Push for quality protein maize in El Salvador

Farmer Francisca Liliana Melgar (right), of Lomas de Santiago, El Salvador, and agroecologist Mario César Ventura, of the National Center of Agriculture, Livestock, and Forestry Technology (CENTA), explain to visitors how they tested the quality protein maize hybrid, Oro Blanco.

Farmers in El Salvador and other parts of Central America who have tested new quality protein maize hybrids are pleased with the hybrids' performance and would now like to buy seed.

It was unusually hot for the rainy season, but even the drilling sun could not curb farmers’ enthusiasm. “This is a variety that yields well, even if we don’t put lots of fertilizer on it, and it has a sweet taste and mills well,” said Francisca Lilian Melgar, motioning to a crop of mature maize plants around her.

To test the performance of the quality protein maize (QPM) hybrid ‘Oro Blanco’ (White Gold), she and 24 other farmers at Lomas de Santiago, El Salvador, joined their land in 2009 to form a communal “mega-plot” of about 25 hectares. Each farmer received test seed and inputs like fertilizer through AgroSalud, a five-year project that started in 2005 with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to extend the benefits of nutritionally improved staple crops to Latin America and the Caribbean. “I would buy seed of this hybrid,” Melgar emphatically told the visitors at her test plot, who included researchers and extension workers from the National Center of Agriculture, Livestock, and Forestry Technology (CENTA), as well as seed producers, policymakers, and CIMMYT staff.

The work of CIMMYT under AgroSalud has been led by maize breeder Gary Atlin, and includes activities to develop, improve, and disseminate stress-resistant, agronomically superior varieties of QPM, a type of maize that contains more of the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan than normal maize. Activities in El Salvador have been spearheaded by CENTA maize researcher Héctor Reynaldo Deras Flores.

Maize farmers need seed
Hours earlier that day, many of the same specialists—along with staff of the Health and Education ministries and representatives of farmer associations—gathered at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock headquarters in San Salvador to attend special talks on QPM. The event was covered by leading national TV and radio stations, and included presentations by Scott Ferguson, CIMMYT deputy director general for support services; Kevin Pixley, associate director of CIMMYT’s global maize program; and Hugo Córdova, late CIMMYT maize breeder and distinguished scientist (see tribute). Among other things, presenters reported AgroSalud accomplishments. “In the last five years, we’ve increased QPM hybrid yields by 250 kilograms per hectare each year,” said Córdova, a Salvadoran native. “Because the parent lines were selected under stress conditions, these hybrids perform well in all settings.”

Ferguson, Pixley, and Córdova also met with CENTA director René Antonio Rivera Magaña to discuss ways of promoting adoption and marketing of Oro Blanco. “We need to promote QPM in a way that creates demand,” said Pixley. Finally, the meeting covered ways in which farmers could access steady supplies of affordable, high-quality seed, and profitably market their maize grain.

Studies have shown that QPM can improve human nutrition and health in populations that depend heavily on maize as food but, according to Pixley, farmers are interested first and foremost in higher yields— something that Oro Blanco and AgroSalud products appear to offer.

See also:

More nutritious maize boosts growth of children in rural Ethiopia (Published in July, 2008)

For more information: Gary Atlin, maize breeder (g.atlin@cgiar.org)