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.
While traveling through Africa and stopping at CIMMYTâs regional offices, I had the pleasure of meeting the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and discussing ways of enhancing agricultural productivity in the face of erratic rains expected in the 2018-19 farming season.
Read a news story about this meeting on The Herald: https://www.herald.co.zw/forecast-drought-ed-engages-experts/
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) â The latest event of the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) took place on August 29-30 in Nairobi, Kenya, under the topic of forest and landscape restoration in Africa. To tackle the urgent issue of deforestation and land degradation, the sessions and panels covered topics as diverse as community-led restoration, how to address social inclusion in land management, or how to work with supply chain actors to achieve sustainable landscapes and better livelihoods for local communities.
Landscape degradation directly affects 1.5 billion people. Local communities are usually the first ones to experience the negative effects of this problem on their livelihoods, access to water and loss of topsoil and farm productivity.
However, Africa provides the most opportunities for landscape restoration.
When landscapes support nutrition
Sustainable landscapes play a role in CIMMYTâs work. In Ethiopia, CIMMYTâs research in collaboration with CIFOR showed that a landscape approach can improve the nutrition and resilience of farming families. The transfer of organic matter and nutrients from forest patches to farmersâ fields, through livestock manure and fuelwood, enriches the soils and increases the zinc and protein content of wheat grain.
CIMMYT scientists are also looking at the link between livestock management and farming. In the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, zero-grazing in farmland led to an 80 percent increase of organic matter in the topsoil after 8 years, and as a result teff yields increased by 70 percent.
While agronomy tends to look at the fieldâs scale, a landscape perspective may also be important for more efficient pest control, as CIMMYTâs research with Wageningen University found. A useful learning as agriculture experts look at ways to combat emerging pests like the fall armyworm.
Better soil and rights
Participants in GLF Nairobi 2018 called for concrete collective action to restore degraded landscapes.
Having real-time accurate dashboards of land degradation could help governments and development organizations build coherent policies and restoration programs. Mark Schauer from the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative explained why soil is important and how monetizing the costs and benefits of sustainable soil management practices could help decision-makers build more sustainable food systems. Sharing data in transboundary contexts is a challenge but can be overcome, as the Eastern Africa Forest Observatory (OFESA) has shown.
Asking uncomfortable questions is necessary to support the people who depend the most on landscapesâ health. Milagre Nuvunga from the MICAIA Foundation in Mozambique recommended to put womenâs rights at the center of landscape restoration programs. Several testimonies reminded that women living in patriarchal societies often do not have land rights, so land will go back to the husbandâs family in case of death or divorce. Even if they know the benefits of landscape restoration, âwhy would women careâ to invest time and energy on it if their rights are not secured, she asked.
To learn more about the Global Landscape Forum Nairobi 2018, visit https://events.globallandscapesforum.org/nairobi-2018/.
The main event of the Global Landscapes Forum will take place on December 1-2, 2018, in Bonn, Germany.
Matthew Rouse, a researcher with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), has been named the winner of the 2018 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application. Rouse is recognized for his essential leadership efforts to contain and reduce the impact of Ug99, a devastating new race of the stem rust pathogen that poses a serious threat to the worldâs wheat crops and food security.
The Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application is presented annually to a young extension worker, research scientist or development professional who best emulates the dedication, perseverance, and innovation demonstrated by Norman Borlaug while working in the field with Mexican farmers in the 1940s and ’50s.
âWhen I learned that I was selected for the Borlaug Field Award, I was humbled by both the legacy of Norman Borlaug and by the fact that any impact I made was a part of collaborations with talented and hard-working individuals at USDA-ARS, the University of Minnesota, CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, and other national programs,â Rouse said.
Rouse has been an essential collaborator for a wide range of crucial projects to protect the worldâs wheat crops. His research supports more than 20 breeding programs in the U.S. and 15 wheat genetics programs around the world, including those at CIMMYT. As the coordinator of ARSâs spring wheat nursery project in Ethiopia and Kenya, he has provided Ug99 resistance genes to breeders worldwide, accelerating the process for incorporating enhanced stem rust protection into wheat varieties.
