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Tag: conservation agriculture

K.M. Zasim Uddin

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

K.M. Zasim Uddin is an agricultural development officer with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in Bangladesh. He has a masters in agronomy from Rajshahi University

He is part of projects including the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), Fall Armyworm R4D and Management (FAW), Big data analytics for climate-smart agricultural practices in South Asia (Big Data² CSA), and Climate Services for Resilient Development in South Asia (CSRD). His main responsibilities are research and development on agricultural mechanization for the CSISA Mechanization and Extension Activity (CSISA-MEA). He has participated in versatile training, workshops and conference programs across Asia.

Uddin has worked in different national and international non-government organizations and companies for more than 13 years, including in research and development at Syngenta Bangladesh Limited and on the Borga Chasi Unnayan Program at BRAC. He also worked as an agriculture officer under the Char Livelihood Program, funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development.

Md. Abdul Mabud

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Md. Abdul Mabud is a plant pathologist (mycology) working as an agricultural development officer with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in Bangladesh. He carries out research and extension work within maize and wheat-based cropping systems with a focus on different innovative crop management practices and technologies, such as agricultural mechanization, better bet agronomy, and conservation agriculture techniques.

He started his professional life in livelihood development projects and directly worked for organizations supporting children, adolescent women, new mothers, and marginal farmers in rural communities in agricultural development to improve their livelihoods. Mabud also worked on the Food Security for Sustainable Household Livelihood (FoSHoL) project implemented by Action Aid, the Livelihoods Empowerment & Agroforestry (LEAF) project implemented by Intercooperation, the Social & Economic Empowerment of Ultra Poor (SEEUP) project implemented by NETZ & BMZ, and the Sustainable Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities (SHOUHARDO) project implemented by CARE.

Azahar Ali Miah

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Azahar Ali Miah is a senior monitoring, evaluation and learning officer with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) project in Bangladesh.

Before joining CIMMYT in 2009, he worked with different development organizations, including projects funded by the World Bank, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the United Kingdom Department for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He also has six years’ experience in the Bangladesh Army.

Miah has a strong ability to identify community strengths and weaknesses from field data collections. He is an excellent team builder and motivator with honed communication and analytical thinking skills. He has seven publications in national and international journals, and is an agricultural economist with an MBA.

Moksedul Alam Arafat

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Moksedul Alam Arafat is a hub coordinator for CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in Bangladesh.

He seeks to improve the adaption and scaling of agricultural mechanization through use of agricultural machineries and local manufacturing companies. He spans disciplines and brings technical knowledge ranging from system agronomy, mechanization and inter-cropping systems for maize.

Subash Adhikari

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Subash Adhikari is an agricultural machinery engineer in CIMMYT’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project in Nepal, which aims to strengthen cereal systems through using improved technology in seed variety, management and mechanization. The project is currently working on its Covid response, helping returned migrants and vulnerable and marginalized groups to access the financial and technical assistance necessary for their livelihood in agriculture production.

Adhikari started his career as a field research technician and conducted several research projects on the validation of agricultural machinery in Terai, Nepal. He later worked in the promotion and scaling of the machinery.

Adhikari is currently working to involve the private sector as a major partner in promoting technology and developing mechanics for repairing machinery with minimum help from the development project. He is interested in mapping machinery, photography and work management.

Hera Lal Nath

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Hera Lal Nath has been working as a field office coordinator with CIMMYT in Bangladesh since 2015 through participatory and adaptive research for the development of farm communities. He has been involved with several projects focusing on sustainable agrifood system development in partnership with different private and public organizations. He leads a regional team aiming to address mechanization issues with a focus on market base machine innovation, including low-tech solutions of agriculture applications and increasing access to machineries services.

Nath has experience with different international organizations and the UN, where he also led multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams in different geographical contexts to heighten farmer knowledge and improve livelihoods. As agroecosystems and food security is an enduring process, Nath always concentrates on today’s issues that may provide solutions to yesterday or tomorrow’s problems.

