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.
Once a world leading lentil producer, Nepal is now having to import them as farmers struggle with low productivity and warmer, wetter weather.
This could have serious implications in a country where lentils provide an important source of protein, especially for poor families.
Read more:Â https://www.thethirdpole.net/2020/11/25/climate-change-adds-to-woes-of-lentil-farmers-in-nepal/
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Philip Pardey and do not necessarily reflect the official views or position of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Working with national agricultural research centers (NARS), CGIAR centers, including the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), have played a pivotal role in staving off the last global food crisis, mainly through enhancing the yields of staple food crops like cereals.
A new report, commissioned by the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation and authored by experts from the University of California, Davis, the University of Minnesota and North Dakota State University shows that over the past five decades, CGIAR investment has generated returns of 10 times the amount invested.
We caught up with co-author Philip Pardey, a professor at the University of Minnesota and Director of the universityâs GEMS Informatics Center, to discuss the report’s implications, the importance of collaboration between NARS and CGIAR, and why investment in agricultural research and development (R&D) is needed now more than ever.
According to the report, CGIAR investment has returned a benefit-cost ratio of 10:1. How does this compare to other government investments?
A benefit-cost ratio of 10:1 means that on average, a dollar invested today brings a future return equivalent to $10 in present-day value. This is high: any ratio over the threshold of 1:1 justifies investment.
This indicates that governments â and others who invest in CGIAR and related public food and agricultural R&D â would have profited society by doing more agricultural R&D compared with the investment opportunities normally available to them. Opportunities for investment in other national and global public goods, like education and infrastructure, might also have yielded very high returns, but there is no comparable evidence that those other opportunities yielded similar return on investments.
Drawing on the findings of this report, and other related work, we conclude that the economic evidence justifies at least a doubling of overall investments in public food and agricultural R&D.
The report shows evidence of massive underinvestment in agricultural research and development (R&D) in past years. Why is that?
As we show in the report, inflation adjusted CGIAR funding has declined sharply by around 25% in the past few years. There is nothing in the economic evidence that justifies this scaling back.
Some commentators have suggested that the easy gains from agricultural R&D have already been made and that the historical returns-to-research evidence is no longer representative of the returns to more recent R&D. However, the empirical evidence refutes that notion. For example, a 2019 study from Rao et al. showed that the contemporary returns of agricultural R&D are as high as ever.
What are the risks of continuing on this path of underinvestment in agricultural R&D?
In the second half of the 20th century, global food supply grew faster than demand and real food prices fell significantly, alleviating hunger and poverty for hundreds of millions around the world. Whether or not that pattern can be repeated in the first half of the 21st century will depend crucially on investments in agricultural R&D, including investments made through CGIAR.
Global demand for food is projected to grow by 70% from 2010 to 2050. Simply meeting that increased demand will call for transformative innovations in agriculture to adapt to a changing climate, combat co-evolving pests and diseases, and increase productivity of a fairly fixed land base and a shrinking supply of agricultural water. To make food abundant and affordable for the increasingly urban, poorest of the poor demands doing much more â and much better â than simply keeping up. If adequate investments in agricultural R&D are absent, even the odds of keeping up look increasingly questionable.
Your report shows that returns are a joint effort between NARS and CGIAR. Can you elaborate on that?
The impact evidence we reviewed for our study made clear that the success of CGIAR research is inextricably intertwined with research undertaken by national programs. In fact, this national-international R&D connectedness makes it difficult to figure out what share of the overall benefits from research are attributable to CGIAR or national innovation systems.
CGIAR has appropriately shifted its attention to low-income countries that are still heavily dependent on agriculture for livelihoods and food security. These also tend to have lower national R&D capacities and more fragile innovation systems, as well as limited, albeit emerging, private sector capabilities to support their food and agricultural sectors.
Supporting the evolution of agricultural innovation systems within CGIARâs target economies requires doubling down on technology discovery, adaptation and delivery activities.
How can CGIAR better meet current global food challenges?
CGIAR has been demonstrably successful as an international instrument of technology discovery and in enhancing the international transfer, or spillover, of these new technologies. Tackling longer term agricultural technology challenges has been a key part of past successes.
However, a significant share of the funding for the CGIAR appears to have shifted away from the more strategic development of international public innovation goods to more localized economic development activities with a technology component. For example, the share of unencumbered CGIAR funding shrank from around 80% in 1971 to 50% in 2000, and since 2010 has plummeted to very low levels. The impact evidence provides little support for the notion that this shift in funding, which often implies a greater emphasis on more localized and shorter-term activities, is a high payoff strategy that best leverages CGIARâs comparative advantages.
As it continually repositions its role as a source of international public innovation goods targeted to agriculturally dependent low-income countries, CGIAR will need to rethink how it partners with the public agencies, universities and private research entities that are the major source of innovations in food and agriculture.
When CGIAR was founded, a large share of the worldâs agricultural R&D was done by public agencies in rich countries. Now the agriculturally large, middle-income countries spend on par with the rich countries, and the innovation landscape in rich and many middle-income countries is increasingly dominated by private firms. This comes with new partnership opportunities for CGIAR, but also new challenges, not least given the increasingly proprietary nature of the innovations and data that are driving developments in the food and agricultural sectors.
