Rice-wheat cropping rotations are the major agri-food system of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, occupying the region known as the “food basket” of India. The continuous rice-wheat farming system is deceptively productive, however, under conventional management practices.
Over-exploitation of resources leaves little doubt that this system is unsustainable, evidenced by the rapid decline in soil and water resources, and environmental quality. Furthermore, continuous cultivation of the same two crops over the last five decades has allowed certain weed species to adapt and proliferate. This adversely affects resource-use efficiency and crop productivity, and has proven to negatively influence wheat production in the Western Indo-Gangetic Plains under conventional wheat management systems.
Studies suggest weed infestations could reduce wheat yields by 50-100% across the South Asian Indo-Gangetic Plains. Globally, yield losses from weeds reach 40%, which is more than the effects of diseases, insects, and pests combined.
Herbicides are not just expensive and environmentally hazardous, but this method of chemical control is becoming less reliable as some weeds become resistant to an increasing number common herbicides. Considering the food security implications of weed overgrowth, weed management is becoming increasingly important in future cropping systems.
How can weeds be managed sustainably?
Climate-smart agriculture-based management practices are becoming a viable and sustainable alternative to conventional rice-wheat cropping systems across South Asia, leading to better resource conservation and yield stability. In addition to zero-tillage and crop residue retention, crop diversification, precise water and nutrient management, and timing of interventions are all important indicators of climate-smart agriculture.
In a recently published 8-year study, scientists observed weed density and diversity under six different management scenarios with varying conditions. Conditions ranged from conventional, tillage-based rice-wheat system with flood irrigation (scenario one), to zero-tillage-based maize-wheat-mung bean systems with subsurface drip irrigation (scenario 6). Each scenario increased in their climate-smart agriculture characteristics all the way to fully climate-smart systems.
At the end of 8 years, scenario six had the lowest weed density, saw the most abundant species decrease dramatically, and seven weed species vanish entirely. Scenario one, with conventional rice-wheat systems with tillage and flooding, experienced the highest weed density and infestation. This study highlights the potential of climate-smart agriculture as a promising solution for weed suppression in northwestern India.
Protected from the harsh midday sun with a hat, Pramila Mondal pushes behind the roaring engine of a two-wheel tractor. She cultivates a small plot of land with her husband in the small village of Bara Kanaibila, in the Rajbari district of Bangladesh, near the capital Dhaka.
Using this machine, she also provides planting services to farmers who need to sow wheat, maize, mungbean, mustard and jute, earning her between $600 and $960 in each planting season.
Mondal and her husband first heard about this technology five years ago, when they attended an event to promote agricultural mechanization, organized by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). After seeing a demonstration, they were convinced that the power-tiller-operated seeder could form the basis for a business.
Ultimately, Mondal bought the machine. She got training on how to operate and maintain it, as part of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization Irrigation and Mechanization Extension Activity (CSISA-MI and CSISA-MEA) project, supported by USAID through Feed the Future.
Let’s get it started
Pramila Mondal activates the self-starting mechanism on her power-tiller-operated seeder. (Photo: Shahabuddin Shihab/CIMMYT)
Mondal became the only woman in her area who could operate a seeder of this type, making her locally famous. After seeing the results of her business, others followed suit.
Eight more women in her area expressed interest in operating power-tiller-operated seeders and also went on to become service providers.
They all faced a similar problem: power tillers are hard to start. Pulling the starting rope or turning the hand crank requires a lot of strength.
The CSISA-MEA project team worked with a local engineering company to introduce a self-starting mechanism for power tiller engines. Since then, starting diesel engines is no longer a problem for women like Mondal.
Glee for the tillerwoman
Almost all of the 11 million hectares of rice planted every year in Bangladesh are transplanted by hand. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find people willing to do this type of backbreaking work. New machines are being introduced that transplant rice mechanically, but they require rice seedling to be raised in seedling mats.
As this new service is required, Mondal jumped at the opportunity. With support from CIMMYT through the CSISA-MEA project, she is now raising seedlings for this new type of rice transplanters.
CIMMYT facilitated training for machinery service providers on mat type seedling production, in partnership with private companies. Mondal and other women who were also trained produced enough seedlings to plant 3.2 hectares of land with a rice transplanter they hired from a local owner.
Mondal and her husband now have big dreams. They intend to buy a rice transplanter and a combine harvester.
“With our effort we can make these changes, but a little support can make big difference, which the CSISA-MEA project did,” she said.
Seed viability test at the CIMMYT genebank. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
The conservation of plant genetic diversity through germplasm conservation is a key component of global climate-change adaptation efforts. Germplasm banks like the maize and wheat collections at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) may hold the genetic resources needed for the climate-adaptive crops of today and tomorrow.
But how do we ensure that these important backups are themselves healthy and not potential vectors of pest and disease transmission?
“Germplasm refers to the source plants of either specific cultivars or of unique genes or traits that can be used by breeders for improved cultivars,” program moderator and head of the Health and Quarantine Unit at the International Potato Center (CIP) Jan Kreuze explained to the event’s 622 participants. “If the source plant is not healthy, whatever you multiply or use it for will be unhealthy.”
According to keynote speaker Saafa Kumari, head of the Germplasm Health Unit at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), we know of 1.3 thousand pests and pathogens that infect crops, causing approximately $530 billion in damages annually. The most damaging among these tend to be those that are introduced into new environments.
Closing the gap, strengthening the safety net
The CGIAR has an enormous leadership role to play in this area. According to Kumari, approximately 85% of international germplasm distribution is from CGIAR programs. Indeed, in the context of important gaps in the international regulation and standards for germplasm health specifically, the practices and standards of CGIAR’s Germplasm Health Units represent an important starting point.
“Germplasm health approaches are not necessarily the same as seed and plant health approaches generally,” said Ravi Khaterpal, executive secretary for the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI). “Best practices are needed, such as CGIAR’s GreenPass.”
In addition to stronger and more coherent international coordination and regulation, more research is needed to help source countries test genetic material before it is distributed, according to Francois Petter, assistant director for the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO). Head of the CGIAR Genebank Platform Charlotte Lusty also pointed out the needed for better monitoring of accessions in storage. “We need efficient, speedy processes to ensure collections remain healthy,” she said.
