As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to two-thirds of the worldâs 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 worldâs 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.
Awais Rasheed has established a high-throughput KASP molecular breeding platform and made outstanding contributions to promoting China-Pakistan cooperation. He has discovered and validated 90 KASP markers available for wheat breeding, accounting for 60 percent of similar markers internationally, which are widely used in China and 15 other countries.
Read the full story here.
By: Professor Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Chair, CGIAR System Board
With conflict in Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere, the relationship between instability, migration and food security is increasingly apparent.
The Russia Ukraine crisis, is affecting food systems around the world, driving up the price of grains and fertilizers with countries that can least afford it hit the hardest. At the same time, broader food insecurity is contributing to forced migration and rising social tensions.
Accelerating climate change amplifies the risks, with yields for some crops in sub-Saharan Africa set to fall by up to 35 per cent by 2050.
Read the full story in English here.
This article was originally published in Swedish by Global Bar Magazine.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has a proven history of improving the lives of smallholder farmers and their families through innovative crop science and strong global partnerships.
CIMMYT celebrates Healthy Eating Week (June 13 â June 18) in the context of strengthening sustainable agrifood systems, which facilitate the production and consumption of healthy foods, against the impacts of climate change and the cost-of-living crisis.
Nutritious diets contribute to human health and productivity. Diversified cropping, whereby staple cereals like maize and wheat are grown in associations or rotations with legume or horticulture crops, help to conserve soil and water. They boost the climate resilience of farms while reducing their ecological impacts, also lowering costs for small-scale farmers and improving the nutrition of rural communities.
Conserving biodiversity in crops, livestock, aquaculture, fisheries, and forestry results in more robust food production systems, able to provide reliable supplies of nutritious grain, meat, vegetables, and seafood.
Rising temperatures, freshwater depletion, more erratic and extreme weather, market swings, and human conflict are threatening agrifood systems as never before, exacerbating food and nutrition insecurity.
Smallholder farmers and their households, which the World Bank estimates to number 0.5 billion globally and comprise a large proportion of humans living on less than $2 a day, produce much of the world’s food. At the same time, they and food system workers disproportionately bear the brunt of environmental and socioeconomic shocks.
To protect them and meet the worldâs rising demand for food, CIMMYT joins global calls to leverage agrifood systems to ensure equitable access to food for all, as well as greater investment in and use of technology that supports more intensive, climate resilient, and ecologically sensible food production.
Read four stories about CIMMYTâs efforts to support access to healthy food through seed health initiatives, global partnerships, and crop biofortification.
The discovery and use of powerful genetic traits from maize and wheat seed collections can strengthen crops, help produce healthy foods, and improve livelihoods.
The recent six-page statement from the G7 warns of the increased global risk of famine. CIMMYT offers innovative science and partnerships to help the G7 achieve its stated ambitions for global food and nutrition security.
In the absence of affordable options for dietary diversification, biofortification through crop breeding offers a viable way to reduce the micronutrient deficiencies that hamper the health and productivity of billions of humans, particularly in developing countries.
Zinc and provitamin A biofortified maize genotypes have potential to reduce hidden hunger in Nepal.
In a world where more than 800 million women, men, and children still go hungry, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) offers proven science and formidable partnerships to help achieve the recently stated ambitions of prosperous nations for global food security and nutrition.
Meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, the weekend of 19 May 2023, the grouping of seven wealthy nations known as the G7 released a public statement recognizing that the world faces the highest risk of famine in a generation and the need of working together to build more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive agriculture and food systems.
âRealizing resilient global food security and nutrition for all is our shared goal for a better future for each human being,â reaffirmed the leaders of Japan, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Comoros, the Cook Islands, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Vietnam, and the European Union, in a joint statement.
The six-page statement lays out detailed actions, policy goals, and partnerships to respond to the immediate food security crisis, in which more than 250 million persons in 58 countries need emergency food assistance, as well as preparing for and preventing future crises.
Research with impacts for marginalized, small-scale farmers
Recognizing the key role of applied research to boost food production while addressing climate shocks, the leaders advocated promoting climate-smart agriculture, including ââŠagro-ecological, nature-based solutions and ecosystem based approaches and other innovative approaches as appropriate, drawing on the knowledge and evidence base developed by the FAO, IFAD and CGIAR.â
Established in 1971, CGIAR is a global partnership dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources. A founding member and leader in CGIAR, CIMMYT is responsible for major impacts in the productivity of two key food crops, according to Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT.
