Theme: Nutrition, health and food security

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

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

Maize farmer Raham Dil stands for a portrait with his push row planter. (Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT)

Precision planters boost maize yields in Pakistan

Written by on February 13, 2019. Posted in Features.

*A farmer uses a tractor-operated precision maize planter. (Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT)*

In the northwestern province of Pakistan, near the Afghan border, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is helping connect farmers with precision planters to support higher maize yields and incomes. Maize is one of the most important cereals in Pakistan, but in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa yields are significantly lower than the national average. The majority of maize farmers in this province have less than five acres of land and limited access to resources, including high-quality maize seed and mechanization.

Under the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan, CIMMYT introduced push row planters in 2016 to help farmers to get a uniform crop stand and save labor costs and time as compared to traditional planting practices. CIMMYT has since then partnered with Greenland Engineering to import tractor-operated precision maize planters. These precision planters allow farmers to plant two rows of maize in one pass and evenly distribute both seeds and fertilizer.

“Optimum planting density in combination with nutrient supply is key to getting the maximum maize yield,” says Muhammad Asim, a senior researcher with the Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI). “The precision planter helps farmers achieve this while also getting a uniform crop stand and uniform cobs.”

*Maize farmer Jalees Ahmed (right) operates his push row planter. (Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT)*

Jalees Ahmed, a smallholder maize farmer from the Nowshera district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, received a push row planter through CIMMYT’s AIP program. He used to hire six laborers to plant one acre of maize, but with the push row planter, Jalees only needs to hire one laborer and benefits from a more uniform crop.

Raham Dil, another farmer in the Mardan district, recently purchased a push row planter for his farm which he also rents to fellow farmers in the area.

Both Ahmed and Dil say these planters have made it easier to support their families financially. Interest in precision planters continues to grow.

Last fall, more than 80 farmers attended a field day in the Nowshera district where CIMMYT researchers demonstrated how to use the precision planter to sow maize. CIMMYT’s country representative for Pakistan, Imtiaz Muhammad, highlighted the importance of mechanized maize planting for farmers and CIMMYT’s commitment to improve maize-based system productivity in less developed regions of the country.

*Farmers in Nowshera district attend a demonstration on how to use the tractor-operated precision maize planter. (Photo: Kashif Syed/CIMMYT)*

The Agricultural Innovation Program for Pakistan is led by CIMMYT and funded by USAID. This project seeks to increase productivity and incomes by testing and promoting modern practices for agriculture’s major sub-sectors in the country.

Harvesting wheat at Gataraga, Northern Province, Rwanda.

Smallholder wheat production can cut Africa’s costly grain imports

Written by Mike Listman on February 8, 2019. Posted in News.

International scientists are working with regional and national partners in sub-Saharan Africa to catalyze local wheat farming and help meet the rapidly rising regional demand for this crop.

The specialists are focusing on smallholder farmers in Rwanda and Zambia, offering them technical and institutional support, better links to markets, and the sharing of successful practices across regions and borders, as part of the project “Enhancing smallholder wheat productivity through sustainable intensification of wheat-based farming systems in Rwanda and Zambia.”

“Work started in 2016 and has included varietal selection, seed multiplication, and sharing of high-yielding, locally adapted, disease-resistant wheat varieties,” said Moti Jaleta, a socioeconomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) who leads the project. “Our knowledge and successes in smallholder wheat production and marketing will also be applicable in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania.”

Maize is by far the number-one food crop in sub-Saharan Africa but wheat consumption is increasing fast, driven in part by rapid urbanization and life-style changes. The region annually imports more than 15 million tons of wheat grain, worth some US$ 3.6 billion at current prices. Only Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa grow significant amounts of wheat and they are still net importers of the grain.

“Growing more wheat where it makes sense to do so can help safeguard food security for people who prefer wheat and reduce dependence on risky wheat grain markets,” Jaleta explained. “We’re working in areas where there’s biophysical potential for the crop in rain-fed farming, to increase domestic wheat production and productivity through use of improved varieties and cropping practices.”

In addition to the above, participants are supporting the region’s wheat production in diverse ways:

Recommendations to fine-tune smallholder wheat value chains and better serve diverse farmers.
Testing of yield-enhancing farming practices, such as bed-and-furrow systems that facilitate efficient sowing and better weed control.
Testing and promotion of small-scale mechanization, such as power tillers, to save labor and improve sowing and crop establishment.
Exploring use of hand-held light sensors to precisely calibrate nitrogen fertilizer dosages throughout the cropping season.

Innocent Habarurema, wheat breeder in the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB), cited recent successes in the release of improved, disease resistant wheat varieties, as well as engaging smallholder farmers in seed multiplication and marketing to improve their access to quality seed of those varieties.

“The main challenge in wheat production is the short window of time between wheat seasons, which doesn’t allow complete drying of harvested plants for proper threshing,” Habarurema explained. “Suitable machinery to dry and thresh the wheat would remove the drudgery of hand threshing and improve the quality of the grain, so that it fetches better prices in markets.”

*Millers, like this one in Rwanda, play a key role in wheat value chains.*

Critical wheat diseases in Zambia include spot blotch, a leaf disease caused by the fungus Cochliobolus sativus, and head blight caused by Fusarium spp., which can leave carcinogenic toxins in the grain, according to Batiseba Tembo, wheat breeder at the Zambian Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI).

