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.
A new publication suggests strategies to improve rural women’s access to agricultural machinery. Photo: CIMMYT/ Martin Ranak
A new research note published for International Women’s Day, details current gender gaps in rural mechanization in Bangladesh, and outlines plans to overcome these challenges.
Using simple technologies, such as multi-crop reaper-harvesters can reduce the time farmers spend harvesting by up to 80 percent and can reduce the costs of hiring field labor by up to 60 percent. The problem is that women may face cultural constraints to working in the field, running machinery service provision businesses, and do not have equal access to financing, which is a huge barrier, as the technologies can cost $500-2000 up front.
The authors suggest a number of gender-balanced approaches to scaling-out technologies such as use of targeted, selective and smart subsidies and access to finance to women-headed households, methods to spread investment risks, and prioritizing joint learning, with husbands and wives attending field courses together and jointly developing business plans.
The research note is a result of joint efforts between the USAID/Washington and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), the USAID/Bangladesh CSISA – Mechanization and Irrigation Project, and the the USAID/Washington funded USAID funded Gender, Climate Change, and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN) project, all of which involve collaborations between the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, the International Food Policy Research Institute, International Development Enterprises, the International Rice Research Institute and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
Offering a very warm welcome to the Australian High Commissioner and team by Arun Joshi. (Photo: Hardeep/CIMMYT)
Australian High Commissioner to India, Harinder Sidhu, visited the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in Ladhowal, Ludhiana, India on February 19.
Arun Joshi, Managing Director for BISA & CIMMYT in India, welcomed her with an introduction about the creation, mission and activities of BISA and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Sidhu also learned about the work CIMMYT and BISA do in conservation agriculture in collaboration with Punjab Agricultural University, machinery manufacturers and farmers. This work focuses on using and scaling the Happy Seeder, which enables direct seeding of wheat into heavy loads of rice residue without burning. This technology has been called “an agricultural solution to air pollution in South Asia,” as the burning of crop residue is a huge contributor to poor air quality in South Asia. Sidhu learned about recent improvements to the technology, such as the addition of a straw management system to add extra functionality, which has led to the large-scale adoption of the Happy Seeder.
The high commissioner showed keen interest in the Happy Seeder machine, and was highly impressed by the test-wheat-crop planted on 400 acres with the Happy Seeder.
Salwinder Atwal showed Sidhu the experiments using Happy Seeder for commercial seed production, and ML Jat, Principal Researcher at CIMMYT, presented on the innovative research BISA and CIMMYT are doing on precision water, nutrient and genotype management.
Happy Australian High Commissioner riding a tractor at BISA Ludhiana. (Photo: Hardeep/CIMMYT)
Sidhu visited fields with trials of climate resilient wheat as Joshi explained the importance and role of germplasm banks and new approaches such as use of genomic selection in wheat breeding in the modern agriculture to address the current challenges of climate change. He also explained the work CIMMYT does on hybrid wheat for increasing yield potential and breeding higher resistance against wheat rusts and other diseases.
ML Jat, who leads the CIMMYT-CCAFS climate smart agriculture project, explained the concept of climate smart villages and led Sidhu on a visit to the climate smart village of Noorpur Bet, which has been adopted under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
During Sidhu’s visit to Noorpur Bet, a stakeholder consultation was organized on scaling happy seeder technology for promoting no-burning farming. In the stakeholder consultation, stakeholders shared experiences with happy seeder as well as other conservation agriculture amd climate smart agriculture technologies. BS Sidhu, Commissioner of Agriculture for the Government of Punjab chaired the stakeholder consultation and shared his experiences as well as Government of Punjab’s plans and policies for the farmers to promote happy seeder and other climate smart technologies.
“I am very impressed to see all these developments and enthusiasm of the farmers and other stakeholders for scaling conservation agriculture practices for sustaining the food bowl,” said Sidhu. She noted that Punjab and Australia have many things in common and could learn from each other’s experiences. Later she also visited the Punjab Agricultural University and had a meeting with the Vice Chancellor.
This visit and interaction was attended by more than 200 key stakeholders including officers from Govt. of Punjab, ICAR, PAU-KVKs, PACS, BISA- CIMMYT-CCAFS, manufacturers, farmers and custom operators of Happy Seeder.
The Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) is a non-profit international research institute dedicated to food, nutrition and livelihood security as well as environmental rehabilitation in South Asia, which is home to more than 300 million undernourished people. BISA is a collaborative effort involving the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).
USAID’s Mary Hobbs, Director of the Economic Growth and Agriculture Section, and Kenneth Dunn, Deputy Director, met with CIMMYT-Pakistan’s Country Representative, Imtiaz Muhammad and NARC’s Director General, Ghullam Muhammad Ali.
During the visit, the delegation toured wheat field trials, the Maize Stem Borer Mass Rearing Lab at the NARC and discussed the importance of public-private partnerships and collaborations for developing a strong agricultural system. They also toured the NARC germplasm bank, which provides vital support to the national crop improvement programs in the form of required germplasm seeds of different crops and is a genetic resource of cultivated crops and their wild relatives, useful for breeding.
Hobbs said, “CIMMYT’s efforts are really worthy and contribute to the overall agriculture-based economy and uplifting the livelihoods of farming communities.”
