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.
Geography matters – 80% of all data has a spatial component, which is “why geographic information systems (GIS) are growing exponentially,” said Kai Sonder, head of CIMMYT’s GIS unit, during a presentation to CIMMYT Day attendees, explaining that GIS involves the mapping and analyzing of spatial and geographic data. “By 2050, 70% of all farmers living in maize and wheat growing areas in Latin America, Asia and Africa will experience yield losses of 15% and more,” said Sonder. The GIS unit is able to make this prediction by analyzing, mapping and modelling climate change implications, crop suitability, socioeconomic and other data sets affecting agricultural production across the globe. The GIS unit also uses spatial analysis for targeting or defining the potential for spreading technologies such as new maize or wheat varieties or conservation agriculture practices, or gauging the market potential for the small- and medium-scale seed companies working with CIMMYT. The unit curates and continuously updates a comprehensive collection of geospatial datasets and geographic databases for all maize- and wheat-producing countries in the developing world.
Outgoing CIMMYT Director General Thomas Lumpkin, incoming CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff, Nynke Nammensma and Jeannie Laube Borlaug (L to R) chat during Visitors’ Week in Obregon, Mexico. CIMMYT/Alfredo Sáenz
CIUDAD OBREGON, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Martin Kropff, who will take the helm as director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in June, joined scientists, and other members of the global wheat community at the CIMMYT experimental research station near the town of Ciudad Obregon in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora for annual Visitors’ Week.
Following a tour of a wide range of research projects underway in the wheat fields of the Yaqui Valley made famous around the world by the work of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, who died in 2009 at age 95, Kropff shared his views.
Borlaug led efforts to develop high-yielding, disease-resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties in the mid-20th century that are estimated to have helped save more than 1 billion lives in Pakistan, India and other areas of the developing world.
“I’m very impressed by what I’ve seen in Obregon,” said Kropff, who is currently chancellor and vice chairman of the executive board of Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands.
“From the gene bank in El Batan, the breeding and pre-breeding and the work with farmers on a huge scale, it’s extremely high quality and innovative,” added Kropff, who with his wife Nynke Nammensma also visited CIMMYT’s El Batan headquarters near Mexico City earlier in the week.
“The MasAgro program is very impressive because it takes the step of integrating scientific knowledge with farmers’ knowledge – it’s a novel way to aid farmers by getting new technology working on farms at a large scale. It is a co-innovation approach,” Kropff said.
The Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture, led by country’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and known locally as MasAgro, helps farmers understand how minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation can simultaneously boost yields and sustainably increase profits.
“The program is an example of how farmers, scientists and other stakeholders can think about and create innovations through appropriate fertilizer applications, seed technologies and also through such instruments as the post-harvesting machines,” Kropff said.
“This is fantastic. That’s what the CGIAR is all about.”
Thomas Lumpkin, John Snape and Martin Kropff (L to R). CIMMYT/Alfredo Sáenz
“The HarvestPlus program, which adds more zinc and iron into the crop through breeding, also plays a key role in CIMMYT’s research portfolio,” Kropff said.
Zinc deficiency is attributed to 800,000 deaths each year and affects about one-third of the world’s population, according to the World Health Organization. Enhancing the micronutrient content in wheat through biofortification is seen as an important tool to help improve the diets of the most vulnerable sectors of society.
The climate change adaptation work he observed, which is focused on drought and heat stress resilience is of paramount importance, Kropff said.
Findings in a report released last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change state it is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer throughout the 21st Century and that rainfall will be more unpredictable.
Mean surface temperatures could potentially rise by between 2 to 5 degrees Celsius or more, the report said.
“To safeguard food security for the 9 billion people we’re expecting will populate the planet by 2050, we need innovations based on breeding, and solid agronomy based on precision farming,” Kropff said.
“There’s no other organization in the world that is so well designed as the CGIAR to do this type of work. CIMMYT is the crown jewel of the CGIAR together with the gene banks. No other organization can do this.”
“We’ve done a lot of work in getting higher yields, but not much through increased yield potential, and that’s what we have to work on now,” he added.
“If you raise the yield through agronomy, you still need to enhance yield potential and there’s very good fundamental work going on here.”
