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Location: Asia

As a fast growing region with increasing challenges for smallholder farmers, Asia is a key target region for CIMMYT. CIMMYT’s work stretches from Central Asia to southern China and incorporates system-wide approaches to improve wheat and maize productivity and deliver quality seed to areas with high rates of child malnutrition. Activities involve national and regional local organizations to facilitate greater adoption of new technologies by farmers and benefit from close partnerships with farmer associations and agricultural extension agents.

Bhutan releases its first winter wheat variety

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In Bhutan, wheat is an important cereal for farmers at high altitudes, where its area of cultivation is considerable. However, in recent years, the winter wheat area has declined owing to numerous circumstances, including not having a better variety. This may be due to the fact that spring wheat has been the focus of most research and development efforts to date.

However, of late, the national wheat program has been paying equal attention to winter wheat research and development in collaboration with CIMMYT and ICARDA. But while ICARDA’s winter wheat nurseries are still being evaluated, CIMMYT-Nepal has helped to introduce cultivars that have recently been released in cooler regions elsewhere. One such genotype is Danphe (KIRITATI//2*PBW65/2*SERI.1B).

Danphe’s performance during its multi-location evaluation in the highlands of Bhutan (1200-2600 masl) was very promising. The new variety on average yielded 30% more than the local cultivar called Kaa, which means wheat in the local language. In addition, Danphe produces big grains, is short in height and lodging tolerant, which are farmers’ preferred traits. Up to now, farmers have had to manage with Kaa, which is very tall, small-grained and low yielding. Farmers who attended the field days unanimously preferred Danphe over the local cultivar.

In view of such an astonishing performance and of farmers’ preference for Danphe, the 18th Technology Release Committee of Bhutan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forests authorized the release of this line under the name Bumthang Kaa Drukchu. Bumthang is the name of the target area (the district), Kaa means wheat and Drukchu means sixty (60).

Ganesh Chhettri, a committee member from the Department of Agriculture, remarked that such an accomplishment in such short time was not expected, as winter wheat was never adequately attended to. Further, he commented that wheat production in this ecosystem will surely increase now that farmers have a higher yielding variety.

CIMMYT is considering providing about 1500 kg of Danphe seed to Nepal to fulfill farmers’ needs for the ensuing season, and promote the new variety’s dissemination and adoption.

Videos sharpen Bangladeshi farmers’ interest in farm mechanization

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Quality video can be an effective way of enhancing training messages and sharing complex agronomic information with a large audience. The USAID-funded Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia-Mechanisation and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) and the EU-supported Agriculture, Nutrition and Extension Project (ANEP) in Bangladesh recently produced five new farmer-focused videos on efficient irrigation technologies, machine-aided line sowing, strip tillage, bed planting and mechanized harvesters. The videos contain comical but educational dramas with farmers as actors; they focus on practical messages on how to calibrate, use and maintain the machines, which are drawn by two-wheeled tractors, and describe how machinery service providers can make money by selling machine planting and harvesting services to farmers at a low cost.

“Our research shows that machinery training videos can be an effective way of generating farmer interest in experimenting with and purchasing appropriate machinery,” explained CIMMYT agronomist Tim Krupnik. “CIMMYT’s private sector partners also agree, buying-in and paying cable television companies to screen the videos for advertising purposes, adding value to our efforts.” Most recently, The Metal Ltd., a private sector machinery manufacturer and CSISA-MI partner, aired the “Reaper” video on television in Bangladesh to an audience of over 75,000 people during 11 days. Technical support was provided by CSISA-MI’s NGO partner iDE, which arranged to show the video during the July vacation, when farmers tend to be at home watching television with their extended families.

Beyond advertising, the videos are crucial for training farmers on how to use complex machinery. According to CIMMYT training specialist Kamrun Naher, the videos are high quality and well produced. In each technical training course, they serve both as the ice-breaker and the primary lesson. “After watching the videos, service providers and farmers understand the machines’ usefulness,” she said.

“Farmers need to visualize and learn how technologies work in order to show interest in experimenting with and adopting them. Videos can help open that door,” commented Tim Krupnik. Mohammad Rafiqul, a farmer in southern Bangladesh who recently bought a wheat harvester through CSISA-MI’s private sector partners, agrees. “I should thank the video you showed me. I was inspired by it and bought the machine, though at first my family was against the investment.” In his opinion, the video should be screened more widely to increase the use of machines on Bangladeshi farms.

“The videos were prepared primarily as training materials and to influence farmers positively towards the machines,” explained Rezaul Karim, who directed the videos. Usually farmers are not well disposed towards a new idea or machine. “Our target was to remove their fear about the machines and make them feel that these machines are going to make real changes in their lives, and we succeeded.”

