Time to
Reach the Poor
If CIMMYT and partners want to ensure their research is relevant to the
needs of the poorest farmers, they must test their new maize varieties
and cropping practices in locations with conditions similar to those that
poor farmers confront, as challenging as that may be. “Poor farmers
are in inaccessible places and don’t have access to resources,”
says Hodson.
This brightly colored maize is a farmer variety from the state of Morelos near CIMMYT's Tlaltizapan research station. This ear is affected by mycotoxin-producing ear rot fung, which is a common problem in hot acroecologies. |
The work of Hodson and his colleagues suggests considerable scope for improving livelihoods in poor communities through research on small, carefully chosen areas. For example, the researchers found that a predicted 3.2 million potentially poor rural people live within a 50- kilometer radius of 11 selected focal points that have the highest densities of extremely poor communities.
CIMMYT and its partners have already developed many maize varieties that are adapted to several poor areas identified in the mapping project and could benefit communities there. In CIMMYT’s gene bank, about 1,000 of the almost 8,000 Mexican maize accessions, including the high-yielding Tuxpeño germplasm complex, were collected from areas identified by the project as likely to be poor. These accessions may have qualities that make them particularly suited for further research aimed to benefit inhabitants in poor areas.
Reducing losses in stored maize grain is another topic on which CIMMYT and partners have worked for more than a decade. Many of the experimental sites for this research in Mexico are located in or next to impoverished areas. Extrapolation of the results indicates that storage losses are probably a great problem for the extreme poor in certain regions (see box below).
For more information:
www.cimmyt.org/gis/povertymexico
d.hodson@cgiar.org
m.bellon@cgiar.org
| Research
on Reducing Storage Losses Targets Impoverished Areas Even if poor farmers have a good maize harvest, many who live in humid environments and do not have effective storage containers face significant grain losses in the following months. Grain can suffer 80% damage and 20% weight loss within six months after harvest in Mexico’s harsh tropical environments, where graindamaging insects thrive, according to CIMMYT entomologist David Bergvinson. In contrast, grain stored in an arid or cold environment might lose less than 1% of its weight.
Working on reducing storage loss is one way that Bergvinson and other CIMMYT scientists target impoverished areas. Storage loss-reducing practices could increase farmers’ food security and also allow them to enter grain markets when prices are more favorable. This could have a big impact on alleviating poverty. There are several ways to decrease grain damage. Farmers can remove infested grain and thoroughly clean storage facilities to eliminate insects before storing new grain. The improvement of grain storage technologies, such as silos, could help. Also, scientists can breed maize to be more insect resistant with tighter husks or harder kernels. Working to breed hardier maize, Bergvinson crossed farmers’ varieties with insect-resistant and drought-tolerant CIMMYT varieties and returned the seed to farmers for planting in mid-2004. Researchers also planted these crosses on farms near CIMMYT research stations to evaluate their performance, to make controlled pollinations, and to compare farmers’ selections with their own. “Our ultimate goal is to increase the genetic diversity of landraces to include selected alleles for resistance to particular production constraints identified by farmers,” says Bergvinson. During harvest near the end of 2004, he will go back to hear the farmers’ opinions and to collect the selected crosses for evaluation under controlled drought and weevil infestation. Farmers most often asked for drought and weevil resistance to be added to their landraces. Based on information from these evaluations, farmers will make a final decision about which recycled seed they would like to cross into their landraces on a larger scale. For more information: |
Back to Contents
January, 2005