| Abstract |
Recurrent food crises—combined with the global financial meltdown, volatile energy prices, natural resource depletion, and climate change—undercut and threaten the livelihoods of millions of poor people. Accounting for a fifth of humanity’s food, wheat is second only to rice as a source of calories in the diets of developing country consumers, and it is first as a source of protein. Wheat is an especially critical “staff of life” for the approximately 1.2 billion “wheat dependent” to 2.5 billion “wheat consuming” poor—men, women and children who live on less than USD 2 per day—and approximately 30 million poor wheat producers and their families. Demand for wheat in the developing world is projected to increase 60% by 2050. At the same time, climate-change-induced temperature increases are likely to reduce wheat production in developing countries by 20–30%. As a result, prices will more than double in real terms, eroding the purchasing power of poor consumers and creating conditions for widespread social unrest. This scenario is worsened by stagnating yields, soil degradation, increasing irrigation and fertilizer costs, and virulent new disease and pest strains. These challenges are the grand purpose for a revised strategy for the CGIAR centers engaged in wheat research. The strategy is designed to ensure that publicly-funded international agricultural research helps most effectively to dramatically boost farm-levele wheat productivity and stabilize wheat prices, while renewing and fortifying the crop's resistance to globally important diseases and pests, enhancing its adaptation to warmer climates, and reducing its water, fertilizer, labor and fuel requirements. The strategy aims to enable, support, and greatly strengthen the eddorts of national governments, the private sector, farming communities, and international, regional and local organizations-creating or capitalizing on synergies. Building i the input, strength, and collaboration of over 200 partners from the public and private sector, WHEAT will be the catalyst and apex of an emergent, highly-distributed, virtual global wheat innovation network. It will couple discovery science in advanced research institues with national research and extemsion programs in service of the poor in developing countries. WHEAT will pursue 10 "Strategic initiatives" that build on each other to prioritize, desing, validate and disseminate WHEAT technologies. |
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