Climate change threatens to reduce global crop production, and poor people in tropical environments will be hit the hardest. More than 90% of CIMMYT’s work relates to climate change, helping farmers adapt to shocks while producing more food, and reduce emissions where possible. Innovations include new maize and wheat varieties that withstand drought, heat and pests; conservation agriculture; farming methods that save water and reduce the need for fertilizer; climate information services; and index-based insurance for farmers whose crops are damaged by bad weather. CIMMYT is an important contributor to the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
As climate experts forecast another climate-warming El Nino in early 2019, maize varieties developed under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) initiative represent low-cost innovations that could improve the crop’s climate resilience and the livelihoods of millions family farmers across Africa, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Drought tolerant (DT) maize was among 20 success stories featured at the Innovation Fair of the International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers, organized and hosted by FAO in Rome from 21 to 23 November, 2018. Drawing more than 500 participants from farmer associations, international organizations, United Nations agencies, governments, research institutions and the private sector, the Fair aimed to devise and recommend actions that unlock the potential of agricultural innovation.
Drought-tolerant seeds: An affordable and effective way to cope with dry weather
‘’Since early 1990s, farmers in Zimbabwe face erratic rains and maize crops often fail due to frequent droughts,’’ said Cosmos Magorokosho, maize breeder based at the Harare, Zimbabwe, office of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Led by CIMMYT, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard Buffett Foundation, and involving 13 national maize breeding programs and various seed companies across Africa, DTMA is responsible for more than 160 new maize varieties, including 15 in Zimbabwe that yield 25 to 30 percent more than conventional varieties under dry conditions and perform as well as those varieties under normal rainfall. The latter was crucial for convincing seed companies to take up and market DT maize, according to Magorokosho.
In one study in drought-prone southern Zimbabwe, farmers using the DT varieties in dry years were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare — worth $240 and enough maize for 9 months for an average family of 6 people — than farmers who sowed conventional varieties. The added food security comes at no additional cost and, if farmers choose to sell the grain, it brings extra income for other household needs.
Under the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa initiative, CIMMYT and partners are continuing to develop maize varieties that cope not only with drought but with common constraints such as insect pests, diseases including Maize Lethal Necrosis and infertile soils.
Adopting new technology or practices can represent unacceptable risks for resource-poor farming families, who live without the official safety nets enjoyed by peers in prosperous economies and will simply starve if their crops fail. Involving farmers, seed companies and other end users in development is essential for agricultural innovations to be widely adopted and sustainable, according to Bram Govaerts, global director of innovative business strategies at CIMMYT.
“Dialogue with global food processing companies can create market opportunities for smallholder farmers through approaches like local, responsible sourcing,’’ said Govaerts, speaking during the fair’s panel ‘Engaging the private sector to accelerate agricultural innovation.’
“More than 3,300 Mexican farmers on more than 35,000 hectares in 5 states will benefit from responsible sourcing arrangements, whereby the companies pay them to grow the grain using sustainable farming practices,” Govaerts explained, adding that the farmers will supply an estimated 400,000 tons of grain to participating companies in the next 3 to 5 years.
Mexico’s Agriculture Department (SAGARPA) supports these and other public-private partnerships through its investments in MasAgro, which studies, develops and transfers innovative farming practices and technologies to the field, with emphasis on family farmers.
In September, the FAO’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean acknowledged MasAgro as a replicable and scalable initiative that could contribute significantly to sustainable rural development in that region.
These two impactful examples show that agricultural innovation can only succeed through well-thought research and development partnerships, and building such collaborations is a science in itself.
NEW DELHI (CIMMYT) — India could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by almost 18 percent through the adoption of mitigation measures, according to a new study. Three improved farming practices would account for more than half of these emission reductions, researchers say: efficient use of fertilizer, zero tillage and better water management in rice farming.
In an article published in Science in the Total Environment, scientists estimate that, by 2030, “business-as-usual” greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector in India would be 515 MtCO2e per year. The study indicates that Indian agriculture has the potential to mitigate 85.5 Megatonne CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) per year without compromising food production and nutrition. Considering the 2012 estimates of 481 MtCO2e, that would represent a reduction of almost 18 percent. Researchers suggest mitigation options that are technically feasible but will require government efforts to be implemented at scale.
The study was conducted by scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the University of Aberdeen and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), with support from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS). They followed a “bottom-up” approach to estimate and analyze greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, using large datasets related to crops (around 45,000 data points) and livestock production (around 1,600 data points) along with soil, climate and management information. To evaluate mitigation measures, associated costs and benefits of adoption, researchers used a variety of sources, including literature, stakeholder meetings and consultations with experts in crops, livestock and natural resource management.
The authors also identify “hotspots” where mitigation practices would have the highest potential for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, reduced fertilizer consumption through precision nutrient management shows the highest potential in the state of Uttar Pradesh, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab. Water management in rice farming has the highest mitigation potential in Andhra Pradesh, followed by Tamil Nadu, Orissa and West Bengal.
India is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Contributing almost one-fifth to the national total, agriculture has been identified as a priority in the country’s efforts to reduce emissions. The results from this study can help the country make great strides towards its goals. However, these climate change mitigation benefits can only work if farmers take up the new practices, some of which require an initial investment. Government policies and incentives will be crucial to help farmers take the first steps, ensure wide-scale adoption of these mitigation options, and help India meet its food security and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.
Marginal abatement cost curve of Indian agriculture.
Three feasible mitigation measures
Efficient use of fertilizer not only lowers emissions at the field, but also reduces the need for fertilizer and the emissions associated with production and transportation. It also represents savings for the farmer. Mitigation options would include applying fertilizer at the right time and the right place for plant uptake, or using slow-release fertilizer forms or nitrification inhibitors. “Efficient fertilizer use in the agriculture sector in India has potential to reduce around 17.5 MtCO2e per year,” said Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT scientist and lead author of the study.
