For more information, contact CIMMYT’s India office.
Joe Dale is a regional program manager with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program, based in Nepal. He provides management support to increase the impact and outcomes of CIMMYT’s research and development work in South Asia.
Dale holds a PhD in Agricultural Education from Iowa State University and has more than 15 years of agricultural development implementation experience across six countries.
The state of Odisha, in the east of India, ranks sixth in rice production in the country. Agriculture in Odishaâs tribal-dominated plateau region, however, is characterized by depleted soils along with low and variable rice yields. During the monsoon season, more than 60,000 hectares of land are left fallow, due to lack of knowledge and to farmersâ low risk tolerance.
In districts like Mayurbhanj, over 50% of the population belongs to tribal groups. Women there are mostly engaged in traditional roles: being at home looking after family, farm and livestock while their men are away as migrant laborers or with menial jobs. Women working on farming used to be considered daily wage laborers, as if they were only supporting their husband or family who were officially the farmers.
The last few years, with the introduction of maize cultivation and its promotion predominantly for women farmers, a significant change in the perception of womenâs role is unfolding in the region.
In 2013, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) began working in the plateau region through the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), improving farming systems for higher yields and providing sustainable livelihood options for tribal farmers. Since then, farmers in the region have achieved considerable production of maize in the monsoon season â and women have particularly led this transformation.
Farmers from this region â 28% of which were women â converted 5,400 hectares of fallow lands into successful maize cultivation areas. Not only has this new opportunity helped improve family income, but also womenâs identity as resilient and enterprising farmers.
This impact was possible through the applied research efforts of the CSISA project along with partners like Odishaâs State Department of Agriculture, the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) and two federations of womenâs self-help groups supported by PRADAN.
On International Womenâs Day, we share the story of these successful farmers who have made maize cultivation a part of their livelihoods and a tool for socioeconomic development.
Transforming fallow lands into golden maize fields
Women working in the fields used to be considered daily wage laborers, but today they are acknowledged as enterprising farmers who transformed fallow lands into golden maize fields.
In the season 2019/2020 alone, in all four districts where CSISA is actively engaged â Bolangir, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Nuapada â improved maize cultivation was adopted by 7,600 farmers â 28% of which were women â in 5,400 hectares of fallow land, resulting in considerable production of quality maize in the region. Since many of the women in the districts are smallholder farmers or without agriculture land, farming also happens on leased land through self-help groups.
Learning and implementing best maize cultivation practices
CSISA supports the farmers all the way from sowing to crop harvesting, ensuring the produce is shiny and golden. Through self-help groups, farmers have access to fertilizers and machines to weed and earth-up their fields. Researchers have introduced seed cum fertilizer drills for maize sowing, which make fertilizer placement more uniform and crop establishment easier, saving time and helping these women manage both household responsibilities and the farm.
Quality knowledge for quality grain
To strengthen the capacity of farmers, the project team trains them continuously on grain quality parameters like moisture level, foreign matters, infestation rate. Most of the participants are farmers from women collectives and self-help groups. They have gradually advanced in their knowledge journey, going from general awareness to subject-specific training.
Marketing gurus
Even though many large poultry feed mills operate in Odisha, most of their maize comes from outside the state. Women self-help groups are bridging that gap. In collaboration with the State Department of Agriculture and Farmersâ Empowerment, the CSISA project has cultivated a network of market actors including producers, providers of agricultural inputs and development partners. Market access to these value chains will help women, all the way from planting to produce marketing.
Extending the collaboration, in the four districts of Odisha and beyond
A considerable increase in maize production has improved incomes for families across the regions, as well as their food security. It has also created opportunities for women to raise their social and economic standing.
There are opportunities for CSISA and its partners to continue collaborating in the project region and beyond. CIMMYT has worked with Odishaâs State Department of Agriculture, the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), womenâs self-help groups, farmersâ producer groups, private seed companies and many other collectives.
Weathering the crisis
Women have shouldered the responsibility and led their families out of the COVID-19 crisis. When men were left jobless and stranded as migrant workers during lockdown, many women associated with the CSISA project began generating income by selling green corn. This small income helped ensure food to feed their families and wellbeing in this critical period.
The road ahead
With the purpose of advocating this positive transformation in similar conditions, CSISA is committed to expand maize intensification in the plateau region of Odisha and engaging more farmers. Ongoing research and studies are focusing on improving the outreach, to help women increase their maize area and productivity with better-bet agronomy. This will contribute to secured income in coming years and the sustainability of the initiative.
The use of field-specific fertiliser in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) can increase grain yield, reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional farmer fertilization practices (FFP), and lead to reduced costs and increased incomes for farmers.
These were the findings of a study conducted between 2013 and 2017 by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and published in Nature Scientific Report in January 2021.
Sanjaya Rajaram, a University of Sydney alumnus recognized with the World Food Prize, was a world-renowned wheat breeder and scientist. One of the worldâs leading food scientists, he died on February 17 from COVID-19 in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico.
India is the world’s second-largest producer of wheat and rice and is home to more than 600 million farmers. The country has achieved impressive food-production gains since the 1960s, due in part to an increased reliance on irrigation wells, which allowed Indian farmers to expand production into the mostly dry winter and summer seasons.
