Presentation on Hunger, Food Security as defining issue of our time at Rotary North Sea Institute, Amsterdam, Nov 11, 2012

1. Hunger and food security
in the 21st century
Frank Rijsberman, CEO CGIAR Consortium, November 2, 2012

2. Overview
• Food Security: the greatest challenge facing
humanity in coming decades
• Sustainable intensification: growing more
food with less land and water
• Promising science
• CGIAR results and impacts

3. Food Insecurity and Undernutrition
Remain Persistent: 850M hungry people
Prevalence of Micronutrient
2011 Global Hunger Index
Deficiencies
GHI components: Deficiencies in:
• Proportion of undernourished • Iron
• Prevalence of underweight in children • Vitamin A
• Under-five mortality rate • Zinc
20 countries have alarming or
extremely alarming levels of
hunger
Source: von Grebmer et al. 2011 Source: HarvestPlus 2011 Shenggen Fan | December 2011

4. Food Price Spikes put Food Security
back on the agenda
Inflation-adjusted prices of maize, wheat, rice, soybeans, and oil
1990–2011
Source: IFPRI

5. Land Grab in Africa: 30 million ha
BIDCO acquires
26,500 hectares for a
palm oil plantation
in Uganda,
displacing
thousands of
smallholder farmers
Credit: FoEI / ATI - Jason Taylor

6. Green Revolution: Intensification in Asia
Decades of cheap & plentiful food
Development of semi-dwarf, high-yield,
and disease-resistant varieties, 1960s-70s
Increased fertilizer use
Massive investment in irrigation
CIMMYT

7. Transfer of natural salt tolerance from Oryza coarctata
a wild species that grows well in brackish water
15 years of
crossing produced
1 viable plant!
F1 BC1
IR56 IR56 O. IR56 x O.
(No Salt) (EC 24 ) coarctata IR56 x O. coarctata//IR56
coarctata (EC 24)
(EC 24) (EC 24)

8. Global Cereal Yield Trends, 1966-2009
2009
5 corn: 1.3%
Corn yield
Grain yield (t ha )
-1 -1
slope = 64 kg ha y
-1
4 1966 (~1 bu ac-1 y-1) rice: 1.3%
Rice yield
-1 -1
slope = 53 kg ha y
3 corn: 2.8%
wheat: 1.4%
Wheat yield
rice: 2.9%
2 -1 -1
slope = 40 kg ha y
wheat: 2.9%
1
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Source: FAOSTAT Year

9. Plateau in Yields of Major Grains
8 8 12 USA-irrigated
Rice Wheat Maize
Grain yield (t ha )
10
-1
6 R.Korea 6 Northwest Europe
China 8
USA-rainfed
4 Indonesia
4 China 6
4 China
2 India 2
India 2 Brazil
0 0 0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Year Year Year
Stagnating yields for:
• rice in Korea, Japan, California and China
• wheat in northwest Europe, Great Plains USA
• maize in China, France, Italy and irrigated maize in the USA

10. For food prices to remain constant, annual
yield gains would have to increase
• From 1.6% to 2.4% for maize
• From 0.9% to 1.5% for rice
• From 1.1% to 2.3% for wheat
• On essentially the same land area, with less water, nutrients, fossil fuel,
Climat e
labor and as climates change change
Wat er, nut rient &
energy scarcit y Projected
demand by
2050 (FAO)
Diseases
World-wide average yield
Linear
extrapolations
• First concerns: late 1990s of current
trends
(t ons ha-1 )
• The more we delay investments, Potential effect
the steeper the challenge of climate-
change-induced
heat stress on
today’s cultivars
(intermediate
Agronomy Breeding
CO2 emission
scenario)
Year

11. Our Ability to Grow Food is at risk

12. Coffee in
Columbia
From an environmental point of view a 2 °C increase
equals a difference of 440 masl and major shifts of
crops to new areas

13. Humanity’s Greatest Challenge
Producing 70%
more food by
2050,
UN, K.Park
without
destroying the
environment
CIAT, N.Palmer
CIAT, N.Palmer
CIAT, N.Palmer

14. Sustainable Intensification
• 75% from land already in use
• By small-scale farmers,
majority women
• Where the food is consumed
• In a climate smart way
CIAT, N.Palmer

