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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.

Renewing and reinforcing partnerships in South Asia

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As part of global efforts to strengthen CIMMYT’s presence with key partners in important maize and wheat production regions, in recent weeks Tom Lumpkin met with high-level agricultural research directors and other CIMMYT friends in India and Pakistan.

In Pakistan during 25-28 June, discussions with Dr ME Tusneem, Chair of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), covered renewed collaboration on topics such as research to combat Ug99, the new strain of stem rust that is moving out of eastern Africa to threaten South Asia’s wheat crops. CIMMYT and Pakistan are also developing a new memorandum of understanding on partnerships and moves to reopen the center’s office in that country. Important contributions to the work and discussions have come from former CIMMYT wheat cytologist, Dr Mujeeb-Kazi, who led CIMMYT’s efforts to develop synthetic wheats, and Dr Mushtaq Gill, long-time CIMMYT partner and champion of zero-tillage in Pakistan.

In meetings in India during 30 June-01 July, it was agreed with Dr Mangala Rai, Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), to develop a new five-year workplan that will be signed at the CIMMYT BOT meeting in India in October. Lumpkin also visited with Dr Gautam, ICAR DDG for Crops; Dr Mishra, Director of the Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR), and Dr Dass, director of the Directorate of Maize Research (DMR), and interacted with directors and staff of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), and the Directorate of Maize Research (DMR).

Lumpkin thanked Olaf Erenstein, CIMMYT agricultural economist and liaison officer in India, for organizing the visits and accompanying him, in representation of the center. “Olaf arranged very productive programs in Islamabad and Delhi that should greatly reinforce CIMMYT’s stature in South Asia,” he said.

Quality protein maize cultivars released in El Salvador

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Three quality protein maize hybrids—Platino (CML144/CML159//CML503/CML502), Oro Blanco(CML503/CML492//CML491), and synthetic Protemas (03TLWQAB3)—were released to farmers at the headquarters of the national center for agriculture and livestock technology (CENTA) in San AndrĂ©s, La Libertad, El Salvador, on Wednesday 18 June 2008.

More than 500 farmers attended the ceremony along with extension agents and officials including the Minister of Agriculture, Mario Salaverria; the Vice Minister of Agriculture, Emilio Suadi; the Presidential High Commissioner for Agriculture, MarĂ­a Elena Sol; Ever HernĂĄndez, CENTA Board Chair; and Abraham GonzĂĄles, CENTA Director.

The Minister and the Vice Ministers spoke to farmers about the potential of the cultivars to alleviate hunger and malnutrition especially now, during the world food crisis. The new cultivars will be grown on 3,000 hectares this year, and the ministers promised that farmers will have enough seed to sow at least 20,000 hectares in 2009. Farmers who ran demonstration plots last year were happy that the cultivars were finally released.

Salaverria said he was impressed during a visit to CIMMYT last May and commended the center for its work to increase maize yields in El Salvador by 250 kg per hectare per year for the past 4 years. The national maize yield has increased to an average 3 tons per hectare, which is the highest in the region. The goal is to reach 4.3 tons per hectare in the next 10 years and to locally produce all white and yellow maize needed in the country. El Salvador is self-sufficient in white maize for food but imports all yellow maize used for the animal feed industry. The day of the release the price of yellow maize had reached USD 400 a ton.

On Friday 20 June Hugo CĂłrdova participated in a forum organized by the El Salvador Agronomists Society (SIADES) to discuss actions to reduce the impact of the food crisis and present alternatives from the Organization for Health Improvement of Agricultural Workers and Families in Guatemala (AGROSALUD) to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, and reduce poverty. Salaverria, who is Minister of Agriculture and Chair of the Central American Council of Agriculture (CAC), reiterated his interest in supporting AGROSALUD.

Submitted by Hugo CĂłrdova, CIMMYT Consultant

Borlaug visits ObregĂłn; Patronato and Sonora give CIMMYT US$ 1 million

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Dr. Norman Borlaug had a joyous reunion on 02 April 08 with CIMMYT and Mexican friends and former colleagues at the place—the research facilities near Ciudad ObregĂłn, Sonora state, owned by the farmers union ‘Patronato para la InvestigaciĂłn y ExperimentaciĂłn AgrĂ­cola del Estado de Sonora’ where he and his research team developed the Green Revolution wheats. His visit came on the occasion of the announcement there by Ronnie Coffman, director of international programs at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, of a US$ 26.8 million grant to Cornell by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a global partnership including CIMMYT to combat the rust diseases of wheat, particularly the virulent stem rust strain from eastern Africa, Ug99.