“Developing and disseminating varieties resistant to these diseases is a priority in the wheat breeding program at Mt. Makulu Agricultural Research Center,” said Tembo. “We’re also promoting appropriate mechanization for smallholder farmers, to improve wheat production and reduce the enormous drudgery of preparing the soil with hand hoes.”

Participants in the project, which runs to 2020, met at Musanze, in Rwanda’s Northern Province, during February 5-7 to review progress and plan remaining activities, which include more widespread sharing of seed, improved practices, and other useful outcomes.

“There was interest in trying smallholder winter wheat production under irrigation in Zambia to reduce the disease effects normally experienced in rainfed cropping,” said Jaleta, adding that the costs and benefits of irrigation, which is rarely used in the region, need to be assessed.

Project participants may also include in selection trials wheat varieties that have been bred to contain enhanced grain levels of zinc, a key micronutrient missing in the diets of many rural Africa households.

“The project will also push for the fast-track release and seed multiplication of the best varieties, to get them into farmers’ hands as quickly as possible,” Jaleta said.

In addition to CIMMYT, RAB, and ZARI, implementing partners include the Center for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA). Generous funding for the work comes from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.

Cobs & Spikes: Jump-starting Haiti’s maize seed sector

Written by on February 6, 2019. Posted in Podcasts.

Haiti has the lowest maize yields in Latin America and the Caribbean, and around half of the population is undernourished. Five hurricanes in the past decade and a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010 have only exacerbated these issues. In 2017, CIMMYT sent 150 tons of new and improved maize seed to the Caribbean nation to jump-start its maize seed sector, improve food security and decrease malnutrition. It was the largest seed shipment to any country in CIMMYT’s history.

In this episode, CIMMYT’s Seed Systems Lead for Africa and Latin America, Arturo Silva Hinojosa, discusses why CIMMYT sent this seed and organized trainings, how they overcame major roadblocks, and what’s in store for the future.

Learn more about the project by reading “Seeds of Hope” from the CIMMYT 2017 Annual Report.

You can listen to our podcast here, or subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or Google Play.

Call for interest: Development trait prioritization as part of a sub-Saharan African crop variety replacement strategy

Written by on January 31, 2019. Posted in News.

The CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) is looking to provide matching funding (up to US$ 35,000) for two projects with AbacusBio to characterize the users of new crop varieties and identify a value-weighted set of traits to be included as breeding targets in a product profile system.

The winning CGIAR crop breeding program will work directly with AbacusBio with EiB support to deliver on the projects.

This project represents an opportunity for CGIAR members of EiB to take a leap forward in the definition of client-focused variety replacement.

For more details on the project and how to apply, please refer to this page and the project proposal. Applications will be received January through February.

Researchers and friends recall John Mihm, former CIMMYT maize entomologist

Written by Mike Listman on January 29, 2019. Posted in News.

*John Mihm working at CIMMYT in the 1980s.*

The community of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) joins former colleagues of John A. Mihm, CIMMYT’s maize entomologist during the 1970s-90s, in honoring his memory and valuable work. John passed away on January 25, 2019, at the age of 72.

Special maize populations developed by Mihm and his CIMMYT contemporaries are critical in today’s global quest for new maize varieties to resist the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), according to B.M. Prasanna, director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.

“The insect-resistant maize germplasm developed by Mihm is proving an invaluable resource in our fight against this pest, underpinning progress in the development of resistant varieties,” said Prasanna.

Crop entomologists were laboriously placing young insect larvae onto plants in greenhouses and in the field until 1976, when Mihm developed the “bazooka.” A plastic tube with a valve that quickly and easily delivered a uniform mixture of corn grits and insect larvae into individual maize plants, the innovation allowed researchers to infest hundreds of plants in a single morning.

Originally from the Americas, fall armyworm has caused major damage to maize crops in Africa since 2016. The pest is now spreading rapidly in Asia, with incidence on maize crops confirmed in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and southern China.

“Without proper controls, fall armyworm could reduce maize grain harvests in Africa alone by an amount worth as much as US$4.6 billion,” Prasanna explained, citing a 2018 report from the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI).

With support from UNDP, Mihm greatly refined CIMMYT practices to rear larvae of maize insect pests and to apply them efficiently so that researchers could identify resistant plants and use them to breed elite, resilient varieties.

After leaving CIMMYT in 1994, Mihm worked for the U.S. company “French Agricultural Research” in studies on sources of resistance in maize to corn rootworm (Diabrotica spp). He eventually retired happily to his farm in Minnesota, according to Florentino Amasende, a former CIMMYT field assistant who was a close friend and colleague of Mihm.

“John was a friend, a mentor and even a father figure for me,” said Amasende, who with support from Mihm for his university studies rose to seed production specialist in leading seed companies. “My family and I are eternally grateful for the opportunities he gave me.”

Call for nominees for the 2019 Maize Youth Innovators Awards – Africa

Written by on January 28, 2019. Posted in News.

Nominations are now open for the 2019 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Africa! These awards are part of the efforts that the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) is undertaking to promote youth participation in maize-based agri-food systems. These awards recognize the contributions of young women and men below 35 years of age who are implementing innovations in African maize-based agri-food systems, including research for development, seed systems, agribusiness, and sustainable intensification.

