About

Bram Govaerts is the Director General a.i. (Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer) of CIMMYT, specializing in bioscience engineering and soil science. He is renowned for pioneering, implementing, and inspiring transformational changes for farmers and consumers, with a focus on meeting sustainable development challenges in agri-food systems. Govaerts brings together multi-disciplinary teams to stimulate change through multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral strategies, leading to improved nutrition, nature conservation, and resilience at both national and international levels. His leadership in scientific and development initiatives has fostered novel collaborations and contributed to food security and rural livelihoods. Govaerts has defined an integrated approach toward excellence in science for impact, emphasizing capacity building and the integration of academic research with practical practices developed by real-world organizations. He is recognized as a major innovator in the agro-sustainability movement, embracing modern practices while incorporating traditional farmer knowledge worldwide. His efforts aim to transform subsistence agriculture and failed farming systems into productive, sustainable units, with a focus on small, rural farms. Govaerts has co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications, is a member of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and serves as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. He is also an independent board member of Grupo CERES and its subsidiaries. His work has been recognized with awards such as the Norman Borlaug Field Award in 2014 and election as a Fellow by The American Society of Agronomy in 2020.

Research topics

• Business
• Economics
• Geography
• Natural resource economics
• Agricultural economics
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Environmental science
• Marketing
• Agroforestry
• Agricultural science
• Ecology
• Economic growth
• Knowledge management

Selected publications

• The Fungal and Protist Community as Affected by Tillage, Crop Residue Burning and N Fertilizer Application

  Current Microbiology · 2025-02-19 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  The bacterial community in soil is often affected by agricultural practices, but how they affect protists and fungi is less documented. Soil from treatments that combined different N fertilizer application rates, tillage and crop residue management was sampled from a field trial started by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) at the 'Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug' (CENEB) in the Yaqui Valley in the northwest of Mexico in the early 1990s, and the fungal and protist community determined. Tillage, residue burning, and N fertilizer application had no significant effect on the fungal and protists alpha diversity expressed as Hill numbers and no significant effect on the fungal and protist community structure considering all species. The relative abundance of plant pathogens and undefined saprotrophs as determined with FUNGuildR increased significantly with tillage, while that of dung-plant and dung-soil saprotroph, and plant pathogens by burning (P < 0.05). It was found that the protists and fungal community structures were not altered by different agricultural practices, but some fungal guilds were, i.e., plant pathogens and saprotrophs, which might affect soil organic matter decomposition, nutrient cycling and crop growth.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Young maize plants impact the bacterial community in Australian cotton‐sown vertisol more than agricultural practices

  Environmental Microbiology Reports · 2025-04-30 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Changes in soil characteristics due to varying farming practices can modify the structure of bacterial communities. However, it remains uncertain whether bacterial groups that break down organic material are similarly impacted. We examined changes in the bacterial community by pyrosequencing the 16S rRNA gene when young maize plants, their neutral detergent fibre fraction, or urea were applied to an Australian Vertisol. This soil was managed with either conventional tillage with continuous cotton, minimum tillage with continuous cotton, or a wheat-cotton rotation. The soil organic carbon content was 1.4 times higher in the wheat-cotton rotation than in the conventional tillage with continuous cotton treatment. Approximately 41.6% of the organic carbon was added with maize plants, and 13.1% of the neutral detergent fibre fraction was mineralized after 28 days. The application of young maize plants and the neutral detergent fibre fraction significantly altered the bacterial community and the presumed metabolic functional structure, but urea did not. Many bacterial groups, such as Streptomyces, Nocardioides, and Kribbella, and presumed metabolic functions were enriched by the application of organic material, but less so by urea. We found that a limited number of bacterial groups and presumed metabolic functions were affected in an irrigated Vertisol by the different cotton farming systems, but many were strongly affected by the application of maize plants or its neutral detergent fibre.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A decade of on-farm data about improved cereal and legume cropping in Mexico

  Scientific Data · 2025-11-28

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This data descriptor presents a decade-long agronomic dataset collected between 2012 and 2022 by extension agents across Mexico as part of CIMMYT's on-farm experimentation network. Extension agents used a unified digital logbook platform (BEM, later e-Agrology) to record agronomic activities, farm operations, and results. After multi-stage cleaning and validation, the dataset comprises 69,008 logbooks from 10,763 innovation plots testing new technologies, 10,305 control plots under conventional management, and 47,940 extension plots adopting sustainable practices. Key variables cover crop management (including sowing and harvest dates), resource use (including inputs, fuel and labor), activity costs, market prices, and yields for maize (Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), wheat (Triticum aestivum, Triticum durum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), and barley (Hordeum vulgare). Spanning diverse agroecologies and farm sizes, this open-access resource enables analyses of long-term productivity trends, cost-benefit relationships, input-output efficiencies, and climate-related performance. By providing harmonized, field-level data across multiple management scenarios, it can be used to derive valuable insights for researchers, extension services, and policymakers to develop optimized agronomic recommendations and sustainable intensification strategies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Archaeal and Bacterial Response to a Severe Pulse Disturbance: A Shotgun Metagenomic Study

