The demand for maize for poultry feed in Nepal has increased dramatically over the years. It constitutes about 60% of the poultry feed and is considered as the principal energy source used in poultry diets. About 70% of the total crop required by the feed industry is imported and such dependence on import could jeopardize its sustainability if any political, natural or health related crisis disrupts the supply chain. In addition to maize, the industry also imports synthetic amino acid to meet the requirements of poultry production since the regular maize grain used by the feed industry is deficient in essential amino acids that helps form proteins.
A recent assessment conducted by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Nepal highlights the prospects of using Quality Protein Maize (QPM) to mitigate protein deficiency found in regular maize. The authors suggest that the poultry feed industry can minimize the average feed cost by 1.5% by substituting regular maize with QPM. This would translate to a daily cost-saving of about US$26,000 for the industry. If this cost saving is shared across the value chain actors including farmers for domestic production of QPM and other biofortified maize vis a vis regular maize, then the dependency on imported maize can be significantly reduced.
The article published in the journal of International Food and Agribusiness Marketing, estimated least cost diet formulations for broilers and layers of different age groups, and the potential gains to be garnered by the maize seed and grain value chain actors in Nepal.
According to the study, a ton of feed produced using QPM reduces feed cost by at least US$7.1 for the broilers and by US$4.71 for layers. As a result, Nepal’s poultry feed industry can pay a maximum of 4% price premium with the cost saving for QPM.
“Considering the cost reduction potential QPM brings over regular maize, it can be a win-win situation for the poultry feed sector and maize value chain actors if they are strongly linked and operated in an integrated fashion,” explain the authors.
“By building awareness on the cost benefits, the feed industry exhibited a positive perception during the study period to use QPM for feed. Linking the seed companies with the feed mills is essential to leverage the benefits of the product.”
To promote and expand QPM production in Nepal, the authors also recommend provision of seed and fertilizer subsidies by the Government of Nepal to feed producers and cooperatives ensuring a continuous supply of the product to meet the demand.
The GoN has released two varieties of QPM maize but due to lack of effective seed production, extension and marketing programs, the potential of QPM maize remains unutilized. However, the authors firmly believe that appropriate policy focus on QPM seed production and grain marketing including premium price for QPM growers, can change the scenario where the demand for maize for feed industry can be gradually managed with domestic production.
As wheat blast continues to infect crops in countries around the world, researchers are seeking ways to stop its spread. The disease — caused by the Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum — can dramatically reduce crop yields, and hinder food and economic security in the regions in which it has taken hold.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other international institutions looked into the potential for wheat blast to spread, and surveys existing tactics used to combat it. According to them, a combination of methods — including using and promoting resistant varieties, using fungicides, and deploying strategic agricultural practices — has the best chance to stem the disease.
The disease was originally identified in Brazil in 1985. Since then, it has spread to several other countries in South America, including Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. During the 1990s, wheat blast impacted as many as three million hectares in the region. It continues to pose a threat.
Through international grain trade, wheat blast was introduced to Bangladesh in 2016. The disease has impacted around 15,000 hectares of land in the country and reduced average yields by as much as 51% in infected fields.
Because the fungus’ spores can travel on the wind, it could spread to neighboring countries, such as China, India, Nepal and Pakistan — countries in which wheat provides food and jobs for billions of people. The disease can also spread to other locales via international trade, as was the case in Bangladesh.
“The disease, in the first three decades, was spreading slowly, but in the last four or five years its pace has picked up and made two intercontinental jumps,” said Pawan Singh, CIMMYT’s head of wheat pathology, and one of the authors of the recent paper.
In the last four decades, wheat blast has appeared in South America, Asia an Africa. (Video: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
The good fight
Infected seeds are the most likely vector when it comes to the disease spreading over long distances, like onto other continents. As such, one of the key wheat blast mitigation strategies is in the hands of the world’s governments. The paper recommends quarantining potentially infected grain and seeds before they enter a new jurisdiction.
Governments can also create wheat “holidays”, which functionally ban cultivation of wheat in farms near regions where the disease has taken hold. Ideally, this would keep infectable crops out of the reach of wheat blast’s airborne and wind-flung spores. In 2017, India banned wheat cultivation within five kilometers of Bangladesh’s border, for instance. The paper also recommends that other crops — such as legumes and oilseed — that cannot be infected by the wheat blast pathogen be grown in these areas instead, to protect the farmers’ livelihoods.
Other tactics involve partnerships between researchers and agricultural workers. For instance, early warning systems for wheat blast prediction have been developed and are being implemented in Bangladesh and Brazil. Using weather data, these systems alert farmers when the conditions are ideal for a wheat blast outbreak.
Researchers are also hunting for wheat varieties that are resistant to the disease. Currently, no varieties are fully immune, but a few do show promise and can partially resist the ailment depending upon the disease pressure. Many of these resistant varieties have the CIMMYT genotype Milan in their pedigree.
“But the resistance is still limited. It is still quite narrow, basically one single gene,” Xinyao He, one of the co-authors of the paper said, adding that identifying new resistant genes and incorporating them into breeding programs could help reduce wheat blast’s impact.
Wheat spikes damaged by wheat blast. (Photo: Xinyao He/CIMMYT)
The more the merrier
Other methods outlined in the paper directly involve farmers. However, some of these might be more economically or practically feasible than others, particularly for small-scale farmers in developing countries. Wheat blast thrives in warm, humid climates, so farmers can adjust their planting date so the wheat flowers when the weather is drier and cooler. This method is relatively easy and low-cost.
The research also recommends that farmers rotate crops, alternating between wheat and other plants wheat blast cannot infect, so the disease will not carry over from one year to the next. Farmers should also destroy or remove crop residues, which may contain wheat blast spores. Adding various minerals to the soil, such as silicon, magnesium, and calcium, can also help the plants fend off the fungus. Another option is induced resistance, applying chemicals to the plants such as jasmonic acid and ethylene that trigger its natural resistance, much like a vaccine, Singh said.
Currently, fungicide use, including the treatment of seeds with the compounds, is common practice to protect crops from wheat blast. While this has proven to be somewhat effective, it adds additional costs which can be hard for small-scale farmers to swallow. Furthermore, the pathogen evolves to survive these fungicides. As the fungus changes, it can also gain the ability to overcome resistant crop varieties. The paper notes that rotating fungicides or developing new ones — as well as identifying and deploying more resistant genes within the wheat — can help address this issue.
