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Theme: Nutrition, health and food security

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

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

Drought- and heat-tolerant maize tackles climate change in southern Africa

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Appollonia Marutsvaka and Alice Chipato of Zaka District in Zimbabwe. If widely adopted, drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties could help farmers cope with drought and heat stresses. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
Appollonia Marutsvaka (left) and Alice Chipato of Zaka District in Zimbabwe. If widely adopted, drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties could help farmers cope with drought and heat stresses. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

HARARE (CIMMYT) — “We are no longer sure when to prepare the land for planting or when to start planting. It’s pretty much gambling with nature,” complains 62-year old Appollonia Marutsvaka of Zaka district, Masvingo province, Zimbabwe. “Most of the time the rains are not enough for crop production. If the situation persists, then most of us who have small farms will sink deeper into poverty, because we depend on agriculture for our livelihoods.”

Most farmers in Zaka argue that they only get one good harvest every five to six years. Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for smallholder farmers.

It is estimated that maize yields in Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Limpopo Province will decrease by approximately 20-50 percent between now and 2045. This predicted decline will pose a major problem, as maize is the region’s main staple food. Low yields in this region are largely associated with drought stress, low soil fertility, weeds, pests, diseases, low input availability, low input use, and inappropriate seeds.

After years of work on maize improvements projects, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), made a bigger commitment to researching, supporting and getting drought-tolerant maize into the hands of smallholder farmers. To date, with substantial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, drought-tolerant varieties have been delivered to three million farmers across Africa.

“Given the accumulating evidence of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent need to develop more climate resilient maize systems. Adaptation strategies to climate change in maize systems in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to include improved seeds with tolerance to drought and heat stress and improved management practices,” says Jill Cairns, CIMMYT senior maize physiologist.

Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder, with new experimental hybrid maize on display at the Chiredzi Research Station, Zimbabwe. Scientists here have developed new heat- and drought-tolerant maize varieties. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder, with new experimental hybrid maize on display at the Chiredzi Research Station, Zimbabwe. Scientists here have developed new heat- and drought-tolerant maize varieties. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

CIMMYT, together with partners under the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), developed drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties through its breeding program in sub-Saharan Africa.

Heat tolerance was not previously a trait in African breeding programs. CGIAR Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)’s work highlighted the importance of heat tolerance in future climates, and in 2011 CIMMYT started breeding for this trait. During the past year, the El Niño induced drought has demonstrated the need for maize which is also heat-tolerant. If CIMMYT had not started working on these varieties in 2011, it would have taken until 2021 to have a drought and heat tolerant maize variety.

A recent media tour of Zaka and Chiredzi districts in Zimbabwe, where CIMMYT conducted regional on-farm variety trials for the new climate-proof seed varieties, revealed that the new drought- and heat-tolerant maize is an important way of combating climate-change induced food shortages. Research carried out by CIMMYT revealed that under experimental conditions, the new varieties doubled maize yields when compared to the yields of commercial varieties.

Smallholder farmer Marutsvaka, who participated in the on-farm variety trials, says: “In the past, I harvested nothing as my crops were literally burnt by the scorching heat. During the 2015-2016 growing season, I realized almost 200 kilograms of white grain.” One of the challenges of these new maize varieties is the time taken between testing and seed availability on the market. For example, some of these new maize varieties would only be on the market during the 2018-2019 agricultural season.

The 2014 African Agriculture Status Report states that the vital food producers face a risk of being overwhelmed by the pace and severity of climate change. The authors called for the adoption of climate-smart agriculture that will help make crops more resilient to future extreme weather events.

Appollonia Marutsvaka shows off her drought- and heat-tolerant maize cobs harvested through a CIMMYT project. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
Appollonia Marutsvaka shows off her drought- and heat-tolerant maize cobs harvested through a CIMMYT project. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

“For our farmers to be productive and ensure food security, we need to build resilience to help them mitigate the onset of climate change,” observed Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder. “We are talking about a situation when the rain does not come at the right time or the length of the [growing] season is shortened as a result of drought and other stresses, such as heat.”

He added that helping small-scale farmers adopt climate-smart farming techniques would “prepare them for even more serious challenges in the future… this means we need both to adapt agriculture to climate change and to mitigate climate change itself.’’

However, getting a new strain of maize out of the research station is not the same as getting it to the fields. Creating a distribution chain in Africa has been a bigger challenge than inventing the product itself.

Gabriel Chiduku, a sales and marketing representative for Klein Karoo, a private seed company which introduced the CIMMYT developed seed of drought-tolerant varieties to Zaka farmers, told the farmers that the seed is readily available.

With the drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties, Zaka farmers are producing three tons per hectare of maize, up from less than a ton.

Combating spread of MLN in Africa poses unique but surmountable challenges, seed health specialist says

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Anne Wangui, a seed health technician at CIMMYT demonstrate DAS–ELISA method used for detecting MLN-causing viruses. B.Wawa/CIMMYT
Anne Wangui, a seed health technician at CIMMYT demonstrate DAS–ELISA method used for detecting MLN-causing viruses. B.Wawa/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – The maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease poses a major concern to researchers, seed companies and farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The impact of MLN is massive in the affected countries, especially at the household level for smallholder farmers who can experience up to 100 percent yield loss.

Concerted regional efforts through a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) over the past year have helped in prioritizing and targeting efforts to stop the spread of the disease  from the endemic to the non-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The project target countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda (currently MLN endemic), while Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are MLN non-endemic but important commercial maize seed producing countries where the project implemented extensive MLN surveillance efforts.

Determining exactly how the MLN causing viruses, which include maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) and sugarcane mosaic virus, are transmitted in the field through insect-vectors, infected plants and seed lots, has made diagnosis a key element in the efforts to halt the spread of the disease.  If the viruses, in particular MCMV, the major causative agent, are introduced into a new area through contaminated seed and infected plants and not diagnosed and destroyed immediately, MLN can spread rapidly. Insect vectors in the field can play a significant role in transmitting viruses to the neighboring healthy maize fields.

In order to manage MLN at a regional level, partners in the project are developing harmonized diagnostic protocols to test, detect and prevent its spread through available mitigation measures. These were highlighted during the MLN Diagnostics and Management Project Review and Planning Meeting held in October, 2016 in Nairobi.

Monica Mezzalama, head of the CIMMYT Seed Health Laboratory  in  Mexico and a plant pathologist, shared her views on MLN testing and diagnostic methods that can be adopted to test maize plants and seed lots in the following interview.

Q: What is the role of diagnostics in managing MLN in Africa?

A: The role of sensitive, reliable, reproducible, affordable and standardized diagnostic tools is fundamental to the management of MLN in Africa. Only with an appropriate diagnosis tool, we can effectively detect and prevent further dispersal of the disease to the non-endemic areas through seed.

Q: What is the progress for detecting MLN in seed lots?

A: At the moment, detection in seed lots is still a weak link in the MLN management chain, although detection methods are available, such as ELISA and several versions of PCR, which are serological and molecular based, respectively, for the detection of MLN viruses. Extracting the pathogen from seed is more difficult than extracting it from leaf tissue, making it more time consuming to obtain clear and reliable results. Additionally, scientists are on the verge of resolving the significant issue of “sampling intensity,” which refers to the proportion of the seed sampled from the presented seed lots.

Q: What are some of the practices CIMMYT has adopted to ensure MLN-free seed production across regional centers in Africa?

A: Since 2013, CIMMYT has implemented several effective measures to ensure healthy MLN-free seed production and exchange. An aggressive strategy against the disease has been adopted at the main maize breeding station at Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organization in Kiboko, by introducing a maize-free period of two months annually on the station as well as in the surrounding areas in close interaction with the farming communities in the neighboring villages. All this was possible thanks to the great collaboration between KALRO staff, CIMMYT colleagues, and the local farmers. This action taken for two consecutive years reduced drastically the incidence of MLN infected plants. In addition, a very thoughtful sensitization campaign was carried out, explaining how to effectively apply insecticide to control vectors, how to avoid the spread of the pathogen from one field to another by advising workers to change their clothes and shoes after working in an infected field. Also, management of planting dates has been implemented to avoid peaks of vectors populations or physically avoiding the arrival of the insects by planting according to the wind stream direction. In Zimbabwe, CIMMYT has also invested significant resources by establishing an MLN Quarantine Facility at Mazowe, near Harare to enable safe exchange of MLN virus-free breeding materials in southern Africa.

