Theme: Capacity development

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.

New Publications: Addressing conflict through community resource management

Written by on October 26, 2017. Posted in Publications.

In Nepal, collective action helps improve farmers’ incomes. Photo: CIMMYT.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A new study examines the role of collective resource management in conflict.

Climate-induced migration can spur competition for resources such as cropland and freshwater, and stress or undermine existing social institutions according to the authors of the new study. The food security crisis and international ‘land grabs’ have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor.

The study focuses on how collective action in natural resource competition can strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict.

The scientists identified three action recommendations: using policy interventions to promote collectively managed natural resources, support natural resource management institutions to expand their ability to support collective action in response to competition and increase measures to affect the action arena by shifting incentives toward cooperative resolutions of resource conflicts and enhancing conflict resolution processes.

The authors note that stakeholders cannot write collective action into existence, but that collective natural resource management under effective guidance has been an effective peacebuilding mechanism.

Read the full study “Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management” and check out other recent publication by CIMMYT staff below:

Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management. Ratner, B.D.; Meinzen-Dick, R.; Hellin, Jon; Mapedza, E.; Unruh, E.; Veening, W.; Haglund, E.; May, C.; Bruch, C.. International Journal of the Commons 11 (2): 877-906. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.768Netherlands. Uopen Journals.

Land use and agricultural change dynamics in SAT watersheds of southern India. Ahmed, I.M., Murali Krishna Gumma, Shalander Kumar, Craufurd, P., Rafi, I.M., Amare Haileslassie, In: Current Science, vol. 110, no. 9, p. 1704-1709.

Linkages and interactions analysis of major effect drought grain yield QTLs in rice. Vikram, P., Mallikarjuna Swamy, B.P., Dixit, S., Trinidad, J., Sta Cruz, T., Maturan, P.C., Amante, M., Arvind Kumar, In: PLoS One, vol. 11, no. 3: e0151532.

Long term effect of conservation agriculture in maize rotations on total organic carbon, physical and biological properties of a sandy loam soil in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains. Parihar, C.M., Yadav, M.R., Jat, S.L., Singh, A.K., Kumar, B., Pradhan, S., Chakraborty, D., Jat, M.L., Jat, R.K., Saharawat, Y.S., Yadav, O.P. In: Soil and Tillage Research, vol.161, p.116-128.

Maize maintains growth in response to decreased nitrate supply through a highly dynamic and developmental stage-specific transcriptional response. Plett, D., Baumann, U., Schreiber, A.W., Holtham, L., Kalashyan, E., Toubia, J., Nau, J., Beatty, M., Rafalski, A., Dhugga, K., Tester, M,. Garnett, T., Kaiser, B.N. In: Plant biotechnology journal, vol.14, no.1, p.342-353.

Mapping of spot blotch disease resistance using NDVI as a substitute to visual observation in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Suneel Kumar, Roder, M.S., Singh, R.P., Kumar, S., Ramesh Chand, Joshi, A.K., Kumar, U. In: Molecular Breeding, vol.36, no.95, p.1-11.

Independent introductions and admixtures have contributed to adaptation of European maize and its American counterparts. Brandenburg, J.T., Tristan Mary-Huard, Rigaill, G., Hearne, S., Corti, H., Joets, J., Vitte, C., Charcosset, A., Nicolas, S.D., Tenaillon, M.I. In: PLoS Genetics, v.13, no.3: e1006666.

Maximizing maize quality, productivity and profitability through a combined use of compost and nitrogen fertilizer in a semi-arid environment in Pakistan. Iqbal, S., Thierfelder, C., Zaman Khan, H., Hafiz Muhammad Rashad Javeed, Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Shehzad. In: Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, v. 107, p. 197-213.

Modeling preference and willingness to pay for Drought Tolerance (DT) in maize in rural Zimbabwe. Kassie, G., Awudu Abdulai, Greene, W.H., Shiferaw, B., Tsedeke Abate, Amsal Tesfaye, Tarekegne Sutcliffe, C. In: World Development, v. 94, p. 465-477.

Nitrogen transformations in modern agriculture and the role of biological nitrification inhibition. Coskun, D., Britto, D.T., Weiming Shi, Kronzucker, H.J. In: Nature Scientific reports, v. 3, no. 17074, p. 1-10.

Occurrence of wheat blast in Bangladesh and its implications for South Asian wheat production. Chowdhury, A.K., Mahender Singh Saharan, Aggrawal, R., Malaker, P.K., Barma, N.C.D., Tiwari, T.P., Duveiller, E., Singh, P.K., Srivastava, A., Sonder, K., Singh, R.P., Braun, H.J., Joshi, A.K. In: Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, vol. 77, no. 1, p. 1-9.

Three technologies that are changing agriculture in Bangladesh

Written by on October 10, 2017. Posted in Features.

In agrarian countries like Bangladesh, agriculture can serve as a powerful driving force to not only raise family income, but also the nation’s entire economy.

Consistent policy and investments in technology, rural infrastructure and human capital boosted food security by tripling the Bangladesh’s food grain production from 1972 to 2014. Between 2005 and 2010, agriculture accounted for 90 percent of poverty reduction in the country.

Bangladesh is now threatened by increasing droughts, flooding and extreme weather events due to climate change. In response, rural communities are adapting through innovative, localized solutions that combine sustainable practices and technologies.

“Mechanization is a very important part of the future of agriculture in Bangladesh,” said Janina Jaruzelski, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director in Bangladesh, during a visit to areas where the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is helping commercialize three agricultural machinery technologies – axial flow pumps, reapers and seed drills – to help farmers thrive under increasingly difficult growing conditions.

Below we detail how these three technologies are transforming farming across Bangladesh.

Axial flow pumps

The axial flow pump is an inexpensive surface water irrigation technology that can reduce costs up to 50 percent at low lifts – areas where the water source is close to the field surface, and therefore is easy to pump up to irrigate fields. Surface water irrigation involves deploying water through low-lift irrigation pumps like the axial flow pump and canal distribution networks managed by water sellers who direct water to farmers’ fields.

