India’s maize production area currently covers over 10 million hectares, with an annual production of about 25 million tons. Most of this crop is rainfed and therefore vulnerable to climatic shocks such as monsoon rains and associated abiotic and biotic constraints. Moisture availability is seldom adequate for rainfed maize, as the erratic or un-even distribution patterns of monsoon rains often causes intermittent drought, heat or excessive moisture/waterlogging at different crop growth stage(s). This is the main factor responsible for the relatively low productivity of rainfed maize – locally known as Kharif. Additionally, due to un-assured return, farmers often hesitate to invest in improved seed, fertilizers and inputs, which further contributes to poor yields.
In recent years the country’s tropical regions have experienced frequent and widespread drought, coupled with increased (day and night) temperatures during the main maize growing season, in addition to the scattered drought, heat and/or waterlogging that occur almost every year. The compound effects of multiple stresses during monsoon season is reflected in the low productivity of Kharif maize, which is usually less than half compared to irrigated (Rabi) maize.
In response to this, the “Improving rainfed (Kharif) maize productivity” project was established in collaboration with the All-India Coordinated Maize Improvement Program (AICMIP), with the aim of developing maize varieties with tolerance to drought, heat stress and waterlogging. This can play in important role in enhancing maize productivity in rainfed, stress-prone ecologies, and ultimately help boost national maize productivity and production.
Objectives:
Breed commercially viable, stress-resilient hybrids for rainfed cultivation in stress-prone, dry lowland ecologies;
Implement stress phenotyping for target traits at precision phenotyping sites and take forward selected best-bet, stress-resilient hybrids for large-scale evaluation in target environments through the AICMIP network;
Assess genomic diversity among AICMIP, CIMMYT, and ICAR-IIMR germplasm for abiotic stress tolerance;
Heterotic classification of AICMIP and ICAR-IIMR inbred lines through delineation of combining abilities.
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.”
Wheat blast damages wheat spikes. (Photo: Xinyao He / CIMMYT)
In an article published in Nature Scientific Reports, a team of scientists led by wheat breeder Philomin Juliana from the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) conducted a large genome-wide association study to look for genomic regions that could also be associated with resistance to wheat blast.
Juliana and fellow scientists found 36 significant markers on chromosome 2AS, 3BL, 4AL and 7BL that appeared to be consistently associated with blast resistance across different environments. Among these, 20 markers were found to be in the position of the 2NS translocation, a chromosomal segment transferred to wheat from a wild relative, Aegilops ventricosa, that has very strong and effective resistance to wheat blast.
The team also gained excellent insights into the blast resistance of the globally-distributed CIMMYT germplasm by genomic fingerprinting a panel over 4,000 wheat lines for the presence of the 2NS translocation, and found that it was present in 94.1% of lines from International Bread Wheat Screening Nurseries (IBWSNs) and 93.7% of lines from Semi-Arid Wheat Screening Nurseries (SAWSNs). Although it is reassuring that such a high percentage of CIMMYT wheat lines already have the 2NS translocation and implied blast resistance, finding other novel resistance genes will be instrumental in building widespread, global resilience to wheat blast outbreaks in the long-term.
The researchers used data collected over the last two years from CIMMYT’s IBWSNs and SAWSNs by collaborators at the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute (BWMRI) and Bolivia’s Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal (INIAF).
Devastating fungal disease
Wheat blast, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum, was first identified in 1985 in South America, but has been seen in Bangladesh in recent years. The expansion of the disease is a great concern for regions of similar environmental conditions in South Asia, and other regions globally.
Although management of the disease using fungicide is possible, it is not completely effective for multiple reasons, including inefficiency during high disease pressure, resistance of the fungal populations to some classes of fungicides, and the affordability of fungicide to resource-poor farmers. Scientists see the development and deployment of wheat with genetic resistance to blast as the most sustainable and farmer-friendly approach to preventing devastating outbreaks around the world.
