Deepak Kumar Singh
Deepak is a consultant in the Sustainable Agrifood Systems program at CIMMYT. His area of expertise encompasses conservation agriculture, mechanization, precision agriculture, resource management and systems research.
Location: India
For more information, contact CIMMYT’s India office.
SPG Coalition: CIMMYT is a leading organization for climate-smart agriculture, nutrient-use efficiency, and pest and fertilizer management
The Coalition on Sustainable Productivity Growth for Food Security and Resource Conservation (SPG Coalition) brings together researchers, non-governmental organizations, and private sector partners to advance a world with greater access to nutritious food and affordable diets. The Coalition recognizes that increasing the productivity of natural resources through climate adaptation and mitigation is instrumental to reaching this goal.
In a recent report, the SPG Coalition provides a path forward for NGOs, research institutions, and government agencies to strengthen agrifood and climate policies. The report contains real-life, evidence-based examples to further the sustainable production and conservation of natural resources, detailing the potential impacts on social, economic, and environmental conditions.
CIMMYT features prominently in the report as a leading organization focused on 4 main areas: climate-smart agriculture, nutrient-use efficiency (NUE), and pest and fertilizer management.
Nutrient-use efficiency and fertilizer management
While chemical fertilizers increase crop yields, excessive or improper use of fertilizers contributes to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and increases labor costs for smallholders. Efficient NUE is central to nutrient management and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
In India, CIMMYT, along with the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), CGIAR Research Centers, and regional partners, tested digital tools like the Nutrient Expert (NE) decision support tool which measures proper fertilizer use for optimized yields and provides nutrient recommendations based on local soil conditions.
The majority of smallholders who applied the NE tool reported higher yields while emitting less GHG emissions by 12-20% in wheat and by around 2.5% in rice as compared with conventional fertilization practices. Farmers also recorded double economic gains: increased yields and reduced fertilizer costs. Wider government scaling of NE could enhance regional food security and mitigate GHG emissions.
The Feed the Future Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, led by CIMMYT and USAID, advocates for climate-smart agriculture by linking smallholders with improved seed, providing capacity-building programs, and promoting efficient fertilizer use. With a vast network established with the support from the Government of Nepal, NSAF successfully provides smallholders with expanded market access and nutritious and climate-resilient crop varieties.
Climate-smart maize breedingÂ
Since its arrival to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2016, fall armyworm (FAW) has devastated maize harvests for countless smallholders on the continent. Economic uncertainty caused by unstable yields and climate stressors like drought coupled with this endemic pest risk aggravating food insecurity.
CIMMYT and NARES Partner Institutions in Eastern and Southern Africa are spearheading a robust pest management project to develop, screen, and introduce genetically resistant elite maize hybrids across SSA. South Sudan, Zambia, Kenya, and Malawi have already deployed resistant maize varieties, and eight other countries in the region are projected to release their own in 2023. These countries are also conducting National Performance Trials (NPTs) to increase awareness of host plant resistance for the sustainable control of FAW and to sensitize policymakers on accelerating the delivery of FAW-tolerant maize varieties.
The establishment of FAW screening facilities in Africa permits more rapid detection and breeding of maize varieties with native genetic resistance to FAW, facilitating increased deployment of these varieties across Africa. The sustainable control of FAW demands a rapid-response effort, overseen by research organizations and governments, to further develop and validate genetic resistance to fall armyworms. Achieving greater impact for maize smallholders is critical to ensuring improved income and food security in Africa. It is also paramount for biodiversity conservation and removing labor burden on farmers applying additional synthetic pesticides to prevent further losses by the pest.
âThe SPG Coalition report emphasizes the power of partnership to enhance financial and food security for smallholder communities in the Global South. This is fully in line with the recently launched CIMMYT 2030 strategy. Itâs also an important reminder to assess our strong points and where more investment and collaboration is needed,â said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT director general.
Ajay Kumar
Ajay Kumar is Senior Research Associate of CIMMYTâs Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project in India. Ajay Kumar has been actively engaged in planning, coordinating CSISA activities of eastern UP hub.