“The partnerships here are excellent – scientists that are here from universities are as proud as CIMMYT itself about all the work that is being done. I’m really honored that from 1 June, I have the opportunity to be the director general of this institution. I cannot wait to get started working with the team at CIMMYT and I’m extremely grateful for the warm welcome I’ve received – a smooth transition is already underway.”
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has tasked CIMMYT with a new project to introduce green manure cover crops to smallholder farmers in eastern Zambia and central and southern Malawi.
Green manures can improve fertility, protect soils and provide fodder and grain for farm animals and humans. They also help substitute for mineral fertilizers, which are costly for landlocked African nations to produce or import. Most smallholder farmers cannot afford them and apply less than 10 kg per hectare of fertilizer to their crops, according to a 2013 study on profitable and sustainable nutrient management systems for eastern and southern African smallholder farming systems.
“This is less than one-tenth of average fertilizer rates in prosperous countries and a key reason why maize yields in southern Africa are around only one ton per hectare,” said Christian Thierfelder, CIMMYT conservation agriculture specialist based in southern Africa. “As a result, many farm families in the region remain food insecure and caught in a seemingly unbreakable cycle of poverty.”
Farmers admiring their maize-cowpea intercrop. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT
With full participation of farmers, the project will test green manures in rotation with maize and as intercrops or relay crops in different farming systems, according to Thierfelder.
“Improved, high-yielding maize can show its potential only under good agronomic practices, such as optimal plant spacing, timely planting, good weed and pest control and adequate fertilization,” Thierfelder explained. “Farmers in Europe and the Americas have followed these basic principles for generations, and some of the ideas spread to Asia and Africa during the Green Revolution. But in Africa mineral fertilizers are most often used by rich farmers and for high-value crops.“
“Improved maize that tolerates drought and other stresses, coupled with conservation agriculture practices –minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through rotations and intercropping systems – are farmers’ best bet to escape the poverty trap,” Thierfelder said.
Keeping crop residues on the soil is a critical component of conservation agriculture, but the residues are traditionally fed to livestock, which also underpin smallholder farmers’ livelihoods. So the use of conservation agriculture hinges on the ability of a cropping system to produce enough biomass to feed farm animals while providing an adequate residue cover. This requires a source of fertilization to feed the cropping system.
The FAO-CIMMYT project will address this by allocating green manure cover crops for different uses. “Over the last five years, CIMMYT’s global conservation agriculture program has identified potential cover crop varieties that fit farmers’ needs,” Thierfelder said. “Velvet bean, lablab, cowpea, sunnhemp or jackbean can provide 10-50 tons per hectare of extra biomass for livestock. They can also leave 50-150 kilograms per hectare of nitrogen in the soil and do not need any additional fertilizer to grow. Finally, lablab and cowpea provide grain that humans can eat.”
One approach Thierfelder promotes is for a farmer to dedicate part of her land to grow maize under conservation agriculture practices, and other areas to sow green manures, nutritional and cash crops that increase soil fertility and household income. “In this way, a farmer can diversify and gradually have money to purchase mineral fertilizer, boost productivity and move out of poverty.”
Green manure cover crops are not new in Africa. Why should they work this time?
According to Thierfelder, there are examples of success in northern Mozambique with CIMMYT’s partner organization CARE International, using lablab and improved germplasm in cassava-based CA systems can increase cassava tuber yields from 4 to 13 tons per hectare, without using additional mineral fertilizer. “In Tanzania, lablab and other green manures are an important part of the cropping system,” he said. “In Zimbabwe, successful experiments with maize and green manures under an ACIAR-funded ZimCLIFFS project also provide hope. The FAO-CIMMYT project will guide the way on integrating green manures cover crops into these farming systems.”
A testament to increased climate variability and risk for farming systems already operating on the razor’s edge, the 2014-15 cropping season will be recognized as a sad write-off by most farmers in Central Mozambique. The rains started six weeks late and most of the rainfall fell in only two months (normally it’s distributed over four), followed by a long drought and some few showers at the end.
But with funds from the CGIAR Research Program on Maize, partners from the Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM) and CIMMYT are working with farmers in Manica Province, Mozambique, to test and promote conservation agriculture practices that better capture and retain precious precipitation, among other advantages.
As part of this, they have revived “mother-baby” trials, a participatory methodology pioneered over a decade ago by CIMMYT for testing drought tolerant maize in Africa and which was subsequently adapted for diverse agronomic practices and is used by researchers worldwide.
