During the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) held in Glasgow, Special Assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said that a transboundary dialogue on mitigating air pollution was imperative to resolve Lahore’s smog, which is mostly generated by Indian farmers burning crop residues.
A paper titled “Fields on fire: Alternatives to crop residue burning in India” and published in the prestigious journal Science found that working with the Happy Seeder—a machine that cuts and lifts the paddy straw while simultaneously sowing the wheat crop and spreading the cut straw as mulch over fields—is not just the least polluting, but also the most scalable solution that can be adopted by farmers en masse.
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.
“There are already some 11,000 of these specialized no-till implements, known as the Happy Seeder, in operation across northern India,” said Sidhu, who with other researchers helped develop, test and refine the implement over 15 years. “In 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.”
Covering some 13.5 million hectares, the Indo-Gangetic Plain stretches across Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan and constitutes South Asia’s breadbasket. In India, the northwestern state of Punjab alone produces nearly a third of the country’s rice and wheat.
Some 2.5 million farmers in northern India practice rice-wheat cropping and most burn their rice straw — an estimated 23 million tons of it — 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.
“Given 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,” said P.P. Krishnapriya, research scientist at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, and a co-author of the article. “Investments 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.”
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.
“Awareness raising campaigns should use both conventional and novel channels,” said Priya Shyamsundar, lead economist at the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and co-author of the article. “As with any innovation that differs significantly from current practices, social and behavioral levers such as frontline demonstrations, good champions, and peer-to-peer networking and training are critical.”
In addition, rather than having most individual farmers own a Happy Seeder — a highly-specialized implement whose cost of $1,900 may be prohibitive for many — 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.
“We 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,” said Keil.
There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. So goes the old saw. In the social sciences, these “weeks” are often referred to as critical junctures. They are moments when the old rules of the game — the long-established ways of doings things — go out the window and new patterns begin to emerge. The breadbasket states of northwestern India seem to be having one of those weeks.
After years of research and advocacy that appeared to be making little headway, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are seeing a sudden and dramatic increase in the adoption of some of the technologies and techniques they have long argued are necessary in this region, including direct-seeding of rice, crop diversification and the adoption of Happy Seeder technology.
A case of unintended consequences
In March 2020 the Indian government decreed a national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This triggered the largest internal migration since partition, as millions of migrant workers and day laborers scrambled to return to their home villages. Estimates suggest that up to 1 million workers left the northwestern states of Haryana and Punjab alone.
Agriculture in the region is dominated by the labor- and input-intensive production of rice and wheat in rotation. This system is the most productive per hectare in India, but it is also extremely sensitive to external shocks. The success of both the rice and wheat crop depend on the timely transplantation of rice in mid-June.
As the results of a recently published study demonstrate, delays in this schedule can have devastating downstream effects not only on rice and wheat yields, but on regional air quality too. Models of the worst-case delay scenario predicted a total economic loss of nearly $1.5 billion. Moreover, they predicted that, if no action were taken, up to 80% of rice residue would be burned later in the autumn, when cooler conditions contribute to seasonally poor air quality.
Such an exacerbation of the region’s air pollution would be dire under normal conditions. During a global pandemic of a primarily respiratory illness, it could be devastating.
Fortunately, solutions and technologies that CIMMYT researchers had been studying for decades, along with ICAR, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and other national partners, promised to help ward off the worst effects of the crisis. The adoption of direct-seeding technology could help reduce the labor-intensiveness of rice production, crop diversification could minimize the economic impacts of the crisis, and the use of Happy Seeder technology could alleviate the practice of residue burning.
Decades of work pay off
The study, co-authored by researchers at CIMMYT, ICAR and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), relied on a sophisticated ex ante model of four different rice-transplanting delay scenarios. It is published in the November 2020 issue of Agricultural Systems.
However, given the time-sensitivity and high-stakes of the issue, the lead researchers did not wait for the articles publication to press their case. Earlier this year they circulated their initial findings and recommendations to policymakers via their national partners. Notably, after receiving a one-pager summarizing these, the Chief Minister of Punjab released a video address echoing their points.
“Policymakers realized the need for these kinds of solutions,” says Balwinder Singh, a CIMMYT scientist and lead author of the paper. They then moved quickly to incentivize their adoption through various mechanisms, such as subsidizing direct-seeding drills and ensuring the timely availability of machines and other inputs.
