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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.

Mexico’s Agriculture Minister flies to CIMMYT, fortifies partnership

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The whirling blades of the official helicopter in which he arrived foretold something of the pace and intensity of CIMMYT’s tour for Alberto CĂĄrdenas JimĂ©nez, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), at El BatĂĄn on 01 August 2007.

After a quick introduction to CIMMYT from Masa Iwanaga, the Minister and his entourage, which included coordinator of international affairs and long-time CIMMYT partner, VĂ­ctor Villalobos ArĂĄmbula, visited superb field and lab presentations prepared by Kevin Pixley, Julio Huerta, Bram Govaerts, Suketoshi Taba, MĂłnica Mezzalama, Marilyn Warburton, and Natalia Palacios. They were accompanied among others by CIMMYT Trustees Julio BerdeguĂ© and Pedro Brajcich and a select group of 33 representatives of Mexico’s print, radio, and TV media, who interviewed Masa and CĂĄrdenas in a 20-minute press conference following the tour. The busy day ended with closed-door chats with CIMMYT directors and administrators on research and non-science issues, and a late lunch in the Guest House.

Major Mexican media outlets posted at least a dozen stories on CIMMYT the following day (see the Intranet Informa for links to the reports). In a follow-up message thanking staff for their efforts, Masa said the visit had exceeded his expectations. Cárdenas seemed greatly to enjoy the tour and interactions with CIMMYT staff and praised the Center in several public statements during the day, at one point calling CIMMYT “
a jewel of humanity.”

He called on the Center to collaborate with Mexico on diverse fronts, including the development and dissemination of yellow maize hybrids, conservation agriculture, biotechnology, and addressing climate change in agriculture. “We realize that technology is a road we must travel with greater precision and efficacy, that it constitutes a tool which, in the case of Mexico, we should use to improve the lives of the 25 million Mexicans who live in rural areas.”

More precise targeting of poverty in South Asia

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In line with the need to target activities where they contribute most to alleviating poverty, CIMMYT and the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains, a CIMMYT-convened network of national programs and other partners in South Asia, have produced the publication “Livelihoods, poverty and targeting in the Indo- Gangetic Plains: A spatial mapping approach,” authored by CIMMYT scientists Olaf Erenstein, Jonathan Hellin, and Parvesh Chandna. It outlines results of work to develop a spatial mapping methodology that can guide priority-setting and targeting within the RWC. The approach draws on data for 18 quantitative, spatially-explicit variables, which serve as indicators of poverty based on the natural, social, human, physical, and financial assets of households, complementing the more conventional monetary approach to measure poverty.

Outputs include district-level spatial poverty maps for the four sub-regions of the Indo- Gangetic Plains in India, covering the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. In addition to its relevance for the RWC, the approach outlined and the results are of potential use for policy makers, researchers, or development practitioners who wish to ensure that agricultural research continues to contribute to poverty reduction and economic growth. The publication will soon be available through the RWC and the publications catalog on CIMMYT’s website.

Award to Jonathan Crouch

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Jonathan Crouch, director of Genetic Resources and Enhancement (GREU) is one of three scientists to win the very first Japan International Award for Young Agricultural Researchers. He is the only one from a CGIAR research center. These new awards, sponsored by the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), recognize the contribution of young agricultural researchers to technological development for the improvement for food security and the environment in developing countries. They commend young researchers who show outstanding performance and research achievements that are expected to lead to future innovation. Jonathan will give a award-acceptance lecture at the United Nations University-HQ (Tokyo) on September 12th.

Borlaug: green revolution to gold standard

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On Tuesday at a ceremony in the United States Congress, Norman Borlaug was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award the American government can give.

Global Wheat Program Director Hans Braun represented CIMMYT at the ceremony. “It was a fantastic setting for a fantastic honor,” he said. “It was his will, his bold vision, and the solutions of science, by which Dr. Borlaug used the timeless resources of one farmer and one field to feed more people than ever before,” said speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who with President Bush presented the gold medal to Borlaug.

In his remarks Bush said “Wealthy and prosperous nations have a moral obligation to help poor and struggling people find their own paths to progress and plenty.”

In accepting the medal, Borlaug agreed with Bush and challenged the United States to stop its own funding reductions and put funds back into agricultural research for development.

“My plea today to the members of Congress and to the Administration is to re-commit the United States to more dynamic and generous programs of official development assistance in agriculture for Third World nations, as was done in the 1960s and 1970s,” he said. “Ever-shrinking foreign aid budgets in support of smallholder agriculture, and especially to multilateral research and development organizations such as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) where I have worked for 40 years, as well as its sister research institutes under the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), are not in our nation’s best interest, nor do they represent our finest traditions.”

Borlaug joins civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. of the United States, Mother Teresa of India, Nelson Mandela of South Africa and World War II Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel as a recipient of three prestigious awards — the Congressional Gold Medal, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wheat trials preparation

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This week SIDU staff started to prepare the first International Wheat Trial (2nd Stem Rust Resistance Screening Nursery). The process includes selection of the best materials from those that arrived from Mexicali last week, taking samples for analysis at the Seed Health laboratory, and washing, treating and packing the seeds.