Of course, any regulatory and technological strategy must remain sensitive to existing and varied social and gender relations. We must account for cultural processes linked to germplasm movement, said Vivian Polar, Gender and Innovation Senior Specialist with the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB). Germplasm moves through people, she said, adding that on the ground “women and men move material via different mechanisms.”
“The cultural practices associated with seed have to be understood in depth in order to inform policies and address gender- and culture-related barriers” to strengthening germplasm health, Polar said.
The event was co-organized by researchers at CIP and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
The overall webinar series is hosted by CIMMYT, CIP, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), IITA, and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). It is sponsored by the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition (A4NH), the CGIAR Gender Platform and the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB).
The third of the four webinars on plant health, which will be hosted by CIMMYT, is scheduled for March 10 and will focus on integrated pest and disease management.
The state of Odisha, in the east of India, ranks sixth in rice production in the country. Agriculture in Odisha’s tribal-dominated plateau region, however, is characterized by depleted soils along with low and variable rice yields. During the monsoon season, more than 60,000 hectares of land are left fallow, due to lack of knowledge and to farmers’ low risk tolerance.
In districts like Mayurbhanj, over 50% of the population belongs to tribal groups. Women there are mostly engaged in traditional roles: being at home looking after family, farm and livestock while their men are away as migrant laborers or with menial jobs. Women working on farming used to be considered daily wage laborers, as if they were only supporting their husband or family who were officially the farmers.
The last few years, with the introduction of maize cultivation and its promotion predominantly for women farmers, a significant change in the perception of women’s role is unfolding in the region.
In 2013, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) began working in the plateau region through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), improving farming systems for higher yields and providing sustainable livelihood options for tribal farmers. Since then, farmers in the region have achieved considerable production of maize in the monsoon season — and women have particularly led this transformation.
Farmers from this region — 28% of which were women — converted 5,400 hectares of fallow lands into successful maize cultivation areas. Not only has this new opportunity helped improve family income, but also women’s identity as resilient and enterprising farmers.
This impact was possible through the applied research efforts of the CSISA project along with partners like Odisha’s State Department of Agriculture, the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) and two federations of women’s self-help groups supported by PRADAN.
On International Women’s Day, we share the story of these successful farmers who have made maize cultivation a part of their livelihoods and a tool for socioeconomic development.
Transforming fallow lands into golden maize fields
Women working in the fields used to be considered daily wage laborers, but today they are acknowledged as enterprising farmers who transformed fallow lands into golden maize fields.
In the season 2019/2020 alone, in all four districts where CSISA is actively engaged — Bolangir, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Nuapada — improved maize cultivation was adopted by 7,600 farmers — 28% of which were women — in 5,400 hectares of fallow land, resulting in considerable production of quality maize in the region. Since many of the women in the districts are smallholder farmers or without agriculture land, farming also happens on leased land through self-help groups.
Learning and implementing best maize cultivation practices
CSISA supports the farmers all the way from sowing to crop harvesting, ensuring the produce is shiny and golden. Through self-help groups, farmers have access to fertilizers and machines to weed and earth-up their fields. Researchers have introduced seed cum fertilizer drills for maize sowing, which make fertilizer placement more uniform and crop establishment easier, saving time and helping these women manage both household responsibilities and the farm.
Quality knowledge for quality grain
To strengthen the capacity of farmers, the project team trains them continuously on grain quality parameters like moisture level, foreign matters, infestation rate. Most of the participants are farmers from women collectives and self-help groups. They have gradually advanced in their knowledge journey, going from general awareness to subject-specific training.
Marketing gurus
Even though many large poultry feed mills operate in Odisha, most of their maize comes from outside the state. Women self-help groups are bridging that gap. In collaboration with the State Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, the CSISA project has cultivated a network of market actors including producers, providers of agricultural inputs and development partners. Market access to these value chains will help women, all the way from planting to produce marketing.
Extending the collaboration, in the four districts of Odisha and beyond
A considerable increase in maize production has improved incomes for families across the regions, as well as their food security. It has also created opportunities for women to raise their social and economic standing.
There are opportunities for CSISA and its partners to continue collaborating in the project region and beyond. CIMMYT has worked with Odisha’s State Department of Agriculture, the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), women’s self-help groups, farmers’ producer groups, private seed companies and many other collectives.
Weathering the crisis
Women have shouldered the responsibility and led their families out of the COVID-19 crisis. When men were left jobless and stranded as migrant workers during lockdown, many women associated with the CSISA project began generating income by selling green corn. This small income helped ensure food to feed their families and wellbeing in this critical period.
The road ahead
With the purpose of advocating this positive transformation in similar conditions, CSISA is committed to expand maize intensification in the plateau region of Odisha and engaging more farmers. Ongoing research and studies are focusing on improving the outreach, to help women increase their maize area and productivity with better-bet agronomy. This will contribute to secured income in coming years and the sustainability of the initiative.
Evidence of enormity and immediacy of the challenges climate change poses for life on earth seems to pour in daily. But important gaps in our knowledge of all the downstream effects of this complex process remain. And the global response to these challenges is still far from adequate to the job ahead. Bold, multi-stakeholder, multidisciplinary action is urgent.
In addition to exploring the important challenges climate changes poses for plant health, the event explored the implications for the wellbeing and livelihoods of smallholder farming communities in low- and middle- income countries, paying special attention to the gender dimension of both the challenges and proposed solutions.
The event was co-organized by researchers at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe).
The overall webinar series is hosted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Potato Center (CIP), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). It is sponsored by the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition (A4NH), the CGIAR Gender Platform and the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB).
This is important
The stakes for the conversation were forcefully articulated by Shenggen Fan, chair professor and dean of the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy at China Agricultural University and member of the CGIAR System Board. “Because of diseases and pests, we lose about 20-40% of our food crops. Can you imagine how much food we have lost? How many people we could feed with that lost food? Climate change will make this even worse,” Fan said.
Such impacts, of course, will not be evenly felt across geographic and social divides, notably gender. According to Jemimah Njuki, director for Africa at IFPRI, gender and household relationships shape how people respond to and are impacted by climate change. “One of the things we have evidence of is that in times of crises, women’s assets are often first to be sold and it takes even longer for them to be recovered,” Njuki said.
