Climate change threatens to reduce global crop production, and poor people in tropical environments will be hit the hardest. More than 90% of CIMMYTâs 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.
Global demand for food is expected to grow rapidly leading up to 2050, and the ability to meet such demand is of the utmost importance in order to maintain food security. However, a recent study shows projected climate change threatens to compromise the worldâs ability to meet this demand â especially in global cereal yields â as soon as the next 10 years, given that the bulk of the demand will occur in the next two decades.
The authors emphasize the importance of this information for organizations that deal in international food prices, stability and peace. The study âGetting caught with our plants down: the risks of a global crop yield slowdown from climate trends in the next two decades,â published in Environmental Research Letters by David Lobell, an associate director at Stanford Universityâs Center on Food Security and the Environment, and Claudia Tebaldi, a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, used computer models to examine the potential impact of climate change on food yields in the next 20 years, particularly of wheat and maize.
Photo: A. Yaqub/CIMMYT
The models combined global climate trends with data on weather patterns and crops in order to estimate the likelihood that global agriculture would be able to keep up with increased demand under a changing climate. According to the study, under natural climate shifts the likelihood that agricultural production will take a downturn in the next 20 years is very low, but when projected climate change is factored into the equation the results are quite different. âClimate change has substantially increased the prospect that crop production will fail to keep up with rising demand in the next 20 years,â stated Tebaldi. The study found that âbecause of global warming, the chance of climate trends over a 20-year period causing a 10 percent yield loss has increased from a less than 1 in 200 chance arising from internal climate variability alone, to a 1 in 10 chance for maize and 1 in 20 chance for wheat.â Maize faces a greater threat from climate change than wheat due to the fact that its main production areas are more geographically concentrated, meaning that âlarge regional trends can have more influence on global maize than wheat.â It is important to remember that one of the major assumptions of the study is that methods to adapt to climate change are not implemented on a large scale in the next 20 years, i.e. âthe locations and seasons of maize and wheat production do not change.â
The study suggests that shifting production to cooler regions could help to offset the impacts of climate change on yield, but implies that at the present moment these shifts âare not occurring fast enough to significantly alter the global pattern of maize or wheat production.â While the likelihood of climate change having a devastating impact on wheat and maize yields is not very high, at one in 10 and one in 20 respectively, it is a concern that the odds are considerably higher under âhuman-induced global warmingâ than under ânatural climate shifts.â It is for this reason that the authors recommend that anyone concerned with food security or international stability be aware of the potential risk climate change poses to global food production. The full article is available at IOPscience.
Dr. Nora Lapitan, the new science advisor in the Bureau for Food Security of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and lead of USAIDâs Climate-Resilient Cereals portfolio, visited the maize field trials being conducted in India as part of Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) during 17-21 June.
Nora Lapitan with the HTMA team at Kaveri Seeds field trials in Baijenki, Telangana. Photo: Kaveri Seeds staff
Lapitan is the project manager and provides technical oversight. Supported by USAID under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, the HTMA project is led by CIMMYT-Hyderabad. HTMA is a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia prone to face weather extremes and climate-change effects. The project connects several public sector agricultural research institutions in South Asia such as the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; Maize & Millets Research Institute, Pakistan; National Maize Research Program, Nepal; Bhutan National Maize Program; and two Indian state agriculture universities â Bihar Agricultural University, Sabor and University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Raichur, as well as Purdue University in the U.S. Additional participants include seed companies DuPont Pioneer, Vibha Agritech, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds. This was Lapitanâs first trip to India, which she chose to start with HTMA maize field activity visits. She visited maize trials under managed heat stress at different sites in India, starting with the trials at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Ludhiana on 17 June.
A team of scientists from BISA, including Dr. H.S. Sidhu, Parvider Romana and Manish Koth showed her HTMA trials and explained the activities. The next day she visited the HTMA trials at DuPont Pioneer sites in Jalandhar, Punjab, where Dr. S.K. Kaushik explained project activities, including various types of hybrid trials, heat stress symptoms in the field and promising heattolerant hybrids. After visiting the maize trials in Punjab, Lapitan traveled to southern India, visiting HTMA trials in Hyderabad and Baijenki, Karimnagar. In Hyderabad, she visited the trials planted at a CIMMYT site within the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) campus, where Dr. P.H. Zaidi, CIMMYT senior maize physiologist and HTMA project leader, explained ongoing HTMA field trials across sites in South Asia in collaboration with partners. M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT India maize stress specialist, discussed trials planted at the Hyderabad site.
Nora Lapitan with the HTMA team at CIMMYT field trials in Hyderabad. Photo: K. Seetharam/CIMMYT-Hyderabad
The presentation was followed by a field tour, where Lapitan could see the performance of some of the most promising heat-tolerant maize hybrids. In the afternoon, Lapitan met with CIMMYT-Hyderabad staff, where Zaidi presented the officeâs overall program and various ongoing projects. The next day, she and Zaidi visited HTMA trials at the Kaveri Seeds site at Baijenki, Telangana. Dr. N.P. Sarma, director of research; Dr. B.S. Dahiya, senior advisor; and Dr. Ramesh Chaurasia, maize breeder at Kaveri Seeds, explained the HTMA field trials at their site.