Over the next 50 years, the world’s population is set to be more than 9 billion. To feed this amount of people food production will need to more than double.
Doing this will require us to grow food faster than ever before, a global task which will be even more challenging if we don’t first improve the way we collect and share information, according to Carolina Rivera, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and data coordinator with the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).
Demand for wheat by 2050 is predicted to increase by 70 percent from today’s levels due to population growth and dietary changes, but the challenges to wheat production are stark and growing. The crop is at risk from new and more aggressive pests and diseases, diminishing water resources, limited available land and unstable weather conditions related to climate change.
“The data tells us that we won’t meet future demand unless we’re able to significantly increase genetic gains,” says Rivera. Current annual genetic yield gains of cereals range from 0.5 to 1 percent, meaning that genetic improvements made to crops by scientists are at best resulting in 1 percent higher yields than the previous year, notwithstanding the possibility of improvements due to crop management which are known to be much harder for resource-poor farmers to implement.
Since Rivera started as an IWYP data coordinator, she’s helped release a new instance of the public database called “Germinate,” which hosts phenotypic, genotypic and other data on wheat collected by CIMMYT staff, IWYP project members, and partners around the world. She seeks to deploy new technologies to capture data and develop better systems to standardize, collect, compile and curate field data gathered by members of her CIMMYT research team and their partners.
“Three years ago, around 80 percent of CIMMYT’s wheat physiology field data in Mexico were collected manually,” said Rivera. “But now, the use of tablets for data collection, improved protocols for data processing, among other tools allow us to have real-time quality control. By standardizing our results and facilitating data curation and analysis, we help scientists make faster, more informed decisions.”
Rivera has a unique perspective in crop data management because she applies her on-the-ground knowledge of wheat research to adopt and adapt new technologies and systems that meet the needs of scientists. As a wheat physiologist, she has identified new traits associated with the optimization of plant morphology aiming to boost grain number and yield.
“Data management can seem like an afterthought to the research, but having more controlled and optimized workflows will become crucial for breeding programs as data volumes increase,” says Rivera. “Achieving high-quality data management is a challenge – like with any change in technology, it requires a huge shift in the way people do their job and tools they use.”
Despite this, more than 2 billion genotypic data from CIMMYT have been made available in the Germinate and Dataverse platforms, and Rivera believes that data sharing will eventually become part and parcel to the work wheat researchers conduct.
Before starting her current position at CIMMYT, Rivera received her doctorate in crop science from the University of Nottingham. Ultimately, she believes that the adoption of better data management practices across research institutions will soon become a cornerstone in the ability to create “ideal” wheat plants that produce more grains, feeding more people.
The International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) is a long-term global collaboration with funding from public and private research organizations that seeks to increase the genetic yield potential of wheat by 50 percent in 20 years. Find a full list of funders here.
Chuanmai 42 at Zhongjiang. (Photo: Garry Rosewarne/CIMMYT)
A new commentary published today in the leading science journal Nature Plants highlights the importance of an ancient grass species for wheat breeding. The commentary was sparked by the recent publication of a reference genome from Aegilops tauschii, also called goat grass.
Bread wheat was created some 10,000 years ago by a natural cross of more simple, primitive wheats with a sub-species of goat grass. As such, goat grass genes constitute a major component of the very large wheat genome. The sequencing of goat grass DNA opens the way for wheat breeders to apply a number of advanced approaches to improve the speed and precision of wheat breeding for important traits that may be found in the goat grass segment of the wheat genome.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has produced many wheat x grass crosses, recreating the original, natural cross but using other goat grass species and thus greatly expanding wheat’s diversity. Wheat lines derived from those crosses have since been used in breeding programs worldwide and have helped farmers to boost yields by up to 20 percent. Goat grass is known for being highly adaptable and disease tolerant, so the crosses endow wheat with similar qualities. Varieties from these crosses make up over 30 percent of international seed stores.
Researchers expect that the sequencing of this grass species’ DNA will facilitate advanced approaches such as “speed breeding” – a technique that uses controlled variables to achieve up to seven rounds of wheat crops in one year. This will help allow wheat breeding to keep up with the rising global demand for the crop and to address the challenges of new, virulent diseases and more extreme weather.
Check out the full article: The goat grass genome’s role in wheat improvement. 2018. Rasheed, A., Ogbonnaya, F.C., Lagudah, E., Appels, R., He, Z. in Nature Plants and check out other recent publication by CIMMYT staff below:
Molecular genetic diversity and population structure of Ethiopian white lupin landraces Implications for breeding and conservation. 2017. Atnaf, M., Yao, N., Kyalo, M. ,Kifle Dagne, Dagne Wegary Gissa, Tesfaye, K. In: PLoS One v. 12, no. 11, p. e0188696.
Determinants of participation in cavy marketing : evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 2017. Simtowe, F., Paul, B. K., Wimba, B. M. M., Bacigale, S. B., Chiuri, W. L., Maass, B. L. In: Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics v. 118, no. 2, p. 245-257.
Food security, sweet potato production, and proximity to markets in northern Ghana. 2017. Glenna, L.L., Borlu, Y., Gill, T., Larson, J., Ricciardi, V., Adam, R. In: Facets v. 2, p. 919-936.