The desert locust has been around since biblical times. Climate change has contributed to its reemergence as a major pest. (Photo: David Nunn)
Shifting risks
When it comes to understanding the impact of climate change on plant health “one of our big challenges is to understand where risk will change,” said Karen Garrett, preeminent professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida,
This point was powerfully exemplified by Henri Tonnang, head of Data Management, Modelling and Geo-information Unit at icipe, who referred to the “unprecedented and massive outbreak” of desert locusts in 2020. The pest — known since biblical times — has reemerged as a major threat due to extreme weather events driven by sea level rise.
Researchers highlighted exciting advancements in mapping, modelling and big data techniques that can help us understand these evolving risks. At the same time, they stressed the need to strengthen cooperation not only among the research community, but among all the stakeholders for any given research agenda.
“The international research community needs to transform the way it does research,” said Ana María Loboguerrero, research director for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. “We’re working in a very fragmented way, sometime inefficiently and with duplications, sometimes acting under silos… It is difficult to deliver end-to-end sustainable and scalable solutions.”
Time for a new strategy
Such injunctions are timely and reaffirm CGIAR’s new strategic orientation. According to Sonja Vermeulen, the event moderator and the director of programs for the CGIAR System Management Organization, this strategy recognizes that stand-alone solutions — however brilliant — aren’t enough to make food systems resilient. We need whole system solutions that consider plants, animals, ecosystems and people together.
Echoing Fan’s earlier rallying cry, Vermeulen said, “This is important. Unless we do something fast and ambitious, we are not going to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Cover photo: All farmers are susceptible to extreme weather events, and many are already feeling the effects of climate change. (Photo: N. Palmer/CIAT)
A farmer in the Ara district, in India’s Bihar state, applies NPK fertilizer, composed primarily of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
An international team of scientists, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has demonstrated how better nutrient management using digital tools, such as the Nutrient Expert decision support tool, can boost rice and wheat productivity and increase farmers’ income while reducing chemical fertilizer use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Reported today in Nature Scientific Reports, the results show how the farmer-friendly digital nutrient management tool can play a key role in fighting climate change while closing the yield gap and boosting farmers’ profits.
The researchers tested the Nutrient Expert decision tool against typical farmer fertilization practices extensively using approximately 1600 side-by side comparison trials in rice and wheat fields across the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India.
The study found that Nutrient Expert-based recommendations lowered global warming potential by 12-20% in wheat and by around 2.5% in rice, compared to conventional farmers’ fertilization practices. Over 80% of farmers were also able to increase their crop yields and incomes using the tool.
Agriculture is the second largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in India. To tackle these emissions, crop scientists have been working on new ways to make farming more nutrient- and energy-efficient. Of the many technologies available, improving nutrient-use-efficiency through balanced fertilizer application — which in turn reduces excess fertilizer application — is key to ensuring food security while at the same time contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals on climate change.
The work was carried out by CIMMYT in collaboration with farmers, and funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Scientists from the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and the former International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) also contributed to this study.
Researchers tested the Nutrient Expert decision tool against typical farmer fertilization practices extensively using approximately 1600 side-by side comparison trials in rice and wheat fields across the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India (Graphic: CIMMYT).
Precise recommendations
Nutrient Expert, which was launched back in 2013, works by analysing growing conditions, natural nutrients in the soil, and even leftover nutrients from previous crops to provide tailored fertilizer recommendations directly to farmers phones. The tool also complements the Government of India’s Soil Health Cards for balanced and precise nutrient recommendations in smallholder farmers’ fields.
Each farmer’s field is different, which is why blanket fertilizer recommendations aren’t always effective in producing better yields. By using nutrient management tools such as Nutrient Expert, farmers can obtain fertilizer recommendations specific to the conditions of their field as well as their economic resources and thus avoid under-fertilizing or over-fertilizing their fields.
“While efficient nutrient management in croplands is widely recognized as one of the solutions to addressing the global challenge of supporting food security in a growing global population while safeguarding planetary health, Nutrient Expert could be an important tool to implement such efficient nutrient management digitally under smallholder production systems,” said Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT climate scientist and first author of the study.
Sapkota also argues that adoption of the Nutrient Expert tool in rice-wheat systems of India alone could provide almost 14 million tonnes (Mt) of extra grain with 1.4 Mt less nitrogen fertilizer use, and a reduction of 5.3 Mt of carbon (CO2) emissions per year over current practices.
However, technological innovation alone will not achieve these positive outcomes.
“Given the magnitude of potential implications in terms of increasing yield, reducing fertilizer consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, governments need to scale-out Nutrient Expert-based fertilizer management through proper policy and institutional arrangements, especially for making efficient use of the nearly 200 million Soil Health Cards that were issued to farmers as part of the Soil Health mission of the Government of India,” said ML Jat, CIMMYT principal scientist and co-author of the study.
In 1967 Albert O. Hirschman, the pioneering development economist, published Development Projects Observed. Based on an analysis of a handful of long-standing World Bank projects, the book was an effort, as Hirschman writes in the preface, “to ‘sing’ the epic adventure of development — its challenge, drama, and grandeur.” He sang this epic not in the register of high development theory, but rather through the ups and downs and unexpected twists of real-world development projects.
Today, a new group of researchers have taken up a similar challenge. Value Chain Development and the Poor: Promise, delivery, and opportunities for impact at scale, a new book edited by Jason Donovan, Dietmar Stoian and Jon Hellin, surveys over two decades of academic and practical thinking on value chains and value chain development. While value chain development encompasses a broad variety of approaches, it has largely focused on improving the ability of small scale, downstream actors — such as smallholders in agri-food value chains — to capture more value for their products or to engage in value-adding activities. Value chain development approaches have also focused on improving the social and environmental impacts of specific value chains. Donovan, Stoian and Hellin’s book assesses these approaches through careful analysis of real-world cases. The book was published with support from the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and on Policies, Institutions, and Markets.
Lessons learned
The book takes an unsparing look at what has and hasn’t worked in the field of value chain development. It begins by dissecting the drivers of the high degree of turnover in approaches that characterizes the field. The editors argue that “issue-attention cycles” among project stakeholders, coupled with monitoring and evaluation metrics that are more focused on tracking project implementation rather than producing robust measurements of their social impact, too often lead to the adoption — and abandonment — of approaches based on novelty and buzz.