For more information on the use of videos in training programs, see:

Bentley, J., Van Mele, P., Harun-ar-Rashid, Md. and T.J. Krupnik. 2015. Distributing and Showing Farmer Learning Videos in Bangladesh. Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension. DOI: 10.1080/1389224X.2015.1026365.

View more CSISA-ANEP training videos below.
•Axial Flow Pumps
•Bed Planter
•Strip Tillage
•Power Tiller Operated-Seeder
•Reaper Machine

Statistical support for the Turkish wheat community

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The soilborne pathogens (SBP) program at CIMMYT-Turkey, a Grain Research Development Corporation (GRDC) funded project, hosted two biometricians from the GRDC project Statistics for the Australian Grains Industry (SAGI): Beverley Gogel, a senior biometrician at the University of Adelaide, and Chong You, a biometrician at the University of Wollongong. Their visit, spanning from 31 August to 4 September, was sponsored under the umbrella of the CIMMYT Australia ICARDA Germplasm Evaluation (CAIGE) project.

The main objective of the visit was to advise on how to improve the program’s experimental design and data analysis under the framework of the GRDC-SBP, CIMMYT project. Gogel and You visited experimental locations in the different environments where the SBP group is testing/screening wheat materials against SBPs. They gave very valuable suggestions and recommendations on how to increase efficiency and improve estimates associated with the targeted research questions. The outcome of this statistical support will ultimately improve trial design and analysis and, hence, the results of the full trial process.

At the same time, Abdelfattah A. Dababat, in collaboration with the Transitional Zone Agriculture Research Institute, organized a two-day workshop titled “Understanding linear mixed models from the ground up: Statistical tools for the Turkish National Breeding Programs” to a group of 13 participants, including breeders, pre-breeders, physiologists and pathologists from Turkey, CIMMYT, and ICARDA. Gogel introduced the experimental trial designs used in Australia and described how to analyze both single trials and trials in multiple sites using the ASReml software. Chong You gave a presentation on QTL analysis and described improvements over the current methodologies used by Turkish national breeding programs.

Special thanks to the GRDC for funding this statistics workshop and to the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock for hosting and facilitating the workshop, especially the Transitional Zone Agriculture Research Institute, Eskisehir.

Sustainable intensification in China: doing more with less

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Transplanting rice seedlings into ZT wheat stubble in Litong, China. Photo: Yuan Hanmin

As part of CIMMYT’s ongoing collaboration with the Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences and the building of an innovation platform there, we have refurbished our site and undertaken a number of trials that reflect the concepts of sustainable intensification, which increases food production from existing farmland while minimizing pressure on the environment.

The site at Litong just outside the city of Wuzhong in Ningxia Province has been modified and now boasts a paved parking area, all-weather access roads and field paths, and an array of signage that explains CIMMYT’s activities and the history of conservation agriculture undertaken by CIMMYT-China in this part of the country.

Zero-till rice transplanting

On the left, an irrigated ZT field; on the right, a conventionally prepared field (yet to be irrigated), 35 days after transplanting. Photo: Jack McHugh/CIMMYT
On the left, an irrigated ZT field; on the right, a conventionally prepared field (yet to be irrigated), 35 days after transplanting.
Photo: Jack McHugh/CIMMYT

CIMMYT recently tested a zero-tillage (ZT) rice transplanting operation with a 9 row transplanter from Jiangsu province. The idea came from viewing a short video taken some years ago of a conventional transplanter being used under ZT conditions in Bangladesh. In Ningxia, recently harvested wheat fields were irrigated and rice seedlings were planted into standing wheat stubble without any further modification to the planter. In contrast, rice was conventionally transplanted in an adjacent field, which required two days of field preparation including inversion plowing, leveling and puddling at an extra cost of USD $375 per hectare.

Zero-till rice transplanting not only saves time, labor and fuel, but also minimizes soil disturbance, maximizes residue retention, and mitigates moisture and nutrient loss. Results from these trials will demonstrate the effectiveness of transplanting rice into ZT winter wheat standing stubble.

Relay and intercropping

Monocropping farming systems are predominant in Ningxia, with the same crop planted year after year. The region has very cold winters and short summers, but with the use of short season varieties and relay cropping, double-cropping and crop rotations can be realized in the region. Double-cropping is a form of sequential cropping in which two crops are grown in sequence within a year on a piece of land by seeding or transplanting one before or after harvesting the other.

Winter wheat and peanut intercropping followed by relay-cropping maize into immature winter wheat. Photo: Jack McHugh/CIMMYT
Winter wheat and peanut intercropping followed by relay-cropping maize into immature winter wheat.
Photo: Jack McHugh/CIMMYT

To that end, five maize cultivars were relay-planted into winter wheat on 17 June, around two weeks before harvest; the plot was previously intercropped with 24 peanut varieties. The advanced winter wheat lines were harvested in late June and yielded quite well for the region. We expect to harvest the maize from late September to early October 2015.