Q: Based on your experience with various diagnostic tools, what options would work for Africa’s seed companies and regulatory agencies to help detect MLN-causing viruses?

A: For detection of MLN viruses in green leaf tissue, I think immunostrips, ELISA and PCR techniques work very well and they can be adopted according to the level of specialization of the operator, infrastructure and financial resources available. As far as detection in dry seed is concerned, I think that at the moment the ELISA technique is the most reliable and affordable. PCR methods are available, but still some improvement needs to be done in the extraction of the viral RNA from the seed matrix.

Q: What factors do the relevant actors need to consider in the process of harmonizing diagnostic protocols across MLN-endemic and non-endemic countries?

A: Harmonization of protocols and procedures are needed not only for MLN, but also for effective design and implementation of phytosanitary aspects related to the exchange of commercial seed and vegetative material across borders. Unfortunately, it is not an easy task because of the number of actors involved, including national plant protection organizations, seed companies, seed traders, farmers, and policy makers. Nevertheless, the most important factors that, in my opinion, should be taken into consideration for consensus on harmonized protocols and where the efforts should focus on are: avoid the spread of the disease from country to country, and from the endemic to non-endemic areas within the same country; implement a well-coordinated and integrated package of practices for effective management of MLN in the endemic countries; reduce as much as possible economic losses due to the restriction on seed exchange; implement serious and effective seed testing and field inspections of the seed multiplication plots to prevent the incidence of MLN and for timely detection and elimination of infected plants.

View Meeting presentations  here

MLN Pathogen Diagnosis, MLN-free Seed Production and Safe Exchange to Non-Endemic Countries Brochure

Visit the MLN website for more information

The CIMMYT-led MLN Diagnostics and Management Project, funded by USAID East Africa Mission is coordinating the above work with objectives to: a) prevent the spread of MLN, especially Maize Chlorotic Mottle Virus (MCMV), from the MLN-endemic countries in eastern Africa to non-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa; b) support the commercial seed sector in the MLN-endemic countries in producing MCMV-free commercial seed and promote the use of clean hybrid seed by the farmers; and c) to establish and operate a MLN Phytosanitary Community of Practice in Africa, for sharing of learning, MLN diagnostic and surveillance protocols, and best management practices for MLN control in Africa.

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New Publications: With climate change, pests likely to spread to new agricultural areas

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Wheat showing the "white head" condition typically produced by stem-boring insects, in this case caused by wheat stem maggot (Meromyza americana). Photo: CIMMYT
Wheat showing the “white head” condition typically produced by stem-boring insects, in this case caused by wheat stem maggot (Meromyza americana). Photo: CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico – Agriculture faces many threats from climate change – drought, heat, irregular weather among other environmental challenges. However, the spread of insects to new regions as the world’s climate changes is an additional threat to farmers globally, especially in Africa where climate-change effects are projected to be some of the most severe in the world.

Most agricultural pests are expected to respond to climate change. To predict what areas will face the greatest threat of the spread of pests, scientists from The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) modeled the current and future habitat suitability under changing climatic conditions for Tuta absoluta, Ceratitis cosyra and Bactrocera invadens, three important insect pests that are common across some parts of Africa and responsible for immense agricultural losses.

The scientists found that habitat suitability for the three insect pests is partially increasing across the continent, especially in those areas already overlapping with or close to most suitable sites under current climate conditions. The three pests are likely to have an impact on productive agricultural areas under future climatic conditions.

Read the full study “Future risks of pest species under changing climatic conditions,” and check out the other latest publications from CIMMYT scientists, below.

  • Evaluation of grain yield and quality traits of bread wheat genotypes cultivated in Northwest Turkey. 2016. Bilgin, O.; Guzman, C.; Baser, I.; Crossa, J.; Kayıhan Zahit Korkut; Balkan, A. Crop Science 56 (1): 73-84.
  • Harnessing diversity in wheat to enhance grain yield, climate resilience, disease and insect pest resistance and nutrition through conventional and modern breeding approaches. 2016. Mondal, S.; Rutkoski, J.; Velu, G.; Singh, P.K.; Crespo-Herrera, L.A.; Guzman, C.; Bhavani, S.; Caixia Lan; Xinyao He; Singh, R.P. Frontiers in Plant Science 7 (991):  1-15.
  • Sources of the highly expressed wheat bread making (wbm) gene in CIMMYT spring wheat germplasm and its effect on processing and bread-making quality. 2016. Guzman, C.; Yonggui Xiao; Crossa, J.; González-Santoyo, H.; Huerta-Espino, J.; Singh, R.P.; Dreisigacker, S. Euphytica 209: 689-692.
  • Unlocking the genetic diversity of Creole wheats. 2016. Vikram, P.; Franco-Barrera, J.; Burgueño, J.; Huihui Li; Sehgal, D.; Saint Pierre, C.; Ortiz, C.; Sneller, C.; Tattaris, M.; Guzman, C.; Sansaloni, C.P.; Fuentes Dávila, G.; Reynolds, M.P.; Sonder, K.; Singh, P.K.; Payne, T.S.; Wenzl, P.; Sharma, A.; Bains, N.; Gyanendra Pratap Singh; Crossa, J.; Sukhwinder-Singh. Nature Scientific Reports 6: No. 23092
  • Wheat waxy proteins: polymorphism, molecular characterization and effects on starch properties. 2016. Guzman, C.; Alvarez, J.B. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 129 (1): 1-16.
  • Climate change impacts and potential benefits of heat-tolerant maize in South Asia. 2016. Kindie Tesfaye Fantaye; Zaidi, P.H.; Gbegbelegbe, S.D.; Bober, C.; Dil Bahadur Rahut; Getaneh, F.; Seetharam, K.; Erenstein, O.; Stirling, C. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. In press.
  • Diversity of phenotypic (plant and grain morphological) and genotypic (glutenin alleles in Glu-1 and Glu-3 loci) traits of wheat landraces (Triticum aestivum) from Andalusia (Southern Spain). 2016. Ayala, M.; Guzman, C.; Peña-Bautista, R.J.; Alvarez, J.B. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 63: 465-475.
  • Future risks of pest species under changing climatic conditions. 2016. iber-Freudenberger, L.; Ziemacki, J.; Tonnang, H.; Borgemeister, C. PLoS One 11 (4): e0153237.
  • Genomic selection for processing and end-use quality traits in the CIMMYT spring bread wheat breeding program. 2016. Battenfield, S.D.; Guzman, C.; Gaynor, C.; Singh, R.P.; Peña-Bautista, R.J.; Dreisigacker, S.; Fritz, A.K.; Poland, J. The Plant Genome 9 (2): 1-12.
  • Participation in rural land rental markets in Sub-Saharan Africa: who benefits and by how much? evidence from Malawi and Zambia. 2016. Chamberlin, J.; Ricker-Gilbert, J. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 98 (5): 1507-1528.

Improved drought tolerant maize varieties: a sustainable solution to climate change

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Rodney Lunduka speaking at the AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
Rodney Lunduka, CIMMYT socioeconomist, speaking at the AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — Is there too much talk and not enough action regarding food security in Africa? For two days, stakeholders in the agricultural sector met in Nairobi, Kenya, for the 4th Africa Food Security Conference (AFSC), held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on 12 and 13 October 2016. Experts in crop production, nutrition, agricultural inputs, global development and even microfinance, chimed in on the seemingly endless task of making Africa food secure. Speakers at the event called for a lasting solution to this challenge, citing low crop productivity, food loss, and wastage from under-developed food value chains as some of the biggest impediments to food security. However, climate change and variability remain the most devastating occurrences to farmers across the globe, and sub-Sahara Africa in particular.

According to a FAO report on global food losses and food waste, the food currently lost in Africa could feed 300 million people. The report also mentions that food waste and losses in developing countries occur at early stages of the food value chain, where constraints in harvesting techniques, finances and technical know-how exist. Further, 40 percent of losses in developing countries occur at post-harvest and processing levels, translating into lost income for small farmers and higher prices for poor consumers.