Adoption of zero tillage farming and residue management — maintaining crop residues on the soil surface to protect the ground from erosion — in rice, wheat, maize, cotton and sugarcane was shown to reduce emissions by about 17 MtCO2e per year. “CIMMYT has successfully worked to develop and promote these practices in India,” said M.L. Jat, CIMMYT principal scientist and co-author of the study.
Better water management in rice farming — such as adopting alternate wetting and drying in rice fields that are currently continuously flooded — can offer mitigation of about 12 MtCo2e per year. Other water management techniques in major cereals, such as laser-levelling of fields, or using sprinkler or micro-sprinkler irrigation and fertigation together, also provide important greenhouse gas emissions savings, with a reduction of around 4 MtCO2e per year for laser levelling alone.
This work was jointly carried out by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the University of Aberdeen. Research was funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), supported by CGIAR Fund Donors and through bilateral funding agreements.
South Asia faces multiple food security challenges, one of which being its extreme vulnerability to climate change. Millions living in the region are expected to be affected by water stress, yield loss, and other climate disasters caused by rising temperatures. Technological innovations can in important tool in ensuring food and livelihood security in the region, but social inclusivity is key to promoting the large-scale adoption of new technologies and practices.
Women’s participation in agricultural activities is increasing over time, but many still have limited capacity to contribute to farm decision-making. They may also have limited control over and access to resources such as credit, extension services and markets. The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has developed and piloted the use of climate-smart villages (CSVs) in the Indian states of Bihar and Haryana to test climate-smart agriculture options for managing climate-related risks and promoting gender equality in agricultural production.
As climate change disproportionately affects poor and socially marginalized groups, including women, it is important to understand the ways in which the climate-smart approach helps to address specific climate change adaptation challenges. However, there are few studies to date focusing on this question.
In an attempt to fill this gap, a new study carried out as part of the CCAFS project on Climate-Smart Agriculture analyzes the extent to which the climate-smart village approach can contribute to establishing greater gender equality across the agricultural, political, social and economic sectors. The study introduces a Gender Empowerment Index for climate-smart villages, based on measurable indicators. It also documents the gender gap by mapping differences in empowerment levels across selected climate-smart villages and other villages across India’s eastern and western Indo-Gangetic Plains.
Climate change impact on Mexico wheat production. 2018. Hernandez-Ochoa, I.M., Asseng, S., Kassie, B.T., Wei Xiong, Robertson, R., Pequeño, D. N. L., Sonder, K., Reynolds, M.P., Md Ali Babar., Molero, A., Hoogenboom, G. In: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology v. 263, p. 373-387.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — As the impact of climate change on food staples becomes more apparent, scientists with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are beginning to study how increasing temperatures will affect other contributors to the human diet. A new study indicates that the global beer supply will be hard hit. Given how seemingly plentiful beer is, this is difficult news to hear.
Two years ago, Xiong and the other scientists began to design the study to learn more about extreme drought and heat patterns adversely affecting crops around the world. Barley, the primary cereal grain from which beer is brewed, is one of the most heat-sensitive crops, meaning that even short periods of high temperatures can affect grain quality and grain yield.
Despite a number of studies published assessing yield loss of barley and other crops due to global warming, there were no previous studies published connecting the price of beer to barley yield. The study, which the scientists refer to as the “drinking security” project, has garnered world-wide interest from various media outlets given the popularity of beer.
Wanting to connect their research with an interest of the general public, or the price of beer, the study’s authors saw value in researching the intersection of barley, beer and climate change. As a cross-culturally shared beverage, beer — to some extent — is more popular than rice, wheat and maize as it is recognized as a lifestyle staple. “This is the reason why we chose barley and beer as the case crop, to raise awareness of climate change and its impacts. The wide interest in the study proved we succeed,” says Xiong.
The study also points out an alternative way to raise the public awareness of climate change for the future, or presenting an issue that has tangible realities for the average person. “Consuming less beer thanks to climate change won’t necessarily affect global health, but having no beer will definitely add insult to injury, particularly when we’re watching sports matches,” says Xiong. “If you still want a few pints of beer, then the only way to do so is to mitigate climate change.”
In the process of conducting climate and crop model simulations for the study, Xiong improved available data on global barley supply through the introduction of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), a program used for simulating crop growth, to develop a global calibration algorithm to allow the model to reproduce historical and projected future barley production.
This was the first endeavor to date using the DSSAT model for single crop analysis on a global scale — a total of 38 barley producing regions were analyzed. Xiong also assisted in the designing of the study’s extreme warm weather index to identify extreme drought and heat years from climate simulation outputs.
Following the use of DSSAT, CIMMYT-led High Performance Computing (HPC) allowed for the calculation of barely grain yield change due to extreme drought and heat, a fundamental component of the study. CIMMYT is currently establishing the modeling capacity to be able to cover 30 more crops worldwide in addition to barley with multiple HPC models. This will ultimately aid CIMMYT in analyzing agricultural and economic risks associated with maize and wheat.
The study acknowledges its limitations as a result of factors that were kept constant such as the behaviors of barley producers and beer drinkers, global food stock and population growth. “One shortcoming of the paper that could be improved in cooperation with CIMMYT is looking at the spatial shift of crop area under a warming climate,” Xiong says. “This area shift, or cultivar shift between regions, has already happened in many countries to help cope with a warming climate, but we are not clear how it happens and its resulting consequences.”
Despite the study’s findings, there is still space to develop the analysis by further considering the implications of future climate change forecasts. While the fate of beer seems bleak, there is still hope for the beverage in that the study did not consider the world’s progress in developing heat and drought resistant barley varieties and their adoption by farmers. However, Xiong particularly believes that the study signals the butterfly effect in climate change impacts, meaning that everyone will eventually suffer from the effects of climate change if no action is taken to fight it.
With news of a potential decrease in the world’s beer supply, climate change seems to have abruptly arrived on beer lovers’ doorsteps.
For decades, rice stubble has been burned in India to clear fields and prepare for wheat sowing. The easiest way of getting rid of rice crop residue is to burn it in bulk, but this poses a serious threat to the entire biosystem, from soil nutrition to human health. Deteriorating soil health results in lower crop yields, increased dependence on fertilizers, and increased water volume requirements for irrigation, all of which have negative impacts on farmer incomes.
