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.
By M.L. Jat, Tripti Agarwal, R.S. Dadarwal and Promil Kapur/ CIMMYT and CCAFS
To witness firsthand the mainstreaming of climate-smart agriculture practices and innovative community-based adaptation strategies in India, Alok K. Sikka, deputy director general of the Natural Resource Management Division of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research’s (ICAR) and leader of ICAR’s National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), visited and interacted with farmers at a climate-smart village (CSV) in Haryana on 11 February.
AK Sikka (center) at Taraori CSV. Photo: Vikas
He was accompanied by D.K. Sharma, director of the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, and P.C. Sharma, one of the Institute’s principal scientists, along with other scientists from ICAR and CIMMYT. Participants agreed that South Asian agriculture needs new technologies, community-based adaptation of relevant practices and the strengthening of local decision-making. The 27 CSVs being piloted in Haryana, India, will disseminate key climate-smart agricultural interventions, focusing on water, energy, carbon nutrient, weather and knowledge implemented through innovative partnerships and farmer cooperatives, according to M.L. Jat, CIMMYT senior cropping system agronomist.
The climate-smart villages are implemented through the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in close collaboration with NICRA and a range of innovative partnerships. Under CCAFS, CIMMYT in close collaboration with national agriculture research and extension systems, other CGIAR centers, farmer cooperatives, the Haryana Department of Agriculture and policy planners, have piloted several CSVs in Haryana for research and as learning sites. Sustainable intensification and conservation agriculture-based management systems are the key areas in which CIMMYT and these partners work together.
Visitors interacted with farmers and members of farmer cooperatives who are actively disseminating the practices to local communities. The model of innovation platforms for strategic participatory research and learning at CSVs was recognized as an effective method to link science with society. Sikka emphasized that the depleting water table, deteriorating soil health, escalating input costs and weather uncertainties constitute critical concerns and that current production systems are not sustainable.
Discussion regarding damage to conventional tillage based wheat crop due to excess moisture owing to heavy rains and back side a happy wheat crop under CA-Photo RS Dadarwal-CIMMYT. Photo: RS Dadarwal/CIMMYT-Karnal
He cited conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification, supplemented by more precise use of inputs like fertilizer, as the way to achieve resilience in production and natural resource conservation. Institutions and organizations must work with emerging technologies to address climate change and provide relevant options for farmers. CCAFS and NICRA are good examples of this.
A former CIMMYT scientist recently returned to South Asia to share his expertise in conservation agriculture.
Peter Hobbs worked for CIMMYT as a regional agronomist from 1988 to 2002 and co-led the creation and management of the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Hobbs now works at Cornell University, most recently as associate director of International Programs. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project invited Hobbs to Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Terai region of Nepal from 18 to 24 January, where he offered perspectives on South Asia’s progress in the last decade in ricewheat systems research, and heard comments from colleagues.
Former CIMMYT scientist Peter Hobbs. Andrew McDonald/CIMMYT
“Peter Hobbs is the pioneer of zero tillage wheat in South Asia – one of CIMMYT’s best contributions in this region after Norman Borlaug,” said R.K. Malik, a member of CSISA’s senior management team who accompanied Hobbs through India. Malik was a core member of the RWC during Hobb’s time and a champion of zero tillage (ZT) for sowing wheat in rice-wheat rotations. Malik recalled CIMMYT’s early efforts to introduce conservation agriculture in India. Hobbs was integral, bringing the first ZT machine to India from New Zealand in 1989 -the Aitchison drill which was later modified, improved and widely adopted in India.
He said that Hobbs applied innovative and multi-disciplinary approaches that united the efforts of the national research programs with an array of public and private stakeholders. “This technology was dependent on identifying champions in the areas where we worked to engage innovative farmers, energize the scientists involved and link them with local machinery manufacturers and farmers, Hobbs said. Hobbs shared observations on his travels through the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains. “After seeing the fields in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, there is no question that ZT and reduced-tillage technologies do work and do provide benefits as long as they are done properly and the enabling factors are in place,” he said.
