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Research Highlights

The ultimate goal of CIAT's research is to overcome poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation in the tropics. CIAT's strategy derives from a vision of deploying science and new knowledge to achieve eco-efficient agriculture.

This type of agriculture benefits the poor by (1) delivering sustainable increases in productivity; (2) enabling family farms to compete better in markets; (3) limiting damage to natural resources both within and outside agriculture; and (4) possessing resilience in the face of environmental shocks, particularly those resulting from climate change.

By pursuing this vision with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and elsewhere, CIAT plays a key role in the CGIAR system. To help create conditions essential for eco-efficient agriculture, CIAT and its partners follow a three-part strategy:

1. Improved crops for the poor-Providing affordable and nutritious food, as well as pathways out of poverty.
   
2. Improved soil fertility management-Overcoming poor soils to enable small farmers obtain sustained increases in agricultural production.
   
3. Latin America and the Caribbean-Working with partners to solve problems of high priority for the region while generating global public goods.

Most of CIAT's research is global in scope and relevant to LAC. Nevertheless, some effort also focuses on LAC's particular problems, even as the intention is to produce globally significant international public goods and promote South-South linkages between LAC and other regions.

Improved crop and forage production is vital for improving food security, enhancing human nutrition, and raising agricultural incomes. CIAT conducts research in LAC and with partners around the world on four globally important crops:

1. Common bean-The world's most important food grain legume, which, in Africa, is grown mainly by impoverished farmers, who are mostly women and children.
   
2. Cassava-After rice and maize, the third most important food crop in the tropics and second only to maize in its suitability for multiple uses. IITA plays a leading role in cassava research in Africa.
   
3. Tropical forages-A key input for the production of meat and milk, LAC's most important high-value agricultural products. Forages also have considerable potential for enhancing natural resource management (NRM). In Africa and Asia, CIAT works in close collaboration with ILRI.
   
4. Rice-The most important staple food in South America and the world generally. CIAT research focuses on the unique characteristics of rice in LAC, while IRRI and the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), respectively, concentrate on Asia and Africa.

Crop improvement and soil-fertility management are closely related. Improved varieties, adapted to low soil fertility, will use soil nutrients more efficiently. Legumes, including beans and many tropical forages, can improve soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation. Because crop yields tend to vary widely according to management, more efficient agronomic practices will greatly improve productivity. With improved management, crop residues and integration of forages into cropping systems will not only boost productivity by increasing soil organic matter, but will also help mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

To address the expressed needs and demands of the LAC region, CIAT follows an ecoregional strategy. This approach integrates the aims of increased agricultural productivity and improved NRM by taking into account both biophysical and socioeconomic perspectives and working through interinstitutional partnerships. CIAT's ecoregional research agenda focuses on four main topics:

1. Improving crops that are important to LAC and globally.
   
2. Improving other crops that receive high priority in LAC.
   
3. NRM and policy research on issues that receive high priority in LAC.
   
4. Strengthening research capacity in the region through institutional innovation, knowledge management, and skills enhancement.

The research highlights presented in this report illustrate both CIAT's potential to make progress towards eco-efficient agriculture and its track record in working with partners to accomplish this objective.