Gender and other social differences such as age, wealth and ethnicity, have an enormous influence upon the success of agricultural interventions. To ensure equitable impacts and benefits to rural people, CIMMYT emphasizes inclusive research and development interventions. Starting with the collection of data on gender and social differences, efforts are underway to address these gaps and ensure equitable adoption of technologies and practice. This includes working towards gender-equitable control of productive assets and resources; technologies that reduce womenâs labor; and improved capacity of women and youth to participate in decision-making.
It is a common dilemma for non-profits and assistance programs: how to deliver benefits to the needy without creating dependency or disrupting markets. Addressing this problem, Maize Seed for the Poor (MSP), a pilot project in Kenya, is exploring ways to offer farmers subsidized agricultural inputs to boost farm productivity, while also energizing local seed markets.
Farmers in northern Bangladesh are making money off maize thanks to training and support from CIMMYT and partners. A relatively new crop in Bangladesh, maize has been mostly grown for the poultry feed industry. But now agricultural entrepreneurs want to promote the crop for human consumption and farmers are starting to eat some of the maize they grow.
Rice is king in Bangladesh. But the fields are increasingly tall and yellow with maize as one heads north to the state of Patgram, which borders India. Farmers in the village of Ghonabari, known for its spicy food, have had remarkable success growing maize as a cash crop for the poultry feed industry.
âMaize is very well-suited to the countryâs fertile alluvial soils and can be grown almost any time, except for during the rainy season,â says Enamul Haque, CIMMYT-Bangladesh cropping systems agronomist.
In Bangladesh, maize usually produces around over 5.5 tons per hectare but lots of farmers in Patgram say they are getting even higher yieldsâas much as 9.5 tons per hectare. Their secret? Many participated in CIMMYT’s whole family training (WFT) program to learn to grow the crop.
Agriculture is a family affair in Bangladesh, explains Haque. âMen, women, and children work as a team in the field and together decide at what price they will sell their crop,â he says. WFT offers an opportunity for the whole family to learn together with agricultural picture books that are complemented with simple explanations on how to plant and harvest maize. The maize WFT manual has minimal text in Bangla but the pictures make it easy to understand, even for farmers who can’t read. More than 30,000 WFT manuals have been distributed and several non-governmental organizations, private sector companies, and government departments have also copied and used the WFT manual for maize promotion in Bangladesh, says Haque.
CIMMYT partnered with a local corn milling companyâDoyel Agro Industrial Complex Ltd. âto deliver WFT. Each participating farmer received 2 kilograms of hybrid seed at the end of the training. Farmers grow the maize and sell it to Doyel, which then dries, stores, and sells it for poultry feed.
The 25 or so seated farmers talking to Haque all stand respectfully as Ershad Hossain Saju, the local representative of Doyel, enters the room. He and his wife (see photo above) gave farmers loans for agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, which help improve yields. By acting as guarantors, the Sajus gave the farmers a reasonable interest rate and saved them from having to give the bank a 20% bribe to get loans.
Their business suffered last year due to Avian flu and several cyclones, say the Sajus, adding that the price of maize also dropped. Despite the fact that only about 70% of farmers have paid them back for the loans, the two voice no regrets. âI feel I made a difference in the livelihoods of poor farmers, and this is what Allah my creator told me to do,â says Mr. Shaju.
At the meeting, Mr. Shaju listens as local farmers tell Haque how growing maize has helped change their lives. âI used to have a straw house, now my house is made from brick,â says one. âWe use maize stubble in our cooking fire,â says another. âLand prices have gone up and it costs more to hire someone to work in your field,â says a third. This last change reflects local prosperity and can be difficult for farmers who are used to paying less for field laborers. But other changes suit the farmers just fine; around half have upgraded their bicycles for motorcycles. The faster transport means their children are able to attend a better school outside the village, and they themselves can travel for other business activities.
Improved maize yields means there is more to go around, and the crop seems to be creeping into the diet of Bangladeshis, who live in one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated countries. During the food crisis, farmers say they noticed cobs missing from their fields as villagers were stealing maize to eat. Chapattis, the traditional flatbread, are usually made with wheat flour, but people are stretching their wheat flour by adding maize flour to put more chapattis on the table. Farmers in Ghonabari have also been popping maize kernels as a snack for their children, or grinding and cooking maize with sugar, spices, chili, and ginger. âAround 15% of maize in Bangladesh was consumed by people last year,â says Haque.