While infrastructure investments in the food value chain can help reduce the amount of food lost or wasted, and in effect feed more people, achieving a truly food secure Africa means building resilience to climate change. To do so, it is critical that production technologies are developed to adapt to the changing climate, natural resources such as land and water are properly utilized, and the environment left intact.

In the last decade, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has responded swiftly to the ravages of climate change, developing responses that are accessible and affordable to smallholder farmers in sub-Sahara Africa, in whose farms the bulk of food consumed is grown.

In his presentation at the AFSC, Rodney Lunduka, socioeconomist at CIMMYT, shared that in addition to loss of yield in moderate drought, maize yield losses double when temperatures exceed 30°C, severely affecting farmers’ productivity.

The CIMMYT booth at AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT
The CIMMYT booth at AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

“CIMMYT’s two major solutions to building farmers’ resilience to climate change are a combination of drought tolerant (DT) maize varieties, and good agronomic practices, which our studies show are being quickly adopted,” Lunduka says, adding: “this combined approach has the potential to double farmers’ yields, translating to more food and income at household level.”

Preliminary results from a household survey on the impact of DT maize in southern Africa reveal that a simple switch from non-DT maize varieties to DT maize varieties can increase farmers’ total maize production by 0.7 tons per hectare (ha) on average. The study spanned 4,700 households in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe between 2013 and 2015. In Zimbabwe, farmers would produce 0.6 tons more yield/ha with DT maize, where the average is about 0.8 to one ton per hectare (t/ha) with non-DT maize. In Malawi, farmers were able to produce one ton more per ha – on average 1.3 to 1.5 t/ha – when DT varieties and good agronomic practices were combined.

“Good farm practices such as residue retention and intercropping with legumes are popular, the former for its simplicity, and the latter for its income potential,” says Lunduka on adopting good agronomic practices. “It is common to see maize intercropped with soya beans, cow peas, groundnuts, or pigeon peas, which most farmers can afford and have the skills to plant.”

While uptake of DT maize varieties is gradually increasing in sub-Sahara Africa, there still exist some barriers to total adoption, notably unfavorable government policies, and production and purchase of old varieties by seed producers and farmers respectively. Government policies can encourage replacement of old varieties, for instance, by offering subsidies on seed production to companies that produce improved varieties.

Read Lunduka’s presentation at the AFSC here.

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First drought tolerant and insect resistant “stacked” transgenic maize harvested in Kenya

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A maize stem infested by the African stem borer that is predominant in the highlands. B.Wawa/CIMMYT
A maize stem infested by the African stem borer that is predominant in the highlands. B.Wawa/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – Life has become more difficult in Kenya for the intrepid stem borer. For the first time, transgenic maize hybrids that combine insect resistance and drought tolerance have been harvested from confined field trials, as part of a public-private partnership to combat the insect, which costs Kenya $90 million dollars in maize crop losses a year.

Conducted at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) centers in Kitale and Kiboko in April and May, the experiments were managed by the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project, a collaboration led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).  The test crop successfully weathered intense, researcher-controlled infestations of two highly-aggressive Kenyan insect pests— the spotted stem borer and African stem borer.

The maize is referred to as “stacked” because it carries more than one inserted gene for resilience; in this case, genes from the common soil microbe Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that confers resistance to certain species of stem borer, and another from Bacillus subtilis that enhances drought tolerance.

Bt hybrid maize showed better resistance to the stem borer compared to the conventional commercial maize. F. Maritim/KALRO
Bt hybrid maize showed better resistance to the stem borer compared to the conventional commercial maize. F. Maritim/KALRO

First time maize resists two-pest attack

WEMA partners from KALRO, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), U.S. seeds company Monsanto and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) hope that, given the successful results of this experiment, they will soon be able to test the new maize in national trials.

“This is the first planting season of the stacked materials and, from the initial data, there was a clear difference between the plants containing the stem borer resistance traits and the conventional commercial maize grown for comparison, which showed a lot of damage,” said Murenga Mwimali, WEMA coordinator at KALRO.

The maize in the Kiboko experiment was infested with the spotted stem borer (Chilo partellus, by its scientific name), a pest found mostly in the lowlands. At Kitale, the scientists besieged the crops with the African stem borer (Busseola fusca), the predominant maize pest in the highlands. This was the first time that Bt maize had been tested in the field against Busseola fusca, according to Stephen Mugo, regional representative for CIMMYT in Africa and leader of the center’s WEMA team.

“From our observations, this is the first time that stacked Bt genes provided control for both Chilo partellus and Busseola fusca in maize,” Mugo said, adding that stem borers annually chew their way through 13.5 percent of Kenya’s maize, representing a loss of 0.4 million tons of grain.

“Losses can reach 80 percent in drought years, when maize stands are weakened from a lack of water and insect infestation,” he explained. Although the impact of the stem borer in the field often goes unnoticed because the insects sometimes destroy the plant from the root, the loss is significant for a country that depends on maize for food.

The new maize was developed using lines from Monsanto and CIMMYT-led conventional breeding for drought tolerance.

A Bt hybrid maize with resistance to the African stem borer and tolerant to drought harvested at Kitale research center, Kenya. B.Wawa/CIMMYT
A Bt hybrid maize with resistance to the African stem borer and tolerant to drought harvested at Kitale research center, Kenya. B.Wawa/CIMMYT

Seeking approval for widespread testing and use

Trial harvesting took place under close supervision by inspectors from the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) and the National Biosafety Authority (NBA), strictly in line with regulatory requirements for handling genetically modified crops in Kenya.

The NBA has given partial approval to KALRO and AATF for open cultivation of the stacked transgenic hybrid maize. Once full approval is given, the varieties can be grown in non-restricted field conditions like any other variety and the Bt maize can be tested in the official national performance trials organized by KEPHIS to test and certify varieties for eventual use by farmers.

“The data we are generating in this trial will support further applications for transgenic work in Kenya, particularly for open cultivation,” Mwimali said.

Promoting drought tolerant maize seed in southern Africa

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The orange maize was showcased at a seed fair in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe. In addition to high yielding, disease resistant and drought-tolerant, the maize variety reduces farmers’ vulnerability to the effects of drought and other stresses, such as heat. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.
The orange maize was showcased at a seed fair in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe. In addition to high yielding, disease resistant and drought-tolerant, the maize variety reduces farmers’ vulnerability to the effects of drought and other stresses, such as heat. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

HARARE (CIMMYT) — In its continuing efforts to increase the productivity of maize systems in southern Africa, CIMMYT held seed fairs in two districts of Zimbabwe in September to promote the sharing of information and knowledge about new seed options for farmers and to encourage farmer-to-farmer information exchange.

At the seed fairs, which are like trade fairs, farmers, seed companies, government agencies and non-governmental organizations displayed seed and technological products. The idea of the seed fairs arose out of the problem of suitable dryland crop varieties for the climate in most parts of Zimbabwe.

The main aim of the seed fairs, held in Mutoko and Murewa districts in Mashonaland East Province, was to help smallholder farmers access information that would help them make informed decisions in coping with drought and climate change adaptation. This included awareness on various drought tolerant seeds, and a new variety of nutritious pro-vitamin A maize seed available on the market. Another focus of the seed fairs was to promote good agricultural practices, including sustainable intensification practices such as conservation agriculture.

Funded by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the seed fairs were attended by more than 1,400 smallholder farmers from the two districts, eight seed companies, traditional leaders, local government officials, non-governmental organizations and policy makers, as well as CIMMYT’s regional partners from Malawi, South Africa and Zambia. Regional participation is an important component of CIMMYT’s information exchange initiative.

The seed fairs helped establish linkages among farmers, seed companies, researchers, extension agents and agro-dealers. In addition, the seed fairs provided an important avenue for stakeholders to share critical information for informed decision-making at different levels. This has boosted the farmers’ confidence and increased the sense of ownership of their own activities.

“By bringing multiple stakeholders together, the fairs helped stimulate information sharing networks that are beneficial to all stakeholders,” said Peter Setimela, CIMMYT senior seed systems specialist. He added: “Planting wrong seeds lowers harvests and threatens food and nutritional security of the smallholder farmers. In our breeding for stress tolerance, we have tested and evaluated maize varieties from different areas of Zimbabwe under local conditions, incorporated various desirable traits and developed suitable varieties for local climatic conditions.”