At the same event, the President of the Patronato, Jorge Artee Elías Calles (in the photo), and the Sonora State Secretary of Agriculture, Alejandro Elías Calles, announced that the Patronato and the state of Sonora would give respective donations to CIMMYT of 6 million pesos and 4 million pesos—equivalent to nearly US$ 1 million—for research on the rusts and on Karnal bunt disease, “in honor of Borlaug, and to welcome the new DG, Tom Lumpkin.” “The farmers of the region are aware of Ug99 and the problems it represents in other part of the world and could cause in the Yaqui Valley (the Ciudad Obregón region) in the future,” says Artee. Borlaug, who recently turned 94 and has suffered serious bouts of illness, looked full of vigor and enthusiasm as he spoke to the gathering in fluent Spanish and, like on countless past occasions throughout his life, went to the field to inspect experimental wheat lines—this time, new ones that carry resistance to Ug99. “The rust pathogens recognize no political boundaries and their spores need no passport to travel thousands of miles in the jet streams,” he says. “Containing these deadly enemies of the wheat crop requires alert and active scientists, strong international research networks, and effective seed supply programs.” The new Cornell project essentially brings full circle work begun by Borlaug and Mexican associates 60 years ago in northwest Mexico, as part of the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Office of Special Studies, that resulted in the release of high-yielding, stem rust resistant wheats.

Among those accompanying Borlaug were his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube, and granddaughter, Julie Borlaug. Members of the extended CIMMYT family who joined the event included Sanjaya Rajaram, former wheat breeder and program director; John Dodds, former deputy director general; Gregorio Martínez, former public affairs officer; Evangelina Villegas, former cereal chemist; Richard Ward, former head of the Global Rust Initiative; Reynaldo Villareal, former wheat training coordinator; and Chris Dowswell and David Mowbray, former heads of corporate communications. Norm’s presence, together with stellar logistics by numerous CIMMYT global wheat program staff and consultants, including personnel of the Obregón research station, together with the Cornell team, made the event a great success.

Ukraine counselor visits El Batan

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On 28 March 2008, Anatoly Rymar, Counselor from the Ukraine Embassy in Mexico, visited El BatĂĄn to discuss strengthened collaboration of his country with the center.

According to Alex Morgounov, CIMMYT wheat breeder/agronomist and regional representative for Central Asia and the Caucasus, there is already a dynamic partnership with the Ukraine. The three main wheat breeding centers in the Ukraine–Mironovka, Kharkov, and Odessa—actively participate in germplasm exchanges with the Turkey-CIMMYT-ICARDA International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP).

“In June 2007, two breeders from Ukrainian Plant Breeding and Genetics Institute in Odessa came to Turkey and participated in an IWWIP traveling workshop,” he says. “Their suggestions were incorporated in the final workshop recommendation, a guiding document for the program.” In July 2008, Morgounov and Hans Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program, will take part in a conference at the Ukrainian Institute of Plant Production in Kharkov, organized partly to observe the 100th anniversary of the institute. Finally, joint work with the National Gene Bank of Ukraine is being explored to preserve some of their collections at CIMMYT.

India breeders choose outstanding maize from CIMMYT

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Immediately upon his return after Science Week on 10 March 2008, P.H. Zaidi, breeder in CIMMYT’s global maize program, led a field day on ICRISAT’s campus in Hyderabad, India, that was attended by some 70 maize scientists from India’s public and private sectors. Dr. Sain Dass, Director of India’s Directorate for Maize Research (DMR), leader of the Indian Maize Program, and a visiting scientist at CIMMYT in 1996 and 2004, along with several DMR colleagues, participated. “Dr. Dass was delighted to see our ongoing activities, especially on QPM and drought stress tolerance,” says Zaidi. “There were about 25 scientists from SAU’s maize program and 30 scientists from private seed companies. After a brief introduction about breeding activities in our Asian regional maize program, participants toured maize germplasm nurseries and selected the best entries as per their own requirements. Among other outcomes, we obtained lists of breeder selections from a nursery we sent them.”

