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Theme: Nutrition, health and food security

As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to two-thirds of the world’s food energy intake, and contributing 55 to 70 percent of the total calories in the diets of people living in developing countries, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. CIMMYT scientists tackle food insecurity through improved nutrient-rich, high-yielding varieties and sustainable agronomic practices, ensuring that those who most depend on agriculture have enough to make a living and feed their families. The U.N. projects that the global population will increase to more than 9 billion people by 2050, which means that the successes and failures of wheat and maize farmers will continue to have a crucial impact on food security. Findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which show heat waves could occur more often and mean global surface temperatures could rise by up to 5 degrees Celsius throughout the century, indicate that increasing yield alone will be insufficient to meet future demand for food.

Achieving widespread food and nutritional security for the world’s poorest people is more complex than simply boosting production. Biofortification of maize and wheat helps increase the vitamins and minerals in these key crops. CIMMYT helps families grow and eat provitamin A enriched maize, zinc-enhanced maize and wheat varieties, and quality protein maize. CIMMYT also works on improving food health and safety, by reducing mycotoxin levels in the global food chain. Mycotoxins are produced by fungi that colonize in food crops, and cause health problems or even death in humans or animals. Worldwide, CIMMYT helps train food processors to reduce fungal contamination in maize, and promotes affordable technologies and training to detect mycotoxins and reduce exposure.

Smallholder maize farmers in Zimbabwe lack knowledge of open-pollinated varieties

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 5, May 2007

OPVs perform as well as hybrids or better under the low-input conditions of many smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, but farmers need information and training about how properly to use them.

A new study to assess the effectiveness of a large-scale maize seed relief effort in Zimbabwe during 2003-07 shows that, even among vulnerable, small-scale farmers living on the edge of survival under the most difficult conditions, a livelihood-saving technology like quality seed of open-pollinated maize varieties (OPVs) is not enough, without knowledge about how best to use it.

Farmers can save grain of OPVs from their harvest and sow it the following year without the yield or other qualities of the variety diminishing substantially. Hybrids normally yield more than OPVs under favorable conditions, but “recycling” the seed in subsequent seasons will result in a significant loss of that yield and of other advantages; farmers must purchase fresh seed each season to retain them. “Zimbabwe farmers have historically favored hybrids, and they have limited knowledge about OPVs,” says Augustine Langyintuo, CIMMYT socioeconomist and lead author of the study. “Changing economic circumstances in the country have meant that many farmers can no longer purchase fertilizer to take best advantage of hybrid yield potential. We interviewed 597 households in 6 districts of Zimbabwe where a major seed-relief effort had, among other aims, promoted the broader diffusion of OPVs over hybrids, thereby giving smallholder farmers the possibility to save and re-use their own seed without sacrificing their meager yields.”

The seed aid effort, which was funded by British Department for International Development (DfID) and coordinated by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) regional office in Harare, enlisted the assistance of 16 non-government organizations (NGOs) to distribute improved maize seed to more than 25,000 needy farmers. “The average household size in our survey group was 6.5 members, supported by a cultivated farm size of just 1.7 hectares, over 60% of which is planted to maize,” says Langyintuo. “Nearly a third of the households were headed by widowed females, a factor highly correlated with poverty.”

Under the relief program, the NGOs were expected to inform farmers of the types of seed being distributed and the need to select, store, and re-use the seed properly in subsequent seasons. Less than half the beneficiaries in the first year of the program were informed of the type of seeds to be provided, although the proportion increased to more than 60% over time. Information on OPVs was limited to the fact that they can be recycled. Less than half were ever taught how to select or store their seed.

According to Langyintuo, many farmers continue to recycle hybrids, or improperly select OPV grain for future use as seed, or—in the worst cases—eat all their grain and hope for another aid shipment to sow next year. “The relatively well-endowed farmers were more willing to recycle OPV seed. In future efforts, NGOs should perhaps target them to ensure larger-scale spillovers,” he says. “In general, whoever distributes seed of improved OPVs should provide information on proper seed selection and follow up with field-level training. Farmers should also be involved in the choice of the varieties.”

Another key issue to grapple with is the unavailability of OPV seed on the market. This stems from the unwillingness of seed companies to develop and promote OPVs, given the perception that farmers will simply recycle them and never buy fresh seed. “Zimbabwe farmers recycle both OPVs and hybrids, but if given a choice, they will purchase fresh seed whenever they can,” says Langyintuo. “OPVs perform as well as hybrids or better under the low-input conditions of many smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, so they constitute a good option for such farmers.”

You can view or download the study “Assessment of the effectiveness of maize seed assistance to vulnerable farm households in Zimbabwe.”

For more information: Augustine Langyintuo, socioeconomist (a.langyintuo@cgiar.org)

Global partnership protects Africa’s maize from parasitic plant

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 9, September 2008

sep01Looks can deceive. Striga, a deadly parasitic plant, produces a lovely flower but sucks the life and yields out of crops across Africa and Asia. A new strain of improved maize seed is helping farmers reclaim their invaded crop lands.