Rouse also collaborated with CIMMYT in 2013, when a race of stem rust unrelated to Ug99 caused an epidemic in Ethiopia. He rapidly assembled a team of scientists from CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and USDA-ARS, and developed a research plan to establish four stem rust screening nurseries. This led to the selection of promising new wheat breeding lines by Ethiopian and CIMMYT scientists and the rapid 2015 release of the variety âKingbirdâ in Ethiopia, which was shown to be resistant to four of the most dangerous races of stem rust in addition to Ug99.
Read the announcement of the award on the World Food Prize website.
After 13 years of research, an international team of more than 200 scientists recently cracked the full genome of bread wheat. Considering that wheat has five times more DNA than humans, this is a significant scientific breakthrough. The complete sequencing provides researchers with a map for the location of more than 100,000 genes which, experts say, will help accelerate the development of new wheat varieties.
Philomin Juliana, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in wheat breeding at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) talks about the relevance of the new map for the center, whose genetics figures in the pedigrees of wheat varieties grown on more than 100 million hectares worldwide.
Are you already using this resource, and how?
We have anchored the genotyping-by-sequencing marker data for about 46,000 lines from CIMMYTâs first-year wheat yield trials (2013-2018) to the new, International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) reference sequence (RefSeq v1.0) assembly of the bread wheat genome, with an overall alignment rate of 64%. This has provided valuable information on the location of key genome regions associated with grain yield, disease resistance, agronomic traits and quality in CIMMYTâs wheat germplasm, identified from genome-wide association mapping studies.
We have also used the new reference sequence to understand the impact of marker densities and genomic coverage on the genomic predictability of traits and have gained a better understanding of the contributions of diverse chromosome regions (distal, proximal, and interstitial) towards different phenotypes.
How will use of the new wheat reference sequence help CIMMYT and partners to develop improved wheat for traits of interest?
There are so many ways we can use this new tool! It provides valuable insights into trait genetics and genomics in bread wheat and will help us to more quickly identify candidate genes associated with traits of interest and to clone those genes. We will also be able to design molecular breeding strategies and precisely select and introgress target regions of the genome.
More generally, the reference sequence already has a range of markers â among them, simple sequence repeats (SSR), diversity array technologies (DArT) markers, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) â anchored to it, which will facilitate comparisons between mapping studies and the quick development and validation of useful new markers.
It will also help to apply tools like gene-editing to obtain desired phenotypes and will allow us to better characterize the genetic diversity in CIMMYTâs wheat, to identify useful genes in key CIMMYT parent lines and rapidly introgress them into breeding lines.
With the annotated whole genome information, breeders can design crosses focused directly on desired combinations of genomic regions or predict the outcome of crosses involving gene combinations.
It will definitely speed varietal testing in partner countries through quick and accurate molecular screens for the presence of desired genes, instead of having to perform multiple generations of field testing.
Finally, it will help us to detect molecular-level differences between CIMMYT varieties released in different countries.
Which traits are being targeted by CIMMYT and partners?
We are using the new reference sequence to understand better the molecular bases of grain yield, heat and drought tolerance, rust resistance, flowering time, maturity, plant height, grain and flour protein, and various other quality traits.
A recipient of Monsantoâs Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program Award, Juliana completed a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University in 2016. Her work at CIMMYT seeks to identify the genetic bases of key traits in CIMMYT wheat germplasm and to assess high-throughput genotyping and phenotyping to increase the rate of genetic gain for yield in the centerâs bread wheat breeding. In this work, she partners with the Cornell-led Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project and Jesse Poland of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Kansas State University. Her research also forms part of USAIDâs Feed the Future projects.
A novel approach allows the detection of aflatoxin-producing fungi in maize fields. A new study explains the technique and how it was tested. âDetection of Aflatoxigenic and Atoxigenic Mexican Aspergillus Strains by the DichlorvosâAmmonia (DVâAM) Methodâ was developed in collaboration between scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Japanese National Agriculture and Food Organization (NARO) and Fukui University of Technology, funded in part by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE).
Aflatoxins are harmful compounds produced by the fungi Aspergillus flavus, which can be found in the soil, plants and grain of a variety of cereals and commodities including maize, nuts, cottonseed, spices and dried fruit. The toxic carcinogenic qualities of aflatoxins pose serious health hazards to humans and animals when contaminated crops are ingested. These health risks include cancers of the liver and gallbladder, stunted development in children, premature births and abnormal fetal development.
Not all strains of A. flavus produce aflatoxins however, so it is important to be able to detect and distinguish between A. flavus strains that are benign (atoxigenic) and those that produce dangerous toxins (aflatoxigenic). Current methods of detection are often complicated by the fact that the fungal strains display very similar physiological and molecular traits, thus a new approach is required.