Umesh Singh Yadav
Umesh is streamlining the data management processes by implementing efficient data governance strategies and consistently improving data quality and accessibility for the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in India.
Umesh dashboard and report the development for visual representation of data that brings clarity to data-driven decisions and ensures data integrity with meticulous attention to detail that enables informed decision-making processes.
Adaptation Atlas is a positive step towards climate resilient agriculture
India holds an impressive record in agricultural production. We are among the largest producers of milk, pulses, tea, spices, cashew, jute and bananas. Additionally, we rank as the second-largest producer of wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables. Our agricultural sector has experienced notable growth, with production increasing from 3 to 127 times since the 1970s. We have also witnessed a substantial boost in agricultural productivity, with yields per hectare rising from 0.7 to 2.3 tons during the same period.
Despite these achievements, we face pressing challenges that threaten our agricultural landscape. Water scarcity, soil degradation, pest and disease outbreaks, and the intensifying impacts of climate change need urgent attention.
In India, we observe that minimum temperatures are rising faster than maximum temperatures. We also witness a more pronounced temperature increase during the rabi (winter) season than the kharif (monsoon) season. Rainfall is becoming more variable with increasing episodes of extreme rainfall. These climate risks increase our food and livelihood insecurity.
We need advanced technological interventions and optimized resource allocation to address these challenges. Our development path, “Amrit Kaal,” necessitates climate-friendly practices prioritizing low carbon, water, nitrogen and energy usage. To further realize this vision, adopting 5Ms based on better markets, regional planning for monsoons, improved mechanization, management of micro-irrigation and new fertilizers, and mainstreaming the insurance is pivotal.
India has undertaken research, development and policy initiatives to build resilience in our food production system. However, the growing challenges of climate extremes demand sustained global efforts. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) therefore, welcomes international collaboration to exchange experiences and knowledge in climate action. We believe that collective efforts and shared expertise will strengthen our adaptation strategies.
In this regard, the Atlas of Climate Adaptation in South Asian Agriculture (ACASA) project can play a vital role. ICAR is glad to support ACASA and will deploy a team of young scientists to contribute to and benefit from this Adaptation Atlas. Furthermore, we are pleased to offer our website as a platform to host the Atlas, facilitating its broader utilization within our country. We thank the Borlaug Initiative in South Asia (BISA) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for initiating this project in India.
Together, let us pave the way toward a climate-resilient future for agriculture, safeguarding our farmers’ livelihoods and securing food for future generations.
Piece by Himanshu Pathak, Secretary (DARE) and Director General-Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India
Arnab Chakraborty
Arnab is a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning analyst in the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in India.
Arnab focuses on generating learning opportunities to improve project outcomes and the evaluation of post-intervention processes. He is interested in using mixed methods and participatory tools, along with ICT based methods, which are relevant for information diffusion and knowledge networks in food systems.
Women Farmers And Technology: Key to Driving Agri Revolution in India
Temina Lalani-Shariff explains the importance of mechanization technologies to sustainably manage finite land and water resources but also to enhance food security for a growing world population, in a more equitable manner.
Read the full story.
The lessons of Indo-US cooperation in agriculture
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) played a significant role in India’s agricultural development during the 1950s and 1960s. A brief history of this involvement – through the Green Revolution – is useful to understand CIMMYT’s journey of strengthening global partnerships.
Read the full story here.
New generation of farmers lead the way in making farming more productive and profitable
In the Indo-Gangetic Plains of northern India, nearly 70% of the population is involved in agriculture and extension services. Despite the abundantly fertile soil and farmers’ resilience, the adoption of agricultural innovations and productivity in the region has been slow.
This slow progress is often attributed to comparatively low levels of agricultural mechanization in the region and small land holdings of individual farmers, which often makes them risk averse to new technologies. However, times are changing.
