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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.

Conservation agriculture expert at Oxford Farming Conference

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BramGovaertsMEDIA ADVISORY

WHAT: Bram Govaerts, strategic leader for Sustainable Intensification in Latin America and Latin America representative at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), will make keynote speech entitled “Ending hunger: Can we achieve humanity’s elusive goal by 2050?” at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, UK.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 10:30 a.m.

WHERE: South School, Examination Schools, University of Oxford, 75-81 High Street, Oxford, UK, OX1 4AS

ABOUT OFC: The Oxford Farming Conference has been held in Oxford for more than 70 years, attracting strong debate and exceptional speakers.

OTHER DETAILS: Bram Govaerts, who will be available for media interviews, will deliver the keynote Frank Parkinson Lecture sponsored by the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust, which aims to contribute to the improvement and welfare of British agriculture. The lecture will examine key challenges for achieving food security for a global population of 9.7 billion, which the U.N. projects will have grown 33 percent from a current 7.3 billion people by 2050. Demand for food, driven by population, demographic changes and increasing global wealth will rise more than 60 percent, according to a recent report from the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience. Govaerts will discuss such risks to agricultural production as:

  • The need for funding and political will to support technological innovations to improve farming techniques for small landholders in the global south
  • How mobile technology could benefit agricultural research, development and relaying innovations to farmers
  • Machinery prototypes, which can help transform agricultural practices
  • How minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation can boost yields, increase profit and protect the environment
  • Climate change: carbon sequestration debate; soil does not sequester the carbon needed to mitigate the impact of climate change as some policy makers suggest
  • Climate change: How CIMMYT is working to produce drought and heat tolerant varieties of maize and wheat
  • Why women are less likely than men to uptake conservation agricultural practices in developing countries
  • How CIMMYT connects smallholder maize farmers in Mexico with top restaurants and chefs in New York City
  • The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: A recipe for success in achieving food security
  • MasAgro: Mexico’s Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture project involving more than 100 organizations, offering training, technical support, seeds
  • Dangerous diseases: How CIMMYT is producing varieties resistant to Maize Lethal Necrosis and Tar Spot Complex

MORE INFORMATION:

Julie Mollins, CIMMYT communications, by email at j.mollins@cgiar.org or by mobile at +52 1 595 106 9307 or by Twitter @jmollins or by Skype at juliemollins

Genevieve Renard, head of CIMMYT communications, at g.renard@cgiar.org or  +52 1 595 114 9880 or @genevrenard

ABOUT CIMMYT:

CIMMYT, headquartered in El Batan, Mexico, is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and wheat- and maize-based farming systems. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat systems to improve food security and livelihoods. CIMMYT is a member of the 15-member CGIAR Consortium and leads the Consortium Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.

CIMMYT website: http://staging.cimmyt.org

CGIAR website: http://www.cgiar.org

BACKGROUND:

Oxford Farming Conference

Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust

United Nations population projections 

Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience

 Q+A: Young scientist wins award for “taking it to the farmer”

Gender bias may limit uptake of climate-smart farm practices, study shows

Race for food security can be won, Mexico agriculture secretary says

Global conference underscores complex socio-economic role of wheat

Click here to follow Bram Govaerts on Twitter

CIMMYT marks 50 years of innovation in agricultural science for development

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logo50Mark your calendars! CIMMYT will celebrate its 50th anniversary during a three-day event from September 27 to 29, 2016.

We will be celebrating throughout the year, with the capstone event to be held in Mexico in September 2016.

We will showcase CIMMYT’s successes, impacts, and partnerships, and we will look toward the future: What will CIMMYT need to become in the next 50 years?

What do the complex challenges of the future mean for agricultural research-for-development at large?

The following themes will be in focus:

  • Maize and wheat science is fundamental for food security and sustainable development.
  • CIMMYT has made impacts well beyond the size of our institution, and is a key player in addressing research-for-development challenges of the future.
  • Our partnerships enable us to make impacts with our research, and we want to highlight and strengthen those partnerships.

We look forward to exploring these topics with CIMMYT50 participants, and to planning for a future with continued impact.

Information about the program and logistics will be available soon.

For any questions about the event, please contact the CIMMYT50 executive committee at cimmyt50@cgiar.org.

Follow us on Twitter @CIMMYT and follow the #CIMMYT50 hashtag for more information

Cross-regional efforts produce a toolbar for direct seeding of maize

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Cheap, light, versatile… and locally manufactured

Direct seeding of maize using a two-wheel tractor has been made possible over the past decade or so by manufacturing companies in China, India, and Brazil (among others) that produce commercially available seeders. Several of these seeders have been tested for the past two or three years in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia under the Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI) project supported by the Australian International Food Security Research Center (AIFSRC).

One of the best performing commercially available seeders (in terms of field capacity, precision in seed rate and planting depth, crop emergence, etc.) is manufactured by the Brazilian company Fitarelli. However, this seeder is expensive (above US$ 4,000), difficult to maneuver (especially in small fields), and lacks versatility (minimum row spacing is 80 cm).