Drought-stricken maize: For most farmers around Machipanda village, Manica Province, Mozambique, the situation this season is bleak, auguring complete crop failure or a harvest of a few small maize cobs. Photos: CIMMYT
Comprising field experiments grown in farming communities, mother-baby trials feature a centrally-located mother trial that is set up with researchers’ support. Baby trials, which contain subsets of the mother-trial treatments, are grown, managed and evaluated by interested farmers.
Moving from “business as usual” to innovation
In Machipanda, a small village in Manica on the border with Zimbabwe, IIAM maize breeder Dr. David Mariote established three mother trials, each with two conservation agriculture-based systems and a conventional control plot, combined with four maize varieties from the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a traditional variety, in full rotation with cowpeas.
Farmers then put up the baby trials from a menu of practices that included direct seeding with no tillage, crop rotations, residue retention, herbicide applications, fertilizer use and improved varieties. Interest was high: 54 farmers grew baby trials and some even extended their plots beyond the designated areas, in the excitement of trying something new, according to Mariote.
“Conditions are changing fast; business as usual is no longer an option,” Mariote said. “We have to offer improved technologies that farmers can use to mitigate negative effects from climate change and improve their lives.”
Mariote witnessed first-hand the synergistic benefits of combining conservation agriculture and drought tolerant maize, as part of work in the Platform on Agriculture Research and Technology Innovation (PARTI), a project funded through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) via Feed the Future and implemented by CIMMYT in Central and northern Mozambique.
IIAM researcher David Mariote (right) with farmers of Manica Province, Mozambique.
With training from CIMMYT’s global maize program and technical backstopping from the CIMMYT global conservation agriculture program, Mariote sought new and stronger ways to spread these technologies. That’s when he hit upon mother-baby trials, which had never been used before with drought tolerant maize and conservation agriculture in tandem.
Farmers who grew baby trials unanimously agreed that new ways of farming are needed and that the trials had been eye-openers. In a community meeting, some said: “We often do not have money to buy expensive fertilizers but we have seen that with good agronomic practices and good maize varieties we can already increase our maize yields.”
More farmers in Machipanda have signed up for future baby trials and, as a clear indication of commitment and excitement about conservation agriculture and improved maize, they will use their own inputs to grow them.
Climate-smart agriculture can be “an effective tool to address climate change and climate variability,” according to Kai Sonder, head of CIMMYT’s geographic information systems (GIS) unit, who was one of 754 participants from 75 countries, including 39 CIMMYT representatives, at the third annual Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture, held in Montpellier, France, during 16-18 March.
“Challenges are different for developing and developed countries, but climate change is affecting all of us,” said Sonder. Millions of smallholder farmers in developing countries have less than one hectare of land, earn less than USD $1 per day and are highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events. Many farmers in developed countries struggle to make a living, are dependent on subsidies and insurance payouts and are also highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events.
Modern agriculture, food production and distribution are major contributors of greenhouse gases, generating about one-quarter of global emissions. Climate-smart agriculture addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change by sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, building resilience in food-production systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.
Challenges and areas where climate-smart agriculture has yet to take hold were addressed at the conference. “California has not practiced it for 50 years and is now dealing with the consequences of poor groundwater management,” said Sonder. “Likewise, Ciudad Obregón and Sinaloa in Mexico are fully-irrigated areas in the middle of a desert where climate-smart practices need to be implemented on a larger scale based on CIMMYT’s activities with local partners.”
Progress and exhibitions on climate-smart agriculture projects were also showcased. “This is becoming an integral part of CIMMYT work, as climate conditions increasingly disrupt growing seasons,” Sonder said. “MasAgro is looking at water and nutrient efficiency in Mexico, and CIMMYT is developing maize and wheat varieties that are tolerant to stresses like heat and drought and their combinations,” said Sonder. In collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Food Security and Agriculture (CCAFS), CIMMYT has also piloted 27 climate-smart villages in Haryana, India, which will disseminate key climate-smart agricultural interventions.