Through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), working closely with the local Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and partners, have led the transition from traditional farming to sustainable intensification agricultural practices in the region, helping the region slowly but steadily realize its full potential. Over the years, working extensively with progressive farmers, CSISA scientists have helped optimize the cost of inputs and increase productivity through new technology adoption and capacity building for these farmers.
Krishnamohan Pathak, a farmer in his early sixties from the village of Patkhaoli, first learned about conservation agriculture practices when he attended a field event in Nonkhar village in Deoria district, Uttar Pradesh. CSISA researchers invited farmers from Nonkhar and neighbouring villages to attend a field day event, an exposure activity, on zero tillage wheat and direct seeded rice (DSR) technologies. Zero tillage allows farmers to plant directly without plowing or preparing the soil, minimizing soil movement. Pathak was one of the farmers who got to see first-hand the advantages of these sustainable agricultural practices.
Seeing merit in these practices, Pathak continued to engage with CSISA scientists and in 2013-2014, adopted zero tillage, and directly seeded rice in his family-owned fields.
“The CSISA field team encouraged me to buy a rice planter which has helped manage paddy transplantation on time, and wheat after that through zero till,” Pathak said.
Pathak later participated in other agri-technology events and CSISA field trial activities. In 2018, he joined other progressive farmers from the region who attended a training at ISARC (IRRI South Asia Regional Centre) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh on direct seeded rice, organized by CSISA researchers to build capacity and raise awareness of the conservation agriculture method.
The next generation leads the way
Today, Pathak is one of the key influential farming members in the region. He has now, however, passed the baton to his 37-year-old son Gangesh Pathak. “I have occupied myself with other local leadership activities after my son has been active in the fields. I am not so skilled at using these machines, their maintenance and their services. The younger generation seems much better at adapting,” he said.
Gangesh has been involved actively in farming ever since he finished his graduation, trying to make it lucrative. He has enjoyed recent success growing wheat and rice through new technology and practices. Standing in the fields recently harvested with the new improved wheat variety DBW 187, grown through early sowing â a method which goes against the traditional practice of planting after November â and zero tillage, he is happy with his 5.5 ton per hectare yield.
He spoke enthusiastically about the farming machinery he has procured to reduce drudgery in his farms and the hiring services provided to smallholder farmers in the region. After his father bought the transplanter in 2014, the family added larger machines such as the Happy Seeder, Super Seeder, Laser Land Leveller, Straw Reaper, and Direct Seeded Rice machine.
According to Gangesh, this has been possible thanks to the support from the local agriculture authorities and guidance from the CSISA team, who told his father about the various schemes offered by the central and state government to support farmers to adopt more productive and sustainable agricultural technologies.
Ajay Kumar Pundir, CIMMYT agronomist, based in Uttar Pradesh and leading CSISA’s efforts, stressed the importance of access to agricultural mechanization and support.
“Our job just does not end at informing and training farmers about better-bet agricultural practices. Along with other public and private stakeholders, we must support and ensure their availability and access â machines, quality seeds, timely information â for farmers to adopt it,” he said.
Custom hiring center help scale mechanization
With so much farm machinery, the Pathaks soon began extending hiring services. Custom hiring is a promising enterprise opportunity for farmers as they can use the machinery on their farms and earn extra income by extending services to other farmers at a reasonable cost, which helps cover diesel and maintenance costs. Gangesh made about 2.5 lakhs (USD $3,033.76) in profit during the 2022-2023 Rabi (winter crops) through hay machine hiring services, where around 250 farmers used these services.
Once the word spread, demand for hiring services by smallholder farmers, challenged by scarce labor for sowing and harvesting, started growing. Gangesh was encouraged by the good profits and was keen to share the benefits of such hiring services to as many farmers as possible, and he helped establish a Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) with his father, Krishnamohan. FPO is a group made up of farmer-producers who are entitled to a host of benefits, including quality seeds, technical support, market access, under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW).
