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.

The Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security: speaker spotlight

Written by on February 24, 2014. Posted in Features.

By Brenna Goth/CIMMYT

Rachel Laudan learns how to use a grindstone (a Mexican metate). Photo courtesy of Rachel Laudan.

Food historian Rachel Laudan will explain wheat’s impact on world history at the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security. The Summit, which will be held in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico, in March, will feature Laudan’s lecture “Wheat: The Grain at the Center of Civilization.”

Wheat, used in many of the most popular dishes across the globe, has changed the world, according to Laudan.

“No one would have predicted this of the hard-to-process seeds of this finicky, low- yielding grass,” she writes in a preview to her talk. “Nor would they have predicted that processing wheat would have encouraged new forms of economic organization, expressed political and social status and symbolized moral and religious beliefs.”

She recently released the book Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, a story of how food is interconnected with economies, beliefs, social structures and politics throughout time and across the world. The book is a finalist for the International Association of Culinary Professionals 2014 Food Writing Awards. Laudan describes her inspiration on her blog.

Here, Laudan has provided us with an excerpt of the book focused on the difficulties of grinding wheat:

When I was a little girl, my father decided to make some flour from the wheat we had grown on the farm. He tried pounding it with a pestle and mortar but all he got was broken grains, not flour. He put it through the hand mincer screwed to the edge of the table with the same result. Finally, he attacked it with a hammer on the flagstone floor. After he gave up, defeated, my mother cleared up the mess. It was sobering to realize that if the commercial millers vanished, we could have starved even with barns full of sacks of wheat.

To turn wheat into flour, you have to shear, not pound, the hard grains, which requires a grindstone, as the people of Lake Kinneret had discovered. A friend in Mexico, where hand grinding still goes on, showed me how it worked. She knelt at the upper end of a grindstone, called a metate – a saddle-shaped platform on three inverted pyramidal legs, hewn from a single piece of volcanic rock. She mounded a handful of barley, took the mano, a stone shaped like a squared-off rolling pin, in both hands with her thumbs facing back to nudge the grain into place, and, using the whole weight of her upper body, sheared the mano over the grain. After half a dozen passes, she had broken the grains, which now clustered at the bottom end of the metate. Carefully scraping them up with her fingertips, she moved them back to the top, and started shearing again, this time producing white streaks of flour. By the time she had sheared the grain from top to bottom five or six times, she had produced a handful of flour.

Grinding may look easy, and it is, for the first ten minutes. To grind a quantity of grain, though, as I found out when I tried, takes skill, control, physical strength, and time. I was quickly panting, sweaty, and dizzy, my hair in my eyes, and the mano slipping at awkward angles. Grinding is hard on the knees, hips, back, shoulders, and elbows, causing arthritis and bone damage. Grinding is lonely, too exhausting to allow for chatter. Kneeling to grind with the breasts swinging can be seen as submissive, demeaning, and sexually provocative, as lascivious eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrations of Mexican women grinding make clear. The heavy labor was relegated to women, convicts, and slaves, called “grinding slaves” in the technical language of seventh-century English court documents. Even today Mexican women in remote villages grind five hours daily to prepare enough maize for a family of five or six. For generation upon generation of grinders in the bread-eating parts of the world, the author of Genesis (3:19) had it nailed. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

You can purchase the book through the University of California Press or Amazon. For more thoughts from Rachel Laudan, check out her website and read her blog.

See all of the Summit speakers here.

CIMMYT scientist attends global forum in Middle East

Written by on February 19, 2014. Posted in News.

DTMA seed systems specialist Peter Setimela (right) with BBC journalist Stephen Sackur, who chaired the meeting’s opening session. Photo: Peter Setimela

By Peter Setimela/CIMMYT

CIMMYT Seed Systems Specialist Peter Setimela participated in the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture from 3-5 February in the United Arab Emirates. The theme of the conference was “driving innovation for an agricultural revolution.” More than 1,800 delegates and 120 exhibitors were hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Hill Maize Research Project IV welcomes new leader

Written by on February 18, 2014. Posted in News.

