Innovations
Working with smallholders to understand their needs and build on their knowledge, CIMMYT brings the right seeds and inputs to local markets, raises awareness of more productive cropping practices, and works to bring local mechanization and irrigation services based on conservation agriculture practices. CIMMYT helps scale up farmers’ own innovations, and embraces remote sensing, mobile phones and other information technology. These interventions are gender-inclusive, to ensure equitable impacts for all.
Maize and wheat Super Women campaign highlights diversity
Gender equality, youth and social inclusion
A social media campaign initiated to celebrate the achievements of women has led to more than a dozen published blog story contributions about women in the maize and wheat sectors.
Extension bulletins raise awareness of conservation agriculture in Malawi
Innovations
CIMMYT, Washington State University and Total Land Care (TLC) recently published a series of extension bulletins to spread awareness of the potential benefits of conservation agriculture (CA) techniques for farmers in Malawi.
Crop model gives scientists a window on future farming in the Eastern Gangetic Plains
Capacity development
In work to help farmers in South Asia tackle changing climates and markets through resilient and productive cropping systems, scientists are now using a leading and longstanding model, the Agricultural Production System Simulator (APSIM).
Myanmar and CIMMYT assess needs and joint maize and wheat research
Innovations
Officials of Myanmar’s Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and CIMMYT representatives met to strengthen collaboration, with a focus on increasing farm productivity and training a new generation of Myanmar scientists.
CIMMYT formally welcomes four local workshops to the machinery and equipment innovation group
Capacity development
In 2014, the work of The Machinery and Equipment Innovation Group begun activities after signing of four contracts with four Mexican workshops.
Zero tillage for smallholder wheat farmers in Balochistan, Pakistan
Innovations
Under the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP) for Pakistan and in collaboration with Balochistan Agriculture Research, CIMMYT has begun testing and spreading with farmers the practice known as “zero tillage” to sow wheat in Balochistan, a province in southwest Pakistan that accounts for more than 40 percent of the country’s land area but only five percent of the population.
Improved maize to boost yields in nitrogen-starved African soils
Climate adaptation and mitigation
Sub-Saharan African farmers typically apply less than 20 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare of cropland — far less than their peers in any other region of the world. In 2014, partners in the Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) project developed 41 Africa-adapted maize varieties that respond better to low amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and are up for release in nine African countries through 24 seed companies.
Q+A: Young scientist wins award for “Taking it to the Farmer”
Innovations
Conservation agriculture is becoming a vital part of the rural landscape throughout Mexico and Latin America, leading to a major World Food Prize Field award for Bram Govaerts.
CIMMYT prepares to launch second phase of SIMLESA in Kenya and Tanzania
Innovations
Representatives from the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Queensland Alliance for Agricultural and Food Innovation (QAAFI), the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the national agricultural research systems (NARS) of Kenya and Tanzania, and CIMMYT scientists from Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe met between 14-17 October in Arusha, Tanzania, to finalize activities to meet the objectives of the second phase of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project.
Young researchers trained to develop resilient farming systems
Capacity development
Participants learned about crop management technologies based on conservation agriculture and acquired skills to plan strategic research trials.
Scale-appropriate mechanization: the intercontinental connection
Capacity development
CIMMYT aims to improve the livelihoods of poor farmers in the developing world by providing practical solutions for more efficient and sustainable farming. Among the options to improve efficiency, scale-appropriate and precise planting machinery is a crucial yet rarely satisfied need
CIMMYT Ethiopia expands its agronomy work in wheat-based systems
Innovations
CIMMYT Ethiopia joined the Ethiopian Highlands project of Africa RISING ‘Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation’ in June.