Also contributing to the success of the event were Mehraj UdDin, CIMMYT-India research assistant who received CIMMYT’s 2007 Most Valuable Employee Award, and Gaurav Yadav, also of CIMMYT-India and associated with the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains. “Apart from the germplasm we are working on here, there was lot interest in the speciality corn,” says Zaidi. “Many partners suggested circulating a form to collect views and prioritize the emerging germplasm requirements in the region. We are working on developing a form for collecting this feedback, so that our products will be truly demand-driven.”

Rajaram retires

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After an outstanding career of 40 years in agricultural research, former CIMMYT wheat researcher, Wheat Program Director, and Distinguished Scientist, Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram—known affectionately at CIMMYT simply as “Raj”—formally retired on 10 February 2008 from his positions as Director of Integrated Gene Management at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and Director of the ICARDA/CIMMYT Wheat Improvement Program (ICWIP) in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region.

Rajaram led bread wheat breeding research at CIMMYT for more than three decades. His leadership and commitment to wheat improvement resulted in the release of more than 450 cultivars with increased yield potential, wide adaptation, and resistance to important diseases and stresses. These are grown on some 58 million hectares worldwide and approximately 8 million hectares in India, and include India’s most popular wheat variety, PBW 343. He also led efforts at CIMMYT to apply the concept of durable resistance to rust—the most damaging disease of wheat worldwide—through use of multiple genes with minor effects that slow disease development, thereby minimizing effects on yield without challenging the pathogen to mutate and overcome resistance. His accomplishments include training or mentoring more than 700 scientists from dozens of developing countries, including many from India.

Rajaram will live in Mexico and plans to continue his breeding association with Resource Seed Inc., a Wheat/TCL Breeding Company based in California. Congratulations, and best of luck in the future, Raj!

Three tons of seed shipped to Svalbard vault

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On 22 January 2008, CIMMYT sent more than 160 boxes of seed for long-term deposit in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Norway. The shipment comprised 10,000 maize accessions and 48,000 of wheat, and weighed around 3 tons in all. It was part of 200,000 seed collections of crop varieties sent this month for storage in the vault from CGIAR germplasm banks worldwide. The vault was built by the Norwegian government as a service to the global community, and a Rome-based international NGO, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, will fund its operation. The aim is to ensure that the collections remain available for bolstering food security, should a man-made or natural disaster ever threaten agricultural systems or germplasm bank collections.

CIMMYT’s shipment was drawn from regenerations performed over the past two years, and represents roughly a third of the center’s entire collection of crop genetic resources. The CGIAR shipments, were brought to the attention of the global media through timely public-relations efforts of the CG Secretariat communications team, with support from Burness Associates. Reports have appeared to date on 8 wire services, 5 TV and radio stations, 10 newspapers, and 6 web-based outlets. Coverage in Mexico included articles in the major dailies El Universal and La Jornada, as well as a spot in the Canal 11 evening news, all reflecting favorably on CIMMYT.

Congratulations to Tom Payne, Suketoshi Taba, Bibiana Espinosa, VĂ­ctor ChĂĄvez, and all staff in the germplasm bank and seed areas, who coordinated and prepared the shipment and interacted with reporters. Thanks as well to Rodomiro Ortiz, who served as CIMMYT spokesperson to the media for this initiative.

CIMMYT researcher helps find cheaper way to Vitamin-A enhanced maize

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In a development reported this week in Science magazine and which could enhance the nutritional status of millions of people in developing countries, a team of plant geneticists and crop scientists including CIMMYT’s Jianbing Yan pioneered an economical approach to boost levels of provitamin A in maize. ‘Provitamin A’ describes substances that are converted to vitamin A upon consumption. The team showed that variation at the lycopene epsilon cyclase (lcyE) locus—favorable alleles of which can be selected using molecular markers—controls biosynthesis pathways for Vitamin A precursors in maize.

Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of eye disease and other health disorders in the developing world. Some 40 million children are afflicted with eye disease, and another 250 million suffer with health problems resulting from a lack of dietary vitamin A. Selecting for provitamin A in maize normally involves expensive lab analyses, so the ability to use DNA markers for this purpose should reduce costs significantly.