By K.C. Dilli /CIMMYT

The Hill Maize Research project (HMRP) commends the commitment, dedication and service of Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, who retired on 31 January after leading the project for nearly nine years.

Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security: wheat research roundup

Written by on February 14, 2014. Posted in Features.

By Brenna Goth/CIMMYT

What do you know about wheat?

The crop is the focus of the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security, an event CIMMYT is hosting in March to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Dr. Norman Borlaug. Topics of the summit range from the history of wheat, to the work of Dr. Borlaug, to climate change and world grain policy.

Here are a few things you might not know about wheat and wheat research. Take a look and then test your knowledge by taking our wheat quiz!

CIMMYT partners to combat parasite

Written by on February 13, 2014. Posted in News.

By Brenna Goth/CIMMYT

A partnership launched on 3 February by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation and led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) will help CIMMYT and other partners to fight a parasitic plant affecting maize production.

Known locally as “witchweed,” the parasitic plant Striga spp. casts no spells but uses needle-like tendrils to suck nutrients from maize roots. The weed is prevalent in Nyanza and Western Provinces of Kenya, where it grows on some 200,000 hectares and causes crop damage worth an estimated US$ 80 million per year. Photo: CIMMYT

The three-year, performancebased grant of US$ 3 million is the largest grant awarded by Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation to date, according to an AATF press release. Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation supports projects increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers while AATF promotes sustainable agricultural technology for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The funding will help improve maize production in east Africa by “upscaling the commercialization of StrigAway^TM – an herbicidetolerant seed and treatment that controls the infestation of Striga – a parasitic weed that often results in total crop loss and even abandonment of arable land,” the press release said. Striga – commonly known as witchweed – can cause 20 to 80 percent crop loss in maize and affects 1.4 million hectares in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, according to the release.

CIMMYT helped develop the StrigAway^TM technology package along with partners including the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. An herbicide-tolerant maize variety is coated with an herbicide that kills Striga when the seed is sown and sprouts.

Other partners, including the agrochemical company BASF and six local seed companies, will promote the project in the three target countries. The project aims to create 4,000 demonstration plots and sell 1,000 metric tons of seed to 20,000 smallholder farmers. Partners will also offer technical support on how to use the seed and launch campaigns and promotion of StrigAway^TM.

Nutrient management tool wins award

Written by Sam Storr on February 12, 2014. Posted in News.

A tool developed by CIMMYT and the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) offering site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) advice to help farmers achieve higher yields more efficiently recently won an innovation award.

Nutrient Expert^TM decision support tools received the best innovation award in the information and communications technology category at the Bihar Innovation Forum II, which recognizes innovations to improve rural livelihoods in India. These tools were in development by CIMMYT and IPNI for five years and were launched in June 2013.

In South Asia, 90 percent of smallholder farmers do not have access to soil testing. The computer-based support tools aim to provide them with simple advice on how to get the most from fertilizer inputs. An IPNI study funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE CRP) Competitive Grant Initiative (CGI) found that farming practices and the resources available to farmers vary hugely in east India.

The cutting-edge value of Nutrient Expert^TM is that it offers specific information at the farm level, where it can provide the greatest benefits. Nutrient Expert^TM is especially relevant because it was developed through dialogue and participation with stakeholders, which also raises awareness and eventual adoption by users.

It is now used by the Indian National Agricultural Research System and is a key intervention used by the CRP on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in its Climate Smart Villages. The Nutrient Expert^TM approach is also being applied to maize and wheat in other areas of Southeast Asia, China, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

CIMMYT seed heads to the frozen north

Written by on February 11, 2014. Posted in News.

By Miriam Shindler/CIMMYT

CIMMYT’s Wellhausen-Anderson Gene Bank sent its fifth shipment of seed to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway last week for safeguarding.