For example, 24-year old Mosammat Lima Begum, who lives in a village in Barisal District in Bangladesh, gained access to an axial flow pump and training on its use through CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA). After the training, Begum started a business providing irrigation services to her neighbors, boosting her household income by nearly $400 in one year.

Groundwater extraction – a common approach to irrigation in much of South Asia – can result in high energy costs and present health risks due to natural arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh. Surface water offers a low-energy and low-carbon emissions alternative.

For more information on how axial flow pumps and surface water irrigation help farmers, click here.

Reapers

Reapers allow farmers to mechanically harvest and plant the next season’s crops, and can save farmers 30 percent their usual harvesting costs. The two-wheeled mechanical reaper is particularly popular in Bangladesh, especially among women since it’s easy to maneuver. It also helps farmers cope with increasing labor scarcity — a trend that has continued to rise as the country develops economically and more people leave rural areas for off-farm employment.

Like the axial flow pump, local service providers with reapers – entrepreneurs who purchase agricultural machinery and rent out their services – are now offering their harvesting services to smallholder farmers at an affordable fee.

Learn more about how reapers can reduce the cost of harvesting and risk of crop damage, making them a key tool to boost farmer efficiency in Bangladesh here.

Seed fertilizer drills

Seed fertilizer drills till, plant and fertilize crops in lines simultaneously and with greater precision. These drills are frequently used as attachments on two-wheeled tractors.

Around 66 service providers in Barisal, Bangladesh have cultivated more than 640 hectares of land using seed drills for over 1,300 farmers since 2013. These drills cut 30 percent of their fuel costs compared to traditional power tillers, saving them about $58 and 60 hours of labor per hectare. In south-western Bangladesh where USAID’s Feed the Future initiative operates, 818 service providers have cultivated more than 25,500 hectares of land using seed drills for 62,000 small holder farmers till to date.

These drills can also allow farmers to plant using conservation agriculture practices like strip tilling, a system that tills only small strips of land into which seed and fertilizer are placed, which reduces production costs, conserves soil moisture and help boost yields.

Since 2013, CIMMYT has facilitated the sale of over 2,000 agricultural machines to more than 1,800 service providers, reaching 90,000 farmers. Through the CSISA Mechanization and Irrigation project, CIMMYT will continue to transform agriculture in southern Bangladesh by unlocking the potential productivity of the region’s farmers during the dry season through surface water irrigation, efficient agricultural machinery and local service provision.

Asian scientists join cross-continental training to restrain wheat blast disease

Written by Mike Listman on October 2, 2017. Posted in News.

With backing from leading international donors and scientists, nine South Asia wheat researchers recently visited the Americas for training on measures to control a deadly and mysterious South American wheat disease that appeared suddenly on their doorstep in 2016.

Trainees at the CAICO farm in Okinawa, Bolivia. Photo: CIMMYT archives

Known as “wheat blast,” the disease results from a fungus that infects the wheat spikes in the field, turning the grain to inedible chaff. First sighted in Brazil in the mid-1980s, blast has affected up to 3 million hectares in South America and held back the region’s wheat crop expansion for decades.

In 2016, a surprise outbreak in seven districts of Bangladesh blighted wheat harvests on some 15,000 hectares and announced blast’s likely spread throughout South Asia, a region where rice-wheat cropping rotations cover 13 million hectares and nearly a billion inhabitants eat wheat.

“Most commercially grown wheat in South Asia is susceptible to blast,” said Pawan Singh, head of wheat pathology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an organization whose breeding lines are used by public research programs and seed companies in over 100 countries. “The disease poses a grave threat to food and income security in the region and yet is new and unknown to most breeders, pathologists and agronomists there.”

As part of an urgent global response to blast and to acquaint South Asian scientists with techniques to identify and describe the pathogen and help develop resistant varieties, Singh organized a two-week workshop in July. The event drew wheat scientists from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Mexico, taking them from U.S. greenhouses and labs to fields in Bolivia, where experimental wheat lines are grown under actual blast infections to test for resistance.

The training began at the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where participants learned about molecular marker diagnosis of the causal fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum (MoT). Sessions also covered greenhouse screening for blast resistance and blast research conducted at Kansas State University. Inside Level-3 Biosafety Containment greenhouses from which no spore can escape, participants observed specialized plant inoculation and disease evaluation practices.

The group then traveled to Bolivia, where researchers have been fighting wheat blast for decades and had valuable experience to share with the colleagues from South Asia.

“In Bolivia, workshop participants performed hands-on disease evaluation and selection in the field—an experience quite distinct from the precise lab and greenhouse practicums,” said Singh, describing the group’s time at the Cooperativa Agropecuaria Integral Colonias Okinawa (CAICO), Bolivia, experiment station.

Other stops in Bolivia included the stations of the Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal (INIAF), Asociación de Productores de Oleaginosas y Trigo (ANAPO), Centro de Investigación Agrícola Tropical (CIAT), and a blast-screening nursery in Quirusillas operated by INIAF-CIMMYT.

“Scientists in South Asia have little or no experience with blast disease, which mainly attacks the wheat spike and is completely different from the leaf diseases we normally encounter,” said Prem Lal Kashyap, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), who took part in the training. “To score a disease like blast in the field, you need to evaluate each spike and check individual spikelets, which is painstaking and labor-intensive, but only thus can you assess the intensity of disease pressure and identify any plants that potentially carry genes for resistance.”

After the U.S.A. and Bolivia, the South Asia scientists took part in a two-week pathology module of an ongoing advanced wheat improvement course at CIMMYT’s headquarters and research stations in Mexico, covering topics such as the epidemiology and characterization of fungal pathogens and screening for resistance to common wheat diseases.

Gary Peterson, explaining wheat blast screening to trainees inside the USDA-ARS Level-3 Biosafety Containment facility. Photo: CIMMYT archives — Gary Peterson (center), explaining wheat blast screening to trainees inside the USDA-ARS Level-3 Biosafety Containment facility. Photo: CIMMYT archives

The knowledge gained will allow participants to refine screening methods in South Asia and maintain communication with the blast experts they met in the Americas, according to Carolina St. Pierre who co-ordinates the precision field-based phenotyping platforms of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.