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Quantifying the adoption of conservation agriculture: Development and application of the Conservation Agriculture Appraisal Index

  Agricultural Systems · 2024-08-17 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Estimates of conservation agriculture (CA) adoption vary worldwide because of a lack of a standardized methodology to quantify the simultaneous utilization of its core principles of minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil organic cover and crop diversification. Comparisons of CA adoption among farms across regions requires estimation of the farm area and cropping season where CA principles are applied. To develop the Conservation Agriculture Appraisal Index (CAAI) as a standardized conceptual framework with defined thresholds that indicates the intensity and frequency of use of each CA core principle. CAAI was subsequently applied to quantify CA adoption on farms across four wheat ( triticum aestivum ) growing regions, both with and without livestock, including dryland and irrigated systems in Australia and Mexico, respectively. CAAI is a continuous scoring system that estimates the intensity and frequency of application of the core principles and their concurrent utilization to assess the extent of CA adoption. CAAI score is the sum of the scores of each core principle, accounting for the percentage of the farm area and cropping season where CA is applied. CAAI emerged from semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and farm visits that captured underlying patterns of CA use in regional-specific contexts. CAAI assessed annual CA adoption on 100 farms in four wheat growing regions with different environments and farming systems. The adoption of CA was higher in Australia than Mexico, where partial adoption was more prevalent, especially for summer crops. ‘No adoption’ of CA occurred when one of the core principles consistently scored zero within a year. The CAAI can be used as a benchmarking research tool at the farm level to standardize units for comparisons and identify levels of CA adoption by farm area and cropping seasons between and across regions. • Estimates of conservation agriculture (CA) adoption vary worldwide because of a lack of standardized methodology. • The novel CA Appraisal Index (CAAI) quantifies concurrent adoption of core CA principles across farm area and cropping seasons. • The CAAI defines thresholds that determines the intensity of utilization of the core CA principles. • CAAI was successfully applied to cropping regions in Australia and Mexico to estimate annual CA adoption. • CAAI can be used as a benchmarking research tool for an appraisal of CA adoption at the farm level.

  PublisherDOI

• Spatially differentiated nitrogen supply is key in a global food–fertilizer price crisis

  Nature Sustainability · 2023-06-29 · 74 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract A regional geopolitical conflict and sudden massive supply disruptions have revealed vulnerabilities in our global fuel–fertilizer–food nexus. As nitrogen (N) fertilizer price spikes threaten food security, differentiated responses are required to maintain staple cereal yields across over- and underfertilized agricultural systems. Through integrated management of organic and inorganic N sources in high- to low-input cereal production systems, we estimate potential total N-fertilizer savings of 11% in India, 49% in Ethiopia and 44% in Malawi. Shifting to more cost-effective, high-N fertilizer (such as urea), combined with compost and integration of legumes, can optimize N in N-deficient systems. Better targeted and more efficient N-fertilizer use will benefit systems with surplus N. Geospatially differentiated fertilization strategies should prioritize high-N fertilizer supply to low-yield, N-deficient locations and balanced fertilization of N, P, K and micronutrients in high-yield systems. Nationally, governments can invest in extension and realign subsidies to enable and incentivize improved N management at the farm level.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Quantifying the Adoption of Conservation Agriculture: Development and Validation of the Conservation Agriculture Appraisal Index

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The contribution of strong and weak ties to resilience: The case of small-scale maize farming systems in Mexico