The conference also allowed potential partners to meet and identify areas for future cooperation. Sonder mentioned interactions with Jacob van Etten, Senior Scientist at Bioversity International, who works on climate change and climate-smart agriculture in Costa Rica and uses iButton sensors to measure climate data in the field. “Such cheap and effective devices can allow us to reach more places, and I’d like to use them to monitor storage and humidity conditions in metal silos for CIMMYT’s Effective Grain Storage Project in eastern and southern Africa, as well as in the postharvest activities of MasAgro in Mexico,” said Sonder
Benefits of three decades of international collaboration in wheat research have added as much as 10.7 million tons of grain – worth US $3.4 billion – to China’s national wheat output, according to a study by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) of the Chinese Academy of Science.
Described in a report published on 30 March by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, the research examined China’s partnership with CIMMYT and the free use of CIMMYT improved wheat lines and other genetic resources during 1982-2011. The conclusions are based on a comprehensive dataset that included planted area, pedigree, and agronomic traits by variety for 17 major wheat-growing provinces in China.
“Chinese wheat breeders acquired disease resistant, semi-dwarf wheat varieties from CIMMYT in the late 1960s and incorporated desirable traits from that germplasm into their own varieties,” said Dr. Jikun Huang, Director of CCAP and first author of the new study. “As of the 1990s, it would be difficult to find anything other than improved semi-dwarf varieties in China. Due to this and to investments in irrigation, agricultural research and extension, farmers’ wheat yields nearly doubled during 1980-95, rising from an average 1.9 to 3.5 tons per hectare.”
The new study also documents increasing use of CIMMYT germplasm by wheat breeders in China. “CIMMYT contributions are present in more than 26 percent of all major wheat varieties in China after 2000,” said Huang. “But our research clearly shows that, far from representing a bottleneck in diversity, genetic resources from CIMMYT’s global wheat program have significantly enhanced China varieties’ performance for critical traits like yield potential, grain processing quality, disease resistance and early maturity.”
WILL CHINA WHEAT FARMING RISE TO RESOURCE AND CLIMATE CHALLENGES?
Photo: Mike Listman/CIMMYT
The world’s number-one wheat producer, China harvests more than 120 million tons of wheat grain yearly, mainly for use in products like noodles and steamed bread. China is more or less self-sufficient in wheat production, but wheat farmers face serious challenges. For example, wheat area has decreased by more than one-fifth in the past three decades, due to competing land use.
“This trend is expected to continue,” said Huang, “and climate change and the increasing scarcity of water will further challenge wheat production. Farmers urgently need varieties and cropping systems that offer resilience under drought, more effective use of water and fertilizer, and resistance to evolving crop diseases. Global research partnerships like that with CIMMYT will be vital to achieve this.”
Dr. Qiaosheng Zhuang, Research Professor of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and a Fellow of Chinese Academy of Science, called the new report “…an excellent, detailed analysis and very useful for scientists and policy makers. CIMMYT germplasm and training have made a momentous contribution to Chinese wheat.”
Malawi’s Principal Secretary for Agriculture, Erica Maganga, led a delegation of Government Principal Secretaries and seed company representatives to Mpilisi and Ulongue in Balaka District on 11 March to observe progress in conservation agriculture (CA) adoption, as part of the country’s Agriculture Sector Wide Approach Program (ASWAP).
A poster depicting DT maize varieties.
“CIMMYT is on the forefront in promoting different options to farmers… previous challenges will now not be an issue here as farmers have been exposed to different solutions,” said Maganga, after seeing the benefits of a trial in Ulongue where maize is grown under CA using different types of residues. Over the last several years the country has actively pursued CA, implementing practices that include eliminating traditional ridge-and-furrow tillage systems, keeping crop residues and rotating maize with leguminous crops.
Malawi is smaller than the state of Pennsylvania, yet supports 17.4 million people, half of whom live below the poverty line. Global climate change has disrupted the country’s traditional rain cycles, resulting in longer droughts or extreme floods. Maize is Malawi’s primary food crop, but unpredictable weather causes longer “hungry seasons” – the months until the next maize harvest, after the previous year’s grain has been eaten. With 85% of Malawian farmers depending upon rain-fed agriculture, erratic weather jeopardizes food security and livelihoods.
In 2006, 5 farmers were practicing conservation agriculture in Balaka District, Southern Malawi. Today, there are over 2,200. Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT
The Malawian government and farmers are working vigorously to address climate variability and support projects in affected communities. One example is Tiyanjane Nutrition Group, a beneficiary of CIMMYT’s ReSEED Maize Project funded by USAID. The group is involved in small-scale farming, value addition and sale of baked goods. Farmers use the proceeds to help orphans and other people in need and to buy inputs for better farming.