In your report you have documented clear evidence to support investment in agricultural R&D. What are the next steps in engaging national governments and decision makers to get agricultural R&D back on their agendas?
Today, as in the past, funding streams for CGIAR research are in decline and under threat. This mirrors a pattern of declining public support over recent decades for agricultural R&D conducted by national programs in many of the worldâs richer countries.
However, public expectations about the roles of government to address glaring market failures may be realigning. For instance, the COVID-19 crisis exposed weakness in many public health systems, with calls for renewed and hopefully sustained, long-term investments in these public programs. COVID has also revealed the fragility of food supply systems, even in rich countries. The tide of public opinion also seems to be turning regarding the growing risks associated with climate change.
Evidence-based efforts to communicate the inter-relatedness between climate, public health and agriculture risks, and the role of innovation in reducing these growing risks over the decades ahead is critical to right-sizing and realigning the public roles in agricultural R&D.
Just as strong public investments play a crucial and complimentary role regarding significant private investments in health research, so too does the basic and pre-competitive research, undertaken with public funding, prime the pump for the growing private roles in agricultural innovation.
And even as the worldwide demand for more diversified diets continues to increase, demand for staple crops such as wheat and maize will also continue to grow and will remain crucial to securing favourable nutrition and food security outcomes in the decades ahead. Innovations in agriculture are hard won, and there are long lags (often a decade or more) between spending on agricultural R&D and getting new crop technologies in the hands of farmers. Thus there is a real sense of urgency to revitalize the investments in agricultural R&D required to produce the innovations that are needed now more than ever to sustainably feed the world.
Philip Pardey is a Professor of Applied Economics and Director of the GEMS Informatics Center, a joint venture of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI), both at the University of Minnesota.
After a 37-year career, Hans-Joachim Braun is retiring from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). As the director of the Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, Braunâs legacy will resonate throughout halls, greenhouses and fields of wheat research worldwide.
We caught up with him to capture some of his career milestones, best travel stories, and vision for the future of CIMMYT and global wheat production. And, of course, his retirement plans in the German countryside.
Major career milestones
Native to Germany, Braun moved to Mexico in 1981 to complete his PhD research at CIMMYTâs experimental station in ObrĂ©gon, in the state of Sonora. His research focused on identifying the optimum location to breed spring wheat for developing countries â and he found that ObrĂ©gon was in fact the ideal location.
His first posting with CIMMYT was in Turkey in 1985, as a breeder in the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP). This was the first CGIAR breeding program hosted by a CIMMYT co-operator, that later developed into the joint Turkey, CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) winter wheat program. âIn 1990, when the Commonwealth of Independent States was established, I saw this tremendous opportunity to work with Central Asia to develop better wheat varieties,â he said. âToday, IWWIP varieties are grown on nearly 3 million hectares.â
Although Braun was determined to become a wheat breeder, he never actually intended to spend his entire career with one institution. âEventually I worked my entire career for CIMMYT. Not so usual anymore, but it was very rewarding. CIMMYT is at my heart; it is what I know.â
âMake the link to the unexpectedâ
One of Braunâs standout memories was a major discovery when he first came to Turkey. Â When evaluating elite lines from outside the country â in particular lines from a similar environment in the Great Plains â his team noticed they were failing but nobody knew why.
Two of his colleagues had just returned from Australia, where research had recently identified micronutrient disorders in soil as a major constraint for cereal production. The team tried applying micro-nutrients to wheat plots, and it became crystal clear that zinc deficiency was the underlying cause. âOnce aware that micro-nutrient disorders can cause severe growth problems, it was a minor step to identify boron toxicity as another issue. Looking back, it was so obvious. The cover picture of a FAO book on global soil analysis showed a rice field with zinc deficiency, and Turkey produces more boron than the rest of the world combined.â
âWe tested the soil and found zinc deficiency was widespread, not just in the soils, but also in humans.â This led to a long-term cooperation with plant nutrition scientists from Cukurova University, now Sabanci University, in Istanbul.
But zinc deficiency did not explain all growth problems. Soil-borne diseases â cyst and lesion nematodes, and root and crown rot â were also widespread. In 1999, CIMMYT initiated a soil-borne disease screening program with Turkish colleagues that continues until today. Â Over the coming decade, CIMMYTâs wheat program will make zinc a core trait and all lines will have at least 25% more zinc in the grain than currently grown varieties.
After 21 years in Turkey, Braun accepted the position as director of CIMMYTâs Global Wheat Program and moved back to Mexico.
Partnerships and friendships
Braun emphasized the importance of âmutual trust and connections,â especially with cooperators in the national agricultural research systems of partner countries. This strong global network contributed to another major milestone in CIMMYT wheat research: the rapid development and release of varieties with strong resistance to the virulent Ug99 race of wheat rust. This network, led by Cornell University, prevented a potential global wheat rust epidemic.
CIMMYTâs relationship with Mexicoâs Ministry of Agriculture and the ObregĂłn farmers union, the Patronato, is especially important to Braun.
In 1955, Patronato farmers made 200 hectares of land available, free if charge, to Norman Borlaug. The first farm community in the developing world to support research, it became CIMMYTâs principal wheat breeding experimental station: Norman Borlaug Experimental Station, or CENEB. Â When Borlaug visited ObregĂłn for the last time in 2009, the Patronato farmers had a big surprise.