Masud Rana

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Masud Rana is a Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Officer working with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program based in Bangladesh. He is currently working for the Cereal Systems Initiatives for South Asia (CSISA) project.

Lokendra Khadka

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Lokendra Khadka is a Research associate in the Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) program in Nepal. He currently focuses on scaling inclusive and sustainable irrigation technologies in coordination with the public and private sector.

Lokendra’s research expertise expands from resource conservation technologies related to cereal based cropping systems to scale-appropriate farm mechanization and irrigation.

Sagar Kafle

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Sagar has been working at CIMMYT-Nepal since December 2015, contributing to various projects. His main focus has been on the CSISA initiative, which aims to research and scale up resource-saving technologies within Nepal’s cereal systems. Through his work, he has developed expertise in technology scaling within cereal systems, developing market systems, and strengthening governance in the agricultural research and extension services sector. This is in part due to his strong understanding of local contextual factors that influence the adoption of sustainable intensification technologies, including mechanization.

Since 2024, Sagar has turned his attention to generating innovations, tools and scaling pathways in the mixed farming systems of the mid-hills of Nepal as part of the CGIAR Mixed Farming Systems (MFS) Initiative.

Khandakar Shafiqul Islam

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Khandakar Shafiqul Islam is a hub coordinator with CIMMYT in Bangladesh. He is responsible for implementing different projects at field level involving government, non-government and private sector organizations, along with managing resources.

Washiq Faisal

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Washiq Faisal is a Research Associate with CIMMYT’s sustainable intensification program, based in Bangladesh. He joined CIMMYT in 2014 and has been involved in applied agricultural research to tackle food insecurity through improved nutrient-rich, high-yielding varieties and sustainable agronomic practices for nearly 15 years.

Faisal is involved in innovative and multi-disciplinary research focused on the principles of sustainable and ecological intensification in smallholder dominated and tropical agricultural systems in Bangladesh. His current research focuses on climate-driven epidemiology of two crop diseases, Stemphylium blight of lentil and wheat leaf rust.

In collaboration with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension, Faisal learnt how to use Agvisely, an agro-meteorological services tool providing location-specific advice to farmers.

The potential of conservation agriculture in increasing yield and tackling climate change

Written by Celine Lim on . Posted in Publications.

A multitude of research on the benefits of conservation agriculture in South Asia has predominantly focused on favorable environments where farmers have reliable access to energy supporting irrigation and inputs.

In this new publication, scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) explore the performance of conservation agriculture in under-developed coastal environments in southern coastal Bangladesh over a period of three consecutive years, including under rainfed conditions and/or with limited application of irrigation.

Farmers calibrate their machines for strip tillage in communities participating in experiments. (Credit: Ranik Martin)

Responding to the identified research gap, this research tests the hypothesis that seasonally alternating tillage (SAT) practices that alternate between strip-tillage in the winter season for maize and conventional tillage (CT) prior to rice can reduce energy use, increase energy productivity, and reduce yield-scaled emissions while increasing or maintaining yield and profit, even under these challenging conditions.

Working with 35 farmers who managed experiments in partially irrigated and rainfed environments in southern coastal Bangladesh, researchers teamed up with farming communities to compare the full suite of conservation agriculture to SAT practices against CT and farmer’s own practices.

The research found that in these coastal environments, both conservation agriculture and SAT practices have the potential to increase cereal yields and energy productivity while reducing yield-scaled emissions, thereby enabling farmers even in challenging coastal environments to produce more while reducing energy use and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

However, in consideration of farmers’ aversion to the elimination of tillage in rice, the research suggests that adaptations in CA practices and seasonal tillage prior to rice may be a more practical fit for rice-maize systems managed by smallholders reluctant to eliminate tillage for rice in coastal Bangladesh.

This research gives implications for future research and development efforts to take into consideration farmers’ preferences or the trade-offs resulting from significant change to conservation agriculture management in otherwise fully tilled systems. It is also vital to integrate development efforts that focus not only on agronomic management, but also on building supportive value chains to improve availability and affordability of the inputs and farm machinery required to successfully establish crops with such practices.