Evaluation of grain yield and related agronomic traits of quality protein maize hybrids in Southern Africa. 2017. Setimela, P.S., Gasura, E., Amsal Tesfaye Tarekegne. In: Euphytica v. 213, p. 289.
Medium-term effects of conservation agriculture on soil quality. 2017. Ivy Sichinga Ligowe, Patson Cleoups Nalivata, Njoloma, J., Makumba, W., Thierfelder, C. In: African Journal of Agricultural Research v. 12, no. 29, p. 2412-2420.
Predicting yield and stability analysis of wheat under different crop management systems across agro-ecosystems in India. 2017. Jat, M.L., Jat, R.K., Singh, P., Jat, S.L., Sidhu, H.S., Jat, H. S., Bijarniya, D., Parihar, C.M., Gupta, R.K. In: American Journal of Plant Sciences v. 8, p. 1977-2012.
Pathogenomic analysis of wheat yellow rust lineages detects seasonal variation and host specificity. 2017. Bueno Sancho, V., Persoons, A., Hubbard, A., Cabrera-Quio, L. E., Lewis, C. M., Corredor Moreno, P., Bunting, D. C. E., Sajid Ali, Soonie Chng, Hodson, D.P., Madariaga Burrows, R., Bryson, R., Thomas, J., Holdgate, S., Saunders, D. G. O. In: Genome Biology and Evolution v. 9, no. 12, p. 3282-3296.
Genotype by environment interactions and combining ability for strawberry families grown in diverse environments. 2017. Mathey, M.M., Mookerjee, S., Mahoney, L.L., Gündüz, K., Rosyara, U., Hancock, J.F., Stewart, P.J., Whitaker, V.M., Bassil, N.V., Davis, T.M., Finn, C.E. In: Euphytica v. 213, p. 112.
Genome-wide association study in Asia-adapted tropical maize reveals novel and explored genomic regions for sorghum downy mildew resistance. 2017. Rashid, Z., Kumar Singh, P., Vemuri, H., Zaidi, P.H., Prasanna, B.M., Nair, S.K. In: Scientific reports v. 8, p. 366.
Combining ability analysis in newly developed S6 inbred lines of maize (Zea mays L.). 2017. Gazala, P., Kuchanur, P.H., Zaidi, P.H., Arunkumar, B., Patil, A., Seetharam, K., Vinayan, M.T. In: Journal of Farm Sciences v. 3, no. 3, p. 315-319.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of improved maize hybrids to partners in eastern Africa and similar agro-ecological zones, to scale up production for farmers in these areas.
National agricultural research systems and seed companies are invited to apply for the allocation of these pre-commercial hybrids, after which they will be able to register, produce and offer the improved seed to farming communities.
The deadline for applications is February 10th, 2018.
*Please note: This form has been updated since the last cycle; please download a fresh copy from the link above. Applications using the old format may not be accepted.
Julio Huerta stands in a wheat field in northern Mexico. Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT.
Based on publication records, CIMMYT scientists produce a lot more than just improved maize and wheat varieties, as important as that work has been for farmers, partners, and consumers.
In 2017, CIMMYT researchers contributed to nearly 300 peer-reviewed journal articles, many published in high-impact journals including Nature and Science. The articles emerged from partnerships with a broad range of international universities and research institutes and have been cited frequently by peers in recent years.
“CIMMYT is the world’s largest distributor of publicly-available maize and wheat ‘germplasm,’ which includes breeding lines and other genetic resources in the form of seed,” said Marianne Bänziger, CIMMYT deputy director general for research and partnerships. “But the center’s researchers also publish high-quality, cutting-edge science articles, not to mention mentoring and training several hundred students and professionals mostly from national research systems every year and interacting with thousands of farmers.”
Multiple CIMMYT authors led by José Crossa, CIMMYT biometrician and distinguished scientist, published two papers in Heredity on genomic selection in maize and wheat that have been among those most often cited for that journal since 2013, having been mentioned in other papers 124 times.
Ravi Singh and Julio Huerta, CIMMYT wheat scientists, were recognized in 2017 among the top one percent of researchers for the frequency of citation of their articles by other science authors.
Among the many reports to which they contributed, Huerta and Singh were participants and co-authors in a study published in the eminent journal Science in 2009 and since cited by other researchers 441 times. The study described the molecular basis of a “wonder” gene that, in tandem with other resistance genes, has helped protect wheat from three deadly fungal diseases for more than 50 years, providing farmers benefits in excess of $5 billion in harvests saved, according to a CIMMYT report on the findings.
The two scientists share authorship on at least a half-dozen other articles on wheat disease breeding and genetics that have been cited over 100 times.
“These examples show that CIMMYT research substantially contributes to global science, in addition to the impact achieved in farmers’ fields,” said Bänziger. “It all builds on high-value partnerships with hundreds of researchers and professionals worldwide.”
Wheat harvest near Iztaccíhuatl volcano in Juchitepec, Estado de México. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
With increasing global demand for wheat and increasing constraints (high temperatures, diseases) to wheat’s productivity, wheat breeders are looking for new methodologies to make breeding more efficient. A new study looks at refinements of genomic prediction models to help achieve this.
The authors write that genomic selection is becoming a standard approach to achieving genetic progress in plants, as it gets around the need to field-test the offspring at every cycle, but that the models commonly used in plant breeding are based on datasets of only a few hundred genotyped individual plants.
