Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a global partnership established in 1971, dedicated to enhancing agricultural research to address challenges related to food security, particularly in developing countries. CGIAR collaborates with a network of research centers around the world, focusing on sustainable agricultural practices to mitigate the impacts of climate change on crops and livestock. The organization supports scientists in providing essential resources, such as information, technology, and seeds, aimed at improving agricultural resilience in the face of extreme weather patterns and shifting climate conditions.
With offices in fifteen countries, CGIAR employs approximately 1,000 researchers and 7,000 staff members who work on a variety of agricultural issues, including staple crops like wheat, rice, and maize, along with forestry and fisheries. The organization emphasizes the importance of biodiversity conservation through gene banks, which preserve significant genetic material from agricultural resources to safeguard against potential extinctions due to climate change. CGIAR also addresses water management strategies, helping farmers adapt to changing precipitation patterns and promoting practices that can mitigate environmental degradation.
Through its research, CGIAR has developed innovative solutions such as drought-resistant crop varieties and sustainable farming techniques, aiming to ensure food availability and improve the livelihoods of farmers globally. The organization continues to adapt its research priorities to respond to emerging threats, like global warming, thereby playing a crucial role in the intersection of agriculture and climate resilience.
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
DATE: Established 1971
Mission
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) supports scientific projects at affiliated centers worldwide to address concerns regarding the detrimental impacts of extreme temperatures, altered precipitation cycles, and other erratic climatic factors on crops and livestock. The CGIAR oversees scientists’ efforts to provide information, technology, seeds, plants, and resources to assist farmers, especially in developing countries. Prior to CGIAR, researchers had independently conducted plant-breeding projects to ease famines, working at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.
Interested in centralizing their efforts, representatives of those research centers and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Development Programme (UNDP) met at the World Bank at Washington, DC, in May 1971, to establish the CGIAR. By 2024, CGIAR had offices in fifteen countries, including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Approximately one thousand researchers and seven thousand staffers pursued sustainable agricultural methods at centers for staple crops, such as wheat, rice, and maize; forestry; fisheries; and livestock. Several centers focused on agriculture in deserts or the tropics. Some centers specialized in such issues as food policy research, genetic resources, and water waste management. An alliance of governmental, public, and private groups funds the CGIAR’s programs.
The CGIAR promotes scientific methods to cultivate and protect ample, nutritious food supplies and ease impoverishment in developing countries for both producers and consumers of agricultural goods. That group encourages researchers to preserve natural resources against pollution and other threats. The CGIAR hosts an annual conference, issues publications, and distributes information electronically on the Internet. CGIAR leaders adjust their research goals in response to urgent problems, such as global warming, that threaten to disrupt agriculture.
Significance for Climate Change
The CGIAR emphasizes preparation to sustain agriculture against global warming. Since the organization’s creation, CGIAR representatives have recognized the influence of weather upon agriculture, which is vulnerable to variations in temperature and precipitation. In the late twentieth century, the CGIAR stressed the dangers that changing climates posed to agriculture, particularly crops and livestock raised in developing countries. CGIAR centers initiated research to counter the detrimental impact of global warming on agriculture, highlighting the need for plants and livestock that can survive climate fluctuations. Scientists explained how increased temperatures and excess or insufficient precipitation can alter crop growth patterns and seasons by hindering and pollination. Increased knowledge regarding climate changes enabled people, ranging from agriculturists to government officials, to plan strategies and policies, using CGIAR resources to deal with global warming.
CGIAR scientists compile agricultural, demographic, climatic, and socioeconomic data relevant to areas being studied in order to simulate with computer models possible future conditions as climates change. Geographical-information-system (GIS) maps enhance this modeling. CGIAR researchers have used computer modeling to determine that wheat and maize crops are particularly at risk as the twenty-first century progresses. Models prepared through 2055 indicated that maize yields could decrease by 10 percent in developing countries without intervention. Also, temperature increases may cause maize cultivation to shift to highlands. The CGIAR study “Can Wheat Beat the Heat?” stated that India might lose 51 percent of its wheat fields by the mid-twentieth century. Scientists hypothesized warming climates could impede frost, enabling farmers to grow wheat near the Arctic Circle.
