural heritage of its agricultural sector.
In Ethiopia, farming systems rely heavily on animal and human power, reducing productivity and efficiency. In recent years, the government and development partners have made significant efforts to modernize agriculture.
In 2013, CIMMYT introduced one-axel multipurpose tractors in various districts of Amhara, Oromia, South and Tigray regions. This new technology has helped to improve farmers’ lives and phase out outdated farming practices. Farmers have reduced drudgery, improved productivity and gained higher profits. This short video shows the impacts the two-wheel tractor brough to smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.
Financial support for this initiative came from the German development agency GIZ, USAID and the Australian government.
Wheat training activities at Toluca station circa 1980. (Photo: CIMMYT)
In 1966, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) hosted a training event that was unlike any class the students had attended before. The students came from all over the world, the classroom moved between different environments in Mexico, and their teacher was Norman Borlaug. Over the course of 6 months, national agricultural partners, graduate students, and future research leaders from all over the world studied under Borlaug, one of the most famous and impactful agronomists in history.
Since its inception in 1966, the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program (GWP) annual training has hosted more than 1700 scientists from 99 countries. The aim of this program is to improve the breeding skills and research capacity of national partners, research staff and graduate students from countries where wheat is a major staple food crop. Along the way, the researchers expand their professional networks and share experiences in agronomy from around the world.
The CIMMYT GWP training program staff recently caught up with some graduates from the course to find out what their biggest takeaways were from the experience.
Countries of origin of the participants of the CIMMYT Wheat training program from 2013 to 2021 supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat. In this period, 107 female and 224 male scientists have attended this program in Mexico. (Graphic: CIMMYT)
Meet the students
Muhammad Ishaq, a senior research officer working in wheat breeding at the Barani Agricultural Research Station (BARS) in Pakistan participated in the training program in 2019. The most important lesson he brought home was that the success of a wheat breeding program depends on problem-based breeding for target environments. He will always remember the interactions with CIMMYT scientists during his stay in Mexico. “This is a clear example of working together in partnership for global impact,” said Ishaq.
Lezaan Hess, a young academic and plant breeder at Stellenbosch University in South Africa participated in the program in 2019. Lezaan emphasizes the importance of this training in starting her professional career and says she will always remember the hard work and dedication of the CIMMYT wheat breeding teams. “It will keep inspiring me to work hard, stay committed and dedicated, and to collaborate to achieve greater success in the fight against world hunger,” said Hess.
Leezan Hess (left) and Muhammad Ishaq (right) with wheat breeder Julio Huerta Espino during plant selection at the CIMMYT experimental station in Obregon. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Vijay Dalvi, a young professional at DCM Shriram LtD in India, attended the training program in 2013. His biggest takeaway from the training period was improving his knowledge on selecting individual plants in early generations, rust scoring and selecting grains. “The training not only helped us understand wheat breeding, but also showed us how to work in a team,” he said. “I am still replicating CIMMYT’s way of work at my current organization, and am sharing data from CIMMYT trials to discuss ideas.”
Saima Mir, a 2017 participant, currently works as a senior scientist with the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture (NIA) in Pakistan, where two new CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties with tolerance to water-stressed environments were released in 2020. Mir was very enthusiastic about her experience in the training program.
“I wish I would have received this training at the beginning of my research career,” she explained. “[It] was a combo of conventional and highly advanced breeding techniques, lectures and hands-on practice in the laboratories, green houses and in the field.”
Saima Mir poses next to a statue of Norman Borlaug at CIMMYT HQ in Mexico. (Photo: Saima Mir)
Dario Novoselovic, who is now a senior researcher at the Agricultural Institute Osijek in Croatia, attended the wheat training course in 2000. Novoselovic said he particularly enjoyed the immersive nature of the training, saying that it paved the way for his future professional career. “We were among the lucky generations [with] the opportunity to interact with and enjoy the lectures from Dr. Borlaug, you can imagine the kind of feeling and spirit [we had] after his lectures,” he said.
Sundas Waqar, who works as a scientific officer for the National Agriculture Research Centre in Islamabad, Pakistan, recalls the technical training in the CIMMYT program. “The training provided me the opportunity to connect with the world. I got promoted to my current position after completing training at CIMMYT.”