But those gains have come at a cost: The country that produces 10% of the world’s crops is now the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, and aquifers are rapidly becoming depleted across much of India. Indian government officials have suggested that switching from groundwater-depleting wells to irrigation canals, which divert surface water from lakes and rivers, is one way to overcome projected shortfalls.
In a study published in the journal Science Advances, scientists conclude that a switch to canal irrigation will not fully compensate for the expected loss of groundwater in Indian agriculture.
The authors estimate that if Indian farmers lose all access to groundwater in overexploited regions, and if that irrigation water is not replaced with water from other sources, then winter cropped acreage could be reduced by up to 20% nationwide. However, that scenario seems highly unlikely and was included in the study only as an upper-bound estimate.
It seems more likely that any future groundwater shortfalls would be at least partially offset by increases in canal irrigation. But even if all Indian regions currently using depleted groundwater switch to canal irrigation, winter cropped acreage could still decline by 7% nationwide and by 24% in the most severely affected locations, according to the researchers.
Water alternatives needed
âOur results highlight the critical importance of groundwater for Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods, and we were able to show that simply providing canal irrigation as a substitute irrigation source will likely not be enough to maintain current production levels in the face of groundwater depletion,â said study lead author Meha Jain, an assistant professor at the University of Michiganâs School for Environment and Sustainability.
âWe need coordinated efforts to solve this water availability and food security issue, which should be supported by science-led policy decisions on what strategies and technology solutions to scale out to improve irrigation efficiency,â said co-author Balwinder Singh, a Cropping Systems Simulation Modeler at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The study analyzed high-resolution satellite imagery and village-level census data and focused on winter cropped acreage. While nearly all Indian farmers plant crops during the monsoon to take advantage of seasonal rains, winter agriculture is mainly reliant on groundwater irrigation and now accounts for 44% of the country’s annual cropped acreage for food grains.
“These findings suggest that other adaptation strategies, in addition to canal expansion, are needed to cope with ongoing groundwater losses,” Jain said.
The possibilities include switching from winter rice to less water-intensive cereals, increased adoption of sprinklers and drip irrigation to conserve water in the fields, and policies to increase the efficiency of irrigation canals.
While groundwater depletion is becoming a global threat to food security, and the extent of current and projected groundwater depletion are well documented, the potential impacts on food production remain poorly quantified. The study is the first to use high-resolution empirical data, including census data about the irrigation methods used in more than 500,000 Indian villages, to estimate the crop production losses that may occur when overexploited groundwater is lost.
“Understanding the complex relationship between food security and water availability is crucial as we prepare for future rainfall variability due to global climate change,” said co-author Gillian Galford of the University of Vermont.
The proliferation of deep (>30 meters) irrigation wells called tube wells since the 1960s has enabled Indian farmers to increase the number of seasons when crops are planted in a given year. This increase in “cropping intensity” is credited for much of the country’s food-production gains.
Big data for food security
The researchers used satellite data to measure Indian winter cropped area, a key determinant of cropping intensity. They then linked the satellite data to census information about the three main types of irrigation infrastructure in India: shallow “dug wells,” deeper tube wells and canals that divert surface water.
Linking the two datasets allowed them to determine the relative efficacy of each irrigation method. That, in turn, enabled them to estimate potential future acreage losses and the ability of canal expansion to fill the gap.
The study’s worst-case scenario found that winter cropped area could decrease by up to 20% nationwide and by 68% in the most severely affected regions, if farmers lose all access to groundwater and if that irrigation water is not replaced from another source. The expected losses would largely occur in northwest and central India, according to the study.
The researchers also found that increased distance from existing irrigation canals is strongly associated with decreased acreage planted with winter crops. In the future, a greater reliance on canals could increase inequities related to irrigation access, according to the authors.
“This suggests that while canals may be a viable form of irrigation for those who live near canals, they may lead to more unequal access to irrigation across villages compared to wells, with negative impacts for those who live farther from canals,” the authors wrote.
In addition, the lakes and rivers that feed irrigation canals rise and fall in response to rainfall variability, unlike deep groundwater wells. So, a greater reliance on canal irrigation in the future would result in increased sensitivity to year-to-year precipitation fluctuations, as well as any long-term trends due to human-caused climate change.
The authors of the Science Advances study, in addition to Jain and Galford, are Ram Fishman of Tel Aviv University; Pinki Mondal of the University of Delaware; Nishan Bhattarai of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability; Shahid Naeem, Upmanu Lall and Ruth DeFries of Columbia University; and Balwinder Singh of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The work was funded by a NASA New Investigator Award to Jain and two NASA Land Cover and Land Use Change grants, one awarded to R.S. DeFries and one to Jain.
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RELATED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:
Groundwater depletion will reduce cropping intensity in India
INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
Balwinder Singh â Cropping Systems Simulation Modeler, CIMMYT
Meha Jain â Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:
Rodrigo Ordóñez â Communications Manager, CIMMYT. r.ordonez@cgiar.org
Jim Erickson â Lead Public Relations Representative, University of Michigan. ericksn@umich.edu
Australiaâs High Commissioner to India, Barry OâFarrell, visited the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in Ludhiana, India, on January 20, 2021 along with his delegation.
