USAID Budget-Slashing Hurts Green Revolution's CIMMYT Center in Mexico
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement
Center in Mexico, known by its Spanish acronym CIMMYT, is in
urgent need of funds, thanks to the insane budget-slashing
carried out by the current head of USAID Henrietta Fore.
Fore, who will attend the Rome FAO meeting as part of the
U.S. delegation, significantly cut the 2008 biotechnology budget
for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR), the entity responsible for CIMMYT's operations, and is
expected to make even deeper cuts in the 2009 budget.
This is a travesty, the repercussions of which were
explained by Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT's Director-General, in
speaking to a group of visiting Central American and Caribbean
Agriculture Ministers May 25. He urged the ministers to
"redefine" their governments' relationship to CIMMYT, by
considering direct financial support for the research "we do here
aimed at increasing food production and agricultural productivity
in Latin America."
Lumpkin noted that while attention is rightfully directed to
Africa and Asia, with their large numbers of poor, the CIMMYT's
work on improving crops such as corn, wheat, rice and potatoes is
crucial for this region. One of its key missions, he said, is to
aid poor farmers make the transition from subsistence to
commercial agriculture, which can have positive ramifications in
areas such as social justice, economic development and both
national and international food security. As one example, he
reported that CIMMYT has done extremely important research in
producing new varieties of corn and wheat that are more resistant
to high temperatures, plagues and other diseases. These
improvements allow farmers to plant more crops, using less water
and fertilizer.
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