âMaize and wheat together sustain billions of people worldwide, providing around a fifth of humanityâs nutritional protein and carbohydrates, generating nearly $50 billion in trade each year, and covering 400 million hectares of land â thatâs approximately one quarter of the worldâs farmland,â said Govaerts. âWe stand ready to support G7 efforts.â
âFully half of the maize and wheat varieties grown in low- and middle-income countries carry CIMMYT breeding contributions,â Govaerts explained. âThis and our research on more productive and efficient farming methods for those crops generate approximately $3.5-4 billion each year in enhanced benefits to farmers and consumers.â
As part of its decades-long cropping systems research, CIMMYT has studied and promoted conservation agriculture, a soil- and water-saving approach involving reduced tillage, keeping a cover of crop residues, and growing multiple crops together or in rotations. This approach has become highly relevant for farmers in places such as South Asia, where rising temperatures and fresh water scarcities threaten more than 13 million hectares of crop production. As part of its âcropping systemsâ approach, CIMMYT has diversified its expertise to groundnut, pigeon pea, chickpea, pearl millet and sorghum, with a strong focus on nutrition and resilience, while maintaining the Centerâs foundational work in seed production and seed marketing systems.
The G7 statement cites the importance of dryland cereal and legume crops in settings such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and CIMMYT has undertaken initiatives to improve the livelihoods of small-scale producers and consumers of sorghum, groundnut, cowpea, common beans, and millets. Among other things, the work generates and shares data on the performance and the availability of seed of improved varieties of those crops.
CIMMYT is co-leading the CGIAR initiative Digital Innovation, which is working across 13 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to improve the quality of information systems and strengthen local capacities to realize the potential of digital technologies, thereby boosting small-scale farmersâ adoption of better practices, their incomes, and their resilience to climate shocks, while reducing the gender gap and managing food system risks.
Partner connections and funding power success
These impacts would not have been possible without CIMMYTâs longstanding, effective relationships with hundreds of public and private partners worldwide, a number of which are mentioned in the G7 statement, as well as the global reach of the jointly-generated, freely-shared knowledge from those collaborations, according to Govaerts.
âA 2022 study in Nature Scientific Reports showed that the Centerâs climate science, associated with some 90% of its research, appears on academic and research platforms as well as in social media and government and international organization websites across the Global North and South, contributing to the decolonization of science and the democratization of scientific debates,â he said.
CIMMYT partnerships with and support for private seed producers and dealers have helped fuel the adoption and spread of drought tolerant maize varieties in Africa. A 2021 study shows that, during 1995-2015, nearly 60% of all maize varieties released in 18 African countries came from research by CIMMYT or the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), bringing yearly benefits as high as $1.05 billion and gaining mention in a blog by Bill Gates.
Regarding support for CIMMYTâs work from prosperous nations, including several G7 members, the Center receives generous investments on the order of $170 million each year from diverse funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Deutsche Gesellschaft fĂŒr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the government of Mexico, and CGIAR.
Mixed farming can boost Nepalâs income, food security and resilience to climate change.
CGIAR Research Centers such as the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are organizing pilot activities to promote sustainable intensification of mixed farming systems (SIMFS) as a vital strategy. SIMFS has the potential to enhance the current mixed farming system by utilizing the same quantity of natural resources and employing effective crop management.
Read the full story here.
Accelerated delivery with a difference is underway in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia to ensure access to stress-tolerant seeds for underserved farmers in remote areas. Supported by USAID, the Accelerated Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I) project brings public-private and civil society together to address the impacts of climate change, pests and diseases, and food shocks on maize and legume systems.
One simple and cost-effective solution to tackle these threats is last mile delivery of stress-tolerant and nutritious seeds. Ensuring that farmers have access to a diverse range of seeds means they can choose the best varieties to suit their needs and their local environment.
Through AID-I, scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are working with over 20 global, regional, national, and local partners to strengthen maize and legume seed systems in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.
So far, in 2023, the team has set up over a hundred mega-demonstrations across Malawi and Zambia, to raise awareness and increase seed production by exposing communities to improved, climate-adapted and nutritious crop varieties. As learning centers, the mega-demonstrations give farmers a chance to see for themselves the advantages of improved maize and legume varieties and better farming practices including conservation agriculture and doubled up legumes systems.