The area planted with maize has been expanding since the early 2000s, driven by demand from the poultry feed industry. There were around 137,000 hectares of maize planted in 2005-06, according to a CIMMYT report, which jumped to 179,000 hectares in 2006-07. âMy goal is to only use locally-produced maize,â says Md. Mizanul Hoque Mizan, vice chairman of Doyel. His company currently uses Bangladesh-grown maize for about four months out of the year, after which it imports maize from neighboring countries to meet their business needs.
Doyel is working with the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) to promote white maize for people to eat. And as temperatures rise due to global warming, maize could help feed the country’s growing population. âMaize yields about three times what rice and wheat typically yield and can better withstand high temperatures,â says Haque. âWith a population of 156 million people, we have a lot of scope for maize consumption in Bangladesh,â says Mizan.
For more information: Enamul Haque, CIMMYT-Bangladesh cropping systems agronomist, e.haque@cgiar.org.
What is diversity worth? That is the issue addressed by âEconomic Analysis of Diversity in Modern Wheat,â a new collaborative publication that explores the economics, policies, and complications of modern wheat diversity.
Everyone wants the best, and farmers are no different. But when a large number of wheat farmers opt to sow the same improved varieties on large extensions of cropland, long-term diversity could be sacrificed for relative short-term gains.
It looks and tastes like any other maize, but hidden inside each bite of quality protein maize (QPM) are specialized natural molecules waiting to give the diner an extra boost. A new study evaluates the nutritional impact of QPM on target populations.
Eating quality protein maize (QPM) increases the growth rate of moderately malnourished children who survive on a maize-dominated diet, according to a new study co-authored by five scientists, including two CIMMYT maize experts.
QPM grain is a biofortified, non-transgenic food that provides improved protein quality to consumers. It looks and tastes like normal maize, but QPM contains a naturally-occurring mutant maize gene that increases the amount of two amino acidsâlysine and tryptophanânecessary for protein synthesis in humans. The total amount of protein in QPM is not actually increased, but rather the protein is enhanced so that it delivers a higher benefit when consumed by monogastric beings, like humans and pigs. Drawing on three decades of previous studies on QPM and using sophisticated statistical analysis, the paper âA meta-analysis of community-based studies on quality protein maize,â published in Food Policy, shows that when children suffering from malnutrition in maize-dependent areas consume QPM instead of conventional maize, they benefit from a 12% increased growth rate for weight and a 9% increased growth rate for height.
“We tried to bring together all the relevant work we could find on QPM and analyze and discuss it as transparently as possible,â said Nilupa Gunaratna, statistician at the International Nutrition Foundation and the paperâs lead author. âWe discussed all the strengths and weaknesses of past studies, and took these into account in our evaluation. We also proceeded very conservatively, trying different methods, studying the effects of individual studies and outliers. In every approach, we came to the same conclusion: QPM has a positive effect on the growth of undernourished infants and young children for whom maize is a staple food.â
Give the people what they eat
Maize is the third-most important cereal crop for direct consumption (after rice and wheat), and is particularly significant in developing areas, such as Africa, where it is the main food source for more than 300 million people. In 12 developing countries, it accounts for more than 30% of total dietary protein. And though maize alone cannot provide all the nutrients needed for a healthy diet, maize with extra essential nutrients can go a long way toward helping the nearly 200 million children in poor nations who suffer stunted growth from malnutrition and for whom a diversified diet is currently unattainable.
âStaple foods are the cheapest foods, and the poorer you are, the more you depend on them, which often does not provide a balanced diet,â said co-author Kevin Pixley, who divides his time between CIMMYT and HarvestPlus. âWe would all prefer to see each and every person eating a healthy and balanced diet, but that isnât always possible. Biofortification is one part of the strategy to help combat malnutrition.â
QPM complexities
Though QPM is more nutritious than conventional maize and many of its varieties yield as well as or better than popular conventional maize varieties, widespread acceptance of QPM remains elusive. Of the 90 million hectares of maize grown in Mexico, Central America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, only an estimated 1% or less is QPM.
Many seed companies lack interest in QPM because of the research costs and challenges of assuring its superior nutritional quality. If QPM is grown next to fields of conventional maize, cross-pollination will dilute the QPM trait, and QPM also requires separate storage and quality testing/monitoring. This and the fact that the enhanced maize brings no market premiumâlargely because its quality trait is not visibly distinguishableâhave often deterred seed companies from marketing QPM altogether.
