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.
NAIROBI, Kenya – Increasing public understanding of genetically modified crops and creating supportive policies were key recommendations made at a session on boosting Africa’s use of biotechnology at the 7th Africa Agricultural Science Week.
CIMMYT breeder Jumbo Bright evaluates a maize ear at the Kiboko Research Station in Kenya. CIMMYT applies modern breeding technologies to develop improved varieties that are tolerant and/or resistant to various stresses. Photo: B. Wawa/CIMMYT
With the population of sub-Saharan Africa projected to reach between 1.5 and 2 billion by 2050 and agriculture struggling to adapt to climate change, the pressure to meet the increasing demand for staple foods, including maize and wheat, has raised interest in biotechnology’s ability to boost yields.
Despite a recent U.S. National Academy of Science study concluding that genetically engineered crops are safe to grow and eat, and growing support for the use of genetically modified (GM) crops, there continues to be controversy around biotechnology.
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) hosted a session on “Taking GM crops to market in sub-Saharan Africa: Special focus on policy and regulatory environment,” to discuss policy challenges to biotechnology in Africa.
Participants recommended raising public understanding of biotechnology through farmer and consumer education while enhancing functional policy and regulatory systems to facilitate testing and uptake of demand-driven GM products. The recommendations were to be presented to policymakers in the region.
At the session, Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT principal breeder and regional representative for Africa, spoke on biotechnology’s ability to improve conventional breeding.
“Genetic modification can be used in specific cases, for example, when a trait is very difficult to improve by conventional breeding methods or when it will take a very long time to introduce and/or improve such trait in the crop using conventional breeding methods,” said Mugo. “The use of biotechnology can maximize yield gains in ways that are compatible with human and environmental safety.” Hence, farmers should be given a chance to benefit from GM crops because they could increase their opportunities, productivity and efficiency.
Although GM crops have been grown across the globe for the last 20 years, only three African countries — Burkina Faso, South Africa and Sudan — currently grow them. This is largely due to the controversy and ambivalence surrounding biotechnology policies, with most countries taking a precautionary approach towards adopting biotechnology.
As Francis Nang’ayo, AATF head of Regulatory Affairs said, “Most African countries have taken a precautionary policy position on GM technology borrowed largely from the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which many countries signed, and which was primarily adopted to ensure environmental conservation.”
This, alongside other factors, such as their commitment to abide by other international conventions and the debate on GM technology, are keeping most African countries from adopting policies that support biotechnology. Nang’ayo added that most countries have adopted stringent regulatory frameworks governing different GM processes and that this apparent overregulation has inhibited advancement of GM technology into the hands of farmers.
However, there has been notable progress in countries such as Kenya, which recently approved the environmental release of genetically transformed maize that carries genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) following an application submitted to the National Biosafety Authority by AATF and the Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organization under the Water Efficient Maize for Africa project. This is expected to serve as a litmus test for many African countries that are already conducting confined field trials of GM crops.
Still, most African smallholder farmers have no knowledge of or access to biotechnology. According to Gilbert Bor, a farmer from Kapseret in northwest Kenya, “Many farmers know and understand that seeds in our fields are from science and research, so new and innovative technologies including biotechnology need to trickle down to farmers once proven safe. If such a technology promises farmers improved productivity, income and livelihood, and the likelihood of reducing use of pesticide and insecticide, then it’s important that farmers and consumers are educated and informed.”
Planting rice with the first locally produced multicrop planter in Sheikhupura, Punjab Province, Pakistan. Photo: Irfan Mughal/Greenland Engineering
ISLAMABAD — A new planter that promotes dry seeding of rice, saves water and increases planting efficiency is being used increasingly in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
Many farmers in Punjab alternately grow rice and wheat in their fields throughout the year, and the province produces more than 50% of Pakistan’s rice and 75% of its wheat.
Traditionally, rice planting involves transplanting 4-6-week old seedlings into puddled fields, a process that requires large amounts of water and labor, both of which are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. Repeated puddling negatively affects soil physical properties, decreases soil aggregation and results in hardpan formation, which reduces the productivity of the following wheat crop.
Sustainable intensification aims to increase the productivity of labor, land and capital. Conservation agriculture (CA) relies on practices such as minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of crop rotation to maintain and/or boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It also helps improve soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability.
Father and son Iqbal Mughal and Irfan Mughal are co-owners of Greenland Engineering, which currently manufactures zero-tillage wheat drills for Pakistan’s farming communities. They worked with CIMMYT from 1994-2003 as part of the the rice-wheat consortium. In response to the interest expressed by farmers, they are also producing the new multicrop planter for rice farmers in Daska, Punjab Province. Photo: Mumtaz Ahmed/Engro Fertilizers
Dry seeding of rice (DSR), a practice that involves growing rice without puddling the soil, can save up to 25 percent of the water needed for growing the crop and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. However, the old fluted roller drills used for DSR do not guarantee uniform plant-to-plant spacing and break the rice seeds, requiring farmers to purchase more seed than otherwise needed.
In 2014, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) imported a multicrop, zero-till planter from India that drills the seed and the fertilizer simultaneously while maintaining appropriate spacing between plants without breaking the seeds.
That same year, CIMMYT evaluated locally modified multicrop zero-till planters for dry seeding of Basmati rice at five sites in Punjab. As a result, the plant populations, tillers and grain yields at these sites were 10 percent higher compared to those at the sites where old fluted roller drills were used. During the current 2016 rice season, Greenland Engineering has so far manufactured and sold over 30 multicrop planters to rice growers across Pakistan.
CIMMYT’s initiative to spread the locally adapted, multicrop, zero-till planter throughout Pakistan was made possible through the Agricultural Innovation Program supported by the United States Agency for International Development, in collaboration with Greenland Engineering and Engro Fertilizers. National partners such as the Rice Research Institute Kala Shah Kaku, Adaptive Research Punjab and Engro Fertilizers are also helping to scale out the multicrop planter and other CA technologies throughout Punjab’s rice-wheat areas.
CIMMYT’s initiative to spread the locally adapted, multicrop, zero-till planter throughout Pakistan was made possible through the Agricultural Innovation Program, supported by the United States Agency for International Development, in collaboration with Greenland Engineering and Engro Fertilizers. National partners like the Rice Research Institute Kala Shah Kaku, Adaptive Research Punjab and Engro Fertilizers are also helping to spread the multicrop planter and other CA technologies throughout rice-wheat areas in Punjab.
This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) — When practiced unsustainably, agriculture has led to environmental degradation and famine, which have plagued civilizations through the centuries. Innovations such as irrigation or the plow (since circa 6,000 and 3,000 BC) increased productivity, but often deteriorated long-term soil fertility through erosion and other forms of degradation.
We are now facing historically unprecedented challenges to food security. We must increase food production by 70 percent to feed nine billion people by 2050, without damaging our finite and often already degraded natural resource base. In addition, farmers face more frequent drought and water scarcity, which makes it increasingly difficult to grow crops, and extreme weather events such as the 2015-2016 El Niño, which has already caused large-scale crop failures and soaring maize prices in southern Africa.