Zero-till and early maturing grain crops are key to double-cropping in the region; however, the current wheat variety – Ningdong 11 – is late in maturing. Next year, the earlier maturing Ningdong 10 will be used, with emphasis on residue retention and increased stubble height during harvest, before seeding maize directly and/or transplanting rice. However, the current Chinese-made Turbo Happy Seeders will need to be modified to cope with the rougher soil surfaces encountered under ZT to ensure better seeding depth control.

Replacing gender myths and assumptions with knowledge

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CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff speaks on the topic of ‘Wheat and the role of gender in the developing world’ prior to the 2015 Women in Triticum Awards at the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Workshop in Sydney on 19 September.

If we are to be truly successful in improving the lives of farmers and consumers in the developing world, we need to base our interventions on the best evidence available. If we act based only on our assumptions, we may not be as effective as we could be or, even worse, actively cause harm.

One example is the common perception that women are not involved in the important wheat farming systems of North Africa and South Asia. By recognizing and engaging with these myths, we are beginning to build a more sophisticated understanding of how agriculture works as a social practice.

Currently, there are only a few published studies that take a closer examination of the roles played by women in wheat-based farming systems. These studies have found that, in some cases, men are responsible for land preparation and planting, and women for weeding and post-harvest activities, with harvest and transport duties being shared. Between different districts in India, huge variations may be found in the amount of time that women are actively involved in wheat agriculture. This shows that some careful study into the complexities of gender and agricultural labor may hold important lessons when intervening in any particular situation.

We must also never assume that, just because women are not as involved in agriculture in a particular context, they can not benefit from more information. In a survey carried out by CIMMYT researcher Surabhi Mittal in parts of rural India, it was found that women used a local cellphone agricultural advisory service just as much as men, and that this knowledge helped them get more involved in farming-related decision-making.

Gender is not just about women

For all that it is important to include women, along with other identity groups in project planning, implementation and data collection, it is important not to get into the trap of thinking that gender-integrated approaches are just about targeting women.

For example, the World Health Organization estimates that micronutrient deficiency affects at least two billion people around the world, causing poor health and development problems in the young. The effects of micronutrient deficiency start in the womb, and are most severe from then through to the first two years of life. Therefore it would make sense to target women of childbearing age and mothers with staple varieties that have been bio-fortified to contain high levels of important micronutrients such as zinc, iron or vitamin A.

However, to do so risks ignoring the process in which the decision to change the crop grown or the food eaten in the household is taken. Both men and women will be involved in that decision, and any intervention must therefore take the influence of gender norms and relations, involving both women and men, into account.

The way ahead

To move forward, each component of the strategy for research into wheat farming systems at CIMMYT also has a gender dimension, whether focused on improving the evidence base, responding to the fact that both women and men can be end users or beneficiaries of new seeds and other technologies, or ensuring that gender is considered as a part of capacity-building efforts.

Already, 20 of our largest projects are actively integrating gender into their work, helping to ensure that women are included in agricultural interventions and share in the benefits they bring, supplying a constant stream of data for future improvement.

We have also experienced great success in targeting marginalized groups. For instance, the Hill Maize Research Project in Nepal, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) alongside the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on food-insecure people facing discrimination due to their gender or social group. By supporting them to produce improved maize varieties in community groups, the project managed not only to greatly increase their incomes, but also to improve their self-confidence and recognition in society.

CIMMYT researchers are also among the leaders of a global push to encode gender into agricultural research together with other international research partnerships. In over 125 agricultural communities in 26 countries, a field study of gender norms, agency and agricultural innovation, known as GENNOVATE, is now underway. The huge evidence base generated will help spur the necessary transformation in how gender is included in agricultural research for development.

Further information:

The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, chaired by Jeanie Borlaug Laube, has the overarching objective of systematically reducing the world’s vulnerability to stem, yellow, and leaf rusts of wheat and advocating/facilitating the evolution of a sustainable international system to contain the threat of wheat rusts and continue the enhancements in productivity required to withstand future global threats to wheat. This international network of scientists, breeders and national wheat improvement programs came together in 2005, at Norman Borlaug’s insistence, to combat Ug99. The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell University serves as the secretariat for the BGRI. The DRRW, CIMMYT, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the FAO helped establish the BGRI a decade ago. Funding is provided by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information, please visit www.globalrust.org.

CIMMYT is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and related farming systems. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat to improve food security and livelihoods. CIMMYT belongs to the 15-member CGIAR Consortium and leads the Consortium Research Programs on wheat and maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.

