Theme: Innovations

Working with smallholders to understand their needs and build on their knowledge, CIMMYT brings the right seeds and inputs to local markets, raises awareness of more productive cropping practices, and works to bring local mechanization and irrigation services based on conservation agriculture practices. CIMMYT helps scale up farmers’ own innovations, and embraces remote sensing, mobile phones and other information technology. These interventions are gender-inclusive, to ensure equitable impacts for all.

After receiving training from CIMMYT, this group of young men started a small business offering mechanized agricultural services to smallholder farmers near their town in rural Zimbabwe. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

African youth find entrepreneurial opportunity in agricultural mechanization

Written by Matthew O'Leary on August 9, 2018. Posted in Features.

The sound of an engine roars as Gift Chawara, a 28-year-old from rural Zimbabwe, carefully removes a mesh bag bulging with maize grain hooked to his mechanized sheller. Fed with dried maize cobs, the sheller separates the grain from the shaft before shooting the kernels out the side into the awaiting bag. Chawara swiftly replaces the full bag with an empty one as the kernels continue to spill out.

It is eleven in the morning and the sun beats down over the small farm. Chawara and his friends have only been working a few hours and have already shelled 7 tons for their neighbor and customer Loveness Karimuno; thirteen more tons to go.

The widowed farmer watches as the bags of grain line up, ready for her to take to market. It used to take Karimuno two to three weeks to shell her maize harvest by hand, even with the help of hired labor. This grueling task saw her rub each maize ear on a rough surface to remove the grain from the shaft. Now, these young men and their mechanized sheller will do it in just a few hours for a small fee.

“When my neighbor told me the boys were shelling small amounts of maize at reasonable prices, I got in contact with them,” said Karimuno. “It’s cheaper than hiring people to help me do it manually and the speed means I can sell it faster.”

It used to take widowed farmer Loveness Karimuno (left) two or three weeks to shell her 20-ton maize harvest manually, even with the help of hired labor. Using mechanization services, all of her maize is shelled within a day, meaning she can take her grain to market faster. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

The group of young entrepreneurs is serving almost 150 family farms around the village of Mwanga, located about two hours northwest of the capital Harare. They offer services such as shelling and planting, powered by special machinery. Since Chawara and his partners started the business three years ago, word has spread and now they are struggling to keep up with demand, he expressed.

Mechanized agricultural services have traditionally only been used by large-scale farmers who could afford the high prices, but small and medium-sized machines are fast becoming affordable options for family farmers through the advent of service providers, explained Frédéric Baudron, an agronomist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The five young men are among the increasing number of youth across eastern and southern Africa creating a stable living as entrepreneurs in agricultural mechanization service provision, Baudron said.

Tired of the lack of profitable work in their rural community, the group of youths jumped on the opportunity to join a training on agricultural mechanization, run by CIMMYT. They heard about this training through local extension workers.

“We would probably be out of work if we hadn’t had the opportunity to learn how agricultural mechanization can be used to help smallholder farmers and gain skills to run our own business to provide these services,” Chawara expressed as he took a quick rest from shelling under a tree.

“It has really changed our lives. Last season we shelled over 300 tons of maize making just under US $7,000,” he said. “It has gone a long way in helping us support our families and invest back into our business.”

Masimba Mawire, 30, and Gift Chawara, 28, take a break from shelling and rest under a tree. The small car behind was bought by Chawara with his profits earned from the mechanization service business. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Mechanization as a way out of poverty

Sub-Saharan African youth struggle with high unemployment and working poverty. Agriculture is perceived as a sector that can absorb much of the rising level of unemployment, particularly when combined with entrepreneurship. Mechanization is one of the ways youth can get ahead, pointed out Baudron.

Through the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project, supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), CIMMYT is offering training courses to promote mechanization in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Trainings equip entrepreneurs with essential business skills and knowledge, tailored to rural environments, so they can support farmers with appropriate mechanization services that sustainably intensify their production.

Chawara and his partners attended one of these trainings, hosted on the grounds of an agricultural technical college on the outskirts of Harare. For a week, they participated in practical courses led by local agriculture and business experts.

As part of the CIMMYT research project, the youth group paid a commitment fee and were loaned a planter and sheller to start their business, which they are now paying off with their profits.

Youth tend to be better at managing modern technologies and successfully take to service providing, said Baudron, who leads the FACASI project.

“We found consistently, in all countries where we work, that being a successful service provider is highly correlated to being young,” he highlighted. “However, other factors are also important, such as being entrepreneurial, educated, able to contribute to the cost of the machinery and preferably having an experience in similar businesses, particularly in mechanics.”

(From left to right) Shepard Kawiz, 24, gathers dried maize cobs into a bucket passing it to his brother Pinnot Karwizi, 26, who pours the maize into the sheller machine by feeding the hopper. The maize falls into the sheller’s barrel where high-speed rotation separates the grain from the cob. As the bare shafts are propelled out one side, Masimba Mawire, 30, is there to catch and dispose of them. Meanwhile, Gift Chawara, 28, is making sure a bag is securely hooked to the machine to collect the maize grain. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Mentoring and support are key to success

The young men operate like a well-oiled machine. Shepard Kawiz, 24, gathers dried maize cobs into a bucket and passes it to his brother Pinnot Karwizi, 26, who pours the maize into the sheller machine by feeding the hopper. The maize falls into the sheller’s barrel where high-speed rotation separates the grain from the cob. As bare shafts are propelled out one side, Masimba Mawire, 30, is there to catch and dispose of them. Meanwhile, Gift Chawara is making sure a bag is securely hooked to the machine to collect the maize grain.

Trials showed that when youth form a group and are provided guidance they are more inclined to succeed as service providers, explained CIMMYT agribusiness development specialist Dorcas Matangi.

“The group model works because they share the costs, the workload and they are more attractive to lenders when looking for investment capital,” she remarked.

Throughout the season, Mantangi works with local government extension workers and engineers from the University of Zimbabwe to mentor those starting out. They also organize meetings where service providers can gather to discuss challenges and opportunities.

“This is a good opportunity to iron out any problems with the machines, connect them with mechanics and spare part providers and we gain their feedback to improve the design of machinery,” she added.