In response, several initiatives have aimed at producing toolbar-based seeders to be manufactured locally and cheaply, that could be used in different configurations (to seed one, two, or more rows) and could perform other operations (such as forming planting beds). One such toolbar is the Gongli seeder, which is well suited to sow small grain crops such as wheat and rice in Asian fields, but not maize under typical field conditions in Africa. Two years ago, Jeff Esdaile, inventor of the original Gongli, and Joseph Mutua, from the Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies, produced a modified version of the Gongli – the Gongli Africa + ­ thanks to funding from CRP MAIZE (as reported in Informa No. 1862). In parallel, another toolbar using a different design was produced by Jelle Van Loon and his Smart Mechanization/Machinery and Equipment Innovation team at CIMMYT-Mexico.

Both the Gongli Africa + and the Mexican toolbar have their strengths and their weaknesses. Both have also been judged as too heavy by local service providers. Thus, CRP MAIZE and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture co-funded a two-week session (8-27 October) in Zimbabwe to develop a “hybrid toolbar” having the strengths of both the Gongli Africa + and the Mexican toolbar but weighing under 100 kg. Jeff Esdaile, Joseph Mutua, and Jelle Van Loon spent the entire two weeks manufacturing three prototypes of the hybrid at the University of Zimbabwe. The two-week session also served as hands-on training for staff of three of Zimbabwe’s major manufacturing companies of agricultural equipment (Zimplow LTD, Bain LTD, and Grownet LTD) as well as representatives of the informal sector.

The hybrid toolbar is expected to sell for a quarter of the price of a Fitarelli seeder, although its performance (in terms in term of field capacity, fuel consumption, precision, and crop emergence) is expected to be equivalent. Its weight suits the needs of local service providers better and it is infinitely more versatile (several configurations are possible depending on the desired row spacing, soil conditions, the amount of mulch, etc.). The hybrid toolbar will be thoroughly tested in Zimbabwe during the coming months. A prototype will be shipped to Bangladesh and another to Mexico for further testing and to share the design.

 

A Fitarelli seeder is good at establishing a maize crop under no-till conditions, but expensive, difficult to operate in small fields, and heavy. Photo: Frédéric Baudron

The first hybrid toolbar being tested at CIMMYT-Harare. It is cheap, easy to maneuver, light, and versatile. Three local companies and informal sector representatives have been trained to manufacture it locally. Photo: Frédéric Baudron

 

Balancing economy and ecology: agriculture vs. nature

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Natural enemies of stem borer – a major maize pest in southern Ethiopia – are more abundant in landscapes with more trees and forest patches. In this picture, Yodit Kebede, Ph.D. researcher co-supervised by Wageningen University and CIMMYT, checks insects in a yellow-pan trap. Photo: Frédéric Baudron

“The prosperous still have a strong carbon footprint. And, the world’s billions at the bottom of the development ladder are seeking space to grow,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his opening speech at the COP21 climate talks in Paris, where world leaders recently gathered to come to an agreement that will slow and eventually stop global emissions of greenhouse gases that threaten the survivability of our planet.

Modi and other leaders have called for climate solutions that reconcile the right of developing countries to grow and environmental protection. If implemented correctly, a solution exists in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), essentially “blueprints” for what post-2020 climate actions each country intends to take based on past contributions, future development needs, and opportunities to exploit alternative energies to fossil fuels. This allows the developing world to balance the need to grow while moving to clean energy by soliciting support through climate finance and other measures from developed countries.

Reconciliation of the right to develop and environmental protection must move beyond global dialogue, and be put into practice in every community struggling with the effects of environmental degradation and poverty.

Seventy percent of the “billions at the bottom” Modi refers to live in rural areas. A majority of these people suffer from land degradation – the long-term loss of an ecosystem’s services – due to climate change in combination with unsustainable crop and livestock management practices.

“Agriculture undermines the very resources it depends on,” says Frédéric Baudron, CIMMYT Systems Agronomist. “A new paradigm is needed to sustainably achieve global food security.” Baudron is a lead author of the chapter “Response Options Across the Landscape” in the recently released global assessment report “Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition.”

Like the INDCs, landscape approaches may offer a compromise to achieve food production, natural resource conservation, and livelihood security goals, according to the report’s chapter. “Landscape configurations exist not only to minimize tradeoffs between conservation and food security and nutrition, but also to create synergies between these two goals,” argue Baudron and his fellow authors.

“Cultivated fields are not green deserts but may be part of the habitat of several species of importance for conservation,” says Baudron. “In many human-dominated ecosystems, some species can be dependent on agricultural practices such as extensive grazing in Europe or shifting cultivation in tropical forests. Conversely, biodiversity may contribute to crop and livestock productivity through the ecosystem services it provides, such as pollination or pest control.”

According to recent research conducted by CIMMYT and its partners in southern Ethiopia, diets of rural families living in diverse landscapes where trees are retained tend to be more diverse than diets of rural families living in simplified landscapes dominated by annual crops. Photo: Frédéric Baudron

“Ongoing research conducted by CIMMYT and its partners in southern Ethiopia’s maize- and wheat-based farming systems suggests that maintaining trees and forest patches in production landscapes is not only good for the environment and biodiversity, but contributes to the maintenance of farming system productivity and resilience,” according to Baudron. “Farms embedded in diverse landscape mosaics also produce much more diverse and nutritious food.”

Landscape approaches are also closely associated with the concept of food sovereignty, which promotes the right of people to define their own food production and consumption at the local, national, and global level. Community level engagement with local food and agricultural systems also creates an ideal setting to engage communities for more sustainable management of food and agricultural systems.