“I played a very small part in the study, and more work needs to be done” says Yan, who came to CIMMYT in October 2006 from the China Agricultural University, Beijing. “I helped to re-confirm the markers and fix some tables.” According to Yan, molecular markers associated with lcyE are being used in several institutes around the world, including CIMMYT, for breeding to enhance the vitamin A value of maize. He will give a seminar at El Batán on Monday, 21 January in B115 at 3:30.

Reaching maize farmers with improved varieties better through the value chain approach

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Jonathan Hellin, poverty specialist in the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, was in Kenya over the past two weeks catching up with CIMMYT-Kenya colleagues and meeting senior economists and students from the University of Nairobi. This was in preparation for next year’s activities on his collaborative maize value chain research work. Funded by BMZ, the work builds on previous contributions by CIMMYT and its partners in meeting the needs of resource-poor farmers in stress-prone environments by making improved maize varieties more widely available.

A review mission concluded that work by CIMMYT and partners can serve as “
a model for multi-stakeholder regional R&D collaboration and enhanced researcher-extension-farmer-market linkages”. The mission suggested a continuation of the research but recommended that more emphasis be given to the availability and dissemination of varieties and technologies to the smallholder farmers in eastern and Central Africa. The current phase includes a value chain analysis of the seed input chains.

Learning from the wise: Jonathan Hellin in a work planning session with Alpha Diallo, maize breeder, in Nairobi, Kenya

2007 CGIAR awards for CIMMYT and partners

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The CGIAR honored the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Science with the 2007 Award for Outstanding Agricultural Technology in the Asia-Pacific Region, for their work with CIMMYT to develop high-yielding wheat varieties with high-quality grain for Chinese food products.

Three wheat cultivars from this work were sown on more than eight million hectares in China from 2002 to 2006, adding 2.4 million tons of grain to Chinese wheat production. China and CIMMYT partnerships go back three decades and around four million hectares in China are sown to varieties that carry CIMMYT wheat in their pedigrees.

CIMMYT Maize Nutrition Quality Specialist, Natalia Palacios, was also honored by the CGIAR, receiving the 2007 Promising Young Scientist Award. The award cites Palacios’ contributions to the development of nutritious and micronutrientdense maize for farmers in tropical areas. Among other things, Palacios was influential in developing and implementing new approaches to test for grain quality traits, such as provitamins A and protein quality, that will ultimately speed breeding for those and other characteristics. Both awards were given at the 2007 CGIAR annual general meetings in Beijing, China, where during 3-7 December more than 1,000 participants, including several CIMMYT directing staff and scientists, discussed how agricultural research and technology and food policy initiatives can more effectively address critical global agricultural challenges, bringing the benefits of agricultural research more quickly to poor farmers in developing countries.

Raun named OSU Sarkeys Distinguished Professor

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Former CIMMYT wheat agronomist (1986-91) Bill Raun has been named the 2007 recipient of the Sarkeys Distinguished Professor Award by the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. The Sarkeys award is based on outstanding contributions to agriculture through teaching, research or extension efforts. The award was established by the Sarkeys Foundation in 1980 to honor Elmo Baumann, an agronomist who worked with the foundation after his retirement from OSU. Raun was named a Fellow of the Soil Science of America and American Society of Agronomy and has received many prestigious honors, including the ASA Werner L. Nelson Award, the Robert E. Wagner Award, the OSU Regents Distinguished Research Award and the OSU James A. Whatley Award for Meritorious Service in Agricultural Sciences.

Wheat phenome atlas meetings at CIMMYT

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Wheat scientists met at CIMMYT El Batán to discuss the wheat phenome pilot project on 12 and 13 November 2007. CIMMYT and the University of Queensland have been working together to develop a “wheat phenome atlas” (WPA) since 2006.

“The WPA will be a freely-available online tool for wheat scientists. It will describe which parts of the genome influence the inheritance of all economically-important traits,” says Ian Godwin, molecular geneticist from the University of Queensland. Breeders will be able to go online for detailed information on a small piece of DNA sequence that affects resistance to leaf rust, for example. “This technology could also be applied to other crops such as maize and rice,” adds Godwin. Information for the WPA is obtained through advanced statistical analyses of decades of yield trials and recent data from molecular markers. CIMMYT has 40 years of data from field experiments, and has stored the seeds from these trials in the germplasm bank. Scientists can thus link data from yield trials with genetic analysis of seeds from the trials.