However, combining some of these efforts in tandem could have a marked benefit in the fight against wheat blast. For instance, according to Singh, using resistant wheat varieties, fungicides, and quarantine measures together could be a time-, labor-, and cost-effective way for small-scale farmers in developing nations to safeguard their crops and livelihoods.
“Multiple approaches need to be taken to manage wheat blast,” he said.
In Nepal, agriculture contributes to a third of gross domestic product and employs about 80% of the rural labor force. The rural population is comprised mostly of smallholder farmers whose level of income from agricultural production is low by international standards and the country‘s agricultural sector has become vulnerable to erratic monsoon rains. Farmers often experience unreliable rainfall and droughts that threaten their crop yields and are not resilient to climate change and water-induced hazard. This requires a rapid update of the sustainable irrigation development in Nepal. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) Nepal COVID Response and Resilience short-term project puts emphasis on identifying and prioritizing entry points to build more efficient, reliable and flexible water services to farmers by providing a fundamental irrigation development assessment and framework at local, district and provincial levels.
Digital groundwater monitoring system and assessment of water use options
Digital system of groundwater data collection, monitoring and representation will be piloted with the government of Nepal to facilitate multi-stakeholder cooperation to provide enabling environments for inclusive irrigation development and COVID-19 response. When boosting the irrigation development, monitoring is fundamental to ensure sustainability. In addition, spatially targeted, ex-ante assessments of the potential benefits of irrigation interventions provide insights by applying machine-learning analytics and constructing data-driven models for yield and profitability responses to irrigation. Furthermore, a customized set of integrated hydrological modeling and scenario analyses can further strengthen local, district and provincial level assessment of water resources and how to build resilient and sustainable water services most productively from them.
Toward a systemic framework for sustainable scaling of irrigation in Nepal
Through interview and surveys, the project further builds systemic understanding of the technical, socioeconomic and institutional challenges and opportunities in scaling water access and irrigation technologies. This will contribute to the construction of a comprehensive irrigation development framework, achieved by the collective efforts from multiple stakeholders across different line ministries, levels of government and local stakeholders and water users. Together with the technical assessments and monitoring systems, the end goal is to provide policy guidelines and engage prioritized investments that ensure and accelerate the process of sustainable intensification in irrigation in Nepal.
A new guidance note shines a brighter light on the role of women in wheat-based farming systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and provides actionable recommendations to researchers, rural advisory services, development partners, and policymakers on how to support working communities more effectively and knowledgeably. The publication, Supporting labor and managerial feminization processes in wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: A guidance note, is based on a literature review, including work by researchers at and associated with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Pandia Consulting.
“Feminization of agriculture is happening in wheat-based systems in South Asia, but these processes are under-researched and their implications are poorly understood. This guidance note, focusing on Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, highlights some of the commonalities and differences in feminization processes in each country,” said Hom Gartaula, gender and social inclusion specialist at CIMMYT, and one of the lead authors of the study.
This eight-page publication is based on research funded by the CGIAR Collaborative Platform on Gender Research, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).
How great innovations miss critical opportunities by ignoring women
Even the most well-intentioned agricultural interventions can have external costs that can hinder economic development in the long run. The guidance note cites a study that reveals, during India’s Green Revolution, that the introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat actually “led to a significant decline in women’s paid hired labor because wheat was culturally defined as suited to male laborers. Male wages rose, and women’s wages fell.” Importantly, most women did not find alternative sources of income.
This is not to say that the high-yielding varieties were a poor intervention themselves; these varieties helped India and Pakistan stave off famine and produce record harvests. Rather, the lack of engagement with social norms meant that the economic opportunities from this important innovation excluded women and thus disempowered them.
Wheat farmers during a field day in Odisha, India. (Photo: Wasim Iftikar/CSISA)
A closer look at labor feminization and managerial feminization processes
The guidance note points out that it is not possible to generalize across and within countries, as gender norms can vary, and intersectionalities between gender, caste and other identities have a strong impact on women’s participation in fieldwork. Nevertheless, there seem to be some broad trends. The fundamental cross-cutting issue is that women’s contribution to farming is unrecognized, regardless of the reality of their work, by researchers, rural advisory services and policymakers. A second cross-cutting issue is that much research is lodged in cultural norms that reflect gender biases, rather than challenge them, through careful, non-judgemental quantitative and qualitative research.
In Bangladesh, women’s participation in agriculture is slowly increasing as off-farm opportunities decline, though it remains limited compared to women in the other countries examined. Hired agricultural work is an important income source for some women. Emerging evidence from work from CSISA and CIMMYT shows that women are becoming decision-makers alongside their husbands in providing mechanization services. Nevertheless, technical, economic and cultural barriers broadly constrain women’s effective participation in decision-making and fieldwork.
In India, agricultural labor is broadly feminizing as men take up off-farm opportunities and women take up more responsibilities on family farms and as hired laborers. Yet information derived from CIMMYT GENNOVATE studies cited in the guidance note shows that external actors, like rural advisory services and researchers, frequently make little effort to include women in wheat information dissemination and training events despite emerging evidence of women taking managerial roles in some communities. Some researchers and most rural advisory services continue to work with outdated and damaging assumptions about “who does the work” and “who decides” that are not necessarily representative of farmers’ realities.
Women in Nepal provide the bulk of the labor force to agriculture. With men migrating to India and the Gulf countries to pursue other opportunities, some women are becoming de-facto heads of households and are making more decisions around farming. Still, women are rarely targeted for trainings in on-farm mechanization and innovation. However, there is evidence that simple gender-equality outreach from NGOs and supportive extension agents can have a big impact on women’s empowerment, including promoting their ability to innovate in wheat.
In Pakistan, male out-migration to cities and West Asia is a driving force in women’s agricultural involvement. Significant regional differences in cultural norms mean that women’s participation and decision-making varies across the country, creating differences regarding the degree to which their increased involvement is empowering. As in the other three countries, rural advisory services primarily focus on men. This weakens women’s ability to make good farming decisions and undermines their voice in intra-household decision-making.
Women in Nepal using agricultural machinery. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
Recommendations
Research should be conducted in interdisciplinary teams and mindsets, which helps design both qualitative and quantitative research free of assumptions and bias. Qualitative and quantitative researchers need to better document the reality of women’s agricultural work, both paid and unpaid.
National agricultural research systems, rural advisory services and development partners are encouraged to work with local partners, including women’s groups and NGOs, to develop gender-transformative approaches with farmers. Services must develop more inclusive criteria for participation in field trials and extension events to invite more women and marginalized communities.