In the study, a novel approach to detect and distinguish A. flavus strains was tested. Using soil samples from a CIMMYT experimental maize field in Mexico, fungal isolates were chemically treated in-line with a method recently developed in Japan, resulting in a color change indicative of toxicity. The method was found to be effective and accurate in the detection of the aflatoxigenic strains of the fungus.
This study is foundational work in the development of a simple, cost-effective and efficient method of detecting aflatoxigenic strains of A. flavus, which will help inform growers about the potential aflatoxin contamination of their crops. This is of particular importance in the developing world, where the resources for effective control of the fungus are often lacking.
To read the original study, âDetection of Aflatoxigenic and Atoxigenic Mexican Aspergillus Strains by the DichlorvosâAmmonia (DVâAM) Methodâ, please click here.
Original citation: Kushiro, M.; Hatabayashi, H.; Yabe, K.; Loladze, A. Detection of Aflatoxigenic and Atoxigenic Mexican Aspergillus Strains by the DichlorvosâAmmonia (DVâAM) Method. Toxins 2018, 10, 263.
This article was originally published on the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.
Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers below:
A new 3-D animation video published yesterday shows farmers how to scout for and identify the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda).
The video shows scouting techniques and highlights the importance of identifying any pest damage at the early stages of crop growth. If the fall armyworm is present, integrated pest management practices can help farmers protect against this pest.
Farmers should avoid applying an indiscriminate amount of chemical pesticides, as that will lead to the fall armyworm building resistance to pesticides. It may also cause harm to people and to the environment.
The video was produced by Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO), funded by USAID and developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Michigan State University.
The presence of the fall armyworm in Asia was recently confirmed in India. Native to the Americas, the fall armyworm was detected in Nigeria in 2016, and quickly spread to 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where it caused major crop damage.
The fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, a devastating insect-pest, has been identified for the first time on the Indian subcontinent. Native to the Americas, the pest is known to eat over 80 plant species, with a particular preference for maize, a main staple crop around the world. The fall armyworm was first officially reported in Nigeria in West Africa in 2016, and rapidly spread across 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Â Sightings of damage to maize crops in India due to fall armyworm mark the first report of the pest in Asia.
Scientists from the College of Agriculture at the University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences (UAHS) confirmed the arrival of the pest in maize fields within campus grounds in Shivamogga, in the state of Karnataka, southern India. Both morphological and molecular techniques confirmed the identity as FAW.
A pest alert published on July 30 by the National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources (NBAIR), part of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), further confirmed a greater than 70% prevalence of fall armyworm in a maize field in the district of Chikkaballapur, in the state of Karnataka. Â Unofficial reports of incidence of FAW are rapidly emerging from several states in India, including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana.
The pest has the potential to spread quickly not only within India, but also to other neighboring countries in Asia, owing to suitable climatic conditions.
Since the arrival of FAW in Africa in 2016, the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) has intensively worked with partners on a variety of fronts to tackle the challenge. At a Stakeholders Consultation Meeting held in Nairobi in April 2017, 160 experts from 29 countries worked together and developed an Action Plan to fight fall armyworm. The meeting was co-organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in partnership with the government of Kenya.
In early 2018 MAIZE, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other collaborators, released a comprehensive manual on effective management of this pest in Africa. The manual, âFall Armyworm in Africa: A Guide for Integrated Pest Management,â provides tips on FAW identification as well as technologies and practices for effective and sustainable management.
âThe strategies outlined in this manual can be of great importance to farmers in India when dealing with this insect pest. FAW is indeed one of the most destructive crop pests, and there is no option than to adopt an integrated pest management strategy to effectively tackle this complex challenge,â said B.M. Prasanna, director of MAIZE and the Global Maize Program at CIMMYT. âMAIZE and partners are dedicated to finding solutions to this problem that will protect the food security and incomes of smallholder farmers across Asia and Africa.â
Other regions are at risk as well. Researchers have warned of the potential impacts if FAW spreads to Europe, where customs inspectors have already reported having discovered and destroyed the pest on quarantined crops imported from Africa on several occasions.