“Ultimately, this is about acknowledging diversity as a fundamental property in the design of more sustainable farming systems,” says Baudron. “The question is: what configurations are optimal in different contexts? Answering this question will require a much higher level of partnership between conservation organizations and agricultural agencies.”

African maize farmers get support to mitigate impact of poor soils

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NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – As the global community marks World Soil Day, African smallholder farmers are contending with low yields due to low-fertility soils prevalent in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. This situation has affected the food security of over 300 million people in the region who depend on maize as their staple food.

For the majority of these smallholder farmers, access to inputs like fertilizers to boost soil productivity has been restricted due to their high cost. The reality is that in Africa fertilizers cost up to six times more than in any other continent.

As a result, nearly three quarters (about 70 percent) of eastern and southern Africa’s maize is grown without fertilizers. As the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners work to give farmers a partial solution to this enor

mous challenge, efforts must be intensified to protect and maintain soil resources for sustainable development in Africa and the globe.

The Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) Project addresses the problem of low nitrogen in soils. Smallholder farmers can expect to harvest up to 25 percent more from new maize varieties developed by the IMAS project.

These varieties are nitrogen use efficient (NUE), which means they utilize more efficiently the small amount of fertilizer that farmers can afford to apply (typically less than 20 kilograms per hectare) compared to varieties currently on the market. The IMAS project is a public-private partnership involving CIMMYT, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council and DuPont Pioneer.

In two years – between 2014 and 2015 – 21 NUE hybrids were successfully released in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In addition, IMAS helped to increase seed production and distribution of three existing NUE varieties. According to Michael Olsen, IMAS Project Leader, these varieties are expected to reach approximately 84,000 farmers.

“Giving smallholder farmers practical solutions within their environmental conditions is a sustainable means to not only preserve soil resources but address key challenges in maize farming, which is a major livelihood for millions in Africa,” Olsen said.

Many of the released NUE hybrids carry additional traits that are important in the region, such as tolerance to drought and maize lethal necrosis, a devastating viral disease that is new in the region. Donasiana Limo, a farmer from Olkalili village in northern Tanzania, attests to the good performance of HB513, a drought-tolerant and NUE variety he planted during the main cropping season between January and March 2015.

“I did not do much to prepare my land because the rains came very late and ended early. With no fertilizer and failed rains, I did not expect to harvest the seven bags of 50 kilograms from eight kilograms of HB513 seed,” Donasiana said.

“If I had time to prepare my land and added fertilizer, the harvest would have been so much more.”

Many more farmers from this remote village have benefited immensely from HB513, including Valeria Pantaleo.

Sustainable solutions for African farmers need to be addressed during World Soil Day deliberations. Efforts to facilitate smallholders’ access to inputs like fertilizers are critical. In addition, to help arrest further soil deterioration emphasis must be placed on adopting correct agronomic practices and appropriate crop varieties available on the market that are well suited to different soil management systems.

Policymakers must formulate strategies for adopting universal practices that maintain soil resources and are adapted to farming environments across Africa. Kenya has already set the pace for maize breeding in Africa by including performance in low-nitrogen soils as a special prerequisite for maize variety release, a step that will help enhance healthy soils in Africa if adopted by other regulatory agencies.

Links for more information

For information, please contact: Michael Olsen: IMAS Project Leader| Brenda Wawa: Media Contact

Buena Milpa participates in the lamb and agrobiodiversity fairs in Guatemala

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Social inclusion activities were conducted with Mayan children. Photo: Rachael Cox and Nadia Rivera/Buena Milpa.
Social inclusion activities were conducted with Mayan children. Photo: Rachael Cox and Nadia Rivera/Buena Milpa.

Buena Milpa is the Sustainable Intensification Strategy for Latin America promoted by CIMMYT in Guatemala. It aims to foster innovation to reduce poverty and malnutrition, and enhance the sustainability of maize systems in the Guatemalan highlands.

Recently the Buena Milpa Project took an active role in the XX Lamb and VII Agrobiodiversity Fairs held in the Cuchumatanes Sierra, Chiantla, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, which brought together different social organizations and inhabitants from several departments (states) in the country’s western region.

Each year, the Association of Cuchumatan Organizations (ASOCUCH), Buena Milpa’s social institution, holds agrobiodiversity fairs where farmers exhibit and exchange varieties of maize, potato, bean, yam, and other crops that they grow on their farms. The objective is to promote the protection and conservation of agricultural and livestock diversity (especially of native maize). During the event, there were tables with displays on themes such as agrobiodiversity to support food security, climate change, and the environment.

During the fair, Buena Milpa made presentations on the work being done in the western region, where the general objective is to foster innovation to reduce poverty and malnutrition, while enhancing the sustainability of maize systems. Maize fields there are diversified by sowing amaranth, which is an important component of the region’s human diet. Amaranth tastings were held to emphasize that it’s also important to consume it. Informative materials were distributed and the participants were made aware of the importance of conserving and protecting native maize, in the Mayas’ native tongues (mam and popti’).

Participants are happy that the diversity of their native maize is being conserved. Photo: Rachael Cox and Nadia Rivera/Buena Milpa.
Participants are happy that the diversity of their native maize is being conserved.
Photo: Rachael Cox and Nadia Rivera/Buena Milpa.