He stressed that farmers must have access to machinery, inputs and related expertise, perhaps through a network of service providers. “That means we have to look at the way research can help farmers – having a more participatory approach and providing incentives to scientists and extension workers based on accountability and performance is critical for success,” Hobbs stated. “The RWC and legacy of pioneering scientists like Peter Hobbs, Raj Gupta and R.K. Malik established the foundation for CIMMYT’s ongoing work and impact with farmers in the region through projects like CSISA,” said Andrew McDonald, CSISA project leader. “It was a true pleasure to have Peter’s insights into where we are succeeding and where we can do better. South Asia is changing quickly, but the core lessons from where we’ve come still resonate.”
Hobbs is optimistic about the potential of these technologies in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. “It was very rewarding to see that interest in resource- conserving technologies has grown and continues to thrive in this region, and specifically in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains, where there is great potential to benefit farmers and also contribute to food security in a more environmentally friendly way.”
By Raj Kumar Jat, M.L. Jat, R. Valluru, Raju Singh, Nikhil Singh, Jagman Dhillon and Raj Gupta/CIMMYT
A day-long “FarmFest” hosted by the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) allowed farmers to interact directly with researchers on issues including new planting machines, cultivar choices for early, timely and late planting, weed management options and crop diversification.
During the “Take it to the Farmers – FarmFest” event on 22 February, BISA showcased innovative, farmer-friendly sustainable intensification options. The trials focus on increasing yields using timely planting and increased nutrient inputs; increasing cropping intensity by using short season cultivars, relay and inter-cropping; and mechanization and marketing by substituting highvalue commodities for those that fetch lower prices. Farmers were shown soil conservation measures such as gully plugs, check dams and temporary structures to store rainwater, which reduce negative environmental impact and contribute to natural capital of environmental services.
About 1,500 farmers came from 7 districts to collect information and see the performance of 1,500 bread and durum wheat genotypes grown through new BISA shuttle breeding efforts. The efforts include collaboration among the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)-New Delhi, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU)- Ludhiana and CIMMYT-Mexico. The Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi VishwaVidyalaya University (JNKVV) agreed to participate next season.
The BISA research farm was established in November 2011 in a cotton production region that suffers from land degradation, large yield gaps and low cropping intensity. The farm’s successful conservation agriculture (CA) platform is attracting the attention of the Madhya Pradesh farmers. Scientists grow rice, wheat, maize, Indian mustard, pigeon pea and soybean without plowing or burning crop residues. Production on the 223-hectare farm is improving every season and costs are going down with the CA practices.
Many visiting farmers said they have watched the BISA farm evolve from their “pasture backyard to a granary.” They now want BISA to train them in CA and help them procure appropriate machinery. Ramlal Vishkarma of Sonpur village, whose son is a temporary worker on the BISA farm, said CA saves him US $26 to 32 per hectare each season in planting costs. He also stated that surface mulching helps conserve soil moisture and control cracks in black soils on his farm. In collaboration with JNKVV, the Directorate of Weed Science Research (DWSR), the State Agriculture Department and the seed company JPCL, BISA is promoting resource-conserving no-till agriculture to avoid residue burning, conserve ground water aquifers and provide “seeds of needs” to resource-poor smallholder farmers.
Participants were addressed by CIMMYT director general Thomas Lumpkin; V.S. Tomar, vice chancellor of JNKVV; S.K. Rao, JNKVV dean of faculty; and B.P. Tripathi, joint director of agriculture for the Government of Madhya Pradesh. Raj Kumar Jat and the BISA team coordinated visits for stakeholders to research and production plots. JNKVV volunteers explained new farm implements while M.L. Jat, Raj Kumar, Ravi Valluru, Raju Singh, Jagman Dhillon, Nikhil Singh and others discussed significant results of their research trials.