“Earlier when rice harvesting was manual, crop residues were taken out from fields and farmers benefited from selling them,” explains M.L. Jat, principal scientist and systems agronomist at CIMMYT. “Later, when agriculture included more mechanical operations for harvesting with the increase in the production to the tune of millions of tons, crop residue became a hazard in terms of disposal that would involve huge money, labor, and logistics.”
DES MOINES (Iowa) — Hundreds of food and agriculture leaders from around the world gathered last week in Iowa, USA, for the 2018 edition of the Borlaug Dialogue. Much of the conversation this year was centered on how to “take it to the farmer,” as Norman Borlaug famously said. Experts discussed how to build sustainable seed systems, grounded on solid science, so improved varieties reach smallholder farmers.
General view of the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue venue. (Photo: World Food Prize)
Louise Sperling, senior technical advisor at Catholic Relief Services, presented a study on the sources of seed for smallholder farmers in Africa. She explained that 52.2 percent of households receive new varieties, but only 2.8 percent of the seed comes through agro-dealers. The biggest source is local markets and own stock, the so-called informal channels.
Quality and variety of seed should be the focus, emphasized Jean Claude Rubyogo, seed systems specialist at CIAT. In his view, we need to integrate formal and informal seed distribution channels, using the competitive advantages of each.
“When we take good seed, we address all African soil,” said Ruth Oniang’o, board chair at the Sasakawa Africa Foundation. Oniang’o explained access to financing is a major hurdle for smallholders to access better seed and other innovations. In her view, current financial products are inadequate. “Why should we get a farmer to pay 20 percent interest rates on a small loan?”
B.J. Marttin, member of the managing board of Rabobank Group, recommended financial institutions to partner with farmers through every stage, from production to sale, so they better understand risk and the whole value chain. Simon Winter, executive director of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, captured the main points from the session on financing for agricultural entrepreneurs. “We have to have the farmer at the center. The farmer is the ultimate customer,” Winter said. “If we are not serving farmer needs, we are not really solving the problems.”
Research to feed the world
The 2018 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report, presented at the Borlaug Dialogue, shows the growing gap between future food supply needs and agricultural production, particularly in low-income countries. To meet the projected food needs of nearly 10 billion people in 2050, global agricultural productivity must increase by 1.75 percent annually, the report states, but has only increased 1.51 percent annually since 2010.
A plenary session led by CGIAR explored the role of research in tackling this and other complex challenges. “We have to talk about food and agriculture research,” said former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. People need to understand research is not abstract academic knowledge, but rather useful innovation that goes “from the farm, to the table and to the stomach,” he explained.
“Innovation, no matter where you are in the world, is key to moving forward,” said Patience Koku, a farmer from Nigeria part of the Global Farmer Network. “I don’t think the farmers in Africa or in Nigeria need a lot of convincing” to adopt innovation, Koku noted. If someone is able to explain what a new technology can do, “farmers see that science can make their life better and embrace it.”
Rising to the challenge
Agricultural research is also crucial to confront global threats like pests, conflict and climate change.
A session led by CIMMYT presented the latest research and actions against fall armyworm. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordóñez/CIMMYT)
Two separate sessions, hosted by Corteva Agriscience and CIMMYT, shared the latest approaches in the fight against fall armyworm and other pests and diseases. The Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Martin Kropff, explained how organizations are working together to respond to the rapid spread of fall armyworm in Africa and Asia. “We have to solve the problem based on science, and then develop, validate and deploy integrated pest management approaches,” Kropff said.
As part of the World Food Prize outreach program, Bram Govaerts, director of innovative business strategies at CIMMYT, gave a lecture to students at Brody Middle School about the importance of agriculture and food. “When people can’t grow crops or pay for food to feed their families, desperation turns to conflict.”
At a side event, the Economist Intelligence Unit presented the Global Food Security Index 2018, which ranks food systems in 113 countries based on affordability, availability, and quality and safety. Senior consultant Robert Powell explained that the index now includes an adjustment factor based on each country’s natural resource risks and resilience to the impacts of a changing climate. “All countries will experience the impact of climate change,” Powell said.
The pernicious effects of climate change were also evident to the 2018 World Food Prize winners, David Nabarro and Lawrence Haddad, who have led global efforts to curb child malnutrition. “There is no evidence to me that [this] crisis is going to stop, because climate change is here,” Nabarro declared. “The foods we choose to grow and eat have a large impact on emissions,” Haddad said. “Food has a lot to offer” on climate mitigation and “diversity is the secret sauce” for climate adaptation. “We need food systems that are diverse: in crops, locations, organizations involved in them…”
Less biodiversity translates into “less resilience and worse nutrition,” according to the Vice President of Peru, Mercedes Aráoz. Through improved health and nutrition services, the country more than halved malnutrition among children under five, from 28 percent in 2008 to 13.1 percent in 2016.
2018 World Food Prize winners Lawrence Haddad (left) and David Nabarro speak during the award ceremony. (Photo: World Food Prize)
A rallying cry for nutrition
The impact of nutrition on the first 1,000 days of life lasts a lifetime, explained Haddad. “For young kids, these are permanent shocks.”
“If a person is not nourished in those very important weeks and months of life, the long-term consequences are likely to be irreversible,” Nabarro added. According to him, nutrition needs to be the target in the 2030 agenda, not only hunger.
“Nutrition-based interventions present us a new lens through which to create and assess impact as agricultural researchers,” said Elwyn Grainger-Jones, the executive director of the CGIAR System Organization. “Our future success must come not only from ensuring an adequate supply of calories for the global population, but also the right quality and diversity of foods to tackle hidden hunger as well.”
“We are not going to resolve the challenges of undernutrition without the ag sector stepping up in a big way and differently,” argued Shawn Baker, director of nutrition at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Nutrition needs you,” Baker told other participants. “Welcome to the nutrition family.”