Young people are the key to ensuring a food-secure future and agricultural sustainability. However, rural youth face many challenges related to unemployment, underemployment and poverty. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, facilitating young people’s participation in agriculture has the potential to drive widespread rural poverty reduction among young people and adults alike. In Africa, where over 300 million smallholder-farming families grow and consume maize as a staple crop, the human population stands at 1.2 billion people, 60 percent of whom are below the age of 25.

The MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards aim to identify young innovators who can serve to inspire other young people to get involved in maize-based agri-food systems. Part of the vision is to create a global network of young innovators in maize-based systems from around the world.

Award recipients will be invited to attend the annual Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, from May 7 to May 9, where they will receive their awards and will be given the opportunity to present their work. The project meeting and award ceremony will also allow these young innovators to network and exchange experiences with MAIZE researchers and partners. Award recipients may also get the opportunity to collaborate with MAIZE and its partner scientists in Africa on implementing or furthering their innovations.

MAIZE invites young innovators to apply and CGIAR researchers and partners to nominate eligible applicants for any of the following three categories:

Researcher: Maize research for development (in any discipline)
Farmer: Maize farming systems in Africa
Change agent: Maize value chains (i.e., extension agents, input and service suppliers, transformation agents, etc.)

We ask nominators/applicants to take into account the following criteria and related questions:

Novelty and innovative spirit: To which specific novel findings or innovation(s) has this young person contributed? (in any of the three categories mentioned above)
Present or potential impact: What is the present or potential benefit or impact of the innovation(s) in maize-based agri-food systems?

Applications should be submitted online through this form by March 15, 2019.

Key dates:

Opening date for nominations: January 21, 2019
Closing date for nominations: March 15, 2019 (Please note: Nominations received after the closing date will not be considered)
Notification of winners: March 22, 2019

Information documents:

A PDF version of this Call for Nominees is available here.
Nomination/Application Guidelines can be found here.
The Application Form can be found here and is also available on the MAIZE and YPARD websites.

For any questions or issues, contact maizecrp@cgiar.org.

This award is sponsored by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) in collaboration with YPARD (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development).

A baker makes the traditional wheat flatbread known as “naan roti” in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)

City dwellers in Africa and Asia increasingly choose wheat, research shows

Written by Mike Listman on January 23, 2019. Posted in News.

The developing world’s appetite for wheat is growing swiftly, driven in part by rising incomes, rapid urbanization and the expansion of families where both spouses work outside the house, according to a recent seminar by two international experts.

“Our research is picking up significant shifts in demand among cereals, including the increasing popularity of wheat in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa,” said Khondoker Mottaleb, socioeconomist for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), speaking at a seminar at the center on December 11, 2018.

In preliminary results of a study using household data from six countries in Asia and five in sub-Saharan Africa, Mottaleb and his associate, Fazleen Binti Abdul Fatah, senior lecturer at the University of Technology MARA, Malaysia, found that the households of both regions will eat more wheat by 2030, mainly in place of rice in Asia and of maize and other coarse grain cereals in Africa.

Speedy urbanization, higher incomes, population growth, and allied lifestyle changes are all driving this trend, said Fazleen. “Many urban women are working, so families are transitioning to bread and other convenient wheat-based foods and processed foods.”

A typical case according to Mottaleb is that of Bangladesh, a country whose population at 160 million is half that of the United States but with a geographical area equivalent to the US state of Ohio. The per capita GDP of Bangladesh grew from US$360 to US$1,516 during 2000-2017, and more than 35 percent of the country’s inhabitants now live in cities.

Meeting demand for wheat in Bangladesh

A 2018 paper by Mottaleb and fellow CIMMYT researchers shows that wheat consumption will increase substantially in Bangladesh by 2030 and the country needs to expand production or increase imports to meet the growing demand.

“The country purchases nearly 70 percent of its wheat at an annual cost near or exceeding US$1 billion, depending on yearly prices,” said Mottaleb. “Wheat prices are relatively low and wheat markets have been relatively stable, but if yields of a major wheat exporting country suddenly fall, say, from pest attacks or a drought, wheat markets would destabilize and prices would spike, as occurred in 2008 and 2011.”

In a 2018 study, the United Kingdom’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) cautioned that declining wheat cropping area worldwide and significant stockpiling by China — which holds nearly half the world’s wheat stocks but does not export any grain — were masking serious risk in global wheat markets.

A recent report ranked Bangladesh as the world’s fifth largest wheat importer. Since 2014-15 domestic wheat consumption there has increased by 57 percent from 4.9 million metric ton to 7.7 million metric tons. Last December, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations forecast Bangladesh wheat import requirements of 6 million tons for this year — 34 percent above the previous five-year average following steady increases since 2012-13.

“The prevailing narrative has wealthier and more urban consumers shifting from basic foods to higher value foods, and this is doubtless occurring,” said Fazleen, “but our work shows a more nuanced scenario. In the traditional rice consuming economies in Asia, rural households are also eating more wheat, due to rapid dietary transformations.”

For Bangladesh, the researchers propose growing additional wheat on fallow and less-intensively-cropped land, as well as expanding the use of newer, high-yielding and climate-smart wheat varieties.

“Our work clearly shows the rising popularity of wheat across Asia and Africa,” said Mottaleb. “We urge international development agencies and policymakers to enhance wheat production in suitable areas, ensuring food security for the burgeoning number of people who prefer wheat and reducing dependence on risky wheat grain markets.”

