Person: Hellin, J.
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Hellin
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Hellin, J.
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0000-0002-2686-8065 7 results
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- Climate change and food security in the developing world: potential of maize and wheat research to expand options for adaptation and mitigation(Academic Journals, 2012) Hellin, J.; Shiferaw, B.; Cairns, J.E.; Reynolds, M.P.; Ortiz-Monasterio, I.; Banziger, M.; Sonder, K.; La Rovere, R.
Publication - Linking agricultural research with the agribusiness community from a pro-poor perspective: the importance of human capital development(Springer, 2012) Donnet, M.L.; Hellin, J.; Riis-Jacobsen, J.Improved crop varieties are a key output of agricultural research and have contributed to significant increases in agricultural production and productivity However, the benefits from advances in plant breeding have often not reached the majority of poor farmers. This essay tackles the challenge of enhancing human capital development in the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in order to enhance impact on food security and poverty reduction. Key changes in strategic planning, leadership, organizational alignment, talent and performance culture along with the need for new ways of thinking and action are outlined.
Publication - Impact pathways of trade liberalization on rural livelihoods: A case study of smallholder maize farmers in Mexico(Universidad de Zaragoza. Cátedra de Cooperación para el Desarrollo, 2012) Hellin, J.; Groenewald, S.; Keleman, A.Research assessing the impacts of trade liberalization on poor rural populations can be divided into two categories: more quantitative research, assessing relationships between specific, measurable variables (such as changes in the macroeconomic environment and their impact on farmers? income levels); and more qualitative research, which takes trade policy as a context and provides broad, descriptive data about dynamic livelihood strategies. In this paper, we outline a framework that could be used to integrate these two approaches by unravelling the macro-micro linkages between national policies and responses at a household level. Using the Mexican maize sector as an illustration, we trace the pathways through which trade liberalization (including the North American Free Trade Agreement) has interacted with changes in government institutions, and thereby impacted on farmers? livelihood strategies. We identify three pathways through which trade policy affects households and individuals: via enterprises, distribution channels, and government, and we link these to a five-category typology of smallholders? strategies for escaping rural poverty: intensification, diversification, expansion, increased off-farm income and exit from agriculture. Based on a case-study from Chiapas, Mexico, we report on farmers? responses to post-liberalization agricultural policies. Data suggest that farmers have intensified maize production, sought more off-farm employment or have exited agriculture altogether. The potential for smallholders to escape poverty by diversifying farms or expanding their land-holdings or herd-size has been largely unrealized. We provide a conceptual framework for linking the impacts of liberalization to farmers? livelihood strategies and suggest that this framework is useful in the context of agricultural modernisation initiatives that seek to increase agricultural production and productivity.
Publication - Re-orienting participatory plant breeding for wider impact(Academic Journals, 2012) Badstue, L.B.; Hellin, J.; Berthaud, J.This paper concerns the need to re-conceptualise participatory crop improvement in order to explore new ways of making the outcomes of scientific plant breeding and knowledge production more effective, accessible and relevant to those smallholders who hitherto have been unable to benefit more fully from the advances in formal crop improvement. Main perspectives on participatory crop research are reviewed and the epistemological basis of formal crop improvement is briefly discussed. Meanwhile, the notion of technology diffusion implicit in much formal plant breeding and technology development is contrasted with the reality that farmers are seldom passive adopters of technology: they are often curious and eager to acquire new knowledge and frequently carry out their own experiments. On this basis, and with emphasis on the not-uncommon discord between plant breeders? recommendations and farmers? practices, the need to move beyond the conventional model for crop improvement is highlighted. A re-thinking of participatory crop research is suggested, including a change of roles by way of a shift towards a notion of participatory crop improvement in which researchers are the participants in farmer projects.
Publication - Crops that feed the world 6. Past successes and future challenges to the role played by maize in global food security(Springer Verlag, 2011) Shiferaw, B.; Prasanna, B.M.; Hellin, J.; Banziger, M.Maize is one of the most important food crops in the world and, together with rice and wheat, provides at least 30% of the food calories to more than 4.5 billion people in 94 developing countries. In parts of Africa and Mesoamerica, maize alone contributes over 20% of food calories. Maize is also a key ingredient in animal feed and is used extensively in industrial products, including the production of biofuels. Increasing demand and production shortfalls in global maize supplies have worsened market volatility and contributed to surging global maize prices. Climatic variability and change, and the consequent rise in abiotic and biotic stresses, further confound the problem. Unless concerted and vigorous measures are taken to address these challenges and accelerate yield growth, the outcome will be hunger and food insecurity for millions of poor consumers. We review the research challenges of ensuring global food security in maize, particularly in the context of climate change. The paper summarizes the importance of maize for food, nutrition and livelihood security and details the historical productivity of maize, consumption patterns and future trends. We show how crop breeding to overcome biotic and abiotic stresses will play a key role in meeting future maize demand. Attention needs to be directed at the generation of high yielding, stress-tolerant and widely-adapted maize varieties through judicious combination of conventional and molecular breeding approaches. The use of improved germplasm per se will not, however, be enough to raise yields and enhance adaptation to climate change, and will need to be complemented by improved crop and agronomic practices. Faced with emasculated state extension provision and imperfect markets, new extension approaches and institutional innovations are required that enhance farmers' access to information, seeds, other inputs, finance and output markets. Over the long-term, large public and private sector investment and sustained political commitment and policy support for technology generation and delivery are needed to overcome hunger, raise the incomes of smallholder farmers and meet the challenges of growing demand for maize at the global level.