OâFarrell acknowledged the historic role of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) sharing the seeds of the most recent, climate-resilient, high-yielding, and disease-resistant wheat genotypes. He also appreciated that this work is being continued with even greater vigor by BISA for the benefit of India and the whole of South Asia.
The High Commissioner was happy to note that wheat germplasm is freely shared with public and private sector national partners under constant guidance and collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Department of Agriculture Research and Education (DARE).
OâFarrell emphasized the strong collaboration between Indian and Australian research institutes. He called for even more cross-learning between scientists and other stakeholders for research, policy and capacity development in the areas of land, water, climatic resilience, environmental sustainability and germplasm enhancement for the benefit of farmers of both countries.
Witnessing science in action
Arun Kumar Joshi, CIMMYT Regional Representative for Asia and Managing Director of BISA, welcomed the group and briefed the visitors on CIMMYT and BISAâs collaboration with ICAR and DARE.
H.S. Sidhu, Principal Research Engineer at BISA, and M.L. Jat, Principal Scientist and Systems Agronomist at CIMMYT, presented the major challenges and research outputs related to climate change, the food-energy-water nexus and the overall agricultural sustainability challenges faced by India.
One of the successful examples of collaboration between Australia and India is the Happy Seeder, which addresses these challenges through conservation agriculture and sustainable intensification. OâFarrell saw the expansive wheat fields sown with the Happy Seeder and was impressed by the technology.
The group also discussed the evidence-based policy changes that have taken place, as well as future strategies for accelerated impact through new approaches, like carbon farming. A detailed discussion took place on climate-smart agriculture research, with a focus on precision water and nutrient management using digital agriculture technologies and their complementarity for boosting Happy Seeder uptake.
The High Commissioner and his delegation also visited the wheat breeding program, where CIMMYT researcher Uttam Kumar explained the development of wheat genotypes â in collaboration with ICAR-DARE and the national agriculture research system â for a range of environments, management conditions, and against various stresses, with the ultimate objective of serving the needs of smallholder farmers.
OâFarrell also appreciated the BISA-designed Phenocart for high-throughput precision phenotyping in wheat improvement. OâFarrell highlighted and appreciated that this season, BISA is conducting the largest wheat breeding trial in South Asia: currently more than 60,000 plots are planted at the BISA station in Ludhiana alone.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) have identified new genomic regions associated with maize stover quality, an important by-product of maize which can be used in animal feed.
The results of the study, published this month in Nature Scientific Reports, will allow maize breeders to select for stover quality traits more quickly and cost-effectively, and to develop new dual purpose maize varieties without sacrificing grain yield.
The researchers screened diverse Asia-adapted CIMMYT maize lines from breedersâ working germplasm for animal feed quality traits. They then used these as a reference set to predict the breeding values of over a thousand doubled haploid lines derived from abiotic stress breeding programs based on genetic information. Based on these breeding values, the scientists further selected 100 of these double haploid lines and validated the performance of stover quality traits through field-based phenotyping.
The results demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating genomic prediction as a tool to improve stover traits, circumventing the need for field or lab-based phenotyping. The findings significantly reduce the need for additional testing resources â a major hindrance in breeding dual-purpose maize varieties.
Interestingly, the researchers found that increased animal feed quality in maize stover had no impact on grain yield, a concern raised by scientists in the past.
âThe main purpose of this study and overall purpose of this CIMMYT and ILRI collaboration was to optimize the potential of maize crops for farm families, increase income, improve livelihoods and sustainably manage the crop livestock system, within limited resources,â said P.H. Zaidi, a maize physiologist at CIMMYT and co-author of the study.
âMore than 70% of the farmers in the tropics are smallholders so they donât have a lot of land to grow crops for grain purposes and separate stover for animal feed, so this is a very sustainable model if they grow dual purpose maize.â
By growing maize simultaneously for both human consumption and animal feed, farmers can get the most out of their crops and conserve natural resources like land and water.
Fodder for thought
The findings from this study also validate the use of genomic prediction as an important breeding tool to accelerate the development and improvement of dual-purpose maize varieties, according to CIMMYT Maize Breeder and first author of the study, M.T. Vinayan.
With the demand for animal feed increasing around the world, crop scientists and breeders have been exploring more efficient ways to improve animal feed quality in cereals without compromising grain yields for human consumption.
âNot all maize varieties have good stover quality, which is what we realized when we started working on this project. However, we discovered that there are a few which offer just as good quality as sorghum stover â a major source of livestock fodder particularly in countries such as India,â said Zaidi.
The publication of the study is a fitting tribute to the late Michael Blummel, who was a principal scientist and deputy program leader in the feed and forage development program at ILRI and co-author of this study.
âA couple of years back Dr Blummel relocated from the Hyderabad office at ILRI to its headquarters at Addis Ababa, but he used to frequently visit Hyderabad, and without fail met with us on each visit to discuss updates, especially about dual-purpose maize work. He was very passionate about dual-purpose maize research with a strong belief that the additional income from maize stover at no additional cost will significantly improve the income of maize farmers,â Zaidi said. âMichael was following this publication very closely because it was the first of its kind in terms of molecular breeding for dual purpose maize. He would have been very excited to see this published.â
Read the full article:
Genome wide association study and genomic prediction for stover quality traits in tropical maize (Zea mays L.)