Lapitan took a field tour, where Chaurasia explained the details of the ongoing trials and showed her a number of promising heat-tolerant hybrids. âThis is very exciting for our company; to see unique products like heat-tolerant hybrids identified within two years of the project start, which we are ready to take forward in largescale testing,â said Sarma. He further explained that there are very few options for such types of maize hybrids, and that this is a newly emerging market. It is certainly a unique option for resource-poor farmers to provide food during those hot and dry months and also feed for their livestock.
After completion of the field visits, Lapitan expressed her strong satisfaction with HTMA project activities, saying âit is exciting to see that partners are ready with first wave of products for deployment within two years. This is remarkable and I congratulate the HTMA team.â
The Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, is a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia who face weather extremes and climate-change effects. HTMA aims to create stable income and food security for resource-poor maize farmers in South Asia through development and deployment of heat-resilient maize hybrids.
The project connects several public sector agricultural research institutions in South Asia, such as the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; the Maize & Millets Research Institute, Pakistan; National Maize Research Program, Nepal; and Bhutan Maize Program. Also involved in the project are two state agriculture universities from India â Bihar Agriculture University, Sabor and University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS), Raichur â as well as seed companies in the region including DuPont Pioneer, Vibha Agritech, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds and international institutions including Purdue University and CIMMYT.
The â2nd Annual Progress Review and Planning Meeting for the HTMA Projectâ was held 22-23 July at UAS, Raichur in Karnataka, India. The meeting was attended by scientists and representatives from the collaborating institutions in South Asia, Purdue University and CIMMYT. Dr. Nora Lapitan represented USAID at the meeting. To take advantage of the presence of renowned scientists at this newly established agricultural university, the inaugural session of the meeting was organized as a special seminar on âGlobal initiatives on climate resilient crops.â
Dr. B.V. Patil, director of education at the university, organized the seminar for UAS staff and students. In his welcome speech Dr. Patil highlighted the importance of the HTMA public-private alliance, especially for addressing such complex issues as developing and deploying heat stress-resilient maize. Dr. BM Prasanna, director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program, lectured on âAdapting Maize to the Changing Climate,â talking about the importance of climate change effects and CIMMYT initiatives on different continents in the development and deployment of stress-resilient maize hybrids.
This was followed by another highprofile lecture on âClimate-Resilient Crops: A Key Strategy for Feed the Future,â which was delivered by Lapitan. She spoke about the priorities of the FTF initiative, including efforts to reduce poverty and malnutrition in children in target countries through accelerated inclusive agricultural growth and a high-quality diet. The inaugural session was followed by a series of HTMA annual review and planning technical sessions. In the first, Dr. P.H. Zaidi, HTMA project leader and CIMMYT senior maize physiologist, presented updates on the projectâs execution and the progress achieved at the end of the second year. The project has met agreed milestones, and is even ahead on some fronts.
This was followed by detailed progress reports on objectives given by each collaborating partner. Professor Mitch Tuinstra of Purdue University presented on membrane lipid profiling in relation to heat stress, as well as identifying quantitative trait loci for heat stress tolerance and component traits by joint linkage analysis. The leads from each of the public and private sector partners presented the results of the HTMA trials conducted at their locations, and also shared a list of top-ranking, best-bet heat-tolerant maize hybrids to take forward for large-scale testing and deployment. During the projectâs first two years, each partner identified promising and unique maize hybrids suitable for their target environment. In molecular breeding, Zaidi presented the results of the association mapping panel, and Dr. Raman Babu, CIMMYT molecular maize breeder, presented the progress made on genotyping and association analysis. Dr. M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT maize stress specialist for South Asia, presented a progress report on genomic selection for heat stress tolerance.
Nora Lapitan of USAID addressing the audience in HTMA seminar at UAS Raichur. Photo: UAS, Raichur photographer
Dr. K. Seetharaman, CIMMYT special project scientist in abiotic stress breeding and Dr. A.R. Sadananda, CIMMYT maize seed system specialist , presented jointly on the HTMA-product pipeline, including the promising heat stress-resilient hybrids ready for deployment, and a series of new hybrids ready for testing across locations in target environments. Dr. Christian Boeber, CIMMYT socio-economist, talked about progress in HTMA product targeting, pricing and adoption, summarizing the ongoing work on crop-modelling, reviewed work on the IMPACT model component, presented the survey tool and reviewed study sites in heat stress-prone ecologies of South Asia. Zaidi and Tuinstra presented the progress in project capacity building, including nine Ph.D. student fellowships. three workshops/training courses including in-country courses on âPrecision phenotyping for heat stress toleranceâ in Nepal and Pakistan, and a course on âStatistical analysis and genomic selection.â Project progress was critically reviewed by the project steering committee (PSC) headed by Prasanna, who expressed high satisfaction on its overall development. Speaking for USAID, Lapitan said: âI am highly impressed with the progress in the HTMA project. Within a period of two years there is a first wave of heat-tolerant hybrids ready for large-scale testing and deployment. This is one of the 26 projects in our climate-resilient cereals portfolio, but this project successfully demonstrated excellent balance between up-stream and down-stream research. We have made impressive progress, and are rather ahead on some milestones. I consider it a model project.â
Other PSC members also expressed their satisfaction, and agreed that HTMA has made tremendous progress in products for heat stress ecologies in the partnersâ target environments. After discussing the progress in detail, project partners discussed the work plan and research activities for the third year. A parallel group discussion on objectives helped finalize the workplans and activities for each partner during the projectâs third year.