This study used pedigree and genomic data from nearly 59,000 wheat lines evaluated in different environments, as well as genomic and pedigree information in a model that incorporated genotype X environment interactions to predict the performance of wheat lines in Mexican and South Asian environments.
They found that models using markers (and pedigree) had higher prediction accuracies than models using only phenotypic data. Models that included genomic x environment had higher prediction accuracies than models that do not include interaction.
Association mapping reveals loci associated with multiple traits that affect grain yield and adaptation in soft winter wheat. 2017. Lozada, D. N., Mason, E.R., Md Ali Babar, Carver, B. F., Guedira, G. B., Merrill, K., Arguello, M. N., Acuna, A., Vieira, L., Holder, A., Addison, C., Moon, D. E., Miller, R. G., Dreisigacker, S. In: Euphytica v. 213 : 222.
Effect of trait heritability, training population size and marker density on genomic prediction accuracy estimation in 22 bi-parental tropical maize populations. 2017. Ao Zhang, Hongwu Wang, Beyene, Y., Fentaye Kassa Semagn, Yubo Liu, Shiliang Cao, Zhenhai Cui, Yanye Ruan, Burgueño, J., San Vicente, F.M., Olsen, M., Prasanna, B.M., Crossa, J., Haiqiu Yu, Zhang, X. In: Frontiers in Plant Science v. 8 : 1916.
Genomic prediction unifies animal and plant breeding programs to form platforms for biological discovery. 2017. Hickey, J.M., Tinashe Chiurugwi, Mackay, I., Powell, W., Eggen, A., Kilian, A., Jones, C., Canales, C., Grattapaglia, D., Bassi, F., Atlin, G.N., Gorjanc, G., Dawson, I., Rabbi, I., Ribaut, J.M., Rutkoski, J., Benzie, J., Lightner, J., Mwacharo, J., Parmentier, J., Robbins, K., Skot, L., Wolfe, M., Rouard, M., Clark, M., Amer, P., Gardiner, P., Hendre, P., Mrode, R., Sivasankar, S., Rasmussen, S., Groh, S., Jackson, V., Thomas, W., Beyene, Y. In: Nature Genetics v. 49, no. 9, p. 1297–1303.
Genomic selection in plant breeding : methods, models and perspectives. 2017. Crossa, J., Pérez-Rodríguez, P., Cuevas, J., Montesinos-Lopez, O.A., Jarquín, D., De los Campos, G., Burgueño, J., Camacho-González, J. M., Perez-Elizalde, S., Beyene, Y., Dreisigacker, S., Singh, R.P., Zhang, X., Gowda, M., Rutkoski, J., Varshney, R. K. In: Trends in Plant Science v. 22, no. 11, p. 961-975.
Single-step genomic and pedigree genotype x environment interaction models for predicting wheat lines in international environments. 2017. Pérez-Rodríguez, P., Crossa, J., Rutkoski, J., Singh, R.P., Legarra, A., Autrique, E., De los Campos, G., Burgueño, J., Dreisigacker, S. In: The Plant Genome v. 10, no. 2.
Erratic rainfall and increasing temperatures are already causing crops to fail, threatening African farmers’ ability to ensure household food security, he said. Africa is the region most vulnerable to climate variability and change, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Small-scale family farmers, who provide the majority of food production in Africa, are set to be among the worst affected. Rusinamhodzi’s work includes educating African farmers about the impacts of climate change and working with them to tailor sustainable agriculture solutions to increase their food production in the face of increasingly variable weather.
The world’s population is projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, with 2.1 billion people set to live in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates farmers will need to increase production by at least 70 percent to meet demand. However, climate change is bringing numerous risks to traditional farming systems challenging the ability to increase production, said Rusinamhodzi.
Graphic created by Gerardo Mejia. Data sourced from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Rusinamhodzi believes increasing farmers’ awareness of climate risks and working with them to implement sustainable solutions is key to ensuring they can buffer climate shocks, such as drought and erratic rainfall.
“The onset of rainfall is starting late and the seasonal dry spells or outright droughts are becoming commonplace,” said Rusinamhodzi. “Farmers need more knowledge and resources on altering planting dates and densities, crop varieties and species, fertilizer regimes and crop rotations to sustainably intensify food production.”
Growing up in Zimbabwe – a country that is now experiencing the impacts of climate change first hand – Rusinamhodzi understands the importance of small-scale agriculture and the damage erratic weather can have on household food security.
He studied soil science and agronomy and began his career as a research associate at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Zimbabwe learning how to use conservation agriculture as a sustainable entry point to increase food production.
Conservation agriculture is based on the principles of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of crop rotation to simultaneously maintain and boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It improves soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability.
It is a sustainable intensification practice, which is aimed at enhancing the productivity of labor, land and capital. Sustainable intensification practices offer the potential to simultaneously address a number of pressing development objectives, unlocking agriculture’s potential to adapt farming systems to climate change and sustainable manage land, soil, nutrient and water resources, while improving food and nutrition.
Tailoring sustainable agriculture to farmers
Smallholder farming systems in Africa are diverse in character and content, although maize is usually the major crop. Within each system, farmers are also diverse in terms of resources and production processes. Biophysically, conditions – such as soil and rainfall – change significantly within short distances.