Policymakers are invited to analyze assumptions in existing policies and to develop new policies that better reflect women’s work and support women’s decision-making in the agricultural sector. Researchers should provide policymakers with more appropriate and up-to-date gender data to help them make informed decisions.
These recommendations name a few of many suggestions presented in the guidance note that can ensure agricultural feminization process are positive forces for everyone involved in wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. As a whole, acknowledging the reality of these changes well underway in South Asia — and around the world — will not just empower women, but strengthen wheat-based agri-food systems as a whole.
Cover photo: Farmer Bhima Bhandari returns home after field work carrying her 7-month-old son Sudarsan on her back in Bardiya, Nepal. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
In the plains area of Nepal’s Terai and in larger valleys in the hills, many parts of rice and wheat grain production process are nearly 100% mechanized. The second half of wheat and rice harvesting –– threshing and cleaning –– was mechanized as early as the 1960s. By the mid-1990s nearly 100% of wheat in the Terai was being threshed mostly by stand-alone threshers that were powered by 5-8 horsepower (HP) diesel pumpset engines.
Rice threshing began first in the far eastern Terai in early 2000s with similarly small-sized rice threshers with pumpset engines. However, by the 2010s as 4WTs became ubiquitous in the Terai, the larger horsepower tractor power take-off (PTO) driven wheat and rice threshers became prominent
However, one of the main parts of the production process, the field harvesting of grain, is still not yet fully mechanized even though it is has one of the largest labor requirements. Grain harvesting machinery entered Nepal from India in the late 1990s with the introduction of large 90+ horsepower self-propelled combines in central Terai (Parasi, Rupandehi and Kapilvastu Districts), mainly for wheat. Machines for rice harvesting were introduced in the Western Terai by the 2010s.
In the last decade, the types and numbers of powered or mechanized harvest technologies in Nepal has greatly increased in size. With advent of many new machines from China and elsewhere, the market for grain harvest machinery has become very dynamic. Nevertheless, various bottlenecks limit access and usage far below demand.
A new study by researchers from the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), a project led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), provides the results of a study on the value chains of rice, wheat and maize harvesting equipment that are used in Nepal by farmers and service providers. It documents the movement of the various new technologies into the value chain, characterizing the whole harvesting machinery market.
The study also provides a detailed value chain map of the various reaper-harvesters, threshers, shellers and combine harvesters that are now widely available for sale in Nepal with the overall goal of providing recommendations for policy makers and development agencies to promote greater access to and usage of such machinery.
“My goal is to produce and sell 200 metric tons of hybrid maize by 2025,” says Subash Raj Upadhyaya, chairperson of Lumbini Seed Company, based in Nepal’s Rupandehi district.
Upadhyaya is one of the few seed value chain actors in the country progressing in the hybrid seed sector, which is at a budding stage in Nepal. He envisions a significant opportunity in the domestic production of hybrid maize seed varieties that not only offer a higher yield than open-pollinated varieties but will also reduce expensive imports. Leaping from one hectare to 25 hectares in hybrid maize seed production within three years, Upadhyaya is determined to expand the local seed market for hybrids.
Nepal has long been a net importer of hybrid seeds — mainly rice, maize and high-value vegetables — worth millions of dollars a year to meet the farmers’ demand, which is continuously rising. Although hybrid varieties have been released in the country, organized local seed production and marketing were not in place to deliver quality seeds to farmers. The hybrid variety development process is relatively slow due to lack of strong public-private relationships, absence of enabling policies and license requirements for the private sector to produce and sell them, lack of suitable germplasm and inadequate skilled human resources for hybrid product development and seed production. This has resulted in poor adoption of hybrid seeds, especially maize, where only 10-15% out of 950,000 hectares of Nepal’s maize-growing area is estimated to be covered with hybrid seeds, leaving the balance for seeds of open pollinated varieties.
This is where experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have stepped in to unlock the untapped potential of domestic maize production and increase on-farm productivity, which is currently around 2.8 metric tons per hectare. Aligning with the goals of the National Seed Vision (NSV 2013-2025), the USAID-funded Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, implemented by CIMMYT, fosters private sector involvement in the evaluation, production and marketing of quality hybrid seeds to meet the growing domestic demand for grain production, which is currently being met via imports. In 2020, Nepal spent nearly $130 million to import maize grain for the poultry industry.
A graphic shows the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project’s innovations and intervention in hybrid seed. (Graphic: CIMMYT)
Teach a man to fish
Strengthening and scaling hybrid seed production of different crop varieties from domestic sources can be a game-changer for the long-term sustainability of Nepal’s seed industry.
Through the NSAF project, CIMMYT is working with eight partner seed companies and three farmers cooperatives to produce seeds of maize, rice and tomato. CIMMYT has played a vital role in making suitable germplasms and market-ready products of hybrids sourced from CGIAR centers available to the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and partner seed companies for testing, validation and registration in the country. But this alone is not enough.
The project also carried out the partners’ capacity building on research and development, parental line maintenance, on-station and on-farm demonstrations, quality seed production and seed quality control to equip them with the required skills for a viable and competitive hybrid seed business. The companies and farmer cooperatives received hands-on training on hybrid seed production and marketing coupled with close supervision and guidance by the project’s field staff assigned to mentor and support individual seed companies. CIMMYT’s NSAF project also provides financial support to selected hybrid seed business startups to enhance their technical and entrepreneurial skills. This is a new feature, as prior to the project starting nearly all of the seed companies were mainly involved in aggregating open-pollinated variety seeds from farmers and selling them with no practical experience in the hybrid seed business.
In 2018, CIMMYT, through the NSAF and Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) projects, and in close collaboration with NARC’s National Maize Research Program, engaged its partner seed company to initiate the first hybrid maize seed production during the winter season. Farmers’ feedback on the performance of the Rampur Hybrid-10 maize variety showed it could compete with existing commercial hybrids on yield and other commercial traits. As a result, this response boosted the confidence of seed companies and cooperatives to produce and market the hybrid seeds.
“I am very much motivated to be a hybrid maize seed producer for Lumbini Seed Company,” said a woman hybrid seed grower, whose income was 86% higher than the sale of maize grain from the previous season. “This is my second year of engagement, and last year I got an income of NPR 75,000 (approx. USD$652) from a quarter of a hectare. Besides the guaranteed market I have under the contractual agreement with the company, the profit is far higher than what I used to get from grain production.”