The Buena Milpa team also provided a space where girls and boys of different ages could take part in learning exercises with seeds of maize and other crops in order to teach them to protect and conserve nature and the native maize varieties. The reason for holding these activities for girls and boys was to allow the women to participate actively in the events. The social and economic reality of rural native women is complex, and they have no one to look after their children. For this reason, they are forced to take them along to these events, where they cannot pay full attention to the presentations because they are keeping an eye on their children.

These CIMMYT-led activities raised awareness among the region’s inhabitants of the importance of conserving and protecting native maize, adopting crop diversification, and conserving soil and water as a vital part of sustainable native farming in Guatemala’s highlands. The participants were also made aware of the value of women as agents of change, as well as the importance of fostering love for nature and protection of native seeds in young children.

New findings on gender gap in conservation agriculture

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Belita Maleko, a farmer in Nkhotakota, central Malawi, sowed cowpea as an intercrop in one of her maize plots, grown under conservation agriculture principles. (Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT)
Belita Maleko, a farmer in Nkhotakota, central Malawi, sowed cowpea as an intercrop in one of her maize plots, grown under conservation agriculture principles. (Photo: T. Samson/CIMMYT)

Despite wide-ranging, in-depth conservation agriculture studies conducted over many years, almost none consider gender and gender relations as a factor that may explain low adoption rates, according to the recently published paper “Gender and conservation agriculture in East and Southern Africa: towards a research agenda.”

The paper examines research to date on the interactions between conservation agriculture interventions – meaning minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation that can simultaneously boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment – and gender in East and Southern Africa and sets out a research agenda based on gaps observed. Given the increasing interest in conservation agriculture due to climate change impacts in the region, the authors also argue that greater attention to gender is needed in order to ensure successful interventions. The following Q&A with one of the study’s authors, Clare Stirling, CIMMYT Senior Scientist with the Sustainable Intensification Program based in Wales, UK, details the study’s findings and what is needed to ensure gender is included in future conservation agriculture interventions.

Q: How do conservation agriculture practices interact with gender?

A: There are many known and unknown ways in which conservation agriculture interacts with gender and the purpose of this paper is to review the evidence and identify gaps that exist. conservation agriculture is knowledge-intensive and can also be labor-intensive and, along with many soil improvement technologies, involves long-term investment with delayed returns. This clearly has important implications for women, as their ability to invest will depend on many factors such as entitlements, access to information, and their ability to act upon it.

If we take labor requirements as an example – many studies highlight labor shortages as a constraint to the adoption of conservation agriculture, particularly when zero tillage is not complemented by the application of herbicides. Without herbicide use, conservation agriculture techniques for land preparation increase weeding over and above plowing and ridging by as much as three times in maize production. In East and Southern Africa, this burden falls largely on women as weeding is largely a woman’s task. Studies conducted in several countries show that where (frequently subsidized) herbicides have been used, the release of women and children from weeding tasks results in multiple benefits, including more children attending school and more time for women to engage in income-generation activities.

Q: Why has gender been left out of many conservation agriculture studies to date?

A: I am not sure that this is a question that should be posed specifically in relation to conservation agriculture but could be asked of agronomic research in general. Things are improving, but I would suggest that the reason has been that gender is a challenging and complex issue that takes many of us out of our comfort zone both professionally and perhaps personally. It requires an interdisciplinary approach and a set of skills that many agricultural research centers simply have too limited a supply of and I include in this a critical mass of female research staff of sufficient seniority. Without this critical mass of gender expertise, agronomic research will continue to be designed and implemented according to the “male agronomist” norm.

Q: What impact has this had on conservation agriculture adoption in East and Southern Africa?

A: lncreased feminization of labor in smallholder agriculture has resulted in major changes in the roles and responsibilities of women in rural Africa, but still agricultural service suppliers and the wider policy environment in general remain locked into the conceptual norm of the primary farmer being male. This inevitably results in inappropriate targeting of research, extension services, and policy, and logic would tell us that it has also contributed to low adoption rates of conservation agriculture.

As the paper explains, the new norm of the “female primary farmer” has not resulted in their widespread recognition as such by external agencies or indeed within their communities. The ability of women-led households, or male-headed households with women as primary farmers, to adopt conservation agriculture may be compromised if government policies, extension systems, and other actors continue to design interventions around the conceptual norm of the male-headed household. This needs to change.

The paper summarizes the gender-related questions that remain to be addressed with regard to conservation agriculture, and there are many. There are overarching questions relating to intra-household decisions making, access to services, and labor. In addition, there are many more questions relating to specific aspects of conservation agriculture, such as the impacts of minimum tillage and weeding on labor; opportunity costs and how increased requirements are met; opportunities, constraints, and trade-offs of conservation agriculture-based crop diversification; and the tailoring of conservation agriculture-based information and training to women farmers.

Q: Moving forward, how can researchers address the gender gaps in conservation agriculture in their studies?

A:  Gender-sensitive research needs to be mainstreamed into projects. In order to achieve this, we need more multidisciplinary teams including both male and female researchers of similar seniority. While there is a decent body of gender research on the socioeconomic aspects of agricultural technologies such as barriers to uptake and extension services, it seems that there is still a large gap in gender-sensitive agronomic research. What are the implications for gender of increased weeding, need for planting basins, crop diversification, and residue retention? All very basic questions that still need answering. So moving forward, we need more research that involves gender specialists working closely with agronomists on the design, implementation, evaluation, and scaling out of conservation agriculture-based practices.