Mutoko and Murewa districts were selected as the first beneficiaries of this information dissemination initiative. The fairs sought to build on progress achieved in the CIMMYT on-farm trials conducted in the two districts under a different project – Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa.

Although the main focus was drought tolerant and pro-vitamin A maize, other crop seeds such as finger millet, pearl millet, sorghum, beans, Bambara nuts, pumpkin and ground nut, were also exhibited by farmers.

International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) research officer Irenie Chakoma (extreme right) and CIMMYT research associate Angeline Mujeyi are inundated by requests for information from smallholder farmers at the Mutoko seed fair. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) research officer Irenie Chakoma (extreme right) and CIMMYT research associate Angeline Mujeyi are inundated by requests for information from smallholder farmers at the Mutoko seed fair. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT.

The farmers were given space to exhibit their own seeds. This was critical in providing an avenue for farmers to exchange seeds that are not marketed through the formal systems but which farmers like. The objective of these demonstrations was to revive local seed varieties, share information on them and acknowledge that these crops thrive in local conditions, and that they could contribute to food and nutritional security.

Mutoko smallholder farmer Anna Chirere, who actively participated in the seed fair, said: “We now know that knowledge is power. So we are going to copy this knowledge from our fellow farmers and seed houses here present.”

CIMMYT plans to make the seed fairs an annual event. This would help the farmers to continue learning from one another and enhance cooperation among the community members. Maize seed on exhibition was drought-tolerant and also included the newly released pro-vitamin A maize that is orange in color, hence the name ‘orange maize’.

In Zimbabwe, nearly one in five children under the age of five is vitamin A deficient. This deficiency can lead to lower IQ, stunting, blindness, increased susceptibility to diseases and higher health risks to mothers – and their infants – during childbirth. According to the World Bank, malnourished children are more likely to drop out of school, and have lower incomes as adults, reducing overall economic growth.

Thokhozile Ndhlela, CIMMYT maize breeder, said many people in rural Zimbabwe cannot afford expensive vitamin A-rich foods such as yellow, orange and red pigmented fruits, dark leafy vegetables, or animal products such as milk, eggs, liver and cheese.

Pro-vitamin A maize, when eaten as a staple, could provide half of the average daily requirement of vitamin A for women and children. In addition to its nutritional benefits, pro-vitamin A maize is bred to yield higher than conventional varieties and is disease resistant and drought tolerant.

Ndhlela said there were 11 varieties of the pro-vitamin A maize in southern African, six of which were already in commercial production in Zambia after a successful launch of an initial three hybrids in 2012.

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About The Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the European Union (EU). The organization also works with a wide network of ACP-EU public and private sector bodies as well as international organizations around the world. CTA’s mission is to advance food and nutritional security, increase prosperity and support sound natural resource management through information, communication and knowledge management, multi-stakeholder engagement, capacity-building and empowerment of agricultural and rural development organizations and networks in ACP countries.

National maize stem borer mass rearing laboratory inaugurated in Pakistan

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Islamabad (CIMMYT) — CIMMYT, in partnership with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), inaugurated the first national maize stem borer (Chilo partellus) mass rearing laboratory at the National Agricultural Research Center in Islamabad on 25 October 2016.

Unveiling the inaugural plaque of the first national maize stem borer mass rearing laboratory in Pakistan. Photo: CIMMYT

Maize stem borer (Chilo partellus) is a destructive insect pest of maize in Pakistan. Yield losses because of this pest are estimated to reach 10-40% and in some severe incidences up to 60% losses have been reported. Application of insecticides is one of the practices mostly used by resource-rich farmers. However, cash-trapped small scale farmers have to face the yield losses unless they apply cultural practices which vary from place to place. The other alternative, perhaps the better option, is the use of tolerant varieties. Maize germplasms that have inherent resistance/tolerance to maize stem borer not only save farmers money from the lower use of pesticides, but also help to have a greener agriculture by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Ribbon cutting ceremony by Nadeem Amjad, acting Chairman of PARC. Photo: CIMMYT
Ribbon cutting ceremony by Nadeem Amjad, acting Chairman of PARC. Photo: CIMMYT

Identification of host-plant resistance in maize is part of the commissioned projects under the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan. Under AIP, stem borer resistance maize varieties sourced from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are being screened to identify the varieties best adapted to Pakistan’s maize growing ecology.

Habib Iqbal, maize entomologist, explaining about the maize stem borer mass rearing facility. Photo: CIMMYT
Habib Iqbal, maize entomologist, explaining about the maize stem borer mass rearing facility. Photo: CIMMYT

To accelerate this screening process, it was necessary to have a stem borer mass rearing facility where larvae could be produced in mass and thereafter released in maize varieties as a form of artificial infestation. “Until recently, it was not possible to conduct such activities in Pakistan due to the non-availability of such a facility. Thanks to the collaboration of PARC and CIMMYT and the generous support from USAID, we are now officially opening the first stem borer mass rearing laboratory in Pakistan,” said M. Imtiaz, CIMMYT’s Country Representative and AIP Project Leader, during his inaugural speech.

Opening address by Md. Imtiaz, CIMMYT’s country representative in Pakistan. Photo: CIMMYT
Opening address by Md. Imtiaz, CIMMYT’s country representative in Pakistan. Photo: CIMMYT

Nadeem Amjad, acting Chairman of PARC, said: “During the last couple of years, we have seen very promising results under the AIP maize program. The introduction of high yielding climate resilient maize germplasm, the distribution of protein enriched maize seeds to farmers, testing of pro-vitamin A and zinc enriched maize hybrids and the introduction of biotic stress tolerant maize varieties are among the unique interventions which were not well addressed by Pakistan’s maize sector for long.” During his concluding remarks, Amjad also added that the inauguration of the laboratory will further cement PARC’s decade’s long collaborations with CIMMYT. He thanked CIMMYT and USAID for their generous support.

Nadeem Amjad, acting chairman of PARC, delivering his closing speech. Photo: CIMMYT
Nadeem Amjad, acting chairman of PARC, delivering his closing speech. Photo: CIMMYT

The field screening under artificial infestation is showing encouraging results where some entries show more than 90% survival rate by resisting the pest attack. “We need to document the results and further check in upcoming seasons to confirm these preliminary results so that tolerant germplasm can be available to end users in the shortest time possible,” says AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT’s Maize Improvement and Seed Systems Specialist. The inauguration ceremony was attended by scientists and stakeholders from the public and private sector and USAID. During the inauguration, it was announced that the national laboratory will serve as a training and research center for students and researchers from the public and private sector of Pakistan.

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Growing more with less: Improving productivity, resilience and sustainability in Africa

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HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) – “Rain patterns have changed tremendously,” says Dyless Kasawala, a smallholder farmer in Kasungu district, Malawi. “It’s different from the old days when you would be sure of a great harvest after the rains.”

For more than three decades now, life has not been easy for Kasawala and thousands of other smallholder farmers in this harsh, dry environment. Kasawala’s story is common throughout eastern and southern Africa. Observations by smallholder farmers confirm scientific evidence that shows climate change is occurring at an alarming rate, and could leave 50 million people in the region hungry by 2050.

CIMMYT technician Herbert Chipara inspects maize devastated by drought in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
CIMMYT technician Herbert Chipara inspects maize devastated by drought in Mutoko district, Zimbabwe. CIMMYT/P. Lowe

From 1900 to 2013, droughts killed close to one million people in Africa, with economic damages of about $3 billion affecting over 360 million people. Such droughts are a clear sign of the high yield variability that impedes escape from poverty and hunger for millions of Africans. Climate change could also result in a 40 percent increase in the number of malnourished people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, according to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa must become resilient to climate change effects like variable and severe drought and rainfall to ensure future food security. Practicing sustainable farming techniques can help small-scale farmers adapt to these challenges.

Across the world, more farmers are beginning to practice sustainable intensification (SI), which offers the potential to simultaneously adapt farming systems to climate change, sustainably manage land, soil, nutrient and water resources, improve food and nutrition security, and ultimately reduce rural poverty.