Follow the #BGRI2015 hashtag on social media

Twitter: @CIMMYT, @KropffMartin and @GlobalRust

The first heat tolerant maize hybrids are licensed for deployment in Bangladesh, India and Nepal

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Women farmers at a HTMA hybrid demonstration at Dumarawana village, Bara District, Nepal. Photo: NMRP, Rampur
Women farmers at a HTMA hybrid demonstration at Dumarawana village, Bara District, Nepal. Photo: NMRP, Rampur

The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Bangladesh’s ACI Seeds, India’s Bihar Agricultural University, Sabor, and the University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Ajeet Seeds, and Nepal’s Hariyali Community Seeds and Sean Seeds are the first proud institutions/companies to receive a license for the deployment of heat tolerant maize hybrids. B.M. Prasanna, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, formally presented the product licensing certificates to the heads/representatives of these organizations during the Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project’s 3rd Annual Progress Review and Planning Meeting held from 10-12 August 2015 in Hyderabad, India. Other project partners, including national program and seed companies from Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, have shared their choice of hybrids, and asked to submit them for formal licencing. The hybrids were developed under the HTMA project funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia who face weather extremes and climate-change effects.Women farmers at a HTMA hybrid demonstration at Dumarawana village, Bara District, Nepal.

At the event’s inaugural session, Nora Lapitan, Senior Science Advisor, Bureau for Food Security, USAID, gave an update on the FTF initiative and highlighted its priorities, which include reducing poverty and malnutrition in children in target countries through accelerated inclusive agricultural growth and a high-quality diet. This was followed by an overview by B.M. Prasanna of the new CGIAR research program on Maize Agri-food system, its focus and priorities and the importance of stress-resilient maize in food security and livelihoods, especially in climate-change vulnerable regions, such as the Asian tropics.

The inaugural session was followed by technical sessions, during which Raman Babu, CIMMYT molecular maize breeder, M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT maize stress specialist for South Asia, A.R. Sadananda, CIMMYT maize seed system specialist, and CIMMYT socioeconomist Christian Boeber presented their latest research results.

Mohammad Jalal Uddin, BARI Director of Research, receiving a licence for HTMA hybrid deployment from Prasanna. Photo: CIMMYT-India

Mohammad Jalal Uddin, BARI Director of Research, receiving a licence for HTMA hybrid deployment from Prasanna.P.H. Zaidi, HTMA project leader and senior maize physiologist at CIMMYT, described the progress achieved at the end of the project’s third year. Representatives from public and private sector partners presented the results of the HTMA trials conducted at their locations, and shared a list of top-ranking, best-bet heat-tolerant maize hybrids to take forward for large-scale testing and deployment. Collaborators from Pakistan’s Maize and Millet Research Institute (MMRI) and Bhutan’s Maize Program could not participate in the meeting but their progress reports were presented by K. Seetharam and Zaidi, respectively. It is quite impressive that within the first three years of the project, each partner has identified promising and unique maize hybrids suitable for their target markets/agro-ecologies.

Participants visited a demonstration of elite HTMA hybrids and their parents, where they observed the performance of their selected hybrids under Indian conditions. They were able to see the hybrids and their parents side by side, assess their performance and request seed of parental lines.

The project is also involved in capacity building, including providing support to a total of nine M.Sc./Ph.D. students, as well as workshops and in-country training courses in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, where over 100 researchers have been trained on developing stress resilient maize. In a special session dedicated to student research projects, four HTMA students, including Mahender Tripathi from Nepal, Ashraful Alam from Bangladesh and Akula Dinesh and C.N. Ranganath from India, presented their research projects.

The project’s progress was critically reviewed by the project steering committee (PSC) headed by Prasanna, who expressed great satisfaction with its overall progress and acheivements. Speaking for USAID, Lapitan said they are highly impressed with the progress of the HTMA project and consider it a model project. Other PSC members also expressed their satisfaction and agreed that the HTMA team deserves special appreciation for remarkable achievements within a period of just three years.

The HTMA project meeting was attended by program leaders, scientists and representatives from collaborating institutions in South Asia, including BARI, Nepal’s National Maize Research Program (NMRP) and two of India’s state agriculture universities. Seed companies operating in the region, including Pioneer Hi-bred, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds from India, and Sean Seeds and Hariyali Community Seeds from Nepal, and international institutions such as Purdue University, USAID and CIMMYT also participated in the event.

The HTMA team at CIMMYT, Hyderabad, India. Photo: CIMMYT-India

 

AAA hybrids move towards commercialization

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PLC6 is a term used to refer to an advanced stage of hybrid testing at Syngenta, a partner of the Affordable, Accessible, Asian (AAA) Drought Tolerant Maize Project. Four hybrids, representing combinations of Syngenta and CIMMYT germplasm are currently at PLC6 in big plots at multiple locations.  The trajectory of this process points to pilot marketing of a limited quantity of hybrid seed in 2016 and a full market launch in 2017.