Farmer Eveline Musafari intercrops maize and a variety of legumes on her entire farm. She likes the ability to grow different food crops on the same space, providing her family with more food to eat and sell. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
Honest Musafari, a fifty-year-old farmer from rural Zimbabwe, eagerly picks up a clump of soil from his recently harvested field to show how dark and fertile it is. A farmer all his life, Musafari explains the soil has not always been like this. For years, he and his neighbors had to deal with poor eroding soil that increasingly dampened maize yields.
“My soil was getting poorer each time I plowed my field, but since I stopped plowing, left the crop residues and planted maize together with legumes the soil is much healthier,” says Musafari. His 1.6-hectare maize-based farm, in the Murehwa district, supports his family of six.
For over two years, Musafari has been one of the ten farmers in this hot and dry area of Zimbabwe to trial intercropping legumes and green manure cover crops alongside their maize, to assess their impact on soil fertility.
The on-farm trials are part of efforts led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and government extension services to promote climate-resilient cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Increasing land degradation at the farm and landscape level is the major limitation to food security and livelihoods for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, says CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist Christian Thierfelder.
“Over 65 percent of soils in Africa are degraded. They lack the nutrients needed for productive crops. This is a major part of the reason why the region’s maize yields are not increasing,” he explains. “The failure to address poor soil health will have a disastrous effect on feeding the region’s growing population.”
The area where Musafari lives was chosen to test intercropping, along with others in Malawi and Zambia, for their infamous poor soils.
Mixing it up
When legumes are intercropped with maize they act as a green manure adding nutrients to the soil through nitrogen fixation. Intercropping legumes and cereals along with the principles of conservation agriculture are considered away to sustainable intensify food production in Africa. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Planted in proximity to maize, legumes — like pigeon pea, lablab and jack beans — add nitrogen to the soil, acting as green manure as they grow, says Thierfelder. Essentially, they replace the nutrients being used by the cereal plant and are an accessible form of fertilizer for farmers who cannot afford mineral fertilizers to improve soil fertility.
“Our trials show legumes are a win for resource poor family farmers. Providing potentially 5 to 50 tons per hectare of extra organic matter besides ground cover and fodder,” he notes. “They leave 50 to 350 kg per hectare of residual nitrogen in the soil and do not need extra fertilizer to grow.”
Added to the principles of conservation agriculture — defined by minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through crop rotation and intercropping — farmers are well on their way to building a resilient farm system, says Geoffrey Heinrich, a senior technical advisor for agriculture with CRS working to promote farmer adoption of green manure cover crops.
For years Musafari, as many other smallholder farmers in Africa, tilled the land to prepare it for planting, using plows to mix weeds and crop residues back into the soil. However, this intensive digging has damaged soil structure, destroyed most of the organic matter, reduced its ability to hold moisture and caused wind and water erosion.
Letting the plants do the work
Growing legumes alongside maize provides immediate benefits, such as reduced weeding labor and legume cash crops farmers can sell for a quick income. The legumes also improve the nitrogen levels in the soil and can save farmers money, as maize needs less fertilizer. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Musafari says the high price of mineral fertilizer puts it out of reach for farmers in his community. They only buy little amounts when they have spare cash, which is never enough to get its full benefit.
He was at first skeptical green manure cover crops could improve the quality of his soil or maize yields, he explains. However, he thought it was worth a try, considering growing different crops on the same plot would provide his family with more food and the opportunity to make some extra cash.
“I’m glad I tried intercropping. Every legume I intercropped with my maize improved the soil structure, its ability to capture rain water and also improved the health of my maize,” he says.
Thierfelder describes how this happens. Nitrogen fixation, which is unique to leguminous crops, is a very important process for improving soil fertility. This process involves bacteria in the soil and nitrogen in the air. The bacteria form small growths on the plant roots, called nodules, and capture the atmospheric nitrogen as it enters the soil. The nodules change the nitrogen into ammonia, a form of nitrogen plants use to produce protein.
In addition, legumes grown as a cover crop keep soil protected from heavy rains and strong winds and their roots hold the soil in place, the agronomist explains. They conserve soil moisture, suppress weeds and provide fodder for animals and new sources of food for consumption or sale.
Farmers embrace intercropping
Extension worker Memory Chipinguzi explains the benefits of intercropping legumes with cereals to farmers at a field day in the Murehwa district, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Working with CIMMYT, Musafari and his wife divided a part of their farm into eight 20 by 10 meter plots. On each plot, they intercropped maize with a different legume: cowpea, jack bean, lablab, pigeon pea, sugar bean and velvet bean. They also tried intercropping with two legumes on one of the plots. Then they compared all those options to growing maize alone.
“Season by season the soil on each of the trial plots has got darker and my maize healthier,” describes Musafari. “Rains used to come and wash away the soil, but now we don’t plow or dig holes, so the soil is not being washed away; it holds the water.”
“I really like how the legumes have reduced the weeds. Before we had a major problem with witchweed, which is common in poor soils, but now it’s gone,” he adds.
Since the first season of the trial, Musafari’s maize yields have almost tripled. The first season his maize harvested 11 bags, or half a ton, and two seasons later it has increased to 32 bags, or 1.5 tons.
Musafari’s wife Eveline has also been convinced about the benefits of intercropping, expressing the family now wants to extend it to the whole farm. “Intercropping has more advantages than just growing maize. We get different types of food on the same space. We have more to eat and more to sell,” she says.
The family prefers intercropping with jack bean and lablab. Even though they were among the hardest legumes to sell, they improved the soil the most. They also mature at the same time as their maize, so they save labor as they only have to harvest once.
The benefits gained during intercropping have influenced farmers to adopt it as part of their farming practices at most of our trial sites across southern Africa, CRS’s Heinrich says.
“Immediate benefits, such as reduced weeding labor and legume cash crops that farmers can sell off quick, provide a good incentive for adoption,” he adds.