HTMA-Project Steering Committee meeting.
Finally, the PSC met and discussed the overall progress of the project in detail. In addition to Prasanna chairing the PSC, members include Dr. Mohammda Munir, chief scientific officer, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Yagna Gajadhar Khadka, director, crops and horticulture, Nepal Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Khalid Sultan, research director, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; Dr. B.V. Patil, director of education at UAS; Tuinstra; Dr. N.P. Sarma, Kaveri Seeds; and Zaidi as member secretary.
Overall, the PSC members expressed their satisfaction with ongoing activities and the progress being made by HTMA, particularly the close collaboration with partner institutions. âI sincerely hope that the same momentum is maintained for rest of the project, which is certainly going to have a strong impact on the maize farming community in stressprone agro-ecologies of South Asia,â said Munir.
The meeting was also attended by special guests, including Drs. Navin Hada and Danielle Knueppel from USAID in Nepal, and Dr. Mahendra Prasad Khanal and Mr. Dilaram Bhandari from the Agricultural Ministry of Nepal. They stated their appreciation for the opportunity to participate in the meeting for the project model and noted HTMAâs fast-track progress. Khanal said, âWe need to have a similar project for maize research and development in Nepal, since we are also pushing for hybrid varieties, and we should use a similar public-private partnership model for the product development and deployment.â
Genetic resources and bioinformatics are the responsibility of the Genetic Resources Program (GRP). It contributes to CIMMYT’s overall mission of increasing crop productivity to improve food security and improve livelihoods by storing, analyzing and disseminating the world’s largest collection of maize and wheat genetic resources, which are contained in the Wellhausen-Andersen Genetic Resources Center. The Center is one of only three ISO-certified seed banks in the world and the only one in North America. In its maize and wheat gene banks, seeds are held in trust for humanity under the framework of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Moreover, CIMMYT seed is made freely available to researchers and national agriculture institutions around the globe.
GRP scientists and staff work to provide healthy, viable seed and reliable information from the maize and wheat genetic resources collections and are responsible for more than 175,000 accessions. Their work enhances the use of maize and wheat genetic resources through research and technology, excellence in data stewardship and the creation of tools and methods that enable CIMMYT and its partners to readily use the available information.
The GRP consists of various units that work in tandem to achieve CIMMYT’S goals:
The Seed Health Laboratory staff members work on the safe exchange of wheat and maize seed around the world and are responsible for thousands of exchanges of maize and wheat samples annually.
The Biometrics and Statistics Unit provides service, research and training for CIMMYT and its partners, including methodology-model solutions, statistical analyses and experiment designs. A data stewardship approach strives for responsible stewardship and provides open access to CIMMYTâs seed data and the knowledge derived from it. Through this approach data standards, documentation, curation processes and timelines are established to coordinate the receipt, storage, manipulation and quality control of field and molecular data. It also enables accurate data documentation and storage throughout the analysis pipeline, versatile institutional databases and repositories, interfaces, output and informatic tools that are used by scientists and research assistants, reporting back the user requirements to CIMMYT’s software engineers in order to achieve continuous improvement of these tools.
CIMMYT recognizes that sustainably meeting the growing global demand for food may require the responsible use all of the available technologies, including genetically modified (GM) varieties of maize and wheat. Applying the practice of âsovereignty and safety first,â each nation will determine when and how GM crops will be used in their territory and this will require a legal and regulatory framework to be in place before any work can be done in this area (see CIMMYT’s guiding principles). CIMMYT is a member of âExcellence Through Stewardship,â which âpromotes the universal adoption of stewardship programs and quality management systems for the responsible use and management of biotechnology-derived plant products.â
The Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative systematically explores and mobilizes genetic variation in CIMMYTâs and other gene bank collections into maize and wheat breeding programs to increase productivity resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses such as heat, drought and disease.
The GRPâs activities can be summarized as:
Conservation, characterization, distribution and use of genetic resources.
Safe distribution of seed.
Stewardship and ensuring open-access to CIMMYTâs data and derived information.
Creation of quality, open-source software.
Development and validation of new tools and methods for gene mining and crop improvement.
CIMMYT, CIBIOGEM and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) transgenics and society group joined together at CIMMYT headquarters on 24 July for the symposium âTransgenics and Society: Towards a constructive dialogue that contributes to policies and regulatory frameworks.â The event was organized to highlight the importance of scientific and moral considerations surrounding individualsâ and hence societyâs perspectives about transgenic crops and other emerging technologies.