In addition to the paper cited above, Mottaleb and colleagues have published recent studies on Bangladesh’s wheat production and consumption dynamics and changing food consumption patterns.

The authors thank the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat for its support for these studies.

Researcher Tamaya Peressini performs disease evaluations 10 days post infection at CIMMYT’s glasshouse facilities.

University of Queensland student researches tan spot resistance in wheat at CIMMYT

Written by on January 21, 2019. Posted in Features.

This story, part of a series on the international agricultural research projects of recipients of the Crawford Fund’s International Agricultural Student Award, was originally posted on the Crawford Fund blog.

In 2018, Tamaya Peressini, from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), a research institute of the University of Queensland (UQ), travelled to CIMMYT in Mexico as part of her Honours thesis research, focused on a disease called tan spot in wheat.

Tan spot is caused by the pathogen Pyrenophora triciti-repentis (Ptr) and her project aimed to evaluate the resistance of tan spot in wheat to global races to this pathogen.

“The germplasm I’m studying for my thesis carries what is known as adult plant resistance (or APR) to tan spot, which has demonstrated to be a durable source of resistance in other wheat pathosystems such as powdery mildew,” Peressini said.

Tan spot is prevalent worldwide, and in Australia causes the most yield loss out of the foliar wheat diseases. In Australia, there is only one identified pathogen race that is prevalent, called Ptr Race 1. For Ptr Race 1, the susceptibility gene Tsn1 in wheat is the main factor that results in successful infection in Ptr strains that carry Toxin A. However, globally it is a more difficult problem, as there are seven other pathogen races that consist of different combinations of necrotrophic toxins. Hence, developing cultivars that are multi-race resistant to Ptr presents a significant challenge to breeders, as multiple resistant genes would be required for resistance to other pathogens.

“At CIMMYT, I evaluated the durability of APR I identified in plant material in Australia by inoculating with a local strain of Ptr and also with a pathogen that shares ToxA: Staganospora nodorum,” Peressini explained.

“The benefit of studying this at CIMMYT was that I had access to different strains of the pathogen which carry different virulence factors of disease, I was exposed to international agricultural research and, importantly, I was able to create research collaborations that would allow the APR detected in this population to have the potential to reach developing countries to assist in developing durably resistant wheat cultivars for worldwide deployment.”

Recent work in Dr Lee Hickey’s laboratory in Queensland has identified several landraces from the Vavilov wheat collection that exhibited a novel resistance to tan spot known as adult plant resistance (APR). APR has proven to be a durable and broad-spectrum source of resistance in wheat crops, namely with the Lr34 gene which confers resistance to powdery mildew and leaf stem rust of wheat.

“My research is focused on evaluating this type of resistance and identifying whether it is resistant to multiple pathogen species and other races of Ptr. This is important to the Queensland region, as the northern wheat belt is significantly affected by tan spot disease. Introducing durable resistance genes to varieties in this region would be an effective pre-breeding strategy because it would help develop crop varieties that would have enhanced resistance to tan spot should more strains reach Australia. Furthermore, it may provide durable resistance to other necrotrophic pathogens of wheat,” Peressini said.

The plant material Peressini studied in her honors thesis was a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, with the parental lines being the APR landrace — carries Tsn1 — and the susceptible Australian cultivar Banks — also carries Tsn1. To evaluate the durability of resistance in this population to other strains of Ptr, this material along with the parental lines of the population and additional land races from the Vavilov wheat collection were sent to CIMMYT for Tamaya to perform a disease assay.

“At CIMMYT I evaluated the durability of APR identified in plant material in Australia by inoculating with a local strain of Ptr and also with a pathogen that shares ToxA: Staganospora nodorum. After infection, my plant material was kept in 100 per cent humidity for 24 hours (12 hours light and 12 hours dark) and then transferred back to regular glasshouse conditions. At 10 days post infection I evaluated the resistance in the plant material.”

From the evaluation, the APR RIL line demonstrated significant resistance compared to the rest of the Australian plant material against both pathogens. The results are highly promising, as they demonstrate the durability of the APR for both pre-breeding and multi-pathogen resistance breeding. Furthermore, this plant material is now available for experimental purposes at CIMMYT, where further trials can validate how durable the resistance is to other necrotrophic pathogens and also be deployed worldwide and be tested against even more strains of Ptr.

“During my visit at CIMMYT I was able to immerse myself in the Spanish language and take part in professional seminars, tours, lab work and field work around the site. A highlight for me was learning to prepare and perform toxin infiltrations for an experiment comparing the virulence of different strains of spot blotch,” Peressini said.

Peressini had a chance to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacán and other Mexican landmarks. — *During her stay in Mexico, Peressini had a chance to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacán and other cultural landmarks.*

“I also formed valuable friendships and research partnerships from every corner of the globe and had valuable exposure to the important research underway at CIMMT and insight to the issues that are affecting maize and wheat growers globally. Of course, there was also the chance to travel on weekends, where I was able to experience the lively Mexican culture and historical sites – another fantastic highlight to the trip!”