Global experts on maize and key stakeholders in Asia will gather together in Ludhiana, India, on October 8-10, 2018, for the 13th Asian Maize Conference to discuss pressing issues to the crop across the continent, including the spread of fall armyworm. The conference, organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Indian Institute of Maize Research (IIMR), CIMMYT, MAIZE, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), is expected to attract more than 250 participants from almost all the major maize-growing countries in Asia.
A new study shows Earth Overshoot Day â the point at which the consumption of earthâs resources exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate â is arriving faster. Thirty years ago, Earth Overshoot Day was October 15. Twenty years ago, it was September 30, and ten years ago, it was August 15. This year, August 1 marked the earliest date ever recorded.
In âHow changing the worldâs food systems can help to protect the planet,â CGIAR System Organization Executive Director Elwyn Grainger-Jones says one of the greatest pressure points pushing the planet to its limits is the food system. The way food is grown, produced, transported and consumed has serious consequences on the quantity and quality of earthâs natural resources. Grainger-Jones says there are numerous initiatives around the world working to transform food systems to have lower environmental footprints.
In a major wheat growing region of Mexico, CIMMYT researchers are studying how to more precisely apply nitrogen to significantly lower emissions and runoff without affecting yield.
Read the full article to learn more about this study and what other CGIAR centers are doing to close the resource gap.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EL BATAN, MEXICO â Cargill Mexico and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) announced the winners of the third Cargill-CIMMYT Food Security and Sustainability Award on July 24. The award ceremony took place at CIMMYTâs global headquarters in MĂ©xico.
The Cargill-CIMMYT Award supports initiatives that tackle food security challenges in Mexico through long-term solutions. Winners have successfully increased the production of nutrient-rich food and made it available to people.
This year, the jury selected the most innovative projects in three categories:
Winners were awarded a total of $25,000. The Farmers and Researchers categories received $10,000 each and the Opinion Leaders category was supported with $5,000.
A panel of experts from the agricultural and food sectors selected the winners from a shortlist of 30 projects across the country. The jury included representatives from Cargill Mexico, CIMMYT, Grupo Bimbo, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, Mexicoâs Agriculture Council and Mexicoâs Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food.
About Cargill
Cargillâs 155,000 employees across 70 countries work relentlessly to achieve our purpose of nourishing the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way. Every day, we connect farmers with markets, customers with ingredients, and people and animals with the food they need to thrive.
We combine 153 years of experience with new technologies and insights to serve as a trusted partner for food, agriculture, financial and industrial customers in more than 125 countries. Side-by-side, we are building a stronger, sustainable future for agriculture. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.
About Cargill Mexico
Cargill Mexico aims to contribute in improving agricultural productivity, satisfying and fulfilling the expectations of the domestic industry. In addition to adding value to human and animal nutrition and thus encourage economic development, Cargill Mexico reinvests its profits in several new businesses in the country. Cargill has 9 business units that have operations in Mexico, it employs more than 1,750 people in 13 states and has a total of 30 facilities, including a corporate office in Mexico City. For more information, visit Cargill.com.mx, and our News Center.
About CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat 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 Research 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.
For more information
Cargill Mexico: Joselyn Ortega, Joselyn_Ortega@cargill.com, +52 5511057429.
CIMMYT: Ricardo Curiel, R.Curiel@cgiar.org, +52 5558047544.
Photos available (click on the image to download the high-resolution JPG file)
In the rural Chiweshe Communal Area, about two hours north of Zimbabweâs capital Harare, 18-month-old Ashley Muzhange tucks into a bowl of vitamin A orange maize sadza. Sadza, a thickened porridge made from finely ground maize grain with a side of stewed vegetables, is the staple dish for rural families.
Ashleyâs sadza is made from biofortified maize, conventionally bred by researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) under the work of HarvestPlus to contain a higher amount of nutritious vitamin A.
As Zimbabweâs child malnutrition rate peaks above the international threshold for emergency response, nutritious vitamin A orange maize gains ground on the national market.
Recent prolonged drought pushed malnutrition to levels not seen in over 15 years, with almost 33,000 children in need of urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations Childrenâs Fund (UNICEF). Many experience micronutrient deficiencies, since their diets lack the vitamins and minerals required for growth and development.
According to the World Health Organization, 35.8 percent of preschool aged children suffer from vitamin A deficiency. The leading cause of preventable blindness in children, it compromises the immune system increasing the risk of death from diseases like measles, diarrhea and respiratory infections.