In practice, SI involves such conservation agriculture (CA) practices as minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and the use of crop rotation to simultaneously maintain and boost yields, increase profits and protect the environment. It contributes to improved soil function and quality, which can improve resilience to climate variability. The cropping systems CIMMYT promotes can be labelled as climate-resilient, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Husband and wife farmers Elphas Chinyanga (right) and Rita Gatsi tend their conservation agriculture demonstration plot in Pindukai village, Shamva district, Zimbabwe. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
Husband and wife farmers Elphas Chinyanga (right) and Rita Gatsi tend their conservation agriculture demonstration plot in Pindukai village, Shamva district, Zimbabwe. CIMMYT/P. Lowe

“We received little rain this year, but we’ll still have enough food,” says Kasawala, who is participating in a project led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which aims to increase farm-level food security and productivity through SI.

Kasawala was one of the first farmers to practice sustainable intensification in her district in 2010. She has managed to improve soil fertility in her fields, increase her maize yield and improve her household food security.

“Farmers have a number of technological options, but ultimately they have to make informed decisions on which technologies to adopt,” said Eric Craswell, co-chair of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project steering committee. Such farmers as Kasawala who practice CA through SIMLESA participate in on-farm trials, which compare CA to conventional farming practices, test different levels of herbicide use and maize-legume crop rotations.

Maize farmers participating in SIMLESA are increasing yields and profits through sustainable intensification by increasing rotating and intercropping their maize with legumes. Above, smallholder farmer Lughano Mwangonde and sustainable intensification farmer in her conservation agriculture demonstration plot in Balaka district, Malawi. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
Maize farmers participating in SIMLESA are increasing yields and profits through sustainable intensification by increasing rotating and intercropping their maize with legumes. Above, smallholder farmer Lughano Mwangonde and sustainable intensification farmer in her conservation agriculture demonstration plot in Balaka district, Malawi. CIMMYT/J. Siamachira

According to SIMLESA’s project leader Mulugetta Mekuria, there is evidence that shows new drought-tolerant maize varieties when coupled with SI bring even greater benefits to farmers. For example, combining elite drought-tolerant maize with direct seeding systems can improve the performance of maize by more than 80 percent. Now, nearly 650 maize and legume varieties, approved by farmers and selected by over 40 local seed companies, are being commercially distributed in the five SIMLESA countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania).

Zero tillage – a CA practice that directly sows seeds into unplowed soil and the residues of previous crops – has helped farmers cut planting time in half, allowing them to engage in other economic activities.

“Sustainable intensification is the only option to feed the extra two billion people by 2050, when resources are limited,” said John Dixon, principal advisor/research and program manager for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)’s Cropping Systems and Economics program. ‘’Now is the time to scale-up by taking our research to farmers through extension, non-governmental organizations and farmers’ associations.”

Through 2018, CIMMYT will focus on bringing sustainable intensification to even more farmers throughout eastern and southern Africa. Collaborative work with farmers, extension agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities and agribusiness is expected to improve maize and legume productivity by 30 percent and reduce expected yield risk by 30 percent in about 650,000 rural households over a period of 10 years.

CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) with strong collaboration from National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) and a wide range of private, university, public sector and non-governmental organizations. It aims at increasing farm-level food security and productivity in the context of climate risk and change.

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Gazing into the crystal ball at the future of food: Nutrient-dense maize and wheat

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A scientist examines wheat grain. CIMMYT/Nathan Russell
A scientist examines wheat grain. CIMMYT/Nathan Russell

Gideon Kruseman is CIMMYT’s ex-ante and foresight specialist.

Over the next few decades, projections indicate global population will grow from more than 7 billion to more than 9 billion people by 2050. A large proportion of that world population will be living in low- and middle-income countries in urban environments – often huge — cities.

In India, the country with the largest rural population, for instance, the percentage of urban population is expected to increase from 37 percent in 2011 to 56 percent by 2050. Globally it will grow from 55 percent in 2011 to 70 percent in 2050. The trends we anticipate in India are comparable to Africa as a whole where urban population is projected to increase from less than 40 percent to around 55 percent, although there are differences between countries and regions.

Meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) established in 2015 by the United Nations and the global community will be challenging. The 17 goals with 169 targets aim to solve problems related to climate change, hunger, education, gender equality, sanitation, jobs, justice and shared peace by 2030.

In particular, SDG 2, which aspires to eliminate hunger, and SDG 3, which aims to establish good health and well-being, will be challenging even if we concentrate only on climatic, environmental and biophysical constraints. If we also take into account all the implications of urbanization and economic growth on diets and dietary change a new dimension of complexity becomes apparent.

Whether model calculations are based on current consumption patterns and trends, healthy diets or a variety of ecological sustainability criteria, maize and wheat will play a significant dietary role. Currently, these two staple crops feed two-thirds of the world population and will continue to be the main supply of energy in human diets in all scenarios.

However, scenarios for maize and wheat will not ensure decrease in quantitative and qualitative malnutrition unless we act upon projected future demands now. Diets, dietary change and their effects on health and nutritional status form complex interactions with socio-economic and environmental drivers.

In the future, diets will inevitably change as they have in previous decades. Basic commodities in food consumed in urban areas require different traits than food consumed in rural areas where the chain between production and consumption is shorter. The reason for this is that in rural areas in low and middle income countries staple grains are milled and processed locally, while in urban areas people tend to eat industrialized processed or pre-processed food.

In urban areas in Africa and South Asia wheat-based products are starting to replace traditional staples such as maize and rice to some extent. Moreover, research reveals that in urban centers people tend to eat energy dense food, which can help prevent quantitative malnutrition in terms of calorie intake, but does not ensure a healthy diet. Healthy eating requires a wide range of nutrients that traditionally are found in diverse foods. When people opt for less diversity and more convenience, this requires nutrient-dense as well as calorie-dense food. A significant trend that points to convenience food is the increased consumption levels of snacks and fast food, in low- and middle-income countries.

Maize-based snacks are important components of urban diets. Moreover, maize is a key ingredient found in convenience food made by the food industry in the form of starch and syrup. Ensuring that maize and wheat can meet nutritional demands in less diverse diets requires the introduction of new traits into the varieties comparable to the ongoing efforts of maize and wheat biofortification at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The development of nutrient-dense varieties takes time since they must also incorporate traits that address environmental conditions, climate change and resistance to pests and diseases as well as feature favorable post-harvest characteristics such as milling and processing quality.

Crucial to this process are the genetic resources that allow the traits to be combined in the breeding done at CIMMYT.

How do we do this? Billions of seeds, expertly and carefully conserved for humankind, are housed in our seed bank. They are freely available to breeders and other researchers around the world who may use them to uncover solutions to some of the challenges that face humanity in the future. Any one seed could help secure the food of our future.

While the potentially desirable traits hidden in the seeds in the seed bank are very valuable, there are costs involved in maintaining this diversity. Diversity is important for finding traits that will allow maize and wheat to be more nutritious than they are already today and so aid in meeting the demands of the future. Today, everyone can be part of this future by joining the “save a seed movement.”

Changing the conversation surrounding food and agriculture with Tamar Haspel

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MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) — A few hands jabbed into the air. Tamar Haspel, a columnist for the Washington Post, had asked a room of more than 1,000 scientists, researchers, economists and agriculture experts a simple question: “Who here has changed their mind on an issue in the past year?”

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Tamar Haspel, Washington Post columnist, addresses the crowd during her keynote speech at the CIMMYT 50 conference.

Haspel, author of “Unearthed,” a column in the Washington Post newspaper that focuses thematically on the intersection between food and science, was delivering a keynote address at a three-day conference hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to celebrate the nonprofit’s 50th anniversary.

Haspel’s speech urged those in the science-agricultural industry to take a closer look at opinions unlike their own and to have constructive conversations in hopes to improve and change the current public conversation about agriculture.

Q: When did you first start writing about food, science and agriculture?

I’ve been writing about food for 20 years, really focusing on nutrition and health, but about five years ago my husband and I moved from New York City to Cape Cod (Massachusetts) and we started raising livestock, growing food and fishing. We even started a commercialized farm and because of that I know what it’s like to lose 80 percent of a crop. It behooves anybody who writes about growing food to stay connected to the idea that it has to come from somewhere and to understand the hard work and risk.

Q: What is the key message you try to push at conferences?  