Conservation agriculture (CA) practices based on the principles of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation are helping farmers combat growing environmental challenges by maintaining and boosting yields, while protecting the environment and increasing profits for smallholders globally. When CA practices are coupled with water-use efficient and drought tolerant varieties, the benefits are even greater.
Drought is increasingly common in Malawi, leaving an estimated 3 million people in need of urgent humanitarian food assistance this year alone. However, more than 400 farmers and their families in Balaka, southern Malawi, who have been practicing CA over the last 12 years will escape hunger. CIMMYT and its partner Total LandCare have helped more than 65,000 farmers adopt CA systems throughout the entire country. Above, SIMLESA lead farmer Agnes Sendeza harvests maize ears on her farm in Tembwe, Salima District, Malawi. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT
“CA approaches can mean the difference between farmers being able to feed their families or having to starve,” says Christian Thierfelder, senior cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), regarding the recent El Niño – the strongest on record – in southern Africa. To date, approximately 10 million people in southern Africa are dependent on food aid and an estimated 50 million people are projected to be affected, pushing them to the brink of starvation.
Sustainable intensification of agricultural systems and practices such as CA have become a necessity for farmers in Africa, where a combination of climate change and unsustainable agricultural practices are undermining land and water resources. This, coupled with an exploding population, makes increasing productivity while conserving the environment absolutely urgent.
Based on its experience in Latin America, which began in the early 1990s, CIMMYT started its first CA project in Africa in 2004, targeting Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This initial work focused on understanding CA systems in the context of farmers and their environmental conditions and was funded by the German government and the International Fund for Agriculture Development. Its aim was to facilitate the adoption of CA systems by smallholder farmers. This culminated in the establishment in 2009 of a large PAN-African project on Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA).
Farmers in Shamva District, Zimbabwe, are introduced to an animal traction direct seeder which allows seeding and fertilizing directly into crop residues with minimum soil disturbance. Photo: Thierfelder/CIMMYT
Today, CA research at CIMMYT in Africa is increasingly focused on adaptation to the changing climate, which is leading to more erratic rainfall, increased heat stress and seasonal dry spells, in an effort to increase the use of climate-resilient cropping systems. CIMMYT’s work on CA in the region has shown that the practice can significantly increase farmers’ resilience to climate variability and change. Combining sustainable intensification practices with improved varieties has proved to increase productivity by 30-60 percent and income by 40-100 percent under drought conditions.
Despite CA’s successes, many smallholder farmers in developing countries still lack knowledge and understanding of sustainable agricultural practices and often revert to traditional farming practices that are labor-intensive and environmentally damaging. Also, CA systems are difficult to scale out if favorable policies and markets are not in place.
Araujo Njambo (right), a smallholder maize farmer in Mozambique, was used to the traditional way of farming that his family has practiced for generations, which required clearing a plot of land and burning all plant residues remaining on the soil to get a clean seedbed. However, as demand for land increases, this fuels deforestation and depletes soil nutrients. CIMMYT has been working with farmers like Njambo since 2006 to adapt sustainable intensification practices like CA to his circumstances. In the 2013-2014 cropping season, Njambo harvested his best maize yield in the last six years thanks to CA. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT
Mineral fertilizer, for example, is a basic agricultural input, but its adoption and use remain limited in sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers apply less than 10 kilograms per hectare on average due mainly to poor distribution networks (especially in rural areas) and high prices that are 3-5 times those in Europe. Lack of knowledge and training on how to use mineral fertilizer and other agricultural inputs renders them ineffective.
New discoveries in agriculture and breeding must be adaptable and transferable to smallholder farmers. This means improving physical distribution of technologies, training, knowledge and information sharing, credit availability and creating enabling environments for growth.
Just before passing away in September 2009, world-renowned agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug famously implored the world to “take it to the farmer” – a call to action we must follow if we are to sustainably feed the world by 2050. Without a basic understanding of good agricultural practices, most smallholder farmers will not be able to grow enough crops to move past subsistence farming.
Grain yield from a conservation agriculture demonstration plot in Zomba District, Malawi, is measured precisely as part of CIMMYT’s research on the combined benefits of drought tolerant maize and CA. Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT
A farmer in her wheat field in Bhutan. Photo: Sangay Tshewang/RNRRD
BHUTAN — Yellow and brown rusts are among the most common and damaging challenges to wheat production in Bhutan. Yellow or stripe rust (Puccinia striformis f. sp. tritici), a disease favored by cool weather conditions, is a major threat owing to the prevalence of cool winter conditions during the cropping season in most wheat growing regions. In Bhutan, yellow rust is the first disease to appear in the cropping season and, if left uncontrolled, has the potential to destroy the whole wheat crop. It has occurred every year in most wheat growing areas over the last two decades.
Brown or leaf rust (Pucciniatriticina Eriks.), the second most important wheat disease in Bhutan, is also favored by climatic conditions, with severe infection on different advanced wheat lines being recorded over the last ten years. This is an indication that leaf rust could be just as threatening as yellow rust if susceptible cultivars are grown under favorable environmental conditions. Finally, if these rusts are not controlled, it is possible that Bhutan could become a primary source of inoculum, which would then be carried to its neighbors by the wind.
Yellow rust of wheat. Photo: Arun Joshi/CIMMYT
Bangladesh, Bhutan’s southern neighbor, does not have much of a history of rust diseases, but climate change could alter that. And while yellow rust doesn’t occur at all in Bangladesh and leaf rust appears only occasionally (albeit with high intensity), both have the potential to spread in the country.
The absence of high rust pressure in Bangladesh is a serious challenge when it comes to evaluating the rust resistance of wheat lines needed to prepare for uncertain future climates. In contrast, Bhutan is in a strategic position to conduct yellow and leaf rust epidemiological studies and is active in regional and global efforts aimed at studying and managing rust. Therefore, for the first time, Bhutan and Bangladesh are collaborating on evaluating Bangladeshi wheat lines for resistance to yellow and leaf rusts with support from CIMMYT.
Advanced wheat lines from Bangladesh are evaluated for rust resistance in Bhutan. Photo: Sangay Tshewang/RNRRD
During the 2015–2016 cropping season, Bangladesh sent 50 advanced wheat lines identified as having potential rust resistance to Bhutan for screening. The evaluation was done under natural conditions at the Renewable Natural Resources Research and Development Center (RNRRD) in Bajo, about 70 kilometers east of Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital. The results are promising, with 30 lines showing resistance to the rusts. The data were shared with Bangladeshi partners, who will use them to inform their breeding decisions.
Bhutan has been collaborating with CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program since 2011 and has released three rust resistant varieties from CIMMYT in the past two years. Although there has been regional collaboration on wheat research in South Asia mainly through CIMMYT, testing wheat lines from Bangladesh for rust resistance in Bhutan is a first.