The FPO, started by the Pathaks in 2020, with 75 members (farmers) initially, currently boasts of around 300 farmers. Almost all FPO members have availed the custom hiring services for all farming purposes and various crops. Farmers, “particularly smallholders who cannot afford to purchase these machines for less than a few acres of land, are happy with the custom hiring services. It helps reduce their input cost by almost 50% along with other FPO member benefits,” Gangesh said.
Community-based technology demonstrations by CSISA and KVK and partners are ongoing to scale-out proven technologies and practices like early wheat sowing, zero tillage, and direct seeded rice. Gangesh is hopeful that farmers in the region, despite the emerging climate crisis concerns â already being felt in the region â can produce more and improve their income. He reckons that diversifying between rice-wheat cropping systems, mechanizing and system optimization through better advisories, and improved access to technologies as recommended by agronomists, will help farmers stay ahead of the curve.
About CSISA
Established in 2009, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is a science-driven and impacts-oriented regional initiative for increasing the productivity of cereal-based cropping systems. CSISA works in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. CSISA activities in India focus on the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains, dominated by small farm sizes, low incomes, and comparatively low agricultural mechanization, irrigation, and productivity levels. Learn about CSISA (India) Phase 4.0 Â
A promising partnership
In August 2022, the arrival of a container ship at the port in Cotonou, Benin signaled a major milestone in a developing South-South business relationship that holds the potential to produce a massive change in agricultural practices and output in Benin and across West Africa.
The delivery of six-row seeder planters from India marks the initial fruit of a collaboration between Indian manufacturer Rohitkrishi Industries and Beninese machinery fabricator and distributor Techno Agro Industrie (TAI) that has been two years in the making.
Connecting partners in the Global South
A major area of focus for the Green Innovation Centers for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIC) projects launched in 15 countries by Germanyâs Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Developmentâs special initiative One World No Hunger is fostering cooperation between nations in the Global South.
This story began through the partnership between the Green Innovation Centers for the Agriculture and Food Sector and The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to increase agricultural mechanization in 14 countries in Africa and 2 in Asia.
GIC in India has been working with Rohitkrishi to develop appropriate mechanization solutions for smallholding farmers in India since 2017.
Under this new cross-border goal, GIC India discussed with Rohitkrishi the opportunity to adapt machines to the agroecological and socio-economic systems of African countries where continued use of traditional farming methods was drastically limiting efficiency, productivity, and yield. Rohitkrishi assessed the need and pursued this opportunity for long-term business expansion.
Small machines for smallholders
Before connecting with farmers and manufacturers in Benin, Rohitkrishi was busy solving problems for smallholding farmers in India, where large manufacturers focus on agricultural machinery designed and produced to meet the needs of the bigger, commercial farms. Sameer Valdiya of GIC India and Sachin Kawade of Rohitkrishi put their heads together to develop a plan for producing machines that could make a differenceâand then convince smallholding farmers to try them.
By adapting an existing machine and incorporating continuous feedback from farmers, they created a semi-automatic planter. This unique, co-creative process was accompanied by an equally important change in farmer mindset and behaviorâfrom skepticism to the demonstrated impact and cost-benefit of the planter that was clear to each farmer.
These farmers were the first to adopt the technology and promoted it to their peers. Their feedback also drove continued improvementsâa fertilizer applicator, new shaft and drive, safety features, night-lights and (perhaps most importantly) a multi-crop feature to make it useful for planting potatoes, ginger, and turmeric.
Today, Rohitkrishi has distributed 52 semi-automatic planters across India, and these machines are being used by up to 100 farmers each. Users are seeing a 17-20 percent increase in productivity, with an accompanying increase in income, and 30 percent of users are women.
The seeders are a roaring success, but Rohitkrishi is focused on continued improvement and expansion. As they continue to respond to adjustments needed by farmers, the company plans to sell 1000 semi-automatic planters per year by 2025. Reaching that goal will require both domestic and foreign sales.
Market opportunity meets technological need
Thanks to the active partnership of CIMMYT and Programme Centres dâInnovations Vertes pour le secteur agro-alimentaire (ProCIVA), TAI in Benin emerged as a promising early adopter of Rohitkrishiâs planters outside India. Seeing a remarkable opportunity to establish a foothold that could open the entire West African market to their products, Rohitkrishi began the painstaking process of redesigning their machine for a new context.