Striga, which typically attacks cereal crops, launches its takeover from the ground up: its deadly seedlings attach to sprouting maize plants and begin siphoning off water and nutrients before either plant emerges from the soil. The parasite also poisons its host, further stifling crop development.

Worse, Striga seems to seek out the farmers least suited to control it.

“Striga thrives in low-fertility soils, which are typically owned by the poorest farmers,” says Fred Kanampiu, CIMMYT maize agronomist. National experts estimate 14% of the maize area in sub-Saharan Africa is infested with Striga, amounting to 3.64 million hectares.

Big benefits seen for Kenya

Work by a multilateral partnership has resulted in a promising Striga control measure that has recently started moving from the laboratory to farmers’ fields. The practice is based on a type of maize with a natural mutation that allows it to resist the chemical imidazolinone—active ingredient in many herbicides. Seeds of this imidazolinone-resistant (IR) maize are coated with a herbicide and, when sown, the coated seed kills sprouting Striga, allowing the crop to flourish.

“Economic studies estimate that if a third of the Striga-infested area were planted with herbicide-coated seed, benefits to farmers in Kenya would be between USD 51 million and 102 million, after production costs,” says Kanampiu, who coordinates the Striga Management Project. “This would be topped off by a yield effect of similar magnitude, because the herbicide resistance comes in seed of improved, locally-adapted varieties.”

A complex, multilateral effort

The idea of using herbicide-resistant maize to control Striga was first proposed by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in the 1990s. CIMMYT worked with that organization, as well as the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), BASF, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), non-governmental organizations, and seed companies including Pioneer to develop, evaluate, and spread the practice, particularly among small-scale farmers for whom other control methods, such as spraying, are expensive or impractical. A key part of the work involved developing high-yielding, locally-adapted maize varieties that were also herbicide tolerant. The coating method was fine-tuned by Weizmann and the company Hi-Cap Formulations.

Support for more recent tests and promotion came from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Rockefeller Foundation. By 2006 CIMMYT and KARI scientists had provided almost 300 herbicide-tolerant maize varieties for regional testing. Studies in randomly-selected farmers’ fields showed that with 30 grams (a little more than 1 ounce) of imazapyr herbicide per hectare as a seed coat in heavily infested fields, Striga was reduced by 81% and farmers enjoyed a 63% net return.

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Striga meets its match

“The IR-maize reduces the Striga seed bank in the soil, lessening the need for future Striga control measures,” says Gospel Omanya, a Stewardship Manager from AATF, which is leading region-wide public awareness campaigns, field testing, and risk assessment. In addition, smallholder farmers who have tested the new maize and seed-coating practice on their land have obtained as much as a five-fold increase in grain yield.

Positive results like these led to the release of five IR varieties to farmers in Kenya, and nine other varieties are in performance evaluations for eventual release in Tanzania and Uganda.

More than 50,000 packages of IR-maize seed were distributed to farmers at 140 locations in Kenya for comparison with other Striga control practices. AATF surveyed more than 5,000 farmers and found they overwhelming favored the IR-maize seed. At least 10 seed companies, including Western Seed Company in Kenya and Tanseed International in Tanzania, are using IR maize and 60 tons of certified seed were marketed during 2007-2008.

“It was years of intense research and collaboration between partners dedicated to a unified objective, in addition to a willingness to invest human and financial resources, that allowed this concept to become a reality,” says Kanampiu. “The practice offers real, life-changing benefits for subsistence farmers like many in western Kenya, who tend 1.5 hectare plots of mostly maize just to feed their families. Their crops are normally so decimated by Striga that they harvest barely enough.”

Meanwhile, CIMMYT is working with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), a leader in the effort to identify and breed maize strains that contain genetic resistance to Striga. The aim is to offer farmers yet another way of controlling this lovely but lethal pest.

For more information, contact Fred Kanampiu (f.kanampiu@cgiar.org).

A model project

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 3, March 2006

 

Donors and farmers agree – Project gets high marks for important work

The Africa Maize Stress project (AMS), in which CIMMYT is a key partner, was termed “A flagship project” in a recently completed review. A three-member panel from the German Corporation for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) spent the week from 24 February–1 March with AMS staff and partners, to assess the performance of the project’s work from 2003-20005 and make recommendations for its future direction. Two of the six days were spent on field visits to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute’s (KARI) Embu Center, one of the project’s major maize breeding sites; Bar Sauri Millennium Village, a beneficiary of AMS maize varieties; and Western Seed Company, a local seed enterprise that is multiplying and marketing the varieties.

Team leader, Dr. Manfed van Eckert, said the reviewers saw in AMS, qualities that could serve as a model for similar multi-faceted projects in Africa. Among these were the “excellent working relations with national partners, and the Eastern and Central African Maize and Wheat (ECAMAW) Research Network.”

The review congratulated CIMMYT maize breeder and AMS project coordinator Alpha Diallo for his management of the complex, multi-donor funded, partnership project. AMS is supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the Rockefeller Foundation, and works with national agricultural research systems (NARS), NGOs and seed companies in 10 eastern and central African countries.