This work was made possible by the generous support of the Delivering Genetic Gains in Wheat (DGGW) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and managed by Cornell University, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Feed the Future initiative, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsråd), and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
Wheat blast, a fast-acting and devastating fungal disease, has been reported for the first time on the African continent. In an article published in the scientific journal PLoS One, a team of scientists confirmed that symptoms of wheat blast first appeared in Zambia during the 2018 rainy season, in experimental plots and small-scale farms in the Mpika district, Muchinga province.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the US Department of Agriculture – Foreign Disease Weed Science Research Unit (USDA-ARS) and the Zambian Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI) participated in this study.
Wheat blast poses a serious threat to rain-fed wheat production in Zambia and raises the alarm for surrounding regions and countries on the African continent with similar environmental conditions. Worldwide, 2.5 billion consumers depend on wheat as a staple food and, in recent years, several African countries have been actively working towards reducing dependence on wheat imports.
“This presents yet another challenging biotic constraint to rain-fed wheat production in Zambia,” said Batiseba Tembo, wheat breeder at ZARI and lead scientist on the study.
A difficult diagnosis
Researchers from ZARI check for wheat blast in experimental plots. (Photo: Batiseba Tembo/ZARI)
“The first occurrence of the disease was very distressing. This happened at the spike stage, and caused significant losses,” Tembo said. “Nothing of this nature has happened before in Zambia.”
Researchers were initially confused when symptoms of the disease were first reported in the fields of Mpika. Zambia has unique agro-climatic conditions, particularly in the rainfed wheat production system, and diseases such as spot blotch and Fusarium head blight are common.
“The crop had silvery white spikes and a green canopy, resulting in shriveled grains or no grains at all… Within the span of seven days, a whole field can be attacked,” Tembo explained. Samples were collected and analyzed in the ZARI laboratory, and suspicions grew among researchers that this may be a new disease entirely.
Tembo participated in the Basic Wheat Improvement Course at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Mexico, where she discussed the new disease with Pawan Singh, head of Wheat Pathology at CIMMYT. Singh worked with Tembo to provide guidance and the molecular markers needed for the sample analysis in Zambia, and coordinated the analysis of the wheat disease samples at the USDA-ARS facility in Fort Detrick, Maryland, United States.
All experiments confirmed the presence of the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum (MoT), which causes the disease.
“This is a disaster which needs immediate attention,” Tembo said. “Otherwise, wheat blast has the potential to marginalize the growth of rain-fed wheat production in Zambia and may threaten wheat production in neighboring countries as well.”
Wheat blast spreads through infected seeds and crop residues, as well as by spores that can travel long distances in the air. The spread of blast within Zambia is indicated by both mechanisms of expansion.
Wheat blast has expanded rapidly since it was initially discovered in Brazil in 1985. (Map: Kai Sonder/CIMMYT)
A cause for innovation and collaboration
CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) are taking action on several fronts to combat wheat blast. Trainings and international courses invite participants to gain new technical skills and knowledge in blast diagnostics, treatment and mitigation strategies. WHEAT scientists and partners are also studying the genetic factors that increase resistance to the disease and developing early warning systems.
“A set of research outcomes, including the development of resistant varieties, identification of effective fungicides, agronomic measures, and new findings in the epidemiology of disease development will be helpful in mitigating wheat blast in Zambia,” Singh said.
“It is imperative that the regional and global scientific communities join hands to determine effective measures to halt further spread of this worrisome disease in Zambia and beyond,” Tembo expressed.
Financial support for this research was provided by the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS).
The Basic Wheat Training Program and Wheat Blast Training is made possible by support from investors including the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), WHEAT, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF), the Swedish Research Council (SRC) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the United States Agency for International Development and the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (FFAR).
About CIMMYT
The International Maize and What 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 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.
“What you are now about to witness didn’t exist even a few years ago,” begins the first video in a series on zero tillage produced by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Zero tillage, an integral part of conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification, can save farmers time, money and irrigation water.
Through storytelling, the videos demonstrate the process to become a zero till farmer or service provider: from learning how to prepare a field for zero tillage to the safe use of herbicides.
All videos are available in Bengali, Hindi and English.
This videos were produced as part of the Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI) project, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The videos were scripted with regional partners and filmed with communities in West Bengal, India.
Sudha Nair is inspired every day by her passion for biology and genetics. The senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) based in Hyderabad, India, works to define and practice the best strategies for applying genomics in agriculture.
