2015 Wheat CRP Annual Report for the Consortium and the Fund Council

Abstract

Wheat blast has apparently moved outside of Latin America to South Asia (see p.7 in this report and the news post “Deadly disease wheat blast reaches South Asia”). Bad weather in India, home to 25% of the world’s smallholder farmers, is likely to reduce the country’s previously predicted bumper crop of wheat by 14%, according to the Times of India. A recent report from the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) predicts that global wheat production will decline in 2016 from 2015 record levels and fall short of demand, causing a net draw-down on global inventories. Research funded by WHEAT from Windows 1 and 2 documented the past impact of CGIAR varieties and established and annual value of more than US $2-3 billion from CGIAR wheat research (see A.2). This report also documents the use of Windows 1 & 2 funding to increase socioeconomics capacity (see C.1); unlock genetic diversity in wheat; identify and characterize disease resistance genes (see C.1); study trajectories and trade-offs for sustainable intensification, jointly with MAIZE, Wageningen University, and the Netherlands Royal Tropical Institute (KIT); build and strengthen partnerships as part of FP1 (University of Pretoria/BFAP and JIRCAS/BNI); study gender in wheat-based cropping systems (see A.4); and manage and oversee WHEAT. The Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative delivered the draft report of its study “Mapping the research networks of WHEAT,” as part of a project to develop a mechanism for monitoring CGIAR research activities and networks. The findings show that there has been substantive new collaboration and shifts in partnering, as a result of WHEAT activities. For more information, see section E.1. Numerous reports herein depict the strong and diverse science underpinning WHEAT’s research-fordevelopment portfolio; click here to see a complete, searchable list of 2012-15 publications, including web links to specific articles. The CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) gave the WHEAT Phase II Pre-proposal a “B” grade and the Consortium Office ranked WHEAT second best among all CRPs, based on four criteria to establish a performance-related budget for 2016.