Listen to a podcast of CIMMYT maize breeder Biswanath Das discussing the importance of adapting maize breeding and seed systems to climate change here.
Investment in accelerating the adaptation of maize breeding and seed systems to climate change is needed a new report finds. Photo: Peter Lowe/ CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Breeding and seed systems must be adapted to survive projected climate change if major loss of maize yields is to be avoided, a new report shows.
Tools that forecast the response of crops to different weather and climate conditions, coupled with crop yield modeling have enabled agricultural scientists to predict and formulate plans for potential future climate change.
“Responding better to changes in climate by improving efficiency of the breeding cycle and reducing the amount of time it takes to get improved maize into the hands of farmers is key to ensuring a food secure future,” said International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) maize breeder and co-author of the study Biswanath Das.
Projections for Africa demonstrate climate-change related increases in temperature will negatively impact on-farm yields as heat and drought stress shorten crop production time, the length of time between maize planting and harvesting, Das said.
Shorter and hotter growing seasons are expected to become a reality over the next 15 years, which could mean that maize varieties currently being developed may struggle to adapt, particularly since current breeding and commercialization cycles to improve maize in Africa can take several decades.
The report published in Nature Climate Change, led by Andy Challinor from the University of Leeds in collaboration with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and CIMMYT, calls for an acceleration of breeding, delivery and adoption processes. The authors suggest that all stages could be sped up using a variety of techniques, requiring elaborate planning and coordination involving numerous actors and interest groups.
“Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately,” Das said. “Increased collaboration among different breeding institutes and public-private collaborations are needed so that we share information, technologies and germplasm to make the best germplasm and technology available to the widest number of scientists as possible.”
“Seed systems could be working with regulators to reduce the amount of time it takes for varieties to become available to farmers and developing new ways of producing seed more cheaply and efficiently while maintaining quality.”
Public seed systems should continue working closely with the private sector to encourage the latest genetic advances to become available to farmers in the shortest time possible, Das added.
CIMMYT has undertaken other work in this area. An intensive breeding effort through the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project developed a large phenotyping network and breeding pipeline to produce new maize varieties with heat and drought tolerance. In collaboration with over 100 national seed companies, the project supported the production of 54,000 tons of drought-tolerant maize in 2014 alone, benefiting an estimated 5.4 million households – or 43 million people – across 13 countries in Africa.
In 2015, a new project was started to expand the success of DTMA so that more smallholder farmers in Africa would have access to affordable improved maize varieties through a network of national seed companies.
Despite the considerable efforts being made to adapt maize farming to changing climates, Das warned that they must be sustained and encouraged on a larger scale in order for breeding programs to produce climate-ready maize varieties for the future.
This research is carried out with support from CGIAR Fund Donors, CCAFS Donors, MAIZE CRP Donors and through bilateral funding agreements. Funding for this project came from: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Ireland Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; Thailand; UK Department of International Development; The United States Agency for International Development and the European Union. The Program is carried out with technical support from The International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Stocks of maize seed have been certified for quality and are now ready to be distributed to farmers in drought-affected districts. Photo: Tadele Asfaw/CIMMYT
As the Rio 2016 Olympics draw near, team managers are rushing to recruit their best sportspeople from all over the country, put them through fitness tests, and get them to various stadiums before the starter’s gun goes off.
The team working on the Emergency Seed Support for Drought Affected Maize and Wheat Growing Areas of Ethiopia initiative is facing a similar challenge. But instead of recruiting long jumpers and marathon runners, they are tasked with procuring quality seeds of elite maize, wheat, and sorghum varieties and distributing them to farmers before the start of the main planting season to increase food security in regions devastated by recent droughts.
Dry conditions are not uncommon in Ethiopia, but the 2015-2016 El Niño – the strongest on record – has led to the worst drought in a decade. Harvests across Ethiopia were affected, leaving 10.2 million people – more than 1 in 10 Ethiopians – in need of emergency food assistance.
Food security status across Ethiopia. Source: Fews.Net
Planning for a food-secure future
The government of Ethiopia and international organizations are working to provide food aid for people facing immediate shortages, but Bekele Abeyo, senior wheat breeder and pathologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for sub-Saharan Africa and leader of the emergency seed project, is focusing on a more sustainable future.
“Relief efforts will provide sustenance today, but we need to ensure there is also food on plates tomorrow,” says Abeyo. “With the large crop losses experienced in 2015, farmers were not able to save seed for planting in 2016 and did not have sufficient income to purchase more. Unless these farmers are able to access seed, we may face further shortages in 2017.”
CIMMYT, with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, is working with partners to supply over 2,700 tons of seed to more than 226,000 households across 71 woredas (districts) in four regions of Ethiopia. CIMMYT will work with both the formal seed sector and farmers’ cooperatives to source quality seed from within Ethiopia and make sure it reaches the farmers who need it the most. These high-yielding, drought resistant varieties are being supplied along with agronomic advice to further increase farmers’ resilience.
Together with Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), a primary partner in the project, CIMMYT organized workshops in each of the target regions –Amara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR), and Tigray – to engage stakeholders and collectively finalize the workplan. Based on participant feedback, some sorghum will now also be supplied to selected regions, in addition to maize and wheat.
“It is important to consider the needs of the individual communities and regions,” says Yitbarek Semeane, director of ATA’s Seed Systems. “ATA has very strong links with the regions and government institutions so is able to provide feedback on farmers’ needs and preferences. As weather patterns in Ethiopia are becoming increasingly unpredictable, many farmers are changing their farming practices, or even switching crops.”
Seed is being distributed to 240 drought-affected farmers in the kebele of Ubobracha. Photo: E. Quilligan/CIMMYT
A race against time
With the main planting season rapidly approaching, the team is racing to source, procure, certify, transport and distribute seeds.
“The success of this project will depend on us procuring enough quality seed and distributing it to farmers before the main planting season,” says Tadele Asfaw, CIMMYT-Ethiopia program management officer and member of the project’s Seed Procurement Committee.
By mid-April, the team had successfully procured almost all the required maize and sorghum seeds and were navigating the complex logistics to get the requested varieties to each woreda. Agreements are also being signed with farmers’ cooperatives to ensure that wheat seed can be purchased without disrupting the normal seed system.
According to Ayele Badebo, CIMMYT scientist and wheat seed coordinator for the project, CIMMYT does not have the capacity to collect seed from individual farmers within each woreda, but this is something the cooperatives are ideally placed to do. They have the trust of both CIMMYT and farmers, and through the previous seed scaling project, they know which farmers were given seed to multiply and will now have it available for sale.
At the end of March, the seed procurement team traveled to eastern Oromia – one of the areas most affected by the 2015 drought – to meet with Chercher oda bultum, a farmers’ cooperative and seed supplier. The team was very satisfied to see that the supplier had sufficient stock of Melkassa2 and Melkassa4, locally-adapted drought resistant maize varieties that had already been certified for germination and moisture by another collaborator, Haramaya University. This same process is now underway for wheat seed.