“I always knew that science is what I would love to pursue,” said Sudha, an alumnus of both the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi and the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Japan.
Originally from Kerala, India, Sudha did not expect a career in agriculture. “I studied for engineering after my high school as I was selected for that course before I was selected for the biology stream. It didn’t take me even a single moment to decide to leave the course six months later when I was selected for the undergraduate program in agriculture,” Sudha said. “I can’t say that it is love for agriculture that forced me to choose the field I am in, but it is the fascination for biological science. I love genetics and I love research; as long as I get to do this as part of my job, I am happy.”
Sudha’s first experience working with CIMMYT involved her PhD dissertation at IARI, which was a part of research conducted for the Asian Maize Biotechnology Network (AMBIONET), led by CIMMYT. “I had always looked at CIMMYT as an organization doing high quality applied science,” she said.
Starting in 2010 as a consultant for the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, Sudha then interviewed for the position of maize fine-mapping specialist in 2011 and was selected as a scientist. Her career at CIMMYT has now spanned close to a decade.
Her role involves implementation of molecular breeding in the maize breeding program in Asia. This includes discovery, validation and application of molecular markers for prioritized traits, genomic selection, and marker-based quality assurance and quality control in maize breeding – through current and past projects like Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA), Climate Resilient Maize for Asia (CRMA) and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE). Apart from this, she is currently involved in the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) project for incorporating elite and stress tolerance genetics from Asia in the elite African maize germplasm.
Sudha has been a part of a number of global maize projects including the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project, which developed improved maize varieties tolerant to stresses such as drought and diseases, and HarvestPlus in maize, developing nutritionally enriched maize cultivars. She has also played a key role in developing CIMMYT’s second-generation tropicalized haploid inducers using marker-assisted breeding.
Sudha Nair speaking at a Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) annual review and planning meeting. (Photo: Sudha Nair/CIMMYT)
Bringing genetics and breeding together
Sudha is grateful for the role of CIMMYT in increasing acceptance and use of genomics in breeding programs. “When I started off as a graduate student, any work related to molecular genetics was called biotechnology, and we were considered as a different “breed”, who worked in silos to spend resources on “upstream research”, and whose results never saw any breeding applications. Breeding and molecular genetics were like parallel lines that would never meet,” she explained.
“In course of time, the research communities in applied breeding institutes like CIMMYT have brought about changes in strategies, goals, and more importantly, attitudes, and now all of us work towards one major goal of developing impactful products (varieties) for benefiting resource-constrained farming communities worldwide. All in all, I and my colleagues in the upstream research team in CIMMYT Global Maize Program have an important responsibility of providing core support to the breeding and seed systems teams in developing and delivering impactful products.”
When asked what the most enjoyable part of her work is, Sudha cited the practicality and applicability of her work. “Basically, my job responsibility is to design and implement the best strategies for applying genomics in maize breeding to achieve higher genetic gains,” she explained. “Being in an organization like CIMMYT, what is most satisfying about the role I am in is the translation of upstream research into tools for improving breeding efficiency and in turn into impactful maize varieties that the farming communities around the world cultivate.”
There is no nationwide official data on how much rice in India is grown through DSR. M L Jat, principal scientist with Mexico-based CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), estimated that about 10 per cent of India’s 44 million ha under rice cultivation is through DSR.
In the past few decades, many state governments have been encouraging farmers to move to DSR because it is easier on the environment, but without much success.
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.
June marks the start of the rice growing season in India’s breadbasket but on the quiet fields of Haryana and Punjab you wouldn’t know it.
Usually the northwestern Indian states are teeming with migrant laborers working to transplant rice paddies. However, the government’s swift COVID-19 lockdown measures in late March triggered reverse migration, with an estimated 1 million laborers returning to their home states.
The lack of migrant workers has raised alarms for the labor-dependent rice-wheat farms that feed the nation. Healthy harvests are driven by timely transplanting of rice and, consequently, by the timely sowing of the succeeding wheat crop in rotation.
Without political support for alternative farming practices, crop losses from COVID-19 labor disruptions could reach $1.5 billion and significantly diminish the country’s grain reserves, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) warned.