Honest and Eveline Musafari with extension worker, Memory Chipinguzi. Neighbors have noticed the intercropping trials on the Musafari’s farm and are beginning to adopt the practice to gain similar benefits. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
The majority of African farmers are smallholders who cultivate less than 2 hectares, explains Thierfelder. If they are to meet the food demand of a population set to almost double by 2050, bringing it to over 2 billion people while overcoming multiple challenges, they need much more productive and climate-resilient cropping systems.
New research identifies that the defining principles of conservation agriculture alone are not enough to shield farmers from the impacts of climate change. Complementary practices are required to make climate-resilient farming systems more functional for smallholder farmers in the short and long term, he warns.
“Intercropping with legumes is one complementary practice which can help building healthy soils that stand up to erratic weather,” says Thierfelder. “CIMMYT promotes climate-resilient cropping systems that are tailored to farmers’ needs,” he emphasizes.
“To sustainably intensify farms, growers need to implement a variety of options including intercropping, using improved crop varieties resistant to heat and drought and efficient planting using mechanization along with the principles of conservation agriculture to obtain the best results.”
A Maasai woman holding a baby (center) attends the plenary session of the GLF Nairobi 2018. (Photo: Global Landscapes Forum)
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — The latest event of the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) took place on August 29-30 in Nairobi, Kenya, under the topic of forest and landscape restoration in Africa. To tackle the urgent issue of deforestation and land degradation, the sessions and panels covered topics as diverse as community-led restoration, how to address social inclusion in land management, or how to work with supply chain actors to achieve sustainable landscapes and better livelihoods for local communities.
Landscape degradation directly affects 1.5 billion people. Local communities are usually the first ones to experience the negative effects of this problem on their livelihoods, access to water and loss of topsoil and farm productivity.
Sustainable landscapes play a role in CIMMYT’s work. In Ethiopia, CIMMYT’s research in collaboration with CIFOR showed that a landscape approach can improve the nutrition and resilience of farming families. The transfer of organic matter and nutrients from forest patches to farmers’ fields, through livestock manure and fuelwood, enriches the soils and increases the zinc and protein content of wheat grain.
While agronomy tends to look at the field’s scale, a landscape perspective may also be important for more efficient pest control, as CIMMYT’s research with Wageningen University found. A useful learning as agriculture experts look at ways to combat emerging pests like the fall armyworm.
Voices of the Landscape Plenary at the GLF Nairobi 2018. (Photo: Global Landscapes Forum)
Better soil and rights
Participants in GLF Nairobi 2018 called for concrete collective action to restore degraded landscapes.
Having real-time accurate dashboards of land degradation could help governments and development organizations build coherent policies and restoration programs. Mark Schauer from the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative explained why soil is important and how monetizing the costs and benefits of sustainable soil management practices could help decision-makers build more sustainable food systems. Sharing data in transboundary contexts is a challenge but can be overcome, as the Eastern Africa Forest Observatory (OFESA) has shown.
Asking uncomfortable questions is necessary to support the people who depend the most on landscapes’ health. Milagre Nuvunga from the MICAIA Foundation in Mozambique recommended to put women’s rights at the center of landscape restoration programs. Several testimonies reminded that women living in patriarchal societies often do not have land rights, so land will go back to the husband’s family in case of death or divorce. Even if they know the benefits of landscape restoration, “why would women care” to invest time and energy on it if their rights are not secured, she asked.
A new study shows Earth Overshoot Day – the point at which the consumption of earth’s resources exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate – is arriving faster. Thirty years ago, Earth Overshoot Day was October 15. Twenty years ago, it was September 30, and ten years ago, it was August 15. This year, August 1 marked the earliest date ever recorded.
In “How changing the world’s food systems can help to protect the planet,” CGIAR System Organization Executive Director Elwyn Grainger-Jones says one of the greatest pressure points pushing the planet to its limits is the food system. The way food is grown, produced, transported and consumed has serious consequences on the quantity and quality of earth’s natural resources. Grainger-Jones says there are numerous initiatives around the world working to transform food systems to have lower environmental footprints.
In a major wheat growing region of Mexico, CIMMYT researchers are studying how to more precisely apply nitrogen to significantly lower emissions and runoff without affecting yield.
Read the full article to learn more about this study and what other CGIAR centers are doing to close the resource gap.
Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”
A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.
“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.
Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT
Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.
“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.
Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.
“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”
She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.
Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light
Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.
“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”
Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.
Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.
“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”
Training youth and improving conditions for young women
From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.
“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”
Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.
“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”
Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”
Crop growth simulation models coupled with climate model projections are promoted and increasingly used for assessing impacts of climate change on crop yields and for informing crop-level adaptations. However, most reported studies are unclear regarding the choice of the global circulation models (GCMs) for climate projections and the corresponding uncertainty with these type of model simulations.In our study, we investigated to what extent far climate-change modeling can be used for identifying crop management adaptation options to climate change. We focused our analysis on a case study of maize production in southern Africa using the APSIM crop growth model (Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator) and projections from 17 individual climate models for the period 2017-2060 for the contrasting representative concentration pathways 2.6 and 8.5.
Our findings demonstrate that the identification of crop management-level adaptation options based on linked climate-crop simulation modelling is largely hindered by uncertainties in the projections of climate change impacts on crop yields. With uncertainties in future crop yield predictions of around 30 to 40% or more, many potential adaptation options to climate change are not identifiable or testable with crop-climate models.
First, the variation of climate predictions is high. Their accuracy is limited by fundamental, irreducible uncertainties that are the result of structural differences in the GCMs as well as different model parametrization and downscaling approaches. We found that different GCMs gave largely different results, without any clear pattern.
Second, there is also large uncertainty in simulating the responses of crops to changing climate because of the different structures, and input data and parameters of crop models. Besides, crop models often lack key processes (e.g., physiological plant responses to extreme temperatures) related to climate change impacts, as they were not built for this purpose. It is also evident that due to the limited capability of crop models in simulating effects of soil and crop management practices on crop yields, only a limited number of adaptation options could be informed.
