Feed the world

Nigerian farmers prepare the soil for planting. Image: Mike Blyth

Around 1 in 6 people in the world go hungry. Farmers need to increase crop yields and grow more nourishing food to feed the world's ever-growing population. There are many alternatives to genetic modification that will help farmers achieve this.

Some scientists are looking at the natural differences between plants. They will use these differences to develop food for the future through traditional breeding, not genetic modification. This will help to provide more food with the vitamins and minerals essential to prevent hunger and disease.

Marvellous maize

Abebe Menkir, maize expert, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Image: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Maize is a main part of the daily diet for many people across Africa, but it lacks enough of the vital minerals and vitamins needed for a healthy diet.

In Nigeria, Abebe Menkir, a maize expert from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, is using traditional breeding methods to improve maize. Menkir says: 'I hope to increase the nutritional value of maize so that it has more protein, minerals and vitamin A needed by local people to keep them healthy. It'll take five to ten years to develop a new crop variety through traditional breeding.'

But why does it take so long?

Two's company

Female maize flowers are sticky so they catch the male pollen. Image: Pollinator

Menkir explains the process: 'I collect a male flower from the parent maize plant in a paper "pollination" bag. Once the flower is in the bag I'll shake it to capture the precious pollen. Then I dust the pollen onto the flower of the female parent. Many grains of pollen need to stick to the female flower to make sure that the plant is pollinated and seeds will form.'

Each pollinated female plant produces hundreds of seeds, and that means hundreds of plants. But the process doesn't end there..

Hundreds and thousands

Traditional breeding involves growing thousands of plants from seed.

When the plants are fully grown, Menkir examines them to find the characteristics he wants. He then breeds the plants with desirable characteristics together in pairs.

'I'll do this over and over again, searching through many thousands of plants and breeding them. At the end I hope to breed a maize plant that combines all the characteristics I want. It'll be more nutritious, produce a good yield and taste the way people expect it to,' says Menkir.

Price of rice

Marco Wopereis, rice expert, the Africa Rice Center. Image: Africa Rice Center

In the last three years a global shortage of rice has tripled its price. And that's bad news for African countries, since they import nearly one-third of the rice exported in the world every year, and they need more.

'More and more people are eating rice, so it's worth trying to grow it in Africa instead of importing it,' says Marco Wopereis, a rice expert at the Africa Rice Center. Now Wopereis is looking towards a home-grown solution...

Seed banks

There are 20,000 varieties of rice in the seed bank for scientist to use. Image: Africa Rice Center

The Africa Rice Center's seed banks are the most important resource in the search for new rice varieties. These are stores that contain many different seeds, which any scientist can 'withdraw' for research. There are plenty of seeds to choose from, with 20,000 rice varieties in the bank.

Asian rice varieties are more popular with farmers because they have high yields. But they often don't grow well in the harsh conditions of Africa.

Scientists at the Africa Rice Center used seeds of African varieties from the seed bank and Asian rice to breed new rice varieties, called NERICA, using traditional methods.

Best of both worlds

Growing NERICA rice in Benin, west Africa. Image: Africa Rice Centre

'Our NERICA rice variety, NERICA4, does well here, with good grain quality and a short growth cycle; it's exactly what we farmers were waiting for,' says Bakary Togola, a rice farmer in Mali.

Farmers using NERICA varieties can increase their rice production. The new types of rice provide food and a source of income for millions of people in west Africa.

This is a very successful example of how traditional breeding techniques can result in a new crop which will feed millions of people long into the future.