“The WPA will be accessible to anyone in the international wheat community, making the process of developing cultivars faster, cheaper, and more efficient,” says Hans-Joachim Braun, Head of the Global Wheat Program. A basic version of the WPA should be up and running by late 2008, says Godwin.

Left to right: Ian Godwin, Ian de Lacy, Christopher Lambrides (back), and Kaye Basford (all from the Universify of Queensland, Australia).

Ohio State University honors Kevin Pixley

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On 16 October 2007, CIMMYT maize breeder and assistant director of the center’s global maize program, Kevin Pixley, was given the G.H. Stringfield Award from Ohio State University, USA, in recognition of “his outstanding contributions to the science of maize breeding and genetics.” The award was made on behalf of the OSU Department of Horticulture and Crop Science and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. “Stringfield was arguably the most important maize breeder in Ohio history,” says Pixley, who is only the second person to receive the award. “He was instrumental in early hybrid research and in leading the transition from OPVs to hybrids in Ohio.”

Updating Kenyan stakeholders on progress

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This past Thursday, CIMMYT’s Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project organized a well-attended meeting to update its stakeholders, project participants, and journalists on the past year’s progress. Held at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) National Agricultural Research Laboratories, in Nairobi, the event drew more than 100 stakeholders, project participants, and journalists, who followed the presentations keenly and contributed to the lively discussions. The IRMA project is a joint initiative of KARI, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Speaking at the event, Kenya’s Agricultural Secretary, Wilson Songa, lauded the IRMA partnership for its significant contribution to improving national food security and livelihoods, through development of maize varieties with increased borer resistance. Other notable speakers were Marianne BĂ€nziger, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, Jost Frei of Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, KARI’s Director Ephraim Mukisira and IRMA Project Manager, Stephen Mugo. Through their remarks, the speakers highlighted the momentous strides made by IRMA in the development of capacity, technology, and policy – notably the Biosafety Bill – as well as raising awareness on biotechnology and related biosafety aspects. All stakeholders were in agreement that IRMA had set the pace for similar initiatives in the region and that they should all strive to move the IRMA agenda forward in their individual capacities.

CIMMYT scientists win awards

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Norman Borlaug opened the Crop Science Society of America annual meetings in New Orleans with an inspirational speech on 5 November 2007. Also at this meeting, the Crop Science Journal awarded CIMMYT scientists Jorge Franco, José Crossa, Marilyn Warburton, and Suketoshi Taba the Crop Science C8 Outstanding Paper Award.

Their paper is titled: “Sampling strategies for conserving maize diversity when forming core subsets using genetic markers.” Tens of thousands of seed samples, known as “accessions,” are stored in CIMMYT’s maize germplasm bank. By grouping similar accessions for a particular maize race and applying advanced statistics, scientists can assemble a useful subset that contains only one-fifth of the total accessions for that race. For example, there are over 1,500 accessions in the collections for the Tuxpeño maize race. Using the techniques described in the paper, researchers can identify 300 that provide breeders close to 100% of the allelic diversity in the Tuxpeño collection. “CIMMYT leads the world in expertise and scientific rigor in the use of statistics to get a representative subset of seeds from a collection, based on data including molecular markers,” says CIMMYT molecular geneticist Warburton. Working with a smaller number of accessions facilitates breeding, testing, and germplasm bank use, according to Crossa, Head of Biometrics and Statistics at CIMMYT. “Our research aims to get the most diverse core subset possible. It can also be applied to all other crops” he says.

The CSA also recognized the ongoing contributions of Ravi Singh to develop rust resistant wheat. Singh, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist, was awarded the prestigious International Service in Crop Science Award. Wheat germplasm deriving from his work is part of the pedigrees of 170 cultivars sown on an estimated 26 million hectares or more in developing countries. Singh has developed some of the highest-yielding and widely-adapted CIMMYT-spring wheat germplasm that also features high levels of durable resistance to both leaf and yellow rusts.