Tomar emphasized the need to develop climate-resilient, high-yielding varieties and recommended the promotion of low-cost sustainable intensification practices to improve farmers’ economic conditions. He appreciated the efforts of BISA-CIMMYT in introducing CA-based systems. Lumpkin encouraged farmers to adopt cost-saving technologies that offset ever-increasing input costs and low profits from farm outputs, adding that CA-based management practices buffer the negative effects of climatic extremes. He urged farmers to visit BISA regularly and tell researchers what would directly benefit them. M.L. Jat, CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist, facilitated a question-and-answer session between farmers and experts from BISA, DSWR and JNKVV.
Farmers’ feedback will help shape future research priorities at BISA, such as the need to bridge large management yield gaps, mechanization, weed management, soil moisture conservation, improved maize and wheat cultivars, quality seeds and training on new machinery and technologies
By Brenna Goth/CIMMYT
A CIMMYT project in Nepal made significant progress in identifying local wheat diversity last year.
Members of a seed cooperative in the Changathali village, Lalitpur district near Kathmandu, Nepal. The group has been practicing participatory varietal selection (PVS), seed production and dissemination for the last 10 years, but is now facing problems due to urbanization. Maiya Maharjam (wearing the yellow scarf) is the leader of this cooperative and previously won the NARC award for PVS and seed distribution.
The project, “Collection, multiplication, characterization and safety duplication of wheat and barley landraces from Nepal,” led by Arun Kumar Joshi, principal scientist for the Global Wheat Program, began in January 2013 and will run until October 2015. National partners include Madan Raj Bhatta and Bal Krishna Joshi from the Nepal Agriculture Research Council, Khumaltar, Lalitpur.
Since the project began, researchers have developed guidelines “to explore, collect and characterize wheat and barley diversity,” according to the project’s 2013 Technical and Financial Progress Report. They found that traditional wheat diversity exists with opportunities for further exploration.
A cabinet in the headquarters of the National Wheat Research Program, Bhairhawa, displays a selection of wheat seed. Photos: Emma Quilligan
Researchers focused on the Baitadi, Dadeldhura and Doti districts in western Nepal, a traditional wheat region. Researchers visited Village Development Committees and farmers to collect seed and interviews. Farmers are still cultivating a variety of landraces, which feature drought tolerance and good chapatti quality. In total, 85 wheat accessions were collected and mapped along with 16 barley landraces. Employees from Nepal’s gene bank also helped with the effort.
The collections are currently under regeneration. The gene bank will send about 180 wheat and 50 barley collections to CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) by June 2015 for duplication.
Nine Afghan farmers, including four women, recently learned about conservation agriculture in Pusa, Bihar, India.
Their visit to the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) on 18 January focused on advances in conservation agriculture (CA)-based management, improved wheat varieties and climate change variability coping strategies. The visit was part of an agribusiness study tour organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Representatives of the Government of Bihar met with the farmers at BISA-Pusa to hear their reactions to the latest technological developments. The delegation was led by Mohamed Ali and facilitated by Vijay Prakash, project director of the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA), Department of Agriculture, Government of Bihar.
Raj Kumar Jat, cropping systems agronomist for BISA, gave an overview of BISA-CIMMYT research-for-development activities and strategies for the region to improve crop productivity and farm profitability. He explained that BISA develops and promotes CA-based best practices for maize- and wheatbased cropping systems that directly benefit farmers in the region. BISA collaborates with the State Agricultural University, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, different CIMMYT programs such as the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
Afghan farmers, officers from the government of Bihar and the staff of BISA-CIMMYT gather in wheat grown on permanent raised beds at the BISA Farm in Pusa Samastipur. Photo: Raj Kumar Jat
The delegation viewed agricultural machinery, strategic research trials and demonstration plots of wheat, maize, mustard and chickpea, which were planted on permanent raised beds using zero-tillage in laser-leveled fields. Jat explained different CA technologies and the comparative advantages of zero tillage, permanent raised bed planting and laser land leveling over conventional practices.