Thirty-four boxes containing about 420 kilograms of seed left from CIMMYT’s El Batán headquarters on 7 February for the vault, which is deeply embedded in the frozen mountains of Svalbard. Isolated on the Norwegian Island of Spitsbergen, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the Global Seed Vault is keeping the genetic diversity of the world’s crops safe for future generations by storing duplicates of seeds from gene banks across the globe.

Tom Payne (left), Denise Costich and Miguel Ángel López help load the seed shipment from the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank, on its way to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT

CIMMYT sent 1,946 accessions of maize and 5,964 of wheat accessions to add to that collection. Over the past several years, CIMMYT has sent 123,057 accessions of maize and wheat, which is essential for protecting valuable genetic diversity. CIMMYT is working with the Norwegian government and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, who manage the Global Seed Vault, to keep maize and wheat seed safe against a global catastrophe.

CIMMYT will continue to send backups of regenerated seed to Svalbard each year until its entire maize and wheat collection is represented in the vault, according to Denise Costich, head of the Maize Germplasm Bank. “Our goal is to have 100 percent of our collection backed up at Svalbard by 2021,” she said. “We continually compile a list of accessions that still need to be backed up; these are new introductions or new regenerations of accessions with low seed count or low germination.”

With more than 27,000 accessions of maize and 130,000 of wheat, CIMMYT’s gene bank is a treasure chest of genetic resources for two of the planet’s most important crops. Nonetheless, the Wellhausen-Anderson Gene Bank does not just help insure against seed loss – CIMMYT actively makes use of these collections, distributing seed, free of charge, to more than 700 partner organizations in almost every country across the globe.

In addition, through the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) project, CIMMYT scientists are unleashing the genetic potential of thousands of landraces and improving understanding of traits utilized in current varieties. It is providing scientists and breeders worldwide with new building blocks to develop climate-smart varieties for resource-poor farmers that will safeguard valuable natural resources and provide affordable and more nutritious food to current and future generations.

Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security: Ciudad Obregón, Mexico

Written by on February 10, 2014. Posted in News.

By Brenna Goth/CIMMYT

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CIMMYT will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Norman Borlaug with the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security from 25 to 28 March. We’re recognizing his legacy and considering its future with an event held where some of Borlaug’s most important work first began – Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico.

Ciudad Obregón is deeply embedded in the history of Dr. Borlaug and CIMMYT and continues to be shaped by the wheat research taking place there. It has been referred to as “The Town That Wheat Built.”

October 2014 will mark 70 years since Dr. Borlaug first came to Mexico as part of a Mexico-Rockefeller Foundation program. His work started in Ciudad Obregón, in northwest Mexico’s Yaqui Valley. He worked closely with the farmers in the area, a relationship CIMMYT maintains today.

When Dr. Borlaug started his research in Mexico, 60 percent of the country’s wheat was imported. He wrote in a preface to Wheat Breeding at CIMMYT: Commemorating 50 Years of Research in Mexico for Global Wheat Improvement, “Unfortunately, inexperience in breeding for disease resistance by those left in charge led to disastrous stem rust epidemics in 1939-41 that essentially wiped out the whole crop. This was the environment in which I found myself when I arrived to establish a wheat breeding program in Sonora.”

Facing stem rust epidemics, Dr. Borlaug started shuttle breeding to expedite wheat improvement and utilized different locations to grow two generations of wheat in one year. By 1956, Mexico was self-sufficient in food production. Borlaug’s subsequent world travels inspired him to bring young scientists to Mexico for intensive plant breeding courses and send them back to their home countries with wheat samples.

Dr. Borlaug often said the Yaqui Valley was where he most felt at home. His memory lives on in Obregón – one of the city’s main streets is named after him and, in March 2010, the CIMMYT research station was renamed Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug. This center continues to be a hub of wheat research and training.

The Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security will recognize the work done at Ciudad Obregón and the impact it had worldwide. The summit will also start new conversations about wheat’s role in food security and what Dr. Borlaug might have done today.

The Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security: CIMMYT and Norman Borlaug

Written by on January 30, 2014. Posted in Features.

In March, CIMMYT will celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug with the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security. By uniting some of the brightest minds in agriculture and food security, we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Borlaug’s birth. The event will take place in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, where some of his most important work began.
CIMMYT’s Mike Listman takes a look at Borlaug’s life and how he helped shape CIMMYT into what it is today:

borlaug

This year, the world will commemorate the extraordinary legacy of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the late agronomist, advocate for food security and Nobel Peace Laureate who died in 2009. During his long and distinguished career Borlaug worked with thousands of people around the world and numerous organizations; many will observe the 100th anniversary of Borlaug’s birth on 25 March. CIMMYT will also celebrate the 70th anniversary of the beginning of Borlaug’s work in Mexico for the organization that later became CIMMYT and which placed him on the path to the Nobel Peace Prize.

As part of a special Mexico-Rockefeller Foundation program in the 1940s-50s to raise Mexico’s farm productivity, Borlaug led the development and spread of high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties and better farming practices. During the 1960s-70s, those innovations brought Mexico wheat self-sufficiency and South Asia a productivity explosion and subsequently, freedom from famine. This in turn helped fuel the widespread adoption by developing world farmers of improved seed and farming practices in a movement called the Green Revolution.

Those successes and Borlaug’s model – field-based, farmer-focused research, training of a global cadre of young agronomists and a pragmatic, apolitical approach – caught the imagination of the media and policymakers and led to the creation of a consortium of international agricultural research centers. Dr. Borlaug’s ideals and fierce drive are strongly reflected at CIMMYT, the direct successor of the Mexico-Rockefeller Foundation program. Borlaug served as a principal scientist and research leader at CIMMYT from the center’s launch in 1966 until his formal retirement in 1979, and from then on as a senior consultant in residence for several months each year until his death in 2009.

At CIMMYT, Borlaug helped craft a wheat breeding program unparalleled in global partnerships and impacts. Improved, CIMMYT-derived wheat is sown on more than 60 million hectares in developing countries – over 70 percent of the area planted with modern wheat varieties in those nations. These improved wheat varieties are responsible for bigger harvests that bring added benefits to farmers of at least US$ 500 million annually.¹With the supply of that much more grain, for many years and in much of the world food prices fell and food security rose. For example, the price paid for wheat by consumers in India dropped by about 2 percent each year during 1970-95, benefiting both the rural and urban poor.²

Norman Borlaug (fourth right) in the field showing a plot of Sonora-64, one of the semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant varieties that was key to the Green Revolution, to a group of young international trainees, at what is now CIMMYT's CENEB station (Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug, or The Norman E. Borlaug Experiment Station), near Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, northern Mexico. Photo credit: CIMMYT. — Norman Borlaug (fourth right) in the field showing a plot of Sonora-64, one of the semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant varieties that was key to the Green Revolution, to a group of young international trainees, at what is now CIMMYT’s CENEB station (Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug, or The Norman E. Borlaug Experiment Station), near Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, northern Mexico.Photo credit: CIMMYT.

As stated in a 1999 Atlantic Monthly article: “Norman Borlaug has already saved more lives than any other person who ever lived…Borlaug is responsible for the fact that throughout the post-war era, except in Sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were widely predicted.”³ Although a trained scientist, Borlaug was down-to-earth and preferred practical action to pure academia. He famously admonished understudies that “…you can’t eat research papers.” Despite this, his research at CIMMYT and its predecessor program featured both scientific rigor and real innovation. His big ideas include a worldwide wheat varietal testing and distribution network involving hundreds of partners, the practice of “shuttle breeding” – successive selection of breeding lines at two or three locations of separated latitudes that expedites breeding and broadens the breeding lines’ adaptation, careful attention by breeders to disease resistance and milling and baking quality, close ties to farmer groups and valuing improved cropping systems on a par with high-yielding seed.