Spotlighted were drought-tolerant and nutritious varieties, expected to play a crucial role in the recovery of regional maize production. The Zambian and Malawian governments have also just released maize hybrids tolerant to fall armyworms, which will be scaled through the AID-I. The fall armyworm is an invasive pest that attacks more than 80 different crops but has a particular preference for maize. Without proper control measures, the pest can decimate crops, threatening food security, incomes, and livelihoods.
Alongside maize, the AID-I team is making seed of improved legume varieties, including beans, soybean, pigeon peas, cowpea, and groundnuts available at the last mile. Legumes are nutritious and good for the soil, providing valuable nutrients like nitrogen (N) so farmers can use less fertilizer, save money, and protect soil health.
AID-I supports strengthening of strategically located seed stockists of improved legume varieties and linking seed growers and buyers. These stockists, called agricultural development agents will also receive training in community seed production. Through connection with hundreds of agricultural development agents in the first farming season with seed suppliers, hundreds of thousands of farmers will be able to access a wide variety of improved seed.
Building strong relationships between public and private sector organizations is an integral part of the project. On January 16, 2023, long-term CIMMYT collaborator and AID-I key partner, AfriSeed hosted senior government officials from the United States Department of State (DOS) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The visitors gained valuable insight into how private seed companies involved in the marketing and distribution of maize and legume seeds operate in Zambia and showed their crucial role in the countryâs seed sector.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 85% of the population couldn’t afford an energy- and nutrient-sufficient diet. In the 12 most afflicted countries, World Bank data shows 9 out of 10 people struggle to afford a nutritious meal.
Climate change aggravates risk to make food even more unaffordable and crops more susceptible to crop pests and diseases.
CIMMYT maize research guides startups and nonprofits across Africa to act and put pressure on public and private actors to avert food insecurity and regional instability.
As climate change threats accelerate, new technologies, products, and approaches are required for smallholder farmers to mitigate and adapt to current and future threats. Targeting smallholder farmers will benefit not only the farmers but the entire agri-food system through enhanced locally relevant knowledge that harnesses handheld sensors and advisories on management options, soil status, weather, and market information.
The Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate / AIM4C) seeks to address climate change and global hunger by uniting participants to significantly increase investment in, and other support for, climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation over five years (2021â2025).
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), as a partner of AIM for Climate, organized a breakout session titled “Smart Smallholder Fertilizer Management to Address Food Security, Climate Change, and Planetary Boundaries” during the AIM for Climate Summit in Washington DC, May 8-10, 2023.
Fertilizers are essential for increasing crop yields and ensuring food security, yet fertilizer use for food and fodder is severely skewed at the global level, leading to over-fertilization in some regions and under-fertilization in others.
Farmers in low-income countries are highly vulnerable to fertilizer supply shortages and price spikes, which have direct consequences for food prices and hunger. Improving fertilizer efficiency and integrated organic and inorganic sources is important globally as nutrient loss to the environment from inappropriate input use drives greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.
Innovation Sprint
Because smallholder farmers are the primary managers of land and water, the CIMMYT-led AIM4C Innovation Sprint, Climate-Resilient soil fertility management by smallholders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is designed to implement and scale-up a range of climate robust nutrient management strategies in 12 countries, and to reach tens of millions of smallholder farmers in close collaboration with nearly 100 public-private partners organizations.
Strategies include innovations in extension where digital tools enable farmer-centered private and public advisories to increase the uptake of locally adapted nutrient management practices. Connecting farmers to investors and markets provides financial support for improved nutrient management.
By tailoring validated fertility management practices to their specific conditions, and integrated use of legumes and manure, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Research from other organizations has determined that improved fertilizer management can increase global crop yield by 30% while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Right place, right time
âWe need locally adapted fertilizer management approaches that work for smallholder farmers. By tailoring validated fertility management practices to their specific conditions, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions,â said Sieg Snapp, CIMMYTâs Sustainable Agricultural Systems Program Director. She continued, âWhat is needed now is major investment in data synthesis. Through this SPRINT we are exploring options to enable taking sensors to scale, to reach tens of millions of farmers with hyper-local soils information.â
Inequality is the core of the problem in fertilizer management: some regions apply more than the required amount, where in other regions fertilizer application is insufficient for plant needs, leading to low yields and soil degradation.