Cover photo: Dairy cattle eats processed maize stover in India. (Photo: P.H. Zaidi/CIMMYT)
Ravi Singh, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Global Wheat Improvement at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has received the highest honor conferred by the Government of India to non-resident Indians.
The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award recognizes outstanding achievements by non-resident Indians, persons of Indian origin, or organizations or institutions run by them either in India or abroad. Awardees are selected for their support to Indiaâs causes and concerns by a committee led by the Vice President and the Minister of External Affairs of India. The awardees, according to the awards website, ârepresent the vibrant excellence achieved by our diaspora in various fields.â The online award announcement ceremony took place on January 9, 2021, with India’s President Ram Nath Kovind as a chief guest.
Ravi Singh, whose career at CIMMYT spans 37 years, was recognized for his invaluable contributions to wheat research and the development and training of scientists that have increased food production and nutritional security in Mexico, India and numerous other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
âThe award recognizes and values many years of wheat breeding at CIMMYT, where I had the opportunity, privilege and satisfaction to have contributed and made impacts through our invaluable partners in India and many other countries,â Singh said. âBy continuously providing superior varieties, we increased wheat production and incomes of millions of smallholder farming families.â
Singhâs nomination cited his contribution to the development, release and cultivation by national partners worldwide of over 550 wheat varieties over the past three decades. These national partners include the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and its affiliated institutions in India. These varieties, sown annually on over 40 million hectares by as many farmers, add over $1 billion annually to farmersâ incomes through increased productivity and built-in disease resistance, thus reducing chemical dependence to a negligible level.
âGreat teamwork leads to breakthroughs â and is the only way to achieve a common goal. Dr. Ravi Singhâs work alleviating hunger is a great service to mankind,â said Gyanendra Pratap Singh, director of the ICAR Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (ICAR-IIWBR). âWe are proud to have him on our team.â
âThis award recognizes Dr. Ravi Singhâs important contribution to CIMMYT wheat breeding, delivering major impacts to wheat production and smallholder livelihoods in India, and around the world,â said Alison Bentley, director of CIMMYTâs Global Wheat Program.
Over his career, Singh has nourished and further expanded an already strong partnership between CIMMYT, ICAR and various agricultural universities in India by developing and sharing each year new, diverse wheat varieties possessing increased grain and straw yields, resistance to diseases such as rusts, spot blotch and blast, climate resilience, and processing and nutritional quality.
Over the past decade, Singhâs team developed about half of the wheat varieties released in India through the ICAR network. These include the countryâs first high-yielding biofortified varieties, WB-2 and PBW1-Zn, released in 2017 to benefit Indiaâs zinc-deficient population.
Millions of farmers in India continue to grow CIMMYT wheat varieties or their derivatives developed by Indian institutions, to ensure safe and abundant harvests and better nutrition.
Ravi Singhâs numerous recognitions include membership as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Phytopathological Society (APS), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) and Indiaâs National Academy of Agricultural Science (NAAS). His awards include the Outstanding CGIAR Scientist Award, the CSSA Crop Science Research Award, the University of Minnesota E.C. Stakman Award, and the China State Councilâs Friendship Award, among others. He has been included among the top 1% of highly cited researchers according to Clarivate Analytics-Web of Science every year since 2017. Singh also serves as Adjunct Professor at Cornell University and Kansas State University.
An international team of scientists, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has demonstrated how better nutrient management using digital tools, such as the Nutrient Expert decision support tool, can boost rice and wheat productivity and increase farmersâ income while reducing chemical fertilizer use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Reported today in Nature Scientific Reports, the results show how the farmer-friendly digital nutrient management tool can play a key role in fighting climate change while closing the yield gap and boosting farmersâ profits.
The researchers tested the Nutrient Expert decision tool against typical farmer fertilization practices extensively using approximately 1600 side-by side comparison trials in rice and wheat fields across the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India.
The study found that Nutrient Expert-based recommendations lowered global warming potential by 12-20% in wheat and by around 2.5% in rice, compared to conventional farmersâ fertilization practices. Over 80% of farmers were also able to increase their crop yields and incomes using the tool.
Agriculture is the second largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in India. To tackle these emissions, crop scientists have been working on new ways to make farming more nutrient- and energy-efficient. Of the many technologies available, improving nutrient-use-efficiency through balanced fertilizer application â which in turn reduces excess fertilizer application â is key to ensuring food security while at the same time contributing to the UNâs Sustainable Development Goals on climate change.
The work was carried out by CIMMYT in collaboration with farmers, and funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Scientists from the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and the former International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) also contributed to this study.
Precise recommendations
Nutrient Expert, which was launched back in 2013, works by analysing growing conditions, natural nutrients in the soil, and even leftover nutrients from previous crops to provide tailored fertilizer recommendations directly to farmers phones. The tool also complements the Government of Indiaâs Soil Health Cards for balanced and precise nutrient recommendations in smallholder farmersâ fields.