“They can now also raise awareness back home concerning the threat of blast and alert farmers, who may then take preventative and remedial actions,” Singh added. “The Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture has already formed a task force through the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) to help develop and distribute blast resistant cultivars and pursue integrated agronomic control measures.”

The latest course follows on from a hands-on training course in February 2017 at the Wheat Research Center (WRC) of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Dinajpur, in collaboration with CIMMYT, Cornell University, and Kansas State University.

Participants in the July course received training from a truly international array of instructors, including Kerry Pedley and Gary Peterson, of USDA-ARS, and Christian Cruz, of Kansas State University; Felix Marza, of Bolivia’s Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal (INIAF); Pawan Singh and Carolina St. Pierre, of CIMMYT; Diego Baldelomar, of ANAPO; and Edgar Guzmán, of CIAT-Bolivia.

Funding for the July event came from the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), CIMMYT, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.

Experts call for data revolution to achieve Sustainable Development Goals

Written by on September 25, 2017. Posted in News.

Screen Shot 2017-09-25 at 9.29.22 AM EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Modern data systems are essential to monitor, manage and plan actions taken by governments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), an advisory body to the United Nations Secretary General, and to the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReENDS), an independent group of international experts working on data-related fields.

However, government officials and policy makers around the world are burdened by the challenge of finding reliable data for sustainable development planning, decision making and program design.

To overcome this obstacle public and private institutions must help governments gather, curate, produce, analyze and disseminate information for SDG planning, implementation and assessment, according to a new study by members of the SDSN TReNDS group published recently at the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD).

Counting on the World: Building Modern Data Systems for Sustainable Development, to which the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) contributed as a member of the SDSN TReNDS panel, recommends a collaborative approach based on multi-stakeholder data partnerships to develop modern statistical systems that can provide policy makers with evidence-based information for SDG work.

The report explains the types of data that are needed to plan for sustainable development and offers a roadmap to build 21^st-century data systems to monitor and achieve SDGs. These modern systems are conceived to help governments prepare for and respond to different types of crises, access real-time information for effective action and administration, track progress and adjust course towards the SDGs. Study findings indicate that effective public programs will be the result of informed decision making processes assisted by high-quality, disaggregated and geo-referenced data.

To bring about a data revolution, the report urges governments to invest in education and training, enter into technical partnerships and seek technology exchanges with the private sector to develop statistical capacity. Ultimately, countries should be able to offer high quality data and statistics to public officials, researchers, entrepreneurs and interested citizens by developing such capacity.

In its final section, the report details a roadmap for urgent action that identifies the leading actors who should be responsible for implementing the recommendations and a time frame for reaching concrete results.

Read the full SDSN TReNDS report here.

Public policy and Borlaug’s final instruction: take it to the farmer

Written by on September 14, 2017. Posted in News.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – In a blog published by the World Food Prize, Bram Govaerts discusses the need for integration between research and decision-making at all levels including the public policy levels.

“When it comes to influencing public policy for the benefit of farmers, consumers or the environment, most of us react like the average citizen overwhelmed by the burden of bureaucracy: We don’t want to have to do anything with it!”

“Our initial reaction as researchers is ‘I did not spend years studying in the university, (only) to draft budgets, answer urgent information requests or attend long meetings with government officials who allocate the money CIMMYT receives.’ ”

But in the end Govaerts recognizes that meetings to shape public policy in Mexico, Latin America and globally are essential, and is proud to do his part, whether by getting his hands dirty in the field or wearing a suit and tie and sitting through countless hours of official appointments.

“Take it to the farmer” was the admonition of the late Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Prize Laureate and former CIMMYT scientist, regarding technological innovation, the day before he died. Govaerts said this call to action drives CIMMYT’s MasAgro project and the farmer adoption of related innovations, which by conservative estimates raise farmers’ incomes seven-fold for every dollar invested in the program.

Govaerts also knows that sensible, effective data driven discussions are a critical underpinning for this process.

“I do my best (in policy meetings) to offer innovation, better data and information that lead to sound decision making and help develop sustainable agrifood systems for improved nutrition, nature conservation and national as well as international security,” Govaerts explained.

Read Bram Govaerts’ full blog published by the World Food Prize.

Govaerts discusses the impacts of MasAgro. Photo: Agrosintesis

Why development needs innovation

Written by on September 5, 2017. Posted in News.

1,000 people from across the globe were selected to participate in a 10-day innovation lab in August to find transformative solutions to development. Photo: UNLEASH

“Innovation” may be just another development buzzword, but adopting the principles behind it is crucial if organizations hope to attract funding and achieve lasting impact.

Finding and applying new approaches to solve a problem or unmet need was, like many development concepts, first applied by the private-sector. Innovation is critical for companies to foster an environment where creative ideas are turned into new and successful products, in order to gain a competitive edge.

However, this process is inherently risky – new ideas take time and money to bring to fruition, and experimenting is not a viable option for development organizations with limited funding serving people with limited resources.

That’s why innovation labs – specific areas or events dedicated to brainstorming ideas and working on new products, technological or otherwise – can serve as “safe” spaces for organizations to explore unconventional, even radical ideas to inspire change or uncover new opportunities that could enhance their goals.

Daniela Vega (center in red) and team working on sustainable supply chains in the fashion industry at UNLEASH. Photo courtesy of D. Vega/CIMMYT

“Innovation allows us to explore radical ideas that can potentially create disruptive solutions to some of the big challenges we work with,” said Daniela Vega, a projects coordinator and liaison officer to the Americas at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Vega was one of 1,000 young people from 129 countries who recently participated in UNLEASH, a 10-day innovation lab in Denmark, to develop transformative solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a 17-goal development agenda launched by the United Nations to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all by 2030.

“Creative ideas and innovative solutions to sustainable livelihoods should be a core component of what we do,” said David Guerena, a soil scientist and systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Guerena was part of one of 200 teams that were split across 10 “folk high schools” where they worked through an innovation process with facilitators and experts, then refined their ideas before reconvening in Aarhus, Denmark, to pitch the solutions they had developed for the SDGs.