âFertilizer efficiency can be improved through application of the right amount of fertilizer using the right source employing the right methods of application at the right time of plant demand,â said Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT Senior Scientist, Agricultural System/Climate Change.
The session included presentations by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), UN Foundation, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), USDA, and Alliance of CIAT-Bioversity. Highlights sustainable and climate-smart practices in Pakistan, novel plant genetics for improved nitrogen cycling, and soil water and nutrient management in the Zambezi to tackle food security and climate change challenges.
The United Nations declared 2023 as the International Year of the Millet.
Millet, with other resilient cereal crops, provides a nutritious and affordable option to families worldwide. CIMMYT and ICRISAT are scaling-up millet cultivation when climate change has placed pressure to protect the food systems that safeguard food security in Africa.
To address challenges caused by maize diseases and pests, AATF renews its commitment to the TELA maize project, which works towards the commercialization of transgenic drought-tolerant and insect-proof maize varieties to safeguard food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Agrovita, which launched in 2021, aims to boost the productivity of 900 farmers over three years through actions that improve their communitiesâ food security by implementing regenerative farming practices across almost 30,000 acres. The program also aims to ensure that 50% of its beneficiaries are women.
CIMMYT is happy to announce six new, improved tropical maize hybrids that are now available for uptake by public and private sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across eastern Africa and similar agro-ecologies in other regions. NARES and seed companies are hereby invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release, scale-up seed production, and deliver these maize hybrids to farming communities.
| Newly available CIMMYT hybrids | Key traits |
| CIM21EAPP1-01-23 | Intermediate maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and MSV |
| CIM21EAPP1-01-22 | |
| CIM21EAPP1-02-13 | Early maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and MLN |
| CIM21EAPP1-02-11 | |
| CIM21EAPP2-01 | Late maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and Striga |
| CIM21EAPP2-05 |
| Performance data | Download the CIMMYT Eastern Africa Maize Regional On-Station (Stage 4) and On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials: Results of the 2021 to 2022 Seasons and Product Announcement from Dataverse. |
| How to apply | Visit CIMMYTâs maize product allocation page for details |
| Application deadline | The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is 21 May 2023. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during subsequent rounds of product allocations. |
The newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids were identified through rigorous, years-long trialing and a stage-gate advancement process which culminated in the 2022 Eastern Africa On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials. The products were found to meet the stringent performance and farmer acceptance criteria for CIMMYTâs breeding pipelines that are designed to generate products tailored in particular for smallholder farmers in stress-prone agroecologies of eastern Africa .
Applications must be accompanied by a proposed commercialization plan for each product being requested. Applications may be submitted online via the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal and will be reviewed in accordance with CIMMYTâs Principles and Procedures for Acquisition and use of CIMMYT maize hybrids and OPVs for commercialization. Specific questions or issues faced with regard to the application process may be addressed to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org with attention to Nicholas Davis, Program Manager, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT.
It is an important year for biofortification: 2023 will mark the 20th anniversary of this nutrition-agricultural innovation, for which its pioneers were awarded the World Food Prize.
More than three billion people around the world, mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, cannot afford a nourishing, diverse diet that provides enough vitamins and minerals (micronutrients). While efforts to pursue dietary diversityâthe accepted gold standard for optimal healthâmust continue, a healthy diet remains out of reach for a vast majority of the worldâs population.
The consequences are dire. A staggering two billion people get so little essential micronutrients from their diets that they suffer from âhidden hungerâ, the often-invisible scourge of micronutrient malnutrition.
To combat hidden hunger requires a range of context-specific combinations of evidence-based interventions that complement each other, including dietary diversification, supplementation, commercial food fortification, biofortification, and public health measures (like safe water, sanitation, and breastfeeding).
It is imperative to implement interventions that are practical and accessible in regions and among people most affected by hidden hunger, such as women and children in rural farming families in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), who primarily eat what they grow. This is particularly important during periods of rapid growth and development like in the first 1,000 days of life, after which the negative impacts of an insufficient diet become largely irreversible.
In this 20th anniversary year of HarvestPlus and biofortification, we review biofortificationâs role, advantages, and scale as an essential part of CGIAR-wide effort to improve global nutrition.
