The document summarizes the progress and future plans of CIMMYT's Global Futures and Strategic Foresight team. The team has been working on several projects including quantifying the impact of improved wheat and heat-tolerant maize technologies using bioeconomic models. They have also been calibrating dynamic models to assess economy-wide impacts in Africa and Asia. Key outputs include papers submitted to journals on the impact of promising wheat technologies and drought-tolerant wheat adoption pathways. Moving forward, the team will continue developing global crop baselines and incorporating disease modeling into their work.

1. Global futures and Strategic Foresight for
wheat and maize: progress and way
forward - CIMMYT
Global Futures and Strategic Foresight for Maize and Wheat:
progress and challenges
CIMMYT Foresight Team
May 26, 2015
Rome, Italy

2. Outline
• Team members
• Progress on research activities:
– Quantification of bio-economic impact of improved
wheat technologies
– DT wheat in CWANA: do adoption pathways matter?
– Calibration of dynamic CGE models: maize- and
wheat-based systems
– Quantification of impact of heat-tolerant maize in
South Asia
– Efforts on global maize baseline modeling
– Other activities: diseases and pest modeling; IAAE;
• Way forward
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3. Global Futures and Strategic Foresight at CIMMYT
Core team
• Crop modeling (Kindie )
• Economist (Sika )
• SEP director (Olaf)
Supporting team (CRP Maize and Wheat)
 GIS analysis (Kai)
 BM Prasanna (maize breeder)
 Dan Makumbi (maize breeder)
 Jill Cairns (maize physiologist)
 Bis Das (maize breeder; pathologist)
 Tom Payne (wheat breeder)
 Marta Lopes (wheat breeder)
 Mathew Reynolds (wheat physiologist)
 Etienne Duveiller (wheat pathologist)

4. Bio-economic impact of promising
wheat technologies
• Objectives
– Model promising wheat technologies (tolerance to
drought, heat and combined heat and drought)
• Validate simulated productivity of promising technologies
with data collected by breeders in field trials
– Quantify impact of promising wheat technologies on
global food security
• Status: draft paper is in process of being written
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5. Partnerships
• Kenneth Boote – Univ of Florida (maize modeling)
• Senthold Asseng – Univ of Florida (wheat modeling)
• Daniel Mason-D'Croz – IMPACT model (IFPRI)
• Richard Robertson – spatial crop modeling (IFPRI)
• Keith Wiebe – IFPRI
• Bekele Shiferaw – Socio-economic modeling (Policy for
Economic Partnership - PEP)
• Uran Chung – cluster modeling for wheat (APEC)

6. DT wheat in CWANA: do adoption
pathways matter?
• Objective: use bio-economic model to quantify
impact of DT wheat on global food security
under various adoption pathways in CWANA
• Status: draft results were ready in November
2014 using IMPACT 2; got updated results using
IMPACT 3 (problems with calorific intake);
getting updated results using IMPACT 3.2
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7. Calibration of dynamic CGE model:
maize- and wheat-based systems
• Objective: quantify economy-wide impact of
promising technologies in maize- and wheat-
based systems in Africa and Asia
• Countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Pakistan,
India
• Status: all models have been calibrated and
baseline runs are ok; for Kenya and India,
preliminary results on impact of promising
technologies; special issue in journal

8. 8
• Increase in maize productivity:
real income of households
involved in maize activities
(farmers; etc.) and consumer
prices fall; households gain
(smaller than gain in IMPACT)
• Increase in wheat productivity:
real income gain for households
which translate into increased
consumption
• Increase in maize and wheat
productivity + decrease in
transport margin
(infrastructure): greatest impact

9. Baseline global maize production
• Efforts underway
to develop global
baseline maize
simulations:
different crop
management (e.g.,
split application of
fertilizer for rainfed
and irrigated
maize)
• Simulation against
FAOSTAT data
9
y = 0.52x + 1378.8
R² = 0.67
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
-3,000 2,000 7,000 12,000
SimulatedYield(kg/ha)
Yield from FAO (kg/ha) for major
producers
1:1

10. Other activities
• Pest and disease modeling for wheat and
maize:
– Attended February workshop (AgMIP)
– Action points: meeting on incorporating wheat
pests and diseases
• IPR review:
– Positive response from breeders and physiologists:
with maintenance research, what would be
projected productivity growth rate?
• Follow-up workshop on crop modeling:
planned for 2015; good collaboration
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11. IAAE conference
• Symposium on ‘Interpreting results from using
bio-economic modeling for global and regional
ex ante impact assessment’: accepted for IAAE
conference
• By June 2015, we’ll need to:
– Speakers: registered and paid for conference;
Cynthia, Keith, and John Antle
– Background papers are uploaded on IAAE website:
discussion paper on promising technologies
(Keith); draft presentation for Cynthia (take lead
on this)
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12. 1. Key outputs:
Papers under journal submission
• Papers under journal submission:
– Impact of promising wheat technologies
– DT wheat in vulnerable countries: do adoption
pathways matter?
– Using CGE models to assess impact of promising
maize and wheat technologies
– Impact of heat-tolerant maize in South Asia

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