Secretary for Information and Research Support of CIBIOGEM Dr. Laura Tovar Castillo, welcomed participants on behalf of Dr. Sol Ortiz GarcĂa, Executive Secretary of CIBIOGEM, and highlighted the importance of this symposium and of achieving constructive dialogue about transgenic technologies. Nearly 1 billion people are suffering from hunger and poverty worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
Photo: CIMMYT
Kevin Pixley, director of the CIMMYT Genetics Resources Program, opened the event with a quote from Megan Clark, CEO of Australiaâs Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO): âIn the next 50 years we will need to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history.â
Climate change, depleted natural resources and overpopulation are just a few of the problems contributing to worldwide food insecurity. Pixley noted that this requires us to make a difference worldwide. âHow are we going to help these people survive?â asked CIMMYT director general Tom Lumpkin in his welcome to participants. âCIMMYT is in favor of the technology of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Though I do say that with words of caution, because we do want to support the developing world with access to this technology, but it is possible to make a bad GMO. Iâve traveled all around the world and seen lax handling of GMOs.â
The discussion was separated into two sessions. CIMMYT staff can view the presentations on InSide CIMMYT. The first session was led by Fred Gould, NCSU professor of entomology and transgenics. Gouldâs presentation was titled âThe Past, Present and Future of Genetic Engineering Technologies,â and discussed the past marketing of genetically engineered products, new technologies and the possibilities of many new GM technologies. Jennifer Kuzma, co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Program at NCSU, finished the first session with a discussion on the governance of genetically engineered organisms and how they are regulated in different countries. âWe need to find a middle approach to incorporate values and science in the governance of genetically engineered organisms,â said Kuzma in a wrapup of her presentation.
The second half of the symposium presented the perspective of professionals who have deep ties in Mexican agriculture and also are concerned about the personal and moral issues that influence perceptions about GMOs. Presenters included: ConcepciĂłn RodrĂguez Maciel, associate researcher and professor at the Colegio de Postgraduados; Javier Becerril, professor of economics at the Universidad Autonoma de YucatĂĄn; and Carolina Camacho, principal researcher in the CIMMYT Socioeconomics Program. The theme that ran through these presentations was the need for transgenic crops in Mexico compared with the difficulty of fully explaining the benefits and concerns of transgenic crops to small-scale farmers. RodrĂguez Maciel said: âAs a country, we have spent way too much time discussing biotechnology issues. Itâs time to integrate all the different types of agriculture to face the challenges that climate change will bring. We do need to remember that we are talking to normal human beings and we need to speak their language.â
Jason Delborne, associate professor of science, policy and society at NCSU, rounded out the discussion with his presentation on how to conduct a productive and informative dialogue on transgenic research. He has developed a five-step process that is designed to facilitate a formal discussion regarding transgenic research and ease the general public into a conversation about transgenics that leads to productive action. Building on the foundations of this symposium, CIMMYT hopes to contribute to discussions in Mexico and elsewhere that generate better understanding of the scientific and personal perspectives that societies must acknowledge and address in developing their policies about transgenics (and next generations of technologies).
As highlighted by Jason Delborne, the most important step is often asking and addressing the right question, which in many cases during this symposium participants learned was not actually about transgenics. Instead, the right questions might be about conserving biodiversity, enhancing the ecological sustainability of agricultural practices, preserving the right to save grain for planting next crops, offering technologies that are affordable to resource-poor farmers or about how humankind will produce as much food in the next 50 years as has been consumed over the entire history of humanity.
Silvano Ocheya is no stranger to the challenges developing countries face in improving agricultural production.
A native of Kenya, Ocheyaâs interest in agricultural science started at an early age, growing up on a small farm that his mother ran by herself after his fatherâs death. âI saw how people back home are struggling, and their lack of knowledge, and thought if we can impact here, we will have an effect on a great number of families, and that is how the country can develop. We canât think of industrialization until we have enough to feed our families,â said Ocheya.
Now, thanks to his excellent training and education in agricultural science and plant breeding as well as internships and research completed at CIMMYT, Ocheya is gaining the tools he will need to realize his dream of giving back. Ocheya received an undergraduate degree at the University of Nairobi, followed by an internship at CIMMYT-Kenya where he researched maize under his mentors, Dr. Dan Makumbi and Dr. Alpha Diallo. This research would eventually form the backbone of the thesis for his M.Sc. in genetics and plant breeding at the same university. Ocheya is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Texas A&M University and is a member of Monsantoâs Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program, working with CIMMYT to research drought tolerance in wheat and resistance to wheat streak mosaic virus.
Photo: Smit Dhakal
After earning his degree he hopes to utilize the skills he has gained to help improve agriculture in a developing country, perhaps his native Kenya. âThatâs where I feel I am most relevant. Iâll make more impact if I apply the knowledge Iâve learned in a developing country, to make a difference in the lives of farmers and their families.â For Ocheya, the biggest challenges to agricultural production in Kenya are drought and disease, made even worse by climate change. These challenges inspire him to work to develop drought-resistant seed varieties that also give farmers high yields.
Ocheya also considers lack of information to be a setback for farmers in developing countries, especially for women. âWe need to empower women by giving them information. There is a great deal of information out there but it is not accessible, including information like the right seed or amount of fertilizer to buy. Unless we empower them with that information, I think it will be very difficult to make a breakthrough in agricultural productivity,â said Ocheya. He cited the influx of mobile technology in developing countries as a potential platform to build agriculture-based apps that can be translated into local languages, providing a possible solution to this information gap. When asked about his plans for the future,
Ocheya mentioned that in addition to continuing his research he would also like to train young people using the knowledge he has gained. âIf you look at the success of Norman Borlaug, for example, he trained thousands of scientists, and thatâs how his impact was felt across the developing world. While he wasnât able to do it himself (in Africa), he had people he could help and he trained them, and I think thatâs the approach I will take.â
When traveling from Chimoio to Tete along one of the main roads in central Mozambique, one inevitably passes through Malomue, a small rural village in Båruè District. Since 2008, conservation agriculture (CA) technologies and improved drought-tolerant maize varieties have been promoted to farmers through various donor-funded projects, including a USAID-funded Feed the Future initiative.
