As part of his plan for working with Mexico, CIMMYT’s host country, on 24 June Director General Martin Kropff held an introductory meeting with Senator Manuel Cota, leader of Mexico’s National Peasant Confederation (Confederación Nacional Campesina/CNC), an organization comprising more than five million smallholder farmers. Sustainable development and scientific innovation were some of the key issues discussed.

An international conservation agriculture (CA) workshop to be held during China Science Week (30 June–4 July 2015) will bring CIMMYT CA researchers, colleagues and national researchers together with the objective of building agro-ecological capacity among researchers in western China. At the workshop, hosted by CIMMYT-China, participants will discuss subjects such as CA successes and the science and practical agronomy underpinning CA, and will view field displays of CA benefits.

The international training workshop “Approaches for integrated analysis of agricultural systems in South Asia: Field, to farm, to landscape scale,” jointly organized by CIMMYT and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI), was held at Karnal, Haryana, India, during 18-23 May. The workshop targeted farming systems and agricultural development researchers in South Asia and provided an overview of the approaches and tools used to assess agricultural systems.

Project team gathers in Kathmandu to plan for the 2015 monsoon cropping season.

Preliminary results have shown that a maize-coffee cropping system acts like a huge atmospheric carbon sink, capturing up to 60 times more carbon than a coffee-bean system during one cycle of the associated temporary bean crop. In addition, maize creates a more adequate microclimate for coffee’s growth and development because it reduces air temperature, helps to maintain soil moisture and decreases daytime-nighttime soil temperature fluctuations. This has a buffer effect that benefits soil biochemical processes and improves crop productivity.

CIMMYT is actively taking advantage of solar energy’s potential in Mexico.

The recent report “Groundwater Management in Bangladesh: An Analysis of Problems and Opportunities,” published by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) project, reveals that water resource policy in Bangladesh has focused largely on development and not enough on management, draining aquifers in intensively irrigated areas and sustaining expensive subsidies for dry-season irrigation pumping.

During the 2014-2015 winter season, national and international stakeholders visit climate-smart villages throughout the region to view the progress of technology adoption.