Each farmerâs field is different, which is why blanket fertilizer recommendations arenât always effective in producing better yields. By using nutrient management tools such as Nutrient Expert, farmers can obtain fertilizer recommendations specific to the conditions of their field as well as their economic resources and thus avoid under-fertilizing or over-fertilizing their fields.
âWhile efficient nutrient management in croplands is widely recognized as one of the solutions to addressing the global challenge of supporting food security in a growing global population while safeguarding planetary health, Nutrient Expert could be an important tool to implement such efficient nutrient management digitally under smallholder production systems,â said Tek Sapkota, CIMMYT climate scientist and first author of the study.
Sapkota also argues that adoption of the Nutrient Expert tool in rice-wheat systems of India alone could provide almost 14 million tonnes (Mt) of extra grain with 1.4 Mt less nitrogen fertilizer use, and a reduction of 5.3 Mt of carbon (CO2) emissions per year over current practices.
However, technological innovation alone will not achieve these positive outcomes.
âGiven the magnitude of potential implications in terms of increasing yield, reducing fertilizer consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, governments need to scale-out Nutrient Expert-based fertilizer management through proper policy and institutional arrangements, especially for making efficient use of the nearly 200 million Soil Health Cards that were issued to farmers as part of the Soil Health mission of the Government of India,â said ML Jat, CIMMYT principal scientist and co-author of the study.
Read the study:
Crop nutrient management using Nutrient Expert improves yield, increases farmersâ income and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
Ravi Singh, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Global Wheat Improvement at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), received the highest honor conferred by the Government of India to non-resident Indians.
Singh, whose career at CIMMYT spans 37 years, was recognized for his invaluable contributions to wheat research and the development and training of scientists that have increased food production and nutritional security in Mexico, India and numerous other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The agricultural sector is possibly the largest livelihood provider in India, with the smallholder farming community in the vast Indo-Gangetic Plains making the bulk of it. They are the community responsible for growing the food available on our table. In celebration of Indiaâs National Farmerâs Day on December 23 â known in Hindi as Kisan Diwas â we share the story of a farmer-turned-entrepreneur from eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and its partners have invested in supporting smallholder farmers to implement best farming practices and improve yields through sustainable intensification.
âI am a farmer and I am hopeful of a future for my children in the farming sector,â says Surender Prasad, a 52-year-old farmer from Umila village in Santkabir Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh. Prasad is one of the innovative farmers in and around the district who has time and again strived to introduce new implements and technologies on his farm â often a big risk for smallholders like him.
In 2014, Prasad met researchers from CIMMYTâs Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project while visiting the village Lazar Mahadeva during an inter-district traveling seminar. After seeing the farmer demonstration plots for himself â which, incidentally, is one of the best ways of raising farmer awareness in the region â Prasad was convinced of the efficiency of transplanting rice by machine and using zero tillage in wheat production.
Through his continued association with the project, Prasad has now adopted both practices, in addition to direct seeded rice (DSR) and Laser Land Levelling. With a single 35 horsepower tractor, cultivator and harrow, Prasad was able to improve his wheat grain yield by one ton per hectare during the 2014-15 cropping season, and secure improved profit margins as a result.
Encouraged by these results, in 2018 Prasad purchased a 55 horsepower New Holland Tractor, a Happy Seeder, a tractor-mounted sprayer and other machinery for custom hire under the state governmentâs machinery bank scheme. His aspiration for entrepreneurship grew in the months following these purchases and he has since established himself as a local service provider, alongside his role as a farmer. According to Prasad, his continued association with CSISA and its network of partners helped him gain better technical knowledge and skills as well as confidence with using conservation agriculture-based machinery, thanks to trainings provided by the project team.
A budding entrepreneur
Today Prasad is an important entrepreneur in the region, providing custom hiring services for Happy Seeder and DSR and promoting agricultural mechanization in his community. Going forward, scale-appropriate farm mechanization will help farmers in the area to intensify their cropping system at a lower cost, supported by use of the conservation agriculture approaches encouraged by the CSISA project team, which have been shown to improve yields, reduce farmer costs and preserve natural resources. For example, using these best management practices Prasad was able to harvest an additional 1.1 tons of wheat from the 10 acres of land owned by him and his brother, and most farmers in his village now follow his crop management advice.
He is quick to adopt new ideas and has become something of an influencer in the area, earning him friends among the farming community and helping the CSISA team reach more farmers with new innovations.
This year the opportunity for hiring out mechanization services has been immense, largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created difficulties for farmers engaged in rice transplanting. As a result, Prasad managed to sow 90 acres of DSR on his own farm and in the nearby village, as well as seeding 105 acres of wheat in the fall 2020 season. âThanks to mechanization we were far less affected by the COVID-19 disruptions and managed to plant rice and then wheat without much delay,â he explains. Prasad also provided tractor-mounted sprayer services for applying herbicides and insecticide on 90 acres of rice crop. Considering these successes, he has now planned to offer year-round extension services.
âI feel overwhelmed after serving my own community as a service provider,â says Prasad. âI feel proud of myself when other farmers come asking for my assistance.â Endorsing his contribution as an innovative farmer, the Department of Agriculture for the Government of Uttar Pradesh recognized him with awards in 2015 and 2019. He attributes his success to his exposure to CSISA interventions and support and believes that CSISA acted as a facilitator, encouraging him to use his ideas for his own benefit and for the benefit of the larger agrarian community around him.