Farmazon — an e-commerce platform that links smallholder farmers to buyers, agricultural advisers, input suppliers and transport providers – is one of hundreds of new ideas created by UNLEASH participants to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Image credit to D. Guerena/CIMMYT

Farmazon — an online platform that links smallholder farmers to buyers, agricultural advisers, input suppliers and transport providers — was the finished product of Guerena’s team that targeted SDG1 and SDG2 (eliminating poverty and hunger) by reducing inefficiencies in agricultural value chains. Their pitch, which included a skit that involved each member speaking different languages to convey the ways a poor farmer, a restaurant owner and others may struggle to communicate their needs, earned them “Most Collaborative Team.”

“Even though we work in research for development, we need to remember that our discoveries must be commercially viable and deliver value to have a positive impact on society,” said Aziz Karimov, a CIMMYT development economist whose team won second place in UNLEASH’s “Sustainable Consumption & Production” category which targeted SDG 12. A key component of UNLEASH was teaching those participating how to pitch their ideas to investors, like preparing due diligence documents for investors and taking different approaches to fundraising, depending on whether the investor is focused on profit or impact.

Karimov and his team created Sustainable Matching, an online platform that allows buyers and suppliers to find each other and make connections in order to reach sustainable goals with the aim of reducing negative environmental impact. It will be the world’s first and only online supply fair for the textile and fashion industry focused on sustainable materials (including agricultural and forest products).

“I believe actual deals will result from some of the ideas I saw in waste, health and climate,” said Michael Blakeley, managing director of enterprise and industry development at Nathan Associates Inc. “That is powerful for just one week’s time and probably a fraction of the cost of traditional development programs.”

Soil scientist and systems agronomist David Guerena (right photo, 5th from the left) and agricultural and development economist Aziz Karimov (left photo, 5th from the left), represent CIMMYT at UNLEASH. Photos: UNLEASH

Both Guerena and Karimov emphasized development organizations should create spaces for researchers to participate in collaborative exercises like they did in order to challenge traditional approaches and discover out-of-the-box solutions to the challenges they face daily. Funding and capacity building is a core component of development, but fostering an environment open to new solutions can potentially create high-impact, low-cost solutions.

UNLEASH plans to hold annual innovation labs through 2030 dedicated to the SDGs, where young innovators can add value directly and access a unique ecosystem of corporations, think-tanks, foundations, non-profits, angel investors and more. Participants from this year will create a virtual integrated community to stay in touch, receive mentorship, guidance and expertise as well as funding to help them develop their business solutions.

Wheat forum builds partnerships for sustainable intensification in Nepal

Written by on August 31, 2017. Posted in News.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CIMMYT) — The Government of Nepal recently endorsed a new twenty-year agriculture development strategy that charts a progressive course of action to revitalize agriculture as an engine for economic growth and domestic food security.

At the center of this strategy is the recently launched the Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP). The project will be implemented over the next decade and has research and development mandates for productivity enhancement and commercialization of major cereals, fisheries, fruits and vegetables.

PMAMP emphasizes wheat production as a priority, especially in the Terai – a very productive agricultural area – in order to achieve national self-sufficiency in wheat production within the next three years. Meeting this extremely ambitious goal will require an unprecedented increase in average yields of 10 percent per year, and a high level of strategic coordination among organizations contributing to agricultural development in Nepal.

The PMAMP leadership has requested that the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) through its Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) act as a technical advisor and strategic partner to design and implement programs for staple crop production, including mechanization and seed systems.

On July 26-27 in Kathmandu, PMAMP and CSISA organized the first working group forum for wheat to begin to unite and coordinate efforts of 21 core public and private stakeholders working on extension, research and sector development.

Discussion at the forum emphasized the identification of proven best practices for sustainable intensification, consideration of scaling pathways for knowledge and technological innovations, knowledge gaps and areas for future research and joint work plan development for the 2017-2018 wheat season.

A four-member committee representing PMAMP, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), CSISA and the private sector has been created to guide implementation of the collaborative work plan for wheat intensification across Nepal.

Rajan Dhakal, senior agriculture officer at PMAMP, remarked that the forum was instrumental in identifying technical priorities and clarifying how the efforts of diverse partners can contribute to the food security goals of the Government of Nepal.

Y.P. Giri, chair and director of crops and horticulture at NARC, said he appreciated CSISA’s efforts to facilitate discussion and coordination across a diverse set of stakeholders through a common and action-oriented platform.

Drawing on the success of the wheat forum, PMAMP will convene meetings for maize and rice with support from NARC, CSISA and private sector partners this fall.

CIMMYT launched the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) in 2009 to promote durable change at scale in South Asia’s cereal-based cropping systems. CIMMYT operates rural “innovation hubs” in Bangladesh, India and Nepal to increase the adoption of various resource-conserving and climate-resilient technologies, and to improve farmer access to market information and enterprise development. Learn more about CSISA’s impact here.

CIMMYT’s wheat working group will serve as a strategic partner and provide technical advice for Nepal’s Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project. Photo: CSISA Nepal

Zimbabwe enacts new strategy in fall armyworm fight

Written by on August 28, 2017. Posted in News.

CIMMYT maize breeder Thokozile Ndhlela (left, and farmer Otilia Chirova of Mutoko district in Mashonaland East province, identifying the fall armyworm in Chirova’s field in February. Chirova eventually lost almost half of her entire maize crop. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) — Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe’s rural areas have grown maize for years both as a staple and as a resource to boost their economy.

However, Zimbabwean farmers rely predominately on rain-fed maize farming, making each planting season a gamble with nature as poor rainfall, pests and diseases constantly threaten this staple crop and farmer livelihoods.

As most smallholders tried to recover from the El Niño-induced drought in southern Africa, affecting 40 million people during the 2015-2016 farming season, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, nothing could have prepared them for the sudden invasion of the fall armyworm in September 2016 that caused irreversible damage on their maize crop.

“We first noticed it in December 2016,” said Elizabeth Chikono, a smallholder farmer from Mashonaland Central Province, whose maize crop was heavily infested by the fall armyworm. “We tried to control it through spraying with different pesticides, but to no avail. I had hoped to harvest 10 tons per hectare of maize, but only managed to harvest three tons.”