AAA Drought Tolerant Maize Project Meeting, ICRISAT Campus, Hyderabad, India. 22-23 July 2015. Photo: P.S. Rao/ICRISAT

Four million hectares in India and Indonesia is the potential target area of this project.  This translates to a market potential of about 80,000 metric tons of seed and offers the opportunity to address the needs of over five million households.  In Indonesia, this primarily covers the island of Sulawesi and eastern Java province. In India, the targeted west central zone includes drought prone and tribal areas, a high risk environment where farmers require improved low-cost seed.

According to Syngenta, the region’s climate and other dynamics make seed marketing risky, unpredictable and unattractive, and is often overlooked by the private seed sector – exactly the kind of underserved area CIMMYT is mandated to target.

The AAA annual meeting was held at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) campus in Hyderabad, India on 22 and 23 July 2015.  Members of the AAA team highlighted achievements over the past five years that ranged from identifying hybrid combinations, fast tracking them to deployment, developing new inbred lines, identifying molecular marker leads for grain yield under drought and for root traits, generating information on genomic selection and genome wide associations and building human, infrastructural, informatics and networking capacity.  All this was done through an exploratory partnership model that included NARS partners (from Vietnam and Indonesia) in addition to Syngenta.

CIMMYT and the AAA team would like to thank the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), especially Mike Robinson, Chief Science Advisor and the mastermind behind this approach, for the support provided and for enabling such a collaborative opportunity.

Tech-savvy women in Haryana implement precision fertilizer application

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The state of Haryana, India’s breadbasket, faces a major challenge due to the excessive use of nitrogen fertilizer (N: P: K = 27.2: 9.8: 1) in agriculture. The overuse of nitrogen fertilizer in the rice-wheat systems of Haryana has led to high production costs, low efficiency, environmental pollution and nitrate contamination of groundwater, which causes blue baby syndrome in young children.

Another challenge to agriculture in Haryana is that traditional ways of farming are no longer attractive to educated youth, which means that fewer young people are opting to become farmers. However, new innovations and technological advancements are making agriculture much more attractive to young people, especially women, and creating awareness and building capacity about these advancements is critical to make women see the potential in agriculture.

CIMMYT, under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, organized a day-long field training session for young female farmers in the climate-smart village of Bastada, Haryana, on the GreenSeeker, a hand-held sensor that measures nitrogen, assesses crop vigor and calculates a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index representing crop health. Nearly 20 young women from farm families in Bastada participated.

Farmers often lack training to interpret raw data from devices like the GreenSeeker. To address this problem, CIMMYT, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Government of Punjab launched a mobile calculator application in January 2015 that allows farmers to precisely calculate the nitrogen in their fields right on their mobile phone, ensuring accurate nitrogen fertilizer application, which in turn raises crop yields and profits.

Mamta, a young woman of 23 who participated in the training session, mentioned that farmers faced a serious problem due to a shortage of urea during the winter 2014-15 wheat season. This problem is easier to avoid now that her cell phone has a GreenSeeker application that allows her to calculate the precise amount of nitrogen in her rice and wheat fields. “The application is very helpful in saving nitrogen to the tune of one bag of urea per hectare,” said Mamta.

CIMMYT plans to hold similar training sessions for young women and men throughout the states of Haryana, Punjab and Bihar, which will no doubt make them more likely to opt to become farmers and will go a long way towards ensuring adequate fertilizer application by farmers.

Trainees learn to use the GreenSeeker application on their cell phones, which used to be simple devices that could only send or receive calls and text messages.
Trainees learn to use the GreenSeeker application on their cell phones, which used to be simple devices that could only send or receive calls and text messages.

14 years of CA research on display

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In 2002, ACIAR and Gansu Agricultural University initiated a rainfed conservation agriculture research project in Dingxi County, Loess Plateau, Gansu Province. Li Lingling and her team have religiously maintained this site, gathering data and training postgraduates, while quantifying the long-term impacts of CA in a very arid environment. CIMMYT-China, in close collaboration with GAU, is developing the site into an innovation platform to demonstrate and promote sustainable farming approaches in the region, which was demonstrated through a farm walk during China Science Week.

The research station has housed and trained 100 students at a time, and is home to 10-15 postgraduates during peak sampling periods. Refurbished laboratories, a collection of field tools and Li Lingling’s 14 years of research results were displayed during the farm walk.