Naresh Kumar, a senior wheat breeding scientist in the Genetics Division at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR) in New Delhi, India, took the course in 2019. “I am utilizing all the skills in my research and management activities. Collaboration with CIMMYT scientists is now quite direct and friendly,” he explained. “A key lesson was sharing knowledge and experience with partners across the world.”
A different experience for 2021
This year, CIMMYT’s signature training program looks quite different as both students and trainers navigate challenging travel and safety restrictions due to the pandemic. Since on-site training this year was not possible, GWP decided to continue these capacity building activities as many other schools have: virtually. The 2021 Basic Wheat Improvement Course went online on January 18, and — echoing the spirit of its far-reaching legacy — 68 participants from 21 different countries will still receive training this year.
Esther Wangari Mwangi, a research officer working with the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), participates in the the 2021 virtual training. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Through the Sustainable Wheat and Sustainable Maize projects, Bimbo strives to ensure the sustainability of Mexico’s agricultural sector, benefitting over 940 smallholder farmers through yield enhancement and cost reduction strategies.
The overall objective of the 5-year EU-funded DeSIRA action, led by the International Potato Center (CIP), is to improve climate change adaptation of agricultural and food systems in Malawi through research and uptake of integrated technological innovations.
CIMMYT’s role is focused on the following project outputs:
Identify and develop integrated technology options that effectively provide management options to contribute to reducing risks and increasing resilience and productivity of the smallholder farmers’ agrifood systems in Malawi. Towards this objective, CIMMYT will evaluate drought-tolerant and nutritious maize varieties under conservation agriculture and conventional practices, and assess the overall productivity gains from agronomic and germplasm improvements versus current farming practices.
Develop, test and promote robust integrated pest and disease management strategies to predict, monitor and control existing and emerging biotic threats to agriculture while minimizing risks to farmers’ health and damage to the environment. Towards this objective, CIMMYT will evaluate the effect of striga on maize performance under conservation agriculture and conventional practices; evaluate farmer methods and other alternatives to chemical sprays for the control of fall armyworm; and study the effect of time of planting for controlling fall armyworm.
Representing CIMMYT, Kinde Tesfaye (on the left) took part in the live radio programs. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The continuing increase in the number of farming families has led to a growing emphasis on approaches on how to reach more people at a time. Among others, individual, group and mass-media approaches to agricultural extension and advisory services have been used concurrently.
This year, the global COVID-19 pandemic presented yet another challenge to the agriculture sector due to travel restrictions and limited face-to-face interactions. This has obstructed capacity building for farmers as well as development agents to deliver seasonal and intra-seasonal agroclimate advisories for farmers to support farm decisions.
Realizing the importance of mass media in extension, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)-EA used live show radio program on Sunday mornings to provide climate advisories on the 2020 Kiremt (main cropping) season to farmers and extension workers on a two-weekly basis between June and November. The live show also allows listeners to call in and ask questions and provide feedback. Besides the climate agro-advisories, COVID-19 alerts and precautionary measures were provided to the radio audience.
Extremely low climate induced risk perception
CIMMYT-CASCAID II project baseline assessment indicates that the rural communities in the project intervention areas have an extremely low climate induced risk perception and are also quite resistant to change. The areas are also highly prone to recurring droughts. Erratic rainfall distribution and dry spells are common. Large areas of barren and uncultivable land, water shortage, poor soil quality, soil erosion due to high run off rate are adversely affecting the farming systems. Research shows that simple adaptation actions such as watershed management, changing planting dates and crop varieties could greatly reduce the climate variability and change impacts. However, communities being poorly linked to scientists and policy makers lack information about climate change adaptation options and government schemes related to the same. There are also challenges of communicating scientific research in simplified ways that are appropriate to local stakeholder needs.
In recent years, the use of improved technologies has been increasing due to the progressive national agricultural development policy and strategy that is in place coupled with advisories provided to help farmers to make timely and appropriate farm level decisions and practices.
Agroclimate advisory – the fourth production factor
The provision of agroclimate advisory is considered as the fourth production factor after labor, land, and capital and critical to the agricultural sector as climate and its associated adverse effects can negatively affect agricultural activities and productivities. Thus, ensuring the accessibility of relevant time sensitive forecast based advisory information to farming communities helps improve productivity and yields higher returns.