CGIAR research centers pursued genetic engineering in the 1970s to create more compatible and productive plants for famine-stricken countries. Changing climates resulted in revised efforts to make plants more resilient to temperature changes in air and soil and to inconsistent precipitation conditions. CGIAR scientists identified wild species of plants that exhibited resistance to heat, pests, diseases, salt, drought, or flood and evaluated samples to understand physiologically why some species are more tolerant than others. Scientists isolated genes associated with traits resistant to climate change in order to bioengineer stronger varieties of traditional crops and livestock or create hybrids for altered climates. Often, researchers determined that several genes in combination were linked to resistance to specific climate changes.
The CGIAR’s successes have included the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Syria, which used wild Hordeum spontaneum to create drought-resistant barley. The IRRI produced rice resistant to high temperatures and flooding, submerging plants for several weeks and studying leaf evaporation processes to reduce temperatures. CGIAR researchers examined how to achieve successful maize pollination during drought conditions. They designed maize that grew bigger ears with more kernels than previous types.
Global warming is a catalyst for migration of some wild plant species to ecosystems where they are considered exotic. In their new habitats, these species compete for resources, crowding established species and detrimentally affecting cultivated crops. Climate change also causes insects and diseases to move to new areas, and the CGIAR has conducted research to assess how these invaders affect agriculture and how they might be controlled. When El Niño altered Peru’s climate during the late 1990s, a previously unknown blight fungus attacked potato crops. The CGIAR’s International Potato Center developed a hybrid that resisted blight, and it distributed those hybrid plants to farmers.
Promoting biodiversity, the CGIAR includes gene banks at its centers to preserve genetic material from agricultural resources worldwide, because computer models have indicated that many wild and domestic plant species may become extinct as a result of climate changes. Scientists estimate that one-fourth to one-half of all plant species could be extinct by 2055. CGIAR gene banks store millions of plant specimens, assuring that diverse agricultural crops from varied geographical locations will survive despite climate-provoked losses.
CGIAR scientists hypothesize 67 percent of people worldwide will experience water shortages by 2050, because changing climates will alter precipitation and melt glaciers, affecting long-term water supplies. CGIAR researchers develop water management techniques for arid locations, including techniques for storing precipitation and irrigating land. CGIAR representatives teach agriculturists techniques for dealing with inconsistent precipitation, such as applying phosphorus fertilizers to increase plants’ root growth, allowing the roots to reach subsoil water. CGIAR workers also suggest agricultural adjustments to respond to depleted or eroded soil caused by climate changes. The CGIAR encourages farmers to diversify, planting alternative crops to counter climate impacts on their production and marketing possibilities.
CGIAR researchers note that some developing countries’ agricultural methods, particularly the clearing of forests for fields, contribute to climate change. The CGIAR seeks ways to control global warming by urging farmers to use such agricultural techniques as limiting tillage manipulation of fields in order to retain carbon in soils. Center representatives educate agriculturists regarding forest management and biofuels, emphasizing the need to minimize emissions.
Bibliography
Ceccarelli, Salvatore, et al. “Breeding for Drought Resistance in a Changing Climate.” In Challenges and Strategies for Dryland Agriculture, edited by Srinivas C. Rao and John Ryan. Madison, Wisc.: Crop Science Society of America, 2004.
Fuccillo, Dominic, Linda Sears, and Paul Stapleton, eds. Biodiversity in Trust: Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources in CGIAR Centres. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Lele, Uma J. The CGIAR at Thirty-One: An Independent Meta-evaluation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2004.
Stapleton, Suzanne C. "More than the Sum of Its Parts: The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, CGIAR (https://www.cgiar.org/)."Journal of Agricultural & Food Information, vol. 23, no. 23-24, 22 June 2023, doi.org/10.1080/10496505.2023.2225247. Accessed 17 Dec. 2024.
Varma, Surendra, and Mark Winslow. Healing Wounds: How the International Centers of the CGIAR Help Rebuild Agriculture in Countries Affected by Conflicts and Natural Disasters. Washington, D.C.: CGIAR, 2005.