Trustee Çakmak given 2007 Derek Tribe Award

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CIMMYT Board member and Professor at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, Ismail Çakmak, has received the prestigious 2007 Derek Tribe Award of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) Crawford Fund, in recognition of his outstanding work and leadership in identifying zinc deficiency as the underlying cause of poor wheat yields in the calcareous soils of the Central Anatolia in Turkey. The award announcement appears on the 29 June 2007 update of the ATSE-Crawford Fund website.

Çakmak’s research led to the rapid uptake of Zn-containing NP and NPK fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) by farmers in the region and their development by fertilizer industries. Use of the enhanced fertilizers rose from nothing in 1995 to a record 350,000 tons per annum in Turkey in recent times. In some locations with extremely low plant-available zinc, their use has raised grain yields six-fold. In addition to boosting cereal productivity and farmers’ profits, the fertilizers improve zinc density in the grain, which should better the health, productivity, and mental development of members of resource-poor farm households who depend heavily on wheat in their diets.

The ATSE Crawford Fund Derek Tribe Award was inaugurated in 2001 to mark the outstanding contributions of Emeritus Professor Derek Tribe, founding director of the Crawford Fund, to the promotion of international agricultural research. The award is made biennially to a citizen of a developing country in recognition of distinguished contributions to the application of research in agriculture or natural resource management in a developing country or countries. The recipient of the inaugural 2001 Crawford Fund Derek Tribe Award was Sanjaya Rajaram, former Director of the CIMMYT Wheat Program.

Seeds in transit

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It’s an annual event at El Batán, the arrival of the shipment of wheat seed from the multiplication site near Mexicali in North West Mexico. The seed is grown in Mexicali because that area is free of a fungal disease called karnal bunt that can be carried on seeds. This is vital if CIMMYT is to distribute the seed to partners around the world. The newly arrived seeds will now be washed, treated, and bagged in preparation for shipment to their final destinations.

Harvest Choice meets

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Harvest Choice, a partnership between the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the University of Minnesota, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, held a workshop this week at CIMMYT El BatĂĄn. The goal of the meeting was to test and refine a method for assessing the impact on cropping system productivity of key pests within sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, especially with respect to the rural poor.

Participants from CIMMYT included Dave Hodson, John Dixon, Julie Nicol (via a link to Turkey), Etienne Duveiller, and Jonathan Crouch.

Making a difference in Afghanistan

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Afghanistan is still be in the midst of turmoil and conflict, but the work CIMMYT is doing to help rebuild the agriculture sector has won praise from the person responsible for coordinating agricultural research in that country.

“We are very pleased with the cooperation and help we have received from CIMMYT, right from the beginning,” said M. Aziz Osmanzai in an interview with Informa at his office in Kabul, Afghanistan. “I hope CIMMYT will be able to expand staff and operations in our country as the work you are doing has been particularly effective.”

Osmanzai is Director of Agriculture Research Institute (ARIA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Afghanistan (MAIL). He was particularly pleased that two new wheat varieties, based on CIMMYT material were performing very well under local conditions and were being proposed for formal varietal release.

He hoped too that CIMMYT might find ways to help the government encourage and implement more conservation agriculture in the country. While wheat is the number 1 food crop, it is grown by share croppers and small holder farmers using traditional methods. Seeds are broadcast by hand into fields that have been plowed using draft animals and so more modern seeders do not exist in the country, making the transition to zero till more difficult.

How CIMMYT products reach resource-poor farmers: the case of Saraguro, Ecuador

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Since 1995, staff from Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIAP) have worked with farmers in 17 communities in a remote Andean area to provide them seed of improved cultivars of several crops, mini-credit, and training about profitable and sustainable farming. Subsistence farmers in Saraguro now obtain several times their previous yields for small grains, potatoes, maize, and peas, and their average incomes have increased from US$1 to US$2 per day. With food security assured, farmers are requesting seed of varieties with enhanced market value and moving to cash crops such as onions, tomatoes, or fruits.

The project began when Hugo Vivar, former ICARDA barley breeder posted for many years at CIMMYT, worked with INIAP breeder Jorge Coronel, to introduce a new, highyielding barley variety to the area. On the heels of that barley’s success, Vivar has helped channel seed of improved drought-tolerant wheat from former CIMMYT wheat breeder Richard Trethowan’s research, and an excellent quality protein maize (QPM) variety now being used in food programs for children at two rural schools and sold as green ears by farmers for extra income.

Coronel, who grew up on a farm in Biblian, Cañar Province, Ecuador, studied at the University of Cuenca, in southern Ecuador, has been leading work in Saraguro since the project’s inception, and is a well-known and welcome figure in villages throughout the mountainous Andean valley. As a young researcher in 1991, Coronel took a six-month training course at CIMMYT in Mexico and was especially impressed by the Center’s philosophy concerning the need to work with and for farmers. “I really enjoy what I do here and the fantastic thing is that I get paid for it,” he says.