In the past, farmers in the area would cultivate their land, clear the surface of all protective cover and burn the residue from the previous cropping season. The main food security crop in the area is maize, and due to lack of access to improved seed, lowyielding landraces were often planted. The introduction of improved agriculture technologies developed and tested by the Platform of Agriculture Research and Innovation (PARTI) and the Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) of the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Lab (SANREM) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) implemented in collaboration with the University of Tennessee, have brought significant change to Malomue. Farmers have been exposed to improved seed, fertilizers, improved weed management practices and more sustainable planting techniques based on conservation agriculture principles and practices.
Josè Leuane Dicane, a rural farmer from the community with approximately 15 hectares of cultivated land, said, âThe first lesson I learned is that no fire should enter my plots, and I have managed to avoid burning grass from my neighbors.â Dicane also appreciates the reduced labor required when chemical weed control options and direct seeding techniques are used, as well as the increased moisture retention and fertility increases when legume crops are rotated and crop residues are kept on the soil surface. Improved drought-tolerant maize varieties, developed by CIMMYT and extended through Mozambican private seed companies, have further increased the yields on the fields of farmers such as Dicane. Dicane and his large family have become food self-sufficient. He has planted a garden where he produces higher value horticulture crops under small-scale irrigation, and has become an emerging commercial farmer by successfully selling his produce at a profit in the nearby town of Catandica.
The project has identified him as one of the most visionary and successful farmers in central Mozambique, worthy of sharing his experiences with others in the world. With support from USAID, Dicane and his wife were invited to go to the United States to attend a meeting of SANREM/CRSP. On 16 May, Dicane and his wife Judisse boarded an airplane on their way to the U.S. Neither had ever flown, stayed in a hotel or seen the world outside of Mozambique. This was the experience of a lifetime for them. During the SANREM/CRSP meeting on 20 May, they shared their new farming expertise with other participants and farmers. They spoke as if they had presented to an audience many times. Their very impressive report on the lives of rural farmers from Mozambique made a difference to many of the participants. The farmers from Malomue have been given a voice and the opportunity to describe the gradual changes in their lives. The changes might be small, but viewed through another lens, they are also groundbreaking.
A study funded by the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) CRP involving three CIMMYT staff and an international team of scientists has just been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The authors of âLimited Potential of No- Till Agriculture for Climate Change Mitigationâ conclude that claims relating to no-till agricultureâs role in slowing climate change may be overstated. No-till and reduced tillage are methods of establishing crops with minimum soil disturbance, in contrast to conventional tillage involving plowing or other cultivation practices.
No-till agriculture can deliver benefits in many, though not all, situations; these benefits include improved soil quality and retention of water in soil for use by crops. Therefore the technologies have a clear advantage in dry regions of the world. No-till usually leads to an increase in the concentration of organic matter near the soil surface. This is often interpreted as an absolute accumulation or âlocking upâ of carbon in soil, termed carbon sequestration; this has led to no-till being promoted as a form of climate change mitigation. This claim was recently restated in the 2013 Emissions Gap Report of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
Contrast between maize grown in rotation with wheat, with zero tillage on the flat, and retention of all residues (left), with maize grown without rotation, with conventional tillage and removal of all residues (right), on long-term conservation agriculture (CA) trial plot D5 at CIMMYTâs headquarters, El BatĂĄn, Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT
The review found that there was sometimes a genuine, but small, net accumulation of organic carbon in soil under no-till conditions compared with conventional tillage. However, much of the observed effects result from a redistribution of organic carbon with depth â extra organic carbon near the surface but less carbon in deeper soil. In addition, the soil sampling methods normally used tend to exaggerate the effect. Consequently the climate change mitigation achievable from converting to no-till agriculture is likely to be overstated. The authors of the new paper conclude that no-till agriculture has a role to play as one of the strategies contributing to global food security and the protection of soils, and thus to climate change adaptation (through building agricultural systems that are more resilient to climate and weather variability).
In regions where no-till or reduced tillage is agriculturally appropriate it should be promoted on these grounds, but not on the basis of equivocal evidence for climate change mitigation. Climate change mitigation is a small, but useful, additional benefit, not the key policy driver for its adoption. The review also states that those who promote no-till as a means of combating climate change frequently refer to the potential amount of additional carbon that may be stored, or sequestered, in soil. However, in the UNEP report and elsewhere, the barriers to adoption of no-till tend to be ignored.
The authors argue that there are numerous social, practical and infrastructural factors that can make its adoption difficult for farmers, particularly smallholder and resource-poor farmers in developing countries. These issues are being addressed by CIMMYT and others but progress in overcoming the barriers is often slow. Thus, even where there is a real potential for mitigating climate change, it is often difficult to achieve in practice.
Clare Stirling, CIMMYT-CCAFS Project Leader, said, âOverstating the climate change mitigation benefits of no-till is serious because it gives a falsely optimistic message of the potential to reduce climate change through altered agricultural practices.â She added, âGiven that the climate change mitigation achievable through adoption of no-till is likely to be far less than claimed, there is even more pressure to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from other agricultural areas. In regard to wheat and maize â the two staple crops CIMMYT focuses on â improved nitrogen management is the key to low-carbon development.â
Thomas Lumpkin served as director general at CIMMYT from 2008 to 2015.