15. CGIAR Consortium
A strategic partnership dedicated to advancing science to address the central
development challenges of our time:
4 Objectives:
• Reducing rural poverty
• Improving food security
. • Improving nutrition and health
• Sustainably managing natural resources

16. CGIAR Centers and Locations
2012: $850M, 8900 staff, 50 countries

17. Crop yield gap - Rice
• IRRI, ideal conditions
3 crops of 7 t/ha: 21t/ha/yr
• Philippines, irrigated:
2 crops of 4 t/ha: 8 t/ha/yr
• Africa, upland rice:
1 crop of 2 t/ha 2 t/ha/yr

18. Water Productivity
remains very low over most areas
WP (estimated potential - typically 1-2 kg/m3)
WP (estimated actual - typically 0.1-0.5 kg/m3)
Yellow
River
Indus
Ganges
Mekong
Nile
Limpopo
Volta
Niger

19. What is the science potential ?
• Life Science Revolution – molecular biology
• Molecular markers for marker aided selection
• Characterizing genetic diversity
• Creating new gene pools
• IT revolution – crop management, precision agriculture
• Satellite information to predict crop growth
• Cheap sensors from soil moisture to weather
• Mobile phones for extension and market info
• Holistic approach – ecological intensification
• Landscape approach
• Farming systems and livelihood strategies
• Access to markets, value chains, nutrition, food safety

20. DNA Sequencing Costs Plummeting:
Life sciences more dynamic than IT
10-5 human
hair
Nanopore Technology
Will Lower Costs Even More

21. CGIAR Research Agenda

22. CGIAR Research Program on Rice
• 120 million rice farmers feed 3.5 billion people
• 1 billion people extremely poor and 650 million
hungry depend on rice – more coming…
‘000 milled tonnes
No slowdown in
global rice
consumption
Rice fastest
growing food
commodity in
SSA

23. => Increase rice production that is affordable to poor
and profitable to farmers (and value chain)
But… future: less and more expensive resources,
more hostile environment (climate change)
Global challenge and global threats
 concerted global action
 CRP Rice

24. Science partnerships
Development partnerships
Theme 1 ----- Theme 2, 3,4 -------------------------- Theme 5 Theme 6 SRF
GRiSP
Increased Food Security
nutritious rice
production
Products Products Nutrition and
Genes, varieties,
locally adopted by health
management
technologies, adapted and farmers, value
information promoted by chain actors, Stable and
gateway, models, public, NGO, policy makers, affordable
Rural Poverty
data, tools, and private other price of rice
capacity, etc sector stakeholders
Increased
Sustainability
resource use
efficiency
Products Intermediate Development Outcomes Impact
Farmers: 1000s 10.000s 100.000s millions
Timeline

25. Product: Submergence-tolerant rice
Swarna-Sub1
17 d submergence
11 million ha flood prone
> 25 years of ‘discovery science’: gene, markers,…

26. Farmers’ submergence tolerant landraces collected; FR13A
Gene bank screened; FR13A identified
Semi-dwarf & submergence tol. combined
First high-yielding dwarf varieties
1950 1978 1990 2000 2010
1995: Sub1 mapped to Chr. 9
Fine mapping & marker development initiated
2002: Swarna crossed with IR49830-7 (Sub1)
2006: Sub1-A gene conferring submergence tolerance
2006: Swarna-Sub1 developed by marker assisted backcrossing
2008: Sub1-A mode of action: inhibit response to GA
2009: Swarna-Sub1 released in Indian, Indonesia, IR64-
Sub1 in Indonesia, Philippines
2010: Two Sub1 varieties released in Bangladesh