To build the competitiveness of the local seed sector, CIMMYT has been mentoring partner seed companies on business plan development, brand building, marketing and promotion, and facilitating better access to finance. As part of the intervention, the companies are now selling hybrid seeds through agro-dealers in attractive and suitable product packages of varied sizes designed to help boost seed sales, better shelf life and compete with imported brands. They have also started using attractive seed packages for selected open-pollinated rice varieties in a bid to increase market demand. Prior to the project’s intervention, companies used to sell their seeds in traditional unbranded jute bags which are less suitable to maintain seed quality.
AbduRahman Beshir, NSAF seed systems lead, gives an explanation on CIMMYT’s hybrid maize seed interventions during a field visit in Nepal. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Unite and conquer
Encouraging public-private partnerships for seed production is crucial for creating and maintaining a viable seed system. However, the existing guidelines and policies for variety registration are not private sector friendly, resulting in increased informal seed imports and difficulty to efficiently run a business. This draws attention to conducive policies and regulations patronage in research and varietal development, product registration, exclusive licensing, and seed production and marketing by the private sector.
CIMMYT supports the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN), an umbrella body with more than 2,500 members, to promote the private sector’s engagement in the seed industry and foster enabling policies essential to further unlock Nepal’s potential in local hybrid seed production and distribution. Together, CIMMYT and SEAN have facilitated various forums, including policy dialogues and elicitations on fast track provision of R&D license and variety registration by the local private seed companies. These are vital steps to realize the targets set by NSV for hybrid seed development and distribution.
To further enhance linkages among seed sector stakeholders and policy makers, CIMMYT, in coordination with NARC’s National Maize Research Program, organized a high-level joint monitoring field visit to observe hybrid maize seed production performance in April 2021. As part of the visit, Yogendra Kumar Karki, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, accompanied by representatives from the National Seed Board, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, NARC, Seed Quality Control Center and SEAN, interacted with seed grower farmers and seed companies on their experiences.
The trip helped build a positive perception of the private sector’s capability and commitment to contribute to Nepal’s journey on self-reliance on hybrid seeds. “The recent advances in hybrid seed production by the private sector in collaboration with NARC and NSAF is astounding,” said Karki, as he acknowledged CIMMYT’s contribution to the seed sector development in Nepal. “Considering the gaps and challenges identified during this visit, the Ministry will revisit the regulations that will help accelerate local hybrid seed production and achieve NSV’s target.”
In continued efforts, CIMMYT is also partnering with the government’s Prime Minister Agricultural Modernization Project (PMAMP) maize super zone in the Dang district of Nepal to commercialize domestic maize hybrid seed by partner seed companies. This will enable companies to invest in hybrid maize seed production with contract growers by leveraging the support provided by the PMAMP on irrigation, mechanization and maize drying facilities.
“Our interventions in seed systems integration and coordination are showing very promising results in helping Nepal to become self-reliant on hybrid maize seeds in the foreseeable future,” said AbduRahman Beshir, seed systems lead for the NSAF project. “The initiative by the local seed companies to further engage and expand their hybrid seed business is an indication of a sustainable and viable project intervention. The project will continue working with both public and private partners to consolidate the gains and further build the competitiveness of the local seed companies in the hybrid maize seed ecosystem.”
Nepal’s seed industry is entering a new chapter that envisages a strong domestic seed sector in hybrid seed, particularly in maize, to capture a significant market share in the near future.
AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT seed systems lead, explains the stages of hybrid seed production to postgraduate students at a field trip in Rupandehi, Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Recently, a group of 40 postgraduate students from Nepal’s Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU) were able to learn first-hand about hybrid maize seed production in a field site managed by a partner seed company of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Bringing in a whole new and rare experience altogether, the students got a glimpse of the progress and challenges of the seed industry as of today.
The field trip followed the development of a revised curriculum for AFU’s Seed Science and Technology program, initiated in November 2019, which stresses the importance of creating linkages between university students and private seed companies. Through the USAID-supported Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, CIMMYT is working towards enhancing partnerships between agricultural universities and the seed industry, and revisiting the curriculum has been the first stepping stone.
In collaboration with AFU and Lumbini Seed Company, CIMMYT organized an off-campus participatory learning experience to enrich students’ understanding of hybrid seed production initiatives by the private sector and the opportunities that lie in the various business models of Nepalese seed companies. The initiative is part of a concerted effort by CIMMYT and its partners to alleviate the critical limitations of skilled manpower in the industry.
Subash Raj Upadhyaya, managing director of Lumbini Seed Company, shares his experience in hybrid seed production during the field visit. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
A deep dive into hybrid seed
The program began with an on-site briefing on the recent developments of hybrid seed production by the private sector.
“Nowadays, farmers are increasingly demanding hybrid seeds over open-pollinated varieties due to their higher yields,” explained Subash Raj Upadhyaya, Managing Director of Lumbini Seed Company. This seed demand is almost entirely met via imports.
Since 2018, the company has been successful in producing and marketing hybrid maize seed such as Rampur Hybrid-10, a variety originally sourced from CIMMYT and released in Nepal by the National Maize Research Program with technical and financial support from the NSAF project. Going from one hectare to 25 hectares of hybrid maize seed production in the course of three years, Lumbini Seed Company has demonstrated the capability of local private seed companies building up the country’s capacity in this area.
“The collaboration between public and private seed stakeholders is helping Nepal to realize hybrid seed self-reliance in the foreseeable future,” explained AbduRahman Beshir, seed systems lead for the NSAF project at CIMMYT. “What is needed is competitive products augmented by quality seed production and effective marketing strategies.”
Beshir described the important stages of seed production and the components of robust seed systems, while Hari Kumar Shrestha, a seed systems officer at CIMMYT, detailed the requirements for quality seed production and certification of hybrid seeds as per government guidelines in Nepal. Participating students were then able to practice detasseling and roughing off-type plants from a single row in a hybrid maize production field, under the guidance and supervision of the team from CIMMYT and the seed company.
This was followed by an interactive discussion with representatives from Lumbini about their activities, developments and limitations, and a tour of the company’s seed processing, laboratory and storage for the group to observe the techniques used to produce, maintain and market quality seeds.
Postgraduate students observe the tassels of maize plants in Rupandehi, Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
A nourishing experience
Applying the theoretical learnings of plant breeding and agronomy courses in a practical setting was an eye-opener for the postgraduates.
Student Sadhana Poudyal shared how the event had boosted her confidence in performing critical activities such as identifying the key features of pollen and seed parents. Now majoring in Seed Science and Technology, Poudyal previously worked with the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) and was granted a scholarship by CIMMYT, through the NSAF project, to begin a postgraduate program in 2019. “I was fascinated to learn about the remarkable progress made in hybrid seed production and I feel motivated to work in this sector in the future,” she said. Poudyal plans to use these learnings during her research into baby corn at NARC after completing her studies.