The history of wheat is the history of civilization. Over 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent our ancestors ascended from an existence as hunter-gatherers and began tending and domesticating crops. Thus began wheatâs symbiotic relationship with the history of civilization and humankindâs responsibility as stewards of planet Earth.
Wheat is not only a major diet component but wheat-based products are the personification of cultural heritage and pride. Imagine Italians without pasta, North Africans without couscous, Indians without Chapattis or Chinese without noodles or steamed bread. It is time to pay homage to this grass, which was the basis for the development of modern civilizations and has done so much for the human race.
Wheat is the staple food of humankind, and its history is that of civilization. Yet today wheat is losing its crown. Many perceive wheat to be a food eaten and produced only by rich countries. Atkins, Davis (wheat belly) and other diets have convinced even more that wheat is bad for you and less wholesome than other crops. Although wheat remains an important crop, funding for wheat research has decreased significantly in recent years.
In spite of all these challenges, the demand for wheat is not dropping. Wheat is the staff of life for 1.2 billion poor people who live on less than US$ 2 a day; providing 20 to 50 percent of daily calories and 20 percent of protein. From South Asia through to Central Asia across the Middle East and on to North Africa, wheat is a staple food. Demand for wheat is not isolated to these traditional wheat-eating regions. Today African countries spend about US$ 12 billion annually to import some 40 million tons of wheat. What was once considered a minor crop for consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa, demand for wheat is now growing faster than for any other commodity and is now considered a strategic crop for food security by African leaders.
Perhaps what is most concerning are the predictions for the near future. Demand for wheat in the developing world is projected to increase 60 percent by 2050. India, the largest wheat-consuming country after China, has 17.5 percent of total world’s population and 20.6 percent of the world’s poor. If you look at a map showing the locations of recent food riots, it is almost identical to one showing where wheat provides more than one-third of a personâs daily calories. Households in developed countries spend less than 10 percent of their income on food supplies, in many countries, that percentage is much more. For example, in Pakistan and Egypt this figure is around 40 percent.
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An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published earlier this year predicts that wheat will be the first of the main staple crops to be significantly affected by climate change, because of its sensitivity to heat and the fact that it is grown all over the world. Current projections predict that with every Celsius degree increase in temperature, wheat yields in semi-tropical areas could drop by 10 percent. Changes in weather may also lead to an increased risk in the severity of wheat diseases, which may cause severe losses in areas that were previously thought of as unimportant.
Recurrent food crises combined with climate change, depletion of natural resources and rising food prices are threatening the lives of millions of poor people who depend on wheat for both diet and livelihood. Demographers predict that by 2050 the earthâs population will peak at 9.6 billion. Developing countries, especially those in Africa and South Asia, are experiencing tremendous population growth. Based on current crop yields and food distribution methods, feeding nearly 10 billion people will not be trivial. Sustainably increasing wheat production will have a crucial impact on food security.
Wheatâs significant contribution to humankind is not yet over.
CIMMYT scientists working on the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) are exploring novel ways to conduct research on gender and climate change. âHousehold methodologies offer a potentially innovative entry point for climate-smart interventions,â said CIMMYT-CCAFS project leader Dr. Clare Stirling, explaining the projectâs interest in doing in-depth gender research. âIn the past, most agricultural interventions have focused on men, even though women provide most of the workforce and day-to-day management and knowledge on farms.â
Photo: Florence Sipalla/CIMMYT
CIMMYT-CCAFS is keen on tapping into womenâs knowledge of farming practices. âStudies show that involving and empowering women in decision-making can have a significant impact on production,â said Stirling. âEvidence suggests that household methodologies can offer a very effective route to increasing the impact of work by CIMMYT-CCAFS.â The CIMMYT-CCAFS teamâs commitment to gender research has not gone unnoticed. âAt the last CCAFS annual meeting, we won the gender award in recognition of the progress that we have made in our gender activities and outputs,â said Stirling.
The scientists, drawn from multi-disciplinary backgrounds in conservation agriculture, maize and socioeconomics programs, recently held a workshop on gender research methodologies that have been successful in other settings. The workshop was facilitated by gender consultants Cathy Farnworth and Helena Zefanias Lowe, and its purpose was to increase awareness about new approaches. Participants also discussed ways to improve the welfare of women in farming communities by ensuring they are part of the actionable implementation of research at farm level.
One of the methodologies discussed was the Gender Action Learning System (GALS), which allows researchers to use visual tools to gather more nuanced information from farming communities during household studies. âGALS creates opportunities for both men and women. It starts with individuals and grows to collective action,â said Lowe. Sharing examples from Sierra Leone, where GALS was implemented by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Lowe demonstrated how the method enabled researchers to generate information on how men and women shared resources and decision-making power in the household.
