From 15 to 19 September 2008, IITA played host to the 2nd Annual Review and Planning Meeting of the Drought-Tolerant Maize in Africa (DTMA) Project at its headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria. Movers of the project, led by representatives from IITA and CIMMYT, reviewed progress made in 2008, shared insights and drew up workplans for the following year. They were joined by the Project Advisory Board, national partners and collaborators from private seed companies and universities.
Hartmann, Director General of IITA, officially opened the meeting and welcomed the participants to the institute. He cited the DTMA Project for its achievements during the past year, saying that “The DTMA Project team represents a good balance in expertise which, combined with the maize drought tolerance technology, has a great potential in reaching 30 to 40 million people. And I am going to be one of those waiting for the DTMA technology!”
“The DTMA Project needs to focus on local production, especially with the emerging twin challenges of climate change and the energy crisis. We also need to let other players own the process to ensure sustainability; thus we need an exit strategy,” he added.
Marianne Bänziger, CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director remarked, “There is tremendous power in Africa – the creativity of its researchers, the large number of newly emerging seed companies and farmers, who yearn to make their lives better. We need to tap into this power if we want to generate impact.”
She commended the various DTMA Project teams, national and international, for the significant progress made during 2008.
Among the achievements highlighted during the meeting were the development, dissemination and targeting of new drought-tolerant varieties as well as building the capacity of project collaborators. For example, the DTMA Project established large-scale drought screening sites in Kiboko, Kenya and Ikene, Nigeria, in which the first crop of maize under managed stress has been grown. Such activities are envisioned to help increase the availability of drought-tolerant maize varieties in sub-Saharan Africa.
During 2008, DTMA provided training in state-of the-art maize breeding and variety release approaches, technology adoption studies and seed business management. Scientists from IITA, CIMMYT, national partners and established seed companies worked closely together in designing and running the courses much to the satisfaction of course participants. Programs were also offered which were designed to support visiting scientists, graduate and post-graduate students.
To motivate and move breeders towards data-driven breeding programs, the DTMA Project developed and is promoting new maize data management tools such as the International Maize Information System (IMIS) and Fieldbook – both freely available from the DTMA Web site (http://www.cimmyt.org/dtma).
”The DTMA Project provides opportunities in the form of germplasm, varieties, breeder seeds and trained personnel,” Project Leader Wilfred Mwangi told participants.
Discussions were held along thematic and regional lines – Eastern, Western and Southern Africa. Participants compared experiences and challenges, and proposed strategies based on these to move the DTMA Project forward. Topics focused on diverse aspects of variety development, testing and release, technology dissemination, breeder and foundation seed production, and production and marketing of certified seed.
“One size does not fit all” was one of the major conclusions from the meeting. Africa is diverse and the various in-country teams will have to carefully target their investments to mission-critical bottlenecks and effective scale-up strategies in the seed value chain. The teams tackled this challenge by beginning to develop seed and impact road maps, leaving no doubt that the impact targets of DTMA Project will be achieved.
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