Ethiopia’s Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources are also working with woreda representatives to ensure that the seed will be distributed to those farmers who need it most, and who have sufficient land and agronomic tools to benefit from this initiative.
“Working with local enterprises and partners enables us to procure and deliver seed to drought-affected farmers as quickly as possible,” says Abeyo. “In combination with CIMMYT’s longer-term efforts in the region, we hope that we can foster a more robust seed system and increase food security for 2016 and beyond.”
The meeting room at ATA was a hive of activity as farmers’ unions met to negotiate transport of emergency seed. Photo: Emma Quilligan/CIMMYT
Partnering for success
While CIMMYT has the knowledge, networks and experience in Ethiopia to spring into action, the cooperation of partners such as the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), farmers’ unions and Ethiopia’s Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources is vital.
Established in 2010, the ATA is acting as a catalyst to spur the growth and transformation of Ethiopia’s agriculture sector. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ATA is working with the Ministry and Regional Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources to coordinate the collection, cleaning, packing, labeling and distribution of quality seed to drought-affected farmers, as well as help train development agents and raise farmer awareness.
CIMMYT scientists have made progress in breeding for early-maturing and heat-tolerant wheat lines in South Asia according to a recently published study. Maintaining wheat productivity under increasing temperatures and decreasing water availability in South Asia is a challenge. Warmer temperatures have already been determined to be one of the major factors in slowing the wheat productivity growth in South Asia, with estimated grain yield losses at 6 to 10% per ◦C rise in temperature.
In response, CIMMYT researchers focused on developing early maturing wheat lines as an adaptive mechanism in regions suffering from terminal heat stress and those areas that require wheat adapted to shorter cycles under continual high temperature stress. Each year from 2009 to 2014, 28 newly developed early-maturing high-yielding CIMMYT wheat lines were evaluated across locations in South Asia. A positive trend was observed while estimating the breeding progress across five years for high-yielding early-maturing heat tolerant wheat compared to the local checks in South Asia, suggesting early maturity has the potential to improve adaptation and maintenance of genetic gains in South Asia. Read the full study “Grain yield, adaptation and progress in breeding for early-maturing and heat-tolerant wheat lines in South Asia” here.
Another recently released study on physiological breeding reveal opportunities for more precise breeding strategies and feed models of genotype-by-environment interaction to help build new plant types and experimental environments for future climates. Physiological breeding crosses parents with different complex but complementary traits to achieve cumulative gene action for yield, while selecting progeny using remote sensing, possibly in combination with genomic selection. Among other findings, the study concludes that new crop designs capitalize on over half a century of physiological research, remote sensing allows evaluation of genetic resources for complex trait expression, and genetic and physiological dissection of complex traits enables better crosses. Read the full study “Physiological breeding” here.
CIMMYT maize seed system specialist James Gethi inspects a maize field in Nzega, Tanzania. Photo: Kelah Kaimenyi/CIMMYT.
Maize is not only a staple in diets across sub-Saharan Africa – it is a cash crop that supports millions of farmer households. Maize is grown on over 33 million hectares in just 13 of 48 countries in the region – accounting for 72% of all maize produced in the region. This crop, without a doubt, is king.
However, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns threaten maize production across the continent. Total crop loss occurs if there’s little or no rainfall at the flowering stage, when maize is most vulnerable. And when temperatures increase, soil moisture is quickly depleted and farmers have to resort to prolonged irrigation, a costly undertaking for smallholders.
Drought-tolerant (DT) maize varieties produce better yields both in good and bad seasons compared to most commercial varieties available in the region. Since 2006, CIMMYT has developed 200 drought-tolerant varieties and hybrids, many of which also possess desirable traits such as resistance to major diseases.
In addition to developing quality maize that is high yielding and disease resistant, the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) project led by CIMMYT is working to ensure these improved varieties are affordable and attractive to farmers. Two and a half million smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are expected to benefit from in-country partnerships and networks that boost production and distribution of DT maize seed. These countries account for 25 percent (or 252 million) of the population in sub-Saharan Africa, and 41 percent of maize production areas.
To access quality improved seed, farmers in Africa face various constraints such as high prices, low supply and limited knowledge about improved seeds. Through surveys conducted among nearly 5,000 farmer households in Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia, CIMMYT learned that when farmers buy seed, the traits they care most about are early crop maturity, yield, and tolerance/resistance to stresses such as drought and disease. In most cases, long-term use and preference for a particular seed variety influence buying habits, but now farmers are increasingly focusing on tolerance/resistance to drought, pests and diseases.
“Our key focus is on sustainable seed production and increasing demand,” said Kate Fehlenberg, DTMASS project manager. “This means building market skills for producers and creating an environment to entice risk-averse farmers to try new drought-tolerant varieties.”
CIMMYT is working with partners to increase farmer preference for DT seed by supporting promotional and marketing activities, and improving seed production capacity. CIMMYT will also work to ensure local institutions have the technological and production capacity to independently produce and distribute seed throughout DTMASS target countries.
Scaling activities will allow DT seed to spread across various geographical areas (scaling “out”) and build the capacity of local institutions to independently control sustainable seed production (scaling “up”). Both scaling up and out rely on giving stakeholders in the maize value chain compelling reasons to continue producing, distributing and consuming DT maize varieties.
Over 50 selected small- and medium-scale seed companies will be supported through training workshops on seed production and seed business management. Seed companies will also receive financial grants to support expansion activities such as purchasing special seed processing and packing equipment, restoring seed storage and other facilities, and marketing.
The next big challenge for DTMASS is to increase adoption of drought-tolerant maize, which will strengthen seed systems in Africa. Photo: Kelah Kaimenyi/CIMMYT.
This story is one of a series of features written during CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary year to highlight significant advancements in maize and wheat research between 1966 and 2016.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Maize and wheat biofortification can help reduce malnutrition in regions where nutritional options are unavailable, limited or unaffordable, but must be combined with education to be most effective, particularly as climate change jeopardizes food security, according to researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Climate change could kill more than half a million adults in 2050 due to changes in diets and bodyweight from reduced crop productivity, a new report from the University of Oxford states. Projected improvement in food availability for a growing population could be cut by about a third, leading to average per-person reductions in food availability of 3.2 percent, reductions in fruit and vegetable intake of 4 percent and red meat consumption of .07 percent, according to the report.
Over the past 50 years since CIMMYT was founded in 1966, various research activities have been undertaken to boost protein quality and micronutrient levels in maize and wheat to help improve nutrition in poor communities, which the Oxford report estimates will be hardest hit by climate change. As one measure of CIMMYT’s success, scientists Evangelina Villegas and Surinder Vasal were recognized with the prestigious World Food Prize in 2000 for their work developing quality protein maize (QPM).