“I have always been keen on learning plant genetics and breeding as I foresee a good scope in this area,” said Lokendra Singh, another student at AFU. “This trip was definitely insightful, and I thoroughly enjoyed receiving a practical lesson on the advantages and limitations of the various types of hybrids including single and three-way cross hybrids. Today’s experience has doubled my enthusiasm to work as a plant breeder after my graduation.”
It is critical to engage students on the recent advances in seed science so that they are encouraged to pursue a career in agricultural research in Nepal. “One of the major challenges is recruiting a workforce with critical skills and knowledge in the local seed industry since many students go abroad after they graduate,” said Upadhyaya. “We look forward to partnering with agricultural universities for many similar on-site learnings.”
Educational experiences in the field, such as this, provide a better picture of the recent advancements and limitations in the seed sector which are usually not reflected in the textbooks. Creating a larger pool of skillful human resources, particularly in hybrid product development, improved seed production technologies and quality seed production, will not only help strengthen the local seed industry but also reduce the country’s dependency on imports in the coming years.
Wheat stalks grow in a field in India. (Photo: Saad Akhtar)
For scientists, determining how best to increase wheat yields to meet food demand is a persistent challenge, particularly as the trend toward sustainably intensifying production on agricultural lands grows.
The United Nations projects that the current global population of 7.6 billion will increase to more than 9.8 billion by 2050, making higher grain yield potential vital, particularly as climate instability increases due to global warming. International efforts are also focused on meeting the Zero Hunger target detailed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals before they expire in 2030.
Now, a new landmark research survey on the grain yield potential and climate-resilience of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) has brought scientists a few strides closer to meeting their ambitions.
Grain yield has traditionally been an elusive trait in genomic wheat breeding because of its quantitative genetic control, which means that it is controlled by many genomic regions with small effects.
Challenges also include a lack of good understanding about the genetic basis of grain yield, inconsistent grain yield quantitative trait loci identified in different environments, low heritability of grain yield across environments and environment interactions of grain yield.
To dissect the genetic architecture of wheat grain yield for the purposes of the research, which appeared in Scientific Reports, researchers implemented a large-scale genome-wide association study based on 100 datasets and 105,000 grain yield observations from 55,568 wheat breeding lines developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
They evaluated the lines between 2003 and 2019 in different sites, years, planting systems, irrigation systems and abiotic stresses at CIMMYT’s primary yield testing site, the Norman E. Borlaug Experimental Research Station, Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, and in an additional eight countries — including Afghanistan, India and Myanmar — through partnerships with national programs.
The researchers also generated the grain-yield associated marker profiles and analyzed the grain-yield favorable allele frequencies for a large panel of 73,142 wheat lines, resulting in 44.5 million data points. The marker profiles indicated that the CIMMYT global wheat germplasm is rich in grain yield favorable alleles and is a trove for breeders to choose parents and design strategic crosses based on complementary grain yield alleles at desired loci.
“By dissecting the genetic basis of the elusive grain-yield trait, the resources presented in our study provide great opportunities to accelerate genomic breeding for high-yielding and climate-resilient wheat varieties, which is a major objective of the Accelerating Genetic Gain in Maize and Wheat project,” said CIMMYT wheat breeder Philomin Juliana.
“This study is unique and the largest-of-its-kind focusing on elucidating the genetic architecture of wheat grain yield,” she explained, “a highly complex and economically important trait that will have great implications on future diagnostic marker development, gene discovery, marker-assisted selection and genomic-breeding in wheat.”
Currently, crop breeding methods and agronomic management put annual productivity increases at 1.2% a year, but to ensure food security for future generations, productivity should be at 2.4% a year.
So, the extensive datasets and results presented in this study are expected to provide a framework for breeders to design effective strategies for mitigating the effects of climate change, while ensuring food-sustainability and security.
A new digital soil map for Nepal provides access to location-specific information on soil properties for any province, district, municipality or a particular area of interest. The interactive map provides information that will be useful to make new crop- and site-specific fertilizer recommendations for the country.
Produced by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in collaboration with Nepal Agricultural Research Council’s (NARC) National Soil Science Research Center (NSSRC), this is the first publicly available soil map in South Asia that covers the entire country.
The Prime Minister of Nepal, K.P. Sharma Oli, officially launched the digital soil map at an event on February 24, 2021. Oli highlighted the benefits the map would bring to support soil fertility management in the digital era in Nepal. He emphasized its sustainability and intended use, mainly by farmers.
CIMMYT and NSSRC made a live demonstration of the digital soil map. They also developed and distributed an informative booklet that gives an overview of the map’s major features, operation guidelines, benefits, management and long-term plans.
The launch event was led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development and organized in coordination with NARC, as part of the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, implemented by CIMMYT. More than 200 people participated in the event, including government officials, policymakers, scientists, professors, development partner representatives, private sector partners and journalists. The event was also livestreamed.
Better decisions
Immediately after the launch of the digital soil map, its CPU usage grew up to 94%. Two days after the launch, 64 new accounts had been created, who downloaded different soil properties data in raster format for use in maps and models.
The new online resource was prepared using soil information from 23,273 soil samples collected from the National Land Use Project, Central Agricultural Laboratory and Nepal Agricultural Research Council. The samples were collected from 56 districts covering seven provinces. These soil properties were combined with environmental covariates (soil forming factors) derived from satellite data and spatial predictions of soil properties were generated using advanced machine learning tools and methods.
The platform is hosted and managed by NARC, who will update the database periodically to ensure its effective management, accuracy and use by local government and relevant stakeholders. The first version of the map was finalized and validated through a workshop organized by NSSRC among different stakeholders, including retired soil scientists and university professors.
Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, principal scientist at CIMMYT, shared his remarks in a video message. (Photo: Shashish Maharjan/CIMMYT)
“The ministry can use the map to make more efficient management decisions on import, distribution and recommendation of appropriate fertilizer types, including blended fertilizers. The same information will also support provincial governments to select suitable crops and design extension programs for improving soil health,” said Padma Kumari Aryal, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development, who chaired the event. “The private sector can utilize the acquired soil information to build interactive and user-friendly mobile apps that can provide soil properties and fertilizer-related information to farmers as part of commercial agri-advisory extension services,” she said.
“These soil maps will not only help to increase crop yields, but also the nutritional value of these crops, which in return will help solve problems of public health such as zinc deficiency in Nepal’s population,” explained Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, principal scientist at CIMMYT, in a video message.