The fall armyworm has since caused significant damage on over 280,000 hectares of maize in Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and can cause up to 70 percent crop loss, or total loss in some cases if unmanaged, says FAO. The level of damage witnessed in the fields is likely to affect maize harvests across the region, which is expected to create more than 200 million food-insecure people who depend on maize for food, said Chimimba Phiri, head of FAO southern Africa sub-regional office.

It has so far been impossible to eradicate the pest, which is known to migrate quickly and breed quite fast, with an entire life cycle between 35 and 61 days.

Zimbabwe established a fall armyworm working group in July this year to bring all stakeholders together and find solutions to manage the impacts of the pest in the country.

Forty-five people representing government ministries, non-governmental organizations, private seed and chemical companies, agricultural research institutions, donors and academic institutions, recently resolved at a meeting to advocate a countrywide response as part of a regional program of integrated management of the fall armyworm. The group recommended strengthening awareness campaigns, building stakeholders’ capacity in the fight against the fall armyworm, raising funds, strengthening research and development as well as screening of germplasm.

Smallholder farmer Perkins Chimuriwo of Mashonaland East province inspects the fall army worm damage to his maize crop in March. “I had expected to harvest 14 tons of maize on my two-hectare plot, but due to the fall armyworm, I’ve only harvested eight tons,” said Chimuriwo. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

These recommendations have culminated in a new strategy to undertake national assessments to determine the impact of the pest on crop yields and how to manage it.

The FAO is also working to equip southern African countries with the tools to asses and improve understanding of the fall armyworm’s threat to the region.

“The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) will pull its germplasm resources as well as modern breeding platforms to produce maize varieties that are tolerant to fall armyworm,” said Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT country representative for Zimbabwe. Similar efforts have been used by CIMMYT in the past to tackle the effects of Maize Lethal Necrosis in eastern Africa.

However, breeding for fall armyworm resistant elite maize hybrids adapted to sub-Saharan Africa is a lengthy process and would require intensive germplasm screening, working with public and private sector institutions.

To reduce the numbers of fall armyworms and their impact on agricultural production in Zimbabwe, a multi-pronged approach is required that ensures fast registration of appropriate chemicals, strategies to avoid chemical resistance, surveillance and early warning, monitoring, cultural management and breeding.

Acting head of plant protection at the government of Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services, Shingirayi Nyamutukwa, said the government had started training field extension staff on proper selection and handling of chemicals as well as raising awareness among the staff and smallholder farmers. Experiments were also underway to determine the best fall armyworm control methods. Nyamutukwa said all of Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces had been affected by the caterpillar. He said that no single method or product has been found to completely eradicate the fall armyworm.

Breeding for fall armyworm resistant elite maize hybrids adapted to sub-Saharan Africa was cited as an option but would require intensive germplasm screening, working with public and private sector institutions. Brazil, for example, spends an estimated US$600 million annually to control the fall armyworm.

Cross-sector collaboration needed to boost wheat production in Pakistan

Written by on August 15, 2017. Posted in News.

ISLAMABAD (CIMMYT) – Agronomy experts from across Pakistan gathered earlier this month to discuss progress in Pakistan since 2014 under the USAID funded Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP). At the meeting, 23 national partners shared their progress and evaluation of new techniques, planters and their dissemination in the wheat based systems of Pakistan.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) drew 80 participants from both private and public spheres to the conference where they discussed key issues such as Pakistan’s large yield gap, residue management techniques and ways to increase efficiency in fertilizer and water management.

AIP has reached more than 11,000 farmers in Pakistan through demonstration, training and farmer days. AIP promotes dissemination of sustainable farming activities such as zero-tillage wheat planting after rice and legume crops, ridge planting of wheat, improved fertilizer management in wheat and rice, direct seeding with multi-crop planters, wheat panting with Zero-Tillage Happy Seeders in rice residue and maize planting with small planters in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, wheat is grown on more than 9 million hectares annually, yielding roughly 2.8 tons of grain per hectare, yet falls below the global average of 3.2 tons per hectare due to a wide yield gap, improper residue management techniques, inefficient fertilizer and water management.

Ghulam Muhammad Ali, Member and AIP focal person of PARC, said that there is a need to increase per unit area productivity in the crop sector as cultivated land is decreasing because of housing and climate-related degradation. Private sector active involvement in research and dissemination would also help to increase agriculture productivity in the country.

AIP is working with private-public partnerships to move beyond educating stakeholders in new technologies to helping farmers implement them in their fields. Their efforts have resulted in the local manufacturing and provision of planters and seeders to over 300 farmers in the provinces of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan, according to AIP Project Leader Imtiaz Muhammad.

All of the provided machines are operated under the practice of zero tillage, meaning farmers directly sow new seeds into the residue of the previous crop grown. The tools also help farmers maximize their production, since they sow seeds using an inverted T opener that breaks up the soil then distributes seeds evenly. Research has shown these methods increase yield and decrease carbon footprint.

Farmers preferred these machines due to their increased planting speed, reduction in loss of seed and seed breakage and the increased yield they saw using these machines. Local producers of zero-till machinery, such as Greenland Engineering are also benefiting, their sales have almost tripled, from 37 in 2016 to 150 in 2017 as adoption of the technology has expanded.

Azeem Kahan, Director General of the National Agricultural Research Center in Islamabad, emphasized the need for a national database of resource conserving technology such as planters and seeders, and said that the PARC collaboration with CIMMYT will focus on coordination that will help stakeholders share their knowledge about agronomic interventions in Pakistan.

Participants of AIP’s Agronomy National Meeting 2017 in Islamabad with Ghulam M. Ali, AIP Focal person. Photo: CIMMYT/K.Syed

Entrepreneurship increases youth employment in Nepal

Written by on August 11, 2017. Posted in News.

Dahit Traders founder Chullu Ram Chaudhary at his workshop in Bardiya district, Nepal. Photo: CIMMYT/CSISA/A.Khadka

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CIMMYT) – In 2015 Chullu Ram Chaudhary started Dahit Traders, which sells small-scale agricultural machinery in the Bardiya district of mid-western Nepal.