Given the varying circumstances, conservation agriculture cannot be promoted as rigid or one-size fits all solution as defined by the three principles, said Rusinamhodzi.
The systems agronomist studied for his doctoral at Wageningen University with a special focus on targeting appropriate crop intensification options to selected farming systems in southern Africa. Now, with CIMMYT he works with African farming communities to adapt conservation agriculture to farmers’ specific circumstances to boost their food production.
Rusinamhodzi’s focus in the region is to design cropping systems around maize-legume intercropping and conservation agriculture. Intercropping has the added advantage of producing two crops from the same piece of land in a single season; different species such as maize and legumes can increase facilitation and help overcome the negative effects of prolonged dry spells and poor soil quality.
Farmer Elphas Chinyanga inspecting his conservation agriculture plots in Zimbabwe. Photo: Peter Lowe/ CIMMYT
“The key is to understand the farmers, their resources including the biophysical circumstances and their production systems, and assist in adapting conservation agriculture to local needs,” he said.
Working with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, Rusinamhodzi seeks to understand production constraints and opportunities for increased productivity starting with locally available resources.
Using crop simulation modeling and experimentation, he estimates how the farming system will perform under different conditions and works to formulate a set of options to help farmers. The options can include agroforestry, intercropping, improved varieties resistant to heat and drought, fertilizers and manures along with the principles of conservation agriculture to obtain the best results.
The models are an innovative way assess the success or trade-off farmers could have when adding new processes to their farming system. However, the application of these tools are still limited due to the large amounts of data needed for calibration and the complexity, he added.
Information gathered is shared with farmers in order to offer researched options on how to sustainably boost their food production under their conditions, Rusinamhodzi said.
“My ultimate goal is to increase farmers’ decision space so that they make choices from an informed position,” he said.
Rusinamhodzi also trains farmers, national governments, non-profit organizations, seed companies and graduate students on the concepts and application of sustainable intensification including advanced analysis to understand system productivity, soil quality, water and nutrient use efficiency and crop pest and disease dynamics.
Support from Nepal’s banking sector has the potential to benefit seed companies across the country. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CIMMYT) – Nepal’s push to grow its seed sector is expanding to banking, with new financial measures expected to benefit seed companies across the country.
Nepal launched its National Seed Vision 2013-2025 to improve food security by increasing its domestic production of high quality seeds, and make them available and affordable to farmers. The seed replacement rate, or the percentage of area using certified quality seeds rather than the farm saved seed, is set to increase up to 30 percent for cereal crops and over 90 percent for vegetables.
However, there is a lack of financing from formal sources across agricultural value chains, which led the country to mandate that banks allocate 10 percent of their lending – around NPR 1.3 billion ($12.7 million) – to agriculture in 2017.
A value chain is the full set of activities businesses go through to bring a product or service from conception to delivery, in agriculture, this could involve everything from the development of plant genetic material to selling the final crop at market.
Value chain finance refers to financial products and services that flow to or through any point in a value chain that enables investments that increase actors’ returns, as well as the growth and competitiveness of the chain. This could dramatically improve Nepal’s seed sector by giving farmers, seed companies and banks access to more resources to grow.
In fact, if banks financed just 30 percent of seed company working capital, it would give an extra $2 million to invest in research and development activities, such as variety development, quality improvement, maintenance breeding and other vital functions that are currently not carried out by Nepali seed companies. These funds could also be invested in infrastructure development such as storage and seed processing facilities.
Participants concluded at a recent consultative meeting on financing seed business in Nepal that soft loans – loans that have lenient terms like low interest rates or extended grace periods – to seed companies that charge a government-mandated 5 percent interest rate are an ideal way to provide this extra working capital. The commercial banks offering these loans would benefit by reaching more farmers, thereby expanding their customer base and would reach the government-mandated agricultural financing target.
The Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project provided a platform to banks and seed companies to share information and identify business opportunities to support NSAF’s seed system development approach during the meeting. Nearly 40 participants from national banks, seed companies and other governmental and non-governmental organizations participated.
Dyutiman Choudhary, NSAF coordinator, shared the overall seed system development approach of NSAF and the role of finance in seed business. An overview of successful cases and models of bank-seed company partnerships adopted in Asia and Africa was also given.
Banks requested additional information about risks in the seed business and sought guidance to assess and reduce risks associated to their loans. It was agreed that value chain finance through three-party agreements between banks, farmers and seed companies could be a viable approach that could be initiated immediately.
“Through this sort of agreement, seed companies guarantee they will purchase seeds from farmers,” said the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal Chair. “This guarantees a market for seed, minimizing the risk of market failure for banks.”
Four national banks so far have shown interest in partnering with the NSAF seed companies to finance seed production with soft loans. A proposed working group comprised of banks, seed companies and the Government of Nepal will provide strategic direction to finance seed business. NSAF will lead the working group to guide strategic decisions on financing seed business by sharing evidence based information, providing a common platform and catalyzing innovations to ease access to finance by seed companies.