Mechanization backs resilient farming systems

CIMMYT has provided a model to promote the use of agricultural mechanization among smallholder farmers through service providers, affirmed Misheck Chingozha, a mechanization officer with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Farm machinery helps farmers implement sustainable crop practices that benefit from greater farm power and precision,” he said. “This is in line with the government’s strategy to promote conservation agriculture – defined by minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through crop rotation and intercropping.”

CIMMYT promotes small-scale mechanization, such as two-wheel tractor-based technologies, including direct seeding planters that reduce labor and allow for improved resource allocation when implementing these practices, described CIMMYT’s Baudron.

Conservation agriculture is a sustainable intensification practice that seeks to produce more food, improve nutrition and livelihoods, and boost rural incomes without an increase in inputs – such as land and water – thus reducing environmental impacts.

With support from CIMMYT, students at the University of Zimbabwe are working to develop agricultural machinery fitted to the environmental conditions and needs of farmers in their country and other parts of Africa. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Students fuel next-generation machinery

As part of their degree, students at the University of Zimbabwe are working with CIMMYT to continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural machinery.

In a bid to improve the allocation of resources, agricultural engineering student Ronald Mhlanga, 24, worked on a prototype that uses sensors to monitor the amount of seed and fertilizer distributed by planters attached to two-wheel tractors. The device sends information to the driver if anything goes off course, helping farmers improve precision and save resources.

“Often planters will get clogged with mud blocking seeding. The sensors identify this and send a signal to the driver,” said Mhlanga. “This allows the driver to focus on driving and limits wasted resources.”

Learning from farmer feedback and working with agricultural engineers and the private sector, CIMMYT is building agricultural mechanization suited to the needs and conditions of sub-Saharan African farms, concluded Baudron.

Call for nominees: Maize-Asia Youth Innovators Awards

Written by on August 6, 2018. Posted in News.

Nominations are open for the 2018 Maize-Asia Youth Innovators Awards. The first edition of these awards recognizes the contributions of young women and men below 35 years of age who are implementing innovations in Asian maize-based agri-food systems.

The awards aim to identify young innovators who can serve to inspire other young people to get involved in maize-based agri-food systems.

Winners will be given the opportunity to present their work at the 13^th Asian Maize Conference in Ludhiana, India (October 8-12, 2018). They will also join a platform for young innovators from around the world to network and share their experiences.

MAIZE invites CGIAR researchers and partners to nominate young innovators for any of the following three categories:

a) Researcher: Maize research-for-development (in any discipline)

b) Farmer: Maize farming systems in Asia

c) Change agent: Maize value chains (i.e., extension agents, input and service suppliers,
transformation agents).

Nominations close on August 20, 2018.

More information, submission guidelines and forms are available here:
http://maize.org/call-for-nominees-for-the-2018-maize-asia-youth-innovators-awards/

This award is sponsored by the CGIAR Research Program on maize (MAIZE) in collaboration with Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD).

Unleashing innovation at CIMMYT

Written by on July 27, 2018. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT staff share lessons learned at UNLEASH innovation labs with colleagues

Jennifer Johnson (first from right) and her team at UNLEASH 2018 work on solutions to improve nutrition for adolescent girls in Nepal. (Photo: Jennifer Johnson)

Four young staff members from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are working to bring home lessons learned at UNLEASH to foster innovation across CIMMYT programs. UNLEASH is a global innovation lab that brings together people from all over the world to transform personal insights into hundreds of ideas and build lasting global networks around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The annual event, which began in 2017 and is scheduled to occur each year until 2030, brings together 1,000 selected young talents for 10 immersive days of co-creation and problem solving.

Innovation is key to finding solutions to major global challenges such as hunger, climate change and sustainability. However, innovation cannot occur in a vacuum – the strongest and most inclusive solutions are often interdisciplinary approaches developed by a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. What sets UNLEASH apart from other innovation labs and processes is this commitment to diversity, as well as its focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

While at UNLEASH 2017 in Denmark, CIMMYT staff Aziz Karimov, Daniela Vega and David Guerena were part of 200 teams that were split across 10 ‘folk high schools’ in the Danish countryside. There, they worked through an innovation process with facilitators and experts, refined their ideas to contribute to the SDGs and finally reconvened in the city of Aarhus to pitch the solutions they had developed.

Jennifer Johnson, Maize Communications Officer at CIMMYT, attended the UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2018 in Singapore last June. She worked alongside a diverse team of young people to develop solutions to improve nutrition for adolescent girls in Nepal.

The UNLEASH innovation process has five main phases: problem framing, ideation, prototyping, testing and implementing. “UNLEASH is really about finding and framing the problem,” said Vega, a projects coordinator and liaison officer for the Americas at CIMMYT and UNLEASH 2017 alumna. “Innovation is 90 percent about understanding the problem. Once you get that right, everything that follows becomes easier,” she explained.

Daniela Vega (third from left), UNLEASH 2017 alumna, leads CIMMYT colleagues in a breakout session on innovation during Science Week. (Photo: Alfonso Arredondo/CIMMYT)

Johnson, Guerena and Vega held a session on innovation and lessons learned at UNLEASH at CIMMYT’s Science Week 2018. Participants were walked through an abridged version of the UNLEASH innovation process to develop creative solutions to real-world problems relating to agriculture. The session emphasized diversity, respect and creativity, which are central tenets of both CIMMYT and UNLEASH.

“One of the key takeaways I got from UNLEASH was the power of diversity and collaboration,” said Guerena, a soil scientist and systems agronomist at CIMMYT who participated in UNLEASH 2017. “The diversity of the participants and collaboration lead to better solutions.”

Vega agreed. “People come from different backgrounds, geographically and professionally, and the level of cooperation and openness with no judgement is essential. We all share a similar value set, we are here because we want to make the world a better place by solving problems on a very hands-on level.”

In just one hour, participants of the CIMMYT session formed diverse teams, developed problem framings, brainstormed potential solutions and gave a three-minute pitch presenting their solution to the audience. Participants expressed extreme satisfaction with what they had learned and the innovation process they had been guided through, as well as interest in participating in similar programs in the future.