Researchers also fear delayed rice transplanting could encourage unsustainable residue burning as farmers rush to clear land in the short window between rice harvest and wheat sowing. Increased burning in the fall will exacerbate the COVID-19 health risk by contributing to the blanket of thick air pollution that covers much of northwest India, including the densely populated capital region of New Delhi.
The burning of crop residue, or stubble, across millions of hectares of cropland between planting seasons is a visible contributor to air pollution in both rural and urban areas. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
Both farmers and politicians are showing increased interest in farm mechanization and crop diversification as they respond to COVID-19 disruptions, said M.L. Jat, a CIMMYT scientist who coordinates sustainable intensification programs in northwestern India.
“Farmers know the time of planting wheat is extremely important for productivity. To avoid production losses and smog-inducing residue burning, alternative farm practices and technologies must be scaled up now,” Jat said.
The time it takes to manually transplant rice paddies is a particular worry. Manual transplanting accounts for 95% of rice grown in the northwestern regions. Rice seedlings grown in a nursery are pulled and transplanted into puddled and leveled fields — a process that takes up to 30 person-days per hectare, making it highly dependent on the availability of migrant laborers.
Even before COVID-19, a lack of labor was costing rice-wheat productivity and encouraging burning practices that contribute to India’s air pollution crisis, said CIMMYT scientist Balwinder Singh.
“Mechanized sowing and harvesting has been growing in recent years. The COVID-19 labor shortage presents a unique opportunity for policymakers to prioritize productive and environmentally-friendly farming practices as long term solutions,” Singh said.
Sustainable practices to cope with labor bottlenecks
CIMMYT researchers are working with national and state governments to get information and technologies to farmers, however, there are significant challenges to bringing solutions to scale in the very near term, Singh explained.
There is no silver bullet in the short term. However, researchers have outlined immediate and mid-term strategies to ensure crop productivity while avoiding residue burning:
Delayed or staggered nursery sowing of rice: By delaying nursery sowing to match delays in transplanting, yield potential can be conserved for rice. Any delay in transplanting rice due to labor shortage can reduce the productivity of seedlings. Seedling age at transplanting is an important factor for optimum growth and yield.
“Matching nursery sowing to meet delayed transplanting dates is an immediate action that farmers can take to ensure crop productivity in the short term. However, it’s important policymakers prioritize technologies, such as direct seeders, that contribute to long term solutions,” Singh said.
Direct drilling of wheat using the Happy Seeder: Direct seeding of wheat into rice residues using the Happy Seeder, a mechanized harvesting combine, can reduce the turnaround time between rice harvest and wheat sowing, potentially eliminating the temptation to burn residues.
“Identifying the areas with delayed transplanting well in advance should be a priority for effectively targeting the direct drilling of wheat using Happy Seeders,” said Jat. The average farmer who uses the Happy Seeder can generate up to 20% more profits than those who burn their fields, he explained. “Incentivizing farmers through a direct benefit transfer payment to adopt ‘no burn’ practices may help accelerate transitions.”
Directly sown rice: Timely planting of rice can also be achieved by adopting dry direct seeding of rice using mechanized seed-cum-fertilizer planters. In addition to reducing the labor requirement for crop establishment, dry direct seeding allows earlier rice planting due to its lower water requirement for establishment. Direct-seeded rice also matures earlier than puddled transplanted rice. Thus, earlier harvesting improves the chance to sow wheat on time.
“CIMMYT researchers are working with the local mechanical engineers on rolling out simple tweaks to enable the Happy Seeder to be used for direct rice seeding. The existing availability of Happy Seeders in the region will improve the speed direct rice sowing can be adopted,” Jat said.
Crop diversification with maize: Replacing rice with maize in the monsoon season is another option to alleviate the potential shortage of agricultural labor due to COVID-19, as the practice of establishing maize by machine is already common.
“Research evidence generated over the past decade demonstrates that maize along with modern agronomic management practices can provide a profitable and sustainable alternative to rice,” Jat explained. “The diversification of rice with maize can potentially contribute to sustainability that includes conserving groundwater, improving soil health and reducing air pollution through eliminating residue burning.”