A more successful approach for informing adaptation to climate change may be to begin with the decision-making context, assessing the existing capacities and vulnerabilities of farmers and their communities to climate change. This “capacity approach” does not require probability-based estimates of future climate, but rather a range of plausible representations that can help to better understand how the climate-related vulnerabilities can be addressed. Most of the decisions on crop management are made by the farmer in the context of his/her production objectives and farming opportunities and constraints. From there, farming options can be identified and proposed that are feasible and robust over a range of plausible climatic futures, without the need for detailed climate projections.
Furthermore, adaption to climate change is also entwined with socioeconomic drivers, such as globalization, economic and political priorities, and demographics. In fact, complexities in economic and social systems may outweigh climatic uncertainties in determining possible and feasible adaptation options. A general trend observed is that by diversifying their income sources, including off-farm income, farmers become less vulnerable to climate variability and change.
Whilst we argue that results from GCMs cannot be directly used for informing local-scale adaptation options, we do acknowledge that the use of ensembles of both climate and crop models in regionally- and globally-oriented impact studies can provide valuable information that can guide policy decision-making on agricultural adaptation to climate change at national and international scales.
Felipa Martinez shows off some of her family’s maize from last year’s harvest. Photo: Matthew O’Leary
Felipa Martinez, an indigenous Mexican grandmother, grins as she shows off a bag bulging with maize cobs saved from last harvest season. With her family, she managed to farm enough maize for the year despite the increasing pressure brought by climate change.
Felipa’s grin shows satisfaction. Her main concern is her family, the healthy harvest lets her feed them without worry and sell the little left over to cover utilities.
“When our crops produce a good harvest I am happy because we don’t have to spend our money on food. We can make our own tortillas and tostadas,” she said.
Her family belongs to the Chatino indigenous community and lives in the small town of Santiago Yaitepec in humid southern Oaxaca. They are from one of eleven marginalized indigenous communities throughout the state involved in a participatory breeding project with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to naturally improve the quality and preserve the biodiversity of native maize.
These indigenous farmers are custodians of maize biodiversity, growing seeds passed down over generations. Their maize varieties represent a portion of the diversity found in the 59 native Mexican races of maize, or landraces, which first developed from wild grasses at the hands of their ancestors. These different types of maize diversified through generations of selective breeding, adapting to the environment, climate and cultural needs of the different communities.
In recent years, a good harvest has become increasingly unreliable, as the impacts of climate change, such as erratic rainfall and the proliferation of pests and disease, have begun to challenge native maize varieties. Rural poor and smallholder farmers, like Martinez and her family, are among the hardest hit by the mounting impacts of climate change, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
These farmers and their ancestors have thousands of years of experience selecting and breeding maize to meet their environment. However, climate change is at times outpacing their selection methods, said CIMMYT landrace improvement coordinator Martha Willcox, who works with the community and coordinates the participatory breeding project. Through the initiative, the indigenous communities work together with professional maize breeders to continuously improve and conserve their native maize.
Despite numerous challenges, farmers in the region are unwilling to give up their maize for other varieties. “The native maize, my maize grows best here, it yields well in our environment. The maize is sweeter, it is heavier,” said Don Modesto Suarez, Felipa’s husband. “This maize has been grown by our grandfathers and this is why I will not change it.”
Una mujer de la comunidad Chatino prepara tortillas muy grandes de maíz criollo que son muy apreciadas en los mercados locales. Foto: Matthew O’Leary
This is because a community’s native maize varieties are adapted to their specific microclimate, such as elevation and weather patterns, and therefore may perform better or be more resistant to local pests and diseases than other maize varieties. They may also have specific characteristics prized for local culinary traditions — for example, in Santiago Yaitepec the native maize varieties have a specific type of starch that allows for the creation of extra-large tortillas and tostadas that are in high demand in local markets.
Other varieties may not meet farmers’ specific needs or climate, and many families do not want to give up their cultural attachment to native maize, said Flavio Aragon, a genetic resources researcher at the Mexican National Institute for Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research (INIFAP) who collaborates with Willcox.
CIMMYT and INIFAP launched the four-year participatory plant breeding project to understand marginalized communities’ unique makeup and needs – including maize type, local climates, farming practices, diseases and culture – and include farmers in breeding maize to suit these needs.
“Our aim is to get the most out of the unique traits in the native maize found in the farmer’s fields. To preserve and use it to build resistance and strength without losing the authenticity,” said Aragon.
“When we involve farmers in the process of selection, they are watching what we are doing and they are learning techniques,” he said. “Not only about the process of genetic selection in breeding but also sustainable farming practices and this makes it easier for farmers to adopt the maize that they have worked alongside breeders to improve through the project.”
Suarez said he appreciates the help, “We are learning how to improve our maize and identify diseases. I hope more farmers in the community join in and grow with us,” he said.
When disease strikes
Chatino men stand in a maize field in Santiago Yaitepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Tar spot complex threatened harvests, but work in participatory breeding with CIMMYT has helped local communities to improve their native maize without loosing preferred traits. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary)
Changes in weather patterns due to climate change are making it hard for farmers to know when to plant their crops to avoid serious disease. Now, a fungal disease known as tar spot complex, or TSC, is increasingly taking hold of maize crops, destroying harvests and threatening local food security, said Willcox. TSC resistance is one key trait farmers want to include in the participatory breeding.
Named for the black spots that cover infected plants, TSC causes leaves to die prematurely, weakening the plant and preventing the ears from developing fully, cutting yields by up to 50 percent or more in extreme cases.
Caused by a combination of three fungal infections, the disease occurs most often in cool and humid areas across southern Mexico, Central America and into South America. The disease is beginning to spread, possibly due to climate change, evolving pathogens and introduction of susceptible maize varieties.
“Our maize used to grow very well here, but then this disease came and now our maize doesn’t grow as well,” said Suarez. “For this reason we started to look for maize that we could exchange with our neighbors.”
A traditional breeding method for indigenous farmers is to see what works in fields of neighboring farmers and test it in their own, Willcox said.