“This is a great idea, a very good experience. Often creativity doesn’t get enough attention,” said Lennart Woltering, CIMMYT scaling expert.

“This is fantastic and I’m going to adopt it. This is a great way to introduce concepts such as gender,” said Rahma Adam, CIMMYT gender and development specialist.

In the future, CIMMYT’s UNLEASH alumna hope to continue sharing their experience with colleagues and implementing lessons learned within their work.

“Unleash helps young people to think freely and differently,” said Karimov, a CIMMYT development economist whose team won second place in UNLEASH 2017’s ‘Sustainable Consumption & Production’ category which targeted Goal 12 of the SDGs. “We think innovation is something very complicated but by attending UNLEASH I realized that very simple moves can make a big change. You start believing that what is not possible is actually very possible. You just have to have will and strong desire.”

Agricultural and development economist Aziz Karimov (left photo, fifth from left) and soil scientist and systems agronomist David Guerena (right photo, fifth from left) represented CIMMYT at UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2017. (Photos: UNLEASH)

Breaking Ground: Gemma Molero sheds light on wheat photosynthesis

Written by Mike Listman on July 18, 2018. Posted in Features.

Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”

A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.

“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.

Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT

Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.

“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.

Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.

“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”

She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.

Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light

Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.

“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”

Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.

Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.

“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”

Training youth and improving conditions for young women

From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.

“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”

Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.

“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”

Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”

Bedilu Desta, an agricultural mechanization service provider, demonstrates a two-wheel tractor. (Photo: Frédéric Baudron/CIMMYT)

Training manual greases the wheels for mechanization entrepreneurs

Written by Matthew O'Leary on July 13, 2018. Posted in News.

ROME — A new training manual is set to provide practical guidance for agricultural mechanization entrepreneurs in rural areas, where family farmers commonly lack capital to invest in the farm power required to increase food production.

The five-module training manual targeted at farm mechanization hire service providers, including youth and women, was developed by researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and official launched July 13 at FAO’s Rome headquarters.

It sets out a syllabus which trainers can tailor to local environments to equip entrepreneurs with essential business skills and knowledge to promote appropriate mechanization farmers need to sustainably intensify production, said Josef Kienzle, an agricultural engineer at FAO.

The manual will initially be rolled out in sub-Saharan African rural communities where improved access to agricultural mechanization is crucial, he said.

Small-scale mechanization, such as two-wheel tractor based technologies including direct seed planters, represent a shift away from destructively intensive agriculture. However, the decline of hire tractor schemes means resource-poor farmers often lack the financial means to obtain them, said Bruno Gerard, director of CIMMYT’s sustainable intensification program.

“To increase the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of their farms, family farmers need greater access to affordable yield-enhancing inputs. Hire service providers can improve access to mechanization that reduces labor drudgery and promotes sustainable intensification practices,” he said.

Sustainable intensification seeks to produce more food, improve nutrition and livelihoods, and boost rural incomes without an increase in inputs – such as land and water – thus reducing environmental impacts.

Sub-Saharan Africa needs sustainable intensification of agriculture. With 224 million people currently undernourished and a population tipped to almost double by 2050, bringing it to over 2 billion people, increasing food production is of the utmost importance.

Despite the need, African crop yields are stagnant with more than 95 percent of farmed land in sub-Saharan Africa rain-fed. Over half of soils are degraded following years of farming without replacing nutrients and low fertilizer use, as most farmers can’t afford it.

“Inclusive mechanization strategies create an enabling environment and provide a framework for making decisions on how to allocate resources, how to address current challenges, how to take advantage of opportunities that arise while in the meantime emphasize the concept of sustainable crop intensification and the roles of the private and public sectors,” said Kienzle. Farm machinery enables farmers to adopt sustainable crop production intensification practices – such as conservation agriculture – that benefit from greater farm power and precision.

The manual will be initially distributed and courses organized through FAO and CIMMYT field projects in sub-Saharan Africa utilizing local trainers and experts in machinery and agribusiness, he said. The manual is expected to be rolled out to other subregional offices and hubs in the future.

Mechanization fuels rural employment opportunity

Increased adoption of agricultural mechanization is stimulating jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities in Africa where youth and women increasingly face severe job insecurity, said Gerard.

Clara Chikuni has gained a reliable income since becoming a mechanization service provider and offering maize shelling in her local area. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)

Clara Chikuni, a mother from rural Zimbabwe, has secured a stable income after starting her own mechanized shelling business two years ago. Servicing maize farmers in a 5 kilometer radius of her home, Chikuni has more customers than she says she can handle and has developed reliable employment compared to her previous job buying and selling shoes.

“There is a lot of demand for mechanized maize shelling services. I am happy I can provide a service to the community and make money to support my family,” she said. “I hope with the profits I can move into the two wheel tractor business in the future.”

Chikuni was trained as an agricultural mechanization service provider through CIMMYT’s Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project supported by the Australian Government.

“The training and support gave me the know-how and confidence to start my business,” said the mother. “Other women now ask me how I did it and I encourage them to also get involved.”

There is a market for farming mechanization services that can make a big difference for a smallholder farm and help it transition from subsistence farming to a more market-oriented farming enterprise, said FAO’s Kienzle.

Apart from hire services, mechanization creates additional opportunities for new business with repair and maintenance of equipment, sales and dealership of related businesses including transport and agro-processing along the value chain.

The knowledge and expertise of both CIMMYT and FAO combined has made this manual unique and very praxis oriented, focused on smallholder mechanization businesses, he said.

Download the training manual: Hire services as a business enterprise: a training manual for small-scale mechanization service providers

Further information:

Q+A: Agricultural mechanization fuels opportunity for youth in rural Africa

Mechanization fuels rural opportunities around the globe

Rural21 features CIMMYT mechanization experts

Mechanization for smallholder farmers fact sheet

Designing and promoting institutional change: Geoff Graham of Corteva talks about CIMMYT

Written by Mike Listman on July 5, 2018. Posted in News.

When trying to drive change in a global research organization, the science is the easy part, according to Geoff Graham, Vice President for Plant Breeding at Corteva Agriscience, a new company that brings together DuPont Crop Protection, DuPont Pioneer, and Dow AgroSciences.