The thing that I increasingly believe to be most important and really push is to get people who disagree in the same room. The best thing in the world is to be proven wrong – it means you won’t make the same mistake again. In agriculture there are so many issues people disagree on. Take the green revolution, for example, it is widely discussed within the scientific community with people on both sides of the argument giving compelling statements. Both sides may not have equal truth to them, but certainly there is some truth on both sides. I think we have to engage with people who don’t see the world the way we do, especially in the agricultural community. We have an urgent problem right now trying to feed a growing population. It’s very important we get past these stupid disagreements.

Q: Why do you think your message is received so well by scientists?  

I personally think that scientists are in the business of trying to find out what’s true. If you present something that resonates with them and they think they haven’t thought about it before it brings them some happiness. I know that for me, coming to grips with the fact that I’m an imperfect decision maker helped me and I thought that this message would resonate well within the scientific community.

Q: When did you first realize you were an imperfect decision maker?

I read “The Righteous Mind” five years ago and it was very compelling and persuasive. It completely changed the way I think about my opinions. It made me extremely careful when canvassing information and made me much more tolerant of opinions I disagree with, even if they are beyond the scientific pale.

I don’t think you can go out in the world and credibly say that genetically modified crops are dangerous to eat. But I do think the people going out in the world saying that are among the most concerned about our food system. I would love to have a constructive conversation with those people. We need people who care because honestly the road to an environmentally unfriendly food system is consumers who do not care.

We seek sources of information that share our values and confirm our views. So I say find the smartest person who disagrees with you and listen.

View Haspel’s presentation delivered at CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary conference here.

Biofortification to fight “hidden hunger” in Zimbabwe

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CIMMYT and partners recently held a seed fair in Mutoko, Zimbabwe to validate CIMMYT’s drought-tolerant and nutritious seed varieties. Above, smallholder farmers showcase their indigenous seeds as part of an information and technology exchange among various stakeholders. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
CIMMYT and partners recently held a seed fair in Mutoko, Zimbabwe to validate CIMMYT’s drought-tolerant and nutritious seed varieties. Above, smallholder farmers showcase their indigenous seeds as part of an information and technology exchange among various stakeholders. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CIMMYT) – Annually, vitamin A deficiency affects between 250,000 and 500,000 vulnerable and malnourished young people with early-life blindness worldwide. Half of these people die, according to the World Health Organization. The goal of completely eradicating vitamin A deficiency – mainly in Africa and Southeast Asia – remains a big challenge.

“There is very good evidence that vitamin A deficiency leads to an impaired immune system and can even have an impact on brain development,” said Thokozile Ndhlela, a CIMMYT maize breeder in southern Africa, addressing about 1,400 people at a seed fair event in Mutoko and Murewa districts of Mashonaland East province in Zimbabwe.

“But effective science can make a huge difference by enriching staple crops such as maize with pro-vitamin A and providing subsistence farming households with nutritionally enhanced food, ” Ndhlela explained to the audience, which included smallholder farmers, private seed companies, non-governmental organization representatives, traditional leaders, members of parliament and government officials.

In Zimbabwe, nearly one in every five children under the age of 5 are Vitamin A deficient. While vitamin A is available from a variety of sources, such as yellow, orange and red pigmented fruits, dark leafy vegetables, or animal products such as milk, eggs, liver and cheese,  these are often too expensive or unavailable in Zimbabwe’s rural areas, where 70 percent of the population live.

As part of efforts to address this nutritional challenge, CIMMYT and the CGIAR HarvestPlus research program are working with Zimbabwean researchers to develop maize varieties with high beta-carotene content.

“Beta-carotene, which is converted in the body to vitamin A is naturally found in maize,” said Ndhlela. Maize that is rich in beta-carotene is also orange in colour.

Since 2002, CIMMYT and CGIAR have been working on biofortification to enhance the micronutrient content of maize to support a fortification strategy launched by the Zimbabwe government in November 2015 through an agro-based initiative managed by farmers.

The improved orange maize varieties are bred to have some of the important traits such as high-yield potential, disease-resistance, and drought-tolerance, thereby reducing farmers’ vulnerability to effects of drought and other stresses, such as heat. This represents one promising strategy to enhance the availability of vitamins and minerals for people whose diets are dominated by micronutrient-poor staple food crops.

Grace Mhano, director of Afriseed Seed Company of Malawi. Her company is one of the institutions promoting provitamin A orange maize under the Malawi Improved Seed Systems and Technologies (MISST) project. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT
Grace Mhano, director of Afriseed Seed Company of Malawi. Her company is one of the institutions promoting pro-vitamin A orange maize under the Malawi Improved Seed Systems and Technologies (MISST) project. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

Orange maize – when eaten as a porridge-like staple food known as sadza in Zimbabwe – could provide half of the average daily requirement of vitamin A for women and children. This maize is bred specifically for human consumption compared to yellow maize, which is mainly for animal feed.

“Our focus is on hidden hunger, caused by insufficient mineral and vitamins in the diet – that is the major hunger problem Zimbabwe faces today,‘’ says Tendayi Mutimukuru-Maravanyika,’’ HarvestPlus Zimbabwe country manager.

CIMMYT together with HarvestPlus, Zimbabwe’s Department of Research and Specialist Services, and other partners have released the ZS242 maize variety in Zimbabwe. An additional three hybrids are expected to be released in the country by end of October 2016. Regionally, six varieties have been released in Zambia, and four in Malawi.

Farming households have benefited from the orange maize in 13 districts: Mutare, Makoni, Mutasa, Mount Darwin, Guruve, Shurugwi, Gokwe South, Kwekwe, Mutoko, Murewa, Zaka, Bikita and Marondera. The intention is to have the production and consumption of these crops scaled up to the national level through collaboration with the private sector. In the 2015-2016 cropping season, 73 tons of orange maize seed was distributed to eight districts and about 30,000 households benefited.  Out of the 13 districts, CIMMYT set up demonstration plots in five districts, of which seed fairs were held in two districts.

Demonstrations and field days are organized in various districts to create awareness, educate and train farmers on how to produce the crop and showcase good agricultural practices. “We also train partners to ensure that the product gets to the intended beneficiary, the consumer, in a way that contributes to their health,’’ said Lister Katsvairo, HarvestPlus southern Africa regional manager.

Due to a general preference for white maize, encouraging the acceptance of the orange maize variety remains a challenge often overcome when consumers taste it, according to Katsvairo. Consumers prefer the orange variety once they understand the benefits of vitamin A in their diets. In addition, people believe that yellow and orange maize are the same, but the two breeds are different in taste and colour. “They both have the same nutritional value, but orange maize contains more vitamin A compared to yellow maize, ‘’ Katsvairo said.

Douglas Makuvire, Murewa district agricultural extension officer, says most children in his area suffer from vitamin A deficiency, alluding to consumer fear of eating orange maize as a result of negative previous experiences with yellow maize, but said that efforts involve reassuring people of the nutritional benefit.

Murewa smallholder farmer, Donald Kure, 62, said he had a bad experience with yellow maize during the devastating 1992 drought when the government fed millions of people with it to avert mass starvation. “The taste was pathetic, ‘’ he recalls. Though Kure had mixed feelings about the orange maize he remained optimistic.  “Maybe this orange maize variety would be different,’’ he said after tasting sadza prepared with orange maize meal at the field day.

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Blindfold test shows taste bias for nutritious orange pro-vitamin A maize

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A farmer prepares Sadza to be used in the taste evaluation exercise. R.Lunduka/CIMMYT
A farmer prepares Sadza to be used in the taste evaluation exercise. R.Lunduka/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – The prevalence of “hidden hunger” due to micronutrient deficiency is a big issue in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been identified as one of the most affected regions with 30 percent of the population undernourished.

Biofortification of crops by increasing levels of vitamin A and protein in maize kernels is one effective way of improving diets of the rural poor and smallholder farmers.

CIMMYT and partners continuously develop improved maize varieties with enrichment traits. In particular, pro-vitamin A varieties – a biofortified orange maize developed in partnership with Harvest Plus for the southern Africa region and Quality Protein Maize. In addition to the nutritious component, these varieties are also tolerant to drought and common diseases while at the same time meeting yield potential goals amid efforts to achieve food security.

