Cross-posted on CSI Blog

Researchers from IITA, Bioversity, CIAT and CIP met last week at CIAT headquarters in Cali, Colombia to advance geographic targeting and priority setting for the  Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) research program.  Our activity is a background analysis for the larger RTB priority setting process that extends into the middle of 2013. The aim of the work is to consider the geographic dimensions of priority setting for the RTB crops – potato, sweet potato, yam, cassava, bananas, plantains and others. RTB researchers include professionals from the GIS labs of the four partner centers, economists working in impact assessment and several others. The team is analyzing problems and opportunities for RTB crop development, such as poverty and socioeconomic conditions where these crops are prevalent, biotic and abiotic constraints to crop production and yield gaps.

The key activity in the analysis looks at the spatial coincidence of RTB crops with poverty, population, demography, drought, excessive heat, soil constraints, pest and disease problems and many other considerations affecting where to target R&D interventions. Where should RTB focus efforts? What are the best bets for targeting technology to its ecological and socioeconomic niche? Our team is working to answer these questions and many more. Other activities in the project include a broad-scale yield gap analysis for identifying the places where R&E might have the most impact, places where crop yields are well below their potential. Finally, the team is creating an online digital atlas on everything related to RTB crop development.

Nov 12-14 Roots, Tubers and Bananas workshop in Cali, Colombia at CIAT HQ. Front row Left to Right: Guy Hareau, David Brown, Henry Juarez, Bernado Creamer, Tunrayo Alabi, Elizabeth Barona, Martha del Rio Duque; Second Row: Flavio Avila, Glenn Hyman, Diemuth Pemsl, Ulrich Kleinwechter, Tahirou Abdoulaye, Ernesto Giron; Third row: Holger Kirscht, Joe Guo and Reinhard Simon.

Map from IWMI on irrigation overlaid on John Dixon’s farming systems

RTB (Roots, Tubers and Bananas) Workshop Starts today in Cali Colombia CIAT’s headquarters. We have 19 people from IITA, CIAT, CIP and Bioversity. One of our objectives is to test out cloud technology for sharing geographic information. We are using resources from the CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information’s (CSI)  agreement with Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). The technology is ArcGIS Online. The four CGIAR centers are pooling together their data and putting it in ArcGIS Online. Here below is a map of irrigated areas from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) overlaid on a maps of John Dixon’s Farming Systems map. Use your mouse to pan and zoom around the maps. Note you can pan to different parts of the world. This blog post is calling the ArcGIS Online system and data stored on the cloud.

View Larger Map

So far, we are quite pleased with the drawing speeds. We  did have some difficulty getting everyone signed on to the system, but we did manage to do with only a 25 minute delay in our agenda. Today we are discussing input data into a multi-criteria evaluation process. Tomorrow, we split up into group according to crop, and begin thinking about the geographic dimension of RTB priorities.

The Generation Challenge Program just published a new book entitled Drought phenotyping in crops: from theory to practice.  The book is available online from the GCP website.  CIAT scientists Drs I. Rao, S. Beebe, M. Blair and H. Ceballos were among the chapter authors.  Two chapters were written through GCP support to the DAPA program and partners.  Our colleagues Sam Geerts and Dirk Raes of KU Leuven University in Belgium wrote a chapter on agro-meteorological models to assist drought phenotyping. The chapter discusses computer models that utilize basic weather data taken during a field trial, data that can be transformed into hydrological indices for use in phenotyping protocols. Another chapter by Glenn Hyman, Dave Hodson (CIMMYT) and Peter Jones discusses spatial analysis methods to support crop improvement programs.

See this item on the CIFOR Forests Blog » Online tool helps users map the costs of conserving Amazon forests, on the interactive online tool MAPAZ.  CIFOR leads the new CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (CRP6).  Last week at CIFOR Headquarters a workshop on sentinel sites for the CRP6 was held. CIFOR also conducted their annual meeting, including the participation of partners from CIAT, CATIE, Bioversity and others.

