Log out
My profile and settings
My bookmarks
Comment history
Please complete your account verification. Resend verification email.
today
This verification token has expired.
today
Your email address has been verified. Update my profile.
today
Your account has been deactivated. Sign in to re-activate your account.
today
View all newsletters in the newsletter archive
today
You are now unsubscribed from receiving emails.
today
Sorry, we were unable to unsubscribe you at this time.
today
0
0
Back to profile
Comment Items
You have not left any comments yet.
title
you replied to a comment:
name
description
Saved Posts
You haven’t bookmarked any posts yet.

Some people refer to clean hydrogen as the Swiss Army Knife of decarbonization because it has so many different potential uses.

Read more
Become a Gates Notes Insider
Sign up
Log out
Personal Information
Title
Mr
Mrs
Ms
Miss
Mx
Dr
Cancel
Save
This email is already registered
Cancel
Save
Please verify email address. Click verification link sent to this email address or resend verification email.
Cancel
Save
Email and Notification Settings
Send me updates from Bill Gates
You must provide an email
On
Off
Send me Gates Notes survey emails
On
Off
Send me the weekly Top of Mind newsletter
On
Off
Email me comment notifications
On
Off
On-screen comment notifications
On
Off
Interests
Select interests to personalize your profile and experience on Gates Notes.
Saving Lives
Energy Innovation
Improving Education
Alzheimer's
Philanthropy
Book Reviews
About Bill Gates
Account Deactivation
Click the link below to begin the account deactivation process.
If you would like to permanently delete your Gates Notes account and remove it’s content, please send us a request here.

Alphabet soup

You’ve probably never heard of CGIAR, but they are essential to feeding our future

No other institution has done as much to feed our world as CGIAR.

|
0

What’s for dinner?

It’s a question asked every day in homes around the world. No other organization has done as much to ensure families—especially the poorest—have an answer to that question as CGIAR, the world’s largest global agricultural research organization.

More than 50 years ago, CGIAR’s research into high-yielding, disease-resistant rice and wheat launched the Green Revolution, saving more than a billion people from starvation. In the years since then, their work on everything from livestock and potatoes to rice and maize has helped reduce poverty, increase food security, and improve nutrition.

Never heard of CGIAR? You’re not alone. It’s an organization that defies easy brand recognition. For starters, its name is often mistaken for “cigar,” suggesting a link to the tobacco industry. And it doesn’t help that CGIAR is not a single organization, but a network of 15 independent research centers, most referred to by their own confusing acronyms. The list includes CIFOR, ICARDA, CIAT, ICRISAT, IFPRI, IITA, ILRI, CIMMYT, CIP, IRRI, IWMI, and ICRAF, leaving the uninitiated feeling as if they’ve fallen into a bowl of alphabet soup.

It’s too bad that more people don’t know about CGIAR. Their work to feed our hungry planet is as important now as it’s ever been. By 2050, as the world’s population gets bigger and incomes increase (which causes dietary changes like eating more meat), global food demand is expected to increase by 60 percent. Meeting this challenge is made tougher by climate change, which is affecting food production in every corner of the globe. Farmers are under assault from shifting rainfall, more frequent and extreme droughts and floods, and severe pest and disease outbreaks among crops and livestock.

The people who are most affected by these changes today are the world’s smallholder farmers. About 500 million farming households, in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, earn their living by raising crops and livestock on small parcels of land. These families have the fewest resources to cope with the many impacts of a warming climate.

I’ve been writing a lot this year about why reducing emissions from all sectors of our economy, including agriculture and electricity generation, is critical in our fight against climate change. But it’s equally important for the world to stay focused on helping vulnerable populations, like smallholder farmers, prepare for the disruptive impacts of climate change. We owe it to them. The people who will suffer most from climate change, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are the least responsible for emitting these greenhouse gases. According to an Africa Progress Panel report, an average Ethiopian would have to live for 240 years to equal the carbon footprint of the average American.

I’m now co-chairing the new Global Commission on Adaptation, which is playing a key role in building government and public support for efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change on communities most at risk. We will need CGIAR’s research to help supply farmers with a steady stream of climate-smart crop varieties.

A great example of a CGIAR innovation helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change is its drought-tolerant maize program. More than 200 million households in sub-Saharan Africa depend on maize for their livelihoods. Maize productivity in Africa is already the lowest in the world. And as weather patterns have become more erratic, farmers are at greater risk of having smaller maize harvests, and sometimes no harvest at all.

In response to this challenge, CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center or CIMMYT, with funding from our foundation, USAID and the Howard Buffett Foundation, developed more than 150 new maize varieties that could withstand drought conditions. Each variety is adapted to grow in specific regions of Africa. At first, many smallholder farmers were afraid of trying new crop varieties instead of more commonly planted ones. But as CIMMYT worked with local farmers and seed dealers to share the benefits of these new varieties, more and more farmers adopted drought tolerant maize. The results have been life changing for many farming families.

In Zimbabwe, for example, farmers in drought-stricken areas using drought-tolerant maize were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare than farmers using conventional varieties. The additional harvest was enough to feed a family of six for 9 months. For farming families who chose to sell their harvests, it was worth $240 in extra income, giving them much-needed cash to send their children to school and meet other household needs.

CIMMYT, in partnership with another CGIAR center, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture or IITA, has gone on to develop other maize varieties for farmers who are not only vulnerable to drought, but also poor soils, disease, pests, and weeds. These varieties are expected to give farmers up to 30 percent greater yields and help them fight malnutrition.

CGIAR’s team of more than 8,000 scientists and staff around the world are also developing other tools to help farmers adapt to unpredictable weather and diseases. They have created a smart phone app that allows farmers to use the camera on their phone to identify specific pests and disease attacking cassava, an important cash crop in Africa. There are also new programs to use drones and ground sensors to help wheat and sugarcane farmers determine how much water and fertilizer their crops need.

We will need many new ideas like these to help farmers be prepared to meet the challenges of our changing climate. If they are, we will all have an answer to the question “What’s for dinner?” for years to come.