The unfortunate consequences are that strengths and limitations of any given approach are never fully appreciated and that projects — and even entire approaches — are abandoned before they’ve had a chance to generate deep social impacts. Moreover, the opportunity to really learn from development projects — both in terms of refining and adapting a given approach to local conditions, and of abstracting scalable solutions from real development experiences — is lost.
A recurring theme throughout the book is the tension between the context-sensitivity needed for successful value chain development interventions and the need for approaches that can be scaled and replicated. Programs must develop tools for practitioners on one hand and demonstrate scalability to funders on the other. For example, a chapter on maize diversity and value chain development in Guatemala’s western highlands illustrates how an approach that was successful in Mexico — connecting producers of indigenous maize landraces with niche markets — is ill-suited to the Guatemalan context, where most producers are severely maize deficient. And a chapter reviewing guides for gender-equitable value chain development highlights how — for all their positive impact — such guides often overlook highly context- and culturally-specific gender dynamics. Intra-household bargaining dynamics and local masculinities, for example, can play critical roles in the success or failure of gender-focused value chain development interventions.
This new book takes an unsparing look at what has and hasn’t worked in the field of value chain development.
Finally, while lauding the valuable impact many value chain development initiatives have achieved, the editors warn against an exclusive reliance on market-based mechanisms, especially when trying to benefit the poorest and most marginalized of smallholders. In the case of Guatemala’s maize-deficient highland farmers, for example, the development of niche markets for native maize proved to be a poor mechanism for achieving the stated goal of preserving maize biodiversity and farmers’ livelihoods. Non-market solutions are called for. Based on this and similar experiences, the editors note that, while value chain development can be a valuable tool, to truly achieve impact at scale it must be coordinated with broader development efforts.
“The challenge of ensuring that value chain development contributes to a broad set of development goals requires transdisciplinary, multisector collaboration within broader frameworks, such as integrated rural-urban development, food system transformation, and green recovery of the economy in the post COVID-19 era,” write the editors.
This bracing and clear reflection on the promise and limitations of current development approaches is not only timely; it is perhaps more urgent today than in Hirschman’s time. While tremendous gains have been made since the middle of the 20th century, many stubborn challenges remain, and global climate change threatens to undo decades of progress. Projects like Value Chain Development and the Poor and the ongoing Ceres2030 initiative provide development practitioners, researchers, funders and other stakeholders a much needed assessment of what can be built upon and what needs to be rethought as they tackle these gargantuan challenges.
Embracing uncertainty
At the time Development Projects Observed was published, the study and practice of development was already entering a crisis of adolescence, as it were. Having achieved quasi-independence from its parent discipline of economics, it had to settle on an identity of its own.
Hirschman’s book represented one possible way forward — an understanding of development practice as a blend of art and science. The book’s most famous concept, that of the Hiding Hand, illustrates how planners’ optimism could fuel enormously complex and challenging projects — undertakings that might never have been attempted had all the challenges been known beforehand. At the same time, projects’ inevitable failures and shortcomings could spur creative local responses and solutions, thus ensuring their eventual success and rootedness in their specific context.
As Michele Alacevich points out in the Afterword to the book’s most recent reissue, the World Bank’s response to Hirschman’s book demonstrates the road that development research and practice ultimately took. The book was disregarded, and the Bank turned to the growing literature on cost-benefit analysis instead. “Whereas Hirschman’s analysis had placed uncertainty — an unmeasurable dimension — center stage, cost-benefit analysis assimilated it to risk, therefore turning it into something measurable and quantifiable,” Alacevich writes. Faced with a newfound awareness of the limits to the field’s powers and abilities — a rite of passage for all prodigies — development institutions appeared to try to outrun these limitations through ever-increasing technification.
The issue-attention cycles identified by Stoian and Donovan may represent a new, more frenetic and self-defeating iteration of this discomfort with uncertainty. If so, Value Chain Development and the Poor serves as an urgent call for development institutions and practitioners to make peace with the messiness of their vocation. As Hirschman observed decades ago, only by embracing the uncertainty and art inherent in development work can its students and practitioners further the enormously complex scientific understanding of the endeavor, and, crucially, generate broad and lasting social change.
Cover image: A researcher from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) demonstrates the use of a farming app in the field. (Photo: C. De Bode/CGIAR)
Surender Prasad stands next to his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)
The agricultural sector is possibly the largest livelihood provider in India, with the smallholder farming community in the vast Indo-Gangetic Plains making the bulk of it. They are the community responsible for growing the food available on our table. In celebration of India’s National Farmer’s Day on December 23 — known in Hindi as Kisan Diwas — we share the story of a farmer-turned-entrepreneur from eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have invested in supporting smallholder farmers to implement best farming practices and improve yields through sustainable intensification.
“I am a farmer and I am hopeful of a future for my children in the farming sector,” says Surender Prasad, a 52-year-old farmer from Umila village in Santkabir Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh. Prasad is one of the innovative farmers in and around the district who has time and again strived to introduce new implements and technologies on his farm — often a big risk for smallholders like him.
In 2014, Prasad met researchers from CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project while visiting the village Lazar Mahadeva during an inter-district traveling seminar. After seeing the farmer demonstration plots for himself — which, incidentally, is one of the best ways of raising farmer awareness in the region — Prasad was convinced of the efficiency of transplanting rice by machine and using zero tillage in wheat production.
Through his continued association with the project, Prasad has now adopted both practices, in addition to direct seeded rice (DSR) and Laser Land Levelling. With a single 35 horsepower tractor, cultivator and harrow, Prasad was able to improve his wheat grain yield by one ton per hectare during the 2014-15 cropping season, and secure improved profit margins as a result.
Encouraged by these results, in 2018 Prasad purchased a 55 horsepower New Holland Tractor, a Happy Seeder, a tractor-mounted sprayer and other machinery for custom hire under the state government’s machinery bank scheme. His aspiration for entrepreneurship grew in the months following these purchases and he has since established himself as a local service provider, alongside his role as a farmer. According to Prasad, his continued association with CSISA and its network of partners helped him gain better technical knowledge and skills as well as confidence with using conservation agriculture-based machinery, thanks to trainings provided by the project team.