Gokul Paudel is an agricultural economist working to streamline farming practices in South Asia. He seeks to understand, learn from and improve the efficiency of on-farm management practices in a vast variety of ways. Although he joined the International Improvement Center for Wheat and Maize (CIMMYT) right after university, Paudelâs on-farm education started long before his formal courses.
âI was born in a rural village in Baglung district, in the mid-hills of Nepal. My parents worked on a small farm, holding less than half a hectare of land,â he says. âWhen I was a kid, I remember hearing that even though Nepal is an agricultural country, we still have a lot of food insecurity, malnutrition and children who suffer from stunting.â
âI would ask: How is Nepal an agricultural country, yet we suffer from food insecurity and food-related problems? This question is what inspired me to go to an agricultural university.â
Paudel attended Tribhuvan University in Nepal, and through his coursework, he learned about plant breeding, genetic improvement and how Norman Borlaug brought the first Green Revolution to South Asia. âAfter completing my undergraduate and post-graduate studies, I realized that CIMMYT is the one organization that contributes the most to improving food security and crop productivity in developing countries, where farmers livelihoods are always dependent on agriculture,â he explains.
Approaching the paradox
Paudel is right about the agriculture and food paradox of his home country. Almost two thirds of Nepalâs population is engaged in agricultural production, yet the country still has shockingly high numbers in terms of food insecurity and nutritional deficiency. Furthermore, widespread dissemination of unsustainable agronomic practices, like the use of heavy-tilling machinery, present similar consequences across South Asia.
If research and data support the claim that conservation agriculture substantially improves crop yields, then why is the adoption of these practices so low? That is exactly what Paudel seeks to understand. âI want to help improve the food security of the country,â he explains. âThatâs why I joined the agricultural sector.â
Paudel joined CIMMYT in 2011 to work with the Socioeconomics Program (SEP) and the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), providing regional support across Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
His work is diverse. Paudel goes beyond finding out which technological innovations increase on-farm yield and profit, because success on research plots does not always translate to success on smallholder fields. He works closely with farmers and policy makers, using surveys and high-tech analytical tools such as machine learning and data mining to learn about what actually happens on farmersâ plots to impact productivity.
A growing future for conservation agriculture
Over the last two decades, the development of environmentally sustainable and financially appealing farming technologies through conservation agriculture has become a key topic of agronomic research in South Asia.
âConservation agriculture is based on three principles: minimum disturbance of the soil structure, cover crop and crop rotation, especially with legumes,â Paudel explains.
Leaving the soil undisturbed through zero-till farming increases water infiltration, holds soil moisture and helps to prevent topsoil erosion. Namely, zero-till farming has been identified as one of the most transformative innovations in conservation agriculture, showing the potential to improve farming communitiesâ ability to mitigate the challenges of climate change while also improving crop yields.
Still, the diffusion rate of zero-tillage has remained low. Right now, Paudelâs team is looking at a range of factors â such as farmersâ willingness to pay, actual demand for new technologies, intensification under input constraints, gender-disaggregated preferences and the scale-appropriateness of mechanization â to better understand the low adoption rates and to find a way to close the gap.
Can farm mechanization ease South Asiaâs labor shortage?
In South Asia, understanding local contexts is crucial to streamlining farm mechanization. In recent years, many men have left their agricultural jobs in search of better opportunities in the Gulf countries and this recent phenomenon of labor out-migration has left women to take up more farming tasks.
âWomen are responsible for taking care of the farm, household and raising their children,â says Paudel. âSince rural out-migration has increased, they have been burdened by the added responsibility of farm work and labor scarcity. This means that on-farm labor wages are rising, exacerbating the cost of production.â
The introduction of farm machinery, such as reapers and mini-tillers, can ease the physical and financial burden of the labor shortage. âGender-responsive farm mechanization would not only save [womenâs] time and efforts, but also empower them through skills enhancement and farm management,â says Paudel. However, he explains, measures must be taken to ensure that women actually feel comfortable adopting these technologies, which have traditionally been held in the male domain.
From farm-tech to high-tech
Right now, amidst the global lockdown due to COVID-19, Paudelâs field activities are highly restricted. However, he is capitalizing on an opportunity to assess years’ worth of data on on-farm crop production practices, collected from across Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
âWe are analyzing this data-set using novel approaches, like machine learning, to understand what drives productivity in farmers’ fields and what to prioritize, for our efforts and for the farmers,â he explains.
Although there are many different aspects of his work, from data collection and synthesis to analysis, Paudelâs favorite part of the job is when his team finds the right, long-lasting solution to farmersâ production-related problems.
âThereâs a multidimensional aspect to it, but all of these solutions affect the farmerâs livelihood directly. Productivity is directly related to their food security, income and rural livelihoods.â
A changing landscape
About 160 km away from where he lives now, Paudelâs parents still own the farm he grew up on â though they no longer work on it themselves. They are proud to hear that his work has a direct impact on communities like theirs throughout the country.
