Getting a crucial cereal back on track to feed the world
The demand for wheat
Globally, wheat is the most important staple crop. It provides 20% of daily calories and protein. Due to population growth and changing diets, wheat demand is expected to increase by 60% by 2050. To meet this demand, wheat yield needs to increase by at least 1.7% every year. For some time now, it has been below 1%. The gap is getting bigger and bigger.
In 2014, this urgent global need motivated a wide range of agricultural research funders to form the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP). We are a founding member.
What's needed to turn plant research results into real impact? See what crop improvement experts say in this 2019 article.
About the IWYP
IWYP is a novel funding and coordination partnership. It brings together research funders, international aid agencies, foundations, companies, and major wheat research organizations. Together, they aim to help raise wheat’s yield potential by up to 50% over the next 20 years. Increasing yield is one of the key aims of the Wheat Initiative (see separate box).
Read the IWYP Report 2019-20.
Here is our March 2020 IWYP backgrounder.
In April 2020, the partnership began a series of Science Briefs.
Here is a one-page summary of the 2018-19 Report.
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In 2015, the IWYP's first competitive funding call invited "creative, forward-looking proposals ... to substantially increase ... grain yield under the absence of stress". Here is the press release about the grant recommendations. The eight selected projects cover a wide range of research topics.
The partnership anticipates that wheat yield potential can be enhanced by:
- Increasing carbon capture before flowering
- Optimizing plant architecture; modifying flowering time
- Increasing biomass
- Optimizing harvest index
For further media announcements, presentations, etc., see https://iwyp.org/media/.
The Wheat Initiative
In 2011, "G20" agriculture ministers agreed on an international initiative to coordinate research. This Wheat Initiative focuses on genetics, genomics, physiology, breeding, and agronomy. Public and private partners share resources, capabilities, data, and ideas to improve wheat productivity, quality, and sustainable production worldwide.
A key Wheat Initiative aim is to increase yield.
Among the creators of IWYP are the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Mexican Agriculture Secretariat and USAID.
Over the first five years, the growing list of partners aims to invest up to US$100 million in wheat research.