This year, 500,000 hectares were converted to direct seeding, explains M.L. Jat, a principal scientist at CIMMYT. This represents 34% more area converted in 2020 alone than in the previous 10 years. Additionally, 330,000 hectares were converted to other crops, principally cotton, maize and legumes.
Singh and Jat have been carrying out a multi-year survey to assess farmer willingness to adopt Happy Seeder technology and have documented a drastic increase in farmer interest in the technology during 2020. For Jat, this highlights the power of partnerships. “If you don’t include your partners from the beginning, they will not own what you say,” he argues.
Such changes are to be celebrated not only as an important response to the current labor shortage, but also as key to ensuring the long-term sustainability of agricultural production in the region, having important implications for the stewardship of water resources, air pollution and soil health.
“Policies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long-term productivity and sustainability of the nation,” says S. K. Chaudhari, deputy director general for Natural Resource Management at ICAR.
Warding off catastrophe
Although the agricultural cycle is not yet over, and early data are still partial, Singh and Jat estimate that thanks to the dramatic adoption of alternative agricultural practices this year, their worst-case estimates have been avoided. Given the rapid response from both policymakers and farmers, the real-world effects of the COVID-19 labor crisis are likely closer to the mid-range severity scenarios of their analysis. Indeed, early estimates predict no rice yield losses and minor-to-no wheat yield losses over baseline. For the researchers, the relief is palpable and the lessons couldn’t be clearer.
“These technologies were there for decades, but they were never appreciated because everything was normal,” says Jat. “This clearly indicates a need for investment in the technology and the research. You may encounter a problem at any time, but you cannot generate the technology overnight.”
A research paper published in the world’s leading scientific journal, Science Magazine, indicates that using the Happy Seeder agriculture technology to manage rice residue has the potential of generating 6,000-11,500 Indian rupees (about US$85-160) more profits per hectare for the average farmer. The Happy Seeder is a tractor-mounted machine that cuts and lifts rice straw, sows wheat into the soil, and deposits the straw over the sown area as mulch.
The paper “Fields on fire: Alternatives to crop residue burning in India” evaluates the public and private costs and benefits of ten alternate farming practices to manage rice residue, including burn and non-burn options. Happy Seeder-based systems emerge as the most profitable and scalable residue management practice as they are, on average, 10%–20% more profitable than burning. This option also has the largest potential to reduce the environmental footprint of on-farm activities, as it would eliminate air pollution and would reduce greenhouse gas emissions per hectare by more than 78%, relative to all burning options.
This research aims to make the business case for why farmers should adopt no-burn alternative farming practices, discusses barriers to their uptake and solutions to increase their widespread adoption. This work was jointly undertaken by 29 Indian and international researchers from The Nature Conservancy, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), the University of Minnesota, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and other organizations.
Every year, some 23 million tonnes of rice residue is burnt in the states of Haryana, Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh, contributing significantly to air pollution and short-lived climate pollutants. In Delhi NCR, about half the air pollution on some winter days can be attributed to agricultural fires, when air quality level is 20 times higher than the safe threshold defined by WHO. Residue burning has enormous impacts on human health, soil health, the economy and climate change.
“Despite its drawbacks, a key reason why burning continues in northwest India is the perception that profitable alternatives do not exist. Our analysis demonstrates that the Happy Seeder is a profitable solution that could be scaled up for adoption among the 2.5 million farmers involved in the rice-wheat cropping cycle in northwest India, thereby completely eliminating the need to burn. It can also lower agriculture’s contribution to India’s greenhouse gas emissions, while adding to the goal of doubling farmers income,” says Priya Shyamsundar, Lead Economist at The Nature Conservancy and one of the lead authors of the paper.
“Better practices can help farmers adapt to warmer winters and extreme, erratic weather events such as droughts and floods, which are having a terrible impact on agriculture and livelihoods. In addition, India’s efforts to transition to more sustainable, less polluting farming practices can provide lessons for other countries facing similar risks and challenges,” explains M.L. Jat, CIMMYT cropping systems specialist and a co-author of the study.
