‘Climate change won’t get the better of me’
Climate change is putting pressure on food production worldwide. A visit to Kenya shows how improved crop varieties are safeguarding harvests. Through the Crops to End Hunger initiative, GIZ has made research stations fit for the future.
For farmer Josefine James, every harvest is a little victory. Walking through her field of maize, the plants rustle as she pushes the leaves aside. She bends a stalk down towards her and breaks off an ear. The kernels are hard and shiny – a sign that it’s time to harvest.
The Kenyan has been farming these fields – a total of 2.4 hectares – for 25 years. Her harvests are at risk from pests and unreliable rainy seasons. A single poor decision when selecting varieties could cost her an entire season’s yield. The smallholder is all too aware of the risks. And climate change has exacerbated them.
Climate change and food security
James’ experiences are reflected in warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: climate change is threatening global food security. A US study has concluded that climate change has now cut global wheat and maize yields by ten and four per cent respectively – compared to a scenario without climate change.
‘Climate change won’t get the better of me,’ says Josefine James, who is prioritising adapted crops. The 49-year-old not only grows maize, beans and pigeon peas for her own use and for sale, she is also helping to bring new research varieties into the fields. James is a lead farmer in south-eastern Kenya.
From research station to the field
The area is home to a research station run by KALRO, the Kenyan Government’s agricultural research organisation, with which James works closely. She takes part in training courses and is often among the first to trial new varieties. The smallholder says she tests at least three maize varieties every season.
The Kiboko Research Facility is one of the sites where the varieties James is testing were developed. Experts here breed maize and other crops for East Africa. ‘Kiboko is a very dry area,’ says Aparna Das, who coordinates the global maize breeding programme at CIMMYT. CIMMYT is one of 15 agricultural research centres within CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), the international agricultural research network for a food-secure future. Kiboko was chosen as a breeding centre precisely because of its dry conditions. ‘Normally, everything here is irrigated. But for a drought trial, we turn off the water, just as would happen in nature. And then we see which plants survive the drought.’
Research for the future
At the research station, plant breeding and seed research is conducted by several partner institutions, including CGIAR and KALRO. However, the researchers are not alone in deciding which varieties are bred. With the help of workshops involving seed companies and traders, as well as surveys conducted with farms and consumers, the two organisations are able to determine what characteristics a new variety should possess for a particular region – from early-maturing varieties to those that are resistant to specific diseases or pests. As plant breeding can take several years, the researchers must also take future challenges into account: ‘We’re trying to anticipate what climate change may have in store for us in the years ahead,’ says Aparna Das.
To ensure that research stations are well-equipped for this work, GIZ – on behalf of BMZ – improved infrastructure and efficient processes on crop fields between 2023 and 2025. As part of the Crops to End Hunger initiative, it also introduced digital tools and facilities for high-quality seed processing.
Kiboko – an example of global investment
The research station in Kiboko is a perfect example of how global investment is making a difference at the local level. In total, across 22 countries, more than 40 research facilities have been modernised, and staff have received training.
The Crops to End Hunger initiative was launched in 2019 by a number of donors. Its aim is to make public plant breeding in the Global South both state of the art and more efficient. Germany is playing an active role in this endeavour. Between 2023 and 2025, GIZ implemented a modernisation project in 22 countries on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the Fund for International Agricultural Research (FIA). These investments help plant breeders to develop improved varieties more quickly and more efficiently – for the benefit of smallholder farmers worldwide. This is the way to ensure food security in the face of climate change.
Contact: Sarah M. Schmidt
Before the modernisation programme, much of the work in Kiboko was done by hand. Seeds were sorted outdoors on tables, and watering was carried out using sprinklers, which distributed the water unevenly. This made it difficult to compare the experiments. If some plants were given more water than others, it was not possible to reliably determine which variety performed better.
As part of the modernisation programme, the entire 80-hectare trial area was converted to solar-powered drip irrigation. There were also seed drills, combine harvesters and a hall for seed processing.
Greater accuracy for less money
Aparna Das says this has made the data more accurate and the work faster. Her colleague Harish Gandhi points out that the station now processes four to five times as much breeding material as before, even though budgets for breeding programmes have been shrinking recently. The cultivation of dryland crops such as sorghum and pigeon peas only became possible thanks to investment on a larger scale.
The smallholder as role model
When the next rainy season begins, Josefine James plans to test some new varieties on her land again. That’s how she’s been doing it for years: trying things out, watching them grow, touching, tasting – and only then making a decision. Many people in her village wait to see what she grows before they try something new themselves. ‘If you’ve planted it, I’ll plant it too,’ they say. All the varieties that are bred in Kiboko eventually find their way into the fields via women farmers like James.
