“WE RELY ON MAIZE SO MUCH SO THAT EVEN WHEN THE HARVEST FAILS COMPLETELY, WE WILL STILL PLANT IT IN THE NEXT SEASON.”

Farmers in Chuadanga District of Bangladesh have been using a unique local method to store their maize: the gola.

A delegation of 15 Nepalese seed entrepreneurs learned about various business models and innovations for seed industry development on their first visit to India. The visit, sponsored by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia in Nepal (CSISA-NP), lasted from 1 to 10 June.

Which competing trend will win out in the end?

Across Ethiopia, farmers bring a different dimension to the age-old tradition of naming children in symbolic and meaningful ways, by assigning a human name to Quality Protein Maize (QPM) that reflects its importance. In some parts of Oromia region, QPM is known as Gabissa, meaning builder, because it is believed to build bodies and make people strong. In the Amhara region, it is known as ‘Almi Bekolo’ or ‘Gembi bekolo, both names meaning building the body. QPM has gained its fame across Ethiopia, as an affordable and viable option to alleviate protein malnutrition and reduce animal feed costs thanks to the CIMMYT’s Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project and many national partners.

Though its name implies science fiction, Skywalker’s results have been incredibly real. A small, unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with remote sensing devices, Skywalker flies over maize fields collecting images and data. It is able to measure several hundred plots in one take. Spectral reflectance and thermal imagery cameras on its wings allow scientists to conduct non-destructive screening of plant physiological properties such as crop growth and water use, at enough resolution to obtain information at plot level.

More than 50,000 farmers adopted zinc-biofortified wheat varieties during the 2015-2016 crop cycle.

Gender and development specialist Paula Kantor had a deep understanding of how change can empower men and women to give them greater control over their own lives.

Derek Byerlee, former director of the CIMMYT economics program (1987-94) and current visiting scholar at Stanford University and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, presented some of his latest research at a brown bag lunch at CIMMYT headquarters on 1 May. His presentation, “Growing Land Scarcity, the Borlaug Hypothesis and the Rise of Megafarms,” examined the economic and environmental benefits and repercussions of cropland expansion, the recent rise of agribusiness and the delicate balance between crop intensification and deforestation.

We have come a long way when it comes to obtaining aerial images of our research sites. My colleagues and I once used helium-filled balloons and twin cameras to obtain infrared and color images in an all-day operation; now we use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fitted with high-resolution lenses and multispectral cameras to take dozens of images over large areas in a matter of minutes.

To demostrate the advances of the project “Increasing the profitability of maize-coffee systems” conducted by CIMMYT in Colombia over the past 10 years in collaboration with the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Producers (FEDERECAFE, Spanish acronym), two field days were held at the Paraguaycito–Quindío (29 April) and La Catalina–Risaralda (7 May) Experiment Stations belonging to CENICAFE, FEDERECAFE’s research unit. At these events, attended by 158 representatives of the Local Coffee Growers’ Committees and the National Federation of Cereal Growers (FENALCE, Spanish acronym), the latest advances in the areas of climate change, agronomy and genetic improvement were presented.*

Agricultural research for development must reconcile approaches that place resource-poor farmers at the center, said CIMMYT’s new Director General addressing staff at CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City on his first say in the new job.