Collaborative effort is required to tackle food system disruptions and food insecurity

Dr Arun Kumar Joshi, MD, BISA and Dr Bram Govaerts, DG, CIMMYT-BISA
Agriculture plays a central role in South Asian economies, lives, and livelihoods. However, the challenges of an increasing population and brisk economic growth are straining the agriculture sector as it struggles to meet the present and future demand for food and nutritional security and economic development. The 2022 Global Report on Food Crisis shows an alarming level of hunger with 193 million people facing food insecurity due to conflicts, economic shocks, and extreme weather conditions.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center,known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT is an international agricultural research and training organization focusing on two of the world’s most important cereal grains: maize and wheat, and related cropping systems and livelihoods.CIMMYT is the global leader in publicly funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. CIMMYT develops and deploys annually around 35 new bread and durum wheat varieties in different countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. These varieties have a high level of tolerance to major biotic and abiotic stresses and possess excellent grain quality. ICAR (Indian Council for Agricultural Research) and CIMMYT developed the DBW187 variety for India in 2018 which is spreading fast from east to west.
“ICAR and CIMMYT’s long standing and productive partnership has enabled country to strengthen wheat production. Together we have addressed several challenges in the field of agriculture particularly in the areas of Wheat and Maize production. Another successful collaboration was the joint creation of BISA with the goal to improve local productivity from small farms through better seed, mechanisation, and farming practices to produce more food to meet the rising demands. The collaborative, inclusive approach of BISA (Borlaug Institute for South Asia) is more relevant than ever today. In an era when the challenges of food and nutrition insecurity — exacerbated by climate change, poverty, and inequality — cannot be solved by one sector” said Dr. Bram Govaerts, DG, CIMMYT-BISA.
BISA’s strategic approach to ensure food, livelihood and nutritional securities in South Asia is driven by its state-of-the-art research facilities at its research stations located in three very different agro-climatic and socio-economic environments in India that represent whole of South Asia. The breadth of BISA’s practical, farm-ready research — from setting up climate resilient villages and developing viable alternatives to rice residue burning to facilitating open exchange of elite germplasm and cutting-edge technologies — reflects not only the vision and approach of CIMMYT, but also the philosophy of our mutual inspiration, Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, who believed strongly in sharing knowledge and “taking it to the farmer”. Given the newer challenges of climate change in the economically fragile agro eco-systems, the partnership between BISA and ICAR plays a pivotal role in developing improved wheat and maize varieties with climate smart and conservation agriculture-based practices.
“BISA aims to harness the latest genetic, digital, and resource management technologies and use research for development approaches to invigorate the region’s agriculture and food systems while enhancing productivity, resilience, livelihood, and nutrition security to meet future demands as asked by its founders, Th Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)’and CIMMYT, shared Dr. Arun Kumar Joshi, MD, BISA.
Currently, the world is grappling with the unprecedented global hunger food crisis affecting hundreds of millions of people. It reveals the fragility of the global food systems further strained by natural disasters, the pandemic, rising conflict and food insecurity and inflation. Thus, the focus should be on addressing the global food shocks, newer challenges of climate change and the changing dynamics in agricultural trade.
“It is the need of the hour that governments, civil society, and private actors come together to tackle today’s food system disruptions and food insecurity. We need to enhance ecosystem diversity and invest in agrifood transformation from efficiency to resilience. We need to start today by taking action on the short-, medium-, and long-term priorities. The world has to respond together to this crisis and we are here to contribute with our innovation and ideas that are sustainable, resilient and viable at the same time” said Dr Bram Govaerts, DG, CIMMYT-BISA.