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Improving Human Health Through Biofortification
 The
CGIAR’s new Challenge Program on crop biofortification,
called HarvestPlus, was officially launched at a press
conference held in Washington, D.C., on 14 October.
The Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation announced at the event
its decision to provide a grant of US$25 million in
support of the research.
Micronutrient malnutrition, especially lack of iron,
zinc, and vitamin A, currently afflicts about half the
world’s population. Women and children in sub-Saharan
Africa, tropical America, and South and Southeast Asia
are especially at risk. HarvestPlus aims to enhance
the content of naturally occurring vitamins and other
essential micronutrients in major food crops through
plant breeding. Biofortified crops will complement more
conventional measures, such as distribution of vitamin
and mineral supplements and commercial fortification
of processed foods.
The priority crops of the new program are common beans,
cassava, maize, rice, sweet potatoes, and wheat. New
funding from the Gates Foundation will allow the work
to be scaled up, and it will support micronutrient enhancement
of other important plant species. CIAT and the International
Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
are joint coordinators of this global research program,
with CIAT’s contribution focusing on beans and
cassava.
For more information see the article entitled Seeds
of Health in the 2001-2002 issue of CIAT in Perspective
(www.ciat.cgiar.org/newsroom/annual_2002/report2.htm#seeds)
or download the research theme paper from the Web site
of the International Food Policy Research Institute,
or IFPRI (www.ifpri.org/themes/grp06/grp06_biofort.htm).
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New Monograph on Common Bean
A lavishly illustrated monograph entitled Taxonomy,
Distribution, and Ecology of the Genus Phaseolus in
North America, Mexico, and Central America is now available
from the Botanical Research Institute in the USA. Written
by George Freytag and CIAT scientist Daniel Debouck,
this is the most comprehensive botanical treatment of
beans to date. It should be a valuable resource for
bean researchers, botanists, taxonomists, conservationists,
and natural history enthusiasts. To order a copy, consult
the Botanical Research Institute’s Web site (www.brit.org/index.htm).
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Study on Impact of Global Climate Change
 In
an article published in the journal Global Environmental
Change, CIAT scientist Peter Jones and Phil Thornton
of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI),
forecast that climate change could lead to a 10 percent
drop in maize production over the next 50 years in Africa
and Latin America. Their findings are based on results
from a CIAT computer tool called MarkSimTM, which simulates
site-specific daily weather for risk assessment, based
on data collected by thousands of weather stations around
the world.
For further details, see the article in Nature magazine’s
on-line Science Update (www.nature.com/nsu/030512/030512-6.html),
the news feature on the Future Harvest Web site (www.futureharvest.org/news/maize_model.shtml),
and the background article entitled Tracking the Impact
of Global Warming in the 2001-2002 issue of our annual
report, CIAT in Perspective (www.ciat.cgiar.org/newsroom/annual_2002/report.htm#tracking).
To order a copy of MarkSimTM on CD-ROM, see our Product
Catalog in CIAT’s Web site (www.ciat.cgiar.org/catalogo/producto.jsp?codigo=P0220).
Workshop on Territory and Sustainable Development
An international workshop aimed at identifying best
practices for rural planning in Latin America was held
at CIAT headquarters in Cali, Colombia, on 17-20 June
2003. Participants evaluated a wide range of participatory
approaches to territorial planning, based on their effectiveness
in promoting sustainable, equitable development.
The event, organized by the UN’s Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO),
France’s Institute of Research for Development
(IRD),
and CIAT, represented an important step toward the formation
of an action research network dealing with “Territory
and Sustainable Development.”
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Whitefly-Resistant Cassava Variety
 A
cassava variety resistant to one species of whitefly—apparently
the first variety of any food crop with resistance to
this pest—has been released by the Colombian Corporation
for Agricultural Research (CORPOICA).
Named ‘Nataima-31’, the variety is based on
a cross made at CIAT between a clone from Ecuador and
another from Brazil. The variety’s resistance to
the whitefly species Aleurotrachelus socialis Bondar
will enable cassava growers in northern South America,
where this species is a major pest, to lower pesticide
applications. In the tropics a total of
43 whitefly species have been reported, damaging a wide
range of food and cash crops through direct feeding
or transmission of viruses.
For more information, see the Web sites of CIAT’s
Integrated Pest and Disease Management Project (www.ciat.cgiar.org/ipm/index.htm)
and of the CGIAR Systemwide IPM Program’s Tropical
Whitefly IPM Project (www.tropicalwhiteflyipmproject.cgiar.org/wf/).
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New Booklet on Tropical Forages
for Central America
CIAT’s Tropical Forages Project has recently published
(in Spanish only) a booklet entitled Especies Forrajeras
Multipropósito: Opciones para Productores de
Centroamérica (Multipurpose Forage Species: Options
for Central American Livestock Producers). It is designed
to help producers select appropriate forage species
according to local climate and soil conditions. The
booklet contains easy-to-understand information on the
most widely used forage species in Costa Rica, Honduras,
and Nicaragua.
The booklet was developed under a project entitled
Participatory Agricultural Research in Action: Selection
and Strategic Use of Multipurpose Forage Germplasm by
Small Farmers in Hillside Production Systems in Central
America, which is being financed by the German government.
To order a copy, see our Product Catalog in the CIAT
Web site (www.ciat.cgiar.org/catalogoproducto.jsp?codigo=p333).
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New Book on Cassava
 A
comprehensive book now available from CIAT (in Spanish
only) offers a wealth of up-to-date information about
all aspects of an important, but neglected, tropical
crop. Entitled La Yuca en el Tercer Milenio: Sistemas
Modernos de Producción, Procesamiento, Utilización
y Comercialización (Cassava in the Third Millenium:
Modern Systems for Production, Processing, Use, and
Commercialization), the book was prepared to inform
technicians, researchers, and others about a wide range
of new technical options that can help fulfill the huge
potential of cassava for improving rural livelihoods.
The book is accompanied by an illustrated field guide
on the management of cassava diseases, pests, and nutritional
deficiencies. To order a copy, see our Product Catalog
in the CIAT Web site (www.ciat.cgiar.org/catalogo/producto.jsp?codigo=p327).
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