That increased crop water use efficiency can be achieved in this arid zone was a key message from the wheat/pea rotation system under CA, whereas zero tillage with straw removal was one of the worst performing soil treatments. The farm walk effectively demonstrated soil-water interactions under CA, no till, straw removal and continuous grazing, highlighting the benefits of CA and its effectiveness in addressing local and regional resource management issues.

Activities culminated with a postgraduate research walk where the main presenters were two Ph.D. students from Ghana who are working on greenhouse gas emissions, among other subjects.

Fostering public-private partnerships for decentralized wheat seed production in Pakistan

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Seed quality management training participants visit wheat trials at Pakistan’s Agricultural Research Institute (ARI), Tandojam, Sindh. Photo: Tando Jam/ARI
Seed quality management training participants visit wheat trials at Pakistan’s Agricultural Research Institute (ARI), Tandojam, Sindh. Photo: Tando Jam/ARI

To strengthen functional linkages between private seed companies and public sector institutions in Pakistan, CIMMYT and its national partners jointly organized four training sessions, one each in Punjab and Sindh and two in Khyber Pakhtunkhaw during March and April, 2015. Participants included 45 staff members from 10 private seed companies from those provinces.

Although private seed companies have a major share of Pakistan’s wheat seed market, they rely almost completely on public sector wheat breeding institutes for pre-basic and basic seeds. However, the public sector has limited capacity for producing adequate amounts of pre-basic and basic seed to support the deployment of new wheat varieties. In addition, a recent study on the private wheat seed sector in Pakistan suggests that around two-thirds of seed companies do not obtain the amounts of pre-basic/basic seed they require from public seed corporations.

Currently, only a few private seed companies obtain pre-basic or basic seeds from wheat research institutes based on personal relationships, but functional and institutional linkages between public and private sector organizations have yet to be established. CIMMYT identified this gap and is now working towards bridging it by engaging important actors from both sectors. The first step was to convince the public sector to provide pre-basic and basic seeds to private seed companies, particularly small companies in rural areas. Several of the public sector wheat breeding institutes responded positively to this call. Another important step is to develop the capacity of private seed companies to produce quality basic and certified seed by building trust between them and public sector institutions.

Seed quality management training participants discuss the parameters of basic seed production with breeders and seed quality inspectors in Mureedke, Punjab, Pakistan. Photo: Tando Jam/ARI
Seed quality management training participants discuss the parameters of basic seed production
with breeders and seed quality inspectors in Mureedke, Punjab, Pakistan. Photo: Tando Jam/ARI

The training sessions had an innovative curriculum focusing on the technical aspects of producing high quality basic seed and enhancing marketing skills and networking to develop profitable, sustainable seed companies able to produce seed of new varieties. Experts from public sector research institutions addressed subjects such as rouging, isolation distances, crop and varietal mixtures, weed management, post-harvest technologies, quality control procedures, and conservation agriculture. They also showed how contract growers and seed companies can reduce their production costs and improve their profit margins.

Representatives of the Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department (FSC&RD) highlighted protocols for pre-basic/basic and certified seed production and multiplication. The training sessions enhanced participants’ understanding of various aspects of the seed business, such as business plan development, market assessment, product pricing and using proper marketing channels.

The expectation is that 14 private seed companies will produce around 1,000 tons of basic seed of 12 wheat varieties, enough to plant more than 8,000 ha of seed plots. This would enable the production of more than 24,000 tons of certified seed for the rural areas of the three provinces, thus paving the way for decentralized production and marketing of basic wheat seed in Pakistan.

Training on developing stress-resilient maize at CIMMYT-Hyderabad, India

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A training course on developing stress-resilient maize for early-/mid-career maize breeders from national programs, agricultural universities and seed companies, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), was held at CIMMYT-Hyderabad, India, on 15 May 2015. The course was open to partners in the Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project and members of the International Maize Improvement Consortium (IMIC-Asia). It covered key aspects of precision phenotyping, including enhancing precision of field trials, managing adequate levels of stress to express available genotypic variability, using advanced tools to capture data efficiently and precision in recording various traits in phenotyping trials.

At the outset, B.S. Vivek, Maize Breeder at CIMMYT-Hyderabad, introduced the course agenda and objectives and mentioned that participants would learn various aspects of stress phenotyping. C. Aditya, System Developer, and M.T. Vinayan, Maize Stress Breeder at CIMMYT-Hyderabad, discussed FIELD-LOG, the new android-based data-capturing software developed by CIMMYT. They explained the details of its software applications and the method used for recording data in the field and transferring them to a computer.

FIELD-LOG is an excellent user-friendly system that increases the efficiency of data capturing and processing, and at the same time significantly reduces the chances of human error. Participants received hands-on training on using FIELD-LOG to install, operate and record data in the field, and then transfer them to a computer. This was followed by a series of presentations by P.H. Zaidi, Senior Maize Physiologist, CIMMYT-Hyderabad, on various aspects of field-based precision phenotyping for abiotic stress, including site selection and characterization.