Publication - Tortillas on the roaster (ToR): central America maize-beans systems and the changing climate(CIMMYT, 2012) Schmidt, A.; Eitzinger, A.; Sonder, K.; Sain, G.; Rizo, L.; Rodriguez, B.; Hellin, J.; Fisher, M.; Laderach, P.; San Vicente Garcia, F.M.; Robertson, R.In order to be able to adapt to climate change, maize and bean producing smallholders in Central America have to know which type of changes and to which extent and ranges these changes will occur. Adaptation is only possible if global climate predictions are broken down on local levels, to give farmers a direction on what to adapt to, but also to provide detailed information about the extent of climate change impact and the exact location of the affected population to local, national, and regional governments and authorities, and the international cooperation/donors in order to coordinate and focus their interventions This technical report seeks to assess the expected impact of climate change on maize and bean production in four countries in Central America. We downscaled GCM (Global Climate Models) to a local scale, predicted future maize and bean production using the dynamic crop model DSSAT (Decision Support for Agro-technology Transfer), we identified based on the DSSAT-results 3 types of focus areas where impact is predicted to be significant and run DSSAT again with the full range of available GCMs to address uncertainty of model predictions. Outputs of downscaled climate data show that temperature is predicted to increase in the future, while precipitation will slightly reduce. Crop modeling shows that bean yields will decrease high along the dry belt in Central America and revealed a significant influence of soil fertility and soil water retention capacity especially on maize yield which will be drastically affected by climate change under such poor soil conditions. Furthermore, we identified hot-spots with more than 50% yield reduction as well as area with favorable growth conditions in the future. The conducted vulnerability analysis shows the low adaptive capacity at household level and the low availability of human and social capital across the region for climate change adaptation. Central America is highly vulnerable to climate change. Based on the results we finally made recommendations for adaptation- and mitigation strategies such as eco-efficient and sustainable intensification of the production system combing soil and fertility management with water harvesting schemes, marketed oriented high value plant production and plant genetic improvement for heat- and drought stress. The findings of the present study should enable decision makers on local, national and regional levels to take appropriate action in the right locations and provide an adequate policy framework for successful implementation of adaptation strategies in the rural sector of Central America.
Publication - Determinants of adoption and spatial diversity of wheat varieties on household farms in Turkey(CIMMYT, 2012) Negassa, A.; Hellin, J.; Shiferaw, B.The Heckman two-stage estimation procedure was used to investigate factors influencing the adoption of modern and/or landrace wheat varieties and spatial diversity of wheat varieties in Turkey. In the first stage, the multinomial logit choice model (MNLM) was used to determine factors influencing farmers’ adoption of modern varieties (MVs) and/or landrace varieties (LVs) of wheat. Conditional on the choice of a given wheat variety or combination of MVs and LVs, a Tobit regression model was used to assess the determinants of on-farm spatial diversity of wheat varieties in the second stage. Our empirical approach allows for the analysis of partial adoption decision of wheat varieties and controls for self-selection problem in analyzing the determinants of spatial diversity of wheat varieties. The empirical model was conceptualized based on random utility model (RUM). The analysis was based on cross-sectional survey data collected on 486 sample households in six provinces of Turkey. Results showed that household size, the number of owned cattle, the number of buildings on farm, farm size, farm land fragmentation, the percentage of irrigable farm plots and regional variations are the important factors in determining the farmers’ first-stage choice of wheat variety types. The self selection problem was significant only in one of the three cases for the landrace wheat varieties. In the second-stage, the farm size and land fragmentation were found to be the key variables influencing the level of on-farm spatial diversity of wheat varieties. The results showed that considerable spatial wheat genetic diversity was maintained on-farm at the household level, mainly through the simultaneous adoption of modern and traditional wheat varieties. Growing a combination of modern and landrace wheat varieties was observed to yield significantly higher level of spatial diversity of wheat genetic resources as compared to growing modern varieties alone or landrace varieties alone. This result suggests that the modern and landrace wheat varieties can coexist and could still support more on-farm spatial diversity of wheat genetic resources. This finding has significant implications for future extension, research and policy efforts for on-farm conservation and utilization of wheat genetic resources in Turkey. There is a need for the government and private sector research and extension efforts to support farmers’ use of both modern and landrace varieties, for example, in terms of seed supply, provision of extension and credit services and marketing support instead of just giving undue priority to popularization and adoption of modern varieties alone.
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