The advice will also assist smallholder farmers to manage climate risks through informed decisions such as identifying optimum planting time/sowing windows, planting density at the start of the rainy season, while at the same time managing fertilizer application. Moreover, it also benefits farmer decisions and practices on soil water, weeds, diseases, and pest management throughout the growing season. By monitoring weather and crop growth during the season, the same forecast information can assist in predicting crop yields well in advance of crop maturity and to allow farmers to decide whether to sell the product immediately after harvest or store it until it commands better prices later in the year.
Radio for disseminating agroclimate information
In Ethiopia, the use of ICT for the accumulation and dissemination of agroclimate information and other agricultural updates is still low. Radio transmission covers a large percentage of the country with most of the households own a radio. This makes the use of radio programs one of the most cost-effective channels for conveying weather forecast information and agricultural knowledge to rural communities which ultimately facilitate informed decision-making and adoption of new technologies and practices.
In collaboration with its partners, the CIMMYT-CASCADE II project through Fana FM radio implemented a six-month (June-November 2020) live radio program providing seasonal advisories at the start of the main season in June using seasonal forecast from the National Meteorology Agency which was downscaled to Woreda/Kebele level by EIAR, CCAFS-EA and CIMMYT. This was followed by a biweekly or monthly Wereda specific agro-climate advisories which focus on fertilizer application, weeding, crop protection, soil and water management and climate extremes such as flood and droughts.
The program also included experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, EIAR, and CGIAR Centers to provide professional explanations and updates from the perspective of in situational readiness to support issues coming from the radio audience. The program created an opportunity for the federal government to prepare in time on some activities like importing agricultural inputs such as pesticides and fungicides to control the outbreak of pests and diseases (e.g., desert locust infestation and wheat rust outbreak). The platform also provided an opportunity to reach to millions of farmers to convey COVID-19 prevention messages such as physical distancing, use of masks, handwashing and other precautions that need to be taken while working in groups.
The state of Odisha, in the east of India, ranks sixth in rice production in the country. Agriculture in Odisha’s tribal-dominated plateau region, however, is characterized by depleted soils along with low and variable rice yields. During the monsoon season, more than 60,000 hectares of land are left fallow, due to lack of knowledge and to farmers’ low risk tolerance.
In districts like Mayurbhanj, over 50% of the population belongs to tribal groups. Women there are mostly engaged in traditional roles: being at home looking after family, farm and livestock while their men are away as migrant laborers or with menial jobs. Women working on farming used to be considered daily wage laborers, as if they were only supporting their husband or family who were officially the farmers.
The last few years, with the introduction of maize cultivation and its promotion predominantly for women farmers, a significant change in the perception of women’s role is unfolding in the region.
In 2013, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) began working in the plateau region through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), improving farming systems for higher yields and providing sustainable livelihood options for tribal farmers. Since then, farmers in the region have achieved considerable production of maize in the monsoon season — and women have particularly led this transformation.
Farmers from this region — 28% of which were women — converted 5,400 hectares of fallow lands into successful maize cultivation areas. Not only has this new opportunity helped improve family income, but also women’s identity as resilient and enterprising farmers.
This impact was possible through the applied research efforts of the CSISA project along with partners like Odisha’s State Department of Agriculture, the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) and two federations of women’s self-help groups supported by PRADAN.
On International Women’s Day, we share the story of these successful farmers who have made maize cultivation a part of their livelihoods and a tool for socioeconomic development.
Transforming fallow lands into golden maize fields
Women working in the fields used to be considered daily wage laborers, but today they are acknowledged as enterprising farmers who transformed fallow lands into golden maize fields.
In the season 2019/2020 alone, in all four districts where CSISA is actively engaged — Bolangir, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Nuapada — improved maize cultivation was adopted by 7,600 farmers — 28% of which were women — in 5,400 hectares of fallow land, resulting in considerable production of quality maize in the region. Since many of the women in the districts are smallholder farmers or without agriculture land, farming also happens on leased land through self-help groups.
