By Mabvuto Banda
In a bid to contribute towards addressing the climate change effects in Zambia, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) has signed an agreement with the Government of Zambia.
The signing is aimed at authorising the research organisation to settle in Zambia and promote different agricultural interventions in order to mitigate climate change in the country.
Speaking during the signing of the Host Country Agreement with CIMMYT ceremony in Lusaka, Agriculture Minister Reuben Mtolo said the signing of the agreement will enable CIMMYT officially carry out its activities which will improve agricultural production and productivity amidst climate change especially droughts.
“The signing ceremony of the host country agreement between the Government of Zambia and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre marks another critical milestone for both the Government of Zambia,” he said.
Mr Mtolo said that government desires to see farmers use climate smart farming methods and drought tolerant crop varieties.
He said the signing has also been necessitated by the effects of El-Nino which affected most parts of the country in the last farming season and threatened food security.
“Over 90% of farmers in Zambia are smallholders, we must find ways to increase productivity while being climate smart. The current El-Nino has affected thousands of farmers in Central, Eastern and Southern and Western provinces of Zambia,” Mr Mtolo said.
Meanwhile, CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts said the authorisation will enable the organisation set-up an office in Zambia and increase the number of research activities to be conducted in the country in response to effects of climate change.
“We are delighted that from today onwards, we are putting a dot on the map of Zambia, it will now be a country where we will have an office signifying a permanent presence which will enable us increase our activities,” Mr Govaerts said.
He highlighted that for some time now, CIMMYT has been collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture, Zambia Agricultural Research Institute, as well as public and private partners in Zambia to diversify maize-based farming systems, improve agricultural productivity and production, and address climate change, food security, and agricultural export goals in the region. Further, CIMMYT is working closely with the Government of Zambia to roll-out new innovations targeting smallholder farmers and agriculture based value chain actors in the country.
He added that CIMMYT’s research and innovation efforts align with Zambia’s medium-term goal of “Socio- Economic Transformation for Improved Livelihoods” and its vision of becoming “A Prosperous Middle-Income Nation by 2030.”
In order to achieve this, CIMMYT is implementing different projects such as the Sustainable Intensification of Smallholder Farming Systems in Zambia (SIFAZ), SIFAZ project implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in partnership with CIMMYT and Ministry of Agriculture in Zambia funded by the European Union (EU), which is striving to empower Zambian smallholder farmers with the knowledge and tools to become more food secure in the face of evolving climate challenges.
Meanwhile, speaking at the same event, Zambia Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI) Director Dickson Ng’uni explained that ZARI is a department in the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for the coordination and implementation of agriculture research activities and provision of advisory services to improve agriculture production and productivity.
Dr Ng’uni added that the department generates and adapts climate smart crops as well as soil technologies in order to increase agricultural productivity and diversify crop production to ensure increased incomes and contribute to food and nutrition security at household and national levels.
He thanked CIMMYT and recognised its efforts in supporting the institute to achieve its goal of improving crop productivity in Zambia. The two institutions have enjoyed a good working relationship in the field of maize and wheat research specifically focusing on variety development.
“As a result of the existing cooperation between our two institutions, so far 31 maize varieties have been developed to mitigate the impacts of climate change on maize production and more recently the two rain-fed wheat varieties,” Dr Ng’uni said.
Other notable areas of collaboration include; support in the area of human resource capacity building through provision of trainings to our researchers and technical staff in novel plant breeding techniques, provision of research funds to manage wheat blast and fusarium head blight in Zambia, development and implementation of precision phenotyping platform for wheat blast in Zambia, surveillance and collect representative wheat blast samples, provision of traditional funding to develop double haploids for hybrid maize production, development of fall army worm tolerant maize three varieties, drought tolerant maize as well as development of low nitrogen maize and more generally modernisation of ZARI’s maize breeding programme.
And representing other seed companies, Afriseed Business Development Manager Mutandah Tembo, expressed that more recently, CIMMYT has supported demand creation activities through its partnership with Accelerated Innovations Delivery Initiative (AID-I) project in Zambia, a USAID funded programme. The partnership has extended product reach and is expected to have a positive impact on the livelihoods for rural farmers in Zambia, Tanzania and Congo DR where Afriseed is promoting various cereal and legume seed varieties.
“This is a demonstration of how development partners such as USAID can accelerate delivery of the much-needed innovations in food systems to address climate induced shocks. As a member of international Maize Improvement Consortium for Africa (IMIC- Africa) a membership wing of CIMMYT, emerging seed companies such as Afriseed have been able to access superior early generation seed, doubled haploid technology, newly developed germplasm that has traits such as drought tolerance, fall arm worm tolerance and improved climate resilience,” Ms Tembo said.
The access of doubled haploid technology in particular is a game changer as it reduces the turnaround time for varietal development from seven cycles to two cycles which is a necessity in light of climate change, as it accelerates the entry of new and improved varieties onto the market.
It is indeed through collaboration with organisations like CIMMYT which will promote different agricultural interventions in order to mitigate climate change in the country, aimed at improving agricultural production and productivity amidst climate change especially droughts and improve food security in Zambia amongst smallholder farmers. –NAIS