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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.

New USAID lead for climate-resilient cereals portfolio visits Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia

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Dr. Nora Lapitan, the new science advisor in the Bureau for Food Security of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and lead of USAID’s Climate-Resilient Cereals portfolio, visited the maize field trials being conducted in India as part of Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) during 17-21 June.

Nora Lapitan with the HTMA team at Kaveri Seeds field trials in Baijenki, Telangana. Photo: Kaveri Seeds staff

Lapitan is the project manager and provides technical oversight. Supported by USAID under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, the HTMA project is led by CIMMYT-Hyderabad. HTMA is a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia prone to face weather extremes and climate-change effects. The project connects several public sector agricultural research institutions in South Asia such as the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; Maize & Millets Research Institute, Pakistan; National Maize Research Program, Nepal; Bhutan National Maize Program; and two Indian state agriculture universities – Bihar Agricultural University, Sabor and University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Raichur, as well as Purdue University in the U.S. Additional participants include seed companies DuPont Pioneer, Vibha Agritech, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds. This was Lapitan’s first trip to India, which she chose to start with HTMA maize field activity visits. She visited maize trials under managed heat stress at different sites in India, starting with the trials at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Ludhiana on 17 June.

A team of scientists from BISA, including Dr. H.S. Sidhu, Parvider Romana and Manish Koth showed her HTMA trials and explained the activities. The next day she visited the HTMA trials at DuPont Pioneer sites in Jalandhar, Punjab, where Dr. S.K. Kaushik explained project activities, including various types of hybrid trials, heat stress symptoms in the field and promising heattolerant hybrids. After visiting the maize trials in Punjab, Lapitan traveled to southern India, visiting HTMA trials in Hyderabad and Baijenki, Karimnagar. In Hyderabad, she visited the trials planted at a CIMMYT site within the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) campus, where Dr. P.H. Zaidi, CIMMYT senior maize physiologist and HTMA project leader, explained ongoing HTMA field trials across sites in South Asia in collaboration with partners. M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT India maize stress specialist, discussed trials planted at the Hyderabad site.

Nora Lapitan with the HTMA team at CIMMYT field trials in Hyderabad. Photo: K. Seetharam/CIMMYT-Hyderabad

The presentation was followed by a field tour, where Lapitan could see the performance of some of the most promising heat-tolerant maize hybrids. In the afternoon, Lapitan met with CIMMYT-Hyderabad staff, where Zaidi presented the office’s overall program and various ongoing projects. The next day, she and Zaidi visited HTMA trials at the Kaveri Seeds site at Baijenki, Telangana. Dr. N.P. Sarma, director of research; Dr. B.S. Dahiya, senior advisor; and Dr. Ramesh Chaurasia, maize breeder at Kaveri Seeds, explained the HTMA field trials at their site.

Lapitan took a field tour, where Chaurasia explained the details of the ongoing trials and showed her a number of promising heat-tolerant hybrids. “This is very exciting for our company; to see unique products like heat-tolerant hybrids identified within two years of the project start, which we are ready to take forward in largescale testing,” said Sarma. He further explained that there are very few options for such types of maize hybrids, and that this is a newly emerging market. It is certainly a unique option for resource-poor farmers to provide food during those hot and dry months and also feed for their livestock.

After completion of the field visits, Lapitan expressed her strong satisfaction with HTMA project activities, saying “it is exciting to see that partners are ready with first wave of products for deployment within two years. This is remarkable and I congratulate the HTMA team.”

Recent activities and accomplishments of the Agricultural Innovation Project (AIP) for Pakistan

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The Agricultural Innovation Project (AIP) for Pakistan, led by CIMMYT and funded by USAID, has accomplished a great deal since its inception in March 2013. Among this year’s most notable AIP achievements by partner institutions were numerous training sessions and workshops, important vaccine developments, progress in baseline surveys and advances in seed improvement and distribution.

In May, 25 stakeholders involved in dairy production received training on the seven rapid assessment (RA) tools developed and modified by the International Livestock Research Institute (IRLI). Another 25 stakeholders involved in small ruminant production were given training on the small ruminant value chain rapid assessment (SRVC RA) tools by scientists from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). On 4 June, a wheat seed value chain workshop organized by CIMMYT in collaboration with the Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI) and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) was held at CCRI in Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPP).

Nearly 50 actors in the wheat seed value chain participated in the workshop, in order to analyze gaps and identify opportunities in the KPP wheat seed system. A “training of trainers” was organized by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on developing and validating a local rice crop check system at Engro Eximp, Muridke, Sheikhupura for seven field staff of the private sector on 24 June.


The World Vegetable Center held a series of customized training workshops with its partners in order to identify gaps, exchange experiences and to further streamline the Center’s activities among public and private partners. Advances have also been made in improved maize seed under the AIP maize component, which evaluated the performance of about 220 recently introduced maize varieties against locally available checks in spring 2014. Preliminary results from the harvested sites show the good selection potential of introduced maize varieties, which consisted of early to intermediate maturity, climate-resilient and bio-fortified white and yellow kernel hybrids and open pollinated varieties.

Best or comparable varieties identified will be further tested to fulfill variety release procedures. With the help of ILRI, the production of the Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) vaccine in Pakistan will soon be improved. The version of the vaccine currently produced in Pakistan is thermo-stable at 35˚C, while the version of the vaccine produced by IRLI is thermo-stable at 45˚C and is therefore more resistant to damage and able to be kept at a wider variety of temperatures.

Dr. Jeff Mariner, a former ILRI employee, visited Pakistan in June and conducted a technical audit of the production process in the two laboratories that produce the PPR vaccine. An action plan that includes training and production of a first batch of vaccine based on ILRI’s vaccine composition was created based on this audit, and will be implemented in August in order to help Pakistan create a more heat-resistant variety of the PPR vaccine.

AIP staff members have also worked this year to address the issue of quality fodder for livestock in Pakistan by promoting the growth of spineless cactus on range-land. AIP Livestock, in collaboration with the Rangeland Research Institute (RRI) of the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC), held a farmer’s field day at NARC on 15 May to train farmers in the advantages and methodology of growing spineless cactus. Forty farmers participated, and many have since planted spineless cactus on their lands. IRRI, in collaboration with Engro Exemp, distributed 600 kilograms (kg) of certified, high-yielding Basmati-515 rice seed to 30 farmers in the Punjab region to scale up the adoption of this variety. Basmati-515 has good quality attributes and a comparatively short growing duration, and is an excellent supplement to super basmati, which has lost its yield potential and is also prone to damage by insects and diseases.