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)
Getting innovations into farmers’ fields
Rapid policy decisions by national and state governments on facilitating more mechanized operations in labor-intensive rice-wheat production regions will address labor availability issues while contributing to productivity enhancement of succeeding wheat crop in rotation, as well as overall system sustainability, said ICAR’s deputy director general for agricultural extension, AK Singh.
The government is providing advisories to farmers through multiple levels of communications, including extension services, messaging services and farmer collectives to raise awareness and encourage adoption.
Moving toward mechanization and crop diversity should not be viewed as a quick fix to COVID-19 related labor shortages, but as the foundation for long-term policies that help India in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, said ICAR’s deputy director general for Natural Research Management, SK Chaudhari.
“Policies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long term productivity of the nation,” he said.
Northwestern India is home to millions of smallholder farmers making it a breadbasket for grain staples. Since giving birth to the Green Revolution, the region has continued to increase its food production through rice and wheat farming providing bulk of food to the country.
This high production has not come without shortfalls, different problems like a lowering water table, scarcity of labor during peak periods, deteriorating soil health, and air pollution from crop residue burning demands some alternative methods to sustain productivity as well as natural resources.
Cover photo: A farmer uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform the way the world operates, and agricultural production systems are not exempt.
Even in countries that have identified the agricultural sector as an essential one, ongoing restrictions on transport and freedom of movement are causing disruptions across the value chain — with potentially devastating impact on already fragile food systems in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
With this in mind, systems agronomists and mechanization specialists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), discuss the impact of restrictions on agricultural labor and production, and the role farm mechanization can play in addressing new challenges.
What are the implications of the agricultural labor shortages that are emerging in Africa and Latin America as a result of COVID-19 restrictions?
A woman demonstrates the use of a mini-tiller in Naivasha, Kenya. (Photo: Matt O’Leary/CIMMYT)
Frédéric Baudron: The pandemic has demonstrated that food production systems around the world — even in countries where agriculture is thought to be highly mechanized — are highly dependent on farm labor.
Africa is often presented as being dominated by farms which rely mainly on the labor of family members. Therefore, one could expect that Africa would be spared from the consequences of unavailability and/or unaffordability of hired labor. However, a recent CIMMYT study shows that farming systems in Africa are far more dependent on hired labor than commonly thought, and that the quasi total dependence of smallholder farming on family labor is a myth. Depending on the farming system, a complete loss of hired labor could lead to a productivity decrease of up to 20% in Eastern and Southern Africa. Hired labor is also likely to be replaced by child labor.
Because most production on the continent is rainfed during a single season, most farmers only plant and harvest once per year, making the timing of each task critical. A delay in planting because of labor shortages — as will soon occur Ethiopia — could lead to dramatically reduced yields. A delay in harvesting — as is currently experienced in Zimbabwe — means a large fraction of the crop is likely to be spoilt in the field.
Jelle Van Loon: The situation is similar for Mexico and the general Central American corridor, although the main production cycle is only just starting. Proper land preparation and timely sowing are critical, not only in terms of food production and achieving proper yields, but also to ensure that farmers have a stable income at the end of the year. This is especially important now, as financial and food reserves are shrinking at a faster pace due to COVID-19 restrictions that heavily affect demand on informal markets.
An operator demonstrates the use of a reaper in Bangladesh. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Are you seeing a similar situation in South Asia?
Timothy Krupnik: Depending on the country, we’ve seen either abrupt interruptions in the movement of agricultural laborers — for example in India where millions of migrant laborers have not been able to travel home during lockdown — or an influx of people from urban areas who fled to their villages when lockdown began.
In the latter case, one might expect this to increase labor availability for farming, but we tended to observe the reverse. People remain largely frightened of coming out of their homes, so even in rural areas which saw an influx of people, labor availability has not necessarily increased. Where laborers are willing to work, our initial scan of the evidence indicates that daily wage labor costs have also increased considerably due to risks of infection spreading. In either situation, smallholder farmers who need to hire labor to assure crucial crop management activities like planting or harvesting are suffering. There are reports emerging also of increased child labor in the region as schools are closed and resource-poor farmers are allocating family members and children to work where they can’t afford to hire labor.