Review team member Jeffrey Luhanga commented that all too often breeders’ improved varieties “sit on the shelf for lack of solid partnerships with the seed sector. But this project’s successes are having a direct bearing on household nutrition, and especially on weanling children, among the most vulnerable people in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The dramatic quadrupling of maize yields recorded in 2005 at the Sauri Millennium village illustrates the point.

“The program has gone to the grassroots level; it is benefiting the people of Africa. Congratulations!” said van Eckert.

The Africa Maize Stress project is developing maize varieties that are tolerant to drought, low soil fertility, Striga weed, and endemic pests and diseases (maize streak virus, blight, and grey leaf spot), and is working with local partners to ensure that these varieties reach resource-poor farmers in its mandate regions. The project’s current phase is stepping up the development of imidazolinone-resistant (IR) maize varieties for Striga weed control, and quality protein maize (QPM) suited for African ecologies.

The GTZ team recommended that in its next phase, AMS advance current activities, but also broaden its geographical horizons, through strategic partnerships in “
war-torn areas in Southern Sudan and Somalia,” and “investigate sustainable financing options for maize breeding programs in the region.”

Other partners in the project include the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and national research programs like KARI in Kenya.

For more information contact Alpha Diallo (a.diallo@cgiar.org)

Improved maize varieties and partnerships welcomed in Bhutan

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 11, November 2008

nov02Sandwiched between China and India, the Kingdom of Bhutan is a small country that relies on maize in a big way. But maize yields are typically low due to crop diseases, drought, and poor access to seed of improved varieties, among other reasons. CIMMYT is committed to improving Bhutan’s food security by providing high-yielding, pest-resistant maize varieties to farmers and capacity-building for local scientists.

“If there is no maize there is nothing to eat,” says Mr. S. Naitein, who farms maize on half a hectare of land in Bhutan. But it’s not easy to grow, he says, citing challenges such as animals (monkeys and wild boars), insects, poor soil fertility, drought, poor access to improved seed varieties, and crop diseases like gray leaf spot (GLS) and turcicum leaf blight (TLB).

But since planting Yangtsipa—an improved maize variety derived from Suwan-1, a variety introduced from CIMMYT’s former regional maize program in Thailand—Naitein has seen a real improvement in his maize yields. The local maize variety yielded 1,700 kilograms per hectare, whereas Yangtsipa gave him 2,400 kilograms per hectare, a 40% yield increase.

“It’s no wonder that Yangtsipa is by far the most popular improved variety among Bhutanese farmers,” says Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, CIMMYT regional cereal breeder posted in Nepal. “Nonetheless, many local varieties of maize still occupy large areas of the country and don’t yield well.”

Maize is a staple food in Bhutan. Many people eat Tengma (pounded maize) as a snack with a cup of tea and Kharang (maize grits) are also popular. “Among the food crops, maize plays a critical role in household food security, especially for the poor,” says Ortiz-Ferrara. About 38% of the rural Bhutanese population lives below the poverty line and some 37,000 households cultivate maize. It’s estimated that 80% of this maize is consumed at the household level, according to Bhutan’s Renewable Natural Resources Research Center (RNRRC).

Leaf us alone: CIMMYT maize varieties help combat foliar diseases

Many farmers in Bhutan have been struggling with crop diseases that cut maize yields. “The recent outbreak of gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight affected 4,193 households and destroyed over 1,940 hectares of maize crop,” says Thakur Prasad Tiwari, agronomist with CIMMYT-Nepal. He estimates that maize is grown on 31,160 hectares in the country.

Gray leaf spot is a devastating leaf disease that is spreading fast in the hills of Bhutan and Nepal. To deal with this threat, CIMMYT sent more than 75 maize varieties with possible resistance to GLS and TLB to Bhutan in 2007. Tapping into the resources of its global network of research stations, CIMMYT sent seed from Colombia, Zimbabwe, and Mexico that was planted in GLS and TLB ‘hot spot’ locations in the country.

Ortiz-Ferrara and Tiwari then worked with Tirtha Katwal, national maize coordinator-Bhutan, and his team to evaluate these materials for their resistance.

“Together we identified the top performing lines for gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight which will be excellent candidates for Bhutan’s maize breeding program,” says Ortiz-Ferrara. “We are now combining their disease resistance with Yangtsipa, because we know it is high-yielding and well-adapted to Bhutan.”

Kevin Pixley, associate director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, helped to develop a detailed breeding scheme or work plan for Bhutan’s national GLS breeding program. “We want to provide capacity-building for local maize scientists so they themselves can identify and breed varieties that show resistance to crop diseases,” he says.