This ambitious project faced numerous challengesâfrom language barriers, to the definition of roles amongst major players, to major COVID-19 and supply chain delays. The arrival of the seeders, however, is a major accomplishment. Now Rohitkrishi and TAI will begin working with government representatives and farmer-based organizations to ensure the equipment performs well on the ground and meets Beninâs agroecological requirements.
Once final testing is completed in the coming months, Rohitkrishiâs seeders will have the chance to demonstrate what a difference they can make for soy and rice production in Benin.
âWhen developing countries with similar contexts and challenges forge alliances and business connections to share their knowledge, expertise, and problem-solving skills with each other, this kind of direct South-South collaboration produces the most sustainable advances in agricultural production, food security, and job creation,â said Rabe Yahaya, agricultural mechanization specialist at CIMMYT.
Meanwhile, CIMMYT is studying this pilot project to identify opportunities for reproducing and expanding its success. Through the Scaling Scanâa web-based, user-friendly tool to assess ten core ingredients necessary to scale-up any innovationâCIMMYT is helping Rohitkrishi and TAI set ambitious and reachable goals for scalability.
Most importantly, the Scaling Scan results will identify areas for course correction and help Rohitkrishi and its partners continue to be sensitive to farmer feedback and produce equipment better suited to needs on the ground.
Graduate of CIMMYT/ICAR partnership honored by Indian government
Harisankar Nayak, a CIMMYT supported PhD student, received significant honors from the Government of India for his PhD thesis. The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) recognized Nayak’s exceptional academic performance and thesis work during the 61st convocation ceremony held in New Delhi on February 24, 2023. The Vice President of India, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar, presided over the ceremony. Nayak was awarded the IARI Merit medal for his thesis, âMachine learning evidence-based agronomic practices for higher yield and lower emission in rice-wheat system,â published in the esteemed journal Field Crops Research.
Nayak’s research involved comparing multiple machine learning methods to identify the primary drivers and causes of wheat yield variability in northwestern India. His findings provide important methodology to identify variables involved when one farm’s yield is less than a similar farm in the same area. With these variables classified, policymakers, government ministries, and farmers themselves can take steps to raise yield, sustainably, across the entire north-western Indo-Gangetic Plain.
Timothy Krupnik, Country Representative for Research and Partnerships and Systems Agronomist at CIMMYT-Bangladesh, and Nayak’s PhD supervisor from CIMMYT, expressed his pride in Nayak’s achievements. âI saw first-hand how much work he put into his research, and he richly deserves this honor. The same was opined by Dr C. M. Parihar, Nayakâs supervisor from IARI, Dr. M.L. Jat, former principal scientist, CIMMYT-India and Dr T B Sapkota, senior scientist, Agricultural System/Climate Change, CIMMYT. In addition, this is an excellent example of the capacity development work arising from CIMMYT’s collaborations with ICAR and IARI.â
Nayak also led research examining the sustainability of rice production in the same area of India, which determined that nitrogen use could be reduced without impacting rice yields. “To be recognized by ICAR and IARI, among many other worthy students, is a great honor,” said Nayak. “CIMMYT provided crucial material support, helping me facilitate my research. Just as important were the opportunities to collaborate with CIMMYT scientists.” Nayak’s work is vital for addressing the challenges posed by a changing climate and feeding a growing population.
CGIAR Initiative: Accelerated Breeding
Resource-poor farmers in low-income and middle-income countries will hugely benefit from improved crop varieties that perform better in terms of nutritional quality, income generation, water and nutrient use, stability of yields under climate change, and the needs of both women and men as farmers and as consumers. Â
However, many smallholder farmers still grow old varieties, in part because they derive inadequate benefits from recent breeding efforts. To trigger timely adoption, new varieties must be widely available and affordable to farmers, and offer a step-change in performance through higher rates of genetic gain. A faster pace of varietal turnover is critical â to enable farmers to adapt and advance rapidly as climatic and market conditions change.Â
Breeding programs also need a greater focus on developing farmer- and consumer- preferred varieties adapted to distinct production environments, markets and end uses. This can be facilitated by smarter design of breeding programs; stronger partnerships between CGIAR, National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) and small and medium enterprises (SMEs); and strengthened organizational capacity.