“I would like to thank CIMMYT and Dr Pawan Singh for hosting me and giving the opportunity to learn, grow and experience the fantastic research that is performed at CIMMYT and opportunities to experience parts of Mexico. The researchers and lab technicians were all so friendly and accommodating. I would also like to thank my supervisor Dr Lee Hickey for introducing this project collaboration with CIMMYT. Lastly, I would like to thank the Crawford Fund Queensland Committee for funding this visit; not only was I able to immerse myself in world class plant pathology research, I have been given valuable exposure to international agricultural research that will give my research career a boost in the right direction,” Peressini concluded.

New report calls for urgent diet and food system changes to sustainably feed world

Written by Courtney Brantley on January 17, 2019. Posted in News.

A new report by more than 30 world-leading experts in health and environmental sustainability offers a roadmap for a global food system that provides a healthy, sustainable diet for the world’s 10 billion people by 2050.

The report, Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems, represents the first comprehensive review of what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system.

Published jointly by EAT, a global non-profit foundation founded to catalyze a food system transformation, and The Lancet, the world’s leading medical journal, the report links diets with human health and environmental sustainability. It lays out five global scientific strategies to achieve healthy diets and sustainable food production by the year 2050: shifting diets, producing healthy food, sustainably intensifying food production, improving land and water governance, and reducing food loss and waste.

The report urges substantial dietary shifts and specific courses of action from consumers, policymakers, businesses and government agencies alike to transform the world’s food system. As the report states, “Without action, the world risks failing to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, and today’s children will inherit a planet that has been severely degraded and where much of the population will increasingly suffer from malnutrition and preventable disease.”

The report emphasizes eating diets heavy in fruits, nuts, vegetables and whole grains and light on meat, as current Western-style diets are already straining the global food system’s environmental impact and pushing planetary limits. According to CIMMYT consultant and leading nutritionist Julie Miller Jones of St. Catherine University, USA, eating whole grain foods reduces obesity and the risk of almost all chronic diseases.

Given that the food system drives nearly 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, occupies 40 percent of land and causes 80 percent of biodiversity loss, increasing healthy, resource-saving foods and reducing unhealthy and unsustainably produced foods is an essential step in securing future environmental sustainability.

The founder and executive chair of EAT, Gunhild Stordalen, commented at the report’s launch event January 17 in Olso, Norway: “No single sector, technology or entity can fix it alone but, for the first time, we have a clear direction and initial targets to align and guide our actions.”

Read the full report here: http://www.thelancet-press.com/embargo/EATComm.pdf.

Read the summary here: https://eatforum.org/content/uploads/2019/01/EAT-Lancet_Commission_Summary_Report.pdf

Breaking Ground: Breeder Marcela C. Andrade bolsters maize with hardiness from ancestral races

Written by Mike Listman on January 16, 2019. Posted in Features.

As the world heats up and water grows scarce, threatening the productivity of humankind’s preferred crops, breeder Marcela Carvalho Andrade and her colleagues at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are working to toughen maize, drawing resilience traits from landraces, the forerunners of modern maize.

For decades, scientists have sought to utilize the hardiness of maize landraces, which evolved over millennia of farmer selection for adaptation to diverse and sometimes harsh local settings in Mexico, Central and South America.

But crossing elite varieties with landraces brings along wild traits that are difficult and costly to purge, including lower grain yields, excessive tallness or a tendency to fall over in strong winds. For this and for their genetic complexity, landraces are seldom used directly in breeding programs, according to Andrade.

Crosses that home in on genetically complex traits

“Our strategy is to cross selected landraces with elite maize lines, thus developing improved lines that can be directly incorporated and recycled in breeding programs,” explained Andrade, who joined CIMMYT in 2016.

The traits sought include better resilience under high temperatures, drought conditions or the attacks of rapidly-evolving crop diseases. “All these features will be critical for the future productivity of maize,” said Andrade.

One of the world’s three most important crops, maize contributes over 20% of the calories in human diets in 21 low-income countries, as well as being used in industry, biofuels, and feed for livestock and poultry.

Andrade and the maize breeding team develop new lines that carry a 75 percent genetic contribution from the elite source and 25 percent from a landrace. The aim she said is to get the good components from both sides, while broadening maize’s genetic diversity for use by breeders and ultimately farmers.

The resulting lines and hybrids are tested for yield, resilience and overall agronomic performance, under both normal growing conditions and “stressed” environments; for example, in plots grown at sites with high temperatures or reduced water availability.

“We can thus identify landraces that offer traits of interest, as well as generating improved breeding lines to strengthen the resilience of elite maize without reducing its yield,” said Andrade, noting that the research employs conventional cross-pollination and selection.

According to Andrade, CIMMYT has carried out large-scale molecular analysis of its maize seed collections, which number around 28,000 and comprise landraces from 70 countries.

“Over the past years, CIMMYT has used genetic diversity analyses of its maize collections to select landraces for use in drought tolerance breeding or for finding lines that are resistant to newly important diseases such as Maize Lethal Necrosis or Tar Spot,” she explained. “Genetic diversity analysis allows us to narrow the number of candidate landrace sources that we need to cross and assess in the field.”

The viral disease Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) has devastated crops in eastern Africa since its appearance there in 2011.

The researchers have also found landrace sources of resilience against Tar Spot Complex, a maize disease of the Americas that can cause 50 percent or greater yield losses in infected crops.