Yet in areas where there has been a substantial effort to promote it and make quality seed available, QPM has gained ground. For example, in 1992 Ghana released its first QPM variety, Obatanpa. Obatanpa is an open-pollinated variety, meaning its grain can be saved by farmers and re-sown as seed without any major decline in yield. In 2005, it was calculated that Obatanpa accounted for over 90% of improved seed sales in Ghana. In 2008, Wayne Haag of the Sasakawa Africa Association estimated that 350,000 hectares of QPM were grown in Ghana, making it the worldâs largest QPM grower. Strong support and effort by multidisciplinary institutions, including the Ghanaian government, made this possible. Four of the QPM studies used in the meta-analysis were based in Ghana. Obatanpa’s high and stable yields and end-use quality have made it popular not only in Ghana but in several other sub-Saharan African countries, where it has been released under other names.
Fortifying future research
The authors of the QPM meta-analysisâtwo statisticians, an economist, a nutritionist, and a plant breederâhope its clear results will finally dissuade QPM critics, many of whom have questioned whether QPM offers nutritional benefits for humans, and that the paper will lead to renewed efforts to explore improved nutrition through biofortified crops. âWhile there is still interesting and important nutritional research to be done on QPM, I hope the focus will start to shift from whether QPM has a benefit to how QPM can be promoted, disseminated, and used by farmers and consumers to have the most impact,â said Gunaratna. CIMMYT is currently involved in several QPM projects, including the QPM Development (QPMD) project in Africa, which is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Launched in 2003, the project uses QPM as a key tool for improving food security, nutrition, and the incomes of resource-poor farming families in four countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda). In the projectâs first five years, seven new QPM varieties were released (bringing the total in the region to 12) and education efforts resulted in 270 field days attended by over 37,000 farmers, roughly 40% of whom were women. CIDA also funds AgroSalud, a five-year project that started in 2005 to extend the benefits of nutritionally improved staple crops to Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2002, two CIMMYT scientists received the World Food Prize for their work to develop QPM.
Quality protein maize can reduce or prevent stunted growth in young children, according to a recently published study.
In eastern and southern Africa, maize is the least expensive and most prevalent cereal crop, but quantity cannot make up for quality. A maize-dominated diet helps keep bellies full, but does not provide a balanced diet. Specifically, maize lacks the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan necessary for efficient protein synthesis. Quality protein maize (QPM)âa type of maize with increased levels of those two crucial amino acidsâis the focus of a recent CIMMYT co-authored publication based on two studies conducted in separate locations in Ethiopia1. The article delves into the role QPM can play in improving the nutritional status of young children in Ethiopia, where nearly 40% of children under five-years-old are underweight.
The first of the two studies ran from August 2002-03, in Wama Bonaya District, and showed that children who consumed QPM had a 15% increase in the rate of growth in weight over those who consumed conventional maize. The second study took place from October 2005-06 in the neighboring Sibu Sire District. Here, children fed a QPM diet had a growth rate in height 15% greater than that of children who ate conventional maize.
Both study sites were selected to represent high maize-producing and -consuming areas with high levels of child malnutrition. Sites were also selected based on environmental factors, such as rainfall and altitude, and for ease of operation for conducting the study. For almost all (97%) of the 341 participating households, farming was their sole occupation. Average farm size was 1.2 hectares. In both districts, maize was the dominant food for childrenâin Wama Bonaya only 31% of families reported feeding their children foods other than maize, and in Sibu Sire 70% of the children regularly ate maize at least once a day. This highlights the vital role more nutritious maize could play in the future health and development of Ethiopian children.
Though there have been other studies on the effects and effectiveness of QPM (see Kernels with a kick: Quality protein maize improves child nutrition) this cumulative study varies slightly because it measures the effects of QPM when fully incorporated into the agricultural practices and home life of targeted households: study participants were given seed which they themselves grew and then prepared and consumed according to normal and locally-preferred practices, rather than being given pre-prepared QPM-based food products. This more closely mimics the impact QPM could have in a âreal lifeâ situation compared to some other previous study methods.
The study shows that although maize alone is not enough to sustain a nutrient-balanced diet, QPM can substantially improve the nutrition of children whose diets are, out of necessity, heavily based on one crop.
The paper was the result of collaboration among researchers Girma Akalu and Samson Taffesse of the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI), Nilupa Gunaratna of the International Nutrition Foundation, and Hugo De Groote from CIMMYT-Kenya.
For more information: Hugo De Groote, agricultural economist (h.degroote@cgiar.org)
_________________________
Girma Akalu, Samson Taffesse, Nilupa S. Gunaratna, and Hugo De Groote. 2010. The effectiveness of quality protein maize in improving the nutritional status of young children in the Ethiopian highlands. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 31(3): 418-430.