“We feel more confident in moving forward with the next steps in our breeding program,” said Katwal. He and his team also attended a training course on seed production, de-tasselling, and pollination given by Dr. K.K. Lal, former CIMMYT maize trainee and former chief of the Seed Quality Control Center at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) in Nepal.

nov03

That’s what friends are for: CIMMYT, Nepal, and Bhutan collaboration

In 2001, Bhutan began collaborating on maize research with CIMMYT-Nepal, the National Maize Research Program (NMRP) of Nepal, and the Hill Maize Research project (HMRP) funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Nepal. The terrain and agro-climatic conditions of Bhutan and the Nepalese highland are similar, meaning that technologies adapted for Nepal will likely work well in neighboring Bhutan.

CIMMYT aims to facilitate regional and national partnerships that benefit farmers. For instance, during the past 7 years CIMMYT-Nepal has worked with NMRP and RNRRP to introduce 12 open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) to Bhutan. These modern varieties yield more than the local varieties whose seed farmers save to sow from year to year. Included in these 12 OPVs were several quality protein maize (QPM) varieties; these have nearly twice as much usable protein as other traditional varieties of maize.

nov04“Our CIMMYT office in Nepal has assisted Bhutan with maize and wheat genetic material, technical backstopping, training, visiting scientist exchange, and in identifying key consultants on research topics such as grey leaf spot and seed production,” says Tiwari.

Simply put, CIMMYT has useful contacts. For example, at the request of Bhutan’s Renewable Natural Resources Research Center (RNRRC), CIMMYT-Nepal put forward Dr. Carlos De Leon, former CIMMYT regional maize pathologist, to conduct a course on identifying and controlling maize diseases in February 2007. In September 2008, CIMMYT and HMRP also recommended two researchers (Dr. K.B. Koirala and Mr. Govinda K.C.) from Nepal’s NMRP to give a course on farmer participatory research that has been successful in the dissemination of new technologies.

“Ultimately, our goal is to improve the food security and livelihood of rural households through increased productivity and sustainability of the maize-based cropping system,” says Thakur Prasad Tiwari.

For information: Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, cereal breeder, CIMMYT-Nepal (g.ortiz-ferrara@cgiar.org) or Thakur Prasad Tiwari, agronomist, CIMMYT-Nepal (tptiwari@mos.com.np)

Gap filler

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 3, March 2006

Triticale finds a niche in Bangladesh

“This is just what I was looking for,” says Al Mahmoud Hasan, a farmer near the town or Rangpur in Bangladesh. “I wanted a crop to fill the fallow gap between the rice crops.”

In Bangladesh rice is king, with farmers often growing two rice crops a year. Now, in a pilot project funded by the Danish development agency, Danida, a new crop is making its debut. The aim of the on-farm trials is to see if triticale can make a difference in the lives of Bangladeshi farm families who keep dairy cattle.

Triticale is a cross between wheat and rye that CIMMYT researchers and partners have improved and promoted over recent decades. It makes good animal fodder because its leaves and stem are high in protein. In Bangladesh triticale was virtually unknown. Cows can eat Napier grass when it is in season but feed mostly on a diet of dry rice straw, a poor quality fodder. CIMMYT researchers realized that even in the intense cropping system in Bangladesh, there might be room for triticale as a high-quality cattle forage, filling a gap in the cropping season and a gap in cattle diets.

During the rainy season virtually every farmer in Bangladesh grows aman or monsoon rice. Then during the dry season they usually grow another rice crop (called boro), wheat, or even tobacco. Triticale can fit that second crop niche. The idea is to plant triticale as early as possible after the rice harvest and then cut it at 30 days and again at 50 days. The green cuttings are used as fodder. When the crop does mature, the grain can be used to feed chickens or ground and combined with wheat flour for Chapatti, the standard flat bread of south Asia.

Rokeya Begum has cash and 20% more milk from triticale-fed cows.

Farmers who grow two full rice crops also have an option with triticale. That is because there is a 60 day fallow period between the two rice crops. It isn’t enough time for triticale to mature and produce grain, but it is long enough to produce good green fodder. That is exactly what Al Mahmoud Hasan is doing. He and his family were among 120 households participating in the trials throughout Bangladesh. He, his wife and his two oldest children received instruction in triticale cultivation as part of a whole family training system organized by CIMMYT and partners.

Participation and training has paid off for other farmers, including Rokeya Begum and her family. She sold her first triticale cut to neighbors and used the money to buy new clothes for an important religious festival. Mrs Begum also says her cows are giving 20% more milk on triticale than they did on a diet of rice straw.

The triticale seed for the trials came from CIMMYT in Mexico. The one-year pilot project is near its end and the data are not yet analyzed but reports from participating farmers are encouraging. Many like Mrs. Begum say their neighbors will buy seed from them for next season so they too can try triticale.

For further information contact Stephen Waddington (s.waddington@cgiar.org)

Maize without borders: Reforming maize seed sector policies to meet farmers’ needs in Africa

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 10, October 2008

Senior policy makers from sub-Saharan Africa have recently made recommendations for policy actions to reform operations in the maize seed sector. At stake is better access for millions of small-scale farmers to affordable, quality seed of maize, the region’s food staple. CIMMYT is closely involved.

oct01In the 2006-07 cropping season, 82 registered maize seed companies produced the bulk of just over 100,000 tons of improved maize seed that were marketed in the major maize producing countries of eastern and southern Africa (excluding South Africa) — enough to sow 35% of the maize land in those countries.