Dahit provides year-round employment to 20 local youths as mechanics and machine operators, and hires an additional 35 mechanics during rice and wheat planting and harvesting seasons. Chaudhary was motivated to found his company in 2014 while attending a machinery training organized by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA).

Chaudhary began by focusing on two-wheel tractors and has since expanded his business to several nearby towns, now also providing machine repair services to surrounding districts. His core business has broadened to include a variety of attachments for power tillers, including seed drills, reapers and threshers, all of which are relevant and useful for small-scale farmers of Bardiya and surrounding districts.

Each expansion allows him to provide employment for local youth by creating sales, mechanic and support staff jobs, which has the added benefit of slowing migration from Nepal’s key agricultural production areas. About 1,500 Nepalese youth migrate for foreign employment daily due a lack of employment opportunity and capital constraints in their own communities, a phenomena that directly contributes to agricultural yield loss in Nepal, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

This absence of farm labor along with a lack of agricultural knowledge, irrigation and mechanization along with the inability to invest in new technology due to lack of capital also limits Nepal’s yield potential, despite having fertile soil and access to year-round farming. Many plots in Nepal are also very small, due to the traditional inheritance practice of splitting land between sons, further limiting production. Cereal and pulse yields are well below regional averages and present rates of increase won’t meet the long-term requirements.

Success for entrepreneurs like Chaudhary allows farming households to access innovative, scale-appropriate technology, increase employment for youth and boost cropping system productivity, all of which are needed to sufficiently and sustainably increase food production for future generations. In addition to providing training on machinery, CSISA linked Chaudhary with SKT Traders – a national-level importer of small-scale machinery – and provided technical support to Dahit Trader’s mechanics on machinery operation, repair and maintenance.

To increase awareness of scale-appropriate machinery, CSISA and Dahit Traders conducted joint demonstrations of equipment in farmers’ fields in order to help farmers see the potential for these machines to reduce drudgery, increase efficiency and enable them to establish micro enterprises based on custom-hired services.

The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia project is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center with partners the International Rice Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Public-private partnerships boost maize productivity in Pakistan

Written by on August 8, 2017. Posted in News.

ISLAMABAD (CIMMYT) – A recently held traveling seminar brought together private and public seed partners in Pakistan to enhance maize production and productivity in order to meet current demand and plan for future needs.

The seminar, hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), facilitated discussion around the demand for maize in Pakistan, which has experienced rapid growth in the last thirty years largely due to its demand for feed and food as a result of rapid population growth.

Pakistan is one of the top producers of maize in South Asia and it is the country’s third most important cereal, with production increasing 75 percent since 1990 due to the expansion of hybrid maize varieties in the spring season. However, the lack of a strong national seed system has caused the country to import 85 percent of its maize for roughly $50 million annually, making the retail price of seed very expensive for farmers.

Since 2013, CIMMYT’s Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) has built public-private partnerships to catalyze equitable growth in agricultural production, productivity and value in Pakistan. AIP encourages leaders in the local private sector through product allocation and capacity building to produce quality maize seeds and enhance Pakistan’s seed sector.

During the traveling seminar – which was held for seven days in two phases – participants evaluated the performance of different CIMMYT maize products at the project’s partner research center, located in the Punjab province which is the hub of Pakistan’s yellow maize production and the major source of poultry feed, a robust industry growing 8-10 percent annually.

Participants also visited Khyber Pakhtun Khwa province where white maize is the dominant dietary staple. During the visit stakeholders were able to be better understand the dynamics of major maize producing areas and future production trends, various crop management technologies, adoption and utilization patterns, production constraints and dissemination of maize-based technologies.

Concluding the seminar, Yusuf Zafar, Chairman of the Pakistan Research Council commended CIMMYT for creating multi-stakeholder collaborations and actions towards increasing the production and productivity of maize in Pakistan. He pressed the private sector to take the lead in the production and dissemination of the new maize products shared under the AIP program.

CIMMYT’s Country Representative Muhammad Imtiaz, also called upon the private sector to continue to strive to meet the project’s goals of a self-sufficient maize seed sector after the project ends early next year.

Participants of maize travelling seminar visiting maize activities at MMRI-Sahiwal, Pakistan, 2017. Photo: E.Shakeel/CIMMYT — Participants of maize traveling seminar visiting maize activities at MMRI-Sahiwal, Pakistan, 2017. Photo: E.Shakeel/CIMMYT

New tools help breeders fight emerging challenges in maize

Written by on August 1, 2017. Posted in News.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – Researchers from across the globe assembled in Nairobi for a 10-day training course on increasing genetic gains in maize by integrating novel technologies in breeding.

The main focus of the course was to train maize breeders in developing high-yielding, more nutritious varieties that are resistant to various biotic and abiotic stresses in a resource and time efficient manner using novel technologies. The course involved presentations by scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and experts from the University of Hohenheim, AgReliant Genetics, Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) and the University of Nairobi. The participants included 29 researchers from national agricultural research organizations, universities and private companies based in Africa and Asia.

Maize is the most widely produced crop in the world, providing about one-third of the calorie intake in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. However, the expansion of new diseases and pests like maize lethal necrosis (MLN), fall armyworm and climate change effects like drought and heat stress are expected to reduce yields in maize growing areas. Developing climate-resilient maize resistant to multiple stresses is crucial to feed maize-dependent populations.

Despite these challenges, research has shown that new technologies like doubled haploids and marker assisted selection – DNA screening methods and high throughput phenotyping that speeds up the breeding process – can increase efficiency in breeding.

The course covered various aspects of maize breeding such as improving nutritional quality by breeding for increased levels of provitamin-A and quality protein, boosting climate resilience by improving tolerance to stresses like drought, heat and poor soils and improving tolerance to insect pests and diseases.

The course also included four intensive workshops. The first workshop covered various aspects of doubled haploid technology and its use in maize breeding programs to increase efficiency. The second workshop included various topics on using molecular marker technologies to increase the selection intensity and increasing genetic gains. The third workshop trained participants on field data analysis and how to use a field book. The fourth workshop elaborated on various concepts under the demand-driven variety development module, and was conducted by colleagues from BECA and University of Nairobi.