27. Swarna-Sub1 Timeline in
in India and B’Desh + NFSM, State
100
public &
>130
public &
+ Govs., Seed Co
NARES NARES NGOs, FOs, S private private
(P&Pv), NGOs,
Partners (2) (8) eed Co (P) sector sectors
IPs (54)
(22)
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Activities Release Dissemination, adoption, tacking
Evaluation, De (June), Seed & impact assessment
Multiplication Evaluation
monstration Mult. (BS
+TL), Demonstr.
Seed Breeding status Africa 2011: sub1 works in
Seed Mult (boro)
amount elite African rice germplasmBS: 170 t BS/FS/CS/ BS/FS/
2 kg 100 kg 3,000 kg 15 tons TL: 450 t TL,10,000 t CS/TL,
 WITA 4 x Swarna sub1 FS : > 500 BC2F1 (+FS) 40000 t
(+FS)
No. of  NERICA L-19 x IR64 sub1 F1
Farmers ~ 700 ~5,000 >100,000 1.3 mil 4.0 mil
 FARO 57 x Swarna sub1 BC1F1
October 2012: urgent request from Nigerian
Swarna-Sub1 reached about 3 million farmers
Minister of Agriculture for submergence
in India and tolerant rice
0.5 million in Bangladesh by 2012

28. New Products: “2 in 1”
Submergence + salinity tolerance
12 million ha salt affected
10 days submerged Sub1 only SalTol+ Sub1
in saline water

29. A4NH
How Can Agriculture Improve Nutrition & Health?
• Improve nutrition quality and food safety in value
chains for nutrient-rich foods
• Via biofortified staple crops—5 biofortified crops
have been released since 2007; approx. 4 million
households will be growing those crops by end of
2015
• Recent releases:
– Vitamin A cassava released in December 2011
– Vitamin A maize released in 2012 in Nigeria and
Zambia
– Iron beans released in Rwanda in 2012
– Iron pearl millet commercialized in India in 2012
by private company
• Via diet diversity
• Through linking agriculture with nutrition and
health programs, policies, and investments

30. A4NH Micronutrient Crops
Cassava Pearl Millet
Provitamin A Iron (Zinc)
DR Congo, Nigeria India
2011 2012
Beans Rice
Iron (Zinc) Zinc
DR Congo, Rwanda Bangladesh, India
2012 2013
Maize Wheat
Provitamin A Zinc
Zambia India, Pakistan
2012 2013
2014-2018 Delivery-at-scale: 40 million people from 8 target countries

31. CGIAR Research Program Climate Change
Technologies, practices, partnerships, and policies for:
Integration for
Decision Making
Adaptation Adaptation Pro-poor
Linking Knowledge
to through Climate with Action
Progressive Managing Change
Assembling Data and
Climate Climate Mitigation Tools for Analysis and
Change Risk Planning
Refining Frameworks
for Policy Analysis
Global engagement
and synthesis

32. Farms of the Future
With World
Climate
Research
Program
http://gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/analogues/

33. Farms of the Future
Journey to Beora’s Plausible Futures
Blog story: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/climate-conversations/finding-the-future-of-beora/

34. Congo Basin: Africa’s last rainforests
Success Story: Capacity building
Increased focus among partners on raising capacity in forestry sector
Highlight: Survey in 2005 found less than 10 active researchers in DRC –
a country that represent 60% of the Congo Basin’s forests. Project at the
University of Kisangani: 53 MSc students trained (22 about to start); 6 PhDs
completed & 13 PhDs ongoing. Separate project in Congo Basin on climate
change adaptation trained 40 MSc students

35. CGIAR Genebanks
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The genetic diversity treasure chest

36. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
International collections

37. Genebank Samples Distributed per Year
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Source: Collections online databases, publications, and personal communications between Trust and Genebank Managers, 2008,-2010

38. ACIAR Impact Assessment of CGIAR
• Australian ACIAR 2011
impact assessment of IRRI’s
rice breeding in Vietnam,
Indonesia, Philippines
• Benefits: $1.46 billion
per year from 1985 - 2009

39. Upswing in CGIAR Investment
1,100 CGIAR Total Funding Trends
Nominal and in 1972 dollars 1,000
1,000
900 855
800
766
700
725
600
US$ million
500
400
300
200 1972 dollars, 121
100
20
0
Actual, Nominal 1972 dollars Target _____ projected, nominal

40. Conclusions
• Food Security: the greatest challenge facing
humanity in coming decades
• Revitalizing agriculture after decades of neglect
• Focus: hunger, poverty, malnutrition, environment
• Science and technology driven innovation is key
• Investment in research through CGIAR and partners
is critical – investors doubling $$ in 5 years to $1Bn

41. THANK YOU