| Abstract |
We begin our report with examples of innovative efforts to build better plants - new maize and wheat varieties with improved yield potential, greater efficiency in the use of scarce agricultural resources, and stronger built-in resistance to pests, all of which give higher and more stable yields while lowering the environmental and health risks associated with pesticides. Our stories here range from marker-assisted selection for insect resistance in maize, to work on nitrogen-use efficiency. We follow with research that both protects nature's genetic diversity and builds on it. We report on imaginative efforts to increase the diversity of bread wheat, the development of new tissue culture protocols that will eventually enable gene banks to regenerate old, apparently dead seed in their collections, and on progress toward producing apomictic (true breeding hybrid) maize, a potential boon to developing country maize farmers. The growing importance of managing plant breeding information as a strategic resource provides a third focus in this report, and we highlight three of our more recent efforts in that domain. And finally, we look at examples of creative networking, an activity that has long been an inherent part of CIMMYT's modus operandi and one that is taking on ever greater prominence as an efficient means of achieving impact in farmers' fields. One of CIMMYT's major challenges, indeed one confronting the entire Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, is to ensure an atmosphere - including a culture and appropriate physical and financial support - within which innovation can flourish. Pages 16-19 of this report present financial highlights, and there we trace funding trends of the past five years, noting consequences of declining budgets for the products and services we supply. Specialists will want to request our 1993 Audited Financial Statement for more detail. |
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