Read the full study: Adapted Conservation Agriculture Practices Can Increase Energy Productivity and Lower Yield-Scaled Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coastal Bangladesh

Cover photo: Long-term conservation agriculture in Rajshahi, Bangladesh. (Credit: CIMMYT/Sam Storr)

Conservation agriculture practices revive saline and sodic soils

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Publications.

In arid and semi-arid regions, soil salinity and sodicity pose challenges to global food security and environmental sustainability. Globally, around 932 million hectares are affected by salinization and alkalinization. Due to growing populations, anthropogenic activities and climate change, the prominence of salt stress in soil is rising both in irrigated and dryland systems.

Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) employed long-term conservation agriculture practices in different agri-food systems to determine the reclamation potential of sodic soil after continuous cultivation for nine years, with the experiment’s results now published.

Using different conservation agriculture techniques on areas cultivating combinations of maize, wheat, rice and mungbean, the study used soil samples to identify declines in salinity and sodicity after four and nine years of harvesting.

Evidence demonstrates that this approach is a viable route for reducing soil sodicity and improving soil carbon pools. The research also shows that the conservation agriculture-based rice-wheat-mungbean system had more reclamation potential than other studied systems, and therefore could improve soil organic carbon and increase productive crop cultivation.

Read the full publication: Long-term conservation agriculture helps in the reclamation of sodic soils in major agri-food systems

Cover photo: Comparison of crop performance under conservation agriculture and conventional tillage in a sodic soil at Karnal, Haryana, India. (Credit: HS Jat/ICAR-CSSRI)

Understanding the role of organic material application in soil microbial community structures

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Publications.

While previous studies have demonstrated the importance of organic material in soil for sustainable agricultural practices, there has been limited research into how organic material application affects the soil microbial community structures.

Researchers from El Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CINVESTAV) studied soil from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) long-term experiment in northwestern Mexico to determine the effect on the soil metagenome after adding easily decomposable organic residues. The soil was collected from plots where maize and wheat were cultivated without tillage on permanent beds with crop residue left on the soil surface since 1992.

Dried young maize plants were added to the soil in the laboratory. After three days of incubation, soil samples were analyzed using shotgun metagenomic sequencing to discover how the application of young maize plants affects the structure of microbial communities in arable soil, how the potential functioning of microbial communities is altered, and how the application affects the soil taxonomic and functional diversity.

Bacterial and viral groups were strongly affected by organic material application, whereas archaeal, protist and fungal groups were less affected. Soil viral structure and richness were impacted, as well as metabolic functionality. Further differences were recorded in cellulose degraders with copiotrophic lifestyle, which were enriched by the application of young maize plants, while groups with slow growing oligotrophic and chemolithoautotrophic metabolism performed better in unamended soil.

Given the importance of embedding and adopting sustainable agricultural practices as part of climate change adaptation and mitigation, the study improves our insight in a key aspect of sustainable agriculture, the management of crop residues.

Read the full study: Application of young maize plant residues alters the microbiome composition and its functioning in a soil under conservation agriculture: a metagenomics study

Cover photo: Wheat crops growing at CIMMYT’s long-term experiment site in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. (Credit: Nele Verhulst/CIMMYT)

Alanuzzaman Kurishi

Alanuzzaman Kurishi

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

A S M Alanuzzaman Kurishi is a Research Associate and coordinates the CIMMYT Dinajpur field office in Bangladesh. He has around 12 years of professional experience in CIMMYT on sustainable intensification and global conservation agriculture programs. He has experience on social and environmental impact assessment on existing and future adaptation and climate risk reduction options and strategy. He has experience to lead on-farm adaptive research trials and on-farm demonstrations across southern and northern Bangladesh, with hands-on experience in soil sample collection for physical, chemical and biological analysis, crop growth data (plant height, tiller, leaf area index, leaf biomass, stem biomass, root biomass measurement), pest and disease infestations assessments, yield components, and socioeconomic data. He has demonstrable experience using research equipment including salinity meters, soil moisture equipment, penetrometers and NDVI hand held senors.