Tag: rice

A women farmer picking up lodged paddy field after the untimely flash floods in Nepal (Photo: Sravan Shrestha/ICIMOD)

Managing seeds and agricultural losses in the wake of extreme climate events: Lessons from Nepal

Written by Sarah Fernandes on June 21, 2022. Posted in Blogs.

As climate change-induced disasters surge around the world, it is the people of the least developed countries paying the bulk of the costs. According to the International Disaster Database, the number of disasters across the globe has risen by 74.5% — comparing data from 1980–1999 with 2000–2019 — and these numbers are expected to increase due to the most recent climate change scenarios. The major climate change impacts identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change relevant for Nepal include an increase in economic losses from weather and climate-related events, with a significant contribution related to agricultural losses.

In Nepal, for example, an unexpected and untimely excessive rainfall and flood in October of 2021 caused massive damage to the ready-to-harvest crop across all major rice-producing areas of Nepal – threatening the food security and livelihood of the country’s smallholder rice farmers.

A rice damage assessment was essential to gather insights on the seed production losses and propose anticipatory measures for seed management and distribution to farmers for the next season. Thanks to a collaboration between scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a rapid loss assessment through a survey of rice-growing farmers was conducted to quickly assess the damage and recommend critical operational decisions to the Nepali government to mitigate the impact. With the help of an operational mobile app, Geofairy, the USAID-supported Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project (NSAF), implemented by CIMMYT, surveyed 253 farmers in six districts of the mid and far western region with a particular focus on the potential seed production losses for next year’s cultivation.

Unforeseen disaster

The 2021 disaster in Nepal came as a shock to farmers: the 2021 monsoon was proceeding as forecasted in the seasonal outlook, and by the end of the season, farmers were generally expecting bumper rice crops. The withdrawal of southwest monsoon system was declared in early October. However, from 18-20 October 2021, instead of dry spell, the country experienced a three-day excessive rainfall and accompanying flooding that caused massive damage to the ready-to-harvest crop across all major rice-producing areas in the southern lowland Terai region of Nepal.

The partially harvested and standing crop suffered three kinds of damage. First, farmers near the riverbanks lost their ready-to-harvest paddy as it was swept away by flash floods. The second category was in the low-lying southern plains, where rainwater inundated the harvested, but not collected, paddy fields for more than two days, causing seeds or grains on the panicles to sprout. Sprouted seeds on the mother plant have reduced germination capacity and vigor, and cannot be stored for a long period while maintaining the germination capacity. The third damage was stem and root lodging (falling over) due to powerful winds.

Digital technologies for rapid damage assessment

With conventional approaches, on-ground damage assessments after a disaster can take weeks, sometimes months, limiting critical operational decisions in the first few hours and days. However, Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) was already prepared: since 2019, the Ministry has been using satellite remote sensing for in-season rice area estimation through the USAID-supported SERVIR HKH program.

Thanks to the platform, experts from ICIMOD were able to share a satellite image-based assessment as early as 22 October 2021: two days after the flood.

This existing digital crop monitoring platform was used to produce a rapid-damage assessment to provide an analytical basis for initial decisions. In the rapid damage assessment, GMP IMERGE satellite data was used to measure the rainfall intensity across Nepal (Figure 1) and Selntinel-1 SAR satellite data was used to map flood water extent in the Terai district of Nepal on 21 October 2022. The assessment also served as a planning tool for in-depth damage evaluation for farmer compensations.

Widespread flooding

Figure 1. Rainfall distribution during 18-20 October 2021 based on the GPM IMERGE satellite precipitation data

Satellite precipitation data showed the occurrence of hefty rainfall in Morang, Sunsari, Saptari, Siraha and Jhapa districts in the Eastern region. In the Western region, Kailali and Kanchanpur experienced intense rainfall, while most of the central districts of the Terai region remained below heavy rain.

Based on satellite images acquired, the flood extent assessment showed major flood spread in the western parts, including Kanchanpur, Kailali, Bardiya and Banke districts (Figure 2). The flood water extent remained lower in the Eastern districts compared to the West. The causes of severe damage were from direct rain pour and winds in the Eastern region, and flood swept from riverbanks in the Western parts.

Figure 2. Flood extent on 21 October 2021 in Kanchanpur district based on the Sentinel-1 satellite data

Assessment results: Reduced seed quality and shortage of rice seed supply for the next planting season

According to a field-based assessment, the two most popular varieties, Radha-4 and Sarju-52, are the most affected by the flood, especially in Banke, Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur districts. Accordingly, 89% of Radha-4 and 42% of Sarju-52 seed production field has faced partial or complete loss in the surveyed districts. As per the district-wise loss assessment, 80% of Sirju-52 grown in Kailali and 61% in Kanchanpur suffered 50-100% damage. Similarly, nearly 60% of Radha-4 grown in Banke and Bardiya districts has suffered a crop loss ranging from 50-100%. This clearly indicates a huge shortage of these varieties for the next rice season which calls for immediate action to mitigate the seed deficit.

The survey found that farmers in Bardiya, Banke and Kailali had severe or complete crop loss, while those in Kanchanpur, Kapilvastu and Rupendehi had partial crop failure (Figure. 3)

Figure 3. Level of rice loss (%) due to flood, based on a rapid crop loss assessment in six districts of Nepal

Losses and the limits of early warning systems

According to the government’s final estimates, about 1,10,000 ha of rice crop area was damaged across the country. Respondents from the western districts reported that 80% of the farmers could only manage 50% or less than the expected harvest. The farmers reported an average input cost of $526 per hectare (NPR 63,162 per ha) and gross expected income of $972 per hectare (NPR 116,674 per ha) – leaving a very narrow margin of profit. To compensate for this economic blow, the government distributed $43 million (NPR 5.52 billion) among the farmers. However, with a total loss of $0.1 billion (NPR 12 billion), farmers still suffered a great loss.