Biofortification increases the density of vitamins and minerals in a crop through conventional plant breeding or agronomic practices. When consumed regularly, biofortified crops generate measurable improvements in health and nutrition. The process develops crops rich in nutrients for consumers as well as the agronomic characteristics like drought and disease resistance valued by farmers. It is considered a sustainable way to bring micronutrients to populations with limited access to diverse diets.
Even though baby Ashley is unaware her sadza not only fills her stomach, but also provides her with a dose of vitamin A, her family is conscious of the benefits.
âThis orange maize assures me that my daughter gets a nutritious meal and means we donât only rely on the supplements provided by the government,â said Lilian Muzhange, her mother.
Orange the color of health
The farming family first began trialing the biofortified vitamin A orange maize in 2015 and are now growing it in place of traditional white maize. The nutritious variety contains high levels of beta-carotene, a vitamin A precursor that produces the rich orange color and once ingested is converted into the micronutrient, acting as an antioxidant to protect cells.
âOur family now prefers the new vitamin A orange maize over the white maize, as it has great health benefits for my children and granddaughter and the taste is delicious. The sadza truly is better,â said Ashleyâs grandfather Musonza Musiiwa. âI was also pleased the variety is drought tolerant. Despite a dry spell in January my maize was able to yield a good harvest.â
Rural diets mainly consist of what farming families can grow, which is predominantly maize, said CIMMYT maize breeder Thokozile Ndhlela. The majority of rural households do not meet minimum dietary diversity, reliant on a cereal-based diet where meat is a rarity, the Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Council finds.
âWhite maize traditionally used for the staple sadza is predominantly starch and very low in nutritional value,â said Ndhlela, who leads CIMMYTâs biofortified breeding efforts in Zimbabwe. âBiofortifying this staple crop ensures consumers have access to nutritious food season after season as farmers continue to grow it.â
Musiiwa not only sees the health and agronomic benefits of vitamin A orange maize, but has also identified its economic opportunity. The farmer is planning to increase the amount he grows to capitalize on the market he believes is set to grow.
Getting vitamin A maize into farmersâ fields and onto plates
For the new biofortified maize to be part of the food system it must be commercialized creating a full value chain, said Sakile Kudita, a demand creation researcher with HarvestPlus, a program improving nutrition and public health by developing and promoting biofortified food crops.
âVitamin A orange maize needs to be a product millers take up and processed foods are made of, so that seed companies have an incentive to keep producing seed and farmers have an incentive to grow more than just for consumption but also sale in order to generate income,â she said.
The efforts of HarvestPlus and CIMMYT to engage government, food processors and seed companies at field days, where they learn about the nutritional and agronomic benefits and taste the orange maize have yielded success, said Kudita. Working with the government, four biofortified varieties have been commercialized since 2015.
Prime Seed Co, a subsidiary of the regional certified seed company Seed Co, was the first company commissioned by the government to commercialize vitamin A orange maize in Zimbabwe and now sells the variety Musiiwa uses in his field.
âThrough our partnership with CIMMYT and HarvestPlus we are developing a market for vitamin A orange maize in Zimbabwe,â said Masimba Kanyepi, a sales manager at Prime Seed Co. âWe have seen our sales improve since launching the first variety and expect an increase.â
Kanyepi is confident the market will grow following a new government regulation requiring all processed maize products to contain added micronutrients, including vitamin A, through fortification.
âAdding vitamin A to maize at the processing stage is expensive for food companies due to the cost of importing the vitamin from overseas,â said Kanyepi. âBuying vitamin A orange maize grown by local farmers already biofortified at the same price as the white variety makes economic sense.â
Food companies see the saving with Zimbabwe manufacturer, Cairns Foods, confirming itâs taking steps to include biofortified maize in its cereals and biofortified beans in its canned products.
With food processors and millers buying vitamin A orange maize there is demand for farming families like the Musiiwas to grow more, ensuring not only a boost to their health but also their livelihood, said Kudita.
Breeding for a more nutritious future
Nutritional studies show vitamin A biofortified maize is as effective as supplementation in improving total body stores of the micronutrient, and significantly improving visual function in children with a marginal deficiency.
With maize the preferred staple in sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Health Organization records almost half of all children 6 to 59 months as vitamin A deficient, biofortification is a sustainable solution to improve health in the region, said CIMMYTâs Ndhlela. Across Africa almost 50 varieties of biofortified maize have been released onto the market.