Farmers in the region face high labor costs and low labor availability, increasing energy prices and frequent climate variability, which require climate-resilient, lowcost alternatives to improve farm profitability. Jat said CA-based management practices can reduce production costs and improve resource-use efficiency, productivity and profitability. Planting different field crops on permanent raised beds using zero tillage reduces tillage and irrigation costs, improves water and nutrient-use efficiency and produces higher yields. He added that crop residue retention reduces weed population and improves soil fertility.
Inclusion of laser land leveling in conservation agriculture also saves water, promotes a uniform crop stand and improves nutrient-use efficiency and crop yields. Zero tillage seeding advances the sowing of different crops by one week, though the use of improved varieties and quality seed are equally important.
CIMMYT-Afghanistan organized a training event for staff from the Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan (ARIA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) from 26-29 January in Kabul. Entitled “Experimental Design: Constitution, Analysis and Interpretation,” the event helped identify constraints to improving the quality of research and strengthen the capacity to integrate statistical procedures in research methodologies. Agricultural research deals with variability stemming from both controllable and uncontrollable sources.
Partitioning out the two and determining whether observed variation originates from real differences or are from chance is central to field experimentation. When Ram Sharma, cereal breeder for the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Area (ICARDA) and instructor of the event, asked participants what they expected to learn from the training, they responded that they were interested in how to design an experiment as well as how to interpret and write scientific reports. Sharma is also part of the CGIAR Program for Central Asia and Caucasus, Tashkent.
CIMMYT-Afghanistan organized an experimental design training in Kabul. Photo: CIMMYT-Afghanistan
The event was attended by 35 participants from ARIA, the Department of Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQD), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Joint Development Associates, MAIL, Kabul University and the MAIL Department of Irrigation. Sharma emphasized the importance of statistics in agricultural research as well as the use of replication, randomization and local control. Completely randomized designs (CRD) and factorial designs were also covered. Sharma explained that CRD can be used to analyze a farmer’s field after cultivation to determine in-field variance. He also taught the participants how to use crop statistic software and make a field book using computer programs. Example analyses showed attendees how to analyze their own data and interpret them. Qasem Obaidi, director of ARIA, closed the program and said it was helpful for the researchers and agronomists.
He thanked CIMMYT-Afghanistan, Sharma and CIMMYT’s Rajiv Kumar Sharma for their help. CIMMYT-Afghanistan also used the occasion to congratulate three of its staff members, Abdul Qayum, Shafi Ahmad and Mohammad Nasim, for completing 10 years of service to CIMMYT.
A new CIMMYT book, Made in Bangladesh: Scale-appropriate machinery for agricultural resource conservation, highlights the innovative machinery that can be used with two-wheeled tractors (2WT) for sustainable farming and gives detailed technical designs to help standardize production quality, making the machines more accessible to farmers.
A local service provider uses a 2WT-based seed drill. (Photo by Color Horizon)
Agricultural mechanization in South Asia is helping conserve natural resources, improve productivity and increase profits, but many small-scale farmers have yet to benefit. Factors such as high costs and farmers’ lack of access to credit make the machinery unaffordable for resource-poor farmers. However, Bangladesh leads by example and has been a hotbed of innovation, particularly with the 2WTs that are more appropriate for small-scale farmers than the four-wheel variety. Bangladesh has a strong agricultural tradition – nearly twothirds of its population works in agriculture. It has achieved near self-sufficiency in rice production and has rapidly developed its agricultural sector over the past 20 years, despite being ranked 146th on the global human development index and having roughly half the per capita income of India. Bangladesh’s agriculture sector contributes 19 percent to the country’s gross domestic product. This is the bright side.