A recent CIMMYT study found that restrictive national policies, lack of credit opportunities, inadequate seed production capacities, insufficient numbers of recently released public sector varieties, and challenging marketing situations were the main reasons why maize seed sector growth is slow in many African countries. Worse, this situation contributes significantly to Africa’s poor food security and farm incomes.

“The good news is that we have today four times more seed companies than ten years ago and they have increased seed provision from 26% to 35% of the total planted maize area,” says CIMMYT socioeconomist Augustine Langyintuo. “Yet there is still a significant, unmet demand for seed, and this underscores the need for new policies that support efficient seed production, processing, and marketing.”

In 2007 Langyintuo led the above-mentioned study to characterize seed providers and bottlenecks to seed supplies in eastern and southern Africa. A total of 117 representatives from seed companies, national research programs, and CBOs/NGOs participated, and information was gathered on the seed sectors in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

In July 2008, more than 60 senior policy makers from agriculture ministries, private seed companies, seed trade associations, and regional trade blocs from 13 sub-Saharan African countries met in Nairobi, Kenya and recommended ways to improve farmers’ access to seed of improved drought tolerant maize varieties through specific policy actions to enhance the production, release, and marketing of these varieties. They agreed with the findings of the 2007 seed sector study.

Understanding the hurdles

The main findings were that investment capital requirements and a shortage of qualified staff hinder the growth of small, local seed companies that have emerged over the past decade, according to Langyintuo. “The costs of setting up and running an office, recruiting and retaining qualified personnel, and procuring and operating production, processing, and storage facilities are beyond what many local businesses can afford, and access to operational credit is limited or nil,” he says.

oct02

Up to 60% of a seed company’s operational budget goes into seed production. Seed companies, therefore, need affordable credit over the mid-to-long term to produce enough seed to meet farmers’ needs. Marketing seed is also costly. “Most companies rely on third-party agents such as agro-dealers, large retail stores, NGOs, or the government to retail most of their seed,” says Langyintuo. “The majority of the agro-dealers lack funds to purchase seed, and so must take it on consignment, forcing companies to retrieve unsold seed at cost. The dealers are normally not knowledgeable enough about the seed they sell to promote it effectively, and some of them have also been known to adulterate seed with mere grain.”

Other hurdles identified include cumbersome varietal release, registration, and seed certification regulations, as well as a weak producer base, slow access to the best germplasm, uncompetitive prices in local grain markets, low adoption rates of improved varieties, restrictions on cross-border trade in seed, and poor infrastructure (such as bad roads and inadequate storage facilities).

Policy actions needed

To get farmers the seed they want will involve a range of players in the maize seed sector and calls for specific policy actions. Participants in the July 2008 meeting identified ways in which governments and international centers like CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) can assist and support current seed companies to improve their seed outputs and profits.

“The government is supporting the maize seed sector through initiatives such as increasing investments in agricultural research and extension, training of agro-dealers, and developing the National Seed Industry Policy,” confirms Kenya’s Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Japheth Mbiuki.

“Seed companies would benefit from access to a wider range of improved maize varieties, good seed production sites, affordable inputs, and training in effective business practices,” adds Langyintuo. CIMMYT normally distributes its experimental varieties freely to everyone, but granting companies some degree of exclusivity in their use would facilitate branding and promote sales. This would have to be tailored to specific country and company contexts, according to Langyintuo.

Maize seed without borders

No country is an island, and with increasing regional integration of economies around the world, it makes sense that the region should move as one in developing its maize seed sector. Regional trade blocs such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) are key. “Specific actions and commitments by national governments include dedicating increased funds (at least 10% of their national budgets) for agricultural development and harmonization of regional seed regulations,” says Ambassador Nagla El-Hussainy, COMESA Assistant Secretary General. “This will improve rates of variety release, lower costs in dealing with regulatory authorities, increase trade in seed of improved varieties and, ultimately, adoption by farmers.” In East Africa, for instance, the national seed policies of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are at various stages of development and are set to be harmonized soon.

“Effective trade and risk management strategies that buffer seed supply within countries are needed to stabilize and increase maize production in the region,” says Marianne BĂ€nziger, CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director. “These will mitigate the impact of drought and national production fluctuations, which are some of the harsh realities that farmers and consumers face.”

“Where applicable, carrying out the distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) tests alongside national performance trials (NPT) could speed up varietal releases,” adds Langyintuo. “Farmers’ awareness of the usefulness and availability of new varieties can be raised through improved extension message delivery, widespread demonstrations, and better retail networks.”

According to Richard Amoussou, an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in Benin: “The links between (community-based) seed producers and seed companies should be strengthened through contracts. This will ensure that quality seed is produced and sold to seed companies, who must finally distribute the seed to the farmers, thus improving their access.”