Borlaug also championed the development and promotion of quality protein maize, a product for which Eva Villegas (a CIMMYT researcher who had been a Borlaug protégé) and Surinder K. Vasal (a CIMMYT distinguished scientist) were awarded the World Food Prize in 2000. For Borlaug, the science was there to serve a higher humanitarian purpose, and this vision is the real legacy of his long career at CIMMYT. These words of Borlaug appear on a 2006 United States bronze medal minted in his honor: “The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.” Humanitarian science and fierce dedication were the core values that Borlaug bequeathed to the organization created in his image and which was his home for 43 years.

October 2014 also marks 70 years from when Borlaug first arrived in Mexico to join the Mexico-Rockefeller Foundation program. Borlaug was hard at work on a CIMMYT research station in Central Mexico in 1970 when his wife came to inform him that he would receive the Nobel Prize for the Green Revolution successes. His dedication was so complete that when she shouted the news to him across an irrigation canal he simply absorbed the information and then went back to work.

1. This is in 2005 US$; see http://apps.cimmyt.org/english/docs/ impacts/impwheat_02.pdf; in addition to the benefits cited for increased yield per se, a 2006 study estimated the annual benefits to farmers from improved yield stability through use of CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties at more than $140 million.

2. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FAGS%2FAGS144_06%2FS0021859606006459a.pdf&code=19f5c00a27f8982c83c2e95bce65491e

3. Easterbrooke, G. 1999. “Forgotten benefactor of humanity.” Atlantic Monthly, January.

Farmers tell donors they want quality protein maize

Written by on January 28, 2014. Posted in News.

By Adefris Teklewold/CIMMYT

Farmers spoke of their success with new quality protein maize (QPM) varieties to senior officials from the Canadian embassy in Ethiopia during recent visits to CIMMYT-Ethiopia sites. The visits focused on the status of the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia project (NuME), which is funded by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFTAD). NuME aims to reduce malnutrition and promote food security in Ethiopia through the adoption of QPM, whose grain contains almost twice the lysine and tryptophan as non-QPM maize grain.

Abebech Assefa leads a discussion after the field day and collects feedback from farmers, project partner representatives and government officials. (Photo by Adefris Teklewold/CIMMYT)

Jennifer Bloom, DFATD’s NuME project team leader and the second secretary (development) at the Embassy of Canada, and Abebech Assefa, the embassy’s team leader for Food Security and Agricultural Growth, visited farmers and learned about their feelings toward the adoption and promotion of QPM. The farmers also discussed their perspectives on the opportunities and constraints of project implementation with the Canadian representatives. Assefa, accompanied by three other embassy staff members, participated in a field day in the Meskan District of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region of Ethiopia.

During the field day, the visiting delegation observed the performance of two QPM hybrid varieties, BHQY-545 and AMH-760Q, adapted to the area. Farmers carrying out the field demonstrations shared their reactions to the newly-introduced QPM varieties. Farmer Genet Assefa noted that her plots have showed impressive results with the QPM varieties she planted compared to other plots in the area. “All the proper agronomic activities were employed on my plot based on advice from experts,” she said, adding that “QPM should be promoted and made accessible to all farmers so that we can all ensure food and nutritional security and increase our incomes.”

Jennifer Bloom compares food prepared from QPM varieties with food prepared from conventional varieties.

Abebech Assefa led a discussion after the field day and showed appreciation for the farmers who participated in the field demonstrations. She said she was grateful for their willingness to test new QPM varieties on their farm plots and to experience the benefits of QPM in improving food and nutritional security in Ethiopia. Bloom visited several demonstration sites and tested QPM food products during a field day organized in Bure District, Amhara Regional State. She requested the farmers’ opinions about QPM technology. The majority responded that they were satisfied and specifically asked for the seed of BHQY-545 to be made available to everyone in need. Farmers said they favor BHQY-545 because it provides up to four or five cobs and matures early, and they value the BHQ-760 variety for its long cobs.