M.L. Jat: I would like to cite the specific example of intensive rice-wheat rotation in India’s breadbasket and the Green Revolution corridors in the western Indo-Gangetic plains, which provide the bulk of cereals to the national food basket. An ex-ante analysis on the consequences of the reverse migration of the agricultural workforce and social distancing due to COVID-19 revealed that a delay in the transplanting of rice seedlings by two weeks is likely, which will delay rice harvesting and consequently delay the planting of wheat. This will potentially lead to rice and wheat production losses of 10-25%, worth up to $1.5 billion.
In addition, the shorter turn around between harvesting rice and planting wheat may further increase the incidence of rice residue burning. This is a major problem which creates significant health issues and may exacerbate the threat of COVID-19 by increasing both infection rates and disease severity.
Krupnik: The situation has increased interest and policy to support use of scale-appropriate machinery for operations like harvesting. In Bangladesh, for example, there was a recent and very serious risk of losing much of the rice harvest as the monsoon has started early and flash flooding has been a concern. Without manual laborers to harvest the crop, CIMMYT-led projects like the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Extension Activity (CSISA-MEA) have played a key role in assisting the movement of combine harvesters and crop reapers to areas at risk of crop losses and helping to assure the rice crop is harvested on time.
An operator demonstrates the use of a starwheel planter in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Frederic Baudron/CIMMYT)
It sounds like these machines were instrumental in avoiding crop losses. Does this mean that mechanization has a key role to play in lessening the impact of these labor shortages?
Krupnik: During the COVID-19 crisis, scale-appropriate machinery has become even more important for mitigating labor shortages. We work to facilitate the availability of scale-appropriate machinery not only so that farmers can buy and use equipment, but also by encouraging those who own machineries to become entrepreneurial service providers who offer efficient and mechanized land preparation, planting, irrigation, harvesting and post-harvesting to other farmers on an affordable fee-for-service basis.
This is a win-win situation for farmers who can’t access or afford the escalating costs of labor. In the COVID-19 crisis, these arrangements assist in responding to the labor crunch in locations where resource-poor farmers are most in need, and also allow farmers to get crucial work done while maintaining and encouraging social distancing.
Baudron: Over the past seven years, CIMMYT and its partners have fine-tuned technologies and developed delivery models — based on rural service providers supported by private sector companies — to scale the use of small machines in East and Southern Africa. These are profitable for both farmers and service providers and reduce labor requirements tremendously.
In Zimbabwe, we found that labor requirements were 15 times lower when establishing a maize field with a direct seeder pulled by a two-wheel tractor, and 23 times lower using a similar technology for establishing wheat in Rwanda, compared to the conventional method based on labor and draft power. A ton of maize that would take 12 people a full day to shell manually, can be shelled in one hour using a small double-cob sheller that costs about $300.
Jat: Rapid policy decisions by sub-national and national governments on facilitating more mechanized operations in labor intensive rice-wheat production regions will address labor availability issues while contributing to productivity enhancement of succeeding wheat crop in rotation, as well as overall system sustainability. Our ex-ante analysis on the implications of labor shortages in rice-wheat rotation in the western Indo-Gangetic plains due to COVID-19 indicates that adoption of scale-appropriate farm mechanization has the potential to stabilize the food production as well as reducing the income losses and air pollution surges in northwest India.
Harvesting maize in Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The situation in the regions each of you have mentioned is unique, but are there any global trends that you’ve noticed? And if so, can other regions learn from these localized experiences?
Krupnik: A huge part of what we do as a research and training institute is facilitate exchanges of information across continents and countries. Different types and designs of machinery that can be used in similar circumstances can be shared, as can business models supporting service providers.
Importantly, part of the concept of ‘scale-appropriate mechanization’ is also learning when and where machinery makes sense — where labor is not scarce and rural communities are highly dependent on income from labor to sustain their communities, some forms of mechanization may not be appropriate. We work to understand these dynamics and target the right machines in the right time and right places.
Van Loon: In addition to reducing pressure on available labor and alleviating drudgery, modern farm equipment tailored to the needs of smallholders can also increase competitiveness, as it allows for higher precision and efficiency.