Surender Prasad stands in his field, where wheat grows under rice-crop residue. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)
A budding entrepreneur
Today Prasad is an important entrepreneur in the region, providing custom hiring services for Happy Seeder and DSR and promoting agricultural mechanization in his community. Going forward, scale-appropriate farm mechanization will help farmers in the area to intensify their cropping system at a lower cost, supported by use of the conservation agriculture approaches encouraged by the CSISA project team, which have been shown to improve yields, reduce farmer costs and preserve natural resources. For example, using these best management practices Prasad was able to harvest an additional 1.1 tons of wheat from the 10 acres of land owned by him and his brother, and most farmers in his village now follow his crop management advice.
He is quick to adopt new ideas and has become something of an influencer in the area, earning him friends among the farming community and helping the CSISA team reach more farmers with new innovations.
This year the opportunity for hiring out mechanization services has been immense, largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created difficulties for farmers engaged in rice transplanting. As a result, Prasad managed to sow 90 acres of DSR on his own farm and in the nearby village, as well as seeding 105 acres of wheat in the fall 2020 season. “Thanks to mechanization we were far less affected by the COVID-19 disruptions and managed to plant rice and then wheat without much delay,” he explains. Prasad also provided tractor-mounted sprayer services for applying herbicides and insecticide on 90 acres of rice crop. Considering these successes, he has now planned to offer year-round extension services.
“I feel overwhelmed after serving my own community as a service provider,” says Prasad. “I feel proud of myself when other farmers come asking for my assistance.” Endorsing his contribution as an innovative farmer, the Department of Agriculture for the Government of Uttar Pradesh recognized him with awards in 2015 and 2019. He attributes his success to his exposure to CSISA interventions and support and believes that CSISA acted as a facilitator, encouraging him to use his ideas for his own benefit and for the benefit of the larger agrarian community around him.
Surender Prasad drives his Happy Seeder-mounted tractor in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Photo: Ajay K Pundir/CIMMYT)
A researcher from the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) walks through a wheat field in India. (Photo: BISA)
New research by an international team of scientists, including scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), shows that adopting a portfolio of conservation agriculture and crop diversification practices is more profitable and better for the environment than conventional agriculture.
Reported last month in Nature Scientific Reports, the results of the study should encourage farmers and policymakers in South Asia to adopt more sustainable crop management solutions such as diversifying crop rotations, direct-seeding rice, zero tillage and crop residue retention.
Rice-wheat has for a long time been the dominant cropping system in the western Indo-Gangetic plains in India. However, issues such as water depletion, soil degradation and environmental quality as well as profitability have plagued farmers, scientists and decision makers for decades. To tackle these issues, researchers and policymakers have been exploring alternative solutions such as diversifying rice with alternative crops like maize.
“Climate change and natural resource degradation are serious threats to smallholder farmers in South Asia that require evidence-based sustainable solutions. ICAR have been working closely with CIMMYT and partners to tackle these threats,” said SK Chaudhari, deputy director general of the Natural Resource Management at ICAR.
In the study, CIMMYT scientists partnered with the ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Swami Keshwan Rajasthan Agriculture University and Cornell University to evaluate seven cropping system management scenarios.
The researchers measured a business-as-usual approach, and six alternative conservation agriculture and crop diversification approaches, across a variety of indicators including profitability, water use and global warming potential.
Wheat grows under a systematic intensification approach at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in India. (Photo: BISA)
They found that conservation agriculture-based approaches outperformed conventional farming approaches on a variety of indicators. For example, conservation agriculture-based rice management was found to increase profitability by 12%, while decreasing water use by 19% and global warming potential by 28%. Substituting rice with conservation agriculture-based maize led to improvements in profitability of 16% and dramatic reductions in water use and global warming potential of 84% and 95%. Adding the fast-growing legume mung bean to maize-wheat rotations also increased productivity by 11%, profitability by 25%, and significantly decreased water use by 64% and global warming potential by 106%.
However, CIMMYT Principal Scientist and study co-author M.L. Jat cautioned against the allure of chasing one silver bullet, advising policymakers in South Asia to take a holistic, systems perspective to crop management.
“We know that there are issues relating to water and sustainability, but at the same time we also know that diversifying rice — which is a more stable crop — with other crops is not easy as long as you look at it in isolation,” he explained. “Diversifying crops requires a portfolio of practices, which brings together sustainability, viability and profits.”
With South Asia known as a global “hotspot” for climate vulnerability, and the region’s population expected to rise to 2.4 billion by 2050, food producers are under pressure to produce more while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the environment and other natural resources.
“Tackling these challenges requires strong collaborative efforts from researchers, policymakers, development partners and farmers,” said Andrew McDonald, a systems agronomist at Cornell University and co-author of the study. “This study shows this collaboration in action and brings us closer to achieving resilient, nutritious and sustainable food systems.”
“The results of this study show that one-size doesn’t fit all when it comes to sustainable crop management,” said PC Sharma, director of India’s ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (ICAR-CSSRI). “Farmers, researchers and policymakers can adopt alternative crop rotations such as maize-wheat or maize-wheat-mung bean, but they can also improve existing rice-wheat rotations using conservation agriculture methods.”
The COVID-19 global health crisis has disrupted food and agricultural systems around the world, affecting food production, supply chains, trade and markets, as well as people’s livelihoods and nutrition. Following an initial assessment in May 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) joined the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other CGIAR centers to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bangladesh’s agri-food system.
The report shares critical reflections and lessons learned, as well as providing detailed quantitative and qualitative information on all disruption pathways and possible recovery strategies.
According to the research team, the major visible impact was the decline of food demand due to the disruption of value chain actors in the food market and income shortages, especially among low- and daily wage-earning populations. This reduced demand lead in turn to reduced prices for agricultural goods, particularly perishable food items like vegetables, livestock and fish products.
Additionally, constraints on the movement of labor led to a disruption in agricultural services, including machinery and extension services, while domestic and international trade disruptions created input shortages and lead to price volatilities which increased production costs. This increase, coupled with reductions in production and output prices, essentially wiped farmer profits.
A farmer takes maize grain to a local reserve in Bangladesh. (Photo: Fahad Kaizer/FAO)
Building back a better food system
The latest report was launched at the same time as the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub in Bangladesh, which aims to build local resilience to the effects of the pandemic and support government-led recovery initiatives. At a panel discussion presenting the results of the assessment, researchers emphasized the importance of social safety net mechanisms and food demand creation, as well as the need for strong monitoring of food systems to ensure continued availability and affordability, and early detection of any critical issues.