CIMMYT-CCAFS scientists held a workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, on gender research methodologies that have been successful in other settings. Photo: Florence Sipalla/CIMMYT
âWhen we talk about gender, the tendency is to think of it solely as womenâs issues, but the GALS method brings other relationships into the picture such as co-wives, older men and younger women,â said Lowe. The use of this methodology resulted in some successes within the community, such as an increased number of women in farmersâ associations and leadership positions, as well as improved negotiation skills for both men and women. Through participation in GALS, some members of the farming community also became trainers and are now able to share their knowledge with others.
Farnworth indicated that the household methodologies discussed at the workshop were not just about womenâs empowerment. âThe idea is that everybody changes and becomes empowered because men are also disempowered by some of the roles they play,â she said. In discussing household methodologies, Farnworth noted that a great deal of extension work focuses on the household as a unit and does not examine intra-household dynamics, hence the need to consider new methodologies.
CIMMYT socio-economist Dr. Sika Gbegbelegbe gained new knowledge from the workshop. âThe method goes beyond the science to bring about transformational change,â she said, adding that learning how GALS had been successful in the West African context was indicative that it could be applied elsewhere. âHowever, it takes time to implement, to see the change happening in peopleâs lives,â she added.
A CIMMYT-led project was named as a finalist for the 2014 mBillionth Award South Asia thanks to its mobile platform that helps farmers adapt to changing climate conditions.
âDissemination of climate-smart agro-advisories to farmers in CCAFS benchmark sites of Indiaâ was launched in August 2013 under the leadership of Dr. Surabhi Mittal, a senior agricultural economist based in India, in cooperation with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). In the past 10 months, the project has helped 1,200 male and female farmers in eight Indian villages to gain more knowledge about climate-smart technology and adopt technologies to lessen their risks from climate fluctuations. The project also measured how receiving information on mobile telephones will affect farmers.
More than 300 entries were submitted for the award, which honors the most influential and leading practices in the mobile and telecommunications industry in South Asia. It was presented 18 July by the Digital Empowerment Foundation and Vodafone in a ceremony at the India Habitat Center. The CIMMYT project received acknowledgment for its impact on small farmers from Sanjeev Gupta, joint secretary of the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, and M.V. Ashok, chief general manager of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.
CIMMYTâS director general, Dr. Thomas A. Lumpkin, congratulated everyone involved with the project. âThis shows your technological leadership,â he said in a staff email announcing the award. âUse this to energize your activities.â
There is a growing need for drought-tolerant maize cultivars among smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly in Asia where the cultivarsâ development is a technical reality and outputs are achievable. Public-private partnership projects such as the Affordable, Accessible, Asian Drought-Tolerant Maize (AAA) project attempt to address smallholder farmersâ urgent and long-lasting need to access available and affordable new crop varieties that are robust, drought-tolerant and high-yielding.
ByJM Sutaliya, Parvinder Singh, Tripti Agarwal, ML Jat/CIMMYT and Anil Bana/Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, India
Punjab agriculture officers and farmers met in June to discuss the climate-smart villages that CIMMYT is testing, and they agreed that the CSVs offer one of the best strategies for making farming resilient and sustainable in the state.
CIMMYT, with financial support from the CCAFS South Asia regional program, recently initiated climate-smart village (CSV) pilots in Punjab State, India. On 16 June, Dr. IPS Sandhu, chief agriculture officer of Patiala District, and several other officers visited Aluna, one of the CSVs being piloted in close collaboration with the Punjab Department of Agriculture and several innovative farmers. The on-site stakeholder discussions on the emerging challenges of climate change included topics such as the El NiĂąo effect during the current monsoon season and extended rains during the maturity period of winter crops.
The participants agreed that climate-smart agricultural practices being undertaken in the CSVs are some of the best for making farming resilient and sustainable in the Punjab. CIMMYTâs JM Sutaliya and Punjabâs Vimalpreet Singh gave briefings on the climate-smart agriculture practices being undertaken in the CSVs, including direct-seeded rice (DSR), precision water management using Punjab Agricultural University-designed tensiometers, precision nutrient management using the Nutrient ExpertTM tool, GreenSeeker, energy saving technologies, introduction of maize to diversify rice mono-cropping and efficient weed management in DSR. Farmers were given demonstrations of the GreenSeeker tool for nitrogen management and spraying techniques for weed control on DSR. The proposed Weather Smart weather forecasting services for farmers were also discussed.
Sandhu praised the CSV initiatives and shared his suggestions to strengthen and expand the CSV program in Punjabâs Patiala District. Additionally, he proposed a baseline socioeconomic survey of Aluna, formation of a farmersâ group, a women farmersâ club and other strategies to encourage more farmer contact. Looking to the future, he advocated integration with allied agriculture departments. Highlighting community-supported agriculture interventions for residue management, Sandhu spoke about the importance of advance planning and utilizing a spreader with a combine harvester. He also shared his personal experience using a Turbo Happy seeder to avoid burning straw in subsequent wheat crop.
Sandhu assured CIMMYT of close collaboration from the Department of Agriculture in the future, including extended support to scale up and expand the climate-smart agriculture initiatives in the CSVs with the goals of combating the adverse effects of climate change and addressing food security.
Schoolchildren singing a song they composed about climate change and agriculture at a field day in Gokwe, Zimbabwe.