Speakers on panel “How Can CRISPR-Cas Technology Assist Small Holder Farmers Around the World?” at 2017 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines Iowa. L-R: Kevin Pixley, leader of Seeds of Discovery and the Genetic Resources Program at CIMMYT; Feng Zhang, core member of Broad Institute; Neal Gutterson, member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, in DowDuPont agriculture division; Nigel Taylor, interim director, Institute for International Crop Improvement, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Picture credit: World Food Prize
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Gene editing technology could revolutionize the way scientists breed high-yielding drought, disease and pest resistant, quality plant seeds, greatly reducing the time it currently takes to develop new varieties, said a panel of expert scientists at the Borlaug Dialogue conference in Des Moines, Iowa.
Using CRISPR-Cas9 to select or suppress desired traits in a genome is almost as simple as editing a Microsoft Word document on a computer, said Feng Zhang, the originator of the technology who is a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
To edit genes, a protein called Cas9 is programmed to create an RNA search string, which can search and edit paired DNA to alter a genome to achieve desired effects in plants, Zheng said.
“There’s a lot of exciting opportunity to apply this technology in both human health and in agriculture,” he said.
Although the gene editing process itself is extremely fast, it will likely be several years before the benefits of the process for smallholder farmers begin to be realized, said Kevin Pixley, who leads the Seeds of Discovery project and the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
CIMMYT scientists aim to use the breakthrough technology to help smallholder farmers in the developing world address food security, nutrition shortcomings and economic threats to their livelihoods caused by climate change, pests and disease. Additionally, they see the potential to reduce the use of pesticides, and to boost nutrition through bio-fortification of crops.
“We want sustainable agriculture that provides food and nutrition security for all, while enabling biodiversity conservation,” Pixley said. “CRISPR-Cas9 is an affordable technology that can help us close the technology gap between the resource rich and resource poor farmers of the world.”
CRISPR-Cas9 improved varieties could also reduce the risk of investing in fertilizers, grain storage or other technologies, thereby contributing to “double benefits” for smallholder farmers, Pixley said.
Poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods for farmers are part of the shared vision for CIMMYT and our research partners, and we see CRISPR-Cas9 as a technology that can make a significant contribution to achieving this aim, he added.
DELIVERING BENEFITS
“We think about this as being about bringing abundant potential to agriculture through this technology,” said Neal Gutterson, a member of CIMMYT’s board of trustees and vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, part of the agriculture division at DowDuPont.
“For us, it’s part of the evolution of breeding systems, it’s targeted breeding that’s enabled by CRISPR-Cas9 technology,” he said, describing joint research projects with CIMMYT and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
Currently, CIMMYT and DuPont Pioneer are researching the benefits of using CRISPR-Cas9 to combat maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in East Africa. MLN is caused by a combination of two viruses, which can only be treated by developing genetic resistance in the plant.
“We can ultimately accelerate the delivery of improved products that are really highly performing, high yielding, and also resistant to that viral disease,” Gutterson said, explaining how the technology would benefit smallholders. “Should the disease spread outside of Africa we’ll be poised to deliver solutions even faster.”
DuPont Pioneer and the Broad Institute have signed an agreement to allow universities and non-profit organizations to use the technology for agricultural research and product development.
The joint licensing relationship opens up democratic access to CRISPR-Cas9 for agriculture, Gutterson said, adding that research collaborations with CIMMYT and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will facilitate access to the technology in the developing world, enriching the livelihoods of farmers.
The technology will also benefit non-commodity crops, known as “orphan crops,” said Nigel Taylor, interim director of the Institute for International Crop Improvement at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
“The exciting thing about them is that they have huge potential because they have not undergone the improvement maize or rice have gone through,” Taylor said.
Donald Danforth and DuPont Pioneer are conducting joint research using CRISPR Cas9 into cassava brown streak virus disease, which is projected to spread from East Africa to Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava in the world.
“We edited two of the genes, which means the virus cannot replicate properly in the plant,” Taylor said. “We’re seeing the viral load is completely reduced.”
Taylor also said he would like to develop improved varieties of teff, which is widely grown in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where the seeds are used to make the food staple “injera,” a sourdough flatbread.
REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
To ensure access to the technology, consumers, farmers and scientists in Africa must be involved, and questions about how new crops are regulated must be addressed, the scientists agreed.
“We must engage in regulatory work with stakeholders,” Taylor said. “African research centers and others around the world must be part of this conversation right now – communication and education about new technologies are essential.”
If scientists use CRISPR-Cas9 to rapidly convert popular varieties from, for example, MLN-susceptible to MLN-resistant, they will make a lasting contribution to farmer livelihoods in Africa, Pixley said.
“However, we can’t yet assume that the benefits of these technologies will reach smallholder farmers,” he said.
“Public opinion is largely unformed because few people know about CRISPR-Cas9, and since the regulatory framework is largely undefined, we have a great opportunity to help form it in a way to make the benefits of these technologies available to smallholder farmers.”
We need to begin by recognizing and respecting the sovereignty of every country to decide if, when and how they are going to use this technology, he added.
I think we have a great responsibility to provide accurate, complete and trustworthy information to the public as we bring this technology into the public domain and to the regulatory process, he said.
“We know that it’s not going to be a magic bullet because no technology is, but we also think that it’s unethical to dismiss any technology without responsibly considering its possible contributions,” Pixley said.
The Borlaug Dialogue conference is held each year in Des Moines to coincide with World Food Prize celebrations. This year delegates feted the 2017 laureate Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, thematically focused on “The Road out of Poverty.”
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – A new book from Columbia University Press offers social sector organizations a how-to guide on applying new and creative methods to solve complex problems.
