International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

Origins

The first steps toward the creation of CIMMYT were taken in 1943 when cooperative efforts of the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation led to the founding of the Office of Special Studies, an organization within the Mexican Secretariat of Agriculture, now known as the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food. SAGARPA website The goal of the office was to ensure food security in Mexico and abroad through selective plant breeding and crop improvement.

The project developed into a collaboration between Mexican and international researchers. It established global networks to test experimental crop varieties. One of its researchers, wheat breeder Norman Borlaug, developed dwarf wheat varieties that put more energy into grain production and responded better to fertilizer than older varieties, won the Nobel Peace Prize for that work in 1970. "Norman Borlaug - Facts" from the Nobel Prize website The program was renamed and morphed into CIMMYT in 1963, though it was still under the Secretariat of Agriculture’s jurisdiction. As international demand grew and it became apparent CIMMYT required internal organization and increased funding, the center was reorganized and established as a non-profit scientific and educational institution in its own right in 1966.

In the early 1970s, a small cadre of development organizations, national sponsors, and private foundations organized CGIAR to further spread the impact of agricultural research to more nations. CIMMYT became one of the first international research centers to be supported through the CGIAR. Today, the CGIAR comprises 15 such centers, all dedicated to sustainable food security through scientific research.

Activities

CIMMYT focuses on 1) the conservation and utilization of maize and wheat genetic resources, 2) developing and promoting improved maize and wheat varieties, 3) testing and sharing sustainable farming systems, 4) analyzing the impact of its work and researching ways for further improvement. In Mexico in the late 1980s, CIMMYT began working on better varieties of maize and wheat that helped small peasant farmers, using genetic engineering to resist pests and diseases, as well as raise the protein content of maize. CIMMYT partners with national agriculture research institutions across the globe. Though its headquarters are in Mexico, the center supports 13 regional offices (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Nepal, Turkey, and Zimbabwe).

Global Wheat Program and Global Maize Program

The core of CIMMYT is its two main programs: the Global Wheat Program and the Global Maize Program. Both programs specialize in breeding varieties of their respective crop that are high yielding and adapted to withstand specific environmental constraints, such as infertile soils, drought, insects, and diseases. Center scientists use, traditional cross-breeding, molecular markers, and potentially genetic engineering to develop new varieties. Additional efforts focus on a variety of agricultural aspects such as proper seed storage, natural resource management, value chains, the benefits of using improved seed, and appropriate machine use and access.

Sustainable Intensification Program

The Sustainable Intensification Program was previously the Conservation Agriculture Program,. Scientists in the program study and promote the idea that minimal soil disturbance resulting from little or no tillage, combined with crop rotations and retention of crop residue is a more sustainable method of farming, which leads to bigger yields. Following such conservation agriculture practices, offers various benefits to farmers, including better water retention in the soil, higher nutrient levels, less need for fertilizer. A current debate revolves around the question of whether or not conservation agriculture can offset or mitigate global warming caused by climate change. No till farming helps to prevent top soil from loosening and disappearing, which can make it more difficult to grow healthy plants.

Socioeconomics Program

The Socioeconomics Program was once part of the former Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, which was dissolved in 2009 to form the Conservation Agriculture Program and the Socioeconomics Program. The mission of this program is to evaluate the center’s work and to increase its positive global impacts. Areas of focus include public policy, efficient use of resources, monitoring of global maize and wheat trends, and the understanding of economic, political and institutional environments in which CIMMYT operates.

Genetic Resources Program

The Genetic Resources and Enhancement Unit (GREU) is support unit that holds the maize and wheat collections of CIMMYT in trust for humanity under UN-FAO agreements. The program works on genetic traits that are identified as priorities by the eco-regional programs, such as drought tolerance. GREU units include the Crop Research Informatics Lab (CRIL), the Germplasm Bank, the Applied Biotechnology Center (ABC), the Seed inspection and distribution unit, and the Seed Health Lab.

Partners and donors

Main donors include African Agricultural Technology Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the CGIAR, World Bank (through cross-cutting, theme and project-based CGIAR funding), Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, and the national governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the United States and Switzerland.

Historically, CIMMYT received funding from the European Commission and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Awards

CIMMYT wheat breeder, Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the Green Revolution, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Borlaug later established the World Food Prize in 1986.

CIMMYT scientists Evangelina Villegas and Surinder Vasal received the World Food Prize in 2000 for their work developing quality protein maize with an adequate balance of amino acids using biofortification techniques. They provided nutritional options for people with diets dominated by maize and with no adequate alternative source of protein.

Wheat breeder Sanjaya Rajaram, who worked with both CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), won the World Food Prize in 2014 for producing a "prodigious" 480 wheat varieties, which produce yields that are estimated to feed more than 1 billion people a year.

Scientist Bram Govaerts won the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application at the World Food Prize in 2014. He was awarded for "his work developing leading-edge, sustainable programs that are transforming subsistence agriculture and unsustainable farming systems in Mexico and other regions of the world into productive and sustainable production operations."

Scientist Ravi Singh, wheat breeder, won the China Friendship Award in 2015.