“Within one year of our dedicated action using about US$75 million under the Central Sector Scheme on ‘Promotion of agriculture mechanization for in-situ management of crop residue in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi,’ we could reach 0.8 million hectares of adoption of Happy Seeder/zero tillage technology in the northwestern states of India,” said Trilochan Mohapatra, director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). “Considering the findings of the Science article as well as reports from thousands of participatory validation trials, our efforts have resulted in an additional direct farmer benefit of US$131 million, compared to a burning option,” explained Mohapatra, who is also secretary of India’s Department of Agricultural Research and Education.
The Government of India subsidy in 2018 for onsite rice residue management has partly addressed a major financial barrier for farmers, which has resulted in an increase in Happy Seeder use. However, other barriers still exist, such as lack of knowledge of profitable no-burn solutions and impacts of burning, uncertainty about new technologies and burning ban implementation, and constraints in the supply-chain and rental markets. The paper states that NGOs, research organizations and universities can support the government in addressing these barriers through farmer communication campaigns, social nudging through trusted networks and demonstration and training. The private sector also has a critical role to play in increasing manufacturing and machinery rentals.
This research was supported by the Susan and Craig McCaw Foundation, the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The Happy Seeder was originally developed through a project from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:
Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT
r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1167
Sonali Nandrajog, Communications Consultant, The Nature Conservancy – India
sonalinandrajog@gmail.com, +98 9871948044
Spokespersons:
M.L. Jat, Cropping Systems Agronomist, CIMMYT, India
M.Jat@cgiar.org
Priya Shyamsundar, Lead Economist, The Nature Conservancy
priya.shyamsundar@tnc.org
Seema Paul, Managing Director, The Nature Conservancy – India
seema.paul@tnc.org
About CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
About The Nature Conservancy – India
We are a science-led global conservation organisation that works to protect ecologically important lands and water for nature and people. We have been working in India since 2015 to support India’s efforts to “develop without destruction”. We work closely with the Indian government, research institutions, NGOs, private sector organisations and local communities to develop science-based, on-the-ground, scalable solutions for some of the country’s most pressing environmental challenges. Our projects are aligned with India’s national priorities of conserving rivers and wetlands, address air pollution from crop residue burning, sustainable advancing renewable energy and reforestation goals, and building health, sustainable and smart cities.
A new economic study in the journal Science shows that thousands of farmers in northern India could increase their profits if they stop burning their rice straw and adopt no-till practices to grow wheat. Alternative farming practices could also cut farmers’ greenhouse gas emissions from on-farm activities by as much as 78% and help lower air pollution in cities like New Delhi.
The new study compares the costs and benefits of 10 distinct land preparation and sowing practices for northern India’s rice-wheat cropping rotations, which are spread across more than 4 million hectares. The direct seeding of wheat into unplowed soil and shredded rice residues was the best option — it raises farmers’ profits through higher yields and savings in labor, fuel, and machinery costs.
The study, conducted by a global team of eminent agriculture and environmental scientists, was led by researchers from The Nature Conservancy, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and the University of Minnesota.
A burning issue
To quickly and cheaply clear their fields to sow wheat each year, farmers in northern India burn an estimated 23 million tons of straw from their rice harvests. That enormous mass of straw, if packed into 20-kilogram 38-centimeter-high bales and piled on top of each other, would reach a height of over 430,000 kilometers — about 1.1 times the distance to the moon.
Regulations are in place in India to reduce agricultural fires but burning continues because of implementation challenges and lack of clarity about the profitability of alternate, no-burn farming.
Farmers have alternatives, the study shows. To sow wheat directly without plowing or burning rice straw, farmers need to purchase or rent a tractor-mounted implement known as the “Happy Seeder,” as well as attach straw shedders to their rice harvesters. Leaving straw on the soil as a mulch helps capture and retain moisture and also improves soil quality, according to M.L. Jat, CIMMYT Principal Scientist, cropping systems specialist and a co-author of the study.
Win-win
The Science study demonstrates that it is possible to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is profitable to farmers and scalable.
The paper shows that Happy Seeder-based systems are on average 10%–20% more profitable than straw burning options.