“The hard thing is to change organizational culture—getting people to stop remembering how they’ve always done things and to think instead about what needs to be done,” said Graham, speaking on the topic to more than 600 international scientists and support staff at the Mexico headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on 25 June 2018.

“Innovation is a process that can be managed, but it takes time and must be prioritized,” he explained, in his keynote talk during the opening session of CIMMYT’s biennial Science Week, which brings together the center’s researchers from 15 offices in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and this year focused on next-generation science and partnerships for impact.

“Innovation may require creativity, but innovation and creativity are different things,” added Graham, whose family lived in Cali, Colombia, until he was 14 and then moved to Minnesota in the U.S.

Responsible for global breeding activities at Corteva, a name derived from a combination of words meaning “heart” and “nature,” Geoff previously worked at DuPont Pioneer. He has Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the University of Minnesota, and earned a Ph.D. in genetics and plant breeding from North Carolina State University.

Below, watch an interview with Graham regarding the role of research institutions in society, how change can occur in CIMMYT, and how Corteva will support the CIMMYT-led CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform.

Scaling Scan: A simple tool for big impact

Written by on June 25, 2018. Posted in Features.

Eleven years ago this week, Apple Inc. released the iPhone. While it was not the first smartphone on the market, industry experts often credit the iPhone’s groundbreaking design with the launch of the mobile revolution. The device, its competitors and the apps that emerged with them have changed how over two billion people interact with the world on a daily basis.

The success of this revolution, however, goes far beyond the actual technology. At the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) outside Mexico City, scaling expert Lennart Woltering points to a smartphone lying on his desk.

“We have to remember that this phone is just hardware. It is useless if you don’t have a network connection or an outlet in your house with electricity,” he says.

Woltering joined CIMMYT last year as part of the German Development Cooperation’s effort to aid the scaling-up of agricultural innovations. New, improved seeds, small-scale machinery and conservation practices can all play a role in achieving several of the Sustainable Development Goals, but Woltering says many other non-technological factors, such as markets and policies, can prevent these innovations from having significant impact.

Roadside vendor sells roasted maize cobs in Kenya. (Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT)

“Many research institutes and nongovernmental organizations tend to focus on technology as the solution for everything,” he says. “But we find that 9 out of 10 cases, limiting factors have more to do with financing not being available to people, or poor policies that are hampering the adoption of technology.”

For example, CIMMYT has many initiatives in South Asia to promote conservation agriculture. Adopting no-till practices can help reduce erosion and improve soil health for better yields, but farmers who make this transition often need access to a different kind of machinery, such as the Happy Seeder, to plant their seeds. If government subsidies exist for conventional rototillers but not for the Happy Seeder, it is difficult to persuade farmers to make that economic sacrifice.

“It is a completely different ballgame in the real world, and you have to be honest about whatever fake reality you created in your project,” says Woltering.

Projects are designed in a very controlled way. They have a fixed budget and a fixed end date, and they are often shielded from the social and economic complexities that can propel or hinder an innovation from scaling.

“So if a donor says, ‘We want two million people to be reached,’ well, how are you going to do that? That’s where the Scaling Scan can help,” says Woltering.

Extension agents in Mexico use the Scaling Scan. (Photo: L. Woltering/CIMMYT)

The Scaling Scan helps an individual analyze, reflect on, and sharpen one’s scaling ambition and approach through a series of questions and prompts. It focuses on ten scaling ‘ingredients’ that need to be considered (e.g. knowledge and skills, public sector governance, awareness and demand) to reach the desired outcome.

“The Scaling Scan helps you figure out what exactly is required, what is possible, and what bottlenecks exist that you need to address in your strategy,” Woltering says.

Woltering collaborated with The PPPLab, a consortium of four Dutch institutes, to release the first version of the Scaling Scan last year. They tested it with project teams in the Netherlands, Mexico, India, Nepal and Kenya, and based on the feedback, they are now releasing a second version, which is available here.

In the trials with the first Scaling Scan, some teams realized the results they wanted to achieve were too ambitious given the circumstances. For other teams, it helped them clarify exactly what they wanted to achieve.

“Having a project objective is not enough to internalize the main goal,” says Woltering. “It also changes over time, especially if it’s a long-term project. The scaling scan can be good for an annual checkup.”

Woltering emphasizes that successful scaling requires multidisciplinary collaboration.

“If you only have a team of agronomists, you will not reach a scale of millions you want to achieve. If you only have a team of policy experts, you will not succeed,” he says. “There are professionals that can really help and add value to what we are doing.”

“It’s hard to get an agronomist and an economist in the same room together, but we’re not going to change the world if we don’t work together with others who have their specific specialty or expertise,” he says.

The Scaling Scan also includes a responsibility check through some very simple but strategic questions.

“Every system has its pros and cons – some people benefit, some do not. Some have power, some do not,” says Woltering. “So what does it mean if your innovation goes to scale? Maybe there’s a whole new power dimension.”

Successfully scaling something may have unintended consequences. There are always tradeoffs and resistance to change. Woltering says the responsibility check can help actors in the development sector to think through these questions and consider what the possible outcomes could be.

For more explanation on how and when to use the tool, we invite you to download the Scaling Scan (also available in Spanish) which contains detailed practical information. We recommend the Excel sheet (also available in Spanish) to have the average scores and results generated automatically. A condensed, two-page PDF is also available.

This work is supported by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Breaking Ground: Tom Hagen brings IT expertise to crop breeding

Written by on June 21, 2018. Posted in Features.

From an early age, Tom Hagen has enjoyed watching plants grow and solving complex problems. Now, as the enterprise breeding system manager at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Hagen is combining his expertise in crop breeding and IT to help researchers and farmers be more successful.

“You could say I’m a hybrid scientific consultant – IT system architect,” said Hagen. “I will work with breeding teams to appropriately design software and then manage its development and deployment to facilitate breeding operations at CIMMYT and the International Rice Research Institute.”

The software will help breeders more effectively choose seed varieties, design field trials, collect data and analyze their outcomes. It is intended to assist farmers and extension agents as well.

“It will be able to give them advice about the appropriate seeds to use based on their specific environment and economic situation,” said Hagen. “It can also recommend ways to plant and manage their crop for better yields and higher income.”