“Streamlining the seed sector will directly benefit the productivity and incomes of small-scale farmers and result in more and more affordable food for consumers – significant in the current global food crisis,” concludes BĂ€nziger. She says this is crucial, given the twin challenges of the global food price crisis and more frequent droughts due to climate change.

For more information: Augustine Langyintuo, socioeconomist (a.langyintuo@cgiar.org)

I have farmed forever

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June, 2005

How quality protein maize is changing lives in one Indonesian village.

“I have farmed forever,” says Yasam Saanim. He works the steep slopes of the mountainous land near the village of Carin on the Indonesian island of Java. From childhood his life has been one of hard labor with little reward. He and his wife struggled to raise seven children on their tiny piece of rented land. With no money of his own Yasam has to borrow from the landowner every year to buy fertilizer for his third of a hectare of rice. He also grows a few bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, and durian, a pungent Southeast Asian delicacy. In return he pays the landowner 180 kg of rice at harvest. He does not think it is a fair deal but says he has no choice. The family survives but Yasam has never had money. It has been that way all his life.

Now, at the age of seventy, he finally sees some light in the seemingly endless tunnel of hopelessness that has been his lot as a tenant farmer.

The landowner has decided to plant maize—in particular, quality protein maize—on 1.2 hectares of land adjacent to Yasam’s. Quality protein maize is a high lysine and tryptophan type developed by CIMMYT. It can enhance the nutrition of the poor whose diets depend heavily on maize and raise the quality of maize-based pig and poultry feeds. The landowner’s maize production is for seed, which markets locally at five times the value of grain and reflects Java farmers’ growing interest in quality protein maize. To Yasam’s delight, he and some village women were hired to weed, fertilize, and harvest the plot. Yasam earns 12,500 Indonesian Rupiahs (US $1.30) for each half day he works. The women are paid less (7,500 Rupiahs), but in a village with little money this new income is very welcome.

On the island of Java, Yasam tends this plot of quality protein maize for his landowner.

Indonesia has released two open-pollinated varieties of quality protein maize. They were developed using experimental varieties from CIMMYT by Dr. Marsum Dalhan, head of the Breeding and Germplasm Section of the Indonesian Cereal Research Institute. Marsum has benefited both from CIMMYT training activities and through support for his work from the Asian Development Bank.

Virtually no maize is grown around Carin. That is good news for landowners who produce maize seed and, especially, that of quality protein maize. Because the quality protein trait is “recessive”—that is, both parents must carry it and pass it on, for it to be expressed in offspring—any plants that are fertilized with pollen from other types of maize will not produce quality protein seed.

The economics look good to the landowner. He produces two crops of quality protein seed a year. Still there is a risk. The market for this maize is in its infancy in Indonesia where most animal feed is artificially fortified with lysine at the feed mill. Nevertheless, Yasam Saanim, a person who has farmed forever, beams with cautious optimism. “It looks like we will have a benefit from the maize,” he smiles.

CIMMYT fights the food crisis in developing countries

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photo-storyAfter decades of stability, world food prices jumped more than 80% in 2008. Recent good harvests have brought prices down, but not to previous, historically-low levels, and most economists expect food costs to remain at much higher levels than before. At any moment catastrophic events like a drought or major crop disease outbreak could shock fragile grain markets and quickly send values skyrocketing anew.

People in wealthy nations feel food price inflation pinching their budgets, but may have a hard time imagining its effects on the extreme poor in developing countries. Poor people spend half or more of their meager incomes on food, and now must eat less each day or subsist on lower-quality fare. According to FAO Director General, Dr. Jacques Diouf, the number of persons who suffered from malnutrition had already risen from 850 to 925 million in 2007, even before the worst effects of the food price increases were felt in 2008. The current global financial crisis has exacerbated price increases and pushed already inadequate foodaid efforts to the breaking point. Rising unemployment will put even less-expensive food out of reach for many more of the world’s poor people.

CIMMYT trustee wins prize for work on boosting yields and zinc in wheat

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June, 2005

Ismail Cakmak, recently appointed to the CIMMYT Board of Trustees, accepted the International Crop Nutrition Award from the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) this month for his work in Turkish agriculture to improve the grain yield and amount of zinc in wheat. In addition to the potential health benefits, his work has allowed farmers to reap an economic benefit of US $100 million each year.

In a NATO-Science for Stability program, Cakmak, a longtime CIMMYT partner, and colleagues from the University of Cukurova in Adana and National Research Institutions of the Ministry of Agriculture in Konya and Eskisehir, found that wheat harvests in Turkey were limited by a lack of zinc in the soil. When the plants were fed zinc-fortified fertilizer, researchers noticed spectacular increases in wheat yields. Ten years after the problem was diagnosed, Turkish farmers now apply 300,000 tons of the zinc-fortified fertilizers per year and harvest wheat with twice the amount of zinc.