“CIMMYT through ReSEED is demonstrating drought-tolerant maize varieties to farmers,” Maganga said. “I want to urge seed companies to be proactive in providing these new maize varieties to farmers.”
The delegation also visited farmers who adopted CA practices such as intercropping pigeonpea with maize. Other demonstrations showcased crop diversification, promotion of indigenous crops, nutrient management, good agriculture practices and construction of infiltration pits and lowland tracts to manage water runoff and filter pollutants.
Mphatso Gama explaining how CA works with Principal Secretary of Agriculture Erica Maganga looking on.
The high-level delegation included representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, the Principal Secretary for Trade and Industry, the Principal Secretary for Finance, the Principal Secretary for Transport and Public Works, the Principal Secretary for Local Government and Infrastructure Development, the Principal Secretary for Lands and Housing Development, the Principal Secretary for Nutrition, HIV & AIDS, the Principal Secretary for Youth, and the Principal Secretary for Economic Planning and Development. Seed companies including Monsanto, Pannar Seed, Chemicals and Marketing Company, Total LandCare Malawi and Self Help Africa also participated.
CIMMYT has received a grant of USD 17.8 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement a new project dubbed Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS). The three-year project officially started on 15 March 2015.
The project aims to produce and deploy affordable and improved drought-tolerant, stress-resilient and high-yielding maize varieties for 1.8 million smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Zambia by the end of the project. Similarly, DTMASS plans to produce approximately 7,900 metric tons of maize varieties with a strategic goal of improving food security and income for the farmers.
“This is a great achievement for the project team, which worked tirelessly to develop the project proposal that has just been approved for implementation”, remarked Tsedeke Abate, DTMASS project leader. He added that the project will go a long way in supporting farmers to increase their returns from maize farming, while at the same time giving them good-quality maize for consumption. “This is a good day for maize in Africa,” said Tsedeke.
DTMASS will be implemented in close collaboration with USAID’s Feed the Future program, building on experience, successes and lessons from the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa and other complementary CIMMYT maize projects in Africa like Improved Maize for African Soils and Water Efficient Maize for Africa, to strengthen production and delivery of maize seeds to farmers in the seven target countries.
CIMMYT will also work with the respective countries’ extension wings of the ministries of agriculture, public and private seed companies, national agricultural research organizations, community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations. More on DTMASS
International scientists attending a meeting in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, plotted out how current and potential research projects around the world could boost wheat yields to meet population and climate pressures. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins
CIUDAD OBREGON, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Mexico aims to boost domestic wheat production 9 percent to 3.6 million metric tons by 2018, said a government official speaking on Tuesday at a conference in the town of Ciudad Obregon in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.
Productivity will increase as a result of growing investment in infrastructure, machinery, equipment and technological innovations, said Sergio Ibarra, Sonora delegate of the country’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA).
“The strategic vision of the Mexican government is to promote an agricultural landscape that supports a productive, competitive, profitable, sustainable and fair agri-food sector to ensure food security,” Ibarra said, addressing 75 international scientists and wheat breeders attending the International Wheat Yield Potential Workshop hosted by CIMMYT.
The Mexican government has a long and storied tradition of working alongside CIMMYT, which developed improved varieties of wheat under the leadership of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug, helping the country become self-sufficient in grain production in the 1960s. Currently, demand for wheat in Mexico outstrips the domestic supply produced.
One collaborative project, the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture, led by SAGARPA and known locally as MasAgro, helps farmers understand how minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation can simultaneously boost yields and sustainably increase profits.
ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURES
Delegates at the Wheat Yield Potential Workshop, held from 24 to 26 March, plotted out how current and potential global research projects could dovetail under the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), a public-private partnership focused on developing new high-yielding varieties of wheat.
Findings in a report released last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state it is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer throughout the 21st century and rainfall will be more unpredictable. Mean surface temperatures could rise by between 2 to 5 degrees Celsius or more, the report said. Current crop models show scenarios of the impact of rising temperatures on wheat varieties, which provide 20 percent of calories and protein consumed worldwide.