The crop diversity found in the maize species is key to nutritional gain. The plant grows in distinct environments and has developed a diverse range of valuable traits including nutritional properties.
Following a lengthy analysis of thousands of samples in the CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank researchers discovered native landraces and varieties from South and Central America containing increased levels of beta-carotene, explained Ndhlela. These were included in breeding programs in Africa and crossed with local varieties to ensure they were fit for the subtropical climate and were tolerant to local biotic and abiotic stresses.
Working alongside Zimbabweâs national breeding program Ndhlela continually monitors, improves and combines dozens of characteristics, which include high yield potential, nitrogen use efficiency, and tolerance to drought, into new varieties that meet farmersâ preferences.
The most recent biofortified varieties contain about 39 percent more vitamin A compared to the first, she said.
âCIMMYTâs support through free access to maize germplasm and breeding expertise has allowed us to continue developing this nutritious maize,â said Prince Matova, a maize breeder with the Zimbabwe Ministry of Agriculture. âIn the next few years we expect to release two more varieties.â
At the end of the day, farming is a business and farmers value varieties with high yield, adapted to stress conditions. The breeders are currently trialing new vitamin A maize varieties with the hope of identifying those with the potential to yield as much as the traditional white varieties and are already garnering positive feedback from farmers.
CIMMYTâs biofortified vitamin A maize breeding is  supported by HarvestPlus. HarvestPlus improves nutrition and public health by developing and promoting biofortified food crops that are rich in vitamins and minerals, and providing global leadership on biofortification evidence and technology. HarvestPlus is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by its 15 research centers in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. The HarvestPlus program is coordinated by two of these centers, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
HarvestPlusâ principal donors are the UK Government; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the US Governmentâs Feed the Future initiative; the European Commission; and donors to the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. HarvestPlus is also supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
âPhysiology starts with the physical, observable plant,â Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plantâs ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.â
A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheatâs genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.
âScience must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,â she added.
Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT
Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.
âMy family called me âsanturronaâ â something like âgoody-two-shoesâ in English â because I was always trying to help people around me,â Molero explained.
Molero completed bachelorâs and masterâs degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of JosĂ© Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.
âAraus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,â Molero explained. âHe sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad ObregĂłn, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said âThis is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.â â
She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.
Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light
Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes â the small ears that hold the grain â to increase yield.
âIn elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,â she said. âIn wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.â
Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. âWe have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,â Molero said.
Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded â for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.
âThis is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,â explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheatâs genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. âI was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.â
Training youth and improving conditions for young women
From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.
âDuring my first crop cycle at Ciudad ObregĂłn, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,â she said. âIâd arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and itâs a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.â
Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.
âScience is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,â she observed. âItâs challenging being a woman and being young â conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call âmicro-machismoâ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived âfeminismâ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.â
Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. âThe most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.â
A new study from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Wageningen University examines the preferences and needs of maize processors and consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). According to the authors, the demand for maize, a staple crop in SSA, will triple by 2050 due to rapid population growth. At the same time, the effects of climate change, such as erratic rainfall and drought, threaten agricultural productivity and the ability to meet this growing demand, while persistently high malnutrition pose additional challenges to the region. The authors suggest six objectives to enhance maize breeding programs for better food security and nutrition in SSA.
First, they recommend breeding programs enhance the nutrient density of maize through biofortification to help reduce deficiencies in vitamin A, zinc and protein. Since wheat is difficult to grow in most of SSA and expensive to import, they also suggest that programs breed to enhance the suitability of maize for making bread and snacks. The authors recommend breeding to improve maize for use as âgreen maizeâ â the first crop to reach the marketplace after the dry season. If suitable green maize varieties are available, the hunger gap between seasons could be significantly reduced.
The authorsâ fourth suggestion is breeding to improve characteristics that enhance the efficiency of local processing. For example, soft maize is preferred for traditional dry and wet milling, but hard maize is usually preferred for pounding or refining processes in the home. Lastly, the authors suggest breeding to reduce waste by maximizing useful product yield and minimizing nutrient losses, and breeding to reduce anti-nutrient concentrations in grains. For example, phytate or phytic acid is a naturally occurring compound found in cereals that binds with minerals and prevents their absorption. Transgenic and gene editing approaches may offer viable options for reducing phytate production.
