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Theme: Climate adaptation and mitigation

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.

How CIMMYT products reach resource-poor farmers: the case of Saraguro, Ecuador

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Since 1995, staff from Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIAP) have worked with farmers in 17 communities in a remote Andean area to provide them seed of improved cultivars of several crops, mini-credit, and training about profitable and sustainable farming. Subsistence farmers in Saraguro now obtain several times their previous yields for small grains, potatoes, maize, and peas, and their average incomes have increased from US$1 to US$2 per day. With food security assured, farmers are requesting seed of varieties with enhanced market value and moving to cash crops such as onions, tomatoes, or fruits.

The project began when Hugo Vivar, former ICARDA barley breeder posted for many years at CIMMYT, worked with INIAP breeder Jorge Coronel, to introduce a new, highyielding barley variety to the area. On the heels of that barley’s success, Vivar has helped channel seed of improved drought-tolerant wheat from former CIMMYT wheat breeder Richard Trethowan’s research, and an excellent quality protein maize (QPM) variety now being used in food programs for children at two rural schools and sold as green ears by farmers for extra income.

Coronel, who grew up on a farm in Biblian, Cañar Province, Ecuador, studied at the University of Cuenca, in southern Ecuador, has been leading work in Saraguro since the project’s inception, and is a well-known and welcome figure in villages throughout the mountainous Andean valley. As a young researcher in 1991, Coronel took a six-month training course at CIMMYT in Mexico and was especially impressed by the Center’s philosophy concerning the need to work with and for farmers. “I really enjoy what I do here and the fantastic thing is that I get paid for it,” he says.

The US National Academy of Sciences honors

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Indian Agricultural Economist and former Director of CIMMYT’s Economics Program, Prabhu Pingali, was among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates inducted into the United States National Academy of Sciences this week, in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in research.

Pingali has devoted his entire career to research agriculture in developing countries. His research and advisory work has focused on technological change, environmental externalities, and agricultural development policy. Currently Director of FAO’s Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Pingali has confirmed that hunger reduction is a prerequisite for fast development and poverty reduction: “Hungry people cannot take full advantage of a pro-poor development strategy….for each year that goes by without reducing hunger, developing countries suffer a total loss of about 500 billion US dollars in terms of lifetime earnings foregone…. Investment in hunger reduction…has a potential for generating high economic rates of return.”

Visiting FAO dignitary promotes collaboration in agricultural biotechnology

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Juan Izquierdo, Senior Crop Production Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, FAO, visited CIMMYT’s El Batán research station on Thursday 19 April 2007. His discussions with center management and staff focused on the Drought Research Consortium of REDBIO, a technical cooperation network for agricultural biotechnology in Latin America and the Caribbean launched in 2005 with participation of CIMMYT. He expressed particular interest in the application of plant breeding and biotechnology tools within integrated plant breeding programs, work that CIMMYT is intensively pursuing at present. Among other things, Izquierdo extended a broad invitation for center staff to the upcoming REDBIO symposium, “VI Encuentro Latinoamericano de Biotecnologia Agropecuaria,” to be held in Viña del Mar, Chile, 22-26 October 2007.

Visit builds links with China

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On Friday, November 17, El Batán played host to a delegation from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC), accompanied by Zhong-Hu He, regional wheat coordinator for East Asia based at CIMMYT China. The visitors were Jie Wang, Vice President, Feng Feng, Deputy Director General (life science department), and Yinglan Zhang, Division Director (department of international collaboration).

The visit aimed to develop collaborative research projects between scientists from NSFC and CIMMYT’s wheat and maize programs and genetic resources and enhancement unit. Priority research areas include durable disease resistance, yield potential and grain quality in wheat, and disease resistance, drought tolerance, and high oil content in maize.

The visitors met with key scientists from headquarters for presentations and discussions. The group also saw CIMMYT’s work in action, visiting the Plant Genetic Resources Center, the biotechnology laboratories, the Crop Research Informatics Laboratory, and the Grain Quality Laboratory. On Saturday, November 18, the group spent the day at Tlaltizapán experiment station, where the research focus is on breeding mid-altitude and subtropical maize.

Asian Cereals Conference

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The 2nd Central Asian Cereals Conference took place on June 13-16, 2006 in Aurora Sanatorium near Cholpon-Ata town of Issyk-Kul Lake region in the Kyrgyz Republic. The Lake Issyk-Kul is a natural pearl of the country and the region. Surrounded by the mountains at the altitude of almost 1600 m it is a memorable location. The natural beauty of the mountains and the lake contributed to the productive atmosphere of the conference of which CIMMYT was a co-organizer.

The main conference objective was to assess the status of research and cooperation on cereals in Central Asia in the fields of cereals breeding, genetics, physiology, seed production, grain quality, plant protection, biotechnology, cultivation technologies under irrigated and rainfed conditions, and genetic resources including information exchange between scientists from Central Asia and foreign countries.

