At the 8th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture (8WCCA), Martin Kropff, Director General of CIMMYT, argued that “agriculture cannot take a toll on the environment”, praising conservation agriculture for its contribution to building resilience to drought.
On December 11, 2020, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) announced the release of six new wheat varieties for multiplication and distribution to the countryâs wheat farmers, offering increased production for Nepalâs nearly one million wheat farmers and boosted nutrition for its 28 million wheat consumers.
The varieties, which are derived from materials developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), include five bred for elevated levels of the crucial micronutrient zinc, and Borlaug 100, a variety well known for being high yielding, drought- and heat-resilient, and resistant to wheat blast, as well as high in zinc.
âReleasing six varieties in one attempt is historic news for Nepal,â said CIMMYT Asia Regional Representative and Principal Scientist Arun Joshi.
âIt is an especially impressive achievement by the NARC breeders and technicians during a time of COVID-related challenges and restrictions,â said NARC Executive Director Deepak Bhandari.
âThis was a joint effort by many scientists in our team who played a critical role in generating proper data, and making a strong case for these varieties to the release committee, â said Roshan Basnet, head of the National Wheat Research Program based in Bhairahawa, Nepal, who was instrumental in releasing three of the varieties, including Borlaug 2020.
âWe are very glad that our hard work has paid off for our countryâs farmers,â said Dhruba Thapa, chief and wheat breeder at NARCâs National Plant Breeding and Genetics Research Centre.
Nepal produces 1.96 million tons of wheat on more than 750,000 hectares, but its wheat farmers are mainly smallholders with less than 1-hectare holdings and limited access to inputs or mechanization. In addition, most of the popular wheat varieties grown in the country have become susceptible to new strains of wheat rust diseases.
The new varieties â Zinc Gahun 1, Zinc Gahun 2, Bheri-Ganga, Himganga, Khumal-Shakti and Borlaug 2020 â were bred and tested using a âfast-trackâ approach, with CIMMYT and NARC scientists moving material from trials in CIMMYTâs research station in Mexico to multiple locations in Nepal and other Target Population of Environments (TPEs) for testing.
âThanks to a big effort from Arun Joshi and our NARC partners we were able to collect important data in first year, reducing the time it takes to release new varieties,â said CIMMYT Head of Wheat Improvement Ravi Singh.
The varieties are tailored for conditions in a range of wheat growing regions in the country â from the hotter lowland, or Terai, regions to the irrigated as well as dryer mid- and high-elevation areas â and for stresses including wheat rust diseases and wheat blast. The five high-zinc, biofortified varieties were developed through conventional crop breeding by crossing modern high yielding wheats with high zinc progenitors such as landraces, spelt wheat and emmer wheat.
âZinc deficiency is a serious problem in Nepal, with 21% of children found to be zinc deficient in 2016,â explained said CIMMYT Senior Scientist and wheat breeder Velu Govindan, who specializes in breeding biofortified varieties. âBiofortification of staple crops such as wheat is a proven method to help reverse and prevent this deficiency, especially for those without access to a more diverse diet.â
Borlaug 2020 is equivalent to Borlaug 100, a highly prized variety released in 2014 in adbMexico to commemorate the centennial year of Nobel Peace laureate Norman E. Borlaug. Coincidently, its release in Nepal coincides with the 50th anniversary of Borlaugâs Nobel Peace Prize.
NARC staff have already begun the process of seed multiplication and conducting participatory varietal selection trials with farmers, so very soon farmers throughout the country will benefit from these seeds.
âThe number of new varieties and record release time is amazing,â said Joshi. âWe now have varieties that will help Nepalâs farmers well into the future.â
CIMMYT breeding of biofortified varieties was funded by HarvestPlus. Variety release and seed multiplication activities in Nepal were supported by NARC and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) through collaboration with ADB Natural Resources Principal & Agriculture Specialist Michiko Katagami. This NARC-ADB-CIMMYT collaboration was prompted by World Food Prize winner and former HarvestPlus CEO Howarth Bouis, and provided crucial support that enabled the release in a record time.
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INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
Arun Joshi, Asia Regional Representative and Principal Scientist, CIMMYT
FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT:
Marcia MacNeil, Communications Officer, CIMMYT m.macneil@cgiar.org.
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
ABOUT NARC:
Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) was established in 1991 as an autonomous organization under Nepal Agricultural Research Council Act – 1991 to conduct agricultural research in the country to uplift the economic level of Nepalese people.
ABOUT ADB:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. It assists its members and partners by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
At present, nearly half of the worldâs population is under some form of government restriction to curb the spread of COVID-19. In Bangladesh, in the wake of five deaths and 48 infections early in the year, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown between March 24 and May 30, 2020. Until April 17, 38 of the countryâs 64 districts were under complete lockdown.
âWhile this lockdown restricted the spread of the disease, in the absence of effective support, it can generate severe food and nutrition insecurity for daily wage-based workers,â says Khondoker Mottaleb, an agricultural economist based at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Of the 61 million people who make up Bangladeshâs employed labor force, nearly 35% are paid daily. In a new study published in PLOS ONE, Mottaleb examines the food security and welfare impacts of the lockdowns on these daily-wage workers â in both farm and non-farm sectors â who are comparatively more resource-poor in terms of land ownership and education, and therefore likely to be hit hardest by a loss in earnings.
Using information from 50,000 economically active workers in Bangladesh, collected by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the study quantifies the economic losses from the COVID-19 lockdowns based on daily-wage workersâ lost earnings and estimates the minimum compensation packages needed to ensure their minimum food security during the lockdown period.