The course also included two field days. During the visit to the CIMMYT-Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) experimental station at Kiboko, participants experienced all the processes involved in maize doubled haploid line production and the development of high-yielding maize varieties with tolerance to drought and low nitrogen. A field tour to the MLN facility in Naivasha showcased advanced inbred lines and commercial hybrids that are tolerant to MLN versus susceptible commercial checks.

Participants stated these new technologies and methods will help them improve their own breeding programs, and put improved varieties into farmers’ fields faster than ever.

Participants of a recent maize breeding training course in Nairobi, Kenya, June 2017. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT

Farmers at center of sustainable agriculture in Kenya

Written by on June 30, 2017. Posted in News.

Muli Mutiso, one of the trial host farmers based in Wote, Kenya, doubled his harvest of maize and beans, respectively, by intercropping. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT — Muli Mutiso, one of the trial host farmers based in Wote, Kenya, doubled his harvest of maize and beans by intercropping. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

NAIROBI (CIMMYT) – Climate change’s impact in eastern and southern Africa has driven many farmers to seek new planting techniques that maintain or increase crop production, despite fewer resources.

The World Bank forecasts show that climate change will push Africa to surpass Asia as the most food insecure region in the world, inhabiting up to 50 percent of undernourished people globally in 2080. Variations in temperature and precipitation, coupled with prolonged droughts and floods during El Nino events is predicted to have a devastating impact in the region where 95 percent of all agriculture is dependent on rainfall.

Farmers in eastern and southern Africa are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and changing the way they make a living because of it through new agricultural adaptation strategies.

Sustainable practices like growing two or more crops among each other, or intercropping, have become popular with smallholder farmers in Africa who often plant multiple crops. When used in combination with improved seeds with traits like drought or disease resistance, these farmers are able to have successful harvests despite challenges imposed by climate change.

Knowing how to manage an intercropping system is vital to its success. Cereals and legumes in an intercrop system must have different growth habits and rooting patterns to reduce competition for nutrients, light and water.

According to Leonard Rusinamhodzi, an agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), farmers also need to reduce herbicide use in intercropping systems.

“It’s difficult to apply selective herbicides in systems with both narrow and broad leaf crops,” said Rusinamhodzi, who is working with farmers to apply the best fertilizer practices to their intercropped plots. “Maize will require mostly nitrogen, phosphate and potassium basal fertilizer, while legumes will require mostly phosphate and potassium, and micronutrients such as zinc and boron. Proper rates and proportions for all fertilizers and nutrients is crucial to ensure both crops are properly nourished.”

Another major consideration of intercropping is arrangement of crops in the field. A common approach is to alternate one row of maize with one row of a legume, but in Kenya, two rows of a legume alternating with two rows of maize is preferred. This arrangement, known as the MBILI system (mbili meaning “two” in Kiswahili) in Kenya, reduces competition between the maize and legumes, which leads to higher yield for both crops.

Arrangements of intercrops: Left, the MBILI system characterized by two rows of a legume alternating with two rows of maize. On the right is the commonly used intercropping arrangement with alternating rows of component crops, that is, one row of maize followed by one row of the legume.

CIMMYT promotes the adoption of intercropping and other sustainable agriculture techniques through participatory farmer evaluations (PFEs) eastern and southern Africa. PFEs allow farmers to assess crops at demonstration plots and compare a range of improved seed products against local and traditional seed.

Participatory farmer evaluations allow farmers themselves to assess crops at demonstration plots, to compare a range of improved seed products against local/ traditional seed. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

In Makueni County, Kenya, where most farmers grow cereals and legumes together, on-station intercropping trials comprising five drought tolerant maize varieties, six bean varieties and six pigeonpea varieties were set up in 2016 and replicated on several smallholder farmers’ plots. In 2017, the Participatory Evaluation and Application of Climate Smart Agriculture – PEACSA – project invited farmers to score and rate the performance of the crop varieties planted right before harvest time through a PFE.

By comparing crop performance, smallholder farmers are able to see first-hand that when used in combination with improved seed, sustainable techniques like intercropping are key to successful yields and quality seed. Because of this PFEs also create awareness of new products while simultaneously delivering detailed technical knowledge in a more convincing, hands-on manner.

About PEACSA:

Participatory Evaluation and Application of Climate Smart Agriculture (PEACSA) is a flagship project of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in collaboration with different agricultural research organizations, including CIMMYT. Through the PEACSA project a variety of best-bet CSA practices are applied at both on station and on farm levels, in an effort to test and evaluate appropriate technologies to increase agricultural productivity and enhance food security. With participatory evaluation, uptake and adoption of new technologies, especially improved seed varieties, is greatly increased because farmers take stock of the traits that matter to them. Cob size, kernel type, and length of maturity are just some of the characteristics farmers can rate in a participatory evaluation exercise.

About DTMASS:

Led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project works in six countries in eastern and southern Africa to produce and deploy affordable drought tolerant, stress resilient, and high-yielding maize varieties for smallholder farmers. In 2016, DTMASS conducted PFEs in Mozambique and Zambia in collaboration with partners, and aims to conduct dozens more in 2017, across all project target countries.

Seminar seeks to boost wheat production in West and Central Asia

Written by on June 23, 2017. Posted in News.

The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia. Photo: CIMMYT

KRASNODAR, Russia (CIMMYT) – The sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar was recently held in Krasnodar, Russia, to improve wheat breeding across West and Central Asia.

Wheat is a staple in Central and West Asia and is critical to food security in the region. The biannual traveling seminar allows breeders from across the region to tackle challenges like climate change’s impact on wheat production, the spread of rust disease and improving grain quality.

The seminar was first launched in 2007 by the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP), a partnership between Turkey’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas to bringing together IWWIP members from Central and West Asia to share the results, discuss challenges and develop future plans for cooperation. Previous seminars were held in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Through IWWIP, improved wheat varieties are annually distributed from the Facultative and Winter Wheat Observation Nursery in Turkey to more than 100 partners in 50 countries. To date, more than 70 varieties have been released in Central and West Asia by IWWIP, covering up to 20 percent of all wheat grown in the region.