One hundred kg of high-yielding, salt-tolerant seed of low phytate rice variety NIAB IR-9 was also distributed to farmers in Usta Muhammad in Balochistan. In addition, IRRI is working to promote mechanized dry rice seeding in Pakistan; a method which uses significantly less water than rice cultivated using the conventional planting method and is much easier to harvest. IRRI scientists, with the help of local farm machinery manufacturer Greenland Engineering, have identified a proper seed drill for direct dry seeding, which they are popularizing through the creation of public and private partnerships.

In addition, AIP reports that baseline surveys for wheat and conservation agriculture as well as vegetables and mung bean value chains are in progress in Pakistan’s four provinces. A maize baseline survey will be launched in August, and will interview more than 500 maize growers. The CIMMYT socio-economics team is also preparing to initiate durum wheat value chain studies in Pakistan, which will target producers, millers, food processors, seed companies, dealers, consumers and restaurants. A total of US $82,829 in funding was awarded to 14 research and extension projects, including: three projects related to grape and mango processing from PMAS Arid Agricultural University, Rawalpindi; seven projects on citrus from a research group at Citrus Research International; and four projects focusing on mangoes from faculty at the Institute of Horticulture and Institute of Food Science and Technology at the University of Faisalabad.

UC-Davis and the AIP Perennial Horticultural Project in-country coordinator will conduct the first review of these funded projects in September. Looking to the future, AIP partners chaired by UC-Davis met in Islamabad in June and created a working group for vocational training, which collaboratively planned cross-institute vocational training activities. The top priorities are to implement a short course on proposal writing that will enable the collaborators to prepare highquality proposals for upcoming competitive grant submissions on AIP call, as well as statistics courses that cater to the specific needs of trials and breeders.

Wheat is not a “rich man’s crop”

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There is wide-spread misperception that wheat is mainly produced in rich countries, exported to developing countries and then consumed by those societies’ wealthiest. In fact, for hundreds of millions of poor people their main staple is not maize, rice or cassava – they grow and eat wheat.

Wheat provides around one-fifth of all calories and protein for people globally. More food products are made from wheat than from any other cereal. In developing countries, wheat feeds around 1.2 billion people who live on less than US$ 2 a day. For every three poor rice consumers, there are two poor wheat consumers.

The global wheat trade is bigger than all other staples combined. Of the 150 million tons of wheat exported annually, 125 million tons go to developing countries, where nearly all wheat is consumed as food. Half of the wheat traded globally is exported to Africa and western Asia. Sixty million tons (40 percent) are imported by countries in North Africa and Central and West Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa, which is not considered a traditional wheat-eating region, buys 15 million tons (10 percent of the total).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, demand for wheat is growing faster than for any other commodity. Main drivers include population growth (need for more food), urbanization (wheat is a convenient food for migrating males) and the demand for wheat products by the increasing female work force. Female workers prefer wheat products because of they are fast and easy to prepare, freeing time the women otherwise would spend on traditional food processing and preparation.

Though trade statistics indicate developing countries depend on wheat imported from developed countries, of the 700 million tons wheat harvested globally, around 60 percent of that tonnage is produced and around 70 percent is consumed in developing countries. China, the world’s biggest producer, harvests twice as much wheat as the United States.

In North Africa and Central and West Asia, wheat is more critical for food security than in any other region worldwide, since it provides 35 to 50 percent of all calories and protein. Increases in wheat and bread prices have and will continue to lead to social unrest.

So is wheat a rich man’s crop? These statistics prove otherwise. With increasing income, diets change; they become more diverse and shift to wheat and eventually meat products. But in spite of progress in reducing poverty, challenges remain. The number of people living on less than US$ 1.25 a day declined from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.2 billion in 2010, mainly due to a reduction in East Asia. Less progress was made in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where today as many people live in extreme poverty as in 1980. If the absolute number of people living with an income of less than US$ 2 a day is considered, the progress is much smaller – 2.4 billion in 2010 vs. 2.59 billion in 1981.

Mahatma Gandhi best described what wheat means for these people: “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” To end this unacceptable situation, increased wheat production is vital.

In the next 35 years, production of wheat needs to increase by at least 60 percent to meet the increased demand. In other words, the global average yield will need to increase from 3 metric tons per hectare (mt/ha) to 5 mt/ha, in spite of global warming, eroded soils, land scarcity and competition for fertile land and water from higher-valued crops. Considering current production constraints and market realities, the world’s primary wheat-exporting countries are unlikely to provide the extra wheat needed to feed the 2050 global population of 9.6 billion.

Wheat productivity must first increase in developing countries, where yield gaps continue to be unacceptably high. Through increased adoption of improved wheat varieties, better agronomic practices and effective post-harvest storage, developing countries could develop sustainable food systems, become less dependent on imports and stay more resilient against food price increases. These huge challenges can be met, provided investments in breeding and agronomy increase significantly and quickly. Policy-makers must recognize that increasing investments in agriculture is not a problem – it is the basis and solution to improve the livelihoods of the poor.

 

Heat stress-resilient maize hybrids for Asian farmers

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The Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, is a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia who face weather extremes and climate-change effects. HTMA aims to create stable income and food security for resource-poor maize farmers in South Asia through development and deployment of heat-resilient maize hybrids.

The project connects several public sector agricultural research institutions in South Asia, such as the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; the Maize & Millets Research Institute, Pakistan; National Maize Research Program, Nepal; and Bhutan Maize Program. Also involved in the project are two state agriculture universities from India – Bihar Agriculture University, Sabor and University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS), Raichur – as well as seed companies in the region including DuPont Pioneer, Vibha Agritech, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds and international institutions including Purdue University and CIMMYT.

The “2nd Annual Progress Review and Planning Meeting for the HTMA Project” was held 22-23 July at UAS, Raichur in Karnataka, India. The meeting was attended by scientists and representatives from the collaborating institutions in South Asia, Purdue University and CIMMYT. Dr. Nora Lapitan represented USAID at the meeting. To take advantage of the presence of renowned scientists at this newly established agricultural university, the inaugural session of the meeting was organized as a special seminar on “Global initiatives on climate resilient crops.”

Dr. B.V. Patil, director of education at the university, organized the seminar for UAS staff and students. In his welcome speech Dr. Patil highlighted the importance of the HTMA public-private alliance, especially for addressing such complex issues as developing and deploying heat stress-resilient maize. Dr. BM Prasanna, director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program, lectured on “Adapting Maize to the Changing Climate,” talking about the importance of climate change effects and CIMMYT initiatives on different continents in the development and deployment of stress-resilient maize hybrids.