Study reveals challenges in southern Africa’s soil carbon uptake

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Cheesman in a direct-seeded maize-soybean rotation in Chavakadzi village, Shamva District, Zimbabwe. Photo: Christian Thierfelder
Cheesman in a direct-seeded maize-soybean rotation in Chavakadzi village, Shamva District, Zimbabwe. Photo: Christian Thierfelder

A new study led by ETH Zürich graduate Stephanie Cheesman, along with CIMMYT senior agronomist Christian Thierfelder, Neal S. Eash from the University of Tennessee, Girma Tesfahun Kassie, ICARDA, and Emmanuel Frossard, professor at ETH Zürich, found limited increase in carbon sequestration under conservation agriculture (CA) after up to seven years of practice. In this interview, Cheesman tells us why carbon sequestration is such a complex issue in Southern Africa and what this study reveals about how it can improve.

Q: Why is increasing soil carbon important?

A: Besides the hype about sequestering carbon to contribute to climate change mitigation, carbon is an integral part of soil organic matter (also referred to as “humus”), which is possibly the most well-known fertility component of a soil. Soil carbon has strong influence on soil structure, water infiltration, as well as the capacity of the soil to retain water and nutrients that are required for plant growth. Degraded soil has only a little soil carbon and, hence, low fertility and nutrient- (and water) holding capacity.

Q: What were you hoping this study would reveal?

A: Although the study trials had been running for only seven years, I was hoping to show a clearer trend towards an increase in soil carbon under CA as compared to conventional practices (CP) in Southern Africa. We were surprised that, in most cases, the carbon under CA was at the same level as the conventional control treatment, with a few exceptions. Nevertheless, this is one of a very few studies where soil carbon stocks in CA systems have been analyzed across a wide range of Southern African agroecologies. I am now very happy to share this data with the wider research community.

Q: What factors limit carbon sequestration in Southern Africa?

A: There are a range of factors that limit carbon sequestration. Our findings suggest low productivity to be one of the main bottlenecks. Farmers have to decide if they should feed the crop residues to the soil or to their livestock. The long dry season from May to November and high temperatures further increase the mineralization of soil carbon, which can be twice as much as in temperate regions. Another factor that may limit carbon sequestration is the limited use of other strategies such as the integration of legumes or agroforestry species as intercrops in maize-based systems.

CA practitioners and Cheesman conduct bulk density sampling in Zidyana, Malawi, August 2011. Photo: Sign Phiri
CA practitioners and Cheesman conduct bulk density sampling in Zidyana, Malawi, August 2011. Photo: Sign Phiri

Q: Given the findings of this study, how can we increase soil carbon in Southern Africa in the future? Is conservation agriculture necessarily the answer?

A: Unfortunately, our study lacks initial carbon stock measurements, as this was tested on a very large set of on-farm trials and we never had enough financial resources to continuously test this from the onset. We could compare the difference between CA and CP but not how carbon stocks changed over time in the respective systems. Although some of the trial sites were up to seven years old, this is a comparably short time to increase the level of carbon in such environments. From other long-term studies (mainly in the Americas), we know that tillage-based agricultural systems decrease carbon stocks. Thus, I would say that a system like CA where tillage is reduced and residues are “fed” to the soil will more likely maintain soil carbon and maybe gradually increase it in the longer term. Tillage-based agricultural systems also have much higher soil erosion loads which further decreases carbon, so CA is definitely an answer to reduce soil degradation.

CIMMYT’s mission is to “sustainably” increase the productivity of maize- and wheat-based systems to reduce poverty and hunger. By combining improved varieties with sustainable intensification practices, CIMMYT does its best to give smallholder farmers options to improve their productivity and livelihoods. Feeding the soil with residues is one strategy to maintain or gradually increase soil carbon but we should not forget the immediate needs of farmers.

SIMLESA review finds many successes and major challenges

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Farmers selecting pigeon pea varieties at Msingisi village, Gairo district, through SIMLESA. Photo: CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes

On 16-31 October 2015, the Sustainable Intensification of Maize and Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project undertook a two-week long Mid-Term Review (MTR) of its agricultural research and development activities on station and on farm. SIMLESA undertook this review to assess project performance and recommend actions to refine activities. The last MTR was carried out in 2012.

To wrap up the review, a two-day meeting was held with the participation of 40 people, including representatives from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the national agricultural research systems (NARS) of Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, and Tanzania, and CIMMYT scientists from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.

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Agriculture ministers support policies to achieve Africa’s growth potential

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Participants in the SIMLESA high level policy forum in Entebbe, Uganda. Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT
Participants in the SIMLESA high level policy forum in Entebbe, Uganda.
Photo: Johnson Siamachira/CIMMYT

East and Southern African countries need to formulate and implement appropriate policies to help smallholder farmers access technologies that will enable them to increase farm yields and improve crop resilience and nutrition to address poverty, food security, and economic growth, renowned Zimbabwean agricultural economist and academic Mandivamba Rukuni told a high-level policy forum.

Delivering the keynote address at the SIMLESA policy forum co-organized by CIMMYT and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) in Entebbe, Uganda, on 27–28 October, Rukuni said this can only be achieved through a dramatic shift to help smallholder farmers produce sufficient food for themselves, plus generate income. “Such technologies include improved seed varieties and fertilizers, and better infrastructure, such as roads and small-scale irrigation,’’ said Rukuni. SIMLESA is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and implemented by CIMMYT.