âI was just getting out of the shower in my room in ObregĂłn when I got a call from Jorge Artee Elias Calles, the president of the Patronato,â Braun recalls. âHe said, âHans, Iâm really happy to inform you that Patronato decided to donate $1 million.ââ
The donation, in honor of Borlaugâs lifetime of collaboration and global impact, was given for CIMMYTâs research on wheat diseases.
âThis relationship and support from the ObregĂłn farmers is really tremendous,â Braun says. âObregĂłn is a really special place to me. I am admittedly a little bit biased, because ObregĂłn gave me a PhD.â
A worldwide perspective
Braunâs decades of international research and travel has yielded just as many stories and adventures as it has high-impact wheat varieties.
He remembers seeing areas marked with red tape as he surveyed wheat fields in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and the shock and fear he felt when he was informed that they were uncleared landmine areas. âI was never more scared than in that moment, and I followed the footsteps of the guy in front of me exactly,â Braun recalls.
On a different trip to Afghanistan, Braun met a farmer who had struggled with a yellow rust epidemic and was now growing CIMMYT lines that were resistant to it.
âThe difference between his field and his neighborsâ was so incredible. When he learned I had developed the variety he was so thankful. He wanted to invite me to his home for dinner. Interestingly, he called it Mexican wheat, as all modern varieties are called there, though it came from the winter wheat program in Turkey.â
Seeing the impact of CIMMYTâs work on farmers was always a highlight for Braun.
CIMMYTâs future
Braun considers wheat research to be still in a âblessed environmentâ because a culture of openly-shared germplasm, knowledge and information among the global wheat community is still the norm. âI only can hope this is maintained, because it is the basis for future wheat improvement.”
His pride in his program and colleagues is clear.
âA successful, full-fledged wheat breeding program must have breeders, quantitative genetics, pathology, physiology, molecular science, wide crossing, quality, nutrition, bioinformatics, statistics, agronomy and input from economists and gender experts,â in addition to a broad target area, he remarked at an acceptance address for the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement award.
âHow many programs worldwide have this expertise and meet the target criteria? The Global Wheat Program is unique â no other wheat breeding program has a comparable impact. Today, around 60 million hectares are sown with CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties, increasing the annual income of farmers by around $3 billion dollars. Not bad for an annual investment in breeding of around $25 million dollars. And I donât take credit for CIMMYT only, this is achieved through the excellent collaboration we have with national programs.â
A bright future for wheat, and for Braun
After retirement, Braun is looking forward to settling in rural Inzlingen, Germany, and being surrounded by the beautiful countryside and mountains, alongside his wife Johanna. They look forward to skiing, running, e-biking and other leisure activities.
âOne other thing I will try â though most people will not believe me because Iâm famous for not cooking â but I am really looking into experimenting with flour and baking,â he says.
Despite his relaxing retirement plans, Braun hopes to continue to support wheat research, whether it is through CIMMYT or through long friendships with national partners, raising awareness of population growth, the âproblem of all problemsâ in his view.
âWe have today 300 million more hungry people than in 1985. The road to zero hunger in 2030 is long and will need substantial efforts. In 1970, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries agreed to spend 0.7% of GDP on official development assistance. Today only 6 countries meet this target and the average of all OECD countries has never been higher than 0.4%. Something needs to change to end extreme poverty â and that on top of COVID-19. The demand for wheat is increasing, and at the same time the area under wheat cultivation needs to be reduced, a double challenge. We need a strong maize and wheat program. The world needs a strong CIMMYT.â
Cover photo: Hans Braun, Director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), inspects wheat plants in the greenhouses. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
How do you create the largest market for stress-tolerant seed away from a major business center and attract over 1000 smallholder farmers in two days? Organize a seed fair to strengthen knowledge and information sharing.
The availability, access and use of climate-resilient seed by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe is often hampered by transport costs, the distance between farming areas and viable seed markets, lack of public transport to business centers, and the inflated prices of seed and inputs by local agro-dealers. As a result, resource-poor farmers who cannot afford to purchase inputs resort to exchanging local seed retained or recycled from informal markets. This has devastating effects on farmersâ productivity, food and nutrition security.
Under the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is promoting climate-smart technologies and appropriate seed varieties alongside conservation agriculture (CA) systems in Masvingo district, Zimbabwe. Since 2018, mother and baby trials have successfully yielded results for smallholders in Ward 17 and additional mother trials have been introduced in Ward 13.
To overcome the challenges of seed access, CIMMYT partnered with eight seed companies â including Agriseeds, Mukushi and SeedCo â to host two seed fairs in October, targeting farmers in Wards 13 and 17. The intervention sought to address seed insecurity while reducing the knowledge gap on available stress-tolerant seed varieties by smallholder farmers.
Groundwork preparations led by the Department of Agriculture and Extension Services (AGRITEX) mobilized farmers from the host wards as well as farmers from neighboring wards 15, 19 and 25. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, regulations relating to social distancing, the use of masks and sanitization were adhered to throughout the events.
Climate-smart seed choices
A key message delivered to the more than 1000 farmers who attended the seed fairs was the importance of their preference when selecting the right seed for their field. âFarmers must be critical when selecting seed and ensure that their preferred seed will perform well under the prevailing climatic conditions to give a good harvest,â said CIMMYT seed systems specialist Peter Setimela.