The other side, however, is that farmers’ land-holdings are very small – an average farming household owns just 0.2 hectares or less – and Bangladesh is home to intensive cropping rotations. Every square centimeter of arable land is used 1.8 times a year, putting intense pressure on natural resources and making the system unsustainable in the long term. Farmers have to continually adapt to challenges including climate change, rising temperatures and increasing fuel prices to sustain productivity.
Many farmers are using innovative agricultural machinery to improve the precision and speed of planting and harvesting operations while reducing fuel, irrigation water and labor requirements. With the introduction of cheap, easy-to-operate and easy-to-maintain 2WTs, agriculture in Bangladesh has become highly mechanized during the last decade. Nearly 80 percent of farmers use 2WTs because they are versatile and can be fitted with a variety of innovative auxiliary equipment for planting, threshing and irrigation.
Made in Bangladesh highlights these innovations and includes reviews and designs of the machinery used with 2WTs for resource-conserving practices, including zero tillage and strip tillage seed and fertilizer drills, bed planters, axial flow irrigation pumps, strip tillage blades, improved furrow openers and seed metering mechanisms. Each chapter has scaled technical designs of the machinery, developed with computer-aided drafting to allow manufacturers in Bangladesh and beyond to reproduce and make improvements on the machines. “Many of the machines in the book are inspiring innovations,” said Timothy Krupnik, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist and one of the book’s authors. “Bangladesh is often seen in a negative light – most international media focuses on its political tragedies, grinding poverty and pressing environmental concerns. But, if you live in Bangladesh, you get inspired every day by the creative ways that many of the world’s poorest people come up with creative solutions to the problems they face. All of the machines in the book were either designed and made in Bangladesh, or borrowed from other machines in South and Southeast Asia and then were manufactured in Bangladesh.”
CSISA-MI is helping increase the adoption of resource-conserving machines by farmers. (Photo: Timothy Krupnik)
The book’s technical designs can be easily replicated by machinery manufacturers, scientists or farmers. “The drawings were developed in a reverse engineering process, where I measured the machines manually and immediately sketched them on paper by hand,” said co-author Santiago Santos Valle. “Once back in the office, I produced the computer-aided drawings using the hand-made sketches.” Spending hours of work recreating these sketches on the computer, Santos Valle painstakingly created all the technical designs in the book.
A learning module on technical drawing interpretation and instructions on how to use the drawings have also been included. Standardization and Affordability There is a great need for small-scale farmers to adopt new machinery to overcome rural labor shortages in places like Bangladesh. “Wheat and maize yields decline between 1 and 1.5 percent per day when planted late, so you can imagine the effect if you use the machines to reduce tillage,” Krupnik explained. “Applying seed and fertilizer in one go can save seven to eight days that farmers would have otherwise spent plowing and preparing the land.” One of the most significant problems confronting mechanization in South Asia is design standardization. “Bangladesh has been a ‘hot bed’ of innovation, particularly for the two-wheel tractor,” said Andrew McDonald, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist and co-author. “But much of this innovation has not reached farmers at scale because commercialization has been impeded by the lack of standardization. Essentially, most workshops create a unique machine every time a new piece is fabricated, which drives up costs to both manufacture and repair the machinery. Quality control is also an issue.”
He emphasized that CIMMYT is playing a catalytic role to ensure high-quality machinery is available at a reasonable cost in Bangladesh. The organization is helping formalize the design elements of innovative machinery and working with workshops and industrial houses to implement these designs. In the USAID-Bangladesh Mission funded project, Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI), CIMMYT works with the NGO International Development Enterprises (iDE) to develop and execute business models to encourage companies and agricultural manufacturers to produce and distribute the machines through commercial mechanisms.
In turn, agricultural service providers are linked to finance entities and farmers to purchase machines and to assure demand in the field. These efforts receive technical backing from CIMMYT scientists, who assure that land is planted with reduced tillage implements or irrigated with energy efficient pumps. As a result, the adoption of these machines has significantly increased in the last few months – the machinery is now being used on over 2,000 hectares of new land in southern Bangladesh alone – more than a four-fold increase compared to the year before.