Learning and implementing best maize cultivation practices
CSISA supports the farmers all the way from sowing to crop harvesting, ensuring the produce is shiny and golden. Through self-help groups, farmers have access to fertilizers and machines to weed and earth-up their fields. Researchers have introduced seed cum fertilizer drills for maize sowing, which make fertilizer placement more uniform and crop establishment easier, saving time and helping these women manage both household responsibilities and the farm.
Quality knowledge for quality grain
To strengthen the capacity of farmers, the project team trains them continuously on grain quality parameters like moisture level, foreign matters, infestation rate. Most of the participants are farmers from women collectives and self-help groups. They have gradually advanced in their knowledge journey, going from general awareness to subject-specific training.
Marketing gurus
Even though many large poultry feed mills operate in Odisha, most of their maize comes from outside the state. Women self-help groups are bridging that gap. In collaboration with the State Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, the CSISA project has cultivated a network of market actors including producers, providers of agricultural inputs and development partners. Market access to these value chains will help women, all the way from planting to produce marketing.
Extending the collaboration, in the four districts of Odisha and beyond
A considerable increase in maize production has improved incomes for families across the regions, as well as their food security. It has also created opportunities for women to raise their social and economic standing.
There are opportunities for CSISA and its partners to continue collaborating in the project region and beyond. CIMMYT has worked with Odisha’s State Department of Agriculture, the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), women’s self-help groups, farmers’ producer groups, private seed companies and many other collectives.
Weathering the crisis
Women have shouldered the responsibility and led their families out of the COVID-19 crisis. When men were left jobless and stranded as migrant workers during lockdown, many women associated with the CSISA project began generating income by selling green corn. This small income helped ensure food to feed their families and wellbeing in this critical period.
The road ahead
With the purpose of advocating this positive transformation in similar conditions, CSISA is committed to expand maize intensification in the plateau region of Odisha and engaging more farmers. Ongoing research and studies are focusing on improving the outreach, to help women increase their maize area and productivity with better-bet agronomy. This will contribute to secured income in coming years and the sustainability of the initiative.
Sanjaya Rajaram, a University of Sydney alumnus recognized with the World Food Prize, was a world-renowned wheat breeder and scientist. One of the world’s leading food scientists, he died on February 17 from COVID-19 in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico.
A CIMMYT technician cuts a leaf sample for DNA extraction. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Wheat breeders from across the globe took a big step towards modernizing their molecular breeding skills at a recent workshop sponsored by the Wheat Initiative, with the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The workshop focused on three open-source tools used in molecular breeding: GOBii-GDM for genomic data management, Flapjack for data visualization and breeding analysis, and Galaxy for Genomic Selection. These tools help breeders make selections more quickly and precisely, and ultimately lead to more cost effective and efficient improvement of varieties.
The Wheat Initiative — a global scientific collaboration whose goals are to create improved wheat varieties and disseminate better agronomic practices worldwide — and its Breeding Methods and Strategies expert working group had planned to host these trainings during the 2020 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Technical Workshop in the United Kingdom. After it became obvious that in-person trainings were not possible, the course organizers — including CIMMYT molecular wheat breeder Susanne Dreisigacker and EiB Adoption Lead and former GOBii project director Elizabeth Jones — decided to come together to host online workshops.
Many of the tools will be incorporated into EiB’s Enterprise Breeding System (EBS), a new integrated data management system being developed for CGIAR breeders. Jones plans to also design training modules for these molecular breeding tools that will be accessible to anyone through the EiB Toolbox.
The first session of the workshop “Transforming Wheat Breeding Through Integrated Data Management with GOBii and Analysis in Flapjack” benefited breeders from Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Susanne Dreisigacker presents during one of the sessions of the workshop.
Powering data analysis around the world
The workshop series, “Transforming Wheat Breeding Through Integrated Data Management with GOBii and Analysis in Flapjack,” aimed to benefit breeders from wheat producing countries all over the world, with sessions over two different time zones spread out over three days to reduce “Zoom fatigue.” Participants joined the first session from Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“It was wonderful to see the diversity of participants that we were able to train through an online workshop, many of whom otherwise might not have been able to travel to the UK for the original meeting,” said Jones. “Participants were very engaged, making the workshop so rewarding.”
