Agricultural research alleviating poverty in Africa

CIMMYT and its partners are developing, testing, and spreading hardier, more productive and nutritious varieties of maize and wheat for farmers in Africa and other of the world’s toughest environments, as well as resource-conserving, productivity-enhancing cropping practices.

Doing so actually takes years of collaborative research and testing. With long-term support from Australia, for example, CIMMYT conserves and uses with partners some 150,000 unique collections of wheat seed, related small grain crops, and primitive and wild relatives of wheat.

In the mid-1970s, centre researchers began innovative work to expand the genetic diversity of wheat through crosses with wild grass species. Australian scientist Richard Trethowan and others at CIMMYT, with funding from several donors including Australia, are using the results to develop wheat varieties that yield more under drought or contain higher levels of zinc and iron in the grain.

Several of the new varieties are performing well in tests by partners in South Asia. Similar long-term efforts involving multiple partners have resulted in the increasing adoption of CIMMYT drought tolerant maize varieties in southern Africa.

To promote the use of these varieties by potential beneficiaries, the centre is taking part in and catalysing the pathways by which farmers gain access to relevant technologies. In this way, co-operative international agricultural research provides crucial support for smallholder farmers to move from subsistence to surplus agriculture.

Not an easy journey, but with dedicated, first-class science at the service of the poor and conducted in a framework of impact pathways, it will happen. Then the entire world will have something to sing about.