In May 2016, India recorded its highest temperature ever when a town in the western state of Rajasthan reached 51 degrees Celsius. The searing heat across South Asia critically damaged crops and destabilized food security in the region. In continuous drought hit years of 2014 and 2015, 330 million people in India across 10 states were affected. To address such repeated catastrophes, CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) scientists have been hard at work to develop and deploy heat- and drought-tolerant maize varieties specific to the region for the vulnerable smallholder farmers that need them most.

Across South Asia, MAIZE scientists with the Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project made great progress on variety development and deployment in 2016. The project licensed 18 new heat- and drought-tolerant hybrids to partners for deployment and scale-out, including both public and private sector institutions.

“Temperature increases associated with climate change and high vapor pressure deficit, or less water content in air, pose huge pressure on irrigation water. During periods of heat and drought stress, farmers are forced to increase the frequency of irrigation to save the crop from drying out and to prevent yield loss,” said P.H. Zaidi, maize physiologist and breeder working with the HTMA project. “Water use efficient drought- and heat-tolerant maize hybrids have significant potential to reduce irrigation frequency, which in turn will help reduce high-energy consumption and other detrimental effects on the environment and available water for agricultural purposes”.

Twelve new seed companies, including five each from Pakistan and Bangladesh and two from Nepal, signed research collaboration agreements and formally joined the project. In addition, a joint hybrid initiative by CIMMYT and DuPont Pioneer under HTMA helped in identifying promising combinations, and DuPont Pioneer selected two hybrids for further large-scale testing.

As women now make up over 50 percent of the agricultural labor force in Bangladesh and more than 60 percent in Nepal, HTMA is working to ensure that female farmers get equal opportunities as their male counterparts in training and capacity building. Under the HTMA project, special emphasis was given on participation of both male and female farmers, especially in on-farm demonstrations, and during various capacity development activities such as trainings, workshops and refresher courses organized under the project.

A total of 16 students, including 7 M.Sc. and 9 Ph.D., received long-term training under the project. Over 400 scientists, including 304 male and 98 female participants, received short-term trainings through 12 training courses organized on various topics of importance to developing heat- and drought-tolerant varieties, including precision phenotyping, genomic selection, digital data management and seed production.

The Affordable, Accessible, Asian (AAA) Drought-Tolerant Maize Project – a public-private partnership involving CIMMYT, Syngenta, and national partners from Vietnam and Indonesia – has identified 3 drought-tolerant hybrids for deployment in the targeted west central zone of India. This region includes drought prone and tribal areas, a high risk environment where farmers require improved low-cost seed.

This target area covers more than 1.5 million hectares in India, which translates to a seed market potential of about 34,000 metric tons and offers the opportunity to address the needs of over two million households. The region’s climate and other dynamics make seed marketing risky, unpredictable and unattractive, meaning that it is often overlooked by the private seed sector – exactly the kind of underserved area MAIZE seeks to target. The project plans to market a limited quantity of hybrid seed in 2017 followed by a full market launch in 2018.