The authors emphasize that none of these opportunities to enhance breeding strategies are âmagic bulletâ solutions. Sustainable, diversified crop production and post-harvest management strategies will play an important role in improving nutrition, food security and livelihoods.
Check out the full article: âSub-Saharan African maize-based foods: Technological perspectives to increase the Food and nutrition Security impacts of maize Breeding programmesâ 2018. Ekpa, O., Palacios-Rojas, N., Kruseman, G., Fogliano, V., Linnemann, A. (2018). In: Global Food Security, v. 17, pp. 48-56 and check out other recent publication by CIMMYT staff below:
Breeding research by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is generating not only higher-yielding maize and wheat varieties but also more nutritious ones, according to a recent post in the Thomson Reuters Foundation News.
The center’s mission to foster more productive, sustainable maize and wheat farming contributes directly to U.N. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, âZero Hunger. But decades-long work to develop biofortified versions of maize and wheat is now bearing fruit in the form of nutrient-enhanced varieties of particular benefit for people who rely heavily on staple crops in their diets.
Quality protein maize â developed by CIMMYT in the 1980s â is grown on 1.2 million hectares around the world, while pro-vitamin A maize is grown on at least 100,000 hectares in Africa and has been shown to be as effective as vitamin supplements. High-zinc wheat is also taking off in Asia, and the first high-zinc maize varieties for Latin America were released in February.
Click here to read the entire post post in the Thomson Reuters Foundation News.
Last yearâs maize-growing season in Pakistan yielded a record-breaking six-million tons, decreasing the countryâs dependence on imported maize seed and boosting local sales and exports of maize-based products.
Officials and growers attribute this surge in yields extensive use of inputs such as fertilizer, high-yielding improved maize hybrid new varieties and collaborative programs that focus on targeting maize seed improvement to the local environment.
One such program is the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) -led and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) -funded Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan.
During the recently held 5th Annual maize working group meeting, partners representing 25 public and private institutions discussed what can be done following efforts to consolidate and sustain innovative interventions by AIP. Approximately 50 Participants from Pakistan attended this two-day meeting, where participants shared progress on their respective maize activities, updates on the status of seed production and product identification under AIP, and future prospects.
In a thematic group discussion, participants helped to identify gaps, recognize the role of stakeholders, and develop doable recommendations across the value chain.
Yusuf Zafar, chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), said he appreciated the contributions of CIMMYT and USAID to Pakistanâs maize sector. âThe collaboration and partnership of the public and private sectors under AIP is an exemplary one. We will continue supporting the continuation of this platform with all available means and resourcesâ said Zafar while ensuring PARCâs commitment to this initiative after the completion of the project.
While presenting the annual review, Muhammad Imtiaz, CIMMYT Country Representative for Pakistan discussed the status of the project. AIP will continue under a no-cost extension until 2019 and the project is looking for assistance from the private sector in order to continue into the future.
In closing, Anjum Ali, Member Plant Sciences Division, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, PARC, acknowledged the effort of CIMMYT in bringing all the stakeholders of maize including academia, public and private R&D institutions, policymakers under one umbrella. He further added, âPARC will channel all the deliberations from this meeting and will work with relevant government bodies to come up with amicable solutions for the problems faced by the private sector in products testing and marketing.â The timely and doable recommendations of the working group will serve as a working document for the government in the future, Ali added.
The Agricultural Innovation Programâs mission to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes in Pakistan is supported by the United States Agency for International Development. Partners who have been key in this effort include the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, the International Livestock Research Institute, the University of California – Davis, the World Vegetable Center and the International Rice Research Institute. It has been under no-cost extension since the program ended in March 2017, which extends the program until 2019.
Recently, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)-led, Government of Canadaâs Global Affairs Canada (GAC)-funded, Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project has led field visits for a number of high-level stakeholders.
On April 11, 2018 representatives from the Embassy of Canada in Ethiopia, Ivan Roberts, Head of Development Cooperation and Carolyn MacLeod, Development Team leader for Human Development, Environment and Agriculture, visited the Ethio Veg Fru Farm, one of the main field sites of the NuME project.
âWe were very much interested and happy to see such a success story as the Ethio Veg Fru Farm,â said MacLeod. Roberts and MacLeod both said they appreciated the efforts made by the NuME project in working collaboratively with private seed companies to fill the seed shortage of QPM varieties. They were also happy with the field performance of the crop under production.