âEvery day, new problems are appearing due to climate change â problems of drought, flooding and disease outbreak. Though itâs not good news, it motivates me to continue the work that Iâm doing,â says Paudel. âThe most fascinating thing about working at CIMMYT is that we have a team of multidisciplinary scientists working together with the common goal of sustainably intensifying the agricultural systems in the developing world.â
New research by an international team of scientists, including scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), shows that adopting a portfolio of conservation agriculture and crop diversification practices is more profitable and better for the environment than conventional agriculture.
Reported last month in Nature Scientific Reports, the results of the study should encourage farmers and policymakers in South Asia to adopt more sustainable crop management solutions such as diversifying crop rotations, direct-seeding rice, zero tillage and crop residue retention.
Rice-wheat has for a long time been the dominant cropping system in the western Indo-Gangetic plains in India. However, issues such as water depletion, soil degradation and environmental quality as well as profitability have plagued farmers, scientists and decision makers for decades. To tackle these issues, researchers and policymakers have been exploring alternative solutions such as diversifying rice with alternative crops like maize.
âClimate change and natural resource degradation are serious threats to smallholder farmers in South Asia that require evidence-based sustainable solutions. ICAR have been working closely with CIMMYT and partners to tackle these threats,â said SK Chaudhari, deputy director general of the Natural Resource Management at ICAR.
In the study, CIMMYT scientists partnered with the ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Swami Keshwan Rajasthan Agriculture University and Cornell University to evaluate seven cropping system management scenarios.
The researchers measured a business-as-usual approach, and six alternative conservation agriculture and crop diversification approaches, across a variety of indicators including profitability, water use and global warming potential.
They found that conservation agriculture-based approaches outperformed conventional farming approaches on a variety of indicators. For example, conservation agriculture-based rice management was found to increase profitability by 12%, while decreasing water use by 19% and global warming potential by 28%. Substituting rice with conservation agriculture-based maize led to improvements in profitability of 16% and dramatic reductions in water use and global warming potential of 84% and 95%. Adding the fast-growing legume mung bean to maize-wheat rotations also increased productivity by 11%, profitability by 25%, and significantly decreased water use by 64% and global warming potential by 106%.
However, CIMMYT Principal Scientist and study co-author M.L. Jat cautioned against the allure of chasing one silver bullet, advising policymakers in South Asia to take a holistic, systems perspective to crop management.
âWe know that there are issues relating to water and sustainability, but at the same time we also know that diversifying rice â which is a more stable crop â with other crops is not easy as long as you look at it in isolation,â he explained. âDiversifying crops requires a portfolio of practices, which brings together sustainability, viability and profits.â
With South Asia known as a global âhotspotâ for climate vulnerability, and the regionâs population expected to rise to 2.4 billion by 2050, food producers are under pressure to produce more while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the environment and other natural resources.
âTackling these challenges requires strong collaborative efforts from researchers, policymakers, development partners and farmers,â said Andrew McDonald, a systems agronomist at Cornell University and co-author of the study. âThis study shows this collaboration in action and brings us closer to achieving resilient, nutritious and sustainable food systems.â
âThe results of this study show that one-size doesnât fit all when it comes to sustainable crop management,â said PC Sharma, director of Indiaâs ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (ICAR-CSSRI). âFarmers, researchers and policymakers can adopt alternative crop rotations such as maize-wheat or maize-wheat-mung bean, but they can also improve existing rice-wheat rotations using conservation agriculture methods.â
Compared to conventional tillage practices, sowing wheat directly into just-harvested rice fields without burning or removing straw or other residues will not only reduce pollution in New Delhi and other parts of northern India, but will save over $130 per hectare in farmer expenses, lessen irrigation needs by as much as 25%, and allow early planting of wheat to avoid yield-reducing heat stress, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.
The practice requires use of a tractor-mounted implement that opens grooves in the soil, drops in wheat seed and fertilizer, and covers the seeded row, all in one pass. This contrasts with the typical method for planting wheat after rice, which involves first burning rice residues, followed by multiple tractor passes to plow, harrow, plank, and sow, according to Harminder S. Sidhu, principal research engineer at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and a co-author of the study.
âThere are already some 11,000 of these specialized no-till implements, known as the Happy Seeder, in operation across northern India,â said Sidhu, who with other researchers helped develop, test and refine the implement over 15 years. âIn addition to sowing, the Happy Seeder shreds and clears rice residues from the seeder path and deposits them back onto the seeded row as a protective mulch.â
Covering some 13.5 million hectares, the Indo-Gangetic Plain stretches across Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan and constitutes South Asiaâs breadbasket. In India, the northwestern state of Punjab alone produces nearly a third of the countryâs rice and wheat.
Some 2.5 million farmers in northern India practice rice-wheat cropping and most burn their rice straw â an estimated 23 million tons of it â after rice harvest, to clear fields for sowing wheat. Straw removal and burning degrades soil fertility and creates a noxious cloud that affects the livelihoods and health of millions in cities and villages downwind. Air pollution is the second leading contributor to disease in India, and studies attribute some 66,000 deaths yearly to breathing in airborne nano-particles produced by agricultural burning.