“Models indicate that a 2 degree increase in temperature would lead to a 20 percent reduction in wheat yield; a 6 degree increase would lead to a 60 percent reduction,” said Hans Braun, head of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research Research Program on Wheat. “The consequences would be dramatic if we had a 40 percent yield reduction because we already know wheat production has to increase by 60 percent to keep up with population projections,” Braun said. “If we add modeled climate risks, the challenge is compounded, and we’ll need to double the yield capacity of our current varieties.”
“CIMMYT has demonstrated that the rate of improvement in yield gain has slowed to the point that, if it carries on the present rate, we’ll have a large gap between the amount of available wheat and what we need to feed the population,” said Steve Visscher, international deputy chief executive at Britain’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The Council is the largest financial contributor to IWYP, which has so far secured 50 percent of the $100 million in funding it seeks to develop higher yielding wheat varieties.
“The sooner we act, the greater the chances are that we can close the gap between forecast demand and the availability of wheat,” Visscher said. “The scale of that challenge means that we need an international community effort, and the work on wheat yield that CIMMYT has initiated has now been taken forward through IWYP. I pay tribute to the role of SAGARPA and the Mexican government for backing CIMMYT and providing funding in recent years.”
Rothamsted Research in the UK is trying to meet the wheat food security challenge through a program to increase the yield of wheat to 20 metric tons per hectare within the next 20 years.
“Given that the UK record yield is currently 14.3 tons, that’s a big, big target,” said associate director Martin Parry, whose work aims to boost wheat photosynthesis, leading to increased yields.
“There are big risks both in terms of food security and political stability– it’s critical that the world’s population has enough food to eat– we need to work in a collegial, collaborative way, and IWYP offers an ideal opportunity to do that,” Parry said.
All this week, CIMMYT headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico, has the honor of hosting Dr. Eliud Kireger, the Acting Director General of the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO). Today, we sit with him for a candid conversation on crop research in Africa.
According to Dr. Kireger, one of the burning issues in agriculture today in Eastern and Southern Africa is “low productivity per unit area. The increase we’ve seen in yields across different countries is largely due to expansion in land area.” He attributes this low productivity per unit area to lack of technologies and knowledge that can boost productivity. This dearth translates itself in many ways such as not using fertilizers, improved seed or mechanization.
Another key factor hampering production is climate change, which in Eastern and Southern Africa manifests itself mainly through drought, floods, frost and hail. “There is also an increase in new pests and diseases, as well as postharvest losses, low value addition and lack of regulated markets which erodes the incentive to work hard and produce more. All these are the issues we need to address in our research and development agenda,” Dr Kireger says.
Finance and romance
The crunch in all this is low funding for the agricultural sector. African heads of state committed to devoting a minimum of 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture in the 2003 Maputo Declaration. Not only have few nations honored this commitment, it is also a disadvantageous relationship, as Dr Kireger reveals. “For example, in Kenya, agriculture accounts for 30 percent of the GDP but the exchequer allocates less than two percent to agriculture, and even less to research. We therefore rely on our partners and collaborators in funding most of our research and development work, and that is where partners like CIMMYT come in to help us bridge the gap by accessing funding we would not otherwise have got, by training our scientists, and by helping us obtain high-quality germplasm.”
Dr. Eliud Kireger (left), KALRO Director General, in deep discussions with CIMMYT scientists during his visit to CIMMYT headquarters. He was accompanied by Stephen Mugo (right), CIMMYT’S Regional Representative for Africa and also country representative for Kenya. Dr. Kireger also met with CIMMYT’s senior leadership.
But it is a reciprocal relationship between CIMMYT and KALRO, with CIMMYT too enjoying KALRO’s generosity through a rich potpourri of priceless resources – land for field and laboratory work; a robust nationwide network covering all corners of Kenya; immense social capital accumulated through time by a known, tested and trusted name; community mobilization; and local liaison with policy- and decision-makers on sensitive matters such as germplasm exchange and other weighty issues. “In Kenya CIMMYT does not have land, but since we work together, KALRO allows us to use their land for our work,” notes Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT–Africa Regional Representative and also Kenya Country Representative, who has accompanied Dr Kireger to CIMMYT Headquarters. “These are the benefits of synergy: ‘What you do not have, and I have, we share’. There is no single institution — working alone — that can be able to address all the challenges facing agriculture. From very early on, CIMMYT decided that the only way was to team up with national institutions and work together, so that CIMMYT-developed germplasm , know-how and technologies reach intended beneficiaries countrywide for the benefit of maize and wheat farmers. CIMMYT and KALRO jointly design common projects on clear and specific areas to improve maize and wheat, then seek funding for these projects to address drought tolerance, crop pests and emerging diseases.”