This was followed by another highprofile lecture on “Climate-Resilient Crops: A Key Strategy for Feed the Future,” which was delivered by Lapitan. She spoke about the priorities of the FTF initiative, including efforts to reduce poverty and malnutrition in children in target countries through accelerated inclusive agricultural growth and a high-quality diet. The inaugural session was followed by a series of HTMA annual review and planning technical sessions. In the first, Dr. P.H. Zaidi, HTMA project leader and CIMMYT senior maize physiologist, presented updates on the project’s execution and the progress achieved at the end of the second year. The project has met agreed milestones, and is even ahead on some fronts.

This was followed by detailed progress reports on objectives given by each collaborating partner. Professor Mitch Tuinstra of Purdue University presented on membrane lipid profiling in relation to heat stress, as well as identifying quantitative trait loci for heat stress tolerance and component traits by joint linkage analysis. The leads from each of the public and private sector partners presented the results of the HTMA trials conducted at their locations, and also shared a list of top-ranking, best-bet heat-tolerant maize hybrids to take forward for large-scale testing and deployment. During the project’s first two years, each partner identified promising and unique maize hybrids suitable for their target environment. In molecular breeding, Zaidi presented the results of the association mapping panel, and Dr. Raman Babu, CIMMYT molecular maize breeder, presented the progress made on genotyping and association analysis. Dr. M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT maize stress specialist for South Asia, presented a progress report on genomic selection for heat stress tolerance.

Nora Lapitan of USAID addressing the audience in HTMA seminar at UAS Raichur. Photo: UAS, Raichur photographer

Dr. K. Seetharaman, CIMMYT special project scientist in abiotic stress breeding and Dr. A.R. Sadananda, CIMMYT maize seed system specialist , presented jointly on the HTMA-product pipeline, including the promising heat stress-resilient hybrids ready for deployment, and a series of new hybrids ready for testing across locations in target environments. Dr. Christian Boeber, CIMMYT socio-economist, talked about progress in HTMA product targeting, pricing and adoption, summarizing the ongoing work on crop-modelling, reviewed work on the IMPACT model component, presented the survey tool and reviewed study sites in heat stress-prone ecologies of South Asia. Zaidi and Tuinstra presented the progress in project capacity building, including nine Ph.D. student fellowships. three workshops/training courses including in-country courses on “Precision phenotyping for heat stress tolerance” in Nepal and Pakistan, and a course on “Statistical analysis and genomic selection.” Project progress was critically reviewed by the project steering committee (PSC) headed by Prasanna, who expressed high satisfaction on its overall development. Speaking for USAID, Lapitan said: “I am highly impressed with the progress in the HTMA project. Within a period of two years there is a first wave of heat-tolerant hybrids ready for large-scale testing and deployment. This is one of the 26 projects in our climate-resilient cereals portfolio, but this project successfully demonstrated excellent balance between up-stream and down-stream research. We have made impressive progress, and are rather ahead on some milestones. I consider it a model project.”

Other PSC members also expressed their satisfaction, and agreed that HTMA has made tremendous progress in products for heat stress ecologies in the partners’ target environments. After discussing the progress in detail, project partners discussed the work plan and research activities for the third year. A parallel group discussion on objectives helped finalize the workplans and activities for each partner during the project’s third year.

HTMA-Project Steering Committee meeting.

Finally, the PSC met and discussed the overall progress of the project in detail. In addition to Prasanna chairing the PSC, members include Dr. Mohammda Munir, chief scientific officer, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Yagna Gajadhar Khadka, director, crops and horticulture, Nepal Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Khalid Sultan, research director, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; Dr. B.V. Patil, director of education at UAS; Tuinstra; Dr. N.P. Sarma, Kaveri Seeds; and Zaidi as member secretary.

Overall, the PSC members expressed their satisfaction with ongoing activities and the progress being made by HTMA, particularly the close collaboration with partner institutions. “I sincerely hope that the same momentum is maintained for rest of the project, which is certainly going to have a strong impact on the maize farming community in stressprone agro-ecologies of South Asia,” said Munir.

The meeting was also attended by special guests, including Drs. Navin Hada and Danielle Knueppel from USAID in Nepal, and Dr. Mahendra Prasad Khanal and Mr. Dilaram Bhandari from the Agricultural Ministry of Nepal. They stated their appreciation for the opportunity to participate in the meeting for the project model and noted HTMA’s fast-track progress. Khanal said, “We need to have a similar project for maize research and development in Nepal, since we are also pushing for hybrid varieties, and we should use a similar public-private partnership model for the product development and deployment.”

Precision farming down under at the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture

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In late June, while the great majority of the conservation agriculture community converged on Winnipeg, Canada, in the Northern Hemisphere, Dr. Francelino Rodrigues, a CIMMYT post-doctoral fellow in precision agriculture in the Biometric and Statistics Unit of the Genetic Resources Program, and Dr. Jack McHugh, a CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist in the Global Conservation Agriculture Program, ventured into the much colder Southern Hemisphere to take part in the Digital Rural Futures Conference at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.

Although the conference itself held considerable incentive to visit Australia, it was the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) at USQ that was of greater interest, because of the possibilities for future collaborations in precision farming research and development (R&D). The NCEA was established in 1994 and specializes in engineering research relevant to the agribusiness sector and the natural resource base it utilizes. The center promotes research through extension, training and commercialization. Having worked at NCEA prior to CIMMYT, McHugh thought there were benefits in closer collaboration between CIMMYT and NCEA to take advantage of the precision agriculture R&D being conducted there.

Prior to the conference, Rodrigues and McHugh presented their work from Mexico and China, respectively, to NCEA staff. The discussion highlighted the complementary nature of the two organizations in the areas of precision agriculture, field monitoring, smart technologies and remote sensing. A tour of the NCEA ‘smart farms’ was the highlight of the conference for McHugh, who was able to see that much of his earlier work had been developed into significant applied instrumentation.

Rodrigues commented on the versitile multi-proximal sensor platform developed by McHugh at the NCEA: “The platform [on a motorbike] allows simultaneously on-the-go measurements of apparent soil electro-conductivity and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), which gives a tremendous advantage compared with stop-and-go measurements. It’s something we started to do with a wood sled in the past year at CIMMYT’s experiment station in Obregón, but the motorbike would definitely create a new opportunity for fast and efficient measurements during crop growth.”

According to the NCEA, the farming system of the future will have robotic sensing systems and decision support tools that interface seamlessly with commercial on-farm operations to optimize resource usage. The NCEA is working on components of this, but much of what the CIMMYT researchers saw could be applied immediately to current farming systems and already includes considerable integration. Some of the systems displayed were controlled remotely by tablets and interfaced on large screen monitors that displayed real-time feedback of sensors, machinery and field activities including the following: smart weed spot sprayers that are able to differentiate crops from weeds based on reflectance and leaf shape; aerial vehicles with multispectral and thermal sensors; and irrigation monitoring for water scheduling.