Seed company representatives were offered a platform to market their varieties and explain the benefits of each product on the market while leaving it to the farmers to decide on the most suitable variety for their own needs. âFarmers came early for the seed fairs and showed interest in our products,â said Norman Chihumo, a regional agronomist at Syngenta Distributors. âWe recorded fairly good sales of seed and chemicals through cash purchases and vouchers.â
Later in the day, farmers toured the seed company stands to see the diverse maize varieties and small grains on offer â including millet and sorghum, cowpeas and groundnuts â and heard testimonials from participants in the mother and baby trials. âListening to a success story from a farmer I know gives me the confidence to follow suit and buy seed that works in this harsh climate of ours,â said Joice Magadza, a farmer from Ward 17.
Local farmer Happison Chitono agreed. âI never used to grow cowpeas on my plot,â he explained, âbut after learning about the ability it has to fix nitrogen into my soil and possibility of rotating the legume with maize, I am now gladly adding it to my seed input package.â
A seed fair is also a knowledge market
A key highlight of the seed fair was the learning platform promoting CIMMYTâs ongoing activities under the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative. Here, cropping systems agronomist Christian Thierfelder shared the objectives of this initiative with participating farmers.
âWe know how good this seed is, but we also have to grow it in a sustainable way, so we make best use of the limited rainfall we receive in this area while we improve our soils,â he explained to farmers. âCropping systems such as conservation agriculture combine no-tillage, mulching and crop rotation in a climate-smart agriculture way which enables farmers to harvest enough, even under heat and drought stress.â
Thierfelder also demonstrated the use of farm equipment promoted by CIMMYT in collaboration with Kurima Machinery, explaining how these can help reduce drudgery and save time on planting, transport and shelling.
Vouchers for transparent seed access
The seed fairs culminated in the distribution of seed and input vouchers. One hundred farmers were selected through a transparent raffle and redeemed their vouchers at their preferred seed company stands. They then also had the option to purchase additional seed, fertilizer and chemicals using their own cash.
Particularly high sales were recorded for Provitamin A orange maize, which sold out on both seed fair days. Stress-tolerant varieties such as ZM 309 and ZM 523 from Zimbabwe Super Seeds, ZM521 from Champion Seeds, and MRI 514 from Syngenta were also favorites among the farmers, while white sorghum and cowpea varieties such as CBC2 also sold well. Most of these varieties were already known to farmers as they had seen them growing for two years in CIMMYTâs mother trials of Ward 17.
The seed fairs ended on a high note with a total of 1.2 tons of seed sold to farmers on both days and agro-dealers hailed the fairs as a timely business venture for creating linkages and bringing seed suppliers on-site to assess their shops. A post-seed fair monitoring exercise will soon follow up on farmersâ use of the seed and the performance of demo packs and purchased varieties.
The Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative supported by the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the World Food Programme (WFP) aims to increase farmer resilience and capacity to withstand climatic shocks and stresses in rural communities of Masvingo, Mwenezi and Rushinga in Zimbabwe.
The first meetings of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) wheat and maize science and technical steering committees â WSC and MSC, respectively â took place virtually on 25th and 28th September.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) sit on both committees. In the WSC they are joined by wheat experts from national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Nepal; and from Angus Wheat Consultants, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), HarvestPlus, Kansas State University and the Roslin Institute.
Similarly, the MSC includes maize experts from NARS in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia; and from Corteva, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), SeedCo, Syngenta, the University of Queensland, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
During the meetings, attendees discussed scientific challenges and opportunities for AGG, and developed specific recommendations pertaining to key topics including breeding and testing scheme optimization, effective engagement with partners and capacity development in the time of COVID-19, and seed systems and gender intentionality.
Discussion groups noted, for example, the need to address family structure in yield trials, to strengthen collaboration with national partners, and to develop effective regional on-farm testing strategies. Interestingly, most of the recommendations are applicable and valuable for both crop teams, and this is a clear example of the synergies we expect from combining maize and wheat within the AGG project.
All the recommendations will be further analyzed by the AGG teams during coming months, and project activities will be adjusted or implemented as appropriate. A brief report will be submitted to the respective STSCs prior to the second meetings of these committees, likely in late March 2021.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is proud to partner with the Whole Grain Initiative in celebrating International Whole Grain Day on November 19, 2020.
In terms of diet and nutrition, ours is an age of contradiction. While populations in wealthy countries are faced with unprecedented levels of diet-related disease, close to 2 billion people globally remain food insecure. At the same time, global agriculture has an enormous role to play in the transition towards an environmentally sustainable future.
International Whole Grain Day 2020 is a good day to step back and consider the continued role of whole grains in the healthy, sustainable diets of today and tomorrow. Explore our content to learn what whole grains are, how weâre working to make whole grain wheat and maize even more nutritious, and discover some our favorite recipes.
In the first installment of The Cereal Serial, CIMMYTâs maize and wheat quality experts explain what whole grains are and why they are an important part of a healthy diet.
For a deeper dive into the subject, check out our explainer on whole grains: What they are, why they are important for your health, and how to identify them.
What do wholegrain foods look like around the world? Weâve curated photos of some delicious staples. View gallery.