Training course participants.
Training course participants.

Seetharam, Project Scientist at CIMMYT-Hyderabad, discussed various plant traits and the proper way of capturing data in field phenotyping trials. Participants practiced recording data on various traits in heat stress phenotyping trials using the FIELD-LOG system. M.T. Vinayan explained the do’s and don’t’s in field phenotyping at various stages.

At the end, participants provided feedback on the course and thanked CIMMYT for organizing it. They also suggested adding other features to further enhance the usefulness of the FIELD-LOG system.

CIMMYT-CCAFS initiative develops 500 new climate-smart villages in Haryana, India

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A climate-smart farmer in Ludhiana, Punjab, India. Photo: P. Casier/CGIAR
A climate-smart farmer in Ludhiana, Punjab, India. Photo: P. Casier/CGIAR

The Department of Agriculture (DoA) of the Indian state of Haryana, in collaboration with CIMMYT-CCAFS, developed an action plan to mainstream climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in the state and develop 500 new climate-smart villages (CSVs), at a workshop held on 8 June 2015. Over the past three years, Haryana has successfully adopted CSA technologies and practices through a CSV initiative of CIMMYT and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Demand-driven policies and engagement by local governments are essential to ensure CSVs continue to expand throughout the country.

CSVs identify, adapt and evaluate demand-driven CSA interventions aimed at improving the capacity of local farmers to adapt to climate change. Northwest India, which is crucial to the country’s food security, faces diverse challenges to meet current and future food demands. Problems such as groundwater scarcity, soil health deterioration, heat stress, erratic rainfall due to climate change and high input costs are taking a toll on farmers.

In response, India has promoted a portfolio of successful CSA interventions, particularly in Haryana, and has developed over two dozen CSVs in the last three years. Rice-wheat systems in these CSVs have proven more resilient than other areas to tough climatic challenges, such as extremely high rainfall during the 2014-2015 winter season. While many farmers experienced yield losses of 30-50%, those in CSVs only lost 5-10%.

The success of 28 CSVs in Haryana’s Karnal district over the last three years has raised the confidence level of stakeholders, particularly the state’s DoA, which are now involved in developing more CSVs in the state in close collaboration with CIMMYT-CCAFS and partners.

According to an official letter issued by the DoA piloting the new 500 CSVs, “The farmers of our state are facing challenges of natural resource degradation, high input costs and frequent weather abrasions due to climate change. The adoption of climate-smart agriculture technologies [and] new innovative practices in agriculture is essential.”

CIMMYT-CCAFS climate-smart village site in Haryana, India. Photo: CIMMYT/CCAF
CIMMYT-CCAFS climate-smart village site in Haryana, India. Photo: CIMMYT/CCAF

Farmer-friendly policies that prioritize CSA have been implemented by the government of Haryana, but more has to be done to ensure further adoption of CSA throughout the state and the country. During the workshop, a roadmap was designed for implementing the 500 CSVs, that includes devising strategies to attract rural youth and women to agribusinesses across the state. Suresh Gehlawat, Additional Director Agriculture, government of Haryana, called this approach a “win-win for all stakeholders.” Knowledge sharing and capacity building to promote CSAs contribute to the continuous expansion of CSVs across state and country.

The gola: storing maize to improve livelihoods in Chuadanga, Bangladesh

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Farmers in Chuadanga District of Bangladesh have been using a unique local method to store their maize: the gola.

Maize grains can be stored in a modified gola for several months. Photo: Abdul Momin-CIMMYT

Golas are large rectangular or cylindrical containers used to store seed and animal feed. In Bangladesh, golas are traditionally used to store paddy rice. They are made locally using bamboo for the sides and tin for the roof, can last up to 80 years and hold from 2 to 20 tons of grain.

Many Bangladeshi farmers believe that, unlike rice, maize grain cannot be stored in golas due to its high susceptibility to insects and pests. To keep its quality from deteriorating, farmers normally sell maize grain at a minimum price as quickly as possible after harvest.

Unlike most of the country’s farmers, Chuadanga farmers use golas to store maize grain until its market price goes up, which results in higher profits. According to a recent CIMMYT-Bangladesh survey, the longer they store the seed, the higher the profit. “The profit earned by the Chuadanga farmers through maize grain storage helps to increase the national per capita income, allowing Bangladesh to become a middle income country,” said Prodip Hajong, Senior Officer in Agricultural Economics at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI).