The US National Academy of Sciences honors

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Indian Agricultural Economist and former Director of CIMMYT’s Economics Program, Prabhu Pingali, was among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates inducted into the United States National Academy of Sciences this week, in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in research.

Pingali has devoted his entire career to research agriculture in developing countries. His research and advisory work has focused on technological change, environmental externalities, and agricultural development policy. Currently Director of FAO’s Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Pingali has confirmed that hunger reduction is a prerequisite for fast development and poverty reduction: “Hungry people cannot take full advantage of a pro-poor development strategy
.for each year that goes by without reducing hunger, developing countries suffer a total loss of about 500 billion US dollars in terms of lifetime earnings foregone
. Investment in hunger reduction
has a potential for generating high economic rates of return.”

Mexico’s agrarian legal office officers visit HQ

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On Wednesday, 02 May 2007, representatives of the Mexico’s Agrarian Legal Office (La ProcuradurĂ­a Agraria), RubĂ©n Gallardo ZĂșñiga, Director of Agrarian Research in the General Direction of Research and Publications, Jaime Alejo Castillo, Director General of Social Communication, Fernando LĂłpez Rojas, Director of Agrarian Organization, and NicolĂĄs Edmundo Venosa Peña, Director General of Research and Publications, visited El BatĂĄn to learn about CIMMYT and explore areas of collaboration.

The Agrarian Legal Office was officially established in 1992 to help advise and protect farmers in affairs of land tenure, but its work builds on legal and administrative precedents of protecting and documenting land use and ownership that date back to when Mexico was still a Spanish colony. The visitors toured and met with staff of the Director General’s office, GREU, ITAU, SIDU, and Corporate Communications, and left enthused and impressed by what they learned of CIMMYT.

China sends high-level delegation to CIMMYT

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In the context of CIMMYT’s long-standing and fruitful partnerships with Chinese researchers and research organizations, CIMMYT wheat scientist He Zhonghu (far left) accompanied six key experts from three Chinese ministries and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) on a visit to CIMMYT and several Mexican research institutions during 20-23 April 2007. Members of the delegation were Liu Xu, Vice President, CAAS (to the left of Masa); Yang Chuan, Deputy Division Chief, National Development and Reform Commission; Zhou Wenneng, Division Chief Ministry of Science and Technology, Wang Jiuchen, Division Chief, Ministry of Agriculture; (not in the photo) Yang Jun, Deputy Division Chief, Ministry of Agriculture; and Dai Xiaofeng, Deputy Director General, CAAS.

Mexican President visits TlaltizapĂĄn

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TlaltizapĂĄn station supervisor Francisco Magallanes, assistant supervisor Pedro GĂĄlvez, and station staff are accustomed to attending visitors, but 24 April 2007 was one day they’ll not soon forget! That morning, no less than Mexican President Felipe CalderĂłn Hinojosa, Agriculture Minister Alberto CĂĄrdenas JimĂ©nez, Agriculture Undersecretary Francisco LĂłpez Tostado, numerous other dignitaries, and some 3,000 other visitors descended upon the facility to hear the President announce a new national program for sugarcane producers, processors, and marketers. “

They called us the previous Thursday to say the station was being considered as a site for the event,” says Magallanes, “and on Friday, without further ado, we were informed that they were indeed coming!”

With the able help of station personnel, who assisted the highly professional staff of the agriculture secretariat and the President’s office, the event came off without a hitch. CIMMYT Director General Masa Iwanaga and Director of Resource Mobilization Rodomiro Ortíz were afforded courtesy invitations and front-row seats to greet the President and other dignitaries.

Rousing homage to Hugo Cordova in Central America

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Distinguished scientist Hugo Córdova Orellana, who will retire in May 2007, received a rousing tribute during the 53rd annual meeting of the Programa Cooperativo Centroamericano para el Mejoramiento de Cultivos y Animales (PCCMCA), a long-lasting network of agricultural researchers from Central America and the Caribbean. The event took place in Antigua, Guatemala, during 23-27 April and was dedicated to Cordova. Presiding over the inaugural ceremony with Córdova were Hector Centeno, Guatemala’s Presidential Commissioner for Science and Technology; Bernardo López, Guatemala’s Minister of Agriculture; Mario Moscoso, PCCMCA President and Director General of Guatemala’s Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología (ICTA); Octavio Menocal, Vice President of the PCCMCA; and the organization’s Executive Director, Mario Fuentes. As part of the ceremony, participants recalled Cordova’s life and work in global and Central American agricultural research and made humorous reference to the strong character and personal drive that have contributed to his success and marked his personal and professional relationships.

The Salvadoran native has worked 37 years in agricultural research, with achievements that include contributing to the development of improved maize varieties sown on 4 million hectares in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and, in latter years, the development and promotion of quality protein maize (QPM). He has indelibly marked the professional development of more than 60 undergrad and graduate students for whom he has served as advisor. During his keynote presentation for the event, Córdova commented that “
much remains to be done in Mesoamerica and I trust that international efforts will continue to address this.” Thanks and congratulations, Hugo!