Hagen’s interest in using computer programing to analyze large sets of biological data emerged shortly after obtaining a doctorate in plant genetics from the University of Georgia. It was the early 1990s, and bioinformatics was a new frontier. Hagen founded and managed the university’s Center for Scientific Computing and Visualization, and helped create the Bioinformatics Graduate Program.

In 1999, Hagen decided to leave the world of academia for the private sector.

“Universities are about inventing things, not applying them,” he said. “It is important to base your practice on theory, but at the end of the day, I personally think you need to apply it because otherwise – well, what is the point of it all?”

Hagen joined DuPont Pioneer, a large U.S. producer of hybrid seeds, where he and a team of designers created different technologies for breeders. Specifically, they worked on technologies that would help breeders develop a line of drought-resistant maize.

“By being in that group, I was both a scientist trying to invent and validate these methods while also designing and building the IT for that,” said Hagen.

During his last two years at DuPont Pioneer, Hagen was the architect of all analytics software. He also conducted research on crop growth modeling for predicting genotype-environment interactions for maize hybrids. This information has helped breeders, extension agents and farmers choose appropriate seed varieties for their specific environmental conditions.

Hagen joined the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) in January 2018. Led by CIMMYT, EiB aims to modernize breeding programs, specifically targeting the developing world for greater impact on food and nutrition security, climate change adaptation and development.

“I’m excited to be part of the work that’s starting to ramp up here at CIMMYT and the other CGIAR centers,” said Hagen. “I’m here to learn and engage, and do whatever I can to help others learn.”

Funding for the Excellent in Breeding Platform comes from the CGIAR, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, national governments, development banks and other public and private agencies. Contributors include CGIAR system centers, the Biosciences eastern and central Africa- International Livestock Research Institute Hub, Cornell University, Diversity Arrays Technology, DuPont Pioneer, the Integrated Breeding Platform, Monsanto and Queensland University.

Breaking Ground: Wei Xiong helps farmers and policymakers make better decisions

Written by on May 30, 2018. Posted in Features.

Farmers and agricultural policymakers frequently encounter tough decisions with complex trade-offs. Selecting which crop to plant next season, for example, would be much easier with a crystal ball. Wei Xiong, a senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), cannot look into the future, but he can remove a lot of the guesswork.

Xiong uses modeling tools to simulate how agricultural systems would respond to different policies, technological innovations and climate change.

“With these simulations, we can show farmers and policymakers different hypothetical outcomes,” said Xiong. “We can help them make better, more informed decisions.”

Xiong and his multi-disciplinary team are interested in looking at new angles of agricultural issues. For one project, Xiong is investigating how climate change could affect global beer prices. He and his team are studying the effects of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as drought, on global barley yields and how this could affect beer production and prices.

“We call the project drinking security,” added Xiong.

Xiong is also interested in the impacts of air pollution on agricultural production and livelihoods in India and China.

“We want to know if air pollution affects yields and whether policies to curb air pollution will have any impact on farmer incomes, food prices and international trade,” he said.

Xiong collaborates with a team of Chinese agricultural scientists and local extension officers on a program called Size & Technology Backyard. The program aims to increase farmers’ yields while decreasing agricultural pollution in the water, air and soil. During each growing season, agricultural students stay in villages to conduct surveys and field research with farmers.

“Based on that data, we can create an agricultural modeling system that incorporates everything from the crop physiology side, to the socioeconomic side and human dimension side,” said Xiong. “We can project which farmers are most likely to adopt which specific kinds of technology based on everything from their location to their family structure.”

But in China, Xiong explained, agriculture still falls under government control.

“The government has always decided which crop you should plant, which area you should use and how to use the areas,” said Xiong. “Most of the policies are based on suggestions by experts.”

The team will use their simulation models to recommend policies that benefit farmers and the environment.

Xiong effectively links many silos through his work at CIMMYT, in large part due to his diverse educational background. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in geography at Hubei University, he continued with a master’s degree in meteorology from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in Beijing. He later went on to earn a doctorate in agronomy from China Agricultural University.

After ten years as a professor at CAAS, Xiong worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis where he designed large-scale simulations of crop production and the effects of global policy. In 2014, he collaborated with other researchers on a global agriculture systems modeling project through a position at the University of Florida. Last fall, Xiong joined CIMMYT at its headquarters in El Batán, Mexico, working on sustainable intensification.

Xiong will return to China later this year to help establish a new CIMMYT office in Henan and strengthen CIMMYT’s partnership with Henan Agricultural University. The new location will focus on research and training, and will host two international senior scientists with expertise in remoting sensing, informatics, physiology and crop management.

CIMMYT helps national programs to enhance maize breeding efficiency in Pakistan

Written by on May 29, 2018. Posted in News.

Maize researchers at MMRI while receiving the DH inducer lines seeds. Photo:MMRI

Maize is Pakistan’s third important cereal following wheat and rice. Pakistan’s maize yield is among the highest in South Asia with an average yield of 4.5 tons per hectare (t/ha). Maize production in Pakistan in 2016-17 set a record high of 6.1 million tons, a 16 percent increase from the previous year and almost a 600 percent increase from levels in the early 1980s. The introduction and rapid expansion of hybrid maize in the mid 1990s, particularly in the spring season, is among the drivers for the wider adoption of maize in Pakistan.

Despite the noteworthy progress of maize production and productivity, Pakistan still imports more than 80 percent of the hybrid seeds, costing the country over $50 million annually and making retail price of hybrid seeds expensive. Dependency on seed import will not warrant sustainable maize production.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)–led and United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan is supporting national partners to revitalize maize research and product development initiatives. AIP achieved introduced CIMMYT’s superior second-generation tropically adapted haploid inducers (CIM2GTAILs) for the first time in the history of Pakistan.

Haploid inducers are a specially developed maize genetic stock that are used to develop doubled haploid (DH) maize lines. DH maize lines are highly uniform, genetically pure and stable, making the maize breeding process more intuitive and efficient by simplifying logistics.