The machines included in the book have wide applicability outside of Bangladesh, such as in smallholder farming contexts in Asia and Africa. “We want the work done in Bangladesh to inspire agricultural machinery manufacturers to reproduce and improve machines in other countries,” Krupnik said. “For this reason the book is free and available through open access and can be downloaded, printed and shared with others as widely as possible.” The PDF version of the book is available from the CIMMYT repository.
The Hill Maize Research project (HMRP) commends the commitment, dedication and service of Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, who retired on 31 January after leading the project for nearly nine years.
Partners with the Agricultural Innovation Program for Pakistan (AIP) are working to enhance availability and access to maize seeds and varieties. The AIP maize working group discussed problems and shared recommendations to help improve maize production and productivity during its inception meeting from 3-4 February in Islamabad.
Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad, chairman of PARC, leads a group discussion. On his left is Shahid Masood, a member of the plant sciences division of PARC. On his right are Michael Wyzan, USAID representative, and Imtiaz Muhammad, AIP interim project leader and CIMMYT country representative.
Maize follows wheat and rice as Pakistan’s third most important cereal crop and is first in productivity. Covering 1.14 million hectares with a national average grain yield of about 4.0 tons per hectare (t/ha), maize area, production and productivity increased by 14.5 percent, 26 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively, from 2010-11 to 2013, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The high demand for feed and food are the main forces driving the increased production of maize in Pakistan. Punjab and KPK provinces are the leaders in maize production. Most maize production receives irrigation, and the majority of maize farmers produce the crop in rotation with wheat and rice.
A tool developed by CIMMYT and the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) offering site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) advice to help farmers achieve higher yields more efficiently recently won an innovation award.
Nutrient ExpertTM decision support tools received the best innovation award in the information and communications technology category at the Bihar Innovation Forum II, which recognizes innovations to improve rural livelihoods in India. These tools were in development by CIMMYT and IPNI for five years and were launched in June 2013.
In South Asia, 90 percent of smallholder farmers do not have access to soil testing. The computer-based support tools aim to provide them with simple advice on how to get the most from fertilizer inputs. An IPNI study funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE CRP) Competitive Grant Initiative (CGI) found that farming practices and the resources available to farmers vary hugely in east India.
The cutting-edge value of Nutrient ExpertTM is that it offers specific information at the farm level, where it can provide the greatest benefits. Nutrient ExpertTM is especially relevant because it was developed through dialogue and participation with stakeholders, which also raises awareness and eventual adoption by users.
It is now used by the Indian National Agricultural Research System and is a key intervention used by the CRP on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in its Climate Smart Villages. The Nutrient ExpertTM approach is also being applied to maize and wheat in other areas of Southeast Asia, China, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Dan Jeffers (second from the left) attends a meeting in the Great Hall of China. Source: CCTV13
A CIMMYT maize breeder participated in a prestigious meeting of foreign experts in China that garnered national news coverage. Dan Jeffers, who is based at the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in southern China, attended the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) meeting on 21 January in Beijing.
SAFEA established a forum for foreign experts working in the country to provide recommendations that further China’s development goals. John Thornton, director of the China Center of the Brookings Institution, proposed the idea two years ago.
Seventy foreign experts attended a consultancy and advisory commission meeting. The meeting was followed by a symposium and dinner hosted by China’s Premier Li Keqiang honoring the Chinese Spring Festival. During the symposium, he thanked the foreign experts for their efforts and encouraged them to put forth recommendations to benefit China’s development.
The meeting made the front page of the China Daily newspaper on 22 January as the lead article and was featured in other news sources.
By Tek Sapkota, Promil Kapoor and M.L. Jat, CIMMYT/CCAFS
The eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain in South Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change. As part of propoor climate change mitigation work – which focuses on poverty reduction – under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), CIMMYT is actively working on adaptation, risk management and quantifying the mitigation potential of traditional and resilient management practices in smallholder systems in the region.