Smart weed spot sprayer working with reflectance and leaf shapes to differentiate crops from weeds.

Other sensors on display included NDVI sensor platforms, automated cone penetrometers, sensor-equipped bee traps and automated adaptive control of furrow irrigation systems. Of particular note was the augmented reality (AR) for real-time interactivity with on-farm devices and information. AR automatically filters information from online sources based on the user’s current location and viewing perspective, using the camera in a tablet or smartphone. AR markers in the ‘real-world’ (e.g., weather stations, pumps, field sensors, crops and more) can be discovered and online information can be retrieved. The data is merged into the device’s real-world observation, and the user can interact with the content to control and configure machinery. The next step is to build collaboration between both institutes. McHugh and Rodrigues are looking forward to the identification and application of the NCEA technology through future research exchanges and project development.

Gupta Is new Director General of Borlaug Institute for South Asia

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Hari S. Gupta was selected as the second Director General (DG) of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in India and assumed his new position on August 7th. BISA, named to honor Dr. Norman E. Borlaug (1914-2009), world-renowned agricultural scientist and 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is helping to meet food security and sustainable productivity growth in both irrigated and rain-fed production areas by adapting wheat and maize systems to the emerging challenges of climate change, natural resource scarcity and market demands. While working at CIMMYT and its predecessor organization, Borlaug’s development of high-yielding, dwarf varieties of wheat helped trigger the Green Revolution in the 1960s. BISA was established in 2011 to catalyze agricultural research for development (AR4D) in South Asia and is a non-profit international agricultural research institute founded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and CIMMYT, and managed by the latter.

According to Thomas A. Lumpkin, CIMMYT Director General, who also served concurrently as the first DG of BISA, “The challenge today is to increase yields of staple crops in South Asia despite the fact that climate change, population growth, dietary changes and natural resource degradation all pose enormous challenges to agriculture.” BISA was created to “address the challenges head on,” added Lumpkin. Providing food and nutritional security is “a daunting task” and the region needs “a dedicated, world-class effort focused entirely on these problems.” Lumpkin stated, “To lead BISA’s work on those problems, Dr. Gupta was chosen from a field of very qualified candidates. We anticipate that he will be a very strong DG for BISA and will lead it into its next phase.”

Photo: Courtesy of Indian Agricultural Research Institute

Prior to joining BISA, Gupta served for almost five and one-half years as Director and Vice Chancellor of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), one of the largest agricultural research institutes in Asia. With 10 centers spread across India, IARI is the flagship research institute of ICAR and is known globally as the institution that was instrumental in spreading the Green Revolution across India. During the Green Revolution, Borlaug and regional scientists, policymakers and farmers in South Asia took India and Pakistan from near-famine in 1965-1966 to food self-sufficiency. Dr. Borlaug’s work in AR4D is credited with saving 1 billion people from hunger and malnutrition, and many were in South Asia. However, Borlaug correctly predicted that the Green Revolution boost in food production could not last, and was only a reprieve for humanity to adapt more sustainable systems and policies for managing population growth and use of natural resources.

Describing the goals he will focus on as DG of BISA, Gupta stated, “In order to usher a second Green Revolution in South Asia, improving crop productivity in conjunction with efficient use of natural resources – especially of soil and water – will be my top priority. In addition, reducing the vulnerability of South Asian agriculture to climate change will be addressed with an emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Climate change, ever-increasing population, persistent poverty, chronic malnutrition and declining annual crop yield gains are retarding human development across South Asia.

Despite notable progress over the past several decades, South Asia is still home to more than 300 million undernourished people (35 percent of the global total). Food price spikes exacerbate these issues and make the lives of South Asia’s poorest even more difficult. Because of these issues, Gupta said, “Increasing the system productivity per unit area and time with conservation of natural resources is BISA’s guiding principle. Development of technology for rain-fed areas will receive priority whereas sustaining the gains made in irrigated areas will help in meeting the region’s short-term needs for food and feed.” He continued, stating, “In order to make agriculture more efficient in South Asia, mechanization – particularly using renewable sources of energy in farm operations – will be pursued vigorously. My experience at IARI will help me to work with others to implement the programs rapidly and efficiently.” Prior to joining IARI, Gupta worked for a number of agricultural research organizations, including serving as: director, Vivekanand Institute of Hill Agriculture, or VPKAS (2000-09); principal scientist and head of the Division of Plant Breeding, ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region (1989-99); senior scientist, ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region (1983-89); and scientist, Central Potato Research Institute (1978-83). Gupta earned his M.Sc. in genetics at GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in Pant Nagar, India. He earned his Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal.

Among the highlights of his post-doctoral research are: Rockefeller Foundation Career Fellow in 2003 and 2006 at Washington State University (WSU) on the genetic engineering of rice for increasing starch biosynthesis; visiting scientist at WSU, working on the induction of early flowering in crop plants in 1993-94; and Commonwealth Scholar in the Department of Life Science at the University of Nottingham (UK) on plant regeneration from protoplast and protoplast-mediated genetic manipulation in rice in 1987-88. Among the honors and recognition that Gupta has received during his career are: President, Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding (2011-13); Sardar Patel Outstanding Institution Award to IARI during his tenure (2011); ICAR’s Team Award for Outstanding Multidisciplinary Research (2010, 2008 and 1997); Dr. AS Cheema Award for Outstanding Contribution to Indian Agriculture (2010); Outstanding Institution Award to VPKAS (2008 and 2001) during his tenure as director; ICAR “Hari Om Ashram” Trust Award (2007); NRDC’s Meritorious Invention award (2006); ICAR National Professor (2006); Dr. Rajendra Prasad Award for Best Book in Crop Sciences (2004); and Rockefeller Foundation Career Fellowship (2000). Gupta belongs to numerous professional societies, including: Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding; Fellow, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Fellow, Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding; Fellow, Indian Society of Agricultural Biochemists; founding member, Society for Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology; and life member of the Indian Societies of the Biological Chemists, Genetics and Plant Breeding, Hill Agriculture and Seed Science.

About BISA

BISA is developing a state-of-theart agricultural research platform, technology transfer centers and training facilities. BISA’s focus is on holistic, interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to breeding, conservation agriculture and socioeconomics for wheat- and maizebased cropping and food systems. BISA’s facilities and formal institutional partnerships can create a world-class research infrastructure and lead to strategic collaborations among regional and international scientists, as well as public and private stakeholders across the region’s agricultural value chains.

