In Asia, maize production is growing at a faster rate than any other cereal. The demand for maize has grown in response to changing consumer habits; with greater demand for meat in consumers’ diets, maize is in high demand as feed for the growing livestock sector. At the same time, there remains great opportunity to increase the area under maize production in the region, as well as tremendous opportunities for innovations in crop improvement, management and diversification.

M.L. Jat, senior cropping system agronomist in the Global Conservation Agriculture Program at CIMMYT, in collaboration with Hirak Banerjee, Rupak Goswami, Somsubhra Chakraborty, Sudarshan Duttac, Kaushik Majumdar , T. Satyanarayana and Shamie Zingore, recently published a study examining the socio-economic determinants of yield gap in maize.

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) management team lead by Bruce Campbell, Director, CCAFS, visited CIMMYT-CCAFS action sites in India during 23-28 August.

CIMMYT, in collaboration with Wheat Research Institute Sindh (WRIS) and Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) supported by USAID, initiated pilot testing of a multi-crop bed planter for planting cotton and wheat in a cotton-wheat cropping system in Sakrand, Pakistan under the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan.

Maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease, which can cause up to 100 percent yield loss on farmers’ fields, is threatening this source of food and livelihoods for many in the country. Because of this, 40 county officials, including County Executive Committee (CEC) officials who are responsible for agriculture in Kenya’s devolved government structure, visited the CIMMYT MLN Screening Facility in Naivasha, Kenya on 5 August.

The Agricultural Innovation Project (AIP) for Pakistan, led by CIMMYT and funded by USAID, has accomplished a great deal since its inception in March 2013. Among this year’s most notable AIP achievements by partner institutions were numerous training sessions and workshops, important vaccine developments, progress in baseline surveys and advances in seed improvement and distribution.

The “2nd Annual Progress Review and Planning Meeting for the HTMA Project” was held 22-23 July at UAS, Raichur in Karnataka, India. To take advantage of the presence of renowned scientists at this newly established agricultural university, the inaugural session of the meeting was organized as a special seminar on “Global initiatives on climate resilient crops.”

Hari S. Gupta was selected as the second Director General (DG) of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in India and assumed his new position on August 7th.