CIMMYTâs âA Grain a Dayâ cookbook highlights the big role maize and wheat play in diets around the world, and brings global cuisine to your own kitchen. (Note: not all recipes call for whole grains.) Learn more.
Join members of the Whole Grain Initiative, the FAO and global leaders on November 19 as they discuss the role of whole grains in meeting the âtriple challengeâ of ensuring global food security and improving the livelihoods of agri-food workers in an environmentally sustainable manner. Join the webinar: Building Healthy, Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems.
Interested in learning more about how CIMMYT is working to make grain-based diets healthier and more nutritious? Check out our archive of health and nutrition content.
Featured image: Little girl eating roti, Bangladesh (S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
In the first installment of The Cereal Serial, CIMMYTâs maize and wheat quality experts Natalia Palacios and Itria Ibba explain what whole grains are and why they are an important part of a healthy diet. For a deeper dive into the subject, check out our whole grains explainer.
Share recipes and photos of your favorite whole grain foods by tagging @CIMMYT and using #choosewholegrains in your social media posts.
A state-of-the-art study of plant DNA provides strong evidence that farmers in Ethiopia have widely adopted new, improved rust-resistant bread wheat varieties since 2014.
The results â published in Nature Scientific Reports â show that nearly half (47%) of the 4,000 plots sampled were growing varieties 10 years old or younger, and the majority (61%) of these were released after 2005.
Four of the top varieties sown were recently-released rust-resistant varieties developed through the breeding programs of the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Adoption studies provide a fundamental measure of the success and effectiveness of agricultural research and investment. However, obtaining accurate information on the diffusion of crop varieties remains a challenging endeavor.
DNA fingerprinting enables researchers to identify the variety present in samples or plots, based on a comprehensive reference library of the genotypes of known varieties. In Ethiopia, over 94% of plots could be matched with known varieties. This provides data that is vastly more accurate than traditional farmer-recall surveys.
This is the first nationally representative, large-scale wheat DNA fingerprinting study undertaken in Ethiopia. CIMMYT scientists led the study in partnership with EIAR, the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and Diversity Array Technologies (DArT).
âWhen we compared DNA fingerprinting results with the results from a survey of farmersâ memory of the same plots, we saw that only 28% of farmers correctly named wheat varieties grown,â explained Dave Hodson, a principal scientist at CIMMYT and lead author of the study.
The resulting data helps national breeding programs adjust their seed production to meet demand, and national extension agents focus on areas that need better access to seed. It also helps scientists, policymakers, donors and organizations such as CIMMYT track their impact and prioritize funding, support, and the direction of future research.
âThese results validate years of international investment and national policies that have worked to promote, distribute and fast-track the release of wheat varieties with the traits that farmers have asked for â particularly resistance to crop-destroying wheat rust disease,â said Hodson.
Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ethiopian government recently announced its goal to become self-sufficient in wheat, and increasing domestic wheat production is a national priority.
Widespread adoption of these improved varieties, demonstrated by DNA fingerprinting, has clearly had a positive impact on both economic returns and national wheat production gains. Initial estimates show that farmers gained an additional 225,500 tons of production â valued at $50 million â by using varieties released after 2005.
The study results validate investments in wheat improvement made by international donor agencies, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ethiopian government, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, formerly DFID), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank. Their success in speeding up variety release and seed multiplication in Ethiopia is considered a model for other countries.
âThis is good news for Ethiopian farmers, who are seeing better incomes from higher yielding, disease-resistant wheat, and for the Ethiopian government, which has put a high national priority on increasing domestic wheat production and reducing dependence on imports,â said EIAR Deputy Director General Chilot Yirga.
The study also confirmed CGIARâs substantial contribution to national breeding efforts, with 90% of the area sampled containing varieties released by Ethiopian wheat breeding programs and derived from CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) germplasm. Varieties developed using germplasm received from CIMMYT covered 87% of the wheat area surveyed.
âThis research demonstrates that DNA fingerprinting can be applied at scale and is likely to transform future crop varietal adoption studies,â said Kindie Tesfaye, a senior scientist at CIMMYT and co-author of the study. âAdditional DNA fingerprinting studies are now also well advanced for maize in Ethiopia.â
This research is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CGIAR Fund Donors. Financial support was provided through the âMainstreaming the use and application of DNA Fingerprinting in Ethiopia for tracking crop varietiesâ project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant number OPP1118996).
RELATED PUBLICATIONS:
Ethiopiaâs Transforming Wheat Landscape: Tracking Variety Use through DNA Fingerprinting
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
Dave Hodson, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), d.hodson@cgiar.org
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and What Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information visit staging.cimmyt.org
The COVID-19 global health crisis has disrupted food and agricultural systems around the world, affecting food production, supply chains, trade and markets, as well as peopleâs livelihoods and nutrition. Following an initial assessment in May 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) joined the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other CGIAR centers to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bangladeshâs agri-food system.
The report shares critical reflections and lessons learned, as well as providing detailed quantitative and qualitative information on all disruption pathways and possible recovery strategies.
According to the research team, the major visible impact was the decline of food demand due to the disruption of value chain actors in the food market and income shortages, especially among low- and daily wage-earning populations. This reduced demand lead in turn to reduced prices for agricultural goods, particularly perishable food items like vegetables, livestock and fish products.