“We’ve got a lot of balls in the air to tackle the ongoing food security crisis and anticipate future needs as the population grows and the climate changes unpredictably,” said Natalia Palacios, head of maize quality, adding that a key component of current research is the strategic use of genetic resources held in the CIMMYT gene bank.
“CIMMYT’s contribution to boosting the nutritional value of maize and wheat is hugely significant for people who have access to these grains, but very little dietary diversity otherwise. Undernourishment is epidemic in parts of the world and it’s vital that we tackle the problem by biofortifying crops and including nutrition in sustainable intensification interventions.”
Undernourishment affects some 795 million people worldwide – meaning that more than one out of every nine people do not get enough food to lead a healthy, active lifestyle, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). By 2050, reduced fruit and vegetable intake could cause twice as many deaths as under-nutrition, according to the Oxford report, which was produced by the university’s Future of Food Programme.
As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to one-quarter of the world’s daily energy intake, and contributing 27 percent of the total calories in the diets of people living in developing countries, according to FAO.
“Nutrition is very complex and in addition to deploying scientific methods such as biofortification to develop nutritious crops, we try and serve an educational role, helping people understand how best to prepare certain foods to gain the most value,” Palacios said. “Sometimes communities have access to nutritious food but they don’t know how to prepare it without killing the nutrients.”
The value of biofortified crops is high in rural areas where people have vegetables for a few months, but must rely solely on maize for the rest of the year, she added, explaining that fortified flour and food may be more easily accessed in urban areas where there are more dietary options.
Some of the thousands of samples that make up the maize collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
PROMOTING PROTEIN QUALITY
Conventional maize varieties cannot provide an adequate balance of amino acids for people with diets dominated by the grain and with no adequate alternative source of protein. Since the breakthrough findings of Villegas and Vasal, in some areas scientists now develop QPM, which offers an inexpensive alternative for smallholder farmers.
CIMMYT scientists also develop QPM and other nutritious conventionally bred maize varieties for the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project funded by the government of Canada. NuME, which also helps farmers improve agricultural techniques by encouraging the deployment of improved agronomic practices, builds on a former seven-year collaborative QPM effort with partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
In Ethiopia, where average life expectancy is 56 years of age, the food security situation is critical due in part to drought caused by a recent El Nino climate system, according to the U.N. World Food Programme. More than 8 million people out of a population of 90 million people are in need of food assistance. Almost 30 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line, 40 percent of children under the age of 5 are stunted, 9 percent are acutely malnourished and 25 percent are underweight, according to the 2014 Ethiopia Mini Demographic and Health Survey. The NuMe project is helping to shore up sustainable food supplies and boost nutrition in the country, where the vast majority of people live in rural areas and are engaged in rain-fed subsistence agriculture.
INCREASING MICRONUTRIENTS
CIMMYT maize and wheat scientists tackle micronutrient deficiency, or “hidden hunger,” through the interdisciplinary, collaborative program HarvestPlus, which was launched in 2003 and is now part of the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health program managed by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers.
Some 2 billion people around the world suffer from micronutrient deficiency, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Micronutrient deficiency occurs when food does not provide enough vitamins and minerals. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are most affected by hidden hunger, which is characterized by iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin A and zinc deficiency.
Work at CIMMYT to combat micronutrient deficiency is aligned with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — in particular Goal 2, which aims to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030. The SDG also aims to meet internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and to address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, older people, pregnant and lactating women by 2025.
WHOLESOME WHEAT
The wheat component of the HarvestPlus program involves developing and distributing wheat varieties with high zinc levels by introducing genetic diversity from wild species and landraces into adapted wheat.
Zinc deficiency affects about one-third of the world’s population, causing lower respiratory tract infections, malaria, diarrheal disease, hypogonadism, impaired immune function, skin disorders, cognitive dysfunction, and anorexia, according to the WHO, which attributes about 800,000 deaths worldwide each year to zinc deficiency. Additionally, worldwide, approximately 165 million children under five years of age are stunted due to zinc deficiency.
A project to develop superior wheat lines combining higher yield and high zinc concentrations in collaboration with national agriculture program partners in South Asia has led to new biofortified varieties 20 to 40 percent superior in grain zinc concentration.
“We’re playing a vital role in this area,” said CIMMYT wheat breeder Velu Govindan. “Our research has led to new varieties agronomically equal to, or superior to, other popular wheat cultivars with grain yield potential at par or — in some cases – even superior to popular wheat varieties adopted by smallholder farmers in South Asia where we’ve been focused.”
Scientists are studying the potential impact of climate-change related warmer temperatures and erratic rainfall on the nutritional value of wheat. An evaluation of the effect of water and heat stress with a particular focus on grain protein content, zinc and iron concentrations revealed that protein and zinc concentrations increased in water and heat-stressed environments, while zinc and iron yield was higher in non-stressed conditions.
“The results of our study suggest that genetic gains in yield potential of modern wheat varieties have tended to reduce grain zinc levels,” Govindan said. “In some instances, environmental variability might influence the extent to which this effect manifests itself, a key finding as we work toward finding solutions to the potential impact of climate change on food and nutrition security.”
Additionally, a recent HarvestPlus study revealed that modern genomic tools such as genomic selection hold great potential for biofortification breeding to enhance zinc concentrations in wheat.
IMPROVING MAIZE
Scientists working with HarvestPlus have developed vitamin A-enriched “orange” maize. Orange maize is conventionally bred to provide higher levels of pro-vitamin A carotenoids, a natural plant pigment found in such orange foods as mangoes, carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens and meat, converted into vitamin A by the body.
Maize breeders, who are currently working on developing varieties with 50 percent more pro-vitamin A than the first commercialized varieties released, identified germplasm with the highest amounts of carotenoids to develop the varieties. In Zambia, Zimbawe and Malawi, 12 varieties, which are agronomically competititve and have about 8ppm provitamin A, have been released.
Provitamin A from maize is efficiently absorbed and converted into vitamin A in the body. Stores of Vitamin A in 5 to 7 year old children improved when they ate orange maize, according to HarvestPlus research. The study also shows preliminary data demonstrating that children who ate orange maize for six months experienced an improved capacity of the eye to adjust to dim light. The findings indicate an improvement in night vision, a function dependent on adequate levels of vitamin A in the body.
Researchers are also developing maize varieties high in zinc.
Efforts on this front have been a major focus in Latin America, especially in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Colombia. Scientists expect the first wave of high zinc hybrids and varieties will be released in 2017. Further efforts are starting in such countries as Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Results from the first nutrition studies in young rural Zambian children indicate that biofortified maize can meet zinc requirements and provide an effective dietary alternative to regular maize for the vulnerable population.
H.S. Sidhu, senior research engineer, BISA, demonstrating laser land leveler technology. Photo: Yogehs Kumar/CIMMYT
DHARWAD, INDIA — Nearly 150 scientists, researchers and extension agents from universities and agricultural departments across the state of Karnataka, India, attended a field training 12-13 April on conservation agriculture and farm mechanization for sustainable intensification. The training was hosted by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, Karnataka, and jointly organized by CIMMYT, UAS and Karnataka’s Department of Agriculture.