Benefiting breeding and farmers

Andrade said the breeding team expects to release a first wave of landrace-derived, improved maize lines in 2019, some featuring enhanced drought tolerance and others that provide better resistance to Tar Spot.

“The lines we offer will be freely available to breeders worldwide and must yield well and show superior resilience,” Andrade explained. “They will have reasonable agronomics—ear and plant height and standability, for example. The lines will not be perfect, but breeders won’t hesitate to use them because we’ve ensured that they are superior for at least one crucial trait and reasonably competitive for most other traits.”

From Brazil to the world

Growing up in a small town and having direct contact with her father’s dairy farm in Minas Gerais, a mainly rural state in Brazil, Andrade finds her CIMMYT work enormously satisfying. “My dad and a few uncles were farmers and complained some years that their crops didn’t yield well,” she says. “I knew I wanted to help them somehow.”

Andrade obtained Bachelor and Master’s degrees in agronomy/plant science from the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA), one of Brazil’s premier institutions of higher education. She later completed a Doctorate in Genetics and Plant Breeding at UFLA, in partnership with Ohio State University.

She credits CIMMYT maize scientist Terry Molnar, her supervisor and mentor, with teaching her the complex ins and outs of maize breeding. “I am a plant breeder and worked previously with vegetables, but I learned the practical aspects of maize breeding from Terry.”

Looking ahead, Andrade sees herself continuing as a plant breeder. “I don’t see myself working in anything else. I would eventually like to lead my own program but, at this point in my career, I’m happy to help transfer landrace traits to modern maize varieties.”

The itsy bitsy spider can make a big impact in agriculture

Written by on January 15, 2019. Posted in Features.

*Face of an adult male Phidippus audax male jumping spider. (Photo: Opoterser/Wikimedia Commons)*

A new study explores how conservation agriculture in southern Africa supports spider populations and diversity in fields, which could help mitigate pest damage and potentially lead to higher yields for farmers. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), herbivorous insects such as aphids, caterpillars and weevils destroy about one fifth of the world’s total crop production each year. Spiders can help keep voracious pests in-check, but conventional farming practices (e.g. tilling, crop residue removal and monoculture) can harm or drastically reduce these beneficial bio-control agents.

There are more than 45,000 identified spider species around the world. From glaciers to tropical rainforests, they inhabit every terrestrial ecosystem on earth. Some can even live in tidal zones, and at least one species inhabits fresh water. While we tend to associate spiders with webs, only about 50 percent of the species catch their prey this way; the rest hunt on plants, on the ground or below it, using a variety of tactics such as stalking, stabbing, crushing – even seduction.

Although spiders have been around for 300 million years, some species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss and fragmentation. Drastic reductions in vegetation – whether from a new parking lot or a tilled field – removes the food source that attracts their prey. Bare ground exposes their nesting sites and themselves, which makes it harder to hunt and easier to be hunted by birds and small mammals.

At the Chinhoyi University of Technology experimental farm in Zimbabwe, a team of researchers aimed to determine the response of spiders under different agricultural practices. Conventional farmers often prepare their fields for planting by physically breaking up and inverting the top 6-10 inches of soil. This practice of ploughing prepares a fine soil tilth, which makes it easier to plant; it breaks up and buries weeds, and reduces soil compaction to aerate the soil. But tilling also increases topsoil erosion from wind and water. It accelerates soil carbon decomposition, reduces soil water infiltration and disrupts microorganisms living in the soil, including beneficial insects and spiders.

The researchers conducted two experiments over the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 cropping seasons to see how tilling, crop residue retention (i.e. leaving stalks and post-harvest organic matter in the field), fertilizer application and weeding affected ground- and plant-wandering spider species. They hypothesized that spider abundance and diversity would increase with lower levels of soil disturbance and more plant cover.

The results showed direct seeding into no-till soil increased the abundance of spiders and the diversity of species. Mulching also showed a positive effect. Contrary to their hypotheses and results from temperate regions, the application of fertilizer and intense weeding did not affect the spider community. The researchers attributed this to the difference in climatic conditions (tropical vs. temperate) of this study in southern Africa.

“Often the government’s and farmer’s immediate reaction to a crop pest issue is to apply a pesticide, but we can make use of biological control agents, which may be cheaper and less damaging for the environment,” says Christian Thierfelder, a co-author of the study. Thierfelder is a cropping systems agronomist and conservation agriculture specialist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) with long-term experience in sustainable intensification.

“Spiders, ants and beetles all do a really good job with little or no cost to the farmer,” he adds. “For us, it’s quite fascinating to see simple agronomic practices to affect and control crop pests. This also provides new avenues of dealing with the fall armyworm, an invasive species which has devastated crops across the majority of sub-Saharan Africa countries.”

A robust number of studies from Europe, Australia and North America have shown the link between conservation agriculture and biodiversity, but Thierfelder says that research on biodiversity in agronomic systems is relatively new in southern Africa. While the study in Zimbabwe helps fill this gap, more research is needed to show the connection between the abundance of spiders, beetles and ants with the suppression of insect pest activity.

For more information, read Spider community shift in response to farming practices in a sub-humid agroecosystem in southern Africa.

This research was jointly funded by Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) and the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD). The CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) supported this study through Christian Thierfelder’s contributions.

Farmer Gudeye Leta harvests his local variety maize in Dalecho village, Gudeya Bila district, Ethiopia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

Reducing high yield gaps with decision-support apps

Written by Emma Orchardson on January 15, 2019. Posted in Features.