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Supporting sustainable and scalable changes in cereal systems in South Asia

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Srikanth Kolari/CIMMYT
Srikanth Kolari/CIMMYT

The rates of growth of staple crop yields in South Asia are insufficient to meet the projected demands in the region. With 40 percent of the world’s poor living in South Asia, the area composed of eastern India, Bangladesh and Nepal has the largest concentration of impoverished and food insecure people worldwide. At the same time, issues of resource degradation, declining labor availability and climate change (frequent droughts and rising temperatures) pose considerable threats to increasing the productivity of farming systems and rural livelihoods. Thirty percent of South Asia’s wheat crop is likely to be lost due to higher temperatures by 2050, experts say.

“These ecologies are regionally important for several reasons,” said Andrew McDonald, Project Leader, Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia, CIMMYT. “First, they have a higher density of rural poverty and food insecurity than any other region. Second, yield gaps for cereal staples are higher here than elsewhere in South Asia – highlighting the significant growth potential in agriculture.”

According to McDonald, there has been some successes due to increased investment and focus on intensification in these areas over the past 10 years. A CIMMYT-led initiative, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) has contributed to major outcomes such as rapid uptake of early-planted wheat, the use of zero-tillage seed drills and long-duration, high-yielding wheat varieties in eastern India.

CSISA, in close collaboration with national partners, has been working in this region since 2009 to sustainably enhance the productivity of cereal-based cropping systems, as well as to improve the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers.

“Climate-resilient practices are gaining confidence in the areas we are working. More than 500,000 farmers adopted components of the early rice-wheat cropping system in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh last year,” said R.K. Malik, Senior Agronomist, CIMMYT. “Early sowing can protect the crop from late-season heat damage and increase yields. It’s a non-cash input that even smallholders can benefit from and is one of the most important adaptations to climate change in this region.”

To increase the spread of these innovations and increase farmers’ access to modern farming technologies, CSISA is working to strengthen the network of service providers.

“This region has a large number of smallholder farmers and ownership of machines by smallholders is often not economically viable,” highlighted Malik. “In Indian states of Bihar, Odisha and eastern Uttar Pradesh, CSISA has facilitated more than 2,100 progressive farmers to become local entrepreneurs through relevant skills, information and training during the last three years.”

The U.S. Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have recently approved Phase III of CSISA, running from December 2015 to November 2020. Building on the momentum and achievements of Phase I and II, Phase III will work to scale up innovations, strengthen local capacity and expand markets to support the widespread adoption of climate-resilient agricultural technologies in partnership with the national and developmental partners and key private sector actors.

“CSISA has made its mark as a ‘big tent’ initiative that closes gaps between research and delivery, and takes a systems approach that will continue to be leveraged in Phase III through strategic partnerships with national agricultural systems, extension systems and agricultural departments and with civil society and the private sector,” said McDonald.

Implemented jointly with International Rice Research Institute and International Food Policy Research Institute, the main four outcomes of Phase III focus on technology scaling, mainstreaming innovation into national systems, development of research-based products and reforming policies for faster technology adoption.

Photo Feature: Major Impacts of CSISA

Global conference underscores complex socio-economic role of wheat

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plant-specimensSYDNEY, Australia, October 9 (CIMMYT) – A recent gathering of more than 600 international scientists highlighted the complexity of wheat as a crop and emphasized the key role wheat research plays in ensuring global food security now and in the future.

Specialist scientists and other members of the global wheat community attended two back-to-back wheat symposiums stretching over nine days from September 17 to 25 in Sydney, Australia. The first, a workshop hosted by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), focused on Ug99 wheat rust disease. At the second, the five-day International Wheat Conference, which is held every five years, scientists dissected topics ranging from the intricate inner workings of the wheat genome to nutritional misrepresentations of wheat in the popular media.

Hans Braun, head of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the CGIAR Wheat Research Program, delivered a keynote presentation focused on new research, which shows that about 70 percent of spring bread and durum wheat varieties released in developing countries over the 20-year period between 1994 and 2014 were bred or are derived from wheat lines developed by scientists working for the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers. On a global basis, more than 60 percent of the released varieties are related to CIMMYT or International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) germplasm.

Benefits of CGIAR wheat improvement research, conducted mainly by CIMMYT and ICARDA, range from $2.8 billion to $3.8 billion a year, he said, highlighting the economic benefits of international collaboration in wheat improvement research.

“Investment in agricultural research pays a huge dividend,” said Martin Kropff, CIMMYT’s director general, during a keynote address. “Investment in public research is a ‘triple win,’ leading to more food and income for the rural poor, lower prices for the urban poor, and extra stability and income for farmers in developed donor countries such as Australia, where gains are tens of millions a year.”

Bram Govaerts, who heads sustainable intensification efforts for CIMMYT in Latin America and leads the MasAgro project, demonstrated how minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and crop rotation can simultaneously boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. Under MasAgro, some 400,000 hectares have been planted using improved technologies and agronomic practices; more than 200,000 producers are involved, of which 21 percent are women.

Sanjaya Rajaram, former CIMMYT wheat program director and 2014 World Food Prize laureate, described how wheat production must increase from the current 700 million metric tons a year to 1 billion metric tons a year by 2050 in order to keep up with population growth. Wheat currently provides 20 percent of calories and 20 percent of protein in the global human diet, he said, adding that the world’s food supply also faces the threat of climate-change related global warming.