South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. Flooding and drought coupled with seasonal rainfall changes are predicted to devastate agriculture, with extreme heat already disrupting the growing season in India and other countries. Wheat production in India’s Indo-Gangetic Plains may decrease by up to 50 percent by 2100, harming the hundreds of millions who rely on the region for food security. India also extracts more groundwater than any other country in the world to support agriculture, with northern India’s groundwater declining one meter every three years.
Karnataka faces these and other challenges, including production system constraints, mono-cropping and lack of access to markets, storage facilities, processing units and real-time information. Other constraints include large post-harvest losses, labor and energy shortages, poor mechanization and fodder scarcity.
J.V. Goud, Ex Vice Chancellor, UAS, Dharwad, described these challenges in his inaugural address and emphasized the need for sustainable agriculture practices to achieve food security in India.
“Courses like this help combat climate anomalies and make agriculture practices drought-proof,” said Goud. Sustainable practices have proven successful in addressing water shortages in agriculture. For example, trainees were introduced to precision land leveling, which can raise India’s wheat yields more than 16% and increase water productivity by 130%.
Training attendees. Photo: UAS-Dharwad
According to M.L. Jat, CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist and an expert in conservation agriculture (CA), “Climate-smart agriculture practices such as CA not only minimize production costs and inputs, but also help farmers adapt to extreme weather events, reduce temporal variability in productivity, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, This is backed up by ample data on conservation agriculture management practices throughout the region.”
Conservation agriculture is sustainable and profitable agriculture based on minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations. It is improving farmers’ livelihoods throughout South Asia and has led to policy-level impacts through the implementation of CA practices covered in the training, such as precision land leveling, zero tillage, direct seeding and crop residue management.
Trainees were taught how to operate a variety of CA machines, including multi-crop zero-tillage machines that can calibrate the amount of seed and fertilizer and control speed for seeding different crops. They also learned about other practices such as weed, nutrient and water management using precision support and sensors.
Scientists and researchers who imparted the training included Jat, CIMMYT agronomist H.S. Jat, CIMMYT hub manager S.G. Patil, CIMMYT consultant Yogesh Kumar Singh, Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) senior research engineer H.S. Sidhu, BISA senior scientist R.K. Jat and Deputy Director of the International Plant Nutrition Institute’s India Program-South Zone, T. Satyanarayana.
Members of the Malawi Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Food Security with smallholder farmers and extension workers admiring some of the drought tolerant maize varieties in Mangochi. Photo: Willie Kalumula/CIMMYT
LILONGWE, MALAWI – As an El Niño-induced drought continues to devastate southern African food crops, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) promoted drought-tolerant maize to Malawian politicians at a field day in April.
With more than half of Malawi’s population needing food relief due to drought, the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Food Security launched an assessment of the food situation across the country, which brought nine government officials to Mangochi District to learn about the impact drought-tolerant maize and climate-smart agriculture are having on the livelihoods of farmers.
Representatives of the Malawi Improved Seed Systems and Technologies (MISST) project, funded by USAID Feed the Future and implemented by CIMMYT, demonstrated positive yield results of drought-tolerant maize varieties to the nine politicians and to 314 smallholder farmers (202 of them women) in Minyanga village.
Politicians and farmers alike were impressed by the quality and yield of the CIMMYT-bred varieties in comparison to local varieties.
“In spite of the erratic and low rainfall received, we are surprised that the drought-tolerant maize varieties managed to produce large cobs,” said Mangochi Member of Parliament Lilian Patel, showing the maize cobs to other officials. “As an MP of this area, I am aware and scared by the scale, magnitude and impact of the drought in Malawi, but drought-tolerant maize varieties, alongside other technologies, have demonstrated that they are effective in coping with drought and climate change.”
Hannas Matola, field demonstration host farmer in Mangochi explaining some important attributes of drought tolerant maize varieties compared to the local varieties. Photo: Willie Kalumula/CIMMYT
Farmer Annas Matola, the host of the demonstration field, was equally impressed by the performance of drought-tolerant maize varieties, saying, “The different maize varieties showcased here are very unique in the way they cope with and withstand the drought experienced this year compared to the other maize varieties in the neighboring field.”
According to Felix Jumbe, chairperson of Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Food Security, the MISST project is a huge stepping stone for smallholder farmers in Malawi because it gives them the opportunity to use improved drought-tolerant varieties of different crops such as maize and legumes.
Malawi relies heavily on agriculture for its economic growth, with 80 percent of the country’s population engaged full-time in this activity. Over the next two years, CIMMYT hopes to put drought-tolerant and nutritious maize in the hands of 300,000 people in Malawi.
In April, Malawian President Peter Mutharika declared a state of disaster in Malawi as severe drought continued to cause a sharp decline in crop production across the country. The projected drop in maize harvest from last year’s output is estimated at 12 percent, according to the presidential statement, which also stated that, as a result, an estimated three million people are in need of urgent humanitarian food assistance.
The World Food Program (WFP) is currently assisting nearly three million people in 23 of Malawi’s 28 districts, which are badly affected. “The current drought situation in Malawi came on the back of a bad crop last year, due to flooding which affected parts of the country,‘’ said WFP’s southern Africa spokesperson David Orr.
The WFP warned in February that about 49 million people were at risk of being affected by drought in southern Africa, with 14 million already facing hunger in the region.
Erratic rainfall and record-breaking temperatures have already induced large-scale crop failures in most countries. South Africa has declared the recent drought its worst in at least 100 years, and will have to import half of the maize it consumes.
Drought occurs frequently in Malawi, especially in its drier parts, such as Balaka and Machinga, while in the Lower Shire districts of Chikhwawa and Nsanje, floods are a common occurrence affecting maize productivity and production. This, coupled with the effects of El Niño, led to heavy rains in northern Malawi during April, causing severe flooding and extensive damage to crops, infrastructure and property, as well as the death of 10 people.
Chaosu explains the operation and results of the Chinese-made Turbo Happy Seeder to an enthusiastic group of researchers and farmers at a conservation agriculture demonstration site near Santai, Mianyang, Sichuan Province. Photo: Jack McHugh/CIMMYT
CHENGDU, CHINA – The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Science (SAAS) is expanding conservation agriculture (CA) practices to promote sustainable intensification (SI) (i.e., agriculture aimed at enhancing the productivity of labor, land and capital) in China’s Sichuan Province.
Sustainable intensification can simultaneously address a number of pressing development objectives, including adapting production systems to climate change, sustainably managing land, soil, nutrient and water resources, improving food and nutrition security and ultimately reducing rural poverty. Zero tillage (ZT) minimizes soil disturbance, provides continual residue soil cover and includes crop rotations, all of which increases soil fertility and water use efficiency and helps cereal farmers sustain their crop yields over the long term.