âBiofortified crops are going to be game-changers in dealing with⊠malnutrition in our world today.â
Dr. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, World Food Prize Laureate
Staple food crops contain fewer vitamins and minerals than animal-based foods and some vegetables and fruits. Yet wheat, maize, rice, cassava, sweet potato, beans, pearl millet, and other staple foods make up the foundation of most diets around the world, and should therefore be as nutritious as possible.
Staple foods also offer nutritional protection against food systems shocks, especially for vulnerable populations who are unable to access a healthy and diverse diet, and whose reliance on staple food crops increases during times of crises. Through biofortification, staple crops can contribute a high proportion of the micronutrients needed for good health and nutrition.
Biofortification efforts to date have focused mainly on using conventional plant breeding and agronomic techniques to add more of the micronutrients most lacking in diets around the worldâzinc, iron, and vitamin Aâ into staple crops. This approach acknowledges that many poor people cannot afford or access the variety of non-staple foods they need for optimal health, and are often underserved by other large-scale public health nutrition interventions.
â[Biofortified] crops provide a sustainable source of much needed nutrients to rural communities.â
Prof. Watts, Chief Scientific Advisor and Director for Research and Evidence, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Eating poor-quality, and often unsafe, food perpetuates a cycle of poverty, infection, and malnutrition. Enriching nutrients into staple crops that farmers are already eating provides a safety net against severe levels of deficiency and helps mitigate challenges of nutrition insecurity due to climate change.
CGIAR transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented research and innovations to improve nutritional outcomes, including biofortification, are making a vital contribution towards realizing Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition.
Biofortified crops are targeted mostly at rural food systems in LMICs, where deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and zinc are highly prevalent. Young children, adolescent girls, and women are the priority groups for biofortification because their relatively high micronutrient needs predispose them to hidden hunger.
The scientific body of evidence supporting biofortification spans over two decades. Each biofortified crop is the subject of extensive research to evaluate its intrinsic nutritional value and its potential impacts on human nutrition and health.
Vitamin A orange sweet potato (OSP) was the first biofortified staple to be delivered at scale and evaluated in sub-Saharan Africa, a joint effort by HarvestPlus, the International Potato Center, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. It has very high levels of vitamin A (traditional white varieties contain none) and long-term studies indicate it can help reduce diarrhea in children and is a cost-effective way to improve population vitamin A intake, thereby improving child and maternal health and reducing the likelihood of vitamin A deficiency. Breeding efforts are now simultaneously increasing the iron content of OSP, to deliver more of multiple stacked micronutrients.
Evidence from additional randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that nutrient-enhanced staple crops generate positive direct and indirect health effects on multiple age groups, for example:
Supplementation studies have clearly shown that improvements in micronutrient status, particularly zinc, vitamin A, and iron status, generate improvements in immunity, growth, and multiple other dimensions of good health. The improvements are not specific to how the micronutrients are delivered (e.g., by food or pills), but rather due to positive changes in nutritional status.
âThe reason for growing these varieties, is better yield, more profitability and better zinc nutrition for our families.â
â Mr Tariq, Pakistani farmer
Adoption of biofortification is demand driven. All released biofortified varieties are agronomically competitive in the agricultural zone(s) for which they were developed, relative to the varieties farmers already grow.
Crop breeding efforts are responsive to the expressed priorities and preferences of farming families and their countries. High yields are among the traits considered non-negotiable by breeders and farmers alike, and are a driver for national authorities to approve the release of new varieties in their countries to farmers to grow them.
â[Nyota, an iron bean] can easily give me over 3 tons per hectare, as compared to other varieties that yield about 2 tons.â
â Mr Burde, Kenyan seed producer
Breeding pipelines are dynamic and always adapting to new stresses. Nutrient-enriched varieties of crops are continuously improved by breeders who breed varieties for progressively higher levels of micronutrients, which are also agronomically competitive (e.g., disease and pest resistant), well adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions (e.g., drought and heat tolerant), and exhibit food quality traits desired by farmers, food processors, and consumers (e.g., fast cooking time and good taste).