The farmers said their “most critical concern” regarding the adoption of QPM varieties was that abundant quantities of the quality seed be available at the right time. Local administration and bureau of agriculture officials, who accompanied the DFTAD delegation, expressed their commitment to providing the seed. Bloom ended her visit by thanking the officials for attending the field demonstrations and the farmers for their participation and courage in discussing the advantages of QPM varieties and their concerns about them.

Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security: remembering Norman Borlaug

Written by on January 24, 2014. Posted in Features.

One of the most important aspects of planning the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security is remembering Norman Borlaug. We’ve received photos and stories from individuals and institutions as they register for the event. Some people only met Dr. Borlaug once while others worked with him for years, but they all share memories of his kindness and impact. You can read and see all of the submissions here; a few of our favorites to date are found below (some submissions are edited for clarity):

“I will help you”

“Dr. Borlaug’s visit to China in 1974 with U.S. delegates started the collaboration between China and CIMMYT … I met him in November of 1990 when I started as a postdoctoral fellow in the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program. We lived in the same block of the visiting scientist building and met very often in the cafeteria in the evening. I traveled with Borlaug a few times and facilitated his visits to China many times.

What I learned from him is to respect people and work hard. Never, ever, hurt other people’s dignity or pride, and never be arrogant. Always say, ‘I will help you!’ … As said by , CIMMYT Director General Dr. Tom Lumpkin, the best way to commemorate Borlaug is to work hard and do your best job.”– Dr. Zhonghu He

Respected by everyone

“I met Norman Borlaug during a 2008 field day. I remember that he was happy to meet someone from Morocco and told me that he had visited Morocco many years ago and kept a good souvenir from his visit.

While attending the Borlaug workshops and listening to his success stories from the scientific and farmer communities, I understood that he was a great man loved and respected by everyone throughout the world and that he left a very good impression on all the people he met and countries he visited. He is the real father of the Green Revolution. I would have liked to have met him earlier. I would have, for sure, learned a lot from him.” – Dr. Rhrib Keltoum

Memories Unforgotten

“In 2003, one group of farmers from the Cooperatives of Andalusia (southern Spain), owners of the seed company Agrovegetal, visited El Batán and Ciudad Obregón to get to know CIMMYT. We met Dr. Borlaug in Texcoco, and he agreed to travel with us to Sonora to explain the wheat breeding program to us.

I will never forget those days, his personality and his enthusiastic way of teaching. We took a picture with durum wheat YAVAROS 79, the most widely grown variety in Spain, even 25 years after its release.” –Dr. Ignacio Solis, Director, Agrovegetal

CIMMYT strengthens ties with Mexico’s Science Council

Written by on January 22, 2014. Posted in News.

Research center directors from throughout Mexico met to identify possible collaborations on 25 November at CIMMYT-El Batán. Visitors, all from National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) centers, included Lorenzo Felipe Sanchez Teyer, director general of the Yucatán Scientific Research Center A.C. (CICY); Pablo Wong-González, director general of the Center for Food Research and Development A.C. (CIAD); Mayra de la Torre, who is in charge of strategic programs for CIAD; and Martín Aluja Schuneman Hofer, director general of the Ecology Institute A.C. (INECOL).

Aluja received the 2013 National Award for Science and Arts in the technology, innovation and design category. This important award recognizes his invaluable contribution to promoting agriculture and strengthening the marketing of Mexican avocados, among other work to improve science and technology in Mexico. Congratulations Dr. Aluja! During the visit and meetings with CIMMYT researchers, attendees identified potential areas of collaboration with each CONACYT research center. They agreed on possible areas of focus, including impact modeling on long-term agricultural practices, social inclusion research, technological innovation, value chain and market research, nutritional quality and climate change.