As part of a joint CA project with CIMMYT, Tang Yonglu, Dean of the Crop Research Institute, SAAS, and his team have promoted sustainable mechanization and residue management, incorporated farmer input and hosted demonstrations in the rainfed regions of Sichuan. As a result, farmers from Mianyang District in Sichuan are now interested in ZT; a plan was thus put in place to build capacity and help farmers plant ZT maize and rice in May and June 2016.
Chaosu inspects an immature ZT wheat field affected by frost. This crop will be followed by ZT mechanically transplanted rice into the standing residue in late May. Previously, rice was manually transplanted by women following conventional inversion tillage. This new planting scheme tested by CIMMYT in Northwestern China will save 1-2 weeks and considerable input costs for the new ZT farmers in Southwest China. Photo: Jack McHugh/CIMMYT
At an annual SAAS-CIMMYT meeting, Tang’s team presented their findings on the effect soil compaction and waterlogging have on wheat production. Soil compaction occurs when random wheeling over cropping areas of farm vehicles, such as tractors and harvesters, packs the soil so tightly that soil conditions deteriorate, reducing crop yields. Waterlogging caused by flooding or intense rain on degraded soils also negatively affects yields.
At the meeting, CIMMYT proposed managing soil compaction through controlled traffic farming (CTF), an essential ZT practice that alleviates soil degradation. CTF permanently separates the crop area and the traffic lanes, thereby avoiding vehicle-induced soil compaction and improving and sustaining soil health. SAAS plans on implementing CTF as one tool in its sustainable intensification efforts.
During the two-day event, local researchers presented their academic and work reports and attended a field demonstration on advances in ZT mechanization; technical training sessions for farmers were also held. Other researchers addressed subjects such as soil health, weed control, sustainable techniques for rainfed wheat and mechanization techniques for rainfed maize.
Field demonstrations compared the performance of crops sown using locally produced one-pass planting machines and the Chinese made Turbo Happy Seeder. It was the first time participating researchers and farmers had seen a demonstration of the Happy Seeder. The Chinese seeder minimizes soil disturbance and uses devices that block residue, which makes it very useful for planting irrigated and rainfed crops when high levels of residue are maintained in the fields. For the locally produced machines to operate successfully, they require low levels of residue on the soil surface or that residues be incorporated into the soil.
Differences in planting machinery performance were difficult to discern in the wheat fields, due to yield losses across the region as a result of a very cold period in January. What was apparent was that while all the machines were equally effective in terms of crop establishment, there appeared to be slight differences in water stress in crops sown by the rotary till planter (high soil disturbance) and the non-rotary planter (low soil disturbance). This improvement in crop soil water was not lost on the participants as they strolled through the fields while listening to Li Chaosu, senior researcher at the Crop Research Institute, SAAS, explain the results.
CIMMYT SAAS collaboration is set to expand in the mountainous regions of Sichuan Province later this year, when new farmers come on board to implement ZT rice transplanting. The Green Farming Association, in collaboration with the local Agricultural Mechanization Bureau based in Santai, is also forging ahead with its conservation agriculture plans with CIMMYT’s guidance and support.
EL BATAN, Mexico – Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), was announced as the 2017 Global Agronomy Section Vice Chair of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) on March 29.
CIMMYT principal scientist Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio.
The ASA is a scientific society dedicated to promoting the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global agronomy. The Global Agronomy Section, one ASA’s eight divisions, deals with international agriculture or agricultural issues outside the United States.
As Section Vice Chair, Ortiz-Monasterio, who works in CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, will help Presiding Chair Sjoerd Duiker oversee the coordination of the Global Agronomy Section’s programs and services. The Vice Chair position rotates to Section Chair after the first year of service. Ortiz-Monasterio will also serve as a member of the Nomination Committee for Section Vice Chair and Section Representative to the Board of Directors.
Ortiz-Monasterio said he sees the Vice Chair position as a chance to enhance relations between the CGIAR and the association.
“As Vice Chair and Chair of the Global Agronomy Section of ASA, I hope to bring a closer involvement of the CG with the American Society of Agronomy,” he said.
Ortiz-Monasterio has worked at CIMMYT since 1989, first in the Global Wheat Program and, since 2009, as Principal Scientist with the Sustainable Intensification Program. Over his scientific career he has penned more than 150 publications that include more than 65 articles in international refereed journals, 18 book chapters, as well as numerous abstracts and conference papers.
Scientists agree maize originated in Mexico thousands of years ago. CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – For Mexicans, the “children of corn,” maize is entwined in life, history and tradition. It is not just a crop; it is central to their identity.
Even today, despite political and economic policies that have led Mexico to import one-third of its maize, maize farming continues to be deeply woven into the traditions and culture of rural communities. Furthermore, maize production and pricing are important to both food security and political stability in Mexico.
One of humanity’s greatest agronomic achievements, maize is the most widely produced crop in the world. According to the head of CIMMYT’s maize germplasm bank, senior scientist Denise Costich, there is broad scientific consensus that maize originated in Mexico, which is home to a rich diversity of varieties that has evolved over thousands of years of domestication.
The miracle of maize’s birth is widely debated in science. However, it is agreed that teosinte (a type of grass) is one of its genetic ancestors. What is unique is that maize’s evolution advanced at the hands of farmers. Ancient Mesoamerican farmers realized this genetic mutation of teosinte resembled food and saved seeds from their best cobs to plant the next crop. Through generations of selective breeding based on the varying preferences of farmers and influenced by different climates and geography, maize evolved into a plant species full of diversity.
The term “maize” is derived from the ancient word mahiz from the Taino language (a now extinct Arawakan language) of the indigenous people of pre-Columbian America. Archeological evidence indicates Mexico’s ancient Mayan, Aztec and Olmec civilizations depended on maize as the basis of their diet and was their most revered crop.
Maize is entwined in the history and traditions of Mexico. Artwork by Marcelo Ortiz
As Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation story, goes, the creator deities made the first humans from white maize hidden inside a mountain under an immovable rock. To access this maize seed, a rain deity split open the rock using a bolt of lightning in the form of an axe. This burned some of the maize, creating the other three grain colors, yellow, black and red. The creator deities took the grain and ground it into dough and used it to produce humankind.
Many Mesoamerican legends revolve around maize, and its image appears in the region’s crafts, murals and hieroglyphs. Mayas even prayed to maize gods to ensure lush crops: the tonsured maize god’s head symbolizes a maize cob, with a small crest of hair representing the tassel. The foliated maize god represents a still young, tender, green maize ear.
Maize was the staple food in ancient Mesoamerica and fed both nobles and commoners. They even developed a way of processing it to improve quality. Nixtamalization is the Nahuatl word for steeping and cooking maize in water to which ash or slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) has been added. Nixtamalized maize is more easily ground and has greater nutritional value, for the process makes vitamin B3 more bioavailable and reduces mycotoxins. Nixtamalization is still used today and CIMMYT is currently promoting it in Africa to combat nutrient deficiency.
