MORE OPTIONS FOR FARMERS

Blue maize varieties with improved yield and nutrition

Ears and kernels of blue maize landraces in a basket.

While many consumers are only familiar with white or yellow maize, native maize from Mexico and Latin America can come in a dazzling array of colors, including blue, red, or purple colored kernels. These deeper-hued varieties are gaining popularity around the world for their delicious taste and added health benefits, but are cultivated mainly by smallholder farmers on small plots of land, making it difficult to meet large-scale consumer demand.

Unlike white and yellow maize, which have many high-yielding hybrid varieties, most of the blue maize planted by farmers today are landraces, or native maize varieties passed down from generation to generation. These varieties contain important genetic diversity and play an important role in local culture and cuisine, but have lower yields compared to modern varieties.

Moreover, these varieties have greater variation in grain types between farmers, making it undesirable for large-scale market use. As native maize varieties were selected by indigenous people for local adaptation over thousands of years, they are still grown throughout Mexico but often perform poorly when moved to another region.


“These blue maize hybrids and OPVs will give farmers and consumers more choices on what they can plant and what they can eat, while also preserving the cultural diversity of Mexico and improving health and nutritional benefits”
Terence Molnar, maize breeder at CIMMYT


Researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are now working to develop the Center’s first sub-tropical blue maize hybrids and improved open-pollinated varieties (OPVs), a move that will provide more options for Mexican farmers and contribute to better nutrition for consumers.

“These blue maize hybrids and OPVs will give farmers and consumers more choices on what they can plant and what they can eat, while also preserving the cultural diversity of Mexico and improving health and nutritional benefits,” said Terence Molnar, a maize breeder at CIMMYT leading this project. “We’re also bringing in and preserving a lot of new genetic diversity, as all of these hybrids and OPVs are derived from traditional landraces from Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru.”

CIMMYT scientists José Luis Torres, Martha Wilcox, Terence Molnar and Natalia Palacios.

Trials have shown that the new blue maize hybrids can potentially yield over 12 tons per hectare under optimum conditions — triple the average yield of landrace varieties. They are also resistant to leaf diseases and ear rots, and thus show significant reduction in the accumulation of harmful mycotoxins such as fumonisins. Additionally, some of the grain quality parameters such as texture and kernel size are being monitored for farmer and end-user preferences.

Blue maize derives its rich hue from its high content of anthocyanin, a pigment with powerful antioxidant properties and many reported health benefits. Studies have claimed that anthocyanin can contribute to reduced cardiovascular disease by lowering cholesterol. Some blue maize landraces have also shown higher amounts of resistant starch, which preliminary studies have associated with their pigments and phenolic content.

“Resistant starch is a form of fiber that does not immediately become glucose in the body and breaks down more slowly,” says Natalia Palacios, CIMMYT maize quality specialist. “This reaction occurs in the colon rather than earlier in the digestive process, causing you to feel satiated for longer, and in the long run can help to prevent obesity, in addition to many other factors, although more research is needed.”

This added nutritional benefit could be extremely important in Mexico, among many other dietary interventions, as 65% of the population is overweight, 30% of the population is obese, and the country has one of the highest rates of deaths attributable to diabetes. “These blue maize varieties would have additional nutritional benefits to white maize hybrids currently in the market,” Palacios affirmed.

Blue maize work at CIMMYT has an intermittent 20-year history, according to Jose Luis Torres, a highland maize breeder at CIMMYT who has spent the past decade working on developing blue maize hybrids for high altitudes in Mexico. His hard work paid off in 2019, with the development of several hybrids and OPVs that are currently being tested by a large network of collaborators and will soon be available to farmers.

PLENTY OF CHOICE

For farmers who want to continue planting their native maize varieties, CIMMYT’s maize landrace improvement coordinator Martha Willcox has worked to help facilitate the creation of a new civil association, ProMaíz Nativo, and a collective trademark, Milpaiz, to help farmers demonstrate the authenticity of their native landrace maize and receive fair prices for their work.

“We are trying to get a fair price for these farmers, as these native maize seeds are their inheritance, their own variety passed down through generations,” she said.

Willcox has found that smallholder farmers’ incomes have increased substantially under the fair-trade pricing scheme, allowing farmers to continue preserving the invaluable genetic diversity in their heirloom maize varieties.

“In addition to improving nutrition and increasing yields, CIMMYT’s work in blue maize is about giving farmers choices — so that they can choose to keep growing their native maize variety, or move to an OPV for greater stability, while other farmers may want hybrids. This is about giving farmers options that suit their needs,” said Molnar.

A field day for farmers, seed companies and end users was held in November 2019 in Jalisco, Mexico, to introduce the subtropical blue maize hybrids under development. The participants were very impressed with the varieties on display and expressed their interest in planting them as soon as they are available. “I think there will be a lot a of demand. It is hard to get blue maize in this region and it tends to sell out quickly,” said Marta Christina Velazquez Enciso, a local maize farmer. “I personally would be very interested in planting these blue maize hybrids, not just for their beautiful color but also because of the health benefits. I am glad CIMMYT is doing this work, because I think that the existence of blue maize hybrids would be beneficial to preserve the cultural and genetic diversity of maize in the region.”