Ethiopia is Africa’s third largest producer of maize, after Nigeria and South Africa. Although the country produces around 6.5 million tons annually, the national average maize yield is relatively low at 3.5 tons compared to the attainable yield of 8.5 tons. This high yield gap — the difference between attainable and actual yields — can be attributed to a number of factors, including crop varieties used, farm management practices, and plant density.

The Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale (TAMASA) project aims to narrow maize yield gaps in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania through the development and scaling out of decision-support tools, which provide site-specific recommendations based on information held in crop and soil databases collected from each country. These help farmers to make decisions based on more accurate variety and fertilizer recommendations, and can contribute to improving maize production and productivity.

One such tool is Nutrient Expert, a free, interactive computer-based application. It can rapidly provide nutrient recommendations for individual farmers’ fields in the absence of soil-testing data. The tool was developed by the International Plant Nutrition Institute in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and research and extension service providers.

In Ethiopia, regional fertilizer recommendations are widely used, but soil fertility management practices can vary greatly from village to village and even between individual farmers. This can make it difficult for farmers or extension agents to receive accurate information tailored specifically to their needs. Nutrient Expert fills this gap by incorporating information on available fertilizer blends and giving customized recommendations for individual fields or larger areas, using information on current farmer practices, field history and local conditions. It can also provide advice on improved crop management practices such as planting density and weeding, thereby helping farmers to maximize net returns on their investment in fertilizer.

Data calibration was based on the results of 700 multi-location nutrient omission trials conducted in major maize production areas in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. These trials were designed as a diagnostic tool to establish which macro-nutrients are limiting maize growth and yield, and determine other possible constraints.

In Ethiopia, CIMMYT scientists working for the TAMASA project conducted nutrient omission trials on 88 farmer fields in Jimma, Bako and the Central Rift Valley in 2015 to produce a version of Nutrient Expert suitable for the country. Researchers trialed the app on six maize-belt districts in Oromia the following year, in which Nutrient Expert recommendations were compared with soil-test based and regional ones.

Researchers found that though the app recommended lower amounts of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, overall maize yields were comparable to those in other test sites. In Ethiopia, this reduction in the use of NPK fertilizer resulted in an investment saving of roughly 80 dollars per hectare.

Results from Nutrient Expert trials in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania showed improved yields, fertilizer-use efficiency and increased profits, and the app has since been successfully adapted for use in developing fertilizer recommendations that address a wide variety of soil and climatic conditions in each of the target countries.

The World Bank’s 2016 Digital Dividends report states that we are currently “in the midst of the greatest information and communications revolution in human history.” This shifting digital landscape has significant implications for the ways in which stakeholders in the agricultural sector generate, access and use data. Amidst Africa’s burgeoning technology scene, CIMMYT’s TAMASA project demonstrates the transformative power of harnessing ICTs for agricultural development.

Learn more about different versions of Nutrient Expert and download the free software here.

TAMASA is a five-year project (2014-2019) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeking to improve productivity and profitability for small-scale maize farmers in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. Read more about the project here.

Group photo during the IMIC-Africa inception workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe, in May 2018. (Photo: CIMMYT)

International Maize Improvement Consortium for Africa ramps up seed innovations

Written by Carolyn Cowan on January 10, 2019. Posted in News.

Maize is the most important staple food crop in sub-Saharan Africa, providing food security and a source of income to more than 200 million households. Nonetheless, maize yields in this region rank among the lowest worldwide.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) launched the International Maize Improvement Consortium for Africa (IMIC-Africa) in May 2018, to better engage with a committed set of partners from the public and private sector, and to achieve enhanced maize yields in Africa.

Members of IMIC-Africa share a vision: meeting the challenges of maize production by scaling out and fully exploiting the potential of improved climate-resilient and stress-tolerant varieties in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cultivated on over 35 million hectares of typically rainfed land across sub-Saharan Africa, maize is subject to the vagaries of climate, suffering occasional to frequent drought stress. Other regional challenges include poor soil quality, characterized by nitrogen deficiency, and the ongoing threat of transboundary pathogens and pests, such as the voracious fall armyworm. In addition, farmers generally have inadequate access to improved seed that could help them achieve higher yields.

Although the challenges are complex, the effective use of improved, climate-resilient and multiple-stress-tolerant maize varieties has achieved tangible results in this region. Elite drought-tolerant (DT) maize hybrids developed by CIMMYT have demonstrated at least 25-30 percent grain yield advantage over non-DT maize varieties in sub-Saharan Africa under drought stress. CIMMYT has also derived elite heat-tolerant maize hybrids for sub-Saharan Africa, and during the recent outbreak of maize lethal necrosis (MLN), the rapid development and deployment of elite MLN-resistant hybrids was instrumental in the containment of this threat to eastern Africa.

Modelled on its successful counterpart initiatives in Asia (IMIC-Asia) and Latin America (IMIC-LatAm), there is hope that IMIC-Africa will follow a similar pattern of success.

The consortium is comprised of a diverse array of member institutions, including seed companies, national programs and foundations.

Its key objective is to enhance members’ capacity for germplasm development in their own breeding programs through provision of early generation or advanced maize lines. The subsequent multi-location testing of elite pre-commercial maize hybrids throughout sub-Saharan Africa by members will serve to identify products that can advance to commercialization and deployment.