  Agricultural Systems · 2023-07-18 · 16 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The relevance of social interactions (social ties) to farming systems' resilience is widely recognized. However, controversies exist around the contribution that farmers interacting with external actors (weak/bridging ties) versus with other farmers (strong/bonding ties) have in their resilience strategies through innovation. Farmers use different strategies to respond to their farming systems and contexts' particularities. Comparing the contribution of both strong and weak ties in different farming systems brings variety in resilience strategies. To generate evidence of the complementary contribution of social ties to resilience by comparing indexes associated with strong and weak ties from innovation networks of different farm types. This paper applies an ego-centric social network analysis to farm units characterized by a farm typology to compare their strong/bonding and weak/binding ties contribution to innovation networks. It uses data from 29,796 farm units of maize smallholders in different regions from Central and Southern Mexico covering the gradient from commercial to subsistence farming. The analysis estimates two indexes based on actors' similarity/dissimilarity, that are External and Internal and Specialization Indexes. Our findings quantify differential contributions of strong versus weak ties to resilience strategies associated with innovation networks among different types of small-scale maize farmers. They demonstrate how differences among five farm types regarding farm resources access, maize production systems and farmers' social attributes influence their innovation networks. A gradient exists between farm types in their innovation network indexes regarding the contribution of strong versus weak ties. Commercial farmers, as the winners of the modernization process, have better access to resources and establish a wider variety of relationships with weak ties. However, interactions with other farmers are essential for technology adoption. In contrast, weak ties represented by institutions have a minor participation in innovation networks of diversified income and subsistence farm units. Strong ties dominate these farm types producing maize for consumption as part of their persistence strategies. Low-mechanized and elder family farm types, affected by geographic remoteness and population ageing processes, represent intermediate points in the gradient of farm resources and network indexes. Jointly farm typology and social network approaches open new avenues to enhance farming system resilience. These approaches show how farmers establish their social interactions for innovation, creating specific combinations of strong and weak ties that are farm type specific. Diverse resilience strategies appear from these combinations involving not only adaptation but also persistence strategies that require further exploration.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How to Make a Smartphone-Based App for Agricultural Advice Attractive: Insights from a Choice Experiment in Mexico

  Agronomy · 2022-03-12 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Mobile phone apps can be a cost-effective way to provide decision support to farmers, and they can support the collection of agricultural data. The digitisation of agricultural systems, and the efforts to close the digital divide and to include smallholders, make data ownership and privacy issues more relevant than ever before. In Central and South American countries, smallholders’ preferences regarding data licenses and sharing have largely been ignored, and little attention has been paid to the potential of nonfinancial incentives to increase the uptake of digital solutions and participation by farmers. To investigate incentives for smallholder farmers to potentially use an agricultural advisory app in which they share their data, a Discrete Choice Experiment was designed. Based on a survey of 392 farmers in Mexico, preferences for attributes related to its usage were revealed using a conditional logit (CL) model. To explore heterogeneity, groups and profiles were explored through a latent class (LC) model. The CL model results revealed, for example, farmers’ positive preference to receive support at first use and access to training, while negative preference was found for sharing data with private actors. The LC identified three classes which differ in their preference for attributes such as the degree of data sharing. Furthermore, for example, a farmer’s connectedness to an innovation hub was found to be one of the significant variables in the class membership function. The main contribution of the study is that it shows the importance of nonfinancial incentives and the influence of data sharing on farmer preferences.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dataset of historic and modern bread and durum wheat cultivar performance under conventional and reduced tillage with full and reduced irrigation

  Data in Brief · 2022-07-05 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Conservation agriculture (CA) is an agronomic management system based on zero tillage and residue retention. Due to its potential for climate change adaptation through the reduction of soil erosion and improved water availability, CA is becoming more important in many regions of the world. However, increased bulk density and large amounts of crop residues may be a constraint for early plant establishment. This holds especially true under irrigated production areas with high yield potential. Genotype × tillage effects on yield are not well understood and it is unclear whether tillage should be an evaluation factor in breeding programs. Fourteen CIMMYT bread (Triticum aestivum) and thirteen durum (Triticum turgidum) wheat genotypes, created between 1964 and 2011, were tested for yield and agronomic performance at CIMMYT's experimental station near Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, during nine seasons. The genotypes were subjected to different tillage and irrigation treatments which consisted of conventional and permanent raised beds with full and reduced irrigation. The dataset includes traits collected during the growing period (days to emergence, days to flowering, maturity, plant height, NDVI, days from flowering to maturity, grain production rate) and at harvest (yield, harvest index, thousand grain weight, spikes/m², grains/m², test weight) and weather data (daily minimum and maximum temperature, rainfall). Six years of data of 26 genotypes were published along with the Honsdorf et al. (2018) paper in Field Crops Research (DOI: s10.1016/j.fcr.2017.11.011). This updated dataset includes three additional seasons of data (harvest years 2016 to 2018) and an additional bread wheat genotype (Borlaug100).

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nele Verhulst

  Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz Y Trigo

  128 shared

• Luc Dendooven

  Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute

  54 shared

• Ken D. Sayre

  Colorado State University

  49 shared

• Jozef Deckers

  KU Leuven

  46 shared

• Jan Nyssen

  41 shared

• Wim Cornelis

  Ghent University

  33 shared

• Tesfay Araya

  University of the Free State

  27 shared

• Marco Luna‐Guido

  Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute

  22 shared

Awards & honors

• Norman Borlaug Field Award (2014) from the World Food Prize…
• Fellow of The American Society of Agronomy (2020)