Stress Resilient Maize Development and Delivery in the Developing World through Public-Private Partnerships: Cimmyt's Experiences and Perspective.

Innovative approaches as well as partnerships are required to develop, test and deliver elite stress-resilient and nutritionally enriched maize varieties with relevant traits in the tropics, which are particularly vulnerable to the changing climates.  This warrants significant synergies among the public and private institutions engaged in maize R4D.  Judicious and effective integration of modern tools/strategies through public-private partnerships (PPPs) including high-density genotyping, high throughput and precision phenotyping, doubled haploid (DH) technology, molecular marker-assisted and genomic selection-based breeding, advanced computational tools for knowledge-led decision-support systems, besides transgenic technologies, should be integral to these efforts for increasing genetic gains, and enhancing the pace, precision and efficiency of breeding progress.  Under the MAIZE CGIAR Research Program (CRP), CIMMYT’s focus, present efforts and partnerships are in this direction. The recent initiation of DH development service to NARS and SME seed companies in Africa and Latin America using tropicalized haploid inducers, and provision of phenotypic service to important abiotic ad biotic stresses, including the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) in east Africa, are a few of the examples.

Under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) Project, 149 stress-tolerant maize varieties have been released across the 13 target countries in sub-Saharan Africa during 2007-2013, with close to 60% of them being hybrids. DTMA has facilitated production and delivery of about 20,000 tonnes of seed in 2013 in partnerships with nearly 110 private and public seed companies, NGOs, and farmer organizations, benefiting an estimated 2 million African households. The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project is another important public-private partnership, that is intensively engaged in developing and deploying drought-tolerant and insect-resistant white maize varieties in five target countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, and South Africa), and to increase maize yields and reduce risk under drought conditions through a combination of conventional breeding, marker-assisted breeding and transgenes. The Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) Project, under the USAID Feed-the-Future Initiative, is another PPP under implementation in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, targeted towards development and delivery of heat stress tolerant maize germplasm adapted to Asia.

In recognition that a common constraint for SME seed companies and of rapid scale-up of new varieties is parental line maintenance and foundation (basic) seed production, CIMMYT also provides appropriate technical support for these activities, at least in the initial phases of variety commercialization, on a case-by-case basis. The basis for determining this support are the “seed road maps” that are developed with partner institutions. CIMMYT’s recent initiative of establishing the International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC) in Asia and in Latin America, in partnership with nearly 70 small and medium enterprise (SME) seed companies, is a huge step forward. The underlying principles of this partnership include research prioritization that is client-determined, a more focused, demand-driven approach for product development, while drawing synergies through a collaborative testing network for targeted impacts.

Community-based seed production of improved maize varieties in the hills of Nepal through PPPs is another successful model. Maize is the most important food crop in the hills of Nepal, where it is grown mainly by small-scale, resource-poor farmers, contributing to 78% of the total maize produced in the country. The Hill Maize Research Project (HMRP) in Nepal, led by CIMMYT, contributed significantly to improved seed production through community based seed producers (CBSPs), while targeting gender mainstreaming and social inclusiveness. The number of CBSPs in the hills of Nepal increased significantly from 7 in 2000 to nearly 200 in 2013, producing a total of about 1000 tons of improved maize varieties, benefiting significantly the disadvantaged communities.

Experiences of CIMMYT in PPPs in the developing world indicate that appropriate government policies, adoption of progressive seed laws and regulations, and institutional innovations are vital in improving smallholder farmers’ access to improved seed, and for overcoming key bottlenecks affecting maize seed value chain, particularly in the area of policy, credit availability, seed production, germplasm and marketing.