This material was shared with two AIP public partners, Maize and Millets Research Institute (MMRI) and University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF). The CIM2GTAILs showed high haploid induction rates (~8-15 percent) under CIMMYT-tested (sub)tropical conditions in Mexico and Kenya, and showed better agronomic performance in terms of plant vigor, synchrony with tropical source populations, better standability, and resistance to important tropical foliar diseases and ear rots..

This DH technology is capable to develop a large number of inbred lines with highest uniformity and homozygosity in shortest possible time of 2-3 generations. Conventional breeding methods needs 6-8 generations to develop stable maize inbred line.

Double haploid inducer seeds handover to UAF. Dr. Muhammad Aslam (UAF),left receiving from Dr. Muhammad Imtiaz. Photo: Ehtisham/CIMMYT

While handing over the inducer seeds to UAF, Muhammad Imtiaz, CIMMYT country representative for Pakistan said “the initiation of the DH technology in Pakistan will modernize and enhance maize breeding efficiency of local institutions particularly in availing locally adapted inbred lines.”

The two institutions have mobilized additional resources from the Government of Pakistan to establish the required DH facilities in their respective institutions and currently they are multiplying the seeds in a controlled environment. Receiving the seeds that were sent from CIMMYT Mexico, Muhammad Aslam, assistant professor at UAF and Muhammad Arshad, director of MMRI sincerely acknowledged the continued and unreserved support from CIMMYT particularly in building the capacity of national programs.

CIMMYT and AIP have trained Pakistani researchers on DH technology in Mexico and Kenya and have allocated 52 market-ready maize varities, including hybrids and biofortified varieties, to 12 public and private partners to foster availability and affordability of maize seeds in Pakistan.

The Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan is working to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes in the agricultural sector through the promotion and dissemination of modern technologies/practices in the livestock, horticulture (fruits and vegetables) and cereals (wheat, maize and rice) sector. Project management is vested in a unique consortium of CGIAR Centers and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), led by CIMMYT supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The project aims to foster emergence of a dynamic, responsive, and competitive system of science and innovation in Pakistan. AIP seeks to catalyze equitable growth in agricultural production, productivity, and value.

Breaking Ground: Lorena Gonzalez fast-forwards action on hunger using technology

Written by Matthew O'Leary on May 17, 2018. Posted in Features.

Intrigued by the unique relationship our food crops have to their geographical environment, Lorena Gonzalez dedicated her passion for geomatic technology to collect site-specific farm data that is revolutionizing the way researchers and farmers tackle hunger.

Working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as a research assistant, Gonzalez is part of a seismic shift in agriculture, replacing time-consuming manual data collection with technology.

Instead of walking the fields taking measurements by hand, data is collected from a distance through remote sensing. Using cameras on board manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as on ground sensors, Gonzalez gathers information such as plant height, canopy temperature and relative biomass, and evaluates plant health and soil spatial variability in minutes rather than weeks.

Collaborating with farmers and colleagues from maize and wheat breeding programs Gonzalez uses Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to organize and analyze data and patterns related to specific farm locations, making it easier to relate information to growers’ specific needs.

“It is important to make sure that data is properly geo-referenced, this way we know exactly how each crop is impacted by the matrix of factors in its environment,” said Gonzalez. “Collecting crop management and field data such as fertilization rates, irrigations schemes or soil properties provides us with information to understand and improve plant growth.”

The tailored information is used to improve farmers’ decision-making, allowing for more precise agriculture to create sustainable farming systems that produce more food with fewer resources, she said.

Gonzalez’ love for all things data saw her delve into the world of geospatial science studying her bachelor in Geomatics Engineering in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. Her passion for helping farmers achieve food security led her to apply for a job at CIMMYT. Since working with the Sustainable Intensification Program she has developed skills to collect and visualize agricultural data in meaningful ways to inform different stakeholders.

“Farmers, researchers and politicians can make better decisions when we streamline field data using available technology. The path of data from field to farm decision-makers can be streamlined using the available technology creatively and collaboratively, if we dare to build the appropriate systems.”

A UAV is launched to collect data from a field in CIMMYT’s experiment station in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe

With climate change already affecting crop production, GIS becomes an increasingly important tool farmers can use to adapt and maintain crop yields, Gonzalez said. According to PNAS, each degree Celsius increase in global mean temperature is estimated to reduce the average global yields of wheat and maize by up to seven percent. These crops are key to the survival of humanity, providing a major portion of our caloric intake.

Remote sensing and precision agriculture plays a fundamental role in the ongoing challenge to reduce and cope with the effects of climate change and maximize land efficiency. Using quality data presented in useful ways helps farmers improve decision making, she added.

Gonzalez believes providing open access to geospatial decision support tools will allow smallholder famers to gain the information needed to make site-specific decisions on the exact quantity, location and timely application of resources needed to optimize food production.

If the world is to eliminate world hunger and malnutrition by 2030 as set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, smallholder farmers – who produce 80 percent of the world’s food – must benefit from access to remote sensing and precision agriculture, she said. Nine out of ten of the world’s 570 million farms are managed by families, making the family farm the predominant form of agriculture, and consequently a potentially crucial agent of change in achieving sustainable food security and in eradicating hunger in the future, according to UN reports.

Currently, Gonzalez is collecting data for an innovative private-public partnership, Mexico COMPASS, to help Mexican smallholder farmers increase wheat and sugar cane production by identifying factors that cause the yield gap between crop potential and actual performance.

The project aims to improve crop productivity and smallholder farmer incomes while facilitating rural community economic development. The data collected by Gonzalez in Mexico’s Yaqui Valley and in the state of Tabasco contributes to a system that combines earth observation satellite data with captured farm data to create a site-specific decision support tool for farmers. The project will help farmers to make better use of natural resources while monitoring crop health.

Improving smallholder farmer capacity and ability to make informed farming decisions is key to ending hunger and improving livelihoods, said Gonzalez.

Gonzalez’s work with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program on the Mexico COMPASS project is funded by the UK Space Agency and has as partners: Rezatec, The University of Nottingham, Booker Tate and Colegio de Postgraduados (COLPOS).

CIMMYT at DAWN Pakistan Agri Expo 2018

Written by on May 11, 2018. Posted in News.