The Institute closely coordinates and synergizes with CIMMYT and other international centers such as the International Rice Research Institute and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, with national institutions such as ICAR, the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council and the Nepal Agriculture Research Council and the private sector within the region. BISA currently has three sites in India – Ludhiana in Punjab State, Pusa in Bihar State and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh State. Each of the states contains varied agro-ecological zones allowing BISA and its partners to test a variety of maize and wheat cultivars suited to the equally varied environments of South Asia. BISA also has site commitments from Nepal and Pakistan and is in discussion with Afghanistan and Bangladesh for sites in those countries. Through BISA, CIMMYT and several national agricultural research systems (NARS) have taken a key step towards sustainable food and nutritional security.

CIMMYT has a long, successful history of partnerships in South Asia, playing an important role with regional partners in catalyzing the Green Revolution. The NARS have demonstrated their commitment to regional food and nutritional security, and recognized the contribution that BISA, an independent, non-profit organization with broad international backing, can make to strengthen existing efforts in the region. BISA’s role in strengthening South Asia’s food and nutritional security focuses on leveraging and accelerating efforts rather than duplicating or competing with existing institutions. BISA fills the most critical gap in present efforts in South Asia – an impartial coordinating platform for discovery and sharing information and technologies.

BISA’s primary focus is to strengthen capability-sharing through the collaborative execution of AR4D projects. This increase in resource productivity should increase food and nutritional security, environmental protection and economic development. BISA is also strengthening the links between national and international efforts, building capacity in the region’s scientific community and introducing the best seed, agricultural technologies and information to improve the productivity and profitability of the region’s smallholder farmers and agricultural value chains.

Why wheat matters

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Photo credit: Ranak Martin
Photo credit: Ranak Martin

Thomas Lumpkin served as director general at CIMMYT from 2008 to 2015.

The history of wheat is the history of civilization. Over 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent our ancestors ascended from an existence as hunter-gatherers and began tending and domesticating crops. Thus began wheat’s symbiotic relationship with the history of civilization and humankind’s responsibility as stewards of planet Earth.

Wheat is not only a major diet component but wheat-based products are the personification of cultural heritage and pride. Imagine Italians without pasta, North Africans without couscous, Indians without Chapattis or Chinese without noodles or steamed bread. It is time to pay homage to this grass, which was the basis for the development of modern civilizations and has done so much for the human race.

Wheat is the staple food of humankind, and its history is that of civilization. Yet today wheat is losing its crown. Many perceive wheat to be a food eaten and produced only by rich countries. Atkins, Davis (wheat belly) and other diets have convinced even more that wheat is bad for you and less wholesome than other crops. Although wheat remains an important crop, funding for wheat research has decreased significantly in recent years.

In spite of all these challenges, the demand for wheat is not dropping. Wheat is the staff of life for 1.2 billion poor people who live on less than US$ 2 a day; providing 20 to 50 percent of daily calories and 20 percent of protein. From South Asia through to Central Asia across the Middle East and on to North Africa, wheat is a staple food. Demand for wheat is not isolated to these traditional wheat-eating regions. Today African countries spend about US$ 12 billion annually to import some 40 million tons of wheat. What was once considered a minor crop for consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa, demand for wheat is now growing faster than for any other commodity and is now considered a strategic crop for food security by African leaders.

Perhaps what is most concerning are the predictions for the near future. Demand for wheat in the developing world is projected to increase 60 percent by 2050. India, the largest wheat-consuming country after China, has 17.5 percent of total world’s population and 20.6 percent of the world’s poor. If you look at a map showing the locations of recent food riots, it is almost identical to one showing where wheat provides more than one-third of a person’s daily calories. Households in developed countries spend less than 10 percent of their income on food supplies, in many countries, that percentage is much more. For example, in Pakistan and Egypt this figure is around 40 percent.

An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published earlier this year predicts that wheat will be the first of the main staple crops to be significantly affected by climate change, because of its sensitivity to heat and the fact that it is grown all over the world. Current projections predict that with every Celsius degree increase in temperature, wheat yields in semi-tropical areas could drop by 10 percent. Changes in weather may also lead to an increased risk in the severity of wheat diseases, which may cause severe losses in areas that were previously thought of as unimportant.

Recurrent food crises combined with climate change, depletion of natural resources and rising food prices are threatening the lives of millions of poor people who depend on wheat for both diet and livelihood. Demographers predict that by 2050 the earth’s population will peak at 9.6 billion. Developing countries, especially those in Africa and South Asia, are experiencing tremendous population growth. Based on current crop yields and food distribution methods, feeding nearly 10 billion people will not be trivial. Sustainably increasing wheat production will have a crucial impact on food security.

Wheat’s significant contribution to humankind is not yet over.

Former DG praises CIMMYT’s progress, renews Japanese collaboration with CIMMYT

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By Karen Willenbrecht/CIMMYT

CIMMYT’s previous director general had strong praise for the organization’s current working environment and leadership after a tour of the headquarters office at El Batán on 24 July.

(Left to right): Akira Endo, director of International Research and Cooperation Division, Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries; Masa Iwanaga, president of JIRCAS; Thomas Lumpkin, CIMMYT Director General; Hans-Joachim Braun, CIMMYT Global Wheat Program director; and Masahiro Kishii, CIMMYT scientist in wheat cytogenetics/wide crossing. Foto: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT

“I’m pleased to see the energy of the staff, the new facilities and how Tom has built on CIMMYT’s strengths,” Dr. Masa Iwanaga said. “It gives me professional satisfaction; the six years I devoted here have paid off handsomely.”

Masa, now president of the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), came to CIMMYT to sign a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two organizations.

“Our previous agreement was signed in 1998,” Masa said after the signing ceremony. “I wanted to refresh and strengthen our relationship, and ensure more opportunities for scientific collaboration.”

He said the alliance is valuable because CIMMYT can translate the basic science conducted by his agency into practical applications for farmers. JIRCAS, part of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, plays a core role in international collaborations for research in Japan.

Masa Iwanaga, CIMMYT’s former director general, paid a visit 24 July to headquarters, where he toured the gene bank and renewed
the memorandum of understanding between CIMMYT and his current organization. Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT

The MOU calls for both organizations to cooperate on research projects that promote “agricultural technologies which will contribute to the increased production of agricultural commodities and improved natural resource management in developing countries in the world.” Masa and his successor, Dr. Thomas A. Lumpkin, discussed holding a conference in Japan this year, and Masa said he anticipates JIRCAS having a much stronger influence in the Global Wheat Program under the new MOU.

