晚餐吃什么？
这是一个世界各地的家庭每天都在问的问题。为了确保每户人家——特别是最贫穷的家庭——都能回答上这个问题，世界最大的全球农业研究组织CGIAR比其他任何机构都做了更多的工作。
50多年前，CGIAR发起“绿色革命”，对高产、抗病水稻和小麦进行研究，让超过10亿人免于饥饿。自那时起，他们便在从牲畜土豆到大米玉米的各个领域开展工作，以帮助减少贫困，增强粮食安全和改善营养。
从没听说过CGIAR？并不只有你这样。这是一个很难获得品牌认知度的组织。首先，它的名字经常被误认作“cigar”（雪茄），以为跟烟草业有什么联系。其次，CGIAR不是一个单一的组织，而是一个由15个独立研究中心组成的网络，它们中的大多数都有各自令人困惑的缩写，包括CIFOR（国际林业研究中心），ICARDA（国际干旱区农业研究中心），CIAT（热带农业国际中心），ICRISAT（国际半干旱热带作物研究所），IFPRI（国际食物政策研究所），IITA（国际热带农业研究所），ILRI（国际家畜研究所），CIMMYT（国际玉米小麦改良中心），CIP（国际马铃薯中心），IRRI（国际水稻研究所），IWMI（国际水资源管理所）和 ICRAF（世界混农林业中心），让不知情的人感觉他们好像掉进了一碗字母汤里。
很遗憾，更多的人不知道CGIAR。它们的工作是喂饱我们这个饥饿的星球，这在现在和以前都同样重要。到2050年，随着世界人口数变大和收入增加（这会导致饮食习惯的改变，比如吃更多的肉），全球粮食需求预计将增加60%。气候变化正在影响全球每个角落的粮食生产，这使得应对这一挑战变得更加艰难。农民正在遭受各种打击，包括不断变化的雨水、更加频繁和极端的干旱和洪水，以及农作物和牲畜中爆发的严重虫害和疾病。
今天，世界上受这些变化影响最大的是小农户。在南非和撒哈拉以南非洲，有大约5亿农业家庭以在小块土地上种植庄稼和饲养牲畜为生。为了应对气候变暖带来的诸多影响，这些家庭能够使用的资源最少。
今年我写了很多文章，解释为什么减少包括农业和电力行业在内的各个经济部门的排放量，对于应对气候变化至关重要。但同样重要的是，世界应该继续关注帮助弱势群体（如小农户），为气候变化的破坏性影响做好准备。这是我们应当做的。那些受气候变化影响最大的人，尤其是生活在撒哈拉以南非洲的人，排放了最少的温室气体。根据非洲发展委员会（Africa Progress Panel）的报告，平均来说，一个的埃塞俄比亚人要活240年才能赶上一个美国人的碳排放量。
我现在是新成立的全球适应委员会（Global Commission on Adaptation）的联合主席，该委员会正在扮演关键的角色，使得减少气候变化对风险最大社区影响的举措，能够得到政府和公众的支持。我们将需要CGIAR的研究，为农民提供一系列稳定的气候智能型作物品种。
CGIAR利用创新来帮助小农户适应气候变化的一个好例子是耐旱玉米项目。在撒哈拉以南非洲，有超过2亿的家庭靠玉米为生。非洲的玉米生产力已经是世界上最低的了。随着气候变得越来越不稳定，农民们面临着玉米收成减少的风险，有时甚至颗粒无收。
为了应对这一挑战，在我们的基金会、美国国际开发署（USAID）和霍华德·巴菲特基金会（Howard Buffet Foundation）的资助下，CGIAR的国际玉米小麦改良中心（CIMMYT）开发了150多个能够抵御旱情的玉米新品种。每个品种都经过改良，能够在非洲特定地区生长。起初，比起更普遍种植的品种，许多小农户害怕尝试新的农作物品种。 但随着CIMMYT与当地农民和种子经销商开展合作，分享这些新品种的好处，越来越多的农民选择了耐旱玉米。其结果改变了许多农户的生活。
例如在津巴布韦的旱灾区，农民们使用耐旱玉米，能比使用传统品种每公顷多收获600公斤玉米。额外的收成足够一家六口吃9个月。对于那些选择出售收成的农户来说，这相当于240美元的额外收入，这给了他们亟需的现金，可以送孩子上学和满足其他家庭需要。
国际玉米小麦改良中心与CGIAR的另一个中心——国际热带农业研究所（IITA）合作，继续为那些不仅易受干旱影响，而且易受贫瘠土壤、疾病、虫害和杂草影响的农民开发其他玉米品种。这些品种有望帮助农民们提高30%的产量，帮助他们对抗营养不良。
CGIAR在世界各地有超过8,000名科学家和其他工作人员组成的团队，他们也在开发其他工具，帮助农民适应不可预测的天气和疾病。他们开发了一款智能手机应用程序，农民可以通过手机上的摄像头，识别攻击非洲重要经济作物木薯的害虫和疾病。还有一些新项目利用无人机和地面传感器，帮助种植小麦和甘蔗的农民确定他们的作物需要多少水和肥料。
我们需要许多这样的新想法来帮助农民做好准备，迎接气候变化带来的挑战。如果我们能够做到这一点，那么在未来的岁月里，我们就都能回答“晚餐吃什么”这个问题了。
You’ve probably never heard of CGIAR, but they are essential to feeding our future
What’s for dinner?