White hybrid maize (produced through cross pollination) in Mexico has been bred for making tortillas with good industrial quality and taste. However, many Mexicans consider tortillas made from landraces (native maize varieties) to be the gold standard of quality.
“Many farmers, even those growing hybrid maize for sale, still grow small patches of the local maize landrace for home consumption,” noted CIMMYT Landrace Improvement Coordinator Martha Willcox. “However, as people migrate away from farms, and the number of hectares of landraces decrease, the biodiversity of maize suffers.”
Women representing four generations from a maize farming family in Chiapas, Mexico. CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe
Diversity at the heart of Mexican maize
The high level of maize diversity in Mexico is due to its varied geography and culture. As farmers selected the best maize for their specific environments and uses, maize diverged into distinct races, according to Costich. At present there are 59 unique Mexican landraces recorded.
Ancient maize farmers noticed not all plants were the same. Some grew larger than others, some kernels tasted better or were easier to grind. By saving and sowing seeds from plants with desirable characteristics, they influenced maize evolution. Landraces are also adapted to different environmental conditions such as different soils, temperature, altitude and water conditions.
“Selection for better taste and texture, ease of preparation, specific colors, and ceremonial uses all played a role in the evolution of different landraces,” said Costich. “Maize’s genetic diversity is unique and must be protected in order to ensure the survival of the species and allow for breeding better varieties to face changing environments across the world.”
“Organisms cannot evolve if there is no genetic, heritable variation for natural selection to work with. Likewise, breeders cannot make any progress in selecting the best crop varieties, if there is no diversity for them to work with,” she said.
Willcox agrees maize diversity needs to be protected. “This goes beyond food; reduced diversity takes away a part of civilization’s identity and traditions. Traditional landraces are the backbone of rural farming in Mexico, and a source of tradition in cooking and ceremonies as well as being an economic driver through tourism. They need to be preserved,” she said.
A CIMMYT staff member at work in the maize active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT) CIMMYT/Xochiquetzal Fonseca
Mexican collection preserves maize diversity
CIMMYT’s precursor, the Office of Special Studies funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, aided in the preservation of Mexican landraces in the 1940s, when it began a maize germplasm collection in a project with the Mexican government. By 1947, the collection contained 2,000 accessions. In a bid to organize them, scientists led by Mario Gutiérrez and Efraim Hernández Xolocotzi drew a chalk outline of Mexico and began to lay down ears of maize based on their collection sites. What emerged was a range of patterns between the races of maize. This breakthrough allowed the team of scientists to codify races of maize for the first time.
Today, CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank contains over 28,000 unique collections of maize seed and related species from 88 countries.
“These collections represent and safeguard the genetic diversity of unique native varieties and wild relatives and are held in long-term storage,” said Costich. “The collections are studied by CIMMYT and used as a source of diversity to breed for traits such as heat and drought tolerance and resistance to diseases and pests, and to improve grain yield and grain quality.”
CIMMYT’s germplasm is freely shared with scientists and research and development institutions to support maize evolution and ensure food security worldwide.
Willcox said on-farm breeding by Mexican farmers also continues and preserves maize diversity and the culinary and cultural traditions surrounding maize are the reason there is such a wealth of landraces in existence today.
“The diversity preserved in farmers’ fields is complementary to the CIMMYT germplasm bank collection because these populations represent larger population sizes and diversity than can be contained in a germplasm bank and are subjected to continuous selection under changing climatic conditions,” she added.
Examples of some of the 59 native Mexican maize landraces. Photo courtesy of CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank
HARARE (CIMMYT) — As CIMMYT joins the world in celebrating the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, it can take pride in the diverse maize varieties it develops which have improved the livelihoods and health of smallholder farmers globally.
These varieties have brought tremendous benefits to smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Over 90 percent of agricultural production in SSA is rainfed, which puts farmers at risk for drought and heat in addition to the poor soil fertility, pests and diseases they face. Drought alone damages about 40 percent of all maize crops in SSA, endangering the livelihoods and food security of millions of smallholder farmers.
Stress tolerant maize not only reduces risks for farmers in the face of unpredictable environmental and biological conditions, it also allows more stable crop production. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) breeds high-yielding, locally-adapted maize varieties with farmer-preferred traits such as drought tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, and disease and insect pest resistance. Many of these varieties also have increased nutritional traits such as high protein quality and increased provitamin A content, which help increase children’s weight and height growth rates and reduce childhood blindness.
“Since working with CIMMYT, we have unlocked our production potential,” says Sylvia Horemans, marketing director of Zambia-based Kamano Seeds. Since 2012 Kamano Seeds has benefitted from CIMMYT to strengthen its work in maize breeding, seed production and marketing. Photo: CIMMYT
“Increasing adoption of these stress tolerant maize varieties is helping African farmers cope with drought and climate change, improve yields at household level and thereby enhance the livelihoods and food security of tens of millions of farmers,” said Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT-Southern Africa maize breeder.
These drought-tolerant varieties have proven resistant despite harsh conditions brought on in southern Africa by an intense El Niño, according to Magorokosho. “Significant impacts have been observed in plots of smallholder farmers who grow these varieties.”
In 2014, over 54,000 metric tons of certified seed of the stress tolerant maize varieties were produced and delivered by partner seed companies for planting by smallholders. By the end of that year, more than five million smallholders had planted the improved drought tolerant varieties on over two million hectares, benefiting more than 40 million people in 13 countries in SSA.
Today, there are more than 200 stress tolerant maize varieties that yield the same or more than commercial varieties under average rainfall, and more importantly, produce up to 30 percent more than commercial varieties under moderate drought conditions. Armed with these improved varieties, CIMMYT is assuming a greater role to ensure stress tolerant maize reaches nearly five and a half million smallholder households in SSA by the end of 2019.
“Even with a little rain, this seed does well,” says a smallholder farmer Philip Ngolania, in south-central Kenya, referring to a drought-tolerant maize variety he planted during the 2015 crop season. “Without this seed, I would have nothing. Nothing, like my neighbours who did not use the variety.” Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
“In close collaboration with our partners, we were able to create excitement about what can be achieved with drought tolerant maize in Africa,” said Tsedeke Abate, leader of CIMMYT’s Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa project. CIMMYT is working with national agricultural research systems, international research centers, and other development programs to disseminate improved maize seed to smallholder farmers in SSA through small-and medium-sized seed companies.
“The work we have undertaken on drought tolerant maize has created significant impacts. However, several challenges still remain,” cautioned B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE. One of these challenges is maize lethal necrosis (MLN), which emerged in Kenya in 2011 and has since devastated maize crops across East Africa. CIMMYT is working to generate improved stress tolerant maize varieties with resistance to MLN and other major diseases.
Maize production in Africa is growing rapidly, making maize the most widely cultivated crop on the continent, and the staple food of more than 300 million people. Providing farmers with diverse, improved seed choices will thus strengthen food security, health and livelihoods in SSA.