Additionally, constraints on the movement of labor led to a disruption in agricultural services, including machinery and extension services, while domestic and international trade disruptions created input shortages and lead to price volatilities which increased production costs. This increase, coupled with reductions in production and output prices, essentially wiped farmer profits.
Building back a better food system
The latest report was launched at the same time as the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub in Bangladesh, which aims to build local resilience to the effects of the pandemic and support government-led recovery initiatives. At a panel discussion presenting the results of the assessment, researchers emphasized the importance of social safety net mechanisms and food demand creation, as well as the need for strong monitoring of food systems to ensure continued availability and affordability, and early detection of any critical issues.
The discussion centered on the need for public access to trustworthy information in order to raise awareness and instill confidence in the food they consume. One key recommendation which emerged is facilitating the digitalization of farming, which looks to re-connect farmers and consumers and build the food system back better. The accelerated development of digital platforms connecting farmers to markets with contactless delivery systems can ensure the safer flow of inputs and outputs while generating a higher share of consumer money for farmers. There is also a need to explore green growth strategies for reducing food waste â the creation and distribution of improved food storage systems, for instance â and circular nutrient initiatives to better utilize food waste as feed and bio manure.
Read the full report âSecond rapid assessment of food and nutrition security in the context of COVID-19 in Bangladesh, May â July 2020â
At seed fair in Masvingo District, Zimbabwe, farmers browse numerous displays of maize, sorghum, millet, groundnuts and cowpeas presented by the seed companies gathered at Muchakata Business Centre.
The event â organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as part of the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative â is promoting a range of stress-tolerant seeds, but there is a particular rush for the vitamin A-rich, orange maize on offer. Farmers excitedly show each other the distinctive orange packets they are purchasing and in no time all, this maize seed is sold out at the Mukushi Seeds stand.
âI first saw this orange maize in the plot of my neighbor, Florence Chimhini, who was participating in a CIMMYT project,â explains Dorcus Musingarimi, a farmer from Ward 17, Masvingo. âI was fascinated by the deep orange color and Florence told me that this maize was nutritious and contained vitamin A which helps to maintain normal vision and maintain a strong immune system.â
âI would like to grow it for myself and consume it with my family,â says Enna Mutasa, who also purchased the seed. âI heard that it is good for eyesight and skin â and it is also tasty.â
Knowledge transfer through mother trials
Florence Chimhini is one of ten farmers who has participated in the âmother trialsâ organized as part of the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative since 2018.
These trials were designed in a way that allows farmers to test the performance of six different maize varieties suited to the climatic conditions of their semi-arid region, while also growing them under the principles of conservation agriculture. Using this method, farmers like Chimhini could witness the traits of the different maize varieties for themselves and compare their performance under their own farm conditions.
An important outcome of the mother trials was a growing interest in new varieties previously unknown to smallholders in the area, such as the orange maize varieties ZS244A and ZS500 which are sold commercially by Mukushi Seeds.
âRecent breeding efforts have significantly advanced the vitamin A content of orange maize varieties,â says Christian Thierfelder, a cropping systems agronomist at CIMMYT. âHowever, the orange color has previously been associated with relief food â which has negative connotations due to major food crises which brought low quality yellow maize to Zimbabwe.â
âNow that farmers have grown this maize in their own mother trial plots and got first-hand experience, their comments are overwhelmingly positive. The local dishes of roasted maize and maize porridge are tastier and have become a special treat for the farmers,â he explains.
âThough not as high yielding as current white maize varieties, growing orange maize under climate-smart conservation agriculture systems can also provide sustained and stable yields for farm families in Zimbabweâs drought-prone areas.â
Addressing micronutrient deficiency
In Zimbabwe, at least one in every five children suffers from ailments caused by vitamin A deficiency, from low levels of concentration to stunting and blindness. The vitamin is commonly found in leafy green vegetables, fruits and animal products â sources that may be unavailable or unaffordable for many resource-poor households.
Staple maize grain, however, is often available to smallholder families and thus serves as a reliable means through which to provide additional micronutrient requirements through conventional biofortification. This allows people to improve their nutrition through the foods that they already grow and eat every day, says Lorence Mjere, a seed systems officer at HarvestPlus Zimbabwe.
The beta-carotene in orange maize gives it its distinctive orange color and provides consumers with up to 50% of their daily vitamin A requirements.
âOrange maize addresses hidden hunger in family diets by providing the much-needed pro-vitamin A which is converted to retinol upon consumption,â explains Thokozile Ndhlela, a maize breeder at CIMMYT. âIn doing so, it helps alleviate symptoms of deficiency such as night blindness and poor growth in children, to name just a few.â
The success of the recent seed fairs shows that provitamin A maize is gaining momentum among smallholder farmers in Masvingo and its continued promotion will support all other efforts to improve food and nutrition security in rural farming communities of southern Africa.
There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. So goes the old saw. In the social sciences, these âweeksâ are often referred to as critical junctures. They are moments when the old rules of the game â the long-established ways of doings things â go out the window and new patterns begin to emerge. The breadbasket states of northwestern India seem to be having one of those weeks.
After years of research and advocacy that appeared to be making little headway, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are seeing a sudden and dramatic increase in the adoption of some of the technologies and techniques they have long argued are necessary in this region, including direct-seeding of rice, crop diversification and the adoption of Happy Seeder technology.