The Agricultural Innovation Program for Pakistan (AIP), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) set up a stall at the DAWN Pakistan Agri Expo in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan on 3-4 May, 2018. CIMMYT presented the successes in agricultural technologies and provided a platform for Pakistani farmers, government and other stakeholders to explore and connect to innovative technologies for improvement of major cereal crops of Pakistan and other linked products and services.

The main attractions were maize and wheat varieties introduced by CIMMYT through its programs across Pakistan (Zincol, Pakistan, Borlaug, Pirsabak and QPM – 200/300 & white), the Zero-Tillage Happy Seeder, the maize push row planter, hermetic bags for storage of wheat and the multi-crop direct-seeding of rice planter. The AIP also exhibited its two competitive grant academic partners from livestock and vegetable components which include value addition of camel milk (dries and fresh cheese) and seasonal vegetable kitchen gardening (chilies, okra, squash, bell pepper) focusing food security and nutrition significance.1

The expo was inaugurated by Governor of Punjab province, Rafique Rajwana accompanied by Mission Director of USAID Pakistan Mr. Jerry Bisson, and diplomates from different countries. AIP stall located at U.S. Government pavilion represented by USAID & USDA, also spellbound many visitors including farmers, policymakers, media, agriculture experts and scientists from both public- and private-sector organizations and students, opening new possibilities for AIP and CIMMYT to connect with target groups and explore agricultural prospects in Pakistan.

See all the photos from the event on Flickr, here.

The Agriculture Innovation Program for Pakistan (AIP) is managed by a consortium of CGIAR Centers and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project aims to foster emergence of a dynamic, responsive, and competitive system of science and innovation in Pakistan. AIP seeks to catalyze equitable growth in agricultural production, productivity, and value.

A side view of pavilion. Photo: CIMMYT Pakistan.

Fourth international workshop on farming system design in south Asia

Written by on May 3, 2018. Posted in News.

The fourth international workshop on “Science of Farming Systems: Moving from Prototyping to Model-Based Assessment and Designing of Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems in South Asia” took place in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India from 19 to 22 March this year. The workshop was jointly organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Institute of Farming System Research (IIFSR) and was supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (WHEAT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture & Food Security (CCAFS).

Twenty-five participants from 11 research centers across 13 Indian states and Nepal attended the workshop. Workshop objectives included mainstreaming science-based approaches to farming systems analysis and research for development programs in South Asia, as well as overview and training courses on farming systems and technologies, especially focusing on FarmDESIGN, modelling software developed by WUR. A number of talks around FarmDESIGN were given, including hands-on workshops by scientists from CIMMYT and WUR.

Group photo of participants at the fourth international workshop on farming system design in south Asia. Photo: CIMMYT.

South Asian farming systems are characterized by a large diversity of smallholder systems with diversified faming system households. Accordingly, the farming systems research has been central to the south Asian national agriculture research systems. ICAR-IIFSR has developed specific integrated farming systems (IFS) prototypes for different agro-ecological zones of India and implemented them in research stations and rural communities.

The growing complexity of climate, markets and income uncertainties, as well as large age divides within farming households limits the large-scale adoption these prototype farming systems weigh output performance on the one hand and tradeoffs such as income resilience, environmental footprints and markets on the flip-side. Therefore, designing farm systems with effective targeting of climate resilience, profitability and sustainability, requires suitable technologies, practices to understand and capture the diversity of farming systems, their main components, characteristics, interrelationships and flows.

Previous CIMMYT-ICAR-WUR collaborations have explored the use of farm level modeling tools to assess, with multiple criteria, the sustainability of such IFS, identify main trade-offs and synergies and provide guidelines for their improvement. Capacity development of farming system network researchers on the use and application of the FarmDESIGN model has been one important activity in such collaboration. For scaling the outputs of such exercise, the farming systems have to be evaluated in terms of relevant indicators for different farm household types and communities, allowing them to identify main potential leverages and obstacles for adoption of different intervention. In this regard, this workshop is being organized involving key stakeholders.

The workshop objectives were to mainstream science based approaches for farming systems analysis in research for development programs in South Asia; to share results of integrated assessments of farming systems’ performance in a range of agro-ecologies across South Asia and discuss main implications for the re-design of IFS; to select methods for improved prototyping and model-based analysis using on-station data for developing an out-scaling process that is tested in multiple environments for large scale application; to share and solve main technical barriers implementation; to share and discuss other modeling techniques and their potential complementarity; to provide an overview of the application ‘FarmDESIGN,’ which was created by WUR, discuss main issues for further development to cover the needs of South Asian farming systems and further steps for larger implementation; discuss future research activities and collaborations.

Santiago Lopez Rodaura, senior farming systems specialist, CIMMYT and Jeroen Groot, farming systems expert from WUR gave a hands-on session on debugging, analysis visualization and analyzing prototype implementations in FarmDESIGN. AK Prusty, scientist, ICAR-IIFSR and collaborators from WUR, elaborated on-farm diagnosis and analysis in FarmDESIGN. AS Panwar, director, ICAR-IIFSR, led a session with presentations of case studies from peer review articles in diverse ecologies to demonstrate improved efficiency, income and reducing footprints through optimizing resource allocation with science-based approach using FarmDESIGN and other modeling programs using at least 10 prototype farming systems cases.

The workshop concluding with a planning session facilitated by CIMMYT principal scientist ML Jat. Recommendations were made by all the participants and emphasized studies on ongoing interventions looking at 10-15 year scenarios in cropping systems. Participants suggested studying climate prediction data and crop simulations with alternate wet-dry techniques to consider variability in the water table, among a number of other follow-up suggestions.

A “Virtual Task Force” was assigned to organize follow-ups on progress made based on meeting suggestions across locations and present a document to the Prime Minister of India’s office with suggestions for the Government of India’s initiative “Doubling farmer Income by 2022.”

Participants suggested creating a users guide for FarmDESIGN to be circulated to encourage wide-scale adoption, along with a manual for targeting typology interventions.

Panwar said, “seeing the progress across sites, I am convinced with the impact FarmDESIGN model has brought and will continue to with support from CIMMYT and WUR for changing face of cropping systems research”.