Participants gather in Bihar, India. Photo: Manish Kumar/CIMMYT
CIMMYT, in close collaboration with India’s national agricultural research system, manages extensive research on the quantification of climate change mitigation potential for precision-conservation agriculture-based cereal systems in South Asia. CIMMYT scientists and collaborators are working on the quantification of greenhouse gases (GHGs) under different scenarios and gathered for a twoday social learning workshop on standardizing related protocols. Attendees from CIMMYT and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), along with participants from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), the national research system and two students from the Climate Food and Farming Network (CLIFF), gathered in Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar, during 15-16 January.
Participants shared experiences on GHG mitigation under contrasting production systems and ecologies and took stock of ongoing mitigation work at the Delhi, Karnal and Pusa sites. The event provided an opportunity to discuss different approaches for GHG quantification approaches. Quantification suitable for smallholder production systems in developing countries were presented by Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT mitigation agronomist. Scientists from Karnal, New Delhi and Pusa presented the current status of GHG measurement work and work plans for 2014. The results from these regional laboratories will be used for larger-scale studies, spanning all levels, from plot to landscape.
As part of its ongoing mitigation work, CIMMYT is measuring GHG emissions in six agronomic trials representing various cropping, tillage, residue and nutrient management systems in Karnal, New Delhi and Pusa, three different agro-ecologies of the Indo- Gangetic Plain. CIMMYT actively collaborates with universities, national research institutes and international organizations like BISA on its mitigation work and capacity building, including developing a new generation of researchers. Attendees also discussed the importance of setting professional and personal goals and priorities, effective time management, effective communication and delegating tasks. They shared perceptions and ideas on mitigation activities and what changes are necessary to strengthen mitigation work. CIMMYT-CCAFS South Asia Coordinator M.L. Jat emphasized the need to move beyond plot level to quantify mitigation potential at the landscape, regional and national levels. Attendees also discussed and agreed to use tools ranging from measurement to estimation.
The meeting concluded with the development of a 2014 roadmap for mitigation activities. Participants also visited the BISA farm and CCAFS climate-smart villages (CSVs) in the Vaishali district of Bihar to learn smallholders’ perceptions about climate change.
A new, open-source book on agricultural machinery in Bangladesh is now available online. Made in Bangladesh: Scale-appropriate machinery for agricultural resource conservation was written by authors from CIMMYT and the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute. The book was a product of the USAID-funded Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanical and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) and CSISA Bangladesh projects, as well as the EU-funded Agriculture, Nutrition and Extension Project (ANEP) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research-funded Rice-Maize Project.
The book details the functions and designs of smallscale agricultural machinery used in conjunction with two-wheel tractors (2WTs). 2WTs are used extensively in Bangladesh and several other countries, and the small-scale implements extend the usefulness of the 2WTs. Most implements are compatible with conservation agriculture-based management practices while the book’s technical drawings allow manufacturers and engineers to reproduce and improve upon the original designs. The PDF version of the book, which is found here in the CIMMYT repository, is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The book will soon be translated and released in Bangla. For more information, contact Tim Krupnik, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist, at t.krupnik@cgiar.org.
Nepali scientists learned about developing heat stress-resistant maize during a training event organized by Nepal’s National Maize Research Program (NMRP) and CIMMYT on 16 January at the NMRP in Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal. The event was part of the Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project supported by USAID under the Feed the Future initiative.
Participants record heat-stress phenotyping data in the field. Photo: Courtesy of NMRP
Nearly 30 participants attended the training, including maize breeders, agronomists and field technicians from the NMRP, the Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS) in Nepalgunj and the Agricultural Research Station (ARS) in Surkhet. Keshab Babu Koirala, NMRP coordinator, gave an overview of maize research in the country and emphasized the effects of climate change on national production. Koirala noted the importance of developing stress-resilient maize varieties and hybrids for sustainable maize growth.