A case of unintended consequences
In March 2020 the Indian government decreed a national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This triggered the largest internal migration since partition, as millions of migrant workers and day laborers scrambled to return to their home villages. Estimates suggest that up to 1 million workers left the northwestern states of Haryana and Punjab alone.
Agriculture in the region is dominated by the labor- and input-intensive production of rice and wheat in rotation. This system is the most productive per hectare in India, but it is also extremely sensitive to external shocks. The success of both the rice and wheat crop depend on the timely transplantation of rice in mid-June.
As the results of a recently published study demonstrate, delays in this schedule can have devastating downstream effects not only on rice and wheat yields, but on regional air quality too. Models of the worst-case delay scenario predicted a total economic loss of nearly $1.5 billion. Moreover, they predicted that, if no action were taken, up to 80% of rice residue would be burned later in the autumn, when cooler conditions contribute to seasonally poor air quality.
Such an exacerbation of the regionâs air pollution would be dire under normal conditions. During a global pandemic of a primarily respiratory illness, it could be devastating.
Fortunately, solutions and technologies that CIMMYT researchers had been studying for decades, along with ICAR, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and other national partners, promised to help ward off the worst effects of the crisis. The adoption of direct-seeding technology could help reduce the labor-intensiveness of rice production, crop diversification could minimize the economic impacts of the crisis, and the use of Happy Seeder technology could alleviate the practice of residue burning.
Decades of work pay off
The study, co-authored by researchers at CIMMYT, ICAR and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), relied on a sophisticated ex ante model of four different rice-transplanting delay scenarios. It is published in the November 2020 issue of Agricultural Systems.
However, given the time-sensitivity and high-stakes of the issue, the lead researchers did not wait for the articles publication to press their case. Earlier this year they circulated their initial findings and recommendations to policymakers via their national partners. Notably, after receiving a one-pager summarizing these, the Chief Minister of Punjab released a video address echoing their points.
âPolicymakers realized the need for these kinds of solutions,â says Balwinder Singh, a CIMMYT scientist and lead author of the paper. They then moved quickly to incentivize their adoption through various mechanisms, such as subsidizing direct-seeding drills and ensuring the timely availability of machines and other inputs.
This year, 500,000 hectares were converted to direct seeding, explains M.L. Jat, a principal scientist at CIMMYT. This represents 34% more area converted in 2020 alone than in the previous 10 years. Additionally, 330,000 hectares were converted to other crops, principally cotton, maize and legumes.
Singh and Jat have been carrying out a multi-year survey to assess farmer willingness to adopt Happy Seeder technology and have documented a drastic increase in farmer interest in the technology during 2020. For Jat, this highlights the power of partnerships. âIf you donât include your partners from the beginning, they will not own what you say,â he argues.
Such changes are to be celebrated not only as an important response to the current labor shortage, but also as key to ensuring the long-term sustainability of agricultural production in the region, having important implications for the stewardship of water resources, air pollution and soil health.
âPolicies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long-term productivity and sustainability of the nation,â says S. K. Chaudhari, deputy director general for Natural Resource Management at ICAR.
Warding off catastrophe
Although the agricultural cycle is not yet over, and early data are still partial, Singh and Jat estimate that thanks to the dramatic adoption of alternative agricultural practices this year, their worst-case estimates have been avoided. Given the rapid response from both policymakers and farmers, the real-world effects of the COVID-19 labor crisis are likely closer to the mid-range severity scenarios of their analysis. Indeed, early estimates predict no rice yield losses and minor-to-no wheat yield losses over baseline. For the researchers, the relief is palpable and the lessons couldnât be clearer.
âThese technologies were there for decades, but they were never appreciated because everything was normal,â says Jat. âThis clearly indicates a need for investment in the technology and the research. You may encounter a problem at any time, but you cannot generate the technology overnight.â
Pawan Kumar Singh, head, wheat pathology, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) says that the fast-acting and devastating fungal disease known as wheat blast was first spotted in Africa in the Zambian rainfed wheat production system in the 2017-2018 crop cycle.
Read more here:Â https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/agriculture/news/wheat-disease-common-to-asia-jumps-to-africa.html
Building on a wealth of existing investment in UK wheat research and development, including the UK Research and Innovation BBSRC-funded Designing Future Wheat programme (DFW), the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) has formed a new European Winter Wheat Hub that will accelerate research discoveries from the UK and globally into commercial plant breeding.
A public-private partnership, the IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub will combine novel traits discovered by collaborative international teams into a range of high performing European winter wheat genetic backgrounds for assessment and use in winter wheat breeding programs.
The global agriculture companies BASF, KWS, RAGT and Syngenta, in collaboration with the UK National Institute for Agricultural Botany (NIAB), will provide a translational pipeline supporting European winter wheat improvement. In partnership with IWYP, commercial breeders will select key genetic discoveries of potential value for the European wheat community from global IWYP research projects. NIAB will then use its expertise in pre-breeding to produce genetic material for the validation and development of selected IWYP research outputs.
Joining the wider existing IWYP Hub Network of large translational pipelines operating on spring wheat at CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) in Mexico and the recently established NIFA-IWYP Winter Wheat Breeding Innovation Hub at Kansas State University, USA, the IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub will ensure that cutting-edge discoveries are rapidly available to both the participating wheat breeders and to the global wheat breeding community.