“To date, scientists have been unable to sufficiently increase yields to meet demand through hybridization,” Rajaram said. “It’s time to invest in biotechnology to ensure yields can provide nourishment for an ever-hungrier planet. Simultaneously, we must maintain balance in the food chain and restore depleted carbon in the soil. Such concerns as disease resilience, seed diversity, water management and micronutrient imbalance must also be tackled.”

Ethiopia-based CIMMYT scientist David Hodson provided a retrospective on 10 years of Ug99 stem rust surveillance, while Kenya-based CIMMYT scientist Sridhar Bhavani provided an overview of progress made in breeding durable adult plant resistance to rust diseases and combining rust resistance in high yielding backgrounds over the past decade.

The Ug99 virulent disease threatens food security as it creeps steadily from its origin in Uganda towards the breadbasket regions of Asia.

“Technology can help us fight Ug99 stem rust, but we’re always going to need good field pathologists and researchers on the ground,” said Hodson, who also runs the Rust Tracker website.

Despite efforts to develop wheat that is resistant to damaging stem, stripe, and leaf rusts, these diseases, which have existed for 10,000 years, will continue to thwart scientists, said Philip Pardey, a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, adding that the annual global investment in wheat rust research should be $108 million a year in perpetuity.

Pardey determined in a recent study that global losses from all three rusts average at least 15.04 tons a year, equivalent to an average annual loss of about $2.9 billion.

Jessica Rutkoski, a quantitative geneticist who works as an adjunct associate scientist at CIMMYT and an assistant professor at Cornell University, discussed the implications of new technologies for more durable resistance to rust.

Wheat physiology was also under discussion, with CIMMYT physiologists Matthew Reynolds and Gemma Molero delivering presentations on phenotyping, pre-breeding strategies, genetic gains, and spike photosynthesis. Their work also involves the use of ancient landraces, which may hold the secret to creating wheat resilient to global warming caused by climate change.

CIMMYT’s Alexey Morgunov demonstrated how a number of ancient landrace genotypes grown by farmers in Turkey have shown signs that they are resistant to abiotic and biotic stresses, which could help in the development of heat and disease resistant wheat varieties.

CIMMYT’s Zhonghu He discussed progress on wheat production and genetic improvement in China, while Sukhwinder Singh described his work characterizing gene bank biodiversity and mobilizing useful genetic variation – pre-breeding – into elite breeding lines. Bhoja Basnet covered hybrid wheat breeding at CIMMYT.

A session on nutrition and wheat targeted some of the myths swirling around wheat and gluten. CIMMYT’s Velu Govindan gave an update on his research into breeding and delivering biofortified high zinc wheat varieties to farmers. Zinc deficiency limits childhood growth and decreases resistance to infections.

Kropff also delivered a keynote presentation on wheat and the role of gender in the developing world, which preceded the BGRI Women in Triticum Awards, presented by Jeanie Borlaug Laube, daughter of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate and CIMMYT wheat breeder Norman Borlaug.

Kropff explained that each component of the strategy for research into wheat farming systems at CIMMYT includes a gender dimension, whether it is focused on improving the evidence base, responding to the fact that both women and men can be end users and beneficiaries of new seeds and other technologies, or ensuring that gender is considered part of capacity-building efforts.

Bekele Abeyo, CIMMYT wheat breeder and pathologist for sub-Saharan Africa, won a $100 prize in the BGRI poster competition for his poster explaining the performance of CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties in Ethiopia.

A team of Kenyan scientists were recognized for their contribution to the protection of the global wheat supply from Ug99 stem rust disease. Plant pathologist Ruth Wanyera and wheat breeders Godwin Macharia and Peter Njau of the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization received the 2015 BGRI Gene Stewardship Award.

New extension agents to promote sustainable agriculture in northern Mexico

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Course participants receiving their certificates. Photo credit : Luz Paola López Amezcua/CIMMYT
Course participants receiving their certificates.
Photo credit : Luz Paola López Amezcua/CIMMYT

After finishing a course they started in April 2014 and obtaining their official certification, 39 extension agents from the states of Sonora and Sinaloa in Mexico’s northern Pacific region had their graduation ceremony and joined MasAgro’s innovation and extension network as certified technicians in sustainable agriculture. The ceremony took place on 9-10 September during the International Sustainable Agriculture Forum in Ciudad Obregón, an event that seeks to drive the region’s efforts and resources and which in 2015 is focusing on climate change and water management related issues.

To become a certified technician in sustainable agriculture, candidates must take an intensive one-year course that includes regular theoretical and practical instruction given by national and international experts. The goal is to develop the future technicians’ abilities and skills in preparation for their role as agents of change as part of MasAgro’s extension strategy, which includes delivering to farmers practices that increase their income, help improve their food security, and protect the environment.

The 39 extension agents in northern Mexico who were certified as technicians in sustainable agriculture. Photo credit : Luz Paola López Amezcua/CIMMYT
The 39 extension agents in northern Mexico who were certified as technicians in sustainable agriculture. Photo credit : Luz Paola López Amezcua/CIMMYT

During the ceremony Bram Govaerts, Associate Director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, said he was very proud of the technicians’ efforts and work, and highlighted the crucial role Mexico is playing in the development of a more sustainable agriculture. “If there is a country that is an example of the agricultural sector driving the economy, if there is a country that can incorporate the different actors into the production chain in order to foster sustainable production, it’s Mexico. And that’s because Mexico has the talent needed to achieve this.” The graduates were given their certificates by representatives of the Mexican Government who presided at the event.