“IMIC-Africa has a growing membership aimed at formalizing the sharing of maize lines under development with public and private maize breeding programs,” said CIMMYT scientist and Africa regional representative Stephen Mugo. “The consortium will also support a vibrant germplasm testing network, offer opportunities for training and cross learning among members, and grant access to other special services offered by CIMMYT including MLN testing, doubled haploid development and molecular quality assurance/quality control.”

The work of the consortium will ultimately benefit the farming community through the targeted development of maize varieties that express traits jointly identified and prioritized by consortium members and that are specifically adapted to the suite of agro-ecologies in sub-Saharan Africa. Traits of relevance include tolerance to abiotic stresses, disease and insect-pest resistance and higher yielding hybrids.

“IMIC-Africa will contribute to food security in Africa by broadening access to and use of stress-tolerant improved maize germplasm as well as strengthening maize breeding programs, thus improving farmers’ access to improved maize varieties,” Mugo explained.

In September 2018, members of IMIC-Africa held their first annual field day and visited the CIMMYT and Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) facilities in Kiboko and Naivasha.

Membership of IMIC-Africa is open to all organized and registered private commercial seed companies, corporations, and organized and registered public agencies or organizations involved in maize crop research and improvement, hybrid seed production or maize seed marketing.

For further information about membership and eligibility, please contact B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize: b.m.prasanna@cgiar.org.

Finding the story behind weeds

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on January 8, 2019. Posted in News.

Field technicians use their cameras during the Photovoice training. (Photo: CIMMYT)

The main focus of the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) project is on conservation agriculture technologies. Since farmers may face an increase in weeds after adopting zero-till planters, however, more research is needed about how farmers are dealing with weed.

One of the research objectives of the project is to understand farmers’ knowledge, perception, and practices of conservation agriculture. To this end, researchers are using the Photovoice methodology in Cooch Behar (West Bengal, India), Rongpur (Bangladesh) and Sunsari (Nepal) to collect relevant data on weed management practices.

Photovoice is a visual qualitative research method that allows people to express their perspectives through photographs. Photography can be used for evaluation purposes, through storytelling exercises.

On December 6-7, 2019, field technicians in Bangladesh, India and Nepal participated in a training about this methodology. They learned the rationale of Photovoice, its technical and logistic aspects, as well as the ethical considerations and the need to collect consent forms.

Participants also learned how to take pictures of inter-row cultivation and weeds on the farm, and how to confirm the geolocation of the farm.

Worth a thousand words

Using the Photovoice method, 30 households will be explored, including their labor allocation and decision-making dynamics around the implementation of conservation agriculture practices.

The effectiveness of this approach will emerge as smallholder farmers present their perspectives through photographs accompanied by their narratives.

Activities will be monitored on weekly basis.

The SRFSI project, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, is set to improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of smallholder agriculture in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Bangladesh, India and Nepal, by promoting sustainable intensification based on conservation agriculture technologies.

Visiting researcher Fazleen Abdul Fatah is studying the the growing importance of maize and wheat in emerging economies.

Visiting researcher from Malaysia studies growing importance of maize and wheat in the country

Written by Emma Orchardson on January 3, 2019. Posted in News.

Fazleen Abdul Fatah credits a number of factors for her interest in agricultural research, from a childhood spent in a small town in one of Malaysia’s main rice farming areas, where the neighborhood revolved around agriculture, to supporting lecturers and professors who encouraged her interests during her undergraduate studies. “My experiences as an intern in the Philippines and visiting commercial farms in Germany and Japan as a student also shaped my motivation to work in sustainable agriculture and rural development, and ultimately I’d like to be able to influence food and agriculture policy,” she says.

Now a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UITM) in Malaysia, where she specializes in agricultural economics, trade and policy. For the past three months she has been based at the global headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico, where she is conducting research into food consumption patterns.

Having previously completed an internship with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, Abdul Fatah was keen to gain more experience within the CGIAR system. After graduating from the University of Gottingen, Germany, with a PhD in Agriculture Trade Policy, her interest in the growing importance of maize and wheat in emerging economies prompted her to apply for a research opportunity at CIMMYT.

“I’m very interested in understanding how current shifts in food consumption patterns might affect the consumption of cereals in Indonesia and Malaysia.” Her previous research focused on the shift to cereals from food items such as meat, fish, or vegetables, but Abdul Fatah notes that few studies document shifts between cereals. “Rice is typically the main staple food crop for Malaysians,” she explains, “but changes in diets, incomes, and urbanization mean that people are shifting towards maize and wheat. What I’ve found more striking from my research is that in some areas people are actually consuming more wheat than rice, which means there are going to be some interesting decisions for policy makers to consider in the near future, especially in terms of import strategies.”

Abdul Fatah presented her initial research findings at CIMMYT, where she updated colleagues on her efforts to analyze consumption patterns for major cereals in 11 developing countries in Africa and Asia using government household surveys and World Bank datasets. She hopes to continue this line of research once she returns to UITM and is currently working on a paper based on case studies from Indonesia and Malaysia.

You can read more research from CIMMYT on shifting food consumption patterns in Asia in “Changing Food Consumption of Households in Developing Countries: A Bangladesh Case.”