This Initiative aims to develop better-performing, farmer-preferred crop varieties and to decrease the average age of varieties in farmersâ fields, providing real-time adaptation to climate change, evolving markets and production systems.Â
The objective will be achieved through:
- Re-focusing breeding teams and objectives on farmersâ needs, in particular the needs of women, through achievable product profiles and breeding pipelines targeting prioritized regions and market segments.Â
- ReorganizingâŻbreeding teams to drive efficiency gains through the coordinated engagement of specialists and processes using a common organizational framework, stage gates, key performance indicators and handover criteria.Â
- TransformingâŻtowards inclusive, impactful CGIAR-NARES-SME breeding networks with empowered partners, along with customized capacity building, standardized key performance indicators, and by dividing labor and resources across partners according to comparative advantage and aligned with national priorities.Â
- Discovering optimum traits and deployments through agile, demand-driven and effective trait discovery and deployment pipelines, and development of elite donor lines with novel and highly valuable traits.Â
- AcceleratingâŻpopulation improvement and variety identification through optimizing breeding pipelines (trailing, parent selection, cycle time, use of Breeding Resources tools and services, etc.), with the goal of assuring all programs deliver market-demanded varieties that deliver greater rates of genetic gain per dollar invested.Â
Engagement
This Initiative will work with breeding programs serving countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, along with Asia and Latin America. Priority countries for the Initiative include Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa, and Bangladesh and India in South Asia.Â
Outcomes
Proposed 3-year outcomes include:
- At least 75%âŻof breeding pipelines are oriented towards specific market segments, enabling greater focus on farmersâ needs, drivers of adoption, distinct impact areas and the strategic allocation of resources.Â
- At least 70%âŻof breeding pipelines use a revised organizational framework that provides operational clarity and effectiveness for specialized teams pursuing breeding outputs.Â
- At least 80%âŻof the breeding networks have implemented documented steps toward stronger partnership models where NARES and SMEs have increased breeding capacity, and make greater scientific, operational and decision-making contributions to the breeding process.Â
- At least 50%âŻof breeding pipelines are supported by a dedicated trait discovery and deployment program that delivers high-impact traits in the form of elite parental lines.Â
- At leastâŻ70%âŻof breeding pipelines have increased the rate of genetic gain in the form of farmer-preferred varieties, with at least 50% providing significantly improved varieties delivered to seed system recipients.   Â
A deceptively simple hack boosts wheat yields in Bihar
As a warming planet desiccates crops around the world, threatening livelihoods and nutrition, farmers in Bihar, India, are boosting their wheat yields with a deceptively simple adaptation.
âFarmers can plant their wheat crop several weeks earlier, so that their wheat matures earlier and they are able to harvest their wheat before the heat gets bad,â said Amit Kumar Srivastava, a scientist with the International Rice Research Institute in India. âTraditionally, farmers in Bihar planted their wheat in mid-December. This put their crop at risk of whatâs called âterminal heatâ â high heat during a critical growth stage that impacts the yields. Weâve advised them to begin planting by November 20.â
Bihar is blessed with good soil and adequate water resources. But its yields have been lagging below Indiaâs average. Today, the average hectare of Bihar farmland produces 2.9 tons of wheat â significantly below the average yield in India of 3.4 tons.
Rising heat threatened to reduce this harvest even further. Wheat, like people, can suffer from heat stress. Researchers have found that an increase of just one-degree Celsius cuts wheat yields by 6%. In high heat conditions, wheat produces fewer, smaller grains, potentially impacting nutrition and livelihoods. Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, is considered a climate change hotspot and temperatures are expected to rise by up to 1 degree Celsius by 2050. India can ill afford declining farm yields. In fact, it needs to increase its wheat yields from around 110 million tons to 140 million tons by 2050 just to keep pace with domestic demand.