CIMMYT–KALRO MLN screening facility at KALRO’s premises in Naivasha, Kenya.
One such emerging disease is maize lethal necrosis (MLN), which CIMMYT and KALRO are jointly tackling through ultra-modern shared facilities for MLN screeing and for doubled haploid (DH) technology that both stand on KALRO land. “With these facilities, we are able to screen a large volume of germplasm from both the public and private sectors. DH technology allows breeders to very rapidly— especially for cross-pollinated crops like maize — develop parental lines in about 18 months than can then be used to develop hybrids,” says Mugo. “With conventional methods, the same process could take anywhere between six and eight years. Once we identify maize types that are disease-resistant, drought-tolerant or good for low-nitrogen soils, we can fast-track them for rapid hybrid development. KALRO also facilitates exchange of germplasm — particularly important now in the face of MLN — by liaising with other government agents such as the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service. This helps not only Kenya but also other countries, including both the public and private sector. By working together, institutions are able to solve problems that at first glance seem insurmountable,” Mugo observes.
KALRO and CIMMYT started working on climate-smart crops long before the term was coined. The goal was ‘insurance’ to increase production during drought. CIMMYT embarked on research from the late 1980s to increase production even when drought strikes. Collaboration with KALRO in this work started in the early 1990s, and did not stop there. “We now have a large network of research sites in Eastern and Southern Africa,” says Mugo.
The next frontier, and the future we need not fear if we prepare
Touching on genetically modified crops, Dr. Kireger laments “the negative publicity and misinformation on transgenics. To counter this, one of the first courses of action we are taking is making information available to the general public. Transgenic materials have the potential to resolve some of the problems that we have in Eastern and Southern Africa. We are working together with CIMMYT to provide information to the public because the largest fault-line is lack of information, which opens the door for misinterpretation. This hampers and dents the good work that is being done.”
Mugo concurs: “The only way to address this is for research institutions like KALRO and CIMMYT to provide the correct information, based on authoritative and impartial research findings, for informed public debate on benefits and risks, and how to mitigate risks. For example, research has shown the economic and environmental benefits of transgenic insect-resistant maize which eliminates pesticide use. This shows that transgenics can be deployed to solve problems that conventional means are at present unable to solve. One of these is the need to produce more food for an ever-increasing global population. To achieve this goal, we need to deploy all the technologies at our disposal, including transgenics.”
And switching emphasis from maize and headquarters to wheat and the field, Dr Kireger’s next stop in Mexico this week is Obregon, to get first-hand experience on CIMMYT’s work on this other crop that both institutes work on – not very common in Africa, as most of CIMMYT’s partnerships there focus exclusively on maize. Watch this space for more updates including videos!
And may this fruitful and mutually beneficial collaboration endorsed at the highest levels continue to grow from strength to strength!
Agriculture has the potential to be “part of the solution to reduce the impact of climate change,” according to Dr. R.S. Paroda, Chairman of the Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences, who was one of nearly 100 participants at a launching and planning workshop for Flagship Projects on climate-smart agriculture of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS). Held on 24-25 February in New Delhi, the event was jointly organized by CIMMYT and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), with participants from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and other partnering countries.
Dr. Ayyappan, Secy DARE & DG, ICAR, felicitating the launch. Photos: CIMMYT-India.
In the fight against climate change, agriculture is both a perpetrator and a victim. Modern agriculture, food production and distribution are major contributors of greenhouse gases, generating about one-quarter of global emissions. Climate-smart agriculture addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change by sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, building resilience in food-production systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.
The workshop began with a presentation of CCAFS Flagship Project Portfolios, followed by group discussions on associated farming practices, policy, frameworks and recommendations on partnering with governments and other organizations. Clare Stirling, Senior Scientist with the Global Conservation Agriculture Program at CIMMYT, cited the Center’s success in developing climate-smart villages in India and identified improved access to weather information, crop insurance and technology uptake by farmers as key focus areas.