Design Thinking for the Greater Good tells 10 stories of the struggles and successes of organizations from across the world working in industries from healthcare to agriculture that have applied design thinking, a human-centered approach to problem solving, in order to truly understand the problems they wanted to solve, generate testable ideas and develop solutions for vulnerable groups who actually adopted them.
“Our path into the world of design thinking came originally through the for-profit world,” says Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and co-author of the book, during her online course offered through Coursera. “For almost a decade now, we’ve been studying design thinking as a methodology for improving business innovation and growth and examining its successful use in global corporations like IBM, Toyota and 3M.”
According to Liedtka, design methods are even more powerful in the social sector, since these organizations have to frequently navigate complex bureaucracies, work with limited resources and juggle a large range of stakeholder expectations, among other challenges.
MasAgro is also cited as a textbook example of how to develop new practices and technologies by building on traditional knowledge through innovation networks, or “hubs,” which are able to “cut through communication barriers, allowing MasAgro and the farmers to combine the old and the new into best practices that serve local farmers and communities,” according to the authors.
The authors conclude that MasAgro made innovation safe by relying on respected community leaders and innovation networks that develop, test and adapt agricultural methods and innovations that visibly outperform alternative agricultural practices.
“MasAgro has been acknowledged as an innovation in the social sector by design thinking experts because risk averse smallholder farmers in Mexico, whose annual income depends on one agricultural cycle determined by nature, have embraced new sustainable farming practices to improve their livelihoods,” said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT’s regional representative for the Americas.
Purchase Design Thinking for the Greater Good at Columbia University Press here and check out Jeanne Liedtka’s online course here.
MasAgro is a research for rural development project that promotes the sustainable intensification of maize and wheat production in Mexico, supported by SAGARPA and CIMMYT. Learn more about the project here.
Farmer Kausila Chanara direct dry seeding rice in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CIMMYT) — Nepal will benefit from a new project that will strengthen the country’s seed and fertilizer sectors, boost farmer income and increase the country’s food security through 2021.
More than 70 percent of Nepal’s population works in agriculture, yet a profound lack of resources, infrastructure and networks have weakened rural economies, increased urban and international migration and strained the ability of families to avoid malnutrition. Two out of every three Nepalese suffer from food insecurity at some time during the year and the prevalence of stunting is nearly 40 percent.
“With right seeds, resources and practices Nepalese farmers could produce 50 percent more food on their land, enough to not only eliminate domestic food insecurity but even become a food surplus country,” said Dyutiman Choudhary, coordinator and market development specialist for the five-year Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project (NSAF).
Research has shown the better application of fertilizer and planting improved hybrid seeds are the two most impactful steps Nepalese maize farmers can take to boost income and grain yields in their fields. Adopting just these two practices can increase grain yields 1.8 and 1.4 tons per hectare, respectively.
Launched on August 1, NSAF will build competitive and vibrant seed and fertilizer systems that significantly expand seed production, marketing and distribution by enhancing the capacity and role of public, private and community sectors in seed and fertilizer value chains. It is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MOAD) and private sector.
During an event for the project’s launch in Kathmandu, Choudhary presented an overview of the project’s overarching strategy and key approaches being implemented to increase adoption of quality seed and integrated soil fertility management technologies for more than 100,000 smallholder farmers in 25 of Nepal’s 75 districts.
MOAD Secretary and Program Chair Suroj Pokharel and Deputy Chief of Mission to the United States Embassy in Nepal Michael C. Gonzales also acknowledged the contribution of robust agriculture projects that support the Government of Nepal’s Agriculture Development Strategy through the promotion of innovations in digital technology and market research development to improve farming practices. Other event invitees included government representatives, the U.S Embassy, USAID, partner organizations, local media, project beneficiaries and other private stakeholders.
Learn more about the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project (NSAF) through this infographic and fact sheet from the U.S. government’s Feed the Future initiative.
Members of National Technical Committee of NSB evaluating BAW 1260, the breeding line used to develop BARI Gom 33. Photo: CIMMYT
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) — As wheat farmers in Bangladesh struggle to recover from a 2016 outbreak of a mysterious disease called “wheat blast,” the country’s National Seed Board (NSB) released a new, high-yielding, blast-resistant wheat variety, according to a communication from the Wheat Research Centre (WRC) in Bangladesh.
Called “BARI Gom 33,” the variety was developed by WRC using a breeding line from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a Mexico-based organization that has collaborated with Bangladeshi research organizations for decades, according to Naresh C. Deb Barma, Director of WRC, who said the variety had passed extensive field and laboratory testing. “Gom” means “wheat grain” in Bangla, the Bengali language used in Bangladesh.
“This represents an incredibly rapid response to blast, which struck in a surprise outbreak on 15,000 hectares of wheat in southwestern Bangladesh just last year, devastating the crop and greatly affecting farmers’ food security and livelihoods, not to mention their confidence in sowing wheat,” Barma said.
Caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum, wheat blast was first identified in Brazil in 1985 and has constrained wheat farming in South America for decades. Little is known about the genetics or interactions of the fungus with wheat or other hosts. Few resistant varieties have been released in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the countries most affected by wheat blast.
The Bangladesh outbreak was its first appearance in South Asia, a region where rice-wheat cropping rotations cover 13 million hectares and over a billion inhabitants eat wheat as main staple.
