International Adaptation Trial

Global Rust Initiative

From Seed to Pasta: The Durum Wheat Chain.
International Durum Wheat Symposium (Bologna, Italy)

The famous Avis car rental ad campaign of the early 1960s said “We’re number 2, so we try harder.” Wheat is the number 2 staple crop in the developing world. Its geographic distribution is truly global. From the humid lowlands of northern Mexico to the dry plains of Kazakhstan wheat is sown on more than 200 million ha of developing country farmland. CIMMYT works to ensure the farm families of the developing world who depend on wheat for their livelihoods have the best research support behind them.

While many wheat farmers grow their crops on relatively large farms, large numbers, especially in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains of India, Bangladesh and Nepal are resource poor, with little land. The demand for quality wheat products like bread and chapatti in developing countries is increasing with the rising population and urbanization but the farming systems impose major constraints on the environment and the future capacity to produce.

The current challenges may be divided into to major, though not mutually exclusive areas.

Rainfed farming systems
Half of the area sown to wheat in developing countries suffers from poor or erratic rainfall, poor soils, aggressive diseases, and sometimes extreme heat or cold. This program seeks to improve food security and resource conservation in these very diverse ecologies, which cover large areas of Asia, northern, southern, and eastern Africa, and Latin America, and include countries where half of the daily food requirement is met by wheat alone. Expected applications of research carried out in the program will provide farm households with new options to diversify crop and livestock production systems, improve their productivity, and conserve scarce water and soil resources. Some areas experience widespread and serious micronutrient malnutrition.

Irrigated/Intensive systems
Intensive agricultural systems are a source of food and income security for rural and urban households in Asia, North Africa, and Latin America. These systems are central to reducing poverty in Asia, which still has the largest number of poor people in the world. Intensive systems are usually irrigated and highly productive, featuring multiple crops (including large areas of maize and wheat). They also face serious problems, including the unsustainable exploitation of water and soils, inefficient use of chemical inputs, and emerging or worsening disease and pest problems. This program conducts research to overcome these limitations and ensure that these key agricultural areas remain productive and ecologically sound into the future. Focus regions include the Indo-Gangetic Plains, the Mediterranean littoral, the Yellow River Basin, and northwestern Mexico.

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