Bred using conventional methods, pro-vitamin A maize varieties are also stress tolerant compared to commercially available white, yellow and currently available orange varieties in the market.

“To date we have released 11 varieties, six in Zambia, four in Malawi and one in Zimbabwe. We anticipate additional releases of three hybrids in Zimbabwe by end of October 2016,” said Thokozile Ndhlela, a maize breeder at CIMMYT in Zimbabwe.

Since many African consumers prefer white maize, it has increasingly become critical to overcome biases toward nutritious non-white maize varieties to encourage adoption and increase uptake.

The basis of the bias is related to the fact that yellow maize is generally grown for livestock feed in some regions and less popular for human consumption. It is also associated with poverty because volumes of non-white maize was imported into major maize growing countries in sub-Saharan Africa following a famine that hit the region in the late 1980s and lasted into the 1990s. This relief maize was disliked because it was poorly stored, turned rancid and acquired a bad taste.

The impact of memories of poor flavor and biases against non-white relief maize was initially underestimated by the agriculture for development sector, until it became apparent that it did influence smallholders’ decisionmaking regarding whether or not to adopt improved varieties.

Blindfolded farmer takes part in the taste evaluation exercise. R. Lunduka/CIMMYT
Blindfolded farmer takes part in the taste evaluation exercise. R. Lunduka/CIMMYT

“Taste forms a very important trait in maize adoption,” said Rodney Lunduka, a socio-economist at CIMMYT. “In the case of the orange maize in Zimbabwe, the main reason for non-adoption is, in fact, taste. Farmers indicated that the old variety called Kenya that was distributed during the famine of the 1980s and 1990s had a very bad taste.”

In an effort to counteract the negative legacy of non-white maize, CIMMYT organized a taste evaluation exercise with farmers in the five districts of Marondera, Mrehwa, Zaka, Bikita and Mutoko in Zimbabwe. The farmers were blindfolded and participated in a taste test of a maize cornmeal food staple known in Zimbabwe as Sadza prepared from the orange pro-vitamin A maize flour and white maize flour. They were asked to rate the meal on taste and smell. Almost 240 farmers (119 female and 119 male) participated in the evaluation exercise.

“The farmers were adequately briefed about the exercise and not allowed to see the Sadza before testing,” said Lunduka. “This helped to remove any biases based on sight, so that they are not influenced by color but taste.”

The evaluation it found that 80 percent of female farmers and 84 percent of male farmers preferred the orange Sadza saying it had better taste and flavor.

“These results show that there is an opportunity to reach out to farmers with this nutritious maize, hence there is need to continue breeding for more robust varieties that will not only be nutritious but also competitive in terms of productivity,” Ndhlela added.

After the evaluation, most involved in the taste test, flocked to the Sadza made with orange maize.

In turn, greater availability of pro-vitamin orange maize can boost micronutrient levels and substantially lower the risk of hidden hunger.

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Food security requires acceleration of advanced science, not just “feeding,” CIMMYT 50 delegates say

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Lindiwe Majele Sibanda of FANRPAN delivers a presentation at the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference. CIMMYT/Alfonso Cortes
Lindiwe Majele Sibanda of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network delivers a presentation at the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference. CIMMYT/Alfonso Cortes

MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – The agriculture for development sector must begin “nourishing” families with nutrition-sensitive interventions instead of focusing on “feeding,” said a leading food security expert at a conference in Mexico City hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

“We’ve spent a lot of time in the last 50 years in the comfort zone of ‘feeding’,” said Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, chief executive for the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) in southern Africa.

On a panel of experts, which included researchers, policymakers, farmers and the private sector, Sibanda urged almost 1,000 delegates attending the three day conference to consider the potential risks of focusing solely on boosting yields and fortifying grains with micronutrients and vitamin A, rather than developing strategies for increased dietary diversity.

The panel also discussed topics related to agricultural research and development such as food security and nutrition, climate change, the social tensions that are both cause and result of migration, scientific developments and new technologies.

After the first day, a mixture of formal and celebratory activities at the CIMMYT research station in El Batan outside Mexico City, delegates relocated to the city to tackle such wide-ranging topics as nutrition, the newly approved portfolio for the CGIAR system of agricultural researchers to which CIMMYT belongs, funding, scientific developments, new technologies and technical innovations.

We are not yet on the right trajectory when it comes to nutrition and health outcomes, said Juergen Voegele, senior director, agriculture global practice World Bank and CGIAR System Council Chair.

“Without a CGIAR there would be 100 countries in conflict and not the 60 that we know today,” Voegele said. “The CGIAR has a major role to play in ensuring nutrition security and peace and conflict resolution.”

He said that productivity increases achieved in the 1980s and 1990s were ahead of population growth, but are currently lagging behind, leading to the necessity to increase funding for the CGIAR. Currently, for every dollar invested in the CGIAR, the return is $17, in some programs rising up to $100.

“At the current trajectory, we will not solve the world’s food challenges,” he said, adding that recent reforms have contributed much to focusing the efforts of the CGIAR towards the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, 15 measurable targets aimed at reducing poverty, and reaffirmed the World Bank’s commitment to championing and supporting CGIAR research.

The challenges are vast, said Martin Kropff, CIMMYT’s director general. “We have more people, less land, greater demand, all in the face of climate change.”

For food prices to remain constant, annual yield gains for maize would have to increase from 1.2 percent to 1.7 percent. For wheat they would have to increase from 1.1 percent to 1.7 percent.

A new agreement signed by CIMMYT and agri-seed company Dupont Pioneer at the conference, which will use CRISPR-Cas advanced breeding technologies to develop improved crops by using the best characteristics native to the plant, aims to streamline research into plant breeding and disease.

“It has become abundantly clear that there are at least two essential ingredients to feeding a growing population –innovation and farmers — and we must do a better job of connecting the two,” said Paul Schickler, president of Dupont Pioneer

The technology will be put to use first to challenge Maize Lethal Necrosis disease in sub-Saharan Africa, which first emerged in Kenya in 2011 and affects almost a quarter of total maize production with annual losses of about $110 million and up to 90 percent yield loss on individual farms, Schickler said.

“Usually, cutting-edge technologies benefit farmers in high income countries first,” said Marianne Banziger, CIMMYT’s deputy director general, commenting on the agreement between CIMMYT and Dupont Pioneer.

“The public-private partnership allows us to extend such benefits much more rapidly to farmers in low- and middle-income countries, addressing problems they uniquely face, giving them equal opportunities. As a result, we democratize access to new technologies.”

Among many recent scientific advancements, innovative remote sensing and satellite imagery technologies for assessing the effectiveness of research results in the field are increasingly being used.

Scientist David Lobell of Stanford University said that he uses satellite images to estimate which crops are being grown by farmers and the yields they obtain. Jose Luis Araus of the University of Barcelona spoke of a virtual revolution where phenotyping assessments are moving from the ground-based time consuming assessments to much more rapid assessments using drones and airplanes.

Other scientists, such as Ken Giller from the University of Wageningen described his work evaluating farm-level technology adoption.

“The fast-growing population of Africa is pushing down farm sizes, making it less likely that food security can be achieved in the near future,” Giller said. “We need to find new approaches to ensure that the combination of off-farm and on-farm incomes achieve household food security and, more, get farmers out of poverty.”

Mexico’s sub-secretary of agriculture, Jorge Armando Narváez Narváez, was among the many international agriculture experts and government officials who spoke at the conference, emphasizing the need to have reliable and market-oriented agricultural research and development platforms.

The benefits of global agricultural research that made improved hybrid maize seeds and fertilizer available to smallholders in the 1980s were illustrated by development economist and Cornell University Ph.D. graduate Ed Mabaya, who grew up on a hillside maize-livestock farm in rural Zimbabwe.

He recounted a meeting he had with a childhood friend whose fate was to remain in the village, struggling to survive and feed his family.

Mabaya concluded that his parents’ use of improved seed and farming practices derived from agricultural research helped open a pathway out of poverty for his family, with similar experiences for other progressive farmers in the community.

Reporting by Bianca Beks, Connie Castro, Ricardo Curiel, Jennifer Johnson, Mike Listman, Genevieve Renard, Miriam Shindler and Sam Storr.

