Support our work
CIMMYT works to improve livelihoods and foster more productive and sustainable food systems in low- and middle-income countries, almost exclusively among smallholder farmers. Our programs squarely target critical challenges, including food insecurity and malnutrition, climate change, and environmental degradation. Our multidisciplinary teams work on large-scale projects and in close collaboration with partner organizations.
CIMMYT greatly appreciates the contributions of our funders, and we thank you for your continued support and partnership. Our innovative and world-changing work would not be possible without you. Our strategic intentions focus on combating hunger, poverty, land degradation, and the effects of climate change in key agroecological systems more effectively and broadly over the next 10 years. To do this, we will establish new and expanded, scaling-oriented partnerships supported with funding of US$1.2 billion over the next five years and US$3 billion over the next decade.
Our vision and impacts
We continue to be inspired by our founder, Norman Borlaug’s motto, “Take it to the Farmer”. This means combining the right seed with the right farming practices while being embedded in integrated markets and recognizing and leveraging farmers’ knowledge.
We strive to attain a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from food crises and with more resilient agrifood systems. We act through 4 flagship programs: maize research, wheat research, genetic resources, dryland crops, and sustainable agrifood systems, encompassing other cereals such as sorghum and millets, legumes, and pulses. The programs combine scientific excellence, strong and long-lasting partnerships, and rigorous capacity building, to combat food insecurity and climate change in the Global South. High-level impacts of our work include the following:
- Documented benefits in the Global South of US$3.5 to US$4 billion annually – and significant spill-over effects for farmers in the Global North.
- Breeding contributions to 50% of the wheat and maize varieties grown worldwide.
- Capacity building that has benefited nearly 75,000 women, youth, and men farmers and agricultural experts, through 2,700 training and capacity building activities in more than 18 countries.
New opportunities
Whilst our current programs deliver significant sustainable intensification, regenerative agriculture and breeding and seed systems-driven benefits, we want to further engage funding partners in realizing additional strategic opportunities which include:
- Expand crop management approaches that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use land, water, energy, nutrients, and labor more efficiently.
- Act as innovation provider of sustainable agriculture development that is inclusive, provides improved livelihood options, and reduces drudgery, thanks to responsible sourcing and environmentally-friendly policy environment-building, enabling long lasting innovation.
- Build greater farming household agency through advisory services, such as nutrient expert, disease monitoring, e-agrology, yield gap, global N atlas, and benchmarked information.
- Increase the participatory engagement with farming communities, especially smallholder farmers, who represent 30-40% of the GDP and 65-70% of the labor force in Africa, a huge resource.
- Build Living Labs—long-term field experimentation platforms—infrastructure with farming communities with our Regional On-Farm Testing (ROFT) networks.
- Provide nutritious cereal and legumes-based food options for low-income consumers.
- Ensure that the biodiversity of maize and wheat is used more widely and equitably, by more effectively linking our gene bank with breeding pipelines, using novel scientific approaches in plant breeding and agriculture in general: genomics, phenomics, enviromics and gene editing, which provide an avenue for greater impact.
- Provide technologies and know-how to farmers and local entrepreneurs, helping them to become agents of economic growth.
- Develop the capacity of individuals and institutions in partnership with CGIAR Research Centers, world-class universities, national agricultural research, and extension systems and via innovative research collaborations with innovative private-sector partners, including start-ups and the humanitarian sector.
Our Case for Support provides a rationale for these research-for-development (R4D) intervention domains and their funding. CIMMYT implements its R4D work as part of larger CGIAR Research Initiatives and thanks to bilaterally funded projects and programs. CIMMYT aims to attract funding for multi-year, multi-country, transdisciplinary interventions, positively impacting local and regional innovation systems. Our R4D is guided by realistic scaling pathways, thanks to our development and funding partners.
For more information, please contact Bruno van Dyk, Director, Donor Relations and Fundraising Support a.i., b.vandyk@cgiar.org.
