Essential actions to mitigate the food crisis

A new analysis lays out concrete actions that governments and investors must do now to mitigate near-term food security risks and stabilize wheat supplies, while transitioning toward long-term resilience in the agrifood system.

The guidance is published in Nature Food by scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners, which includes a group leader from The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, Prof. Sophien Kamoun.

The problem we are facing now

More than 2.5 billion people worldwide consume wheat-based foods. Some of the world’s poorest countries rely heavily on Russian and Ukrainian wheat. Given the highly interconnected nature of contemporary agrifood systems, few will remain unaffected by this new global food shock.

Dominance of the wheat exports by a small number of countries places inherent vulnerabilities on the global food system. This is exacerbated by the intensifying threats for climatic instability on wheat export potential due to heat, drought, heavy rains plus the increasing prevalence of certain diseases such as wheat yellow rust.

The published guidance lays out short-, medium- and long-term steps to respond to the global food crisis and ultimately lead to a more resilient global agrifood system.

Mitigate the immediate crisis

The first priority, according to the authors, is to mitigate the immediate crisis by boosting wheat production in existing high- and low-productivity areas, ensuring grain access and blending wheat flour with other low-cost cereals. Bundled agronomic and breeding improvements and sustainable farming practices can reduce dependence on imported grain and fertilizer, while coordinated, multilateral policies can help conserve grain stocks for human consumption and avert trade restrictions.

“Current events are reshaping trade routes for major commodities like wheat.” says co-author Sophien Kamoun.

By shifting trade routes, there is a higher risk of introducing new crop diseases as countries may not be prepared to detect these new threats. This would require that new sources of short-term wheat supply are de-risked. Contaminated seed is a considerable risk to wheat yield. A relatively recent example is the introduction of wheat blast from Brazil to Southeast Asia in 2016, which caused devastating outbreaks and immense losses in wheat yield.

Increase the resilience of wheat supply

In the medium term, the authors emphasized the need to increase the local, regional, and global resilience of the wheat supply. This can be done by expanding production within agro-ecological boundaries, supporting national wheat self-sufficiency and providing technical assistance, to increase the production of high-yielding disease-resistant wheat and to mainstream capacity for pest and disease monitoring.

In the preprint version of this article on Zenodo, it was noted that a mainstream capacity would need to include a global inter-connected pathogen surveillance system for major food crops so that effective mitigations strategies can be rapidly deployed to curb the spread of newly introduced diseases. The components for such a system are already available and could be mobilized so that national and regional plant protection agencies worldwide can work together to protect the remaining wheat supply chain in an impoverished market.

There are already examples, such as The PlantVillage model (www.plantvillage.psu.edu), which has shown how advances in AI, cloud computing and integrating satellite data make a big difference in pest and pathogen mitigation and control. Building on this, a genomics-based system for surveillance of threats in wheat seed exports could be implemented at the point of entry based on PCR testing and sequencing, mirroring the established COVID-19 PCR testing protocol for international travel.

Sophien Kamoun emphasizes that the surveillance and notifications of plant pathogen threats at points of entry has the potential to be very effective. Importing countries would be incentivized to rapidly mitigate the threat before an outbreak develops to disrupt crop production and their own export capacity.

“We absolutely need to implement genomic surveillance of plant pathogens at points of entry, to stop the spread of seed transmitted diseases like wheat blast.” he says, “The genomic technology is available; it’s cheap and reliable - so there is really no excuse for not deploying it widely.”

Read Sophien's blog entry: Open science to tackle plant health emergencies: enough excuses, please!

Transition to system-level resilience

Finally, to reach crucially needed resilience in the world’s agrifood system, the authors propose long-term measures that encompass agroecosystem diversity, address gender disparities in agriculture and rural communities and sustain increased investment in a holistic, agrifood transition.

“The Russia-Ukraine war will impact global food security over months — if not years,” said CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director and lead author Alison Bentley. “We now need to move beyond defining the problem to implementing practical actions to ensure stable supply, safeguard the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people and bring resilience to our global agrifood system.”

_________________________________
This news item also refers to the longer, preprint version of the publication which includes additional guidance on plant pathogens which you can find on Zenodo.org.

You can read the original CIMMYT press release at cimmyt.org

RELATED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:

Near- to long-term measures to stabilize global wheat supplies and food security

This research is supported by CGIAR Trust Fund Contributors.

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Alison Bentley – Director, Global Wheat Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

Contact: Marcia MacNeil, Head of Communications, CIMMYT. m.macneil@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 2019.

Prof. Sophien Kamoun – Group Leader at The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich

Contact: Mia Cerfonteyn, Communications Officer, The Sainsbury Laboratory. mia.cerfonteyn@tsl.ac.uk

ABOUT CIMMYT:

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis.

Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agrifood systems. CIMMYT’s research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.

CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.

For more information, visit www.cimmyt.org.

About The Sainsbury Laboratory

The Sainsbury Laboratory (tsl.ac.uk) is an independent research institute that focuses on plant health for a sustainable future. It makes fundamental scientific discoveries in molecular plant-microbe interactions and applies these to reduce crop losses caused by plant diseases, particularly in low-income countries. Around one hundred and twenty staff and students work and study at the Laboratory which is located on the Norwich Research Park, United Kingdom. The Laboratory is generously supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and by the University of East Anglia, wins competitive grants from the BBSRC, ERC and other research grant funding bodies and, for some research programmes, is funded by commercial companies. Established in 1987, highlights of The Sainsbury Laboratory include: discovery of RNA interference in plants by Prof. Sir David Baulcombe FRS as recognised by the Lasker Award and the Wolf Prize in Agriculture, discovery of the first immune receptor in plants by Prof. Jonathan Jones FRS, three current Group Leaders are Fellows of the Royal Society, and five researchers who have been on the Highly Cited Researchers list of top 1% scientists in the world since 2018.