Partners and funders

This work is funded by Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), through the MasAgro initiative, and the Kellogg Company.

© 2020 International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.

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CREDITS

Editors-in-chief
Rodrigo Ordóñez, Geneviève Renard
Project coordination
Alison Doody, Emma Orchardson
Art directors
Clyde R. Beaver III, Alfonso Cortés, Nancy Valtierra
Layout and design
Nancy Valtierra
Web development
Ricardo López
Graphics and illustrations
Ángel Eduardo Aguilar, Clyde R. Beaver III, Alfonso Cortés, Marcelo Ortiz, Eliot Sánchez,
Nancy Valtierra
Writers and editors
Ricardo Curiel, Leslie Domínguez, Mary Donovan, Alison Doody, Jennifer Johnson, G. Michael Listman, Marcia MacNeil, Marta Millere, Matthew O’Leary, Emma Orchardson, Samuel Storr
Contributors
Ricardo Ampudia, Lone Badstue, Hans Braun, Johanna Braun, José Juan Caballero Flores, Denise Costich, Susanne Dreisigacker, Andrea Gardeazabal Monsalue, Elias Garcia, Bram Govaerts, Filippo Guzzon, Jesús Herrera, M.L. Jat, Victor Kommerell, Timothy J. Krupnik, Jean-Flavien Le Besque, Joshua Masinde, Terence Molnar, Dina Najjar, Natalia Palacios, Thomas Payne, Kevin Pixley, B.M. Prasanna, Michael Quinn, Rajiv Kumar Sharma, H.S. Sidhu, José Luis Torres, Martha Wilcox, MAIZE Independent Steering Committee (ISC), WHEAT Independent Steering Committee (ISC)
Photography
Alfonso Cortés, Georg Goergen/IITA, Uttam Kumar, Peter Lowe, Johnson Siamachira, Love Kumar Singh/BISA, Sam Storr, CIMMYT Archives
ISSN#
0188-9214
Correct citation
CIMMYT. 2020. Seeds of change. CIMMYT Annual Report 2019. CDMX, Mexico: CIMMYT.
AGROVOC descriptors:
Maize; Wheat; Plant breeding; Genetic resources; Innovation adoption; Plant biotechnology; Seed production; Food security; Sustainability; Research policies; Economic analysis; Cropping systems; Agricultural research; Organization of research; Developing countries. Additional Keywords: CIMMYT. AGRIS category codes: A50 Agricultural Research; A01 Agriculture– General Aspects. Dewey decimal classification: 630

© International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), 2020. All rights reserved. The designations employed in the presentation of materials in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of CIMMYT or its contributory organizations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. CIMMYT encourages fair use of this material. Proper citation is requested.

ACRONYMS

ACIAR
Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
AGROSAVIA
Colombian Agricultural Research Corporation (Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria)
ATA
Agricultural Transformation Agency
BISA
Borlaug Institute in South Asia
BrAPI
Breeding Advanced Programming Interface
CCAFS
CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security
CIAT
International Center for Tropical Agriculture
CIMMYT
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
CRP
CGIAR Research Program
CSISA
Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia
CSSRI
Central Soil Salinity Research Institute
EIAR
Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research
EiB
CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform
FACASI
Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification
FAO
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
ICAR
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
ICARDA
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
IFPRI
International Food Policy Research Institute
IIASA
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
IITA
International Institute for Tropical Agriculture
INIFAP
Mexico's National Forestry, Crops and Livestock Research Institute (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias)
IRRI
International Rice Research Institute
MAIZE
CGIAR Research Program on Maize
MENA
Middle East and North Africa
MDGs
Millennium Development Goals
ODK
Open Data Kit
OPV
Open-pollinated variety
PET
Polyethylene terephthalate
PIM
CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets
R&D
Research and Development
SADER
Mexico's Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural)
SDGs
Sustainable Development Goals
SDSN
Sustainable Development Solutions Network
SMS
Straw Management System
STMA
Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa
TReNDS
Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics
UN
United Nations
USAID
United States Agency for International Development
WHEAT
CGIAR Research Program on Wheat

Sustainable Development Goals

On September 24, 2013, the newly formed United Nations (UN) High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held its first meeting. At the Rio+20 Conference, Member States also agreed to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were to build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were established in 2000 and expired in 2015.

Of the 17 individual goals, 10 relate directly to CGIAR activities and to CIMMYT’s mandate. The SDGs have set the pathway for the next 15 years of agricultural, social, and economic development. Likewise, CGIAR has transformed its approach to ensure that its work aligns with the ambitious goals.

CIMMYT, through its research for development activities, is working toward a world free of poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation. CIMMYT and CGIAR efforts help bring the world closer to reaching the goals, such as the empowerment of women, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and the improvement of health and nutrition for the world’s poorest people.

CIMMYT’s work contributes to the following SDGs:

About CIMMYT

CIMMYT — the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center — is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.

For more information, visit www.cimmyt.org.