Figure 4. Percentage of safe harvest in four western districts (Kapilvastu, Rupandehi, Kanchanpur and Bardiya) of Nepal

Although early warning systems were in place in the surveyed districts, some respondents expressed low trust and reliability in the early warnings and only 20% of respondents were aware of the heavy rainfall forecast issued three days before the extreme event. Earlier studies in the Ganges basin have suggested that a 10–20-day lead-time forecast is needed to avoid agriculture losses. However, predicting a high magnitude of low-frequency extreme events with sufficient advance notice is still a significant challenge in climate science.

How to mitigate and weather such challenges?

Nepal’s rice seed replacement rate is around 20%, which means that about 80% of farmers are not accessing good quality seeds every season. The addition of this untimely flash flood and the subsequent seed loss will further worsen seed availability, in turn contributing to food insecurity at the national level. The assessment findings have several implications for actions needed to mitigate future climate shocks.

Among other mitigation approaches, stakeholders need to assess in-country level quality rice seed availability and design a plan to mobilize preferred varieties from the surplus districts — less affected by the flood — to those in need.
During challenging times, maintaining seed quality standards might be difficult. Hence, stakeholders need to consider adopting a flexible quality standard such as “quality declared seeds” in similar emergency scenarios. The “quality declared seed” standard helps as an important intervention when normal seed production is greatly affected by drought and/or flood. It offers alternative seed quality standards for seed producers to provide seeds and ensure continuity of crop production.
Promoting climate-resilient varieties, especially lodging- or submergence-tolerant rice varieties, will better withstand flooding as compared to the susceptible ones.
Furthermore, farmers need access to a suitable crop insurance scheme to offset seed losses during extreme weather events. For instance, seed growers can purchase a group insurance scheme where customized premiums could be available to the members.

Some of the above mitigation approaches can be applied when extreme weather events are well forecasted and less severe. However, in the wake of an emerging climate crisis and limited mitigation options, there is a need to balance efforts on all aspects of adaptation, including the adoption of crop management practices including accelerated varietal turnover to modify threats and prevent adverse impacts, strengthen early warning systems with a focus on last-mile connection to minimize damages, and develop innovative mechanisms to address risk transfer and loss and damage compensations for sharing losses.

Inspiring change through agricultural training: Women’s stories from Bangladesh

Written by Nur-A-Mahajabin Khan on April 4, 2022. Posted in Features.

More than 40% of the global agricultural labor force is made up of women, and in the least developed countries, two in three women are employed in farming. Yet, despite being the largest contributors to this sector, women’s potential as farmers, producers and entrepreneurs is frequently untapped due to gender inequalities, limited access to farming assets and inputs, low participation in decision-making spaces, and lack of financing and capacity-building opportunities.

Tackling these gendered barriers is critical not only to help women achieve their highest economic potential, but also to feed an increasingly hungry world. Before this year’s Women’s History Month comes to an end, read the stories of three Bangladeshi women—Begum, Akter and Rani—to find out how the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are empowering them to become decision-makers in their communities, learn new skills and knowledge to boost their incomes, and advocate for bending gender norms across the country.

Embracing agricultural mechanization has improved Begum’s family finances

Rina Begum lives in Faridpur, a major commercial hub in southern Bangladesh. Before starting a business, her financial situation was precarious. Her primary source of income was her husband’s work as a day laborer, which brought in very little money. This, coupled with the lack of job security, made it hard to support a family.

Rina Begum started out in business as a service provider, hiring agricultural machines to farmers.

About five years ago, Begum’s interest in agricultural mechanization was ignited by the farmers in her town, who were earning extra money by investing in farm machinery and hiring it out. Her first foray into the business world was buying a shallow irrigation pump and setting herself up as a service provider. Next, she saw her neighbor using a power tiller operated seeder and decided to try one out for herself. Finally, after taking part in a potential machinery buyer program run by CIMMYT under the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MEA) and funded by USAID, she took the bold step of purchasing a seeder and adding it to her inventory of machines available for hire.

While her husband learned to operate the seeder, Begum put her business and accounting skills to good use, taking on an essential role in what ended up being the family business and establishing herself as an entrepreneur. Her work defied the established social norms, as she regularly interacted with the mechanics and farmers who came to her for mechanized services. Moreover, she occasionally stepped up alongside her husband to repair and maintain the machines. All this earned Begum a reputation as an experienced service provider, operator and mechanic, and turned her into a decision-maker and a role model to her family and community.

In 2021, Begum used her business profits to pick up the bill for her daughter’s marriage. “I know this job inside-out now,” she says, “and I’m really proud to have paid for the wedding myself.”

This taste of success fueled Begum’s appetite to expand the business even further, pushing her to take part in another training offered by CIMMYT, this time in mat-seedling production. Moreover, Begum, who plans to grow seedlings to sell on to rice farmers this year, has applied for a government subsidy to buy a rice transplanter, which can be hired out for use with mat-seedlings, and increase her stock of agricultural machinery.

With her new skills, Akter is advancing gender equality in Bangladesh’s light engineering sector

At age 18, Nilufar Akter (pictured top) passed her high school certificate and soon after married Rezaul Karim, the owner of a light engineering workshop in Bogura, a city in northern Bangladesh, that manufactures agricultural machinery parts, with a workforce mainly composed of men. Akter’s ambition was to go out into the workplace and make her own money, so when Karim asked her to work alongside him, she agreed and soon became a valuable part of the