“Our study dovetails with 2018 policies put in place by the government of India to stop farmers from burning, which includes a US$166 million subsidy to promote mechanization to manage crop residues within fields,” said Priya Shyamsundar, Lead Economist, Global Science, of The Nature Conservancy and first author of the study.
Shyamsundar noted that relatively few Indian farmers currently sow their wheat using the Happy Seeder but manufacturing of the Seeder had increased in recent years. “Less than a quarter of the total subsidy would pay for widespread adoption of the Happy Seeder, if aided by government and NGO support to build farmer awareness and impede burning.”
“With a rising population of 1.6 billion people, South Asia hosts 40% of the world’s poor and malnourished on just 2.4% of its land,” said Jat, who recently received India’s prestigious Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award for outstanding and impact-oriented research contributions in natural resource management and agricultural engineering. “Better practices can help farmers adapt to warmer winters and extreme, erratic weather events such as droughts and floods, which are having a terrible impact on agriculture and livelihoods. In addition, India’s efforts to transition to more sustainable, less polluting farming practices can provide lessons for other countries facing similar risks and challenges.”
In November 2017, more than 4,000 schools closed in Delhi due to seasonal smog. This smog increases during October and November when fields are burned. It causes major transportation disruptions and poses health risks across northern India, including Delhi, a city of more than 18 million people.
Some of these problems can be resolved by the use of direct sowing technologies in northwestern India.
“Within one year of our dedicated action using about US$75 million under the Central Sector Scheme on ‘Promotion of agriculture mechanization for in-situ management of crop residue in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi,’ we could reach 0.8 million hectares of adoption of Happy Seeder/zero tillage technology in the northwestern states of India,” said Trilochan Mohapatra, director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). “Considering the findings of the Science article as well as reports from thousands of participatory validation trials, our efforts have resulted in an additional direct farmer benefit of US$131 million, compared to a burning option,” explained Mohapatra, who is also secretary of India’s Department of Agricultural Research and Education.
Read the full study in Science
This research was supported by the Susan and Craig McCaw Foundation, the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The Happy Seeder was originally developed through a project from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:
Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT
r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 1167
Pollution has become a part of our daily life: particulate matter in the air we breathe, organic pollutants and heavy metals in our food supply and drinking water. All of these pollutants affect the quality of human life and create enormous human costs.
India is home to 15 of the world’s cities with the highest air pollution, making it a matter of national concern. The country is the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter, where agriculture is responsible for 18% of total national emissions.
For decades, CIMMYT has engaged in the development and promotion of technologies to reduce our environmental footprint and conserve natural resources to help improve farmer’s productivity.
Efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers, better management of water, zero-tillage farming, and better residue management strategies offer viable solutions to beat air pollution originating from the agriculture sector. Mitigation measures have been developed, field tested, and widely adopted by farmers across Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
“Multi-lateral impacts of air pollution link directly it to various sustainability issues,” explained Balwinder Singh, Cropping Systems Simulation Modeler at CIMMYT. “The major sustainability issues regarding air quality revolve around the common question: How good is good enough to be sustainable? We need to decide how to balance the sustainable agriculture productivity and hazardous pollution levels. We need to have policies on the regulation of crop burning and in addition to policies surrounding methods to help reach appropriate air quality levels.”
The Borlaug Institute for South Asia-Punjab Agricultural University (BISA-PAU) joint team recently received an award from the Indian Society for Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) in recognition of their work on rice residue management using the Super Straw Management System, also known as Super SMS.
Developed and recommended by researchers at BISA and PAU in 2016, the Super SMS is an attachment for self-propelled combine harvesters which offers an innovative solution to paddy residue management in rice-wheat systems.
The Punjab government has made the use of the Super SMS mandatory for all combine harvesters in northwestern India.
The Super SMS gives farmers the ability to recycle residues on-site, reducing the need for residue burning and thereby reducing environmental pollution and improving soil health. Instead, the Super SMS helps to uniformly spread rice residue, which is essential for the efficient use of Happy Seeder technology and maintaining soil moisture in the field.
Harminder Singh Sidhu, a senior research engineer with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) working at BISA, stressed the need for more sustainable methods of dealing with residue. “Happy Seeder was found to be a very effective tool for direct sowing of wheat after paddy harvesting, using combine harvesters fitted with Super Straw Management System.”