Yogendra Kumar Karki, secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, presented the program objectives and Deepak Bhandari, executive director of NARC, talked about the implementation of the map and its sustainability. Special remarks were also delivered by USAID Nepal’s mission director, the secretary of Livestock, scientists and professors from Tribhuwan University, the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
K.P. Sharma Oli (left), Prime Minister of Nepal, and Padma Kumari Aryal, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development, launch the digital soil map. (Photo: Shashish Maharjan/CIMMYT)
Benefits of digital soil mapping
Soil properties affect crop yield and production. In Nepal, access to soil testing facilities is rather scarce, making it difficult for farmers to know the fertilizer requirement of their land. The absence of a well-developed soil information system and soil fertility maps has been lacking for decades, leading to inadequate strategies for soil fertility and fertilizer management to improve crop productivity. Similarly, existing blanket-type fertilizer recommendations lead to imbalanced application of plant nutrients and fertilizers by farmers, which also negatively affects crop productivity and soil health.
This is where digital soil mapping comes in handy. It allows users to identify a domain with similar soil properties and soil fertility status. The digital platform provides access to domain-specific information on soil properties including soil texture, soil pH, organic matter, nitrogen, available phosphorus and potassium, and micronutrients such as zinc and boron across Nepal’s arable land.
Farmers and extension agents will be able to estimate the total amount of fertilizer required for a particular domain or season. As a decision-support tool, policy makers and provincial government can design and implement programs for improving soil fertility and increasing crop productivity. The map also allows users to identify areas with deficient plant nutrients and provide site-specific fertilizer formulations; for example, determining the right type of blended fertilizers required for balanced fertilization programs. Academics can also obtain periodic updates from these soil maps and use it as a resource while teaching their students.
As digital soil mapping advances, NSSRC will work towards institutionalizing the platform, building awareness at the province and local levels, validating the map, and establishing a national soil information system for the country.
Joe Dale is a regional program manager with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program, based in Nepal. He provides management support to increase the impact and outcomes of CIMMYT’s research and development work in South Asia.
Dale holds a PhD in Agricultural Education from Iowa State University and has more than 15 years of agricultural development implementation experience across six countries.
Agricultural market systems play a pivotal role in food security, livelihood development and economic growth. However, the agricultural sector in Nepal is constrained by a lack of spatially-explicit technologies and practices related to improved seed and fertilizer. Embracing these challenges, Dyutiman Choudhary, a scientist in market development with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), works to strengthen the seed and fertilizer market systems and value chains, with the ultimate goal to ensure demand-driven, inclusive and market-oriented cereal production.
Nepal’s agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farmers. As farming is mostly semi-commercial and subsistence in nature, many smallholder farmers are isolated from markets and lack knowledge about the latest farming technologies and inputs. They are unable to upgrade their farms to increase productivity for generating marketable surplus to make profitable income. Agribusiness entities in Nepal — such as seed companies, agrodealers and importers — face market development challenges and lack the commercial and business orientation to develop and deliver new technologies to farmers. Output market linkages are weak and loosely integrated, leading to poor coordination, weak information flow and lower return to actors.
This is where Choudhary’s expertise in agribusiness management fits in to make a difference.
Born and raised in Shillong, a hill station in northeastern India with a distinctive charm, he was enrolled as an engineering student. However, his interest took a sudden turn when he got drawn towards biological sciences and ultimately decided to leave the engineering course by stepping into agribusiness management. “I realized I was walking in the right direction as I was fascinated to learn about the livelihood benefits of agroforestry and the scope of agribusiness in fostering overall economic growth.”
He joined CIMMYT in 2017 as an expert in market development, but his roles and responsibilities transitioned to working as a Lead for the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project within four months of his appointment. His role involves leading an interdisciplinary team of scientists, partners and experts to develop a synergistic market system. The NSAF team fosters public private partnerships, improves access to support services and strengthens inclusive value chains in a supportive policy environment.
Choudhary’s research focuses on assessing crops, seed and fertilizer value chains; developing commercial and inclusive upgrading strategies with businesses and stakeholders; assessing competitiveness of seed companies; lobbying for policies to foster the growth of seed and fertilizer business; and building pathways for public and private sector services to market actors and smallholder farmers.
Dyutiman Choudhary (seventh from left) with seed producers during a field visit. (Photo: Dipak Kafle)
A roadmap to innovative market systems
Choudhary introduced the vision of a market system approach and put together a strategic roadmap in collaboration with a team from CIMMYT researchers from the Global Maize program, the Sustainable Intensification program and the Socioeconomics program. The roadmap addressed the concerns of low crop productivity, poor private sector growth and a less supportive policy environment inhibiting agricultural innovations in Nepal.
“Seed and fertilizer market systems in Nepal are uncompetitive and lack influx of new knowledge and innovations that restricts agriculture growth,” Choudhary explained.
Having prior experience as a regional lead for high-value products and value chains for South Asia and an inclusive market-oriented development expert in Eastern and Southern Africa, Choudhary carries unique capabilities for putting together a winning team and working with diverse partners to bring about a change in farming practices and build a strong agribusiness sector in Nepal.
Under his leadership, Nepalese seed companies are implementing innovative and competitive marketing approaches to develop newly acquired hybrid varieties under their brands. The companies are upgrading to build business models that cater to the growth of seed business, meet market demands and offer innovative services to smallholder farmers to build a sustainable national market. Facilitating financing opportunities has enabled these enterprises to produce strategic business plans to leverage $2 million to finance seed business. Improved value chain coordination mechanisms are increasing demand of seed company’s products and enhancing smallholder farmers’ access to output markets.
There is a renewed interest and confidence beaming from the private sector to invest in fertilizer business due to improved knowledge, communication and collaborative methods. The government committed to support balanced soil fertility management and allocated $2.4 million in 2019 to initiate fertilizer blending in Nepal.
Dyutiman Choudhary (left) welcomes the Feed the Future team leader to the CIMMYT office in Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Dyutiman Choudhary shows a demonstration plot during a field visit with USAID and project partners in Nepal. (Photo: Darbin Joshi)
Dyutiman Choudhary (left) receives a token of appreciation at an International Seed Conference organized in Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Competitiveness fosters productivity
The results of Choudhary’s work have the potential to transform Nepalese agriculture by unleashing new investments, changes in policies and practices, and innovative business management practices. “Despite a huge change in my TOR and the challenges to deliver impactful outcomes, I was able to successfully steer the project to produce exciting results that made the donor to declare it as their flagship project in Nepal,” he explained. “At the end of the day, reflecting upon the work achieved with my team and the stakeholders in co-creating solutions for complex issues brings me immense satisfaction.”