It’s a question asked every day in homes around the world. No other organization has done as much to ensure families—especially the poorest—have an answer to that question as CGIAR, the world’s largest global agricultural research organization.
More than 50 years ago, CGIAR’s research into high-yielding, disease-resistant maize and wheat launched the Green Revolution, saving more than a billion people from starvation. In the years since then, their work on everything from livestock and potatoes to rice and wheat has helped reduce poverty, increase food security, and improve nutrition.
Never heard of CGIAR? You’re not alone. It’s an organization that defies easy brand recognition. For starters, its name is often mistaken for “cigar,” suggesting a link to the tobacco industry. And it doesn’t help that CGIAR is not a single organization, but a network of 15 independent research centers, most referred to by their own confusing acronyms. The list includes CIFOR, ICARDA, CIAT, ICRISAT, IFPRI, IITA, ILRI, CIMMYT, CIP, IRRI, IWMI, and ICRAF, leaving the uninitiated feeling as if they’ve fallen into a bowl of alphabet soup.
It’s too bad that more people don’t know about CGIAR. Their work to feed our hungry planet is as important now as it’s ever been. By 2050, as the world’s population gets bigger and incomes increase (which causes dietary changes like eating more meat), global food demand is expected to increase by 60 percent. Meeting this challenge is made tougher by climate change, which is affecting food production in every corner of the globe. Farmers are under assault from shifting rainfall, more frequent and extreme droughts and floods, and severe pest and disease outbreaks among crops and livestock.
The people who are most affected by these changes today are the world’s smallholder farmers. About 500 million farming households, in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, earn their living by raising crops and livestock on small parcels of land. These families have the fewest resources to cope with the many impacts of a warming climate.
I’ve been writing a lot this year about why reducing emissions from all sectors of our economy, including agriculture and electricity generation, is critical in our fight against climate change. But it’s equally important for the world to stay focused on helping vulnerable populations, like smallholder farmers, prepare for the disruptive impacts of climate change. We owe it to them. The people who will suffer most from climate change, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are the least responsible for emitting these greenhouse gases. According to an Africa Progress Panel report, an average Ethiopian would have to live for 240 years to equal the carbon footprint of the average American.
I’m now co-chairing the new Global Commission on Adaptation, which is playing a key role in building government and public support for efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change on communities most at risk. We will need CGIAR’s research to help supply farmers with a steady stream of climate-smart crop varieties.
A great example of a CGIAR innovation helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change is its drought-tolerant maize program. More than 200 million households in sub-Saharan Africa depend on maize for their livelihoods. Maize productivity in Africa is already the lowest in the world. And as weather patterns have become more erratic, farmers are at greater risk of having smaller maize harvests, and sometimes no harvest at all.
In response to this challenge, CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center or CIMMYT, with funding from our foundation, USAID and the Howard Buffett Foundation, developed more than 150 new maize varieties that could withstand drought conditions. Each variety is adapted to grow in specific regions of Africa. At first, many smallholder farmers were afraid of trying new crop varieties instead of more commonly planted ones. But as CIMMYT worked with local farmers and seed dealers to share the benefits of these new varieties, more and more farmers adopted drought tolerant maize. The results have been life changing for many farming families.
In Zimbabwe, for example, farmers in drought-stricken areas using drought-tolerant maize were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare than farmers using conventional varieties. The additional harvest was enough to feed a family of six for 9 months. For farming families who chose to sell their harvests, it was worth $240 in extra income, giving them much-needed cash to send their children to school and meet other household needs.
CIMMYT, in partnership with another CGIAR center, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture or IITA, has gone on to develop other maize varieties for farmers who are not only vulnerable to drought, but also poor soils, disease, pests, and weeds. These varieties are expected to give farmers up to 30 percent greater yields and help them fight malnutrition.
CGIAR’s team of more than 8,000 scientists and staff around the world are also developing other tools to help famers adapt to unpredictable weather and diseases. They have created a smart phone app that allows farmers to use the camera on their phone to identify specific pests and disease attacking cassava, an important cash crop in Africa. There are also new programs to use drones and ground sensors to help wheat and sugarcane farmers determine how much water and fertilizer their crops need.
We will need many new ideas like these to help farmers be prepared to meet the challenges of our changing climate. If they are, we will all have an answer to the question “What’s for dinner?” for years to come.