BISA-PAU researchers received the ISAE Team Award 2018 at the 53rd Annual Convention of ISAE, held from January 28 to January 30, 2019, at Baranas Hindu University in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh state.
The director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Trilochan Mohapatra, presented the award, acknowledging it as “a real team award which is making a difference on the ground.”
The recipients acknowledged the role of local industry partner New Gurdeep Agro Industries for its contributions to promoting the adoption of this machinery. Within eight months of commercialization in the Indian state of Punjab, over 100 manufacturers had begun producing the Super SMS attachment. Currently, more than 5,000 combine harvesters are equipped with it.
Australian High Commissioner to India, Harinder Sidhu, visited the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in Ladhowal, Ludhiana, India on February 19.
Arun Joshi, Managing Director for BISA & CIMMYT in India, welcomed her with an introduction about the creation, mission and activities of BISA and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Sidhu also learned about the work CIMMYT and BISA do in conservation agriculture in collaboration with Punjab Agricultural University, machinery manufacturers and farmers. This work focuses on using and scaling the Happy Seeder, which enables direct seeding of wheat into heavy loads of rice residue without burning. This technology has been called “an agricultural solution to air pollution in South Asia,” as the burning of crop residue is a huge contributor to poor air quality in South Asia. Sidhu learned about recent improvements to the technology, such as the addition of a straw management system to add extra functionality, which has led to the large-scale adoption of the Happy Seeder.
The high commissioner showed keen interest in the Happy Seeder machine, and was highly impressed by the test-wheat-crop planted on 400 acres with the Happy Seeder.
Salwinder Atwal showed Sidhu the experiments using Happy Seeder for commercial seed production, and ML Jat, Principal Researcher at CIMMYT, presented on the innovative research BISA and CIMMYT are doing on precision water, nutrient and genotype management.
Sidhu visited fields with trials of climate resilient wheat as Joshi explained the importance and role of germplasm banks and new approaches such as use of genomic selection in wheat breeding in the modern agriculture to address the current challenges of climate change. He also explained the work CIMMYT does on hybrid wheat for increasing yield potential and breeding higher resistance against wheat rusts and other diseases.
ML Jat, who leads the CIMMYT-CCAFS climate smart agriculture project, explained the concept of climate smart villages and led Sidhu on a visit to the climate smart village of Noorpur Bet, which has been adopted under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
During Sidhu’s visit to Noorpur Bet, a stakeholder consultation was organized on scaling happy seeder technology for promoting no-burning farming. In the stakeholder consultation, stakeholders shared experiences with happy seeder as well as other conservation agriculture amd climate smart agriculture technologies. BS Sidhu, Commissioner of Agriculture for the Government of Punjab chaired the stakeholder consultation and shared his experiences as well as Government of Punjab’s plans and policies for the farmers to promote happy seeder and other climate smart technologies.
“I am very impressed to see all these developments and enthusiasm of the farmers and other stakeholders for scaling conservation agriculture practices for sustaining the food bowl,” said Sidhu. She noted that Punjab and Australia have many things in common and could learn from each other’s experiences. Later she also visited the Punjab Agricultural University and had a meeting with the Vice Chancellor.
This visit and interaction was attended by more than 200 key stakeholders including officers from Govt. of Punjab, ICAR, PAU-KVKs, PACS, BISA- CIMMYT-CCAFS, manufacturers, farmers and custom operators of Happy Seeder.
The Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) is a non-profit international research institute dedicated to food, nutrition and livelihood security as well as environmental rehabilitation in South Asia, which is home to more than 300 million undernourished people. BISA is a collaborative effort involving the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).
The Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP), led by CIMMYT and funded by USAID, presented the latest advances in agricultural technology and provided a platform for local industry to explore innovative technologies, products and services at the Pakistan Agriculture Conference and Expo 2015 in Islamabad.
The main attractions were the Zero-Tillage Happy Seeder, durum wheat, biofortified maize, goats bred through artificial insemination, alternate wetting and drying in rice, rice storage in hermetic bags and protected vegetable cultivation models. The AIP exhibit attracted many visitors including farmers, policymakers, agriculture experts and scientists from both public- and private-sector organizations, opening new avenues for AIP to connect with target groups and explore agricultural opportunities in Pakistan.
