UF/IFAS Researcher To Lead $1 Million Study To Increase Global Wheat Production

 

 

A University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher will lead a nearly $1 million project to increase worldwide wheat yield potential to help feed an anticipated 9.5 billion people globally by the year 2050.

 

To do this, Md Ali Babar, a UF/IFAS agronomy assistant professor and his team of researchers, hope to increase the harvest index from 45 to 60 percent, which translates to much more wheat. The harvest index quantifies a crop’s yield versus the amount of biomass – shoots and roots – that it produces.

 

“This will increase wheat yield and improve food security for a growing population,” Babar said.

 

Wheat, grown on more than 538 million acres globally, is one of the three most important cereal crops in the world, according to Babar. The other two are rice and corn. But wheat yield must be doubled in the next 30 years “to avert a major food crisis,” he said. To achieve food security in the next 30-plus years, wheat yields need to increase by 1.8 percent per year. Currently, yields are only increasing 0.9 percent annually.

 

Babar cites the so-called “Green Revolution” of the 1970s in explaining how and why his research group hopes to increase wheat production. In the 1970s, scientists increased the harvest index. That resulted in a huge yield increase and saved millions of people’s lives. However, research shows the wheat harvest index didn’t increase much in recent history.

 

That’s why Babar and his collaborators are adopting an integrated research approach involving varieties developed by U.S. and Mexican wheat breeders. In those varieties, Babar and his colleagues will evaluate traits related to the harvest index, hoping to eventually produce more wheat.

 

Babar will work with scientists from the International Corn and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico, the University of Nottingham in England and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

The researchers are expected to develop a specific structure of wheat plants so they can separate more biomass genes, which they hope will add up to much more wheat globally.

 

They have received $250,000 for the first year of a three-year grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. NIFA officials have told Babar that he and his team will receive $920,000 based upon continued progress in the research and funding.

 

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.