In Pakistan, one of the highest wheat-consuming countries in the world, the zinc wheat variety Akbar-2019 is now a âmega-varietyâ. It provides 30 percent more zinc and 8-10 percent higher yield than previous popular varieties. Developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with HarvestPlus, and released by the Wheat Research Institute of the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, Akbar-2019 is also resistant to rusts and well adapted to a range of sowing dates. Farmers attest to the good quality of the chapatti (flat bread) made from its flour. Akbar-2019 is already being grown on more than three million hectares of landâand soon an estimated 100 million people will eat chapatti made from its flour and reap the benefits of added zinc in their diets.
âMy father-in-law⊠has expressed a desire to continue growing only biofortified zinc wheat from now on. In addition to the grain quality, the plants also grow well in tough geographical conditions.â
â Ms Devi, Indian farmer
In Nigeria, HarvestPlus and partners including the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture have developed varieties of vitamin A cassava with multiple traits attractive for farmers. Survey data indicates vitamin A cassava varieties have an average fresh root yield of 20.5 metric tons per hectare (MT/Ha), well above the average yield of 10.2 MT/Ha of other improved but non-biofortified varieties. Nearly 2.1 million farmers are growing vitamin A cassava in Nigeria, providing added dietary vitamin A to over 10 million people in a country where vitamin A deficiency is a severe, yet preventable, public health problem.
To establish new crops with higher levels of micronutrients, breeders tap into the spectrum of genetic diversity stored within global plant gene banks to find nutrient-dense qualities from underutilized plant species (including wild species or those naturally evolved in certain geographic areas).
Through breeding for improved nutrition, biofortification also transfers otherwise untapped variation for traits other than micronutrients into newly developed crops, increasing the genetic agrobiodiversity not only in biofortified varieties, but also non-biofortified varieties derived from crossing micronutrient-dense plant âparentsâ to produce high micronutrient âoffspringâ.
Micronutrient genes are not subject to erosion in the breeding process (as genes are for disease or pest resistance), like the dwarfing genes in wheat and rice that catalyzed the green revolution.
CGIAR has committed to mainstreaming improved nutrient traits in most of their breeding lines through crop breeding, given its proven cost-effective and sustainable approach to enriching staple food crops.
Governments and other âOur aim should be to make every family farm a biofortified farm.â
â Dr MS Swaminathan, World Food Prize Laureate, Father of Indian Green Revolution
HarvestPlus partners, collaborators, and advocates support country-level initiatives that promote the integration of biofortified seeds, crops, and foods into local, national, and regional policies and programs. These collective efforts and alliances are the catalyst behind the scale up to over 86 million people in farming households eating nutrient-enriched foods in 2022, 22% more than in 2021.
In 2022, a declaration adopted by the African Union to scale up food fortification and biofortification in Africaâto make nutrient-rich foods sustainably available, accessible, and affordableâwas centered on ensuring healthy diets reach those who need them most.
The Government of DR Congo has committed to scaling biofortified crop adoption and production, and its integration into the wider food system. Biofortified crops are included as one component of a wide-reaching, multi-sectoral nutrition program, funded with a loan from the World Bank.
In India, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research established minimum levels of iron and zinc to be bred into national varieties of pearl millet. The All-India Coordinated Research Project on Pearl Millet encouraged National Agricultural Research Systems to begin breeding programs for micronutrients along with higher yields in 2014. Joint efforts by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and HarvestPlus to enhanced the levels of iron in pearl millet have brought notable endorsement of biofortification by the Honorable Prime Minister Modi as a solution to address malnutrition.
The Copenhagen Consensus, a global research think-tank and policy advisory group, assessed biofortification and concluded for every USD 1 spent on biofortification, as much as USD 17 in benefits could be generated, and deemed biofortification, supplementation, and fortification as some of the smartest ways to spend money and advance global welfare.
Systematic reviews and ex-ante (before intervention) analyses of several micronutrient-crop and country scenarios have shown that biofortification is highly cost-effective when measured by the World Bankâs criteria of cost per Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) saved. These analyses show biofortified crops to be in the range of USD 15-20 per DALY savedâfar below the World Bankâs cost-effectiveness threshold of USD 270 per DALY.