P.H. Zaidi, maize physiologist and project leader of HTMA, gave lectures on developing heat stress-resilient maize hybrids, including maize phenology and physiology, how maize responds to heat stress, technical details of precision phenotyping, selection criteria for heat stress breeding and development of heat-tolerant hybrids. Zaidi used a bilingual interaction model to encourage participation in both English and Hindi in the presentations and discussions.
In the afternoon, participants visited HTMA maize trials at the NMRP experimental farm, where participants were divided into groups to score the performance of more than 900 hybrids planted there. Participants were excited to see new, promising hybrids. Attendees also had the opportunity to interact with Zaidi, Koirala and each other. “It is exciting to see quite a few very promising hybrids from the HTMA project, which are well-adapted in Tarai, Nepal,” said Tara Bahadur Ghimire, chief of ARS in Surkhet, Nepal. “If we select only 10 percent of the hybrids planted here, we will have a choice of about 100 to take forward. These hybrids will help us in switching from open-pollinated varieties to hybrids to boost maize production in our country and enhance its food security.”
After the field visit, participants gave feedback on the training and handson exercises. In the training, the scientists and field technicians learned key aspects of abiotic stress breeding and developing heat stress-tolerant maize. In his closing remarks, Koirala thanked USAID and CIMMYT for supporting NMRP in capacity building. “This is an excellent approach, which benefitted many scientists in one go rather than inviting a few to CIMMYT-India,” he said. “This needs to be replicated again in the near future so that scientists from maize research stations — other than those that are participating in the HTMA project — can get this opportunity.”
One of the most important aspects of planning the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security is remembering Norman Borlaug. We’ve received photos and stories from individuals and institutions as they register for the event. Some people only met Dr. Borlaug once while others worked with him for years, but they all share memories of his kindness and impact. You can read and see all of the submissions here; a few of our favorites to date are found below (some submissions are edited for clarity):
“I will help you”
“Dr. Borlaug’s visit to China in 1974 with U.S. delegates started the collaboration between China and CIMMYT … I met him in November of 1990 when I started as a postdoctoral fellow in the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program. We lived in the same block of the visiting scientist building and met very often in the cafeteria in the evening. I traveled with Borlaug a few times and facilitated his visits to China many times.
Photo submitted by Zhonghu He
What I learned from him is to respect people and work hard. Never, ever, hurt other people’s dignity or pride, and never be arrogant. Always say, ‘I will help you!’ … As said by , CIMMYT Director General Dr. Tom Lumpkin, the best way to commemorate Borlaug is to work hard and do your best job.”– Dr. Zhonghu He
Respected by everyone
“I met Norman Borlaug during a 2008 field day. I remember that he was happy to meet someone from Morocco and told me that he had visited Morocco many years ago and kept a good souvenir from his visit.
Photo submitted by Rhrib Keltoum
While attending the Borlaug workshops and listening to his success stories from the scientific and farmer communities, I understood that he was a great man loved and respected by everyone throughout the world and that he left a very good impression on all the people he met and countries he visited. He is the real father of the Green Revolution. I would have liked to have met him earlier. I would have, for sure, learned a lot from him.” – Dr. Rhrib Keltoum
Memories Unforgotten
Photo submitted by Ignacio Solis
“In 2003, one group of farmers from the Cooperatives of Andalusia (southern Spain), owners of the seed company Agrovegetal, visited El Batán and Ciudad Obregón to get to know CIMMYT. We met Dr. Borlaug in Texcoco, and he agreed to travel with us to Sonora to explain the wheat breeding program to us.
I will never forget those days, his personality and his enthusiastic way of teaching. We took a picture with durum wheat YAVAROS 79, the most widely grown variety in Spain, even 25 years after its release.” –Dr. Ignacio Solis, Director, Agrovegetal