This seemingly simple adaptation was actually quite complicated to develop, explained Sonam Sherpa, a spatial agronomist with the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. âIt required researchers to look at the agricultural system as a whole. We had to understand why farmers were planting so late. And we learned it was because they were waiting for their rice crop to mature. And they couldnât plant their rice crop earlier because they were waiting for the monsoon rains, which are unpredictable in Bihar. Understanding the system as a whole, led us to recommend a rice variety that matures earlier and to develop weather forecasting tools and systems that can communicate with farmers when the monsoon rains are expected. That will help farmers move forward with planting their rice earlier, allowing for an earlier harvest. And then planting and harvesting their wheat earlier.â
To demonstrate the potential of this shift, researchers established demonstration fields throughout the state and brought government officials and farmers to see the difference.
It was striking. Across the state, farmers who adopted early rice harvesting and early wheat planting grew nearly one ton more of wheat on each hectare than those who planted late â a 36% increase in yield. At the most extreme ends of the planting spectrum the difference in yield is hard to overstate; the difference in yields between the wheat planted in early November versus the wheat planted in late December was 69%. Thatâs enough of a boost to turn Bihar from a net wheat importer to a breadbasket for the region.
âSeeing is believing,â said Srivastava. As of the 2020-21 wheat growing season, an estimated 22% of farmers in the target districts â about half a million farmers with an estimated 0.83 million hectares of land â have shifted to different varieties of rice that allow them to plant their wheat earlier. Similar gains could be seen elsewhere in Eastern India, research indicates, if the rice-wheat system is managed as a system.
Researchers also established relationships with private sector seed distributors who often advise farmers and help them identify and adopt different varieties of rice that allow for earlier harvesting. âThe lesson here is that even with climate change, we can increase production by optimizing agricultural systems,â said Srivastava.
Read the original article: A deceptively simple hack boosts wheat yields in Bihar
Cover photo: A deceptively simple hack boosts wheat yields in Bihar. (Photo: Reuters)
India will have record wheat production, must plan for export, says Arun Kumar Joshi
A scientist from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) spoke to The Hindu about current challenges in wheat cultivation in India.
Arun Kumar Joshi, CIMMYT Country Representative for India, CIMMYT Regional Representative for South Asia and Managing Director of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), predicted a bumper year for wheat in India.
“The feedback so far I am getting is that there will be record production of wheat,” he said. “The reason is that the area of cultivation has increased. According to government estimates, wheat has been sown in more than 34 million hectares so far in this rabi season.”
Reasons for this include no current threat from locusts or diseases, appropriate levels of soil moisture and humidity, and farmers shifting to planting crops earlier, explained Joshi.
Read the original article: India will have record wheat production, must plan for export, says Arun Kumar Joshi
Pravasi Bharatiya Samman winner, scientist Dr Ravi Singh is working towards food security for all
As he retires from his illustrious career, a new interview with Ravi Singh, Head of Global Wheat Improvement at CIMMYT, by the Global Indian reveals his motivations for becoming a scientist and his desire to ensure people all over the world had access to food.
“I retired quite recently, however, I have a lot to do. I wish to mentor young scientists about on how to increase food production. I also look forward to working on several high-profile projects with farmers to tackle future issues they might face due to the climate changes on a crop like wheat,â shares the scientist.
Singh was honored with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the Government of India in January 2021, recognizing his outstanding achievements by non-resident Indians, persons of Indian origin, or organizations or institutions run by them either in India or abroad. He received this for his role in the development, release, and cultivation of more than 550 wheat varieties over the past three decades.
Singh has also been included among the top one percent of highly-cited researchers, according to Clarivate Analytics-Web of Science every year since 2017.
Read the original article: Pravasi Bharatiya Samman winner, scientist Dr Ravi Singh is working towards food security for all