The newly certified extension agents in Sonora and Sinaloa will become promoters of the hub participative model, which aims at establishing links with public and private actors, and will work in the affected areas of the northern Pacific region, which in 2014 totaled 1,821 ha.

Green manure crop cover reduces need for mineral fertilizer in Africa

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Velvet bean planted in rotation with maize increases soil fertility, provides biomass for feed and suppresses weeds in Chipata, Zambia. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT.
Velvet bean planted in rotation with maize increases soil fertility, provides biomass for feed and suppresses weeds in Chipata, Zambia. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT.

It is widely accepted that improved maize germplasm will only express its yield potential under optimum agronomic management such as timely planting, optimal plant/space arrangements, and timely weed and pest control. But perhaps the most important agronomic intervention is adequate fertilization. Although farmers in Europe and America have used mineral fertilizers for generations, these have become available in Africa only relatively recently. However, the excessive use of mineral fertilizer in Europe and America has led to water pollution and eutrophication, and has increased the energy requirements of the fertilizer production process.

In Africa, mineral fertilizer remains a scarce, expensive and risky resource for most smallholder farmers. On average, farmers use less than 10 kg/ha of NPK fertilizer, and many do not apply it at all. The price of fertilizer is 3-5 times higher in Africa than in Europe due to the lack of infrastructure and production facilities, often making it unaffordable for farmers. Fertilizer is primarily applied to higher value and horticulture crops that, unlike maize, give farmers greater return on their investment.

Many farmers in southern Africa plant maize extensively on large areas, harvest less than 1 t/ha on average and mine already depleted nutrients from the soil while trying to become food secure and escape from poverty – an impossible task! But farmers are now being offered a range of solutions that provide a way out of the poverty trap, such as improved drought and stress tolerant maize germplasm, conservation agriculture (CA), improved rotation systems with legumes and green manure cover crops.

The use of CA principles (minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through rotation and intercropping) hinges on the ability of farmers to retain sufficient surface crop residues to protect the soil from heavy rain, evaporation and sunlight. However, farmers in mixed crop/livestock systems face competing demands for these residues because they also feed them to their animals.

It is against this background that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) involved CIMMYT in a small project aimed at introducing green manures to smallholder farmers in eastern Zambia and central and southern Malawi. Green manures are grown primarily to improve the soil, generate biomass for ground cover and provide fodder; some also produce grain for feed and food.

In Lilongwe District, Malawi, farmer Bikoni Yohane and wife Esnart proudly present their maize-cowpea intercropped field, which will produce grain and leaves for home consumption and im-prove soil fertility. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT.

A range of varieties have been tested by the Global Conservation Agriculture Program over the past five years. Crops such as velvet bean, lablab, cowpea, sunnhemp, jackbean, pigeonpea and groundnuts have been identified as viable options with great potential for smallholders. They provide 5-50 t/ha of extra biomass for groundcover and/or fodder, leave 50-350 kg/ha of residual nitrogen in the soil and do not need extra fertilizer to grow. The new project is testing these species in full rotation or intercropped with maize on farmers’ fields in the three project regions. To increase adoption, the project is using an intensive participatory process to adapt the green manures to smallholder conditions.

This initiative is not the only one where CIMMYT has been involved with green manure cover crops: in northern Mozambique, a collaboration with CARE International reports that yield increased from 4 t/ha to 13 t/ha by only using lab-lab and improved germplasm in cassava-based CA systems. The ACIAR-funded ZimCLIFFS project in Zimbabwe was also very successful in growing lablab and velvet beans to generate supplementary fodder for livestock during the dry winter period.

Through innovative approaches, CIMMYT will further explore new ways of integrating green manures into smallholder farming systems so they become the status quo, not just an option!

Minimizing yield losses via conservation agriculture

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Last year, climatic variability such as untimely rainfall was devastating in northwest India. Mid-season rainfall resulted in massive yield losses during winter 2014-15. Starting that season, a case study of wheat adaptation to climatic risks was undertaken in Karnal by Sakshi Baliyan, a young female student, as an internship project under CIMMYT-CCAFS. The project aimed to evaluate yield losses as evidence of the difference zero till makes in coping with unseasonable rainfall.

The study focused on the vulnerability of wheat yields to untimely mid-season rainfall by comparing conventional vs. conservation agriculture (CA) practices. To construct the database, during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 winter seasons, wheat yield data were collected from 100 randomly selected farmers who produced wheat using conventional tillage and conservation agriculture in 14 climate-smart villages (CSVs) in the Karnal district of Haryana.

The results revealed that CA-based systems produced higher wheat yields (6% higher in 2013-14 and 13% higher in 2014-15) than conventional tillage systems. The study also found that farmers who practiced conventional tillage during winter 2014-15, which had untimely heavy rains, averaged a 19% yield loss, whereas those practicing CA averaged a yield loss of only 10% in the same locations.

These interesting results indicate that the next step should be to introduce climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) in policy decision making. A more in-depth study should be undertaken to verify the results and establish environmentally and farmer friendly policies at the state and national levels. Policies that calculate subsidies and compensations considering the agricultural practices used by farmers are required to motivate them to adopt CSAPs. This will not only reduce losses in times of uncertainty, but also generate gains in favorable times.