Using the estimated daily wage earnings, the authors estimate that a one-day, complete lockdown generates an economic loss equivalent to $64.2 million. After assessing the daily per capita food expenditure for farm and non-farm households, the study estimates the need for a minimum compensation package of around $1 per day per household to ensure minimum food security for the daily wage-based worker households.
In May 2020, the Government of Bangladesh announced the provision of approximately $24 per month to two million households, half of whom will receive additional food provision. While this amount is in line with Mottalebâs findings, he stresses than this minimum support package is only suitable for the short-term, and that in the event of a prolonged lockdown period it will be necessary to consider additional support for other household costs such as clothing, medicine and education.
âWithout effective support programs, the implementation of a strict lockdown for a long time may be very difficult, if poor households are forced to come out to search for work, money and food,â explains Mottaleb. âIn the event of a very strict lockdown scenario, the government should consider issuing movement passes to persons and carriers of agricultural input and output to support smallholder agriculture, wage workers and agricultural value chains.â
Read the full article:
COVID-19 induced economic loss and ensuring food security for vulnerable groups: Policy implications for Bangladesh
Read more recent publications from CIMMYT researchers:
Feature image: A rice farmer in central Bangladesh tends to his crop. (Photo: Scott Wallace/World Bank).
Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) is a global partnership that connects climate and environmental science with data streams to generate decision support tools and training for decision-makers in developing countries. Translating complex climate information into easy to understand actionable formats to spread awareness in the form of climate services is core to CSRDâs mission. CSRD works across South Asia (with emphasis on Bangladesh), the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia), and in South America (Colombia) to generate and provide timely and useful climate information, decision tools and services. In South Asia, CSRD focusses the development, supply and adaptation of agricultural climate services to reduce vulnerability by increasing resiliency in smallholder farming systems. These goals are strategically aligned with the Global Framework for Climate Services.
CSRD in South Asia aims to have the impact by increasing climate resilient farm management, indicated by increased use of climate services and climate information to inform farmers on how to better manage their production systems. CSRD also aims to develop and validate models for agricultural climate services that can be replicated in other regions with similar farming systems and climate risks, while also fine-tuning weather and climate advisories to be most useful to farmersâ decision-making. A series of sustained contributions to CSRDâs Action and Learning Framework Pillars 1-4, detailed below, are envisioned as major project outcomes:
CSRD in South Asia will ultimately generate the following broad outputs and services:
Download the report summarizing CSRD activities, achievements, and challenges during the first year (from November 2016 through December 2017).
The CSRD consortium in South Asia is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), International Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), University de Passo Fundo (UPF), and the University of Rhode Island (URI). This consortium provides strength and technical expertise to develop relevant climate products that can assist farmers and other stakeholders with relevant information to improve decision making, with the ultimate goal of increasing resilience to climate-related risks. The CSRD consortium also works to assure that climate information can be conveyed in ways that are decision-relevant to farmers and other agricultural stakeholders.
As a public-private partnership, CSRD is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), UK AID, the UK Met Office, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), ESRI, Google, the American Red Cross, and the Skoll Global Threats Fund.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) – A new joint effort will strengthen or establish drought monitoring and early warning systems in Bangladesh, as well as provide information on local cropping systems in South Asia to boost farmer resilience to climate change.
Regionally specific winter season drought and dry spells during the monsoon are a reoccurring concern in Bangladesh. Drought leads to reduced farming productivity, and climate change predictions suggest further decreases in precipitation in coming years. Additionally, there are uncertainties about where monsoons will flood in the rainy season, limiting groundwater recharge. If farmers are unable to adapt to these changes, bottlenecks in crop productivity and increased food insecurity are likely to result.
The effort will be led by Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) and SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya â a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) â using Earth observation data.
A workshop jointly hosted by a number of organizations was recently held at the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC) campus in Dhaka, Bangladesh to discuss the development of these agricultural monitoring services. The workshop brought together key partners to discuss anticipated methods, work plans and the user engagement process for effective development and long-term sustainability of the agricultural drought monitoring service.
Under this partnership, BARC is working to strengthen capacity of national research and agricultural extension institutes to use geographic information systems and remote sensing approaches for drought risk management.
Shams Uddin Ahmed, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, noted that groundwater accessibility is a growing concern due to continued drought. The government has posed restrictions on deep well extraction, except for drinking water, to conserve crucial groundwater resources. He added that access to good quality drought monitoring and early warning information could help develop climate services to help farmers adapt to these challenges.
Muhammad Jalal Uddin, executive chairman of BARC, emphasized the need to adopt new technologies including remote sensing applications to improve predictability of climate hazards like floods and droughts. He added that with the adoption of improved agricultural practices, Bangladesh has become self-sufficient in rice, but that further work is needed to attain overall nutrition sufficiency.
Promoting and enabling climate services that increase farmer resilience to the impacts of climate variability can positively change behaviors and affect policy in developing countries. To do this, collaborators are working together to establish information communication technology platforms to provide user-oriented, easily accessible, timely and decision-relevant scientific information in the form of climate services.
Birendra Bajracharya, regional program manager of the Mountain Environment Regional Information System program at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), highlighted opportunities of using Earth observation data products for addressing societal challenges. He emphasized the user-centric âservicesâ used by ICIMOD increase the sustainable use of Earth observation information and geospatial technologies for environmental management and improve resilience to climate change in the region.
Read the full workshop summary from ICIMOD here.
CSRD is a a public-private partnership supported by USAID, Department for International Development (DFID), the Met Office, Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, ESRI, Google, the American Red Cross and the Skoll Global Threats Fund.