âPatience, perseverance, and vision are required to achieve the cost-effectiveness of linking agriculture and nutrition in general, and biofortification in particular. The donors to the CGIAR system realized this by continuing investments well after the 20th anniversaries of CIMMYT and the International Rice Research Institute.â â Howarth (Howdy) Bouis, HarvestPlus Founding Director, World Food Prize Laureate
The number of vulnerable rural families and communities growing and benefiting from nutrient-enriched crops has significantly increased year over year. Today, over 86 million people in farming households are eating biofortified foodsâprogressing rapidly towards 100 million in later 2023.
Eliminating malnutrition requires multiple solutions, and biofortification is an extremely important part of CGIARâs efforts in pursuit of this goal.
Research has proven biofortification to be an efficacious, cost-effective, and scalable innovation that can play a pivotal role in transforming food systems to deliver affordable and accessible nutritious food for all.
This story was originally posted by HarvestPlus: Twenty Years of Enriching Diets with Biofortification.
Cover photo: Experimental harvest of provitamin A-enriched orange maize, Zambia. (Photo: CIMMYT)
CIMMYT is happy to announce five new, improved tropical maize hybrids that are now available for uptake by public and private sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across South Asia and similar agro-ecologies in other regions. NARES and seed companies are hereby invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release, scale-up seed production, and deliver these maize hybrids to farming communities.
| Newly available CIMMYT hybrids | Key traits |
| CAH201 | Medium maturing, yellow, high yielding, drought + waterlogging tolerant, and resistant to TLB and FSR |
| CAH202 | |
| CAH203 | Medium maturing, yellow, high yielding, drought tolerant, and resistant to TLB and FSR |
| CAH204 | Medium maturing, yellow, high yielding, drought and heat tolerant, and resistant to MSR |
| CAH205 |
| Performance data | Download the CIMMYT-Asia Maize Regional On-Station (Stage 4) and On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials: Results of the 2020/21, and 2021/22 Seasons and Product Announcement from Dataverse. |
| How to apply | Visit CIMMYTâs maize product allocation page for details |
| Application deadline | The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is 5 May 2023. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during subsequent rounds of product allocations. |
The newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids were identified through rigorous, years-long trialing and a stage-gate advancement process which culminated in the 2021/22 CIMMYT-Asia Maize Regional On-Farm (Stage 5) Trials On-Farm Trials. The products were found to meet the stringent performance and farmer acceptance criteria for CIMMYTâs breeding pipelines that are designed to generate products tailored in particular for smallholder farmers in stress-prone agroecologies of South Asia.
Applications must be accompanied by a proposed commercialization plan for each product being requested. Applications may be submitted online via the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal and will be reviewed in accordance with CIMMYTâs Principles and Procedures for Acquisition and use of CIMMYT maize hybrids and OPVs for commercialization. Specific questions or issues faced with regard to the application process may be addressed to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org with attention to Nicholas Davis, Program Manager, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT.
As part of its crucial mission to accelerate wheat adaptation to rapidly changing climate conditions due to global warming, the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) with the support of the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) has granted 10 awards since 2021, crowdsourcing innovative research from around the world.
Like other crops, wheat â which makes up 20 percent of the human diet â is affected by threats to the global food system from persistent population growth and economic and climate pressures. These challenges are further exacerbated by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. There is an urgent need to prioritize climate resilient wheat varieties to protect this food staple.
Some five years after HeDWIC was launched in 2014 to incorporate the most advanced research technologies into improving heat and drought tolerance of wheat, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that climate change was having an impact on food security through increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and greater frequency of extreme weather events in its Special Report on Climate Change and Land.
âWhile some areas are becoming more conducive to wheat growing, crop yields are suffering in other regions around the world traditionally known as bread baskets,â said wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds, who leads HeDWIC at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
âWheat is one of our fundamental crops, and we must spare no effort in protecting it from current and future challenges,â said Saharah Moon Chapotin, FFAR executive director. âGlobal collaborations are necessary to address global concerns, and these grants are bringing together international teams to share and build the science and research that will ensure the stability of this crop.â
The 10 recipient projects are under the umbrella of the HeDWIC project Harnessing Translational Research Across a Global Wheat Improvement Network for Climate Resilience, funded by FFAR. The first five awardee projects were identified in 2021, and an additional five projects were awarded in 2022.
To boost new ideas in âclimate-proofingâ crops, HeDWIC conducts virtual meetings that include all awarded research teams to take advantage of the collective global expertise in heat and drought resilience, leading to cross-pollination of ideas and further leverage of resources and capabilities.