In this sense, scale-appropriate mechanization can stimulate rural transformation incentivizing short and efficient value chains while ensuring stable food provision — aspects that have become essential to navigating the present crisis.
Has the current pandemic brought up any new perspectives in terms of how you consider labor and mechanization?
Baudron: We often look at yield and area planted in staple crops to assess the food security situation of a country during a particular year. This pandemic has shown us that we need to pay more attention to labor productivity. In many countries, policy-makers and development agents fear that mechanization will displace labor, but the dependency of staple crops on labor is a threat to food security, as we currently see in Africa and South Asia.
If the production of fruit, vegetables, cash crops, and so on will continue to depend on manual labor, it is essential in my view for critical tasks in the production of staples to be mechanized — particularly planting and harvesting. This will ensure the resilience of national food systems in the case of a future disruption similar to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cover photo: Establishment of demo trial in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. (Photo: CIMMYT/ZRBF)
Heterogeneity in soils, hydrology, climate, and rapid changes in rural economies including fluctuating prices, aging and declining labor forces, agricultural feminization, and uneven market access are among the many factors that constrain climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in South Asia’s cereal-based farming systems.
Most previous research on CSA has employed manipulative experiments analyzing agronomic variables, or survey data from project-driven initiatives. However, this can obscure the identification of relevant factors limiting CSA, leading to inappropriate extension, policy, and inadequate institutional alignments to address and overcome limitations. Alternative big data approaches utilizing heterogeneous datasets remain insufficiently explored, though they can represent a powerful alternative source of technology and management practice performance information.
In partnership with national research systems and the private sector in Bangladesh, India and Nepal, Big data analytics for climate-smart agricultural practices in South Asia (Big Data2 CSA) is developing digital data collection systems to crowdsource, data-mine and interpret a wide variety of primary agronomic management and socioeconomic data from tens of thousands of smallholder rice and wheat farmers.
The project team analyzes these data by stacking them with spatially-explicit secondary environmental, climatic and remotely sensed data products, after which data mining and machine learning techniques are used to identify key factors contributing to patterns in yield, profitability, greenhouse gas emissions intensity and resilience.
These approaches however must be practical in order for them to be useful in agricultural development and policy. As such, the project’s analytical results will be represented through interactive web-based dashboards, with gender-appropriate crop management advisories deployed through interactive voice recognition technologies to farmers in Bangladesh, India and Nepal at a large-scale. Big Data2 CSA is supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Flagship 2 on Climate-Smart Technologies and Practices.
Objectives
Develop ICT tools enabling digital collection of crop management data and a cloud-based database that can be managed by next-users
Support advanced degree-level students to engage in field and data science research
Create a digital data collection platform enabling crowd sourcing of crop management information to evaluate contributions to CSA
Create interactive and customizable web-based dashboards presenting post-season research results and providing CSA management recommendations
Organize CSA and big data policy briefings on mainstreaming processes and policy workshops
Resorting to conservation agriculture would not only increase crop yield, income and reduce the use of natural resources, but would also confer climate change benefits, according to a study by Indian agricultural scientists and others published in an international journal on Thursday.
The study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, also showed that conservation agriculture was key to meeting many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, climate action and clean water. Conservation agriculture can offer positive contributions to several SDGs, said M. L. Jat, a Principal Scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the study.
During a conservation agriculture course, a young trainee operates a Happy Seeder mounted on a two-wheel tractor, for direct seeding of wheat in smallholder systems. (Photo: CIMMYT)
An international team of scientists has provided a sweeping new analysis of the benefits of conservation agriculture for crop performance, water use efficiency, farmers’ incomes and climate action across a variety of cropping systems and environments in South Asia.
The analysis, published today in Nature Sustainability, is the first of its kind to synthesize existing studies on conservation agriculture in South Asia and allows policy makers to prioritize where and which cropping systems to deploy conservation agriculture techniques. The study uses data from over 9,500 site-year comparisons across South Asia.
According to M.L. Jat, a principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the study, conservation agriculture also offers positive contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals of no poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, climate action and clean water.