African Conservation Tillage Network CEO calls for high level support of conservation agriculture

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African Conservation Tillage Network CEO Saidi Mkomwa
African Conservation Tillage Network CEO Saidi Mkomwa

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Regional and national support for conservation agriculture is key to achieving widespread sustainable production intensification, said Saidi Mkomwa, CEO of the African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT).

Increased uptake of conservation agriculture, soil management practices involving minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations used to boost sustainable agriculture and add to its profitability, will benefit from coordinated promotion through regional bodies and national governments, said Mkomwa, who will speak at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on Wednesday.

CIMMYT research and programs supporting conservation agriculture’s greater sustainable productivity have helped organizations, governments and their institutions expand efforts, but to have real impact against challenges climate change and reduced resources increased high-level action is needed, he said.

Mkomwa will take part in a panel discussion titled, “The contribution farming systems research in scaling improved management practices and technical innovations” during the CIMMYT 50th anniversary conference in Mexico.

He shares his opinions on agricultural development in the following interview.

Q: What do you hope to contribute to the CIMMYT conference?

To congratulate CIMMYT on their 50 years of unique contributions such as their contribution to the Green Revolution, which pulled millions of people out of hunger. This is also an opportunity to remind CIMMYT of their former wheat breeder and father of the Green Revolution Borlaugs’ 1970’s prophecy, that a second Green Revolution will be necessary in 20 to 30 years, to make the bounty everlasting. The next Green Revolution challenged also by climate change, is being compelled to focus on the new food frontiers – smallholder rainfed agriculture in the semi-arid regions, which are also home to the millions of the hungry and the poor. CIMMYT is already researching and empowering farmers (particularly in Southern Africa) to adapt and adopt conservation agriculture as means to achieving sustainable production intensification. What could add value to this effort is more effective and higher level leadership and coordination of such activities which can empower the African Union’s Africa’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and national governments to support and invest in relatively low cost conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification.

Q: What is significant about CIMMYT: What role has CIMMYT played in your area of work?

CIMMYT has expertise and experience in plant breeding and promoting best performing crop cultivars as well as in research on conservation agriculture systems and practices that is capable of intensifying farming without degrading natural resources. CIMMYT’s research on conservation agriculture has helped to generate reliable scientific evidence and technologies in support of conservation agriculture as the best option for sustainable production intensification by smallholder farmers in Africa. This work has helped many governments and their institutions and other organizations in Africa, including ACT, to expand their effort to introduce and spread conservation agriculture.

Q: What are the key challenges the world faces into the future?

The conventional tillage agriculture has become unfit for meeting future food security sustainably and is increasingly being replaced with conservation conservation because of its greater productivity, profitability, efficiency, resilience and regenerative qualities. Availability and efficient utilization of production inputs – with specific focus on water, fertilizers and fuel – which were essential in the Green Revolution, become crucial as supplies dwindle and costs escalate. Their manufacture or use in conventional tillage agriculture further contributes to GHG emissions but can be minimized by adopting conservation agriculture systems as widely as possible across Africa and beyond.

Key challenges that are faced globally include the need to adopt conservation agriculture in response to sub-optimal yield plateau and profit margins prevailing in most countries; loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, soil degradation and erosion; loss of efficiency and resilience; and greater need for research, education and extension systems to overcome inadequate level of staff and farmer capacity.

Mexico, funding, sustainability key to meeting agricultural challenges, “CIMMYT 50” delegates say

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kropff50
Martin Kropff (R), CIMMYT director general and Mexico’s agriculture secretary Jose Calzada Rovirosa, speak with members of the press at “CIMMYT 50,” CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary conference in El Batan Mexico, near Mexico City. CIMMYT/Alfonso Cortez

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Although increasing food supply to meet future demand must involve pushing the boundaries on technological innovation, sustainability must always be first and foremost, said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), at a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the organization, which has attracted almost a thousand delegates from Mexico and around the world, including agriculture ministers, scientists, policy makers and farmers.

“We can’t afford to be complacent because the need is so immense, but we must be cautious in our application of research to consider farmer needs and the environment,” Kropff said, as he set out a strategic plan for CIMMYT until 2022. “It’s not just about food security, we must achieve nutritional security as well.”

Kropff detailed plans to take a broader view of maize and wheat as components of agrifood systems, rather than strictly as commodities, taking into consideration the activities and relationships that determine how food is produced, processed, distributed and consumed, together with the human and biological systems that shape those activities.

“Already, at least 900 million people go to bed hungry at night – an unacceptable number now, which will continue to grow in tandem with population growth if we don’t ratchet up our efforts to improve maize and wheat yields,” he said, adding that the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals provide a roadmap for ensuring food security.

He also announced that CIMMYT would engage in more public-private partnerships and increase its focus on training and capacity building.

Just as a Mexican delegation, including agriculture secretary Jose Calzada Rovirosa, arrived at CIMMYT’s main research station in El Batan outside Mexico City, the skies opened and rain poured down, fortunately clearing in time for mid-day tours of the crops, wheat quality laboratory and the gene bank.

Mexico plays a major role in the improvement of maize and wheat crops by hosting five CIMMYT research stations throughout the country and providing funding for such programs as MasAgro, a project that not only works to develop improved maize and wheat varieties but also supports conservation agriculture techniques that help increase yields and improve environmental sustainability of farming.

“CIMMYT’s achievements are indisputable,” Calzada Rovirosa said. “’CIMMYT 50’ calls on all of our consciences. The world needs to increase yields without hurting the environment.”

He affirmed his continued support for the longstanding partnership between CIMMYT and Mexico.

“The Mexican government is committed to continuing the promise we made 50 years ago to support CIMMYT and agricultural research in Mexico,” said Calzada Rovirosa, who also delivered a message of congratulations from Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Farmers in Mexico were represented at the conference by Rodolfo Rodriguez Flores, president of Patronato, the farmers’ organization in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora.

Later in the day, agriculture ministers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya and Pakistan, countries where CIMMYT has also played a key role supporting national agricultural programs, spoke, detailing achievements and future plans.

CIMMYT needs long-term, secure funding to achieve its goals, said Derek Byerlee, a former World Bank economist and adviser who delivered the keynote address at the conference.

“Although the first drought-tolerant maize varieties were made in the 1980s, we’re just now achieving widespread distribution of drought-tolerant maize seed in Africa,” said Byerlee who has had a long association with CIMMYT. “The CIMMYT maize program works with 200 local and global seed companies and it’s crucial to get these varieties to farmers.”

Byerlee’s history of CIMMYT, titled “The Birth of CIMMYT – Pioneering the idea and ideals of international agricultural research” was published this month. It details the challenges global agricultural research faces.

Today, global, publicly-funded networks which combine the talent and resources of scientists and institutions across borders to foster more productive, profitable agricultural systems seem logical, but at their inception after World War Two, they were remarkably innovative, Byerlee said.

Developing countries will need to take much larger responsibility and participation in their own agricultural development, but the principles that underlie the origins of CIMMYT and the CGIAR remain valid.

At the same time, many countries where CIMMYT works are embroiled in conflict, making research and development activities difficult and at times dangerous.

Other highlights of the day included speeches by Sanjaya Rajaram, a prolific wheat breeder known as the Sultan of Wheat who worked for many years at CIMMYT as director of the Global Wheat Program and won the 2014 World Food Prize.

“New wheats are better able to produce under high temperatures, but more needs to be done to address climate change,” Rajaram said, adding that disease resistance has been a critical achievement in protecting yield.

“More prosperous emerging countries like India or Mexico need to provide long-term funding for CIMMYT and other CGIAR centers and programs,” he said. “CIMMYT scientists based in our target countries and global partnerships are key to success. It’s a shared global enterprise with national systems and the private sector.”

Julie Borlaug, the granddaughter of the late 1970 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug, the key wheat breeder known internationally as the father of the Green Revolution, spoke enthusiastically of CIMMYT’s work and compassionately about rural poverty and smallholder farmers.

“Mexico is a leader and should continue its legacy worldwide,” said Julie Borlaug, who is now associate director of external relations at the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A & M University.

Reporting by Ricardo Curiel, Jennifer Johnson, Mike Listman, Katelyn Roett and Miriam Shindler.