HarvestPlus, a CGIAR Challenge Program, estimates that over 1.3 billion South Asians are at risk for zinc deficiency. Finding a more sustainable way to enrich the level of zinc in wheat is a goal for Cakmak, his CIMMYT colleagues, and HarvestPlus, which breeds crops for better nutrition. “Providing grain with high zinc content to people in Turkey should lead to significant improvements in their health and productivity. One can achieve this goal by applying fertilizers, a short-term answer, or through a more cost-effective and sustainable solution—breeding,” Cakmak says.

Zinc fertilizer was applied to the soil beneath

CIMMYT and HarvestPlus are set to do this and have already bred high-yielding wheat varieties with 100% more zinc than other modern varieties. CIMMYT agronomist and HarvestPlus Wheat Crop Leader Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio says, “We intend to have modern, disease resistant varieties be the vehicle for getting more micronutrients into people’s diets.” Further research this year involves testing the bioavailability of the grain’s doubled zinc content to see if it can improve human health in Pakistan.

“Today, a large number of the world’s peoples rely on wheat as a major source of dietary energy and protein. For example in Turkey, on average, wheat alone provides nearly 45% of the daily calorie intake, it is estimated that this ratio is much higher in rural regions,” Cakmak says. It is hoped that this project, which uses agricultural practices to address public health while improving crop production, can be extrapolated to other zinc-deficient areas of the world.

For further information, contact Ismail Cakmak (cakmak@sabanciuniv.edu) or Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio (i.ortiz-monasterio@cgiar.org).

CIMMYT and Syngenta: working together for global food security

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The Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, Hans Braun, visited Syngenta in Basel, Switzerland, on 10 October 2011, to present CIMMYT’s current work towards achieving global food security. CIMMYT and Syngenta began collaborating in April 2010, and have been working together to develop multiple projects focused on Ug99 and wheat research activities.

During the presentation, Braun highlighted the need for increased investment in agriculture to address threats to food security, such as emerging diseases. He also stressed the need to further develop and utilize genetic diversity to feed the growing global population. Braun referred to Ug99 as the ‘Bird Flu’ of wheat, in reference to its devastating impact on wheat crops, and its high virulence. He urged the scientific community to focus on the development of durable resistance in wheat, stating that 50% of CIMMYT’s wheat research is focused on maintaining disease resistance alone.

When asked about the nature of public-private partnerships and CIMMYT’s interaction with Syngenta, Braun said: “Why is CIMMYT here? We don’t want to help Syngenta to increase its production in Germany, but we want to look into how we can work together to use some of the technologies for our clients, which are the poor farmers in developing countries. CIMMYT has some contributions which Syngenta can use so it’s really a win-win situation.”

CIMMYT and Syngenta will be expanding their areas of collaboration by developing new projects on rust control, hybrid wheat, heat tolerance and crop enhancement.

INIFAP visit

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As part of a Mexican government initiative to enhance the quality and service of its research organizations, on 20 September 2011 a team of specialists from the National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) spent the day at El BatĂĄn interacting with CIMMYT staff on respective organizational cultures and values, missions and visions, research and business plans, and professional development.

Launching the visit with an overview of INIFAP, forestry support director Juan Bautista Rentería Anima described a rich and challenging research agenda keyed to Mexico’s diverse native crops and cropping environments. “In recent years the emphasis has again shifted to extension,” said Rentería, “trying to reach farmers with our products.”

Prefacing an introduction to CIMMYT, corporate communications head Mike Listman remarked on the strong parallels in scientific and institutional challenges facing both organizations. “I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but we’re talking the same language on these issues” he said. The origins and evolution of CIMMYT are linked to INIFAP history, the director of the institute, Dr. Pedro Brajcich Gallegos, served as a CIMMYT wheat breeder, and both Brajcich and Salvador Fernández-Rivera, INIFAP Coordinator for Research, Innovation, and Partnerships, currently serve as CIMMYT Trustees.

Karen GarcĂ­a, executive director of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) project launched in 2010, highlighted the key role of INIFAP in the Mexico-funded initiative.

Presentations by Luz George, head of the project management unit, Carolina Roa, head of the intellectual property unit, and Carlos López, head of information and communications technology, addressed services and applications offered by those areas. Bibiana Espinosa, research assistant in wheat genetic resources, also took part in discussions. The event was organized by Isabel Peña, head of interinstitutional relations in Latin America.

The INIFAP team thanked CIMMYT warmly for its hospitality and open sharing of information. In a closing session, Scott Ferguson, deputy director general for support services, thanked the visitors for coming, and emphasized that CIMMYT is still finding its way to more efficient systems and structures: “We’ve doubled our budget over the four years, after 28 years of zero growth in real terms. We are dealing with all the organizational problems of such rapid and dramatic growth, and appreciate the chance to share experiences and ideas with a longstanding partner.”

