Select Examples

Improved nutrition for the poor: CIMMYT and partners have developed "Quality Protein Maize" (QPM) containing twice the amount of lysine and tryptophan compared to regular maize. Lysine and tryptophan are amino acids essential for increasing the quality of food. Currently, QPM is being planted on one million hectares in 20 countries, boosting food, nutrition and income security. It is a measure of plant breeding success that more than 75 percent of world area planted to wheat, and nearly half of the area planted to modern maize owe their origins to CIMMYT-related varieties. (www.cimmyt.org)

Improved rice for food security and poverty reduction: Rice has come to play a vital role in ensuring food security and reducing poverty in the Latin American region. Increasing the efficiency and productivity of lowland irrigated rice is vital to relieving pressures to expand rice cultivation into ecologically fragile upland, forest, and savanna areas. Farmers have steadily adopted some 275 varieties of improved, semi-dwarf rice since the 1960s, more than half of which have been made from crosses developed at CIAT and IRRI. Today, these account for 80 percent of total rice production. Latin America has achieved self-sufficiency in rice. Since 1966, the new rice technologies are estimated to have benefited Latin American consumers by US$ 518 million per year, while benefiting producers by $437 million per year. (www.ciat.cgiar.org)

Restoring high-yielding native potatoes: Farmers in the Peruvian Andes take native potatoes from colder, higher altitudes and plant them at lower altitudes. Initially significant yield increases are achieved, but after a few seasons yields decline due to the accumulation of viruses. In colder environments there are few virus vectors, so viral infections are reduced. CIP scientists started a program of restoring native potatoes. Seeds are cleaned through virus testing and elimination, and are then supplied to farmers who take them to higher altitudes for multiplication. In 2000, healthy clones of 496 native cultivars, including some considered 'lost,' were returned to nine farmer communities in central Peru. (www.cipotato.org)

Ensuring protein-rich diets for the poor: Beans are a principal source of calories, protein, and income throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and offer small farmers with opportunities to escape poverty by producing for large and expanding urban markets. In the 1990s, bean production and yields remained stagnant in the Andean zone, where some of the region's poorest populations reside. CIAT scientists are addressing the problem by establishing an international bean improvement plan to provide improved germplasm to national programs, and by supporting bean networks in important production regions to develop local capacities. By the mid 1990s bean yields in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru had increased dramatically, largely as a result of the 31 improved varieties released through the Andean regional network PROFIZA. In Cuzco, Peru, 94 percent of local farmers were growing new varieties by 1997, accounting for 64 percent of the area cultivated with beans, with yields 110 percent higher than those seen in 1985. (www.ciat.cgiar.org)

Background Information

• CGIAR's partnership for Latin America's agricultural development dates back to the 1960s. Currently, CGIAR invests more than 15% of its $337 million budget for generating science-based solutions to problems of agricultural development in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
• Three CGIAR Centers are located in the region:
  · Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento d Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) in México
  · Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Colombia
  · Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP),
• In addition, ten CGIAR Centers have established over 20 regional/outreach offices greatly expanding research-for-development partnerships in LAC.
  
• Of the estimated 510 million population in LAC, about 170 million are poor who live on less than $2/day. The region is witnessing the highest rates of urbanization. CGIAR research is assisting LAC governments to balance important trade-offs between export earnings and domestic food supply for sustainable food and environmental security.