“Conservation agriculture is going to be key to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” echoed JK Ladha, adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the study.
Scientists from CIMMYT, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the University of California, Davis, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Cornell University looked at a variety of agricultural, economic and environmental performance indicators — including crop yields, water use efficiency, economic return, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming potential — and compared how they correlated with conservation agriculture conditions in smallholder farms and field stations across South Asia.
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)
Results and impact on policy
Researchers found that many conservation agriculture practices had significant benefits for agricultural, economic and environmental performance indicators, whether implemented separately or together. Zero tillage with residue retention, for example, had a mean yield advantage of around 6%, provided farmers almost 25% more income, and increased water use efficiency by about 13% compared to conventional agricultural practices. This combination of practices also was shown to cut global warming potential by up to 33%.
This comes as good news for national governments in South Asia, which have been actively promoting conservation agriculture to increase crop productivity while conserving natural resources. South Asian agriculture is known as a global “hotspot” for climate vulnerability.
“Smallholder farmers in South Asia will be impacted most by climate change and natural resource degradation,” said Trilochan Mohapatra, Director General of ICAR and Secretary of India’s Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE). “Protecting our natural resources for future generations while producing enough quality food to feed everyone is our top priority.”
“ICAR, in collaboration with CIMMYT and other stakeholders, has been working intensively over the past decades to develop and deploy conservation agriculture in India. The country has been very successful in addressing residue burning and air pollution issues using conservation agriculture principles,” he added.
With the region’s population expected to rise to 2.4 billion, demand for cereals is expected to grow by about 43% between 2010 and 2050. This presents a major challenge for food producers who need to produce more while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the environment and other natural resources.
“The collaborative effort behind this study epitomizes how researchers, policy-makers, and development practitioners can and should work together to find solutions to the many challenges facing agricultural development, not only in South Asia but worldwide,” said Jon Hellin, leader of the Sustainable Impact Platform at IRRI.
Funders of this work include the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Government of India and the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (CRP WHEAT) and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
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.
A farmer checks the drip irrigation system at his rice field in India. (Photo: Hamish John Appleby/IWMI)
In 2009, state governments in Northwest India implemented a policy designed to reduce groundwater extraction by prohibiting the usual practice of planting rice in May and moving it to June, nearer the start of monsoon rains.
Although the policy did succeed in alleviating pressure on groundwater, it also had the unexpected effect of worsening already severe air pollution. The reason for this, according to a recent study published in Nature Sustainability, is that the delay in rice planting narrowed the window between rice harvest and sowing of the subsequent crop — mainly wheat — leaving farmers little time to remove rice straw from the field and compelling them to burn it instead.
Even though burning crop residues is prohibited in India, uncertainty about the implementation of government policy and a perceived lack of alternatives have perpetuated the practice in Haryana and Punjab states, near the nation’s capital, New Delhi, where air pollution poses a major health threat.
Land preparation on a rice field with a two-wheel tractor. (Photo: Vedachalam Dakshinamurthy/CIMMYT)
A farmer uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Vedachalam Dakshinamurthy/CIMMYT)
A farmer checks the drip irrigation system at his rice field in India. (Photo: Hamish John Appleby/IWMI)
Wheat crop in conservation agriculture. (Photo: Vedachalam Dakshinamurthy/CIMMYT)
A farmer ploughs a rice field with a water buffalo. (Photo: Licensed from Digitalpress – Dreamstime.com; Image 11205929)
Decades of research for development have enabled researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other partners to identify potential solutions to this problem.
One particularly viable option focuses on the practice of zero tillage, in which wheat seed is sown immediately after rice harvest through the rice straw directly into untilled soil with a single tractor pass.
In a new blog published as part of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Field Notes series, CIMMYT scientists Hans Braun and Bruno Gerard discuss the combination of agronomic and breeding conditions required to make zero tillage work, and propose a fundamental shift away from current incentives to maximize the region´s cereal production.
The public sector plays a vital catalytic role, through enabling policies and programs, in ensuring that biofortified crops like iron pearl millet, zinc wheat, and zinc rice reach the most vulnerable populations to address the problem of ‘hidden hunger’.