Other CONACYT research centers participated in the first analysis and planning meeting for a national postgraduate program in plant genetic resources, held at CIMMYT on 13-14 November. The initiative is led by MasAgro- Biodiversity. Participation at the workshop included 21 national universities and research centers as well as the Northwest Center for Biological Research (CIBNOR), El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) and INECOL.

Left to right: Carlos Moisés Hernández, Denise Costich, Lorenzo Felipe Sanchez Teyer, Kevin Pixley, Mayra de la Torre, Martín Aluja Schuneman Hofer, Pablo Wong-González, Natalia Palacios, Sara Hearne, Isabel Peña, Carolina Saint-Pierre, Francelino Rodrigues, Carlos Guzmán and Gilberto Salinas. Photo: Xochiquezatl Fonseca/CIMMYT — Left to right: Carlos Moisés Hernández, Denise Costich, Lorenzo Felipe Sanchez Teyer, Kevin Pixley, Mayra de la Torre, Martín Aluja Schuneman Hofer, Pablo Wong-González, Natalia Palacios, Sara Hearne, Isabel Peña, Carolina Saint-Pierre,
Francelino Rodrigues, Carlos Guzmán and Gilberto Salinas. Photo: Xochiquezatl Fonseca/CIMMYT

The CONACYT system includes 27 research institutes that focus on science and technology. Research areas and objectives include natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, technological development and innovation and financial support for postgraduate studies. Inocencio Higuera, deputy director general of CONACYT’s public centers who visited CIMMYT in August 2013, said CONACYT is extremely important to Mexico. CIMMYT has signed academic and scientific collaboration agreements with CONACYT centers including ECOSUR, CIAD, INECOL, CICY and the Social Anthropology Research and Study Center (CIESAS). These five-year agreements establish collaboration and cooperation terms and conditions for the development and implementation of specific research projects as well as academic exchange and training.

CIMMYT recognizes the importance of exchanging scientific knowledge and strengthening research with institutes that have solid infrastructure and expertise in anthropology and social impact, biotechnology, ecological management, nanotechnology, nutrition and high-quality human resources development.

Australian delegation praises CIMMYT’s global achievements

Written by on January 21, 2014. Posted in News.

By Miriam Shindler/CIMMYT

The Australian delegation stand with CIMMYT representatives in front of the Gene Bank. Front row left to right: Ambassador Tim George, Ms. Robyn McClelland, Sergeant-at-Arms, Dr. Thomas Lumpkin, Hon. Bronwyn Bishop, Mr. Stephen Jones MP, Hon. Philip Ruddock MP and his wife Back row left to right: Ashleigh McArthur, Australian Embassy in Mexico; Senator Deborah O’Neill; Mr. Mark Coulton MP; William Blomfield, Australian Embassy in Mexico; Dr.Marianne Bänziger , CIMMYT Deputy Director General; Mr. Damien Jones, Special Adviser to the Speaker; Dr. Kevin Pixley, Director Genetic Resources Program Director; Dr. Hans Braun, Director Global Wheat Program Director; Ricardo Curiel, MasAgro Communications Specialist. (Photo: Xochiquezatl Fonseca/CIMMYT) — The Australian delegation stand with CIMMYT representatives in front of the Gene Bank.
Front row left to right: Ambassador Tim George, Ms. Robyn McClelland, Sergeant-at-Arms, Dr. Thomas Lumpkin, Hon. Bronwyn Bishop, Mr. Stephen Jones MP, Hon. Philip Ruddock MP and his wife Back row left to right: Ashleigh McArthur, Australian Embassy in Mexico; Senator Deborah O’Neill; Mr. Mark Coulton MP; William Blomfield, Australian Embassy in Mexico; Dr.Marianne Bänziger , CIMMYT Deputy Director General; Mr. Damien Jones, Special Adviser to the Speaker; Dr. Kevin Pixley, Director Genetic Resources Program Director; Dr. Hans Braun, Director Global Wheat Program Director; Ricardo Curiel, MasAgro Communications Specialist. (Photo: Xochiquezatl Fonseca/CIMMYT)

The Honorary Bronwyn Bishop, speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, commended CIMMYT’s impressive achievements during a visit to the El Batán campus on 16 January. Bishop was accompanied by Tim George, the Australian ambassador to Mexico, as well as three other members of the House of Representatives and a member of the Senate.