There were 210 participants from 17 countries, including the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Western countries. Representatives came from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, Belgium, Australia, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Syria, Nepal, UAE, and Zimbabwe. Sanjaya Rajaram (ICARDA CIMMYT Wheat Program) and Alexei Morgounov (Regional Representative of CIMMYT in CAC, Kazakhstan but now at the CIMMYT office in Turkey) attended and spoke at the event.

During the technical researchers and crop science specialists reported on achievements and current research conducted at their institutions and on the progress in joint international projects with, among others, CIMMYT and ICARDA.

Bangladesh Country Almanac version 3.0 released

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The third edition of the Bangladesh Country Almanac (BCA) was released at a workshop held at the Jahangir Nagar University, Savar, chaired by its Vice Chancellor in April. In May and June a dissemination workshop and nine hands-on training workshops have been conducted with different organizations across Bangladesh and benefitting about 380 researchers, academics, post graduate students, and extension and NGO personnel.

The Almanac developed by CIMMYT in close cooperation with Bangladeshi partners combines on a single CD ROM both spatial and attribute data on climate, land and soils, crops, demography, hydrography, infrastructure, health, marketing, livestock, forestry and poverty. It is the most comprehensive offline CD-based database in Bangladesh.

The Almanac is being used to help identify research locations and to aid in designing development programs by extension services and NGOs. The Soil Resource Development Institute (SRDI) of Bangladesh has decided to use the BCA as a platform to deliver field-level data to its headquarters.

CIMMYT and the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council have organized a policy/ concluding workshop on the BCA for July 9. The Minister and the Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, will be present as Chief Guest and Special Guest. DGs and Directors of Agricultural Institutes, Vice Chancellors of Universities and the heads of NGOs and International organizations have been invited to give their feedback about the latest release of the country almanac.

New CIMMYT-based maize hybrid released in Colombia

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Colombia’s Agriculture and Livestock Research Corporation (CORPOICA) has released a new maize hybrid, CORPOICA PALMIRA H-262, for the country’s Cauca Valley Department. The new single-cross hybrid, which yielded more than 9 tons per hectare on average in tests in the region, was developed using acid-soil-tolerant inbred lines CLA176 and CLA215 from CIMMYT, according to Luis Narro, Center maize researcher in South America.

“This shows how quality breeding materials developed for certain environments—in this case, acid soils—can be successful in a range of settings,” according to Narro, who says that acid-tolerant maize is routinely evaluated for yield potential in locations, such as Cauca Valley, with fertile soils and normal pH.

The new hybrid emerged from tests in Cauca Valley in 2001, with support from the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture, to find a variety that would out-yield available commercial hybrids. CORPOICA and CIMMYT assembled a trial comprising 20 hybrids—17 experimental hybrids from CIMMYT, and 3 commercial checks. “H-262 won out not only for its high yields, but also because it yields well under diverse conditions and has good grain quality: semi-flint type, and good for making the popular food ‘arepas,’ ” Narro says.

Dominated by the river which gives the Department its name and home to nearly 3 million people, the Cauca Valley is the country’s leading sugarcane producer. Farmers there also grow maize on some 20,000 hectares; just over half of it on holdings of less than 30 hectares.

The hybrid was released in February 2006 in a ceremony attended by CORPOICA Director General Arturo Vega, Colombian farmers, researchers, and policymakers. Diego Aristizábal Quintero, Director of CORPOICA’s Palmira facility, thanked CIMMYT and others who contributed to the development of H-262.

“I would like to take this opportunity to recognize CIMMYT’s close and effective collaboration, the participation of FENALCE, and the support of the Ministry of Agriculture, whose funds allowed us to obtain the product that we are proudly turning over today for the benefit of the Valley’s farmers…” At the time of release, 8.2 tons of seed of H-262 were available—enough to sow more than 500 hectares.

Conserving the genetic heritage of maize

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Experts from around the world met at headquarters this week to begin hammering out a strategy to ensure the long-term conservation of the genetic diversity of maize, a central pillar of humanity’s food security. Pivotal to this issue is the well-being of gene banks. Both national and international gene banks have not fared well, as investment in public sector agricultural research has steadily declined and fierce competition for dwindling resources in the agricultural sciences has risen.

The meeting, sponsored by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the World Bank, and CIMMYT, was called to initiate a global response to this growing crisis, with nothing less at stake than the survival of the genetic heritage of this essential crop. At a time when molecular genetics opens new opportunities daily to exploit genetic resources carrying resistance to combat plant diseases, insect pests, and threats such as drought, soil salinity, and heat stress, collecting and preserving the basic sources of resistance traits takes on added importance.

Given the global distribution and subsequent evolution of maize, the job is too large for a single institution or nation—thus the need for a broad-based solution, says maize genetics expert and meeting co-organizer Major Goodman of North Carolina State University.

“With the experience and expertise at this meeting,” says Suketoshi Taba, director of the CIMMYT maize gene bank, “we are posed to discuss and make recommendations, based on ground-level reality, to address the threats to conserving the genetic treasures of maize and to focus our efforts and resources.”

 

 

Published 2006