As part of the HeDWIC translational research approach, HeDWIC builds on decades of breeding and collaborative research on abiotic stress coordinated by CIMMYT, which has been supported by numerous agencies (see Funding) and initiatives including HeDWIC’s FFAR project, Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture (SADER), the CGIAR Trust Fund [in particular the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) & the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Australia’s Grains Research Development Corporation (GRDC), Germany’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)], the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) and others.
HeDWIC has a growing group of active stakeholder scientists from universities, research institutes, and CGIAR centers, many of whom participated in its conceptualization. Heat and drought are only getting worse in wheat production areas making the HeDWIC agenda all the more urgent.