The discussion centered on the need for public access to trustworthy information in order to raise awareness and instill confidence in the food they consume. One key recommendation which emerged is facilitating the digitalization of farming, which looks to re-connect farmers and consumers and build the food system back better. The accelerated development of digital platforms connecting farmers to markets with contactless delivery systems can ensure the safer flow of inputs and outputs while generating a higher share of consumer money for farmers. There is also a need to explore green growth strategies for reducing food waste — the creation and distribution of improved food storage systems, for instance — and circular nutrient initiatives to better utilize food waste as feed and bio manure.
There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. So goes the old saw. In the social sciences, these “weeks” are often referred to as critical junctures. They are moments when the old rules of the game — the long-established ways of doings things — go out the window and new patterns begin to emerge. The breadbasket states of northwestern India seem to be having one of those weeks.
After years of research and advocacy that appeared to be making little headway, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are seeing a sudden and dramatic increase in the adoption of some of the technologies and techniques they have long argued are necessary in this region, including direct-seeding of rice, crop diversification and the adoption of Happy Seeder technology.
A case of unintended consequences
In March 2020 the Indian government decreed a national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This triggered the largest internal migration since partition, as millions of migrant workers and day laborers scrambled to return to their home villages. Estimates suggest that up to 1 million workers left the northwestern states of Haryana and Punjab alone.
Agriculture in the region is dominated by the labor- and input-intensive production of rice and wheat in rotation. This system is the most productive per hectare in India, but it is also extremely sensitive to external shocks. The success of both the rice and wheat crop depend on the timely transplantation of rice in mid-June.
As the results of a recently published study demonstrate, delays in this schedule can have devastating downstream effects not only on rice and wheat yields, but on regional air quality too. Models of the worst-case delay scenario predicted a total economic loss of nearly $1.5 billion. Moreover, they predicted that, if no action were taken, up to 80% of rice residue would be burned later in the autumn, when cooler conditions contribute to seasonally poor air quality.
Such an exacerbation of the region’s air pollution would be dire under normal conditions. During a global pandemic of a primarily respiratory illness, it could be devastating.
Fortunately, solutions and technologies that CIMMYT researchers had been studying for decades, along with ICAR, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and other national partners, promised to help ward off the worst effects of the crisis. The adoption of direct-seeding technology could help reduce the labor-intensiveness of rice production, crop diversification could minimize the economic impacts of the crisis, and the use of Happy Seeder technology could alleviate the practice of residue burning.
A farmer burns rice residues after harvest to prepare the land for wheat planting around Sangrur, Punjab, India. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT)
Decades of work pay off
The study, co-authored by researchers at CIMMYT, ICAR and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), relied on a sophisticated ex ante model of four different rice-transplanting delay scenarios. It is published in the November 2020 issue of Agricultural Systems.
However, given the time-sensitivity and high-stakes of the issue, the lead researchers did not wait for the articles publication to press their case. Earlier this year they circulated their initial findings and recommendations to policymakers via their national partners. Notably, after receiving a one-pager summarizing these, the Chief Minister of Punjab released a video address echoing their points.
“Policymakers realized the need for these kinds of solutions,” says Balwinder Singh, a CIMMYT scientist and lead author of the paper. They then moved quickly to incentivize their adoption through various mechanisms, such as subsidizing direct-seeding drills and ensuring the timely availability of machines and other inputs.
Singh and Jat have been carrying out a multi-year survey to assess farmer willingness to adopt Happy Seeder technology and have documented a drastic increase in farmer interest in the technology during 2020. For Jat, this highlights the power of partnerships. “If you don’t include your partners from the beginning, they will not own what you say,” he argues.
Such changes are to be celebrated not only as an important response to the current labor shortage, but also as key to ensuring the long-term sustainability of agricultural production in the region, having important implications for the stewardship of water resources, air pollution and soil health.
“Policies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long-term productivity and sustainability of the nation,” says S. K. Chaudhari, deputy director general for Natural Resource Management at ICAR.
A farmer in India uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
Warding off catastrophe
Although the agricultural cycle is not yet over, and early data are still partial, Singh and Jat estimate that thanks to the dramatic adoption of alternative agricultural practices this year, their worst-case estimates have been avoided. Given the rapid response from both policymakers and farmers, the real-world effects of the COVID-19 labor crisis are likely closer to the mid-range severity scenarios of their analysis. Indeed, early estimates predict no rice yield losses and minor-to-no wheat yield losses over baseline. For the researchers, the relief is palpable and the lessons couldn’t be clearer.
“These technologies were there for decades, but they were never appreciated because everything was normal,” says Jat. “This clearly indicates a need for investment in the technology and the research. You may encounter a problem at any time, but you cannot generate the technology overnight.”
Farmer speaks on his mobile phone in Bihar, India. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)
The Bihar Convergence Platform for agriculture, a synergistic partnership to innovate and initiate targeted interventions that help farmers to have informed choices with proven scientific recommendations, has been consistently working to accelerate interventions and improve the lives and capacity of small and marginal farmers since its establishment in October 2019.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), in association with CABI and the Open Data Institute, hosted a six-day virtual interactive training in September for platform members on the theme “creating impact through wider data sharing.” The training aimed at strengthening technical expertise of the participants, creating an enabling environment to unlock the benefits of data sharing and developing space for participants to discuss, brainstorm and co-design initiatives to be implemented together by the platform in coming days.
The training ended with a common understanding about the challenges and constraints in agriculture because data is in silos. Furthermore, participants agreed on the need to look at the existing data with a broader lens to accelerate the pace of development in agriculture in the state. Participants expressed that sharing the data under set norms with standardized licensing could act as a catalyst to increase the benefits for smallholder farmers.
To constructively deal with the challenges in agriculture together, the platform members stressed the need to start analyzing existing data from a wider perspective and data sharing as the key for designing fact-based interventions for larger good and impact.
Platform members interact during virtual training. (Photo: Sugandha Munshi/CIMMYT)
The platform is chaired by the Vice Chancellor of Bihar Agriculture University, with key members from Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society known as Jeevika, Bihar Agriculture University, Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agriculture University, Agriculture Technology Application Resource Institute, ICAR-RCER, and the CSISA project, along with private groups like IFFCO, Bayer, and ITC.