The INIFAP group comprised Bertha Patricia Zamora, Director of Programs and Strategic Projects; Juan Bautista Rentería Anima, Director of Forestry Support; Vicente Santacruz García, Director of Planning; Ceferino Ortiz Trejo, Director of linking Operative Units; Héctor Peña Dueñas, Director of Human Development and Professionalism; Ramsés Gutiérrez Zepeda, Director of Evaluation and Systems; Francisco Gonzålez Naranjo, Dirección of Efficiency and Accountability; Ricardo Noverón Chåvez, Head of the Legal Unit; Edmundo Mårquez Santana; Director of Scientific Exchange and Cooperation; Miguel Ignacio Moneta Porto, Head of Strategic Information Consolidation; and Omar Chåvez Aguilera, Head of Agreements for Scientific Cooperation.

Managing yellow rust disease in Nepal

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From 2008-11 a Nepal Agricultural Research and Development Fund (NARDF)-funded project was conducted to try to minimize wheat losses caused by yellow rust in ten highly affected districts of Nepal, in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, CIMMYT (Nepal) and the Seed Quality Control Centre, Nepal. Following this project, a one-day interaction program organized by the Plant Pathology Division, CIMMYT (Nepal) and NARDF was held at the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), Khumaltar, Lalitpur on 14 July 2011. There were 52 participants, including members of NARDF, CIMMYT, Regional Agricultural Research Centers (Lumle), Agriculture Research Station (Dolaka and Pakhribas), National Wheat Research Program (NWRP) of NARC, and District Agricultural Development Officers of the ten affected districts.

Yellow-rust-meeting-14-July-1

In his opening address, chief of the Plant Pathology Division, Hirakaji Manandhar, thanked NARDF for funding the yellow rust project and CIMMYT (Nepal) for providing valuable support in terms of supplying new germplasm and organizing training, farmer’s field days, and this interaction program. Project coordinator Sarala Sharma went on to describe the achievements of the project, including the excellent performance of the CIMMYT varieties in the field. Farmers have been able to select seven rust-resistant wheat genotypes (BL2879, BL3235, BL3503, WK1182, WK1481, NL1064, and NL1073) within different domains and cropping systems of Nepal. The high-yielding genotypes NL1064 (Danphe) and NL1073 (Frankolin) also conveyed good resistance to the stem rust race Ug99, and high demand for the Danphe variety could lead to larger seed multiplication in the coming cycle.

Participants felt that the project enabled an increase in genetic diversity and wheat production through the introduction of improved varieties and effective control of yellow rust disease. Publications were distributed to farmers in order to increase awareness of the new varieties and 580 farmers received training in yellow and stem rust management and quality seed production. Subsequently, the farmers found that they obtained good prices for their seeds and farmer-farmer seed dissemination increased the coverage of resistant varieties.

The next step is to ensure promotion and uptake of the improved wheat varieties. Participants emphasized that because yellow rust is not only a regional problem, but a global one too, the new CIMMYT varieties should be integrated into the official release process by NWRP. Dhurba Bahadur Thapa, Sr. Wheat Breeder (NARC) promised to take action to assist this progression and Arun Kumar Joshi, Regional Wheat Breeder (CIMMYT) assured that CIMMYT will also continue varietal testing and seed multiplication with farmers in the ten districts, to aid sustainability of the project once NARDF funding ceases. Janaki Prasad Khanal, Member Secretary of NARDF said that he hoped projects such as this will help to make Nepal a food-secure country in the future.

World Food Summit 2009

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The three-day World Food Summit led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) starts Monday 16 November in Rome. Nearly 60 heads of state are expected to attend to discuss important issues related to food security such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, rural development, and the economic crisis. Show your support by signing the related online petition at www.1billionhungry.org.

Lumpkin: CIMMYT should double in size in five years

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On 23 May 2009, CIMMYT DG Tom Lumpkin told staff that the center needs to double in size in five years to accomplish its mission and confront, among other challenges, a looming global food security crisis. “We’ve got to grow,” he said. “The food situation is getting frightening out there. We need to do a better job of meeting the world’s needs. Otherwise, we’ll become irrelevant and others will take our place.”

Lumpkin and Scott Ferguson, deputy director general for Support Services, spoke to international staff at El BatĂĄn and to staff in Nairobi via Skype, about a new business plan being developed for the center, and other issues of common concern in a general meeting.

A new initiative to address global food insecurity

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One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve the proportion of hungry people by 2015. Sadly, this is unlikely to be realised because the causes of hunger are many and complex. One problem is the spread of the relevant literature over many journals. In order to overcome this, the International Society for Plant Pathology and the publisher, Springer, have launched  a new journal, Food Security: the Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food. Its objective is to take a synthetic approach to the many relevant disciplines so that an overview is achieved.

The first issue of the journal is freely available online at http://www.springer.com/life+sci/agriculture/journal/12571. It contains a foreword by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Norman Borlaug, in which he says “It is timely that ISPP and Springer are launching this journal with its topical title and with the breadth of coverage indicated by its subtitle.” There are then 10 papers addressing food security from physical, biological and socio-political viewpoints – including climate change, global resources of soil and water, maintenance of biodiversity, seed, biofuels, famines, and the emerging African Green Revolution.

The discounted annual subscription for ISPP Members and Members of Associated Societies is EUR 30. See the ISPP website for more details.