The workshop was guided by Teresa Saavedra, Wheat Initiative coordinator. Apart from Dreisigacker and Jones, other trainers explained specific tools and approaches. Iain Milne from the James Hutton Institute in Scotland gave more details about the Flapjack genotyping visualization tool, which includes analysis for pedigree verification, marker assisted backcrossing and forward breeding. Andrew Kowalczyk, developer at Diversity Arrays Technology, spoke about the genotyping data QC tool DArTView.
A CIMMYT technician performs one of the steps to extract DNA samples from plants. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Clay Sneller, wheat breeder at Ohio State University, contributed training materials for important molecular breeding tools. Carlos Ignacio, previously based at the International Rice Research Center (IRRI) and now working on a PhD in Genomic Selection at Ohio State University, contributed his experience as a GOBii team member and a major contributor towards the design of Flapjack tools. Star Gao, application specialist with GOBii and now a requirements analyst for the Enterprise Breeding System, also facilitated the sessions.
Gilles Charmet, research director at the France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), introduced the sessions in the Americas/Europe time zone with welcome remarks and overview of the goals of the Wheat Initiative. Alison Bentley, director of the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program, briefed on the achievements and goals of the CIMMYT Wheat program and the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project.
“This training will contribute towards us reaching our AGG goals of accelerating gains in wheat, by sharing technical knowledge, and allowing our beneficiary partners to have state-of-the-art know-how in the use of genetic and genomic data,” Bentley said.
Participant Stéphane Boury from Caussade Semences, France commented, “This was a very effective way to learn about new tools in wheat breeding.”
The sessions continue in Australasia next week, and will be introduced by Peter Langridge, chair of the Scientific Board for the Wheat Initiative, and EiB director Michael Quinn. Sanjay Kumar Singh, incoming chair of the Breeding expert working group for the Wheat Initiative, will close the event.
Denise E. Costich, the recently retired head of the Maize Collection at the Germplasm Bank of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), sometimes likes to include a Woody Allen quote in her presentations.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” declares the text over a photo of a befuddled-looking Allen. “But incompetence never stopped me from plunging in with enthusiasm.”
This is perhaps Costich’s tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging the unusual trajectory that led her to the Germplasm Bank and her zeal for new and interesting challenges. But it is in no way an accurate reflection of the skill, knowledge and humane managerial style she brought to the job.
“CIMMYT requires individuals with a broad set of experiences,” says Tom Payne, head of the Wheat Collection at CIMMYT’s Germplasm Bank. Though she was not trained as a crop scientist, and despite having never worked in a genebank before, Costich’s rich set of professional and life experiences made her an ideal person for the job.
From Ithaca and back again
Born and raised in Westbury, NY, Costich spent much of her childhood on a tree nursery. Her grandfather was the manager, her father became the sales director and eventually her sister also went into the horticulture business. While her experiences on the nursery contributed to an early interest in plants and ecology, the business aspect of the nursery eluded her. “I just can’t sell things. I’m terrible,” Costich says. “But I really do like to study them.”
This studiousness took her to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where she initially declared as a wildlife biology major. Her notion of what it meant to “study things” was influenced by her early heroes, primatologists and field biologists Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. It involved travel. Fieldwork in faraway places. So, when the opportunity arose at the end of her sophomore year to travel to Kenya with Friends World College, Costich didn’t hesitate.
Costich eventually spent four years in Kenya, studying baboons. When she finally returned to Ithaca, she knew two things. Fieldwork was absolutely her thing, and she wanted to pursue a doctorate.
A chance conversation with her housemates in her last semester led to a post-graduation fieldwork stint in the Brazilian Amazon under the supervision of the legendary tropical and conservation biologist, Thomas Lovejoy. But instead of a dissertation topic, she stumbled across a parasite, a case of leishmaniasis and the realization that the rainforest was not the work environment for her.
Unexpected influences and outcomes continued to mark Costich’s career throughout her graduate studies at the University of Iowa. She found her plant not in the field, but while reading a dusty review paper as an exchange student at the University of Wisconsin. Her study of Ecballium elaterium (a wild species in the Cucurbitaceae, or squash, family) did not take her back to the tropics — where most of her peers were working and where she expected to be headed as a grad student — but rather to Spain where, incidentally, she first learned Spanish.