CIMMYT scientists working on the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) have identified the most suitable maize varieties for high temperature and drought-prone environments in Zimbabwe. The scientists have been conducting research on drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties in areas that are vulnerable to climate variability and climate change in Zimbabwe. Working in collaboration with Sustainable Agriculture Technology (SAT), a local NGO, the scientists are testing the suitability of drought- and heat-tolerant varieties as a solution to challenges farmers face in âclimate hotspots.â
These farmers are vulnerable to climate change due to erratic and limited rainfall, a situation that is worsened by increasing temperatures. âTo identify these areas, we looked at climate change patterns across Zimbabwe which allowed us to identify five wards: Bikita, Gokwe, Gutu, Mutare and Zaka,â said CIMMYT physiologist Dr. Jill Cairns. The scientists then downscaled projections of monthly changes in rainfall and temperature in these wards to confirm their vulnerability and get a better understanding of the seasonal changes likely to occur by 2050.
In this maize demonstration plot, crop management was done using hand weeding.
In partnership with SAT, scientists are screening drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties in demonstration plots using different farmer-managed practices that are accessible to local communities. âSAT has very good links to extension leaders, which has helped us reach the community,â said Cairns. âIt holds field days at each demonstration location and has managed to engage locally.â During these events, farmers are provided with information on climate change, improved maize varieties and modern agricultural practices. Cairns said highlights from field days she has attended included seeing schoolchildren sing about climate change and agriculture, and a group of HIV-positive women singing about agriculture and improved seed. The drought-tolerant maize varieties used in this study are from the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project breeding pipeline, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The research on heat is a component of DTMA being funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
CIMMYT will lead a new research initiative to make agriculture more productive, profitable   and sustainable for smallholder farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) of Nepal, Bangladesh and India.
Launched in Dhulikhel, Nepal, on 4 July, the five-year  US$6.8 million regional research initiative, Sustainable  and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in  the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI), will tap the  agricultural potential of the area and target 7,000  farmers to test and adopt appropriate new technology  and farming approaches.
The program, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), will operate in eight districts: two in northwest Bangladesh, two in the eastern Terai of Nepal and two each in the Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal.
The three-day Inception and Planning Meeting that launched the program was attended by 84 participants from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Mexico and Nepal. Â SRFSI is managed by CIMMYT on behalf of multiple partners including the national research and extension systems of Bangladesh, India and Nepal, Indian and Australian universities, national and international nongovernmental organizations, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia and four CGIAR Centers (CIMMYT, the International Rice Research Institute, the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Water Management Institute).
The project was officially initiated by the Australian Ambassador to Nepal, Glenn White, together with the Executive Director of the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), Dr. Dil Bahadur Gurung; the Joint Secretary of the Nepal Ministry of Agricultural Development, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Adhikari; Dr. Claire Glendenning of the Australian Department of Foreign Affair and Trade; and Dr. John Dixon, principal adviser for ACIAR.
âThis initiative will help to raise agricultural productivity in a region which has the potential to become one of Asiaâs great food bowls,â White told the gathering of scientists and development practitioners.
The EGP is home to some 300 million people, with the worldâs highest concentration of rural poverty and a strong dependence on agriculture for food security and livelihoods. The region is dominated by small farms with many female farmers who have little access to credit, quality seeds, fertilizers, irrigation or formal extension services. They also have to contend with climate-related risks and extreme events such as floods, drought and cold snaps.
âThis program will allow farmers to test a range of innovations to help them boost food production, including conservation agriculture and efficient use of water resources, while strengthening their ability to adapt and link to markets and support services,â White said. âOur aim is to enable at least 130,000 farmers to adopt these technologies within the next 10 years.â
Gurung and Adhikari lauded the long-term partnership between CIMMYT and Nepal, as well as the ACIAR support of this project, and assured that the Ministry will extend its full support.
Key Objectives of the SRFSI
The Eastern Gangetic Plains region has the potential to become a major contributor to South Asian regional food security, but rice and wheat productivity remain low and diversification is limited because of poorly developed markets, sparse agricultural knowledge and service networks, and inadequate development of available water resources and sustainable production practices. Labor shortages â mainly during sowing and harvesting â are becoming more acute. These factors lead to smallholder vulnerability to climate and market risks that limit investments in new technologies.
SRFSI will undertake several high-priority activities to reduce these factors:
⢠Improving farmersâ access to inputs, services and market information in order to reduce the risk associated with adopting new practices.
⢠Removing policy barriers to technology adoption.
⢠Analyzing the appropriateness of technologies, service provider models, markets and policies for women farmers, and adjusting them where necessary, to help ensure food security and gender equity in the region.
⢠Developing new knowledge among farmers, researchers, extension and change agents, service providers, agro-dealers and others involved in agriculture. This has been identified as the key to achieving widespread adoption of new technologies and reductions in poverty in the EGP.
⢠Investing heavily in capacity building at multiple levels, from field days to short courses to linkages with advanced research institutions. Ultimately the project focal communities, where all aspects of the project activities are put into place to achieve the desired change, will become demonstration or learning sites for institutions or individuals interested in agricultural development, where they can observe the technological changes and talk with farmers and farmer organizations about the importance of the different components of the project in bringing about agriculture change.
âThis program will allow farmers to test a range of innovations to help them boost food production, including conservation agriculture and efficient use of water resources, while strengthening their ability to adapt and link to markets and support services,â White said. âOur aim is to enable at least 130,000 farmers to adopt these technologies within the next 10 years.â