Dr. Marianne Bänziger, deputy director general for research and partnerships, said the collaboration with Japan on biological denitrification inhibition could support the next Green Revolution, as earlier Japanese technologies have done.

Masa was DG of CIMMYT from 2002 to 2008, a period of extreme financial difficulties for the organization. Lumpkin credited him with keeping CIMMYT afloat and bringing it back to profitability, establishing important new partnerships and continuing the Center’s record of scientific achievements and recognition.

“I appreciate all the staff who worked very hard with me to survive and make CIMMYT better,” Masa said. “It’s a stronger institution now.”

CIMMYT-led climate project is finalist at Asia Mobile Tech Awards

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By Katie Lutz 

A CIMMYT-led project was named as a finalist for the 2014 mBillionth Award South Asia thanks to its mobile platform that helps farmers adapt to changing climate conditions.

“Dissemination of climate-smart agro-advisories to farmers in CCAFS benchmark sites of India” was launched in August 2013 under the leadership of Dr. Surabhi Mittal, a senior agricultural economist based in India, in cooperation with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). In the past 10 months, the project has helped 1,200 male and female farmers in eight Indian villages to gain more knowledge about climate-smart technology and adopt technologies to lessen their risks from climate fluctuations. The project also measured how receiving information on mobile telephones will affect farmers.

More than 300 entries were submitted for the award, which honors the most influential and leading practices in the mobile and telecommunications industry in South Asia. It was presented 18 July by the Digital Empowerment Foundation and Vodafone in a ceremony at the India Habitat Center. The CIMMYT project received acknowledgment for its impact on small farmers from Sanjeev Gupta, joint secretary of the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, and M.V. Ashok, chief general manager of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.

CIMMYT’S director general, Dr. Thomas A. Lumpkin, congratulated everyone involved with the project. “This shows your technological leadership,” he said in a staff email announcing the award. “Use this to energize your activities.”

Climate-smart villages in Indian Punjab are heading for resilient farming

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By JM Sutaliya, Parvinder Singh, Tripti Agarwal, ML Jat/CIMMYT and Anil Bana/Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab, India

Punjab agriculture officers and farmers met in June to discuss the climate-smart villages that CIMMYT is testing, and they agreed that the CSVs offer one of the best strategies for making farming resilient and sustainable in the state.

CIMMYT, with financial support from the CCAFS South Asia regional program, recently initiated climate-smart village (CSV) pilots in Punjab State, India. On 16 June, Dr. IPS Sandhu, chief agriculture officer of Patiala District, and several other officers visited Aluna, one of the CSVs being piloted in close collaboration with the Punjab Department of Agriculture and several innovative farmers. The on-site stakeholder discussions on the emerging challenges of climate change included topics such as the El Niño effect during the current monsoon season and extended rains during the maturity period of winter crops.

The participants agreed that climate-smart agricultural practices being undertaken in the CSVs are some of the best for making farming resilient and sustainable in the Punjab. CIMMYT’s JM Sutaliya and Punjab’s Vimalpreet Singh gave briefings on the climate-smart agriculture practices being undertaken in the CSVs, including direct-seeded rice (DSR), precision water management using Punjab Agricultural University-designed tensiometers, precision nutrient management using the Nutrient ExpertTM tool, GreenSeeker, energy saving technologies, introduction of maize to diversify rice mono-cropping and efficient weed management in DSR. Farmers were given demonstrations of the GreenSeeker tool for nitrogen management and spraying techniques for weed control on DSR. The proposed Weather Smart weather forecasting services for farmers were also discussed.

Sandhu praised the CSV initiatives and shared his suggestions to strengthen and expand the CSV program in Punjab’s Patiala District. Additionally, he proposed a baseline socioeconomic survey of Aluna, formation of a farmers’ group, a women farmers’ club and other strategies to encourage more farmer contact. Looking to the future, he advocated integration with allied agriculture departments. Highlighting community-supported agriculture interventions for residue management, Sandhu spoke about the importance of advance planning and utilizing a spreader with a combine harvester. He also shared his personal experience using a Turbo Happy seeder to avoid burning straw in subsequent wheat crop.

Sandhu assured CIMMYT of close collaboration from the Department of Agriculture in the future, including extended support to scale up and expand the climate-smart agriculture initiatives in the CSVs with the goals of combating the adverse effects of climate change and addressing food security.

Smart tools for farmers in South Asia to help increase yield

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By Anuradha Dhar/CIMMYT

In South Asia, 90 percent of smallholder farmers using fertilizer lack access to soil testing services. Due to blanket recommendations, the application of nutrients is not well-matched to the local requirements of the soil and crop. Also, excessive and imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers can result in the deterioration of soil fertility. This is becoming a cause for concern to the Indian agriculture sector. According to a study published in the Journal of the Environment, Development and Sustainability, India is losing soil 30 to 40 times faster than the natural replenishment rate. The solution lies in part in having a precise, site-specific nutrient management approach that will build a sustainable and profitable agriculture sector.

CSISA scientist explaining Crop Manager tool to a farmer in Odisha.

A decision-making tool called Crop Manager is being developed by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), state universities and government partners. Crop Manager will provide location specific fertilizer recommendations to farmers growing rice and maize in Odisha state, and to farmers growing rice, wheat and maize in Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states. A version of the tool, Rice Nutrient Manager, is also being developed by CSISA in the Cauvery Delta of Tamil Nadu state, to support and complement the existing crop management advisory services of the state government. The partners are in the advanced field testing phase and are fine-tuning the tools prior to official release.

Crop Manager is an expanded version of Nutrient Manager, which was first conceptualized and released by IRRI in the Philippines in 2009. Crop Manager combines improved nutrient management with field-specific, best bet crop management guidelines to address three to four of the main agronomic constraints, in addition to fertilizer recommendations.

Fast and Futuristic

Crop Manager is accessible in both web-based and mobile Android formats, with a simple, user-friendly interface providing personalized fertilizer guidance for small-scale farmers and extension workers. To use the tool, farmers provide information about their fields by responding to a set of 12-15 brief questions about field location, planting method, seed variety, typical yields, choice of fertilizer, method of harvesting and other factors.

Screenshot of the Crop Manager interface.

Based on these inputs, the tool recommends the ideal amount of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) nutrients to be added at critical growth stages to increase yield and profit, while taking into account the amount of fertilizer the farmer prefers to use. With a connection to the Internet, farmers can receive advice instantly on mobile devices. Information from Crop Manager will be available in Hindi, Odiya and English. An interactive voice response system in being planned, to guide the user through the survey using a recorded questionnaire.

