CGIAR Science Awards: Outstanding Achievements in Global Agricultural Research

The recipient of the Outstanding Partnership Award was a unique research and development network in West and Central Africa, known by its French acronym, ROCARIZ. Its purpose is to improve rice productivity in the region by generating improved rice technologies and facilitating their transfer to farmers.

Africa imports more than a third of the rice traded in the world. In 2006, when prices were much lower than they are currently, the region’s rice imports cost US$2 billion. To protect consumers from high food prices, Africa must produce more rice to meet growing demand.

In contributing to that end, ROCARIZ breaks with the conventional top-down approach, which has proved unsuccessful in the past. Hosted by the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), the network operates through decentralized, multi-country, issue-driven task forces, which ensure efficient delivery of rice technologies. ROCARIZ has played a central role, for example, in the development and distribution of lowland New Rice for Africa (NERICA) varieties.

The Outstanding Scientific Article Award went to Jan Low, lead author of a paper reporting results from a ground-breaking, 2-year project, which demonstrated that food-based approaches can curb nutritional deficiencies in children. Carried out in Mozambique, the project promoted adoption of orange-fleshed sweetpotato, which contains high levels of vitamin A.

Vitamin A deficiency – which affects an estimated 71 percent of children under the age of 5 in Mozambique – can stunt growth, weaken disease immunity, increase mortality and cause a condition that leads to blindness. Encouraging people to grow and eat more nutritious foods and developing markets to promote their cultivation can complement the difficult and expensive process of providing vitamin supplements to poor consumers in developing countries.

Jose Crossa, head of the Biometrics and Statistics Unit at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the Outstanding Scientist Award for developing a way to keep rare crop genes from disappearing when seeds in crop genebanks are regenerated.

To ensure that seed supplies remain viable, genebanks periodically plant seed of each sample stored to produce a new generation of seed. With crops like maize, whose pollen spreads freely, a seed collection can contain extremely diverse mixtures of crop genes, and when those seeds are grown to produce a fresh sample, important genes can be lost.

The statistical and genetic models Crossa developed to track important traits has enabled genebank managers to gain a better understanding of specific qualities their collections may possess. Crossa’s work has shown, for example, how breeders can locate genes in wheat that are responsible for increased yield and disease resistance. His approach is now being used to develop new crop varieties, which could, among other things, help farmers adapt to climate change.

“The brilliance of Crossa’s work is that it helps crop genebanks ensure that their collections stay fresh without sacrificing the genetic diversity that is so central to their mission,” said Tom Lumpkin, director general of CIMMYT. “His contribution to crop science is vital for conserving the plant genetic resources that we depend on for our survival.”

Eva Schiffer, a postdoctoral fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), won the Promising Young Scientist Award for creating Net-Map, which helps create a better understanding of complex social dynamics, such as those involved in conflicts over natural resources.

Net-Map renders the various elements of a particular situation in map form, showing links within or between communities involved. All that is needed are ordinary items, such as paper, colored pens and small discs like those used in a board game. The disks are stacked to create “influence towers,” which vary in height according to each person’s degree of influence in the situation. The idea is to show who wields the most influence in social networks and to illustrate where individual goals are complementary and where they are contradictory.

Schiffer first developed Net-Map while working in Ghana with the CGIAR’s Water and Food Challenge Program. It proved useful to the White Volta River Basin Board, which has ambitious environmental goals for the region but limited capacity to enforce its decisions. The group employed Net-Map to visualize the interactions surrounding its 17 members, which include district officials and representatives from research institutions and nongovernment organizations.

“This is such a simple way for us to understand and anticipate what can be very confusing and complicated interactions in the agriculture sector,” said Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI. “It’s so effective that we are now seeing it adopted far beyond our area of work. Net-Map is being used as a way to improve communications related to the risks of avian influenza in Asia and Africa and to understand political pressures on the legislative process in Chile.”

More information on Net-Map can be found at http://netmap.ifpriblog.org.

The International Network for the Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER) at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) received the Outstanding Scientific Support Team Award. The award acknowledges INGER’s systematic efforts to collect rice varieties from all over the world and use them to create “elite breeding lines,” which have improved rice production in more than 50 countries.

Working with a global consortium of national agriculture research institutions, INGER collects seeds, sends them to IRRI for organization into different breeding nurseries, which participants then test under varied conditions. As a result of this work, breeding lines and cultivars from 68 countries have been used as parents for 18,000 cross-breeds. INGER is credited with aiding the release of 673 new rice varieties, which have generated economic benefits worth an estimated US$1.4 to 1.6 billion.

“In the face of a global food crisis, this type of rice exchange facility is exactly what is needed to expedite rice development in a way that has a direct impact on productivity in countries large and small, rich and poor,” said Robert Zeigler, director general of IRRI.

Lateef Sanni Oladimeji of the University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Nigeria, received the award for Outstanding Agricultural Technology in the sub-Saharan Africa Region. His expertise in postharvest crop drying has contributed to considerable income and employment gains for numerous small- and medium-scale enterprises in Nigeria and several other West African countries. Sanni initially designed a rotary dryer, which increased production of cassava flour to 300 kilograms every 8 hours and was disseminated to cassava processing facilities in southwest and southeast Nigeria. More recently, as postharvest specialist in the Integrated Cassava Project of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), he assembled a team of engineers, who designed a “flash” dryer capable of drying 250 kg of cassava flour per hour. Sanni’s work has helped increase the number of locally manufactured flash dryers used in Nigeria from two units before 2003 to more than 60 units today.

Soniia David and her team with IITA’s Sustainable Tree Crops Program received the Outstanding Communications Award for training farmers in West African countries to use digital video cameras as a way to share knowledge about sustainable cocoa production. By setting up video viewing clubs (VVCs), the team brought together farm groups to watch and learn from the videos. To date, 450 farmers in Ghana have participated in VVCs. Farmers who adopted the crop and pest management practices promoted by the YouTube videos are likely to increase yields by 20 to 40 percent and decrease pesticide use by 10 to 20 percent.