Several years after defending, Costich landed a tenure-track position in the Biology Department at The College of New Jersey. She continued to publish on Ecballium elaterium. Her career appeared to be settling into a predictable, recognizable academic trajectory — one with no obvious intersection with CIMMYT.
Then Costich saw an ad in the Ecological Society of America bulletin for a managing editor position for all of the Society’s journals. Her husband, a fellow biology Ph.D., had been working as an academic journal editor for several years. When Costich saw the ad she immediately drove over to her husband’s office. “I slapped the thing on his desk and said, ‘Here’s your job!’” she recalls.
Costich was right. Soon after, she was on her way back to Ithaca — where the Society’s offices were located — with a family that now included three children. While it was the right move for her family, it came at the cost of her budding academic career. In Ithaca, she soon found herself stuck in the role of itinerant postdoc.
Denise Costich in Spain in 1986, doing fieldwork on Ecballium elaterium with her daughter Mara.
An amazing turn of events
Costich admits that, especially the beginning, the return to Ithaca was tough, even depressing. Her recollections of these years can sound a bit like a game of musical chairs played with research laboratories. As one post-doc or research project wound down, she’d find herself scanning the campus for her next perch. She became very adept at it. “In ten years, I never missed a paycheck,” Costich says.
The turn of the millennium found Costich scanning the horizon yet again. As the days wound down at her latest post, a maize geneticist moved into the lab next door. What started as hallway jokes about Costich jumping ship and joining the maize lab soon turned into an interview, then a job offer.
The job introduced her to nearly everyone at Cornell working in maize genetics. Costich soon found herself managing the Buckler Lab’s work on maize population genetics. Meanwhile, she dabbled in side projects on Tripsacum, a perennial grass genus that is closely related to maize, and managed a major project on switchgrass. At the end of her postdoc, Buckler set to work trying to create a permanent position for her. Once again, Costich’s trajectory was beginning to take a stable, predictable form.
Then CIMMYT scientist Sarah Hearne showed up. “I’d heard through the grapevine — or maybe through the corn field — that the position of manager of the Maize Collection of CIMMYT’s Germplasm Bank was open… and that they were having a hard time trying to find a person for the position,” Costich recalls. She had met Hearne previously and personally knew and had worked with Suketoshi Taba, the pioneering longtime director of the germplasm bank. Naturally the topic emerged as she and Hearne caught up in Ithaca.
Hearne admitted that the search hadn’t yet been successful. “But I know the perfect person for the job,” she added.
“Yeah, who’s that?” Costich asked, not getting the setup.
Denise Costich, the maize collection manager at CIMMYT’s Maize and Wheat Germplasm Bank, shows one of the genebank’s more than 28,000 accessions of maize. (Photo: Luis Salazar/Crop Trust)
A stranger in a strangely familiar land
Costich was not a little surprised by the suggestion. She had never worked at a germplasm bank before. She was finally finding some stability at Cornell.
At the same time, her early dreams of exploring new places through her work, especially the tropics, beckoned. Her youngest son was nearly college-aged. Against the advice of some who had watched her work so hard to establish herself at Cornell, she took the plunge.
By the time she reached the CIMMYT campus in Texcoco, Costich had crisscrossed a good part of the globe, picking up Spanish here, management skills there, a deep knowledge of maize and its biological and cultural evolution yonder. During this life journey, she developed a deep humanism that is all her own.
It all seemed like happenstance, perhaps, until she reached Mexico and — suddenly, counterintuitively — found herself in the field she was perfectly adapted for. “It turned out that being a germplasm bank manager was the perfect job for me, and I didn’t even know it!” Costich says. “I ended up using everything I learned in my entire career.”
That isn’t to say that it was easy, especially at first. Taba, her predecessor, had occupied the post for decades, was a trained crop scientist, and had grown the bank from a regionally-focused collection with 12,000 accessions to the preeminent maize germplasm bank globally with 28,000 accessions, a state-of-the-art storage facility, and a slew of pioneering practices.