Out of the many activities jointly implemented by the platform, the Data Ecosystem is the key arena where the platform works together in strengthening the impact of data and incorporating them in accelerating quality interventions for farmers.
This story was first published on the CSISA website.
Sashimoni Lohar, a fifty-three-year-old from Badbil village, in Odisha, is like any other woman you would encounter in India’s rural heartlands. Her life is mostly confined within the boundaries of her home and farm.
The COVID-19 lockdown has been hard on people across India, but particularly agonizing for families like Lohar’s. Both her sons lost their jobs as laborers, one in a town near home, and the other in a city in a different state. Her younger son Debodutta, a migrant laborer stuck in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru when the midnight lockdown was announced, managed to survive and returned home two months later, aggrieved and penniless. Her husband remained the only earning family member, though on a meager salary, and the family dreaded not only the virus but hunger, as the small reserve of income and rations they had was coming to an end.
Lohar was the only one who refused to give up hope. With support from her village self-help group (SHG), she cultivated two acres of hybrid maize this year. The income generated through selling the crop at a roadside stall next to her farm ensured the wellbeing of her family in this critical period. For a brief time, along with her husband’s small income, she became the provider for the family with seven mouths to feed during the lockdown.
Lohar did worry for her jobless sons’ futures but believed that as a successful maize farmer with the skills acquired in the last few years, she can do even better. “Maize farming has supported us during this low-income and very critical period. I shall continue maize cultivation and hope to increase our lease in land next year,” said a visibly triumphant Lohar.
Investing in maize
Today, along with her husband and a new-found entrepreneurial spirit, she hopes to keep Debodutta and her older son closer to home. After lockdown restriction were eased, she invested about Rs.12,000 (roughly US$165) into maize cultivation and set up two stalls by the national highway next to the farm to sell green maize cobs again alongside her family. They made back almost double their investment from less than one acre and she plans to keep the excess as dry grain for the poultry feed mill. A budding entrepreneur full of confidence, Lohar now plans to start a small grocery shop with a loan in the coming months.
A few years ago, many women from these tribal areas in Odisha did not even step out of their houses and villages. They were reluctant to go to the market or the bank – anywhere away from the familiarity of their home. Today, through the opportunities afforded by government economic development programs and collaborations such as the one with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia project (CSISA), these women have established themselves as successful maize farmers and entrepreneurs.
Lohar is just one of many women in the rural villages of Odisha — particularly in Mayurbhanj district where COVID-19 has left many male family members jobless — who either individually or in groups erected about 27 small stalls adjacent to their maize fields to sell green cobs to travelers on the highway. Many are very confident and determined to support and lead their families through this difficult time.
Farmer and budding entrepreneur Sashimoni Lohar proudly shows off her new maize stall next to her farm. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CIMMYT)
Engaging tribal groups
Mayurbhanj is a district in Odisha where nearly 58.7 percent of the population are from tribal groups. During the kharif — autumn, monsoon and cultivation — season, thousands of hectares of upland are left fallow, due to lack of education and knowledge and tribal farmers’ low risk-bearing capacity. CSISA began working in the district in 2013, improving farming systems for higher yields and providing sustainable livelihood options for tribal farmers.
From 2013 to 2020, CSISA, in collaboration with the State Department of Agriculture, Department of Horticulture, NGO partners, private seed companies, women SHG federations and the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), helped develop maize cultivation as an important part of the tribal people’s livelihoods. Thousands of hectares of fallow lands are now being converted to cultivate maize, focusing on sustainable agriculture and livelihoods, predominantly involving women as most men were occupied or engaged in migrant jobs. This year alone, more than 100 tribal women from Badbil village have cultivated approximately 120 acres of commercial hybrid maize.
CSISA supports the farmers all the way from sowing to crop harvesting. To strengthen dry grain marketing and to avail the benefits of different schemes under the government of Odisha’s support for farmer producer groups (FPGs), CSISA has formed two women’s FPGs in Badbil alone. Some of the SHGs working with CSISA on maize cultivation in the region in the last four-five years include Maa Jagat Janani, Johar Jaher Aya, Biswa Jay Maa Tarini, Maa Saraswati, Subha Patni, and Maa Brundabati.
The women from the villages in Mayurbhanj have become well-known, both within and outside the district, for their good quality green cobs and marketing intelligence. These women had the courage to change their circumstances and lifted their families out of situations of uncertainty and hardship. The rows of industrious rural women selling maize by the national highway became national news, and many of the state’s media channels that come to cover this story hailed their determination and capacity for income generation, even in a pandemic, as symbols of women’s empowerment in the tribal community.
Cover photo: A womens’ group sells green cobs by the national highway next to their maize farm. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CIMMYT)
A new policy brief produced by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) lays out a clear case for the benefits and importance of conservation agriculture, and a road map for accelerating its adoption in Eastern India.
A collaborative effort by research and policy partners including ICAR, the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and national academic and policy institutions, the brief represents the outputs of years of both rigorous scientific research and stakeholder consultations.
Eastern India — an area comprising seven states — is one of the world’s most densely populated areas, and a crucial agricultural zone, feeding more than a third of India’s population. The vast majority — more than 80% — of its farmers are smallholders, earning on average, just over half the national per capita income.
Conservation agriculture (CA) consists of farming practices that aim to maintain and boost yields and increase profits while reversing land degradation, protecting the environment and responding to climate change. These practices include minimal mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil cover with living or dead plant material, and crop diversification through rotation or intercropping. A number of studies have shown the success of conservation agriculture in combatting declining factor productivity, deteriorating soil health, water scarcity, labor shortages, and climate change in India.
The road map lists recommended steps for regional and national policy makers, including
establishing a database repository on conservation agriculture for eastern India,
setting up common learning platform and sites for science-based evidence on CA,
developing an effective and productive supply chain system for CA machinery,
offering subsidies for CA machinery as incentives to farmers,
adopting pricing strategies to encourage market demand for sustained adoption of CA,
developing synergies for effective coordination between NARS and CGIAR institutions, and
A combine harvester equipped with the Super SMS (left) harvests rice while a tractor equipped with the Happy Seeder is used for direct seeding of wheat. (Photo: Sonalika Tractors)
Partners include the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS), the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Bihar Agricultural University, and the Department of Agriculture of the state of Bihar.