The central and state governments in northwestern India, as well as universities and think-tanks, have put forth strategies to curtail burning that include conservation tillage technologies such as use of the Happy Seeder. Subsidies for no-burn farming, as well as state directives and fines for straw burning, are in place and extension agencies are promoting no-burn alternatives.
As an aid for policy makers and development practitioners, the present study applied econometrics to compare conventional and zero-tillage in terms of yield, input levels and implications for rice residue burning. The study also compared use of the Happy Seeder versus a simple zero-tillage drill with no straw shredder. Participants included more than 1,000 farm households in 52 villages, encompassing 561 users of conventional tillage, 226 users of simple zero-tillage seeding implements, and 234 Happy Seeder users.
They found that only the Happy Seeder was able to sow wheat directly into large amounts of rice residues, with significant savings for farmers and equal or slightly better wheat yields, over conventional tillage. The Happy Seeder also saves time and water.
âGiven the benefits of sowing wheat using the Happy Seeder against the tremendous health and environmental costs of residue burning, the reduction or elimination of straw burning should be pushed forward immediately,â said P.P. Krishnapriya, research scientist at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, and a co-author of the article. âInvestments in social marketing and policies that foster the use of the Happy Seeders, including significant subsidies to purchase these machines, must be accompanied by stricter enforcement of the existing ban on residue burning.â
The study also found that the information sources most widely-available to farmers are currently geared towards conventional agricultural practices, but farmers who use the internet for agricultural information are more likely to be aware of the Happy Seeder.
âAwareness raising campaigns should use both conventional and novel channels,â said Priya Shyamsundar, lead economist at the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and co-author of the article. âAs with any innovation that differs signiïŹcantly from current practices, social and behavioral levers such as frontline demonstrations, good champions, and peer-to-peer networking and training are critical.â
In addition, rather than having most individual farmers own a Happy Seeder â a highly-specialized implement whose cost of $1,900 may be prohibitive for many â researchers are instead promoting the idea of farmers hiring direct-sowing services from larger farmers or other people able to purchase a Happy Seeder and make a business of operating it, explained Alwin Keil, a senior agricultural economist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the new study.
âWe are extremely grateful to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Nature Conservancy, and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (WHEAT), who supported our research,â said Keil.
Since the earliest days of global wheat breeding at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), breeders have made their crossing selections to meet farmersâ requirements in specific environments throughout the worldâs wheat-growing regions.
To streamline and make this trait selection process consistent, in the 1970s CIMMYT breeders developed 15 mega-environments â sets of farming, climatic, weather, and geographic conditions to use as profiles for testing their varieties.
They took this a step further in the 1980s by developing sets of profiles for their varieties with common characteristics in current â and projected â climatic, soil and hydrological characteristics as well as socioeconomic features such as end-use quality and agronomic practices.
In newly presented research, CIMMYT wheat scientist Leo Crespo has taken another look at these mega-environments in the form of target population of environments (TPE) â specifically the ones that fall in the bread basket wheat production area of India â to create more nuanced definitions based on updated underlying conditions and desired traits.
Using meteorological and soil data, along with information about farmersâ practices in each region and more advanced analytical methods, Crespo defined three new specific TPEs for the region:
These TPEs encompass more than 28 million hectares, equivalent to more than 97% of Indiaâs total wheat production area.
âWhile the mega-environments can be broad and transcontinental, we defined the TPE at a more regional level,â said Crespo. âIn fact, two of our new TPEs â the NWPZ (TPE1) and part of the NEPZ (TPE2) â have distinct climate and soil characteristics, but they both fall under the same mega-environment: ME1.â
Comparing international environments
Crespo later cross-checked these TPEs with the testing environments that CIMMYT wheat breeders use in the research station in Obregon, in Mexicoâs Sonora Valley.
Obregon has long been valued by wheat breeders worldwide for its unique capacity to simulate many wheat growing conditions. Wheat grown in the various testing environments replicate in Obregon â known as selection environments (SEs) â goes through an arduous testing process including testing in other agroeconomic zones and undergoing pest and disease infestations to demonstrate its resilience.
This process, though intensive, is much cheaper and more efficient than testing each potential new wheat line in every major wheat growing area. That is why it is so important to verify that the decisions made in Obregon are the right ones for farmers in the diverse growing areas of the world.
Crespo used data from one of CIMMYTâs global wheat trials, the Elite Spring Wheat Yield Trials (ESWYT), to estimate the genetic correlation between the TPEs and in Obregon, selection response indicators and performance prediction. He found that wheat lines that perform well in the Obregon selection environments are very likely to display high performance in the TPEs he defined in India.
âOur results provide evidence that the selection environments in CIMMYTâs Obregon research station correlate with international sites, and this has led to high genetic gains in targeted regions,â explained Crespo.
âWe can achieve even greater gains by targeting selections for farmers in the TPEs and improving the testing in those TPEs, along with the high-quality evaluations from the selection environment.â
These findings confirming the relationship between the selection environments and farmersâ fields in one of the worldâs largest wheat growing regions allow CIMMYT to realize its mission to deliver superior wheat germplasm to national partners for their breeding programs, or for direct release as varieties for farmers throughout the world.
Watch Leo Crespoâs full presentation at the BGRI Technical Workshop.