Not only had Taba left enormous shoes to fill, during his tenure — as is common in the expansionary phase of many projects — it had been difficult for the bank to keep a full accounting and understanding of all the new material that had been added. According to germplasm bank coordinator Cristian Zavala, by the time Costich joined CIMMYT “we knew very little about the material in our vaults.”
“Taba was primarily a breeder,” Costich says. “I actually think this oscillation between a focus on breeding and a focus on conservation and curation is good for the bank.”
Visiting a newly-built community seed reserve in Chanchimil, Todos Santos Cuchumatanes, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in 2016. From left to right: Mario Fuentes (collaborator), a member of the community seed reserve staff, Denise Costich, Carolina Camacho (CIMMYT), Miriam Yaneth Ramos (Buena Milpa) and Esvin López (local collaborator).
Visiting one of the oldest community seed reserves in the region, Quilinco, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in 2016. From left to right: Pedro Bello (UC Davis), Esvin López (local collaborator), Denise Costich, José Luis Galicia (Buena Milpa), Ariel Rivers (CIMMYT) and Miriam Yaneth Ramos (Buena Milpa).
Costich with the winners of the Second Harvest Fair and Largest Mature Ear of Jala Maize Contest in Coapa, in Mexico’s Nayarit state.
Costich (left) measures ears of corn for the Second Harvest Fair and Largest Mature Ear of Jala Maize Contest in Coapa, in Mexico’s Nayarit state in 2019.
Costich (center) shares some comments from the stage at the Second Harvest Fair and Largest Mature Ear of Jala Maize Contest in Coapa, in Mexico’s Nayarit state. To her left is Angel Perez, a participating farmer from La Cofradía, and to her right, Rafael Mier, Director of the Fundación Tortillas de Maíz Mexicana.
A bank for farmers
However, according to Zavala, because of the limited knowledge of much material they were working with, many in the bank’s rank-and-file didn’t fully understand the importance of their work. Morale was mixed. Moreover, despite an assumption that her new job would see her working closely with local smallholders, Costich found that the institution was poorly known by everyday farmers in its host country. Where it was known, associate scientist on innovation and social inclusion, Carolina Camacho, notes, there was an assumption that CIMMYT only worked with hybrid varieties of maize and not the native landraces many smallholders in Mexico depend on.
These became the principal axes of Costich’s work at the bank: curation of backlogged material, staff development, and community outreach.
Thus, when Costich realized that records were being kept in a combination of paper and rudimentary digital formats, she sent Zavala, a promising young research assistant at the time, to an internship at the USDA’s Maize Germplasm Bank Collection in Ames, Iowa, to workshops at CGIAR germplasm banks in Colombia (CIAT) and Ethiopia (ILRI), and to meetings on specialized topics in Germany and Portugal.
Zavala had never left the country before, spoke little English, and remembers being “rebellious” at work. “I needed more responsibility,” he says. “Dr. Denise saw that and helped me grow.” Upon returning from an early trip, Zavala helped implement up-to-date traceability and data management processes, including migrating the genebank’s data onto the USDA’s GRIN-Global platform.
But as Payne points out, Costich’s tenure was never about simple bean — or, in this case, grain — counting. “She sees a more human aspect of the importance of the collections,” he says. The main tasks she set for the bank came to be subsumed into the overarching goal of a fuller understanding of the contents of the bank’s vaults, one that encompassed both their biological and sociocultural importance.
When Costich came across a collection of maize landraces from Morelos state assembled by Ángel Kato in the mid 1960s that conserved the name of the farmer who had donated each sample, she worked with Camacho and graduate student Denisse McLean-Rodriguez to design a study involving the donor families and their communities. McLean-Rodriguez, Camacho and Costich set out to compare the effects of ex-situ versus in-situ landrace conservation in both genetic and socioeconomic terms.
Similarly, when a colleague at INIFAP invited Costich to be a judge at a yearly contest for largest ear of Jala landrace maize in Mexico’s Nayarit state, they soon began discussing how they could contribute more than just their participation as judges to the community. Starting in 2016 Costich was a co-lead on a study of the landrace’s genetic diversity as well as an initiative to rematriate Jala seeds conserved at CIMMYT for over 60 years.
Costich and members of the Maize Collection team hosting Pedro Bello from UC Davis (center, glasses) at the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank in Texcoco, Mexico, for a workshop on seed longevity and conservation techniques.
