Asia
As a fast growing region with increasing challenges for smallholder farmers, Asia is a key target region for CIMMYT. CIMMYT’s work stretches from Central Asia to southern China and incorporates system-wide approaches to improve wheat and maize productivity and deliver quality seed to areas with high rates of child malnutrition. Activities involve national and regional local organizations to facilitate greater adoption of new technologies by farmers and benefit from close partnerships with farmer associations and agricultural extension agents.
Sanjaya Rajaram honored with India’s civilian service award
Nutrition, health and food securityPresident of India presents Padma Bhushan Award posthumously to relatives of former CIMMYT wheat program director.
Multiple breadbasket failures: Nations must address looming food emergencies
Nutrition, health and food securitySource: The Boston Globe (28 Mar 2022)
The war in Ukraine, coupled with weather-related disruptions in the world’s major grain-producing regions, could unleash unbearable humanitarian consequences, civil unrest, and major financial losses worldwide, says Bram Govaerts.
Being the change you wanted to see as a young girl
Capacity developmentAgricultural scientist Madhulika Singh shares her experience as the first woman in STEM in her family and in her society in Bihar, India.
CIMMYT scientist receives award for weed research
Environmental health and biodiversityRam Kanwar Malik named Honorary Member by the Weed Science Society of America for research on herbicide-resistant weed Phalaris minor affecting wheat crops.
Bending gender norms: women’s engagement in agriculture
Gender equality, youth and social inclusionOn International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we spoke to Pragya Timsina about how women’s participation in agriculture is evolving across the Eastern Gangetic Plains and her findings which will be included in a paper coming out later this year: ‘Necessity as a driver of bending agricultural gender norms in South Asia’.
Q&A: Spotlighting gender mainstreaming in agriculture
Gender equality, youth and social inclusionNew research explores how the adoption of Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices can help address environmental issues, reduce out-migration, and ensure household food security.
Plant breeding innovations
Climate adaptation and mitigationOver millennia, natural selection and humans have systematically adapted the plant species that provide food and other vital products, changing their physical and genetic makeup for enhanced productivity, nutrition and resilience. Plant breeders apply science to continue improving crop varieties, making them more productive and better adapted to climate extremes, insects, drought and diseases.
Wheat titan honored posthumously by India
Climate adaptation and mitigationSanjaya Rajaram, former CIMMYT Wheat Program Director, has been recognized with the Padma Bhushan Award for his contributions to wheat improvement worldwide.
New publications: Genome-wide breeding to curtail wheat blast
Environmental health and biodiversityResearchers evaluate the use of genomic selection in wheat breeding against deadly fungal disease.
How interactions among hidden enemies and drought effects grain yield and disease severity in bread wheat
Environmental health and biodiversityCIMMYT scientists in Turkey investigated the effect of soil borne diseases individually and in combination with drought on morphological and physiological traits in wheat germplasm.
Meet The Indian Researcher Helping To Solve The Deadly Aflatoxin Puzzle
Nutrition, health and food securitySource: Forbes (29 Dec 2022)
Pooja Bhatnagar-Mathur, a Principal Scientist at CIMMYT, says aflatoxin, a toxin produced from soil fungus and found in groundnuts like peanuts, is a serious public health and food safety problem around the globe.
High-yielding staple crops improve health and prosperity in developing countries
Nutrition, health and food securityNew research uncovers long-term impacts of Green Revolution era productivity, points out lessons for today.