Taking the search to the next level, Willcox turned to the CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank, which holds over 7000 native maize seed types collected from indigenous farmers. She tested nearly a thousand accessions in search of TSC resistance. A tedious task that saw her rate the different varieties on how they handled the disease in the field. However, the effort paid off with her team discovering two varieties that stood up to the disease. One variety, Oaxaca 280, originated from just a few hours north of where the Suarez family lives.
Farmer Modesto Suarez (left) and neighbors were originally cautious to plant Oaxaca 280 in their fields, but were pleased with the results. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary)
After testing Oaxaca 280 in their fields the farmers were impressed with the results and have now begun to include the variety in their breeding.
“Oaxaca 280 is a landrace – something from Mexico – and crossing this with the community’s maize gives 100 percent unimproved material that is from Oaxaca very close to their own,” said Willcox. “It is really a farmer to farmer exchange of resistance from another area of Oaxaca to this landrace here.”
“The goal is to make it as close as it can be to what the farmer currently has and to conserve the characteristics valued by farmers while improving specific problems that the farmers request help with, so that it is still similar to their native varieties and they accept it,” Aragon said.
Expanding for impact
Willcox and colleagues throughout Mexico seek to expand the participatory breeding project nationwide in a bid to preserve maize biodiversity and support rural communities.
“If you take away their native maize you take away a huge portion of the culture that holds these communities together,” said Willcox. Participatory breeding in marginalized communities preserves maize diversity and builds rural opportunities in areas that are hotbeds for migration to the United States.
“A lack of opportunities leads to migration out of Mexico to find work in other places, a strong agricultural sector means strong rural opportunities,” she said.
To further economic opportunities in the communities, these researchers have been connecting farmers with restaurant owners in Mexico City and the United States to export surplus grain and support livelihoods. A taste for high-quality Mexican food has created a small but growing market for the native maize varieties.
The next generation: The granddaughter of Felipa Martinez and Modesto Suarez stands in her grandparent’s maize field. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary)
Native maize hold the building blocks for climate-smart crops
Native maize varieties show remarkable diversity and climate resilience that grow in a range from arid to humid environments, said Willcox. The genetic traits found in this diversity are the building blocks that can be used to develop varieties suitable for the changing crop environments predicted for 2050.
“There is a lot of reasoning that goes into the way that these farmers farm the land, the way they decide on what they select for,” said Willcox. “This has been going on for years and has been passed down through generations. For this reason, they have maize of such high quality with resistance to local challenges, genetic traits that now can be used to create strong varieties to help farmers in Mexico and around the world.”
It is key to analyze the genetic variability of native maize, and support the family farmers who conserve it in their fields, she added. This biodiversity still sown and selected throughout diverse microclimates of Mexico holds the traits we need to protect our food supplies.
To watch a video on CIMMYT’s work in this community, please click here.
This work has been conducted as part of the CIMMYT-led MasAgro project in collaboration with INIFAP, and supported by Mexico’s Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE.
Farmers confront a daunting range of options for potentially achieving high crop yields in India’s western Indo-Gangetic Plains, where rice and wheat crops are planted in rotation to meet high demand for dietary food staples.
Since 1965, rotational crop planting has been deployed in the area to intensify production in a limited growing area, initially yielding positive food security results. Over time, agricultural practices have led to troubling consequences for the landscape, leading to unreliable or lower yields for farmers.
Now, new scientific research into “layering” climate smart agriculture techniques shows promise, demonstrating the potential for crop adaptability to climate change. Experiments reveal the possibilities for high productivity, benefits for water and energy supplies resulting in a smaller environmental footprint.
Throughout Southeast Asia, but particularly in the Indo-Gangetic Plains area, natural resources are three to five times more stressed due to agricultural intensification, urbanization, population growth, increasing climate change risks, and land degradation difficulties.
“Land is degraded in the region because over the past 50 years crop production increased quickly leading to inefficient use and mismanagement of resources,” said M.L. Jat, a Principal Scientist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), who works with a team of scientists on sustainable intensification and climate smart agriculture.
The scientists conducted a study to determine the most effective methods to grow rice and wheat in constrained conditions where horizontal expansion of crop growing areas is no longer a viable option for increasing yields.
Before embarking on their research, scientists were already aware that due to overpopulation, to meet rising food demand in the Indo-Gangetic Plains area, the only option for farmers is to increase yields on land already under agricultural production. Land shortages are exacerbated by reduced availability of water and energy.
By 2050, variability in growing conditions due to climate change is projected to lower crop yields by 10 to 40 percent and total crop failure will become more common.
Additionally, over the same time period, more than half the current wheat growing area in the Indo-Gangetic Plains will likely become unsuitable for production due to heat stress. Over pumping of ground water for rice production is simultaneously depleting the water table.
“Adaptation to climate change is no longer an option, but essential for minimizing crop losses that will occur as a result of the adverse impact of climate change,” Jat said, adding that the key to future food security is to use agricultural technologies that promote sustainable intensification and adapt to emerging climatic variability.
“Farmers face an enormous challenge – to be successful they must now rely on sustainable intensification management practices and adapt to emerging climate variability while playing a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon to keep global warming in check,” he said.
The key will be to boost the use climate smart agriculture techniques, which have the potential to address these challenges, maintain environmental equilibrium and produce high crop yields simultaneously.
The strategy opens the door to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and farmer income, adapt to and develop the capacity to resist climate change, and reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
After experimental fieldwork, the scientists learned that strategically combining climate smart agricultural technologies already used selectively as a result of years of CIMMYT-designed trials in the region are most likely to lead to high crop yields and food security.
Participatory experimental field in Beernarayana climate-smart village. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Currently, farmers are using such climate smart water and energy saving techniques as direct seeded rice, zero tillage, laser land leveling, alternate wetting and drying, weather forecast based irrigation, precision nutrient management. Other climate smart techniques include retention of crop residues on the fields to store carbon and prevent emissions and unhealthy smog levels that result from residue burning.
“Climate smart agriculture practices in isolation may not fulfill their full potential in adapting to climate risks and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in rice-wheat production systems,” Jat said.
“However, layering of these practices and services in optimal combinations may help to adapt and build resilience under diverse production systems and ecologies to ensure future food security.”