Eighty percent of all maize grain produced in Chuadanga is stored anywhere from 4 to 43 weeks and sold for a higher price. According to the survey, golas were the preferred storage for maize and used by over 60% of respondent households. Each household earned a profit of approximately USD $389.68 in 2012, USD $315.64 in 2013 and USD $130.19 in 2014. During 2014, the overall market price of maize grain was low compared to previous years; that is why farmers’ profit margin was comparatively small.

Farmers in Chuadanga, Bangladesh, modified their traditional golas to be able to store maize longer and earn higher profits. Photo: Abdul Momin-CIMMYT
Farmers in Chuadanga, Bangladesh, modified their traditional golas to be able to store maize longer and earn higher profits. Photo: Abdul Momin-CIMMYT

“High temperatures inside the gola help maintain grain quality by killing insects, their larvae and eggs,” said Abdul Momin, CIMMYT Cropping Systems Agronomist. With assistance from the Cereal Systems Initiative in South Asia in Bangladesh (CSISA-BD) project, Chuadanga farmers have been modifying their golas – for example, by reinforcing the floors with tin to prevent post-harvest losses from rodents and insects – so that they can store maize for longer periods.

The CIMMYT-Bangladesh survey was conducted by CIMMYT researchers Frederick Rossi, Agricultural Economist; Elahi Baksh, Applied Agricultural Economist; Abdul Momin, Cropping System Agronomist; Thakur P. Tiwari, Country Representative in Bangladesh and Prodip Hajong, Senior Officer in Agricultural Economics at BARI. They recommended making an action plan in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Extension, BARI and local NGOs, to demonstrate and disseminate this low cost technology throughout the country.

In Nepal, collective action helps improve farmers’ incomes

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Littri Gaun is a characteristic remote, hilly village in Dadeldhura district of Nepal. Relatively low agricultural yields, soil erosion and labor out-migration are major challenges for monsoon-dependent agriculture in this region. During the kharif season, farmers mostly grow the dominant staple crops – unbunded upland rice and maize. Some farmers also practice maize-soybean mixed cropping because soybean fetches a good price in the market. Finger millet is also grown for home consumption in some areas during kharif.

Farmers in Littri Gaun believe that chemical fertilizer can destroy soil, and use only farmyard manure and plant litter to enrich their soil. Low nutrient levels — particularly for Nitrogen – have led to consistently low crop productivity. Moreover, farmers grow traditional local varieties for which seeds may have been saved for several years, as seed replacement rates are low. With men migrating outside for work, women are left responsible for the agricultural production, as well as household duties, resulting in high levels of drudgery for women and high labor constraints during peak agricultural times.

CIMMYT led Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia in Nepal (CSISA-NP) began working with farmers in Littri Gaun in 2012 and facilitated farmers in the village to form a group called “Ugratara Agriculture Group.” CSISA works with Ugratara to introduce new, suitable crop varieties, better-bet agronomic practices and small-scale machinery that women can use.

CSISA and Ugratara have conducted several maize trials to screen and grow different registered hybrids, to evaluate different crop establishment methods and to experiment with different methods of fertilizer management. Trials showed that hybrid maize yields were more than double to those of the local varieties under the same management conditions. With hybrids, Ugratara has even harvested up to three times the yield of the local maize varieties. Among the genotypes tested, group members preferred Kanchan-101 (hybrid) because of the high and early yields. Trials also showed that the local maize variety produced higher yields when fertilizer was applied, demonstrating the importance of good nutrient management.

Farmers observe wheat varietyDuring a farmers’ field day, Ugratara group members expressed that improved varieties like the maize variety Kanchan 101 (hybrid), introduced by CSISA, are more productive than their local maize. Ugratara group member, Naresh Khadka said, “We are producing more than double using the hybrid Kanchan-101 and it’s ready early than the local variety.” For upland rice, trials also showed that the appropriate use of chemical fertilizers nearly doubled yields of local rice varieties and that chemical fertilizer increased yields over those achieved through the application of farmyard manure.

CSISA also introduced improved varieties of lentil, which has increased the number of farmers producing lentil, lentil yields, and household lentil consumption. Farmers have also been able to sell their surplus lentil production in the market for NRs. 150/kg. “After seeing the benefits of improved lentil variety, more farmers are now expanding their area under lentil cultivation,” said Khadka.

Finally, CSISA introduced small machines like the mini tiller and the jab planter, which helped women to prepare and cultivate land, making them more self-sufficient, saving their time and helping them to adapt better to labor shortages. Women in Littri Gaun are not allowed to plough land with bullocks, as it is considered to be men’s work. Saru Khadka, a lady member of Ugratara group, said, “By using minitiller for preparing our fields, we don’t have to depend on men for labor and bullocks.” Participation in Ugratara has helped the group’s women members to feel empowered. Khadka acknowledged that women in Ugratara have learned to confidently express their views and problems to relevant authorities and they feel more capable and assertive now.