MacLeod said she looked forward to continued collaboration with CIMMYT and indicated continued support to projects such as NuME under the International Assistance Policy of Canada, in which agricultural development must benefit women and girls.
The NuME projectâs goal is to bring nutritious, quality protein maize (QPM) to rural maize producers in the Ethiopian maize belt and beyond.
Maize lacks two essential amino acids â lysine and tryptophan, making maize protein less useful for humans. In the southern region of Ethiopia, where maize accounts for more than 60 percent of the dietary protein intake, an estimated 85 to 90 percent of the population â especially young children and women â are at risk of inadequate lysine intake and protein deficiency.
In Ethiopia, maize now ranks first among cereals for production, and second in area planted. Ethiopian families increasingly rely on maize as a staple due to its higher productivity and lower production costs, compared to other cereals.
QPM looks and tastes the same as normal maize but contains up to twice as much lysine and tryptophan. Studies have shown that children who consume QPM grow roughly 10 percent more in both height and weight.
Over the last few years the Ethiopian government has been stepping up nutrition interventions targeting women and children, with aims for a 3 percent annual reduction in the number of stunted and underweight children. As part of this initiative, the Ethiopian government allocates around 10 percent of the total national budget to agriculture, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource (MoANR) has officially made QPM part of their extension agenda.
The EthioVeg Fru Farm Plc., with the financial and technical support of the NuME Project, is multiplying parental lines of BHQPY545 under irrigation. BHQPY545, developed from CIMMYT lines, is a highly popular single cross QPM hybrid released by the Ethiopia Institute of Agricultural Research.
Although the variety has been quite popular, seed companies have been reluctant to produce and market the seed due to it low seed-yield potential, making it more difficult for seed companies to produce a sufficient supply. Due to the stigma of low seed-yield, NuME organized a high-level field day on March 27, 2018 to demonstrate the genetic potential of the parental lines and effectiveness offseason maize seed multiplication with irrigation.
Visitors to the field day included the state minister for agricultural development from MoANR, Tesfaye Mengiste, general managers of public and private seed companies and a Farmersâ Cooperative Union that work in partnership with the NuME project.
Mengiste stressed maize as the number one strategic food crop for the country as it is the most produced and consumed cereal. He thanked NuME for bringing QPM technologies to the country and said it has to be up to the extension system now to reach every farmer.
Impressed by the field performances he saw, Mengiste probed seed company managers about why they have not multiplied seeds during the offseason to overcome seed scarcity and help reach the annual target of 200,000 ha land planted with QPM, approximately 10 percent of land currently devoted to maize production.
Mengiste wondered why there seems to be a QPM seed paradox, where farmers criticize seed unavailability while seed companies complain about the lack of demand. He said that QPM is essential for the national food and nutrition security and urged seed companies to make all possible effort to produce and sell QPM seeds, as part of their responsibility to reach rural smallholder farmers in exchange for government support.
Most seed companies had considered the inbred lines incompetent and weak but the field visit made them realize the potential of the lines, even under high plant density. They were convinced that the poor field performance previously noticed was not due to lack of inherent potential, but to the agro-techniques applied.
The general manager of the South Seed Enterprise (SSE), Ato Belay Hariso said he learned a lot from the field day and will use the experience to produce seed using irrigation during the off-season to fill seed supply shortages.
After seeing the crop in the field and knowing that QPM is useful to curb malnutrition in the country, seed mangers expressed great enthusiasm to increase seed production of BHQPY545 and other QPM varieties.
Mengiste recommended a number of efforts to help increase the scalability of QPM seeds, starting with continued dissemination of QPM varieties by NuME and the governmental extension system until sustainable demand is created. He suggested that seed company managers must seriously plan QPM seed production for the coming main season and perhaps  look for more private seed companies, who have the interest and capacity to produce QPM seed to partner with. Mengiste said that seed enterprises should be able to sell all the QPM seed they produce by promoting the nutritional advantages of QPM, with support of the NuME project and the extension system.
The Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia project is funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and implemented by CIMMYT-Ethiopia in collaboration with various stakeholders from agriculture, nutrition and health sectors. The project is designed to contribute to the reduction of malnutrition, especially among women and young children, and to increase food security for resource-poor smallholder farmers in Ethiopia through the widespread adoption, production and utilization of QPM varieties and crop management practices that increase farm productivity.