A genebank is not an island
Genebanks are bulwarks against genetic erosion. But, as Camacho explains, this mission can be understood in both very narrow and very broad senses. The narrow sense focuses on genetic processes per se: the loss of alleles. The broad sense includes the loss of cultural practices and knowledge built and sustained around the cultivation of a given landrace. Through the initiatives the bank has undertaken during her tenure, Costich has tried to demonstrate, both scientifically and in practice, how germplasm collections such as CIMMYT’s can complement, reinforce, and be enriched by the work of smallholders — de facto germplasm conservators in their own right — while contributing to the difficult task of combating genetic erosion in the broad sense.
One gets the sense that in Costich’s view this isn’t about a one-way process of big institutions “helping” smallholders. Rather it’s about collaboration among all the participants in an interdependent web of conservation. As she argued at her recent exit seminar, Costich views germplasm banks as one link in a chain of food security backups that begins at the farm level.
Indeed, Costich’s most recent initiative demonstrated how innovations intended for one link in the chain can travel upwards and find applications at bigger institutions.
Costich recently led an initiative with community seed banks in the Cuchumatanes mountain range of Guatemala to study the use of DryChain technology in post-harvest storage of maize. This experiment showed the enormous benefits that incorporating such technologies could yield for energy-insecure or low-tech family and community seed reserves.
Ultimately, however, the study led to a second experiment at CIMMYT’s tropical-climate station at Agua Fría in Mexico. With advice from collaborators at UC Davis and an industry partner (Dry Chain America), the seed conditioning team retrofitted an old drying cabinet at the station to dry maize without using heat, but rather by forcing air to circulate through sacks of drying beads. Under the direction of Filippo Guzzon, a postdoc and seed biologist working with Costich, the long-term viability of seeds dried using the accelerated technique versus traditional, slower techniques was tested. The study showed no loss in long-term viability using the accelerated drying technique.
Denise Costich, CIMMYT director general Martin Kropff, and the Maize Collection team confer certificates of participation to two visiting interns, Jiang Li (to the left of Kropff), a doctoral student from CAAS, Beijing, China, and Afeez Saka Opeyemi (to the right of Costich), a staff member of the IITA Germplasm Bank in Nigeria.
Costich and the Maize Collection team at the 2018 CIMMYT Christmas party. Filippo Guzzon, seated to the right of Costich, had just been offered a postdoc with the team.
Costich and the Maize Collection team at the 2018 CIMMYT Christmas party.
A very busy retirement
At her exit seminar, Costich was presented a plaque in appreciation of her service at CIMMYT by Kevin Pixley, director of the genetic resources program. Terence Molnar, maize breeder with the Genetic Resources Team, has succeeded Costich as the Maize Germplasm Bank Head.
For some of her close colleagues, however, Costich’s departure is not the end of the road. “This is not a forever goodbye,” Guzzon says. “I will continue to be in touch with my cuatita,” says Camacho, who has also left CIMMYT.
For her part, Costich echoes that this is not a forever goodbye at all. Not to her friends and colleagues, and certainly not to her work. At a socially-distanced, maize-based farewell lunch Costich held just days before her departure, she was still busy weaving social connections and furthering collaborations among maize fanatics of all stripes — from chefs and designers to scientists and policy advocates.
She is already considering taking a part time position at her old lab at Cornell and a return to Tripsacum research. At the same time, she will be a visiting scientist at Mexico’s National Center for Genetic Resources (CNRG), where officially she will be heading up part of an international switchgrass study. Costich is hoping to leverage her tenure at CIMMYT by getting involved in a push to help improve the Mexican national system for plant genetic resources. Additionally, she has recently accepted an invitation from Seed Savers Exchange to join their board and she is looking forward to volunteering her time and expertise to various seed-saving initiatives within that organization and their many collaborators.
Asked what she’s looking forward to tackling in her retirement that isn’t work related, Costich betrays her deep allegiance to the plant world. “I don’t know,” she says, “I’m thinking of starting a big vegetable garden.”
Cover photo: Denise Costich stands for a photo during the inauguration of the CIMMYT Genebank museum in 2019. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