The scientists studied six scenarios in three different climate smart villages in India’s sub-tropical state of Haryana in the Indo-Gangetic Plains.
The first scenario was based solely on observing the normal practices of a farmer, the second and third scenarios were layered with different technologies used for tillage, crop establishment, residue and nutrient management, and designated as “improved farmers’ practices.”
The other three scenarios were based on climate smart agriculture practices combined with the available range of technologies deployed to enhance tillage, crop establishment, laser land leveling; residue, water and nutrient management; improved crop varieties, information and communication technology and crop insurance.
Scientists set out to determine the best combination of practices and found that layering of climate smart agriculture practices improved rice-wheat system productivity from 6 to 19 percent depending on techniques used.
Layering also led to savings of more than 20 percent irrigation water. Global warming potential was reduced by 40 percent.
“The research leaves us feeling optimistic that the work we’ve been conducting throughout South Asia is leading to strong results,” Jat said. “Our aim now is to continue to work through various real life scenarios to see how far we can go in sustainably intensifying the entire region so that food supply can keep apace with population growth under emerging climate change challenges.”
Iván Ortíz-Monasterio, expert on sustainable intensification and wheat crop management at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), recently took part in a study detailing the detriments of excess fertilizeruse and the benefits of more precise dosages.
In the following interview, he discusses the overuse of nitrogen fertilizer and related consequences, his experience with farmers, and his outlook for the future. According to Ortíz-Monasterio and study co-authors, research on wheat in the Yaqui Valley, state of Sonora, northwestern Mexico, and home to CIMMYT’s Norman E. Borlaug Experiment Station (CENEB), has direct implications for wheat crop management worldwide.
“The Yaqui Valley is agro-climatically representative of areas where 40 percent of the world’s wheat is grown, including places like the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India and Pakistan, the Nile Delta in Egypt, and the wheat lands of China,” said Ortíz-Monasterio.
Q: A key finding of the new publication was that, after a certain point, applying more nitrogen fertilizer does not increase yields, making excessive applications essentially a drain on farmers’ resources. Why then do farmers continue to apply more fertilizer than the crop needs?
A: Well there is a risk, if you under-apply N fertilizer, your yield goes down. Farmers are afraid that the yield will be lower and that their profit will be lower. The cost of under-applying for them is greater than the cost of over-applying, because they’re not paying all the costs of over applying. Those costs include the environmental impacts associated with greenhouse gas emissions, at a regional scale in the case of the Yaqui Valley because of nitrification of the Sea of Cortez, and at a local level due to contamination of the water table. All these costs are passed on to society. If we passed them on to farmers, then they would be more concerned about over-applying nitrogen fertilizers.
Q: Do you think farmers becoming more concerned is something that could happen?
A: Well there are starting to be more regulations in Europe. In the UK, farmers cannot apply any nitrogen before or at sowing; they can apply fertilizer only once the plant is about 15 centimeters tall. In other parts of Europe, like Germany, farmers cannot apply more than 150 kilograms of nitrogen on wheat, so it’s happening in other parts of the world. The government of Mexico and others are making commitments to reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 20 percent by 2030 and, in the case of agriculture, the main source of nitrous oxide is nitrogen fertilizer. To meet such commitments, governments will have to take policy action so, yes; I think there’s a good chance something will happen.
Q: There are technologies that can help farmers know precisely when to apply fertilizer and how much, for optimal crop yield and nitrogen use. Do many farmers use them? Why or why not?
A: Something interesting to me is what’s happening right now. For the last 10 years, we’ve been working with Yaqui Valley farmers to test and promote hand-held sensors and hiring farm advisors paid with government money who provide this service free to farmers, and adoption was high. Then the government removed the subsidy, expecting farmers to begin covering the cost, but
farmers didn’t want to pay for it.
Then a company that uses drones approached me and other researchers in the region and requested our help to convert wheat crop sensor data obtained using airborne drones to recommended fertilizer dosages. We agreed and, in their first year of operation, farmers growing wheat on 1,000 hectares paid for this service. I don’t know what it is—maybe seeing a colorful map is more sexy—but farmers seem to be willing to pay if you fly a drone to collect the data instead of having a farm advisor walk over the field. But it’s great! In the past we relied on the government to transfer the technology and now we have this great example of a private-public partnership, where a company is helping to transfer the technology and making a profit, so that will make it sustainable. I’m very excited about that!
Q: Does CIMMYT have a plan to increase adoption of these technologies?
A CIMMYT technician uses a hand-held sensor to measure NDVI (normalized difference vegetative index) in a wheat field at the center’s CENEB experiment station near Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, northern Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT archives
A: We’re not married to one technology, but need to work with all of them. You know we started with Greekseeker, which is a ground-based sensor, and now we’re also working with drones, with manned airplanes mounted with cameras, and even satellite images. So, there are four different ways to collect the data, and we’ve seen that the Greenseeker results correlate well with all of them, so the technology we developed originally for Greenseeker can be used with all the other platforms.
Q: Are you optimistic that farmers can shift their perceptions in this area and significantly reduce their nitrogen use?
A: I think we’re moving in that direction, but slowly. We need policy help from the government. Officials need to give some type of incentive to farmers to use the technology, because when farmers do something different they see it as a risk. To compensate for that risk, give them a carrot, rather than a stick, and I think that will help us move the technology faster.
Timothy Krupnik has worked in agricultural research for development in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean. At CIMMYT, he leads a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural research team that comprises the Sustainable Agrifood Systems program’s Innovation Sciences in Agroecosystems and Food Systems theme across Asia.
This team spans disciplines and brings together technical skills ranging from systems agronomy, remote sensing, socioeconomics, climatology, agricultural engineering, and modeling and data science. The team’s research generates real-world impact by addressing key knowledge gaps, developing tools, and facilitating partnerships that increase productivity, sustainability and resilience in the context of the region’s biophysical, economic, and sociocultural diversity.
Krupnik has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers, policy briefs, chapters and books, and has led the development of numerous extension modules, decision support tools, and early warning systems.