In March, Reynolds led in-person discussions with some of the collaborating researchers at CIMMYTâs experimental research station on the outskirts of Ciudad Obregon, a city in Mexicoâs Sonoran Desert, during CIMMYTâs annual Visitorsâ Week.
Projects awarded in 2022
âThe HeDWIC mini proposal allows us to explore the potential of chlorophyll fluorescence for the early detection of drought and heat stress in wheat. The controlled irrigation conditions for wheat grown in Obregon give us the opportunity to quantify photosynthesis by fluorescence while drought develops. Detecting a drought-specific fluorescence response and/or the interaction between active and passive fluorescence is relevant for breeding selecting purposes as well as large spatial scale detection of drought by monitoring the plant.â â Onno Muller, Forschungszentrum JĂŒlich, Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Germany
âHeat stress during grain filling can restrict the availability of carbohydrates needed for grain development. India has been experiencing sudden spikes in both minimum and maximum temperatures by 3 to 5 degrees above normal from late-February onwards, which is an important time for wheat grain-filling and has resulted in declining wheat productivity. Our team is examining the ability of pre-flowering nitrogen applications to support biomass accumulation and overcome the grain-filling source (carbohydrate) limitation during heat spikes. If successful, the results could have broad-reaching benefits given that farmers are familiar with and well-skilled in using nitrogen applications regimes in crop management.â â Renu Pandey, Division of Plant Physiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute
âThe HeDWIC funding provides a unique opportunity to test how the regulatory sugar, trehalose 6-phosphate (T6P) can protect wheat yields against increasingly common chronic and acute heat stress events. We have already shown that T6P spray increases wheat yields significantly in field conditions under a range of rainfall in wet and dry years. With increasing likelihood of heat stress events in the years ahead, in unique facilities at CIMMYT, we will test the potential of T6P to protect reproductive development from catastrophic yield loss due to chronic and acute heat.â â Matthew Paul, Rothamsted Research, UK
âOver the last decade, we have developed heat tolerant wheat germplasm at the University of Sydney that maintains yield under terminal heat stress. In our new HeDWIC project, this material will be tested under combined drought and heat stress under field conditions. This will provide plant breeders with highly valuable information on field tested germplasm for use in accelerated breeding programs targeting combined heat and drought tolerance. The work is critical for future food security considering the inextricable link between temperature and plant water demand, and the increased frequency and intensity of heat and drought events under projected climate change.â â William Salter, University of Sydney, Australia
âWheat Rht-1 dwarfing genes were an essential component that led to spectacular increases in grain yields during the Green Revolution. Although Rht1 and Rht2 are still used widely in wheat breeding 50 years after they were introduced, they are suboptimal under drought conditions and are often associated with a yield penalty. Using a more extensive range of Rht-1 dwarfing alleles that were developed at Rothamsted, we will introduce them into CIMMYT germplasm to optimize biomass and ultimately increase grain yields under drought stress.â â Steve Thomas, Rothamsted Research, UK
Additional comments from 2021 awardees
âThis opportunity has enabled the collection of significant amounts of data that will contribute to the advancement of knowledge in crop physiology and root biology. It has also provided early career researchers with opportunities to gain hands-on experience, develop important skills, and grow their networks. Additionally, this initiative has stimulated further ideas and collaborations among researchers, fostering a culture of innovation and cooperation that is essential for progress.â â Hannah Schneider, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands
âThe project is a unique opportunity for research groups from around the world to coordinate efforts on identifying ways to improve heat tolerance of wheat.â â Owen Atkin, Australian National University, Australia
âIt is important to understand how high temperature limits crop growth and yield and to identify genetic variation that can be used for breeding climate resilient crops. This project has already begun to develop new methods for rapidly screening growth and physiological processes in genetically diverse panels which we hope will be invaluable to researchers and breeders.â â Erik Murchie, University of Nottingham, UK
âThis project will provide novel phenotyping screens and germplasm to breeders and lay the groundwork for genetic analysis and marker development.â â John Foulkes, University of Nottingham, UK
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS
Sarah Fernandes
Head of Communications
CIMMYT
s.fernandes@cgiar.org
or
Matthew Reynolds
Distinguished Scientist
CIMMYT
m.reynolds@cgiar.org
 ABOUT CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis. Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. CIMMYTâs research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.
CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.