India has 110 million mobile Internet users, of whom 25 million are in rural areas. “With mobile phone and internet penetrating fast in rural India, these ICT tools will serve as a useful platform to provide information to farmers easily, and at the time when they need it,” said Sheetal Sharma, a CSISA nutrient management specialist. Sharma added that these tools are based on strong scientific principles, and have an edge over traditional soil testing methods, which usually take more time to give recommendations and require farmers to carry soil samples to a testing facility. CSISA released a similar tool named Rice Crop Manager in Bangladesh last year to increase a farmer’s income by US $100 per hectare, per crop. This is a significant increase in a nation where farmers’ average income is less than $600 per year.

With the help of technologies like Crop Manager, CSISA hopes that farmers in South Asia will be able to replicate the high-tech precision farming used in developed countries with easy-to-use and low-cost options. The development of these products serves as a reminder that farmers are capable; they just need the right tools.

CIAT and CIMMYT complete genetic analysis and plant breeding course in Colombia

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By Luis Narro and Janeth Bolaños/ CIMMYT

Dr. Jiankang Wang planted a bread tree at the end of the course, which is a CIAT tradition to mark the close of an international training course.

CIMMYT’s office in Colombia,  in collaboration with the  International Center for  Tropical Agriculture (CIAT),  organized the Genetic Analysis  and Plant Breeding course from  23-27 June. This course has been  offered in Australia, China and  Mexico and reviews plant breeding  methods as well as quantitative  genetics, development of linkage  maps, quantitative trait loci (QTL)  mapping, identification of genes  with quantitative effect and epistasis,  analysis of the interaction QTL x  environment and integration of the  knowledge of the action of genes in  conventional breeding.

CIMMYT scientist Dr. Jiankang Wang, based in Beijing, facilitated the course with funding from the HarvestPlus Challenge Program.  While the course has been offered 10 times, this is the first to include genetic analysis of vegetative propagation species, which are important for CGIAR centers working with cassava, potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Attending the course were 42 scientists (16 women and 28 men), representing public and private institutions from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the United States.

William Viera, head of the Fruit Program at Ecuador’s National Autonomous Institute of Agriculture and Livestock (INIAP), described the course as “very interesting. It includes molecular techniques that will allow us high level scientific studies. In our case, we will start a research project on tree tomatoes, tamarind and little oranges (lulo). With the tools and knowledge we gained, we will be able to develop the project in a positive way, and will identify genes that increase disease resistance and improve fruit quality.”

Rocío Silvestre, coordinator of improved materials for the gene bank at the International Potato Center (CIP), said, “The opportunity to interact with our colleagues from all around the world is a great contribution to our research programs. What we learned in the course will help us to design genetic maps, QTL mapping and morphological data analysis.”

Karen Viviana Osorio, research assistant from the Colombian agribusiness Semillas Valle S.A., thanked CIMMYT for sharing the new technology and biotechnology tools currently used in the agriculture sector. Osorio noted that CIMMYT has “helped people who work in agricultural research to access updated and high-quality information. We have made the most of this course in our daily activities.” Bodo Raatz, a molecular geneticist from CIAT’s Bean Improvement Program, described the course as “what we need to know about improvement and genetic studies. It includes all we need to map QTL.”

The Genetic Analysis and Plant Breeding course drew 42 scientists representing public and private institutions from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the U.S.

CIAT’s Rice, Tropical Forages and Bean programs will benefit from information on the latest advances in the development of elements that facilitate their work with quantitative traits. “With this course we have been able to identity some needs from the national programs, and they have been provided with free access tools for genetic improvement,” said Luis Augusto Becerra, a molecular geneticist from CIAT’s Cassava Improvement Program.

There are tentative plans to organize another course in collaboration with CIP.

Boosting productivity of smallholder farms in Nepal, India and Bangladesh

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By Mahesh Gathala, TP Tiwari, Pat Wall/CIMMYT

CIMMYT will lead a new research initiative to make agriculture more productive, profitable   and sustainable for smallholder farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) of Nepal, Bangladesh and India.
Launched in Dhulikhel, Nepal, on 4 July, the five-year  US$6.8 million regional research initiative, Sustainable  and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification in  the Eastern Gangetic Plains (SRFSI), will tap the  agricultural potential of the area and target 7,000  farmers to test and adopt appropriate new technology  and farming approaches.

The program, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), will operate in eight districts: two in northwest Bangladesh, two in the eastern Terai of Nepal and two each in the Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal.

The three-day Inception and Planning Meeting that launched the program was attended by 84 participants from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Mexico and Nepal.  SRFSI is managed by CIMMYT on behalf of multiple partners including the national research and extension systems of Bangladesh, India and Nepal, Indian and Australian universities, national and international nongovernmental organizations, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia and four CGIAR Centers (CIMMYT, the International Rice Research Institute, the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Water Management Institute).

The project was officially initiated by the Australian Ambassador to Nepal, Glenn White, together with the Executive Director of the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), Dr. Dil Bahadur Gurung; the Joint Secretary of the Nepal Ministry of Agricultural Development, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Adhikari; Dr. Claire Glendenning of the Australian Department of Foreign Affair and Trade; and Dr. John Dixon, principal adviser for ACIAR.

“This initiative will help to raise agricultural productivity in a region which has the potential to become one of Asia’s great food bowls,” White told the gathering of scientists and development practitioners.

The EGP is home to some 300 million people, with the world’s highest concentration of rural poverty and a strong dependence on agriculture for food security and livelihoods. The region is dominated by small farms with many female farmers who have little access to credit, quality seeds, fertilizers, irrigation or formal extension services. They also have to contend with climate-related risks and extreme events such as floods, drought and cold snaps.

“This program will allow farmers to test a range of innovations to help them boost food production, including conservation agriculture and efficient use of water resources, while strengthening their ability to adapt and link to markets and support services,” White said. “Our aim is to enable at least 130,000 farmers to adopt these technologies within the next 10 years.”

Gurung and Adhikari lauded the long-term partnership between CIMMYT and Nepal, as well as the ACIAR support of this project, and assured that the Ministry will extend its full support.

Key Objectives of the SRFSI

The Eastern Gangetic Plains region has the potential to become a major contributor to South Asian regional food security, but rice and wheat productivity remain low and diversification is limited because of poorly developed markets, sparse agricultural knowledge and service networks, and inadequate development of available water resources and sustainable production practices. Labor shortages – mainly during sowing and harvesting – are becoming more acute. These factors lead to smallholder vulnerability to climate and market risks that limit investments in new technologies.

SRFSI will undertake several high-priority activities to reduce these factors:

• Improving farmers’ access to inputs, services and market information in order to reduce the risk associated with adopting new practices.