In response to increasing labor scarcity and costs, growth in mechanized wheat and rice harvesting has fueled farm prosperity and entrepreneurial opportunity in the poorest parts of Nepal, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have recorded.
Farmers are turning to two-wheeled tractor-mounted reaper-harvesters to make up for the lack of farm labor, caused by a significant number of rural Nepalese — especially men and youth — migrating out in search of employment opportunities.
For Nandalal Oli, a 35-year-old farmer from Bardiya in far-west Nepal, investing in a mechanized reaper not only allowed him to avoid expensive labor costs that have resulted from out-migration from his village, but it also provided a source of income offering wheat and rice harvesting services to his neighbors.
“The reaper easily attaches on my two-wheel tractor and means I can mechanically cut and lay the wheat and rice harvests,” said Oli, the father of two. “Hiring help to harvest by hand is expensive and can take days but with the reaper attachment it’s done in hours, saving time and money.”
Oli was first introduced to the small reaper attachment three years ago at a farmer exhibition hosted by Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), funded through USAID. He saw the reaper as an opportunity to add harvesting to his mechanization business, where he was already using his two-wheel tractor for tilling, planting and transportation services.
Prosperity powers up reaper adoption
Number of 2-wheel tractor-attachable reaper-harvesters operational through service providers in Nepal’s Terai, 2014–2019
Over 4,000 mechanized reapers have been sold in Nepal with more than 50% in far and mid-west Nepal since researchers first introduced the technology five years ago. The successful adoption — which is now led by agricultural machinery dealers that were established or improved with CSISA’s support — has led nearly 24,000 farmers to have regular access to affordable crop harvesting services, said CIMMYT agricultural economist Gokul Paudel.
“Reapers improve farm management, adding a new layer of precision farming and reducing grain loss. Compared to manual harvesting mechanized reapers improve farming productivity that has shown to significantly increase average farm profitability when used for harvesting both rice and wheat,” he explained.
Nearly 65% of Nepal’s population works in agriculture, yet this South Asian country struggles to produce an adequate and affordable supply of food. The research indicated increased farm precision through the use of mechanized reapers boosts farm profitability by $120 a year when used for both rice and wheat harvests.
Oli agreed farmers see the benefit of his harvesting service as he has had no trouble finding customers. On an average year he serves 100 wheat and rice farmers in a 15 kilometer radius of his home.
“Investing in the reaper harvester worked for me. I earn 1,000 NRs [about $8] per hour harvesting fields and was able to pay off the purchase in one season. The added income ensures I can stay on top of bills and pay my children’s school fees.”
Farmers who have purchased reapers operate as service providers to other farms in their community, Paudel said.
“This has the additional benefit of creating legitimate jobs in rural areas, particularly needed among both migrant returnees who are seeking productive uses for earnings gained overseas that, at present, are mostly used for consumptive and unproductive sectors.”
“This additional work can also contribute to jobs for youth keeping them home rather than migrating,” he said.
The adoption rate of the reaper harvester is projected to reach 68% in the rice-wheat systems in the region within the next three years if current trends continue, significantly increasing access and affordability to the service.
Private and public support for mechanized harvester key to strong adoption
Achieving buy-in from the private and public sector was essential to the successful introduction and uptake of reaper attachments in Nepal, said Scott Justice, an agricultural and rural mechanization expert with the CSISA project.
Off the back of the popularity of the two-wheel tractor for planting and tilling, 22 reaper attachments were introduced by the researchers in 2014. Partnering with government institutions, the researchers facilitated demonstrations led by the private sector in farmers’ fields successfully building farmer demand and market-led supply.
“The reapers were introduced at the right place, at the right time. While nearly all Terai farmers for years had used tractor-powered threshing services, the region was suffering from labor scarcity or labor spikes where it took 25 people all day to cut one hectare of grain by hand. Farmers were in search of an easier and faster way to cut their grain,” Justice explained.
“Engaging the private and public sector in demonstrating the functionality and benefits of the reaper across different districts sparked rapidly increasing demand among farmers and service providers,” he said.
Early sales of the reaper attachments have mostly been directly to farmers without the need for considerable government subsidy. Much of the success was due to the researchers’ approach engaging multiple private sector suppliers and the Nepal Agricultural Machinery Entrepreneurs’ Association (NAMEA) and networks of machinery importers, traders, and dealers to ensure stocks of reapers were available at local level. The resulting competition led to 30-40% reduction in price contributing to increasing sales.
“With the technical support of researchers through the CSISA project we were able to import reaper attachments and run demonstrations to promote the technology as a sure investment for farmers and rural entrepreneurs,” said Krishna Sharma from Nepal Agricultural Machinery Entrepreneurs’ Association (NAMEA).
From 2015, the private sector capitalized on farmers’ interest in mechanized harvesting by importing reapers and running their own demonstrations and several radio jingles and sales continued to increase into the thousands, said Justice.
Building entrepreneurial capacity along the value chain
Through the CSISA project private dealers and public extension agencies were supported in developing training courses on the use of the reaper and basic business skills to ensure long-term success for farmers and rural entrepreneurs.
Training was essential in encouraging the emergence of mechanized service provision models and the market-based supply and repair chains required to support them, said CIMMYT agricultural mechanization engineer Subash Adhikari.
“Basic operational and business training for farmers who purchased a reaper enabled them to become service providers and successfully increased the access to reaper services and the amount of farms under improved management,” he said.
As commonly occurs when machinery adoption spreads, the availability of spare parts and repairs for reapers lagged behind sales. Researchers facilitated reaper repair training for district sales agent mechanics, as well as providing small grants for spare parts to build the value chain, Adhikari added.
Apart from hire services, mechanization creates additional opportunities for new business with repair and maintenance of equipment, sales and dealership of related businesses including transport and agro-processing along the value chain.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) aims to sustainably increase the productivity of cereal based cropping systems to improve food security and farmers’ livelihoods in Nepal. CSISA works with public and private partners to support the widespread adoption of affordable and climate-resilient farming technologies and practices, such as improved varieties of maize, wheat, rice and pulses, and mechanization.
Cover photo: A farmer uses a two-wheel tractor-mounted reaper to harvest wheat in Nepal. (Photo: Timothy J. Krupnik/CIMMYT)