We presented a poster on the “Generation Atlas” online map server at the General Research Meeting of the Generation Challenge Program, Sept 21-25, in Hyderabad, India

Generation Atlas
Glenn Hyman and Ernesto Giron
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia;

Geographic information science supports crop improvement in a number of ways and scientists are increasingly taking advantage of the technology. Yet the technology remains beyond the reach of
many professionals who have not had the opportunity to master GIS software programs and the methodologies employed. Generation Atlas seeks to bring spatial information and analysis to a broader
group of crop improvement specialists working in the Generation Challenge Program. The tool provides data and some simple analysis capabilities aimed at evaluating the geographic context within which
crop improvement takes place. The Atlas is an online map server built on ESRI technology. It includes map layers related to GCP focus crops, countries and farming systems. Available information emphasizes
production constraints that are the focus of GCP research, such as drought, soil properties and socioeconomic conditions. Several tools support simple queries of drought conditions at a site and across the globe. Tools are available to evaluate conditions at sites or trials sites that are part of phenotyping networks. The data sets are all publicly available for use in standard GIS software packages.
Related GCP project–G8009.06.05/ Activity 3.2.5: Phenotyping sites and screening protocols (Activity Leader: Xavier Delannay, GCP)

Guest post by Dr. Helena Pachón, CIAT Nutritionist and Director of AgroSalud

This municipal-level poverty map of Mexico is used assess priorities for nutrition interventions.

How do you pinpoint where the most nutritionally vulnerable are located?  Answering this question poses an important challenge for nutrition professionals as most nutrition information is gathered at the national or state level, not at the local level.  At CIAT, we collaborated with student interns from the Universidad Industrial de Santander, Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the Universidad del Valle to come up with a method to identify localities that meet two criteria:  state-level statistics indicate that malnutrition levels are high and local-level statistics indicate that poverty is prevalent.  We tested this method against local-level nutrition information that had been gathered in Mexico and found good concordance (>66%) between those localities identified as high risk for malnutrition (by our method) and those with demonstrated malnutrition (using information collected by Mexican officials).  In the absence of local-level nutrition information, the method we propose can be used as a starting point for identifying places where malnutrition is highest and individuals may benefit from an intervention.  For more information, see the recently published paper in Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional, Campinas, 18(1): 93-105, 2011.

The cover of the manual on estimating opportunity costs of REDD+

Chacaclayo, Peru
8 September 2011

The Peruvian Ministry of Environment, the German Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) brought together 53 professionals to Chacaclayo, Peru for a 3 and a half day workshop on opportunity costs of avoided deforestation. The participants included foresters (12), economists (9), biologists (7), environmental engineers (4), agronomists (3), geographers (3) and others (15). Focusing on methods for analyzing trade-offs between livelihoods and environment, the workshop used methods and protocols developed by the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins over the last two decades.

Workshop participants focused on the 3 key analyses for deriving opportunity costs – land use change, carbon stocks and profitability. Experts on land use mapping, carbon stock mapping with LIDAR and deforestation modeling discussed tools and methods to improve estimates. Participants learned best practices for measuring biomass, which included a short field trip to demonstrate how the measurements are made in the field. Participants also learned how to budget costs and benefits at the farm-level. Participants met in groups to work through exercises on how to use all this information to construct cost abatement curves using ASB’s ABACUS software.

The workshop was funded by GIZ, NORAD and the Moore Foundation, with support from CIAT, CIFOR and Catholic University of Peru.

From the CIAT Blog, found this interview with Tony Bellotti about a recent paper where Tony joined Vanessa Herrera and Glenn Hyman (both of DAPA) to assess the geographic distribution of potential threats to cassava production.

More links:

Vanessa’s post on DAPA
CIAT Press Release
The Food Security Paper

DAPA’s Vanessa Herrera’s recent paper in Food Security was featured in the online journal New Agriculturist. See article here.

Ver esta noticia sobre nuestra reciente Dialogo en linea sobre MAPAZ - una herramienta para explorar servicios ecosistemicas en la Amazonia.  Segun la noticia:

“El 19 de julio de 2011, a las 2 p.m. (-5:00 GTM, horario de Colombia) se llevó a cabo la presentación y discusión sobre el Mapaz, con la presencia de los investigadores y técnicos que conforman el equipo desarrollador de la herramienta. el evento será virtual, con duración aproximada de una hora y media.
El objetivo principal fue discutir su utilidad práctica junto a actuales y potenciales usuarios que pueden estar inseridos en tomadas de decisiones, investigación científica, diseño y gestión de proyectos, actividades académicas y en público en general.”