âThis is another excellent example of how public-private partnerships (such as the DFW, the Wheat Initiative and IWYP) can work well at both the international and national level,â said Chris Tapsell from KWS, who is leading the IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub development.
âAnd this hub will help ensure that the hard work of the IWYP researchers around the world will deliver impacts that address the twin challenges of increasing wheat production for food security whilst protecting the environment.â
Jeff Gwyn, who leads the IWYP program said, âThe addition of this new hub further strengthens the IWYP Hub Network and enables the development of our innovations to reach a wider industry base more rapidly. It is critical for IWYP to have its research outputs taken up and utilized for the public good. Public-private partnerships such as this further demonstrate that the IWYP initiative is filling a significant gap and creating value.â
Tina Barsby, CEO of NIAB commented, âNIAB has a strong track record in pre-breeding of wheat and particularly in working closely with commercial breeders to bring new variability to the market. We are really looking forward to helping to advance IWYP project traits into breeding programs.â
This press release was originally posted on the website of the International Wheat Yield Partnership.
The IWYP program is based on an innovative model for public funding and international scientific collaboration to address the global grand challenge of food, nutritional and economic security for the future. The model employs public-private partnerships to scale and drive its research innovations for impact. Operations require active coordination of the international research and development teams whose discovery research focuses on complementary and overlapping sets of potentially high impact novel trait targets deemed likely to underpin yield increases, such as the regulation of photosynthesis, optimal plant architecture, plant biomass distribution, and grain number and size. As the results emerge, it is possible to envisage how to combine them and therefore simultaneously remove multiple constraints affecting yields in farmersâ fields. https://iwyp.org/
NIAB is an independent plant biosciences organisation working to translate fundamental research into innovative solutions and products for the agricultural sector. The IWYP-European Winter Wheat Hub will leverage established expertise in wheat genetics and breeding at NIAB, including newly developed glasshouse and molecular laboratory facilities.
https://www.niab.com/
BASF, KWS, RAGT and Syngenta are innovation-led leaders in the wheat breeding industry, developing varieties that deliver consistent year-on-year genetics gain for the benefit of wheat growers throughout Europe and North America. All companies are active members of IWYP and launched this initiative to speed up and ensure the effective utilization of deliverables from IWYP research projects, which are funded by partners across the globe including the BBSRC in the UK.
www.kws.com
www.ragt.fr
www.basf.com
www.syngenta.com
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is pleased to announce the release of a new category of maize inbred lines called CIMMYT Maize Genetic Resource Lines (CMGRL). The CMGRLs are derived from crosses between elite CIMMYT lines and landrace accessions, populations or synthetics from the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank.
Although high standards of yield and agronomic performance are applied in their selection, CMGRLs are not intended to be used directly in commercial hybrids but rather by breeders as sources of novel alleles for traits of economic importance. These lines should also be of interest to maize researchers who are not breeders but are studying the underlying genetic mechanisms of abiotic and biotic traits.
Currently the maize genetic resources breeding team has projects in drought tolerance, heat tolerance, tar spot complex (TSC) disease resistance and in the development of lines and hybrids with blue kernel color. For all of these projects, the best lines identified for a given trait objective will be recombined to produce open-pollinated varieties that will be made available to the public.
The inaugural class of CMGRLs includes five subtropical adapted lines for tolerance to drought during flowering and grain-fill and four tropical adapted lines for TSC resistance. Both phenotypic and genotypic data will be published online for all CMGRL releases. CIMMYT will periodically release CMGRLs as superior lines are identified for economically important abiotic and biotic stresses as well as end-use traits.
Release Summary:
| CMGRL Name | Trait Target | Type | Level | Landrace Donor Parent | Landrace Country of Origin | Recurrent Parent | Heterotic Group | Adaptation |
| CMGRLB001 | TSC resistance | BC1 | S5 | OAXA280 | Mexico | CML576 | B | Tropical |
| CMGRLB002 | TSC resistance | BC1 | S5 | OAXA280 | Mexico | Â CML576 | B | Tropical |
| CMGRLB003 | TSC resistance | BC1 | S5 | GUAT153 | Guatemala | Â CML576 | B | Tropical |
| CMGRLB004 | TSC resistance | BC1 | S5 | GUAT153 | Guatemala | Â CML576 | B | Tropical |
| CMGRLB005 | Drought tolerance | BC1 | S5 | ARZM12193 | Argentina | Â CML376 | B | Subtropical |
| CMGRLB006 | Drought tolerance | BC1 | S5 | ARZM12237 | Argentina | CML376 | B | Subtropical |
| CMGRLB007 | Drought tolerance | BC1 | S5 | SNLP169 | Mexico | CML376 | B | Subtropical |
| CMGRLB008 | Drought tolerance | BC1 | S5 | SNLP17 | Mexico | CML376 | B | Subtropical |
| CMGRLB009 | Drought tolerance | BC1 | S5 | SNLP17 | Mexico | CML376 | B | Subtropical |
Full details including phenotypic and genotypic data on the nine lines are available here. To order a 50-kernel seed sample of the CMGRLs, please contact Terry Molnar.
âWe are unlikely to see big peaks in stubble burning unlike the previous years. The burning of paddy residue is likely to be more evenly distributed across a longer period,” said M.L. Jat, principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).