Many blast fungal strains are impervious to fungicides, according to Pawan Singh, a CIMMYT wheat pathologist. “The Bangladesh variant is still sensitive to fungicides, but this may not last forever, so we’re rushing to develop and spread new, blast-resistant wheat varieties for South Asia,” Singh explained.
The urgent global response to blast received a big boost in June from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), which funded an initial four-year research project to breed blast resistant wheat varieties and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which also provided grant to kick-start the work in South Asia. Led by CIMMYT, the initiative involves researchers from nearly a dozen institutions worldwide.
Chemical controls are costly and potentially harmful to human and environmental health, so protecting crops like wheat with inherent resistance is the smart alternative, but resistance must be genetically complex, combining several genes, to withstand new mutations of the pathogen over time.
Key partners in the new project are the agricultural research organizations of Bangladesh, including the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), and the Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal in Bolivia, which will assist with large-scale field experiments to select wheat lines under artificial and natural infections of wheat blast.
Other partners include national and provincial research organizations in India, Nepal and Pakistan, as well as Kansas State University (KSU) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Services (USDA-ARS). The U.S. Agency for International Agricultural Development (USAID) has also supported efforts to kick-start blast control measures, partnerships and upscaling the breeding, testing and seed multiplication of new, high-yielding, disease resistant varieties through its Feed the Future project.
BARI Gom 33 was tested for resistance to wheat blast in field trials in Bolivia and Bangladesh and in greenhouse tests by the USDA-ARS laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. International partnerships are critical for a fast response to wheat blast, according to Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program.
“Worldwide, we’re in the middle of efforts that include blast surveillance and forecasting, studies on the pathogen’s genetics and biology, integrated disease management and seed systems, as well as raising awareness about the disease and training for researchers, extension workers, and farmers,” said Braun.
With over 160 million people, Bangladesh is among the world’s most densely populated countries. Wheat is Bangladesh’s second most important staple food, after rice. The country grows more than 1.3 million tons each year but consumes 4.5 million tons, meaning that imports whose costs exceed $0.7 billion each year comprise more than two-thirds of domestic wheat grain use.
WRC will produce tons of breeder’s seed of BARI Gom 33 each year. This will be used by the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) and diverse non-governmental organizations and private companies to produce certified seed for farmers.
“This year WRC will provide seed to BADC for multiplication and the Department of Agricultural Extension will establish on-farm demonstrations of the new variety in blast prone districts during 2017-18,” said Barma.
As an added benefit for the nutrition of wheat consuming households, BARI Gom 33 grain features 30 percent higher levels of zinc than conventional wheat. Zinc is a critical micronutrient missing in the diets of many of the poor throughout South Asia and whose lack particularly harms the health of pregnant women and children under 5 years old.
With funding from HarvestPlus and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition, CIMMYT is leading global efforts to breed biofortified wheat with better agronomic and nutritional quality traits. The wheat line used in BARI Gom 33 was developed at CIMMYT, Mexico, through traditional cross-breeding and shared with Bangladesh and other cooperators in South Asia through the Center’s International Wheat Improvement Network, which celebrates 50 years in 2018.
Stable window 1 and 2 (W1W2) funding from CGIAR enabled CIMMYT and partners to react quickly and screen breeding lines in Bolivia, as well as working with KSU to identify sources of wheat blast resistance. The following W1 funders have made wheat blast resistance breeding possible: Australia, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, France, India, Japan, Korea, New Zeland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the World Bank. The following funders also contributed vital W2 funding: Australia, China, the United Kingdom (DFID) and USAID.
Maize (also known as corn) seed samples in CIMMYT’s seed bank. CIMMYT/file
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Scientist Kevin Pixley holds a large, clear plastic bottle up to the light to illuminate the yellow corn kernels inside. He is leading a project to catalogue 178,000 corn and wheat seeds at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) seed bank near Mexico City.
“The difficulty farmers and researchers face is that no matter how hard they look they can’t see inside a seed to predict its hardiness – they never know whether it will withstand the growing conditions it will experience,” said Pixley, who will speak at the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue symposium in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 18.
CIMMYT’s mission is to apply maize and wheat science for improved livelihoods around the world.
“Our seed bank provides a sub-zero temperature refuge for the largest collection of maize and wheat seeds in the world,” explained Pixley, who leads CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) project. “Recent technological advances are accelerating our understanding of the inner workings of these seeds, making them ever more useful to researchers and farmers.
“Through conservation, characterization and use of natural biodiversity, we’re not just helping to improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers in the present, but we’re building our capacity to thwart future threats to food security,” Pixley said. “Every year we ship some 300,000 maize and wheat seed samples to farmers and researchers.”
Through the SeeD partnership between CIMMYT, Mexico’s ministry of agriculture (SAGARPA) and the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project, scientists are developing the capacity for farmers to prepare for specific or as yet unanticipated needs.
“Seeds of Discovery offers the next generation of Mexican scientists the training and technologies they need to support food security,” said Jorge Armando Narvaez Narvaez, Mexico’s sub-secretary of agriculture.
“In some ways our work has only just begun, but we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we would be thanks to applying new technologies to secure the food and nutrition needs of our growing population,” Pixley said.
Over the next 
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