An amiable individual, he feels close to natural science and loves interacting with farmers. “I’ve always enjoyed traveling to biodiversity-rich locations, to understand local cultures and livelihood practices, so as to gauge the drivers of innovation and adaptation to change among diverse rural populations.”
“Keeping up the momentum, I want to continue to support growth in agribusiness management in less favorable regions, helping stakeholders in the farm-to-fork continuum to leverage the potential of innovations in research, development and delivery.”
Gokul Paudel is an agricultural economist working to streamline farming practices in South Asia. He seeks to understand, learn from and improve the efficiency of on-farm management practices in a vast variety of ways. Although he joined the International Improvement Center for Wheat and Maize (CIMMYT) right after university, Paudel’s on-farm education started long before his formal courses.
“I was born in a rural village in Baglung district, in the mid-hills of Nepal. My parents worked on a small farm, holding less than half a hectare of land,” he says. “When I was a kid, I remember hearing that even though Nepal is an agricultural country, we still have a lot of food insecurity, malnutrition and children who suffer from stunting.”
“I would ask: How is Nepal an agricultural country, yet we suffer from food insecurity and food-related problems? This question is what inspired me to go to an agricultural university.”
Paudel attended Tribhuvan University in Nepal, and through his coursework, he learned about plant breeding, genetic improvement and how Norman Borlaug brought the first Green Revolution to South Asia. “After completing my undergraduate and post-graduate studies, I realized that CIMMYT is the one organization that contributes the most to improving food security and crop productivity in developing countries, where farmers livelihoods are always dependent on agriculture,” he explains.
Approaching the paradox
Paudel is right about the agriculture and food paradox of his home country. Almost two thirds of Nepal’s population is engaged in agricultural production, yet the country still has shockingly high numbers in terms of food insecurity and nutritional deficiency. Furthermore, widespread dissemination of unsustainable agronomic practices, like the use of heavy-tilling machinery, present similar consequences across South Asia.
If research and data support the claim that conservation agriculture substantially improves crop yields, then why is the adoption of these practices so low? That is exactly what Paudel seeks to understand. “I want to help improve the food security of the country,” he explains. “That’s why I joined the agricultural sector.”
Paudel joined CIMMYT in 2011 to work with the Socioeconomics Program (SEP) and the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), providing regional support across Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
His work is diverse. Paudel goes beyond finding out which technological innovations increase on-farm yield and profit, because success on research plots does not always translate to success on smallholder fields. He works closely with farmers and policy makers, using surveys and high-tech analytical tools such as machine learning and data mining to learn about what actually happens on farmers’ plots to impact productivity.
Gokul Paudel holds up two bags of wheat crop-cuts in a farmer’s field. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A growing future for conservation agriculture
Over the last two decades, the development of environmentally sustainable and financially appealing farming technologies through conservation agriculture has become a key topic of agronomic research in South Asia.
“Conservation agriculture is based on three principles: minimum disturbance of the soil structure, cover crop and crop rotation, especially with legumes,” Paudel explains.
Leaving the soil undisturbed through zero-till farming increases water infiltration, holds soil moisture and helps to prevent topsoil erosion. Namely, zero-till farming has been identified as one of the most transformative innovations in conservation agriculture, showing the potential to improve farming communities’ ability to mitigate the challenges of climate change while also improving crop yields.
Can farm mechanization ease South Asia’s labor shortage?
In South Asia, understanding local contexts is crucial to streamlining farm mechanization. In recent years, many men have left their agricultural jobs in search of better opportunities in the Gulf countries and this recent phenomenon of labor out-migration has left women to take up more farming tasks.
“Women are responsible for taking care of the farm, household and raising their children,” says Paudel. “Since rural out-migration has increased, they have been burdened by the added responsibility of farm work and labor scarcity. This means that on-farm labor wages are rising, exacerbating the cost of production.”
The introduction of farm machinery, such as reapers and mini-tillers, can ease the physical and financial burden of the labor shortage. “Gender-responsive farm mechanization would not only save [women’s] time and efforts, but also empower them through skills enhancement and farm management,” says Paudel. However, he explains, measures must be taken to ensure that women actually feel comfortable adopting these technologies, which have traditionally been held in the male domain.
Gokul Paudel records the total above-ground biomass of maize and other maize yield attributes in a farmer’s field in Kanchunpur, Nepal. (Photo: Ashok Rai/CIMMYT)
From farm-tech to high-tech
Right now, amidst the global lockdown due to COVID-19, Paudel’s field activities are highly restricted. However, he is capitalizing on an opportunity to assess years’ worth of data on on-farm crop production practices, collected from across Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
“We are analyzing this data-set using novel approaches, like machine learning, to understand what drives productivity in farmers’ fields and what to prioritize, for our efforts and for the farmers,” he explains.
Although there are many different aspects of his work, from data collection and synthesis to analysis, Paudel’s favorite part of the job is when his team finds the right, long-lasting solution to farmers’ production-related problems.
“There’s a multidimensional aspect to it, but all of these solutions affect the farmer’s livelihood directly. Productivity is directly related to their food security, income and rural livelihoods.”
A changing landscape
About 160 km away from where he lives now, Paudel’s parents still own the farm he grew up on — though they no longer work on it themselves. They are proud to hear that his work has a direct impact on communities like theirs throughout the country.
“Every day, new problems are appearing due to climate change — problems of drought, flooding and disease outbreak. Though it’s not good news, it motivates me to continue the work that I’m doing,” says Paudel. “The most fascinating thing about working at CIMMYT is that we have a team of multidisciplinary scientists working together with the common goal of sustainably intensifying the agricultural systems in the developing world.”
Wheat fields at Toluca station, Mexico. (Photo: Fernando Delgado/CIMMYT)
On December 11, 2020, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) announced the release of six new wheat varieties for multiplication and distribution to the country’s wheat farmers, offering increased production for Nepal’s nearly one million wheat farmers and boosted nutrition for its 28 million wheat consumers.
The varieties, which are derived from materials developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), include five bred for elevated levels of the crucial micronutrient zinc, and Borlaug 100, a variety well known for being high yielding, drought- and heat-resilient, and resistant to wheat blast, as well as high in zinc.
“Releasing six varieties in one attempt is historic news for Nepal,” said CIMMYT Asia Regional Representative and Principal Scientist Arun Joshi.