In an engaging presentation, CIMMYT Director General Thomas Lumpkin captivated the delegation by showcasing CIMMYT’s history and extensive agricultural research for development activities. The delegation was also impressed by CIMMYT’s contribution to the Australian agriculture sector; 98 percent of Australian wheat is derived from CIMMYT parental lines. A 4.6 percent yield increase due to CIMMYT germplasm translates into additional annual income of up to AUD$ 250 million (US$ 219.8 million) for Australian wheat farmers.

The fruitful visit was an opportunity to strengthen the partnership between CIMMYT and Australia and to form future collaborative projects that will help both farmers in the developing world and in Australia. Australia is one of CIMMYT’s strongest partners and collaborators. Institutions such as the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) are working with CIMMYT to improve maize and wheat varieties for farmers in Australia and the developing world.

Agronomists learn precision-conservation agriculture

Written by on January 14, 2014. Posted in News.

By M.L. Jat and Tripti Agarwal /CIMMYT

Wheat agronomists in India learned about precision-conservation agriculture and received the tools to continue their education at a workshop in November.

Nearly 40 participants attended “Precision-Conservation Agriculture for Improving Wheat Productivity in South Asia,” which was organized by CIMMYT, the Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR) and the International Plant Nutrition Institute – South Asia Program (IPNI), with support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The workshop was held 26 to 27 November at the DWR in Karnal, India.

Agronomists receive GreenSeeker training at a DWR field. Photo: RK Sharma, DWR

Attendees represented nine of the All India Coordinated Research Centres on Wheat and Barley Improvement (AICRCW&BI) located in different state agricultural universities as well as CIMMYT, IPNI, three Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutes, the State Department of Agriculture in Karnal and the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK). The goal of the workshop was to train scientists in blending precision and conservation agriculture, an important strategic initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), said M.L. Jat, senior cropping systems agronomist for CIMMYT.

The event aimed to raise awareness about Nutrient Expert, a software tool that helps determine fertilizer requirements, and GreenSeeker, an optical sensor that measures Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), an indicator of crop development and health. In 2009, IPNI and CIMMYT started working with the Nutrient Expert Decision support tool in close collaboration with national agricultural research and extension systems. The tool gained wide acceptance after private organization and corporations began providing it to farmers.

Targeting widespread adoption of both technologies, each coordinated research center received a GreenSeeker tool and Nutrient Expert software. Participants were engaged and motivated to learn about and implement the tools in farmers’ fields. Kaushik Majumdar, director of IPNI in South Asia, applauded the workshop collaboration and continuous efforts on implementing site-specific nutrient management. Etienne Duveiller, director of research for CIMMYT-South Asia, urged a multidisciplinary approach to address yield potential in germplasm and agronomy.

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Partners should expand their innovation and training efforts and construct an action plan to reach farmers, said DWR Project Director Indu Sharma. She also proposed discussion of technology adoption and said training scientists is one way to move forward on agricultural issues. She cited a report on farmers who said they obtained 7 to 9 ton per hectare grain yield with higher nutrient applications.

In addition, she mentioned the need to bridge the production gaps of 15 to 20 percent in high productive zones and up to 35 percent in low productive zones through best-bet agronomic management practices. Regarding training, she emphasized the dissemination of knowledge. “Learning from the best farmers who are harvesting with higher productivity is required to ensure sustainable development,” she said. Participants said they appreciated the knowledge they gained during the workshop. CIMMYT, DWR and IPNI extended their support to participating institutes for future precision conservation agriculture endeavors.