US invests $40 million in Mexican agricultural research center

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson announced Wednesday that the United States volition put US $40 cardinal successful the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an cultivation probe halfway headquartered eastbound of Mexico City successful Texcoco, México state.

Johnson announced the concern successful a connection posted to societal media.

The Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is simply a planetary person successful processing high-yield wheat and maize strains, and maintains a seedbank containing astir 180,000 wheat and maize varieties. (CIMMYT)

“Food information is strategical security. For the United States, strengthening cultivation resilience, protecting proviso chains, and advancing innovation successful harvest subject are halfway nationalist priorities nether President Trump’s leadership,” helium wrote earlier announcing the concern successful CIMMYT arsenic “part of this effort.”

“… This concern reinforces American enactment successful cultivation subject portion strengthening planetary nutrient systems,” Johnson said.

According to the CIMMYT website, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center “grew retired of a aviator programme sponsored by the Mexican authorities and the Rockefeller Foundation successful the 1940s and ’50s” that was “aimed astatine raising workplace productivity successful Mexico.”

The halfway developed successful its aboriginal years nether the enactment of salient United States agronomist Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize winner considered the begetter of the Green Revolution, a play successful the mid-20th period erstwhile technological and cultivation innovation led to a important summation successful harvest yields.

Over the decades, CIMMYT scientists person developed a scope of high-yielding wheat and maize varieties. The halfway — a non-profit enactment — carries retired probe and improvement projects successful dozens of countries astir the satellite and receives backing from galore sources, including governments and backstage companies.

In his statement, Johnson wrote that “nearly 60 percent of U.S. wheat acreage benefits from CIMMYT-derived varieties, strengthening productivity, clime resistance, and marketplace stability.”

In 2024, CIMMYT’s erstwhile caput of planetary wheat improvement, Ravi Singh, told Mexico News Daily that the halfway has developed wheat varieties that thrive successful countries each implicit the satellite and which are resistant to deadly illness pathogens.

“Even though you are successful Mexico, you tin make precise competitory materials for geographies similar Australia, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, … the Ethiopian highlands, … adjacent Nigeria,” helium said.

He near India for Mexico to lick planetary hunger: Meet Ravi Singh

CIMMYT welcomes backing announcement 

In a statement, CIMMYT said it “welcomed an grant of $40 cardinal from the U.S. Government to beforehand planetary nutrient security, fortify cultivation resilience, and reenforce unfastened technological collaboration.”

The halfway said the backing “will fortify captious platforms crossed CIMMYT’s probe portfolio,” including improvement of drought- and heat-tolerant maize and wheat varieties; conservation and usage of captious familial resources; improvement of integer and data-driven cultivation tools; and improvement of aboriginal informing and planetary surveillance systems that safeguard crops from emerging pests and diseases.

CIMMYT said that “for much than 80 years, the United States and Mexico, unneurotic with backstage philanthropies and planetary partners, person supported collaborative cultivation probe that transformed planetary nutrient production.”

“This renewed concern builds connected that bequest and underscores the shared knowing that resilient nutrient systems are indispensable to economical stability, nationalist security, and planetary prosperity,” the halfway said.

Johnson: ‘Innovation successful nutrient systems’ strengthens some Mexico and US 

In his statement, Johnson described the United States and Mexico arsenic “agricultural powers with profoundly integrated markets,” and said that they “recognize that innovation successful nutrient systems strengthens some our nations and contributes to broader determination stability.”

“CIMMYT’s beingness successful Mexico reflects decades of technological collaboration,” helium wrote.

In announcing the investment, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said nutrient strategy innovation “strengthens some our nations and contributes to broader determination stability.” (U.S. Embassy)

The ambassador said that nether the enactment of Trump and President Claudia Sheinbaum, bilateral practice “continues to grow crossed captious sectors, delivering tangible benefits for the radical of Mexico.”

Those benefits, Johnson wrote, see “access to improved wheat varieties with higher yields and stronger absorption to pests, illness and utmost weather” arsenic good arsenic “protection of Mexico’s maize biodiversity done enactment for 1 of the world’s largest cistron banks.”

CIMMYT’s cistron slope includes good implicit 100,000 wheat accessions arsenic good arsenic immoderate 28,000 maize accessions. In caller years, Mexico has taken a scope of steps to support autochthonal maize species, including by modifying the Constitution to prohibition the cultivation of genetically modified corn.

Johnson said that 2 different benefits of bilateral practice successful agriculture are “reduced fertilizer dependency done improved agronomic practices” and “expanded probe trials and innovation hubs crossed Mexico” that lend to higher “farmer productivity, boosting incomes, and supporting occupation instauration successful agrarian communities.”

“By starring successful this abstraction and deepening collaboration with trusted partners similar Mexico, we reenforce our ain resilience and grow our shared prosperity,” the ambassador added.

With reports from El País and El Universal