• Removing policy barriers to technology adoption.

• Analyzing the appropriateness of technologies, service provider models, markets and policies for women farmers, and adjusting them where necessary, to help ensure food security and gender equity in the region.

• Developing new knowledge among farmers, researchers, extension and change agents, service providers, agro-dealers and others involved in agriculture. This has been identified as the key to achieving widespread adoption of new technologies and reductions in poverty in the EGP.

• Investing heavily in capacity building at multiple levels, from field days to short courses to linkages with advanced research institutions. Ultimately the project focal communities, where all aspects of the project activities are put into place to achieve the desired change, will become demonstration or learning sites for institutions or individuals interested in agricultural development, where they can observe the technological changes and talk with farmers and farmer organizations about the importance of the different components of the project in bringing about agriculture change.

Indian organizations honor Rajaram for World Food Prize win

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By Gurdev Singh/CIMMYT

Dr. S. Ayyappan, director general of ICAR, honored Rajaram as “the best living wheat scientist in the world today.”

Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram was on board a flight to New Delhi on 18 June when he was announced as the recipient of the 2014 World Food Prize (WFP). Upon landing, he was given a warm welcome by his close associates in India, Dr. O.P. Shringi and Sanjaya Chhabra of DCM Shriram Ltd. and others, who informed him of the official announcement. After spending some quality time with his family in his hometown of Varanasi, he had a completely new itinerary for his visit that involved several congratulatory events at agriculture-related institutes and organizations.

Rajaram has been working closely with DCM   Shriram Ltd. in New Delhi since 2005 on its wheat project. Sovan Chakrabarty, the business head and executive director, congratulated Rajaram in the traditional Indian way, with a shawl and a bouquet, in the presence of the Shriram Farm Solutions team members.­ Shringi said the firm took pride in being the first to receive and honor Rajaram after the official W­­­FP announcement. During the ceremony, Rajaram said he is a strong proponent of public-private partnerships for food security and increasing wheat productivity in India. He applauded Shriram Farm Solutions’ excellent famer delivery mechanism and the progress it has made in developing and marketing new wheat varieties in a very short time.

At the request of Dr. R. R. Hanchinal, chairperson of Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers’ Rights Authority at the National Seed Institute of India, Rajaram attended a function at the National Agriculture Science Center Complex. Dr. S. Ayyappan, director general of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and the chief guest, honored Rajaram as “the best living wheat scientist in the world today,” and Hanchinal shared his achievements with a select group of scientists and authorities from Indian agricultural universities and institutions.

Children of DWR staff members joined Dr. Indu Sharma, director of DWR, to welcome Rajaram with waving flags.

The Indian Agriculture Research Institute in New Delhi, where Rajaram earned his master’s degree in genetics and plant breeding, also held a function. The director, Dr. H.S. Gupta, lauded Rajaram’s contributions and congratulated him for being selected to receive the most prestigious prize in agriculture.

In a speech to several distinguished scientists, Rajaram emphasized the need to address the productivity problems in the eastern part of the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Rajaram has been a regular visitor at Punjab Agriculture University in Ludhiana, so the vice chancellor, Dr. B.S.  Dhillon, invited Rajaram to an event in his honor.  Dr. Darshan Singh Brar, former head of plant breeding, biotechnology and biochemistry at the International Rice Research Institute, and Dr. Gurdev Singh, a former professor at the university and adviser to DCM Shriram Ltd., were special guests. Rajaram took time to interact with the faculty, particularly Dr. Kuldeep Singh, director of biotechnology, and his Ph.D. students.

Dr. Indu Sharma, director of DWR, presented a memento to Rajaram during an event held in his honor.

Dr. Indu Sharma, director of ICAR’s Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR), organized a large event for Rajaram’s visit to DWR on 27 June. Sharma joined a group of staff members’ children to welcome Rajaram by waving flags, and then she shared some fond memories in a staff meeting of him interacting with Indian wheat scientists in the field.  The DWR staff gave Rajaram a standing ovation for his unparalleled contribution to wheat production, particularly in Asia. Dr. A.K. Srivastava, director of the National Dairy Research Institute in Karnal, offered hearty congratulations and opined that wheat varieties with slightly more biomass would be handy in providing much-needed fodder for milking animals.

Addressing the audience, Rajaram congratulated the Indian wheat researchers for achieving remarkable wheat production again this year, and he emphasized the need to develop human resources and train the younger generations to work hard in the fields in an interactive mode. He also discussed the important issue of post-harvest handling and storage facilities in India. He then planted a tree at DWR’s new compound in Karnal.

CIMMYT and Punjab agricultural research institutions partner to introduce multi-crop bed planter

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By Imtiaz Hussain and Hafiz Nasrullah/CIMMYT

Farmers visiting cotton planted on wide beds with the planter.

CIMMYT and the Punjab Department of Agriculture Research have introduced a multi-crop bed planter system in Bahawalpur, Pakistan that can be used to plant crops such as cotton, maize, pulses, rice and wheat on raised beds while applying fertilizer at the same time. The Agronomy Research Station (ARS) and the Regional Agriculture Research Institute (RARI) are collaborating with CIMMYT to test and promote the planters in Punjab State.

To create awareness among the farming community in Bahawalpur, ARS and RARI held a field day on 26 June. More than 100 farmers and agriculture experts visited the cotton field that had been planted using the multi-crop bed planter, and Dr. Muhammad Akhter of ARS shared his experience in using the planter to plant cotton on wide beds. Farmers were impressed with the crop stand in the cotton fields and were later given a demonstration on planting mung bean with the planter.

Demonstration of mung bean planting with multi-bed crop planter.

Dr. Ghulam Hussain, director of RARI, highlighted the importance of using mechanical planting for different crops in order to save resources and time while also increasing yields. Dr. Muhammad Aslam of ARS said that planting on raised beds reduces the amount of water needed for irrigation by 30 to 40 percent and also improves crop yield by 15 to 25 percent.

An assistant agronomist at RARI, Dr. Hafiz Nasrullah, explained to farmers that they only need to purchase one planter, which can be used for various crops.  Farmers also learned that the multi-crop bed planter can be used to plant crops in residue and in zero tillage conditions, and that this would save them the cost of land preparation.

Farmers attending discussion and lectures on the field day in Bahawalpur.

 

Aslam and Chaudhary Bashir Ahmed, agriculture extension experts, assured farmers and researchers that the extension department would do its best to transfer the successful and productive technologies to the farmers after the pilot testing had been completed.

This effort to promote conservation agriculture in Pakistan is supported by Feed the Future U.S. Agency for International Development under the Agricultural Innovation Program.