The program was able to achieve its target for improved understanding and capacity of key researchers on designing and implementing science based farming systems for improved efficiency and enhanced adoption in smallholder systems of South Asia.

The fourth international workshop on “Science of Farming Systems: Moving from Prototyping to Model-Based Assessment and Designing of Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems in South Asia” was jointly organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Institute of Farming System Research (IIFSR) and was supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (WHEAT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture & Food Security (CCAFS).

Breaking ground: Mike Olsen uses new technology to improve farmer’s yields

Written by Jennifer Johnson on March 12, 2018. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Global challenges to agriculture such as climate change, crop diseases and pests mean that the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is constantly working to develop new, improved, resistant varieties for farmers.

However, crop breeding is expensive, time-consuming work, meaning that it takes several years for farmers to get seed solutions to the challenges they are facing today.

Mike Olsen, upstream research coordinator for CIMMYT maize program, works with scientists to use new technologies to increase breeding program efficiency and genetic gain — developing improved maize varieties with the traits smallholder farmers’ need, such as disease resistance or drought tolerance, using less time and resources than ever before.

“Our whole team is trying to improve genetic gain for various traits, and to deliver more genetic gain with fewer resources, through the application of phenotyping innovation, genomics and molecular markers for crop improvement,” Olsen said. “Our work at CIMMYT assists our breeding teams to be more effective in developing improved products for farmers.”

Originally from the United States, Olsen grew up on a small farm in Wisconsin and would go on to study plant breeding and genetics at the University of Minnesota. “During my undergrad years I had the chance to visit South Africa and saw rural poverty for the first time. At the time, I was taking classes in plant biology and genetics and I was inspired by the idea of using agricultural improvement as a method for poverty eradication—it’s a big part of why I went into plant breeding,” he said. “As a graduate student, I became very interested in the mission of CIMMYT. I was studying at Norman Borlaug’s alma mater — working in Borlaug Hall, in fact — which inspired me to pursue a career at a CGIAR center. CIMMYT was a perfect fit that allowed me to do something I’ve wanted to do since I was 19 years old.”

The farmers he has met around the world inspire Olsen to come into work every day. “Knowing that the outcome of our work is providing income and food security to millions of vulnerable people is what’s so exciting about what we do. Being able to serve as a conduit for bringing advanced technology for crop improvement for resource poor farmers and consumers is incredible,” he said.

Beyond the day-to-day activities of conference calls, travel and airports, the big picture work of what Olsen does is to lead a global team of talented scientists, help with grant writing and project oversight, with a focus on breeding program optimization. “I have been very involved with the Genomics and Open Source Breeding informatics initiative (GOBii), which helps breeding programs efficiently use genetic information, and I’m currently working on a collaboration with DuPont Pioneer on seed production in Africa to deliver higher quality seed to smallholder farmers,” Olsen said. “What I most enjoy about my work is the people. I have to be honest, coming to CIMMYT I was moving out of a hands-on science role into working with people, and the collaborative nature of this job has been really energizing for me. I’ve had the opportunity to mentor some of our talented young scientists into greater leadership roles, and it has been really exciting seeing their professional growth. It’s the CIMMYT mission that gets us all out of bed in the morning, but I really enjoy the people I work and collaborate with.”

Building small scale mechanization capacity of service providers in Ethiopia

Written by on March 9, 2018. Posted in News.

The project, titled “Appropriate Mechanization for Sustainable Intensification of Smallholder Farming in Ethiopia,” aims to increase soil fertility through direct row planting of major crops in Ethiopia, such as maize, wheat and teff. However, they identified in their pilot phase that the necessary infrastructure and supply chains were not in place to ensure project sustainability and that the involvement of the private sector would be necessary.

Therefore, the project in its second phase focused on these critical activities, especially increasing capacity of service providers to deliver services and manage their businesses, and mechanics who closely support service providers in their daily business. Mechanics work with the local spare parts representatives identified by AMIO Engineering Plc, a local private sector partner in manufacturing and dealer of small scale agriculture technologies and machinery, to ensure that the fast moving and critical parts are always available in stock at their local warehouses.

In October 2017, two trainings were conducted at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) in Melkassa.

The first training was organized for selected mechanics by AMIO and CIMMYT with funding from the Integrated Soil Fertility Management program (ISFM), part of the German Cooperation for International Development Agency (GIZ). The one-week training covered the use and function as well as maintenance, repair and spare parts of the two-wheel tractor (2WT).

The second training, intended for service providers (SPs), focused on capacity building and quality development of small-scale mechanization services. The 44 SPs in attendance were encouraged to exchange individual experiences and expertise about service provision businesses, technical challenges in the field and the extent of potential business opportunities.

These trainings specifically focused on the use, operation, maintenance and safety of the 2WT and its ancillaries, as with correct aggregation almost all farming tasks can be accomplished with a single machine. The use of a 2WT for these tasks reduces both the time required to establish a crop and the chore of the task, by increasing productivity of both labor and crops.

Economic assessments show that mechanized planting using a 2WT is an economically viable and attractive option for both farmers and SPs. This is especially true when services offered include full use of 2WT and attachments; as these services are useful 365 days a year.

After farmers see these technologies, they are often interested in purchasing the services associated with the equipment and service providers frequently asked to procure additional equipment.

In order to achieve the aim of increased soil fertility through direct row planting of major crops in Ethiopia, the project selected six micro-watersheds in January 2016 that corresponded to ISFM intervention sites to test the delivery of small mechanization through service provision. The sites are located in the regions of Amhara, Oromia and Tigray.

The project imported six equipment packages from China for mechanized crop establishment, harvesting of small grain cereals and water pumping. These machines were loaned to individual service providers in Oromia and Tigray, and to a farmers group in Amhara. In addition, EIAR locally manufactured six trailers and three threshers which have been be dispatched to service providers.

Furthermore, in this second phase, the GIZ-ISFM through CIMMYT with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR) dispatched 100 units of 2WT with plows, and an additional 15 trailers and 18 direct row planters that can be attached.

Based on encouraging results, the second phase of the project will focus on establishing viable, private sector-based input delivery mechanisms (maintenance and repair services, spare parts, and new equipment) and generating sufficient demand for self-sustained scaling-out processes.