Innovative business models and open innovation platforms for scaling project outputs across diverse agro-ecosystems were also defined. Md. Jalal Uddin of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute proposed integrating mitigation and adaption measures like the promotion of renewable energy, environment management systems, climate change trusts and resilience funds with CCAFS initiatives.
Key stakeholders for CCAFS flagship projects pose for a photo.
A final session on synergies and convergence opportunities covered topics such as contingency crop plans, weather-based index insurance and resilient technologies, all of which can be implemented in climate-smart villages. CIMMYT scientists P.H. Zaidi, Senior Maize Physiologist and Mahesh Gathala, Scientist and Cropping Systems Agronomist, outlined CIMMYT initiatives that support climate-smart agriculture, such as long-standing research on stress-resilient maize and sustainable cropping systems. Kaushik Majumdar, Director of the South Asia Program at the International Plant Nutrition Institute, and M.L. Jat, Senior Scientist with CIMMYT’s Global Conservation Agriculture Program, discussed initiatives to develop and disseminate climate-smart nutrient management tools and techniques for smallholder farming.
“The CCAFS workshop set the stage for all CGIAR institutions to collaborate and make climate-smart agriculture a reality,” said Jat.
Water plays a vital role in crop production, but flooding in vulnerable regions also ruins crops and hinders aid agencies’ efforts to reach people affected by crisis.
In this picture from the World Food Programme (WFP) taken by Amjad Jamal in 2012, vehicles laden with emergency supplies motor through floodwaters to deliver food aid to around 20,000 people stranded in Pakistan’s Sindh Province.
This third successive year of flooding caused the deaths of around 400 people and destroyed homes and agricultural livelihoods. WFP provided one-month food rations, including fortified wheat flour, pulses, vegetable oil, iodized salt and high energy biscuits.
This photo was taken at the Tool Baye Seed Cooperative processing unit in Kaolack, Senegal.
Daniella Van Leggelo Padilla took this picture to show the quality of the certified maize seeds that were being sold at a subsidized price thanks to the World Bank West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP/PPAAO).
Due to a late — and poor — rainfall in 2014, farmers lost their crops, putting them in a precarious position for the fall harvest.
The WAAPP program was able to shore up this loss by providing Senegalese farmers with short cycle, drought-resistant seeds to help them salvage the season’s crops.
Farmers face a range of challenges related to crop production. Nguse Adhane, a smallholder farmer who lives in a small village in Ethiopia, collects his water from a spring source, which runs dry for months at a time.
Charity WaterAid and its partner Development Inter Church Aid Commission are building a gravity flow scheme, which will mean the 875 village residents will not have to depend on an unreliable water source.
Adhane, shown in this picture taken by Guilhem Alandry, has cattle and grows tomatoes, pepper, maize, teff, wheat, lentils and onions on his small farm.
“When I collect water from here for my crops, the roots become dry,” he said.
“There are worms in the water and this impacts on the crops. The cattle become distended after they drink the water as there are worms in it.
“Because there is no water, we cannot water our crops. We have a shortage of water. Our irrigations have been dry for a month now. The rains start in June.”
“If we have water, we will be very happy,” he said.
KULUMSA, Ethiopia (CIMMYT) — An irrigation reservoir at the Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center in Ethiopia’s highlands captures water from a nearby beer distillery about 168 km (105 miles) southeast of the capital Addis Ababa.
Before the irrigation project was constructed, the industrial runoff poured into the nearby river and had a negative effect on the health of local residents. Now it nourishes crops growing in neighboring fields during the dry season or in periods of drought. It can store up to 38,195m3 of water.
“The irrigation project has been a key investment – it’s very instrumental for accelerating seed multiplication of improved high-yielding rust resistant varieties for local wheat projects,” said Bekele Abeyo, a senior scientist and wheat breeder working for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“It allows us to advance wheat germplasm and seed multiplication of elite lines twice a year, which we couldn’t do previously. This cuts the time by half from the currently required eight to 10 years to four to five years for the development and release of new varieties through conventional breeding.
An additional pond with the capacity to capture 27,069m3 of natural water from the river, generates the capacity to irrigate more than 30 ha of land during the off season. The project resulted from the joint investment of the East Africa Agricultural Productivity Program, the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project and CIMMYT.
The construction of the ponds began in April 2012. Sprinkler irrigation was completed in 2014 and management of the project was handed over to the Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center.