“It is an especially impressive achievement by the NARC breeders and technicians during a time of COVID-related challenges and restrictions,” said NARC Executive Director Deepak Bhandari.
“This was a joint effort by many scientists in our team who played a critical role in generating proper data, and making a strong case for these varieties to the release committee, ” said Roshan Basnet, head of the National Wheat Research Program based in Bhairahawa, Nepal, who was instrumental in releasing three of the varieties, including Borlaug 2020.
“We are very glad that our hard work has paid off for our country’s farmers,” said Dhruba Thapa, chief and wheat breeder at NARC’s National Plant Breeding and Genetics Research Centre.
Nepal produces 1.96 million tons of wheat on more than 750,000 hectares, but its wheat farmers are mainly smallholders with less than 1-hectare holdings and limited access to inputs or mechanization. In addition, most of the popular wheat varieties grown in the country have become susceptible to new strains of wheat rust diseases.
The new varieties — Zinc Gahun 1, Zinc Gahun 2, Bheri-Ganga, Himganga, Khumal-Shakti and Borlaug 2020 — were bred and tested using a “fast-track” approach, with CIMMYT and NARC scientists moving material from trials in CIMMYT’s research station in Mexico to multiple locations in Nepal and other Target Population of Environments (TPEs) for testing.
“Thanks to a big effort from Arun Joshi and our NARC partners we were able to collect important data in first year, reducing the time it takes to release new varieties,” said CIMMYT Head of Wheat Improvement Ravi Singh.
The varieties are tailored for conditions in a range of wheat growing regions in the country — from the hotter lowland, or Terai, regions to the irrigated as well as dryer mid- and high-elevation areas — and for stresses including wheat rust diseases and wheat blast. The five high-zinc, biofortified varieties were developed through conventional crop breeding by crossing modern high yielding wheats with high zinc progenitors such as landraces, spelt wheat and emmer wheat.
“Zinc deficiency is a serious problem in Nepal, with 21% of children found to be zinc deficient in 2016,” explained said CIMMYT Senior Scientist and wheat breeder Velu Govindan, who specializes in breeding biofortified varieties. “Biofortification of staple crops such as wheat is a proven method to help reverse and prevent this deficiency, especially for those without access to a more diverse diet.”
Borlaug 2020 is equivalent to Borlaug 100, a highly prized variety released in 2014 in adbMexico to commemorate the centennial year of Nobel Peace laureate Norman E. Borlaug. Coincidently, its release in Nepal coincides with the 50th anniversary of Borlaug’s Nobel Peace Prize.
NARC staff have already begun the process of seed multiplication and conducting participatory varietal selection trials with farmers, so very soon farmers throughout the country will benefit from these seeds.
“The number of new varieties and record release time is amazing,” said Joshi. “We now have varieties that will help Nepal’s farmers well into the future.”
CIMMYT breeding of biofortified varieties was funded by HarvestPlus. Variety release and seed multiplication activities in Nepal were supported by NARC and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) through collaboration with ADB Natural Resources Principal & Agriculture Specialist Michiko Katagami. This NARC-ADB-CIMMYT collaboration was prompted by World Food Prize winner and former HarvestPlus CEO Howarth Bouis, and provided crucial support that enabled the release in a record time.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
ABOUT NARC:
Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) was established in 1991 as an autonomous organization under Nepal Agricultural Research Council Act – 1991 to conduct agricultural research in the country to uplift the economic level of Nepalese people.
ABOUT ADB:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. It assists its members and partners by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
A farmer in Nepal operates a water pump for drip irrigation. (Photo: Sharad Maharjan/IWMI)
Taken together, digital monitoring and readily available data on the status of groundwater resources provide a critical foundation for sustainable irrigation development. While much is known about surface water resources and hydrological and meteorological linkages between the Terai, Mid-Hills and Himalaya regions of the country, Nepal currently lacks a comprehensive system for groundwater resource monitoring.
To respond to this crucial information gap, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) are partnering with the Government of Nepal’s Groundwater Resources Development Board to conduct a pilot which will develop and test a potential groundwater monitoring system with the goal of identifying an approach which can be gradually scaled out after project completion.
To this end, the project team organized an Inception and Consultation Workshop, which took place virtually on October 14, 2020. This was the first in a series under the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) Nepal COVID-19 and Resilience project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Nepal, which supports farmers and rural economies in their response to COVID-19 and addresses, among others, various issues and ways forward for sustainable irrigation development.
The session aimed to introduce the digital groundwater monitoring pilot to local stakeholders, identify monitoring objectives and information needs, facilitate multi-stakeholder and inter-ministerial dialogue, and generate feedback and endorsement of the project plan. Participants were from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, and included members of local and national authorities, research centers and universities.
Participants meet virtually at the multi-stakeholder dialogue for Nepal’s Digital Groundwater Monitoring pilot (Photo: Tim Krupnik/CIMMYT)
Madhukar Rajbhandari, director general of the Government of Nepal’s Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, opened the event and during his address highlighted the importance of groundwater irrigation for Nepal’s farming systems and livelihoods. He also captured the challenges which the country faces when developing groundwater irrigation, from polluted water resources through urbanization to lack of market access and the high maintenance costs of irrigation infrastructure. Rajbhandari noted that “agricultural and irrigation projects lack coordination” and expressed his hope that “through this pilot, the way is paved for a collaborative approach to develop practical groundwater solutions for farmers.”
The session introduced participants to the project and its background, leading breakout sessions for two groups: the first containing local, state and national government representatives; the second comprising farmers, researchers and members of industry. Each group was asked to identify the groundwater monitoring objectives and information needs that they would have as different types of users, and to provide feedback and recommendations to improve the project work plan.
The feedback showed that while government representatives are largely interested in developing a better understanding of the groundwater development potential, researchers and farmers are more concerned with possible discharge and water quality. Monitoring frequency was also identified as useful for daily to monthly timescales.
The group discussion revealed participants’ keen interest in consolidating and monitoring groundwater information, which highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement when developing pilots such as these, to ensure that when scaling is achieved, it caters to specific needs. Participants also expressed a strong interest in bringing the results of the project within the ambit of national policy, which would achieve the streamlining of data collection protocols for standardized, publicly accessible, data collection mechanisms.
“It is very encouraging to see such active participation and engagement from all the participants throughout the workshop,” noted Timothy Krupnik, project leader and a senior scientist at CIMMYT. “We look forward to maintaining this momentum, to support Nepal’s efforts in strengthening its capacity for sustainable irrigation.”