The seminar was held at the Krasnodar Agricultural Research Institute and Agricultural Research Center, attracting 74 participants from 17 countries in Central and West Asia, as well as Eastern and Western Europe.

Participants were shown wheat breeding and research plots, as well as multiplication of new barley and wheat varieties. The group was highly impressed by the level of breeding and research activities, the diversity of the germplasm and its yield potential. Varieties from the Krasnodar Institute are grown on several million hectares in Russia and other countries, contributing to regional and global food security. In the afternoon, several presentations were made from hosts and guests reviewing the current status of winter wheat improvement and regional collaboration. Participants also focused on breeding and agronomy activities.

Sixth International Winter Wheat Travelling Seminar participants. Photo: CIMMYT

The group also traveled to a farm in Rostov, Russia, that was demonstrating different winter wheat varieties and saw two seed production state farms that multiply the varieties from the Krasnodar Institute. All the fields visited were very well maintained, clean and with yield expectations exceeding 7-8 tons per hectare. More than two million hectares of wheat is grown in Rostov, providing about 8 percent of Russia’s total wheat.

Winter wheat varieties from Russian public breeding programs dominate about 95 percent of the country’s production area, though local and multinational private companies are increasingly emerging as key players in the sector.

A wrap up meeting was held with several presentations by the participants and the IWWIP strategy was presented and endorsed. Participants also stated their appreciation for the organizers, Krasnodar Agricultural Research Institute, and for IWWIP’s activities in developing and distributing germplasm. The event was supported by the Turkish government, the CGIAR Research Program on WHEAT and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Any questions about the seminar? Please contact Alexey Morgounov (a.morgounov@cgiar.org ) Fatih Ozdemir (fatihozde@hotmail.com) or Mesut Keser (M.Keser@cgiar.org)

Seed certification critical to quality seed production

Written by on June 8, 2017. Posted in Features.

A new variety in the market must have significant value to the farmer, such as higher tolerance to stresses, or added nutritional value. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – For over 50 years, CIMMYT has led the research and development of quality, improved seed, designed to help farmers mitigate the effects of climate change while improving livelihoods.

Every new variety released is driven by farmer needs and preferences, with desirable traits such as pest and disease resistance, drought and heat tolerance as well as water and nutrient use efficiency. With improved maize seed, farmers not only benefit from increased stress tolerance, they also enjoy higher yields, increased nutritional value and improved income from grain sales.

To ensure that quality seed standards are maintained, CIMMYT supports partners such as national agricultural research institutions and seed producers in acquisition and production of pure early generation seed, which is then tested by national quality assurance and certification agencies before certification and release.

Seed certification process

Seed certification is a rigorous process of testing new maize varieties before they are made available to farmers and follows an often lengthy three-step process.

The first step – value for cultivation and use, or national performance trials in some countries, – compares traits of the new variety to others already in the market to determine its value. For a new variety to enter the market it must have significant value to the farmer, such as higher tolerance to stress, or added nutritional value. It is at the end of this valuation process that a variety is registered, which takes about 2-3 years.

Next, a distinctiveness, uniformity and stability test (DUS) is performed on the seed sample provided to ensure that it is unique, uniform and will not deteriorate over time after its release. The DUS also helps to determine if an identical variety already exists and is registered, in order to avoid conflict among companies that are responsible for variety commercialization. The characteristics used to compare these materials are developed by breeders, and help distinguish different varieties. The length of time for DUS test varies by country, but on average the minimum is two planting seasons, about two years in most countries, or one year in others.

Finally, the government approves the variety for release and commercialization. In some countries, such as Tanzania, there is an extra classification of seed know as quality declared seed which is certified seed that has been through fewer steps of certification. It is perceived to be of a lower quality than regular certified seeds, and is therefore cheaper. Seed certification protects farmers from unscrupulous traders who would otherwise sell poor quality seed or grain packaged as seed.

Seed certification and commercialization can take 6-11 years, depending on how efficient a country’s system is. This lengthy and costly process can sometimes create backlogs, slowing release and commercialization of new varieties. This can discourage some seed companies from producing improved varieties, thus sticking to tried, tested and profitable varieties no matter how old they are. Commercializing a new variety is a huge investment in terms of cost, expertise, promotion and labor, so the longer certification process draws out, the more costs a company incurs. Farmers in turn continue to purchase the varieties that are always available, keeping them in demand.

Expecting seed companies to replace an old variety for an improved one is somewhat complicated, since this is a purely business decision where profits are priority. In some cases, dropping a popular variety to promote a new one could jeopardize a company’s market share, brand recognition and potentially put them out of business. This is why old varieties like Matuba in Mozambique, SC513 in Zimbabwe and H614 D in Kenya remain popular, despite being decades old.

Older seed dominating the market causes both farmers and seed companies to miss out on potential benefits and profits higher-performing seed can bring. Several strategies to retire old maize varieties and build demand for improved ones can be used, including demonstrating old and new varieties side by side in areas where target markets exist. This way, farmers themselves drive the process and start the switch to new varieties. Seed producers can emphasize a specific characteristic in the variety that will benefit the farmer. For instance, farmers in an area prone to maize lethal necrosis (MLN) are more likely to adopt a resistant variety, and eventually make a permanent switch once this characteristic is proven to be true.

Government policies can also encourage the retirement of old varieties, for instance through subsidies on seed production with requirements to only include new materials. CIMMYT, through its various projects, gives competitive financial grants only to companies that produce improved maize seed. An extreme and potentially detrimental option would be to cut off funding and other support to seed companies that refuse to phase out old varieties.

The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project works in six countries in eastern and southern Africa to produce and deploy affordable drought tolerant, stress resilient, and high-yielding maize varieties for smallholder farmers. DTMASS employs innovative and impactful strategies to promote uptake and adoption of these improved seed varieties, as well as sharing agronomy and other agricultural information directly with farmers to improve crop management.

Led by CIMMYT and funded by the United States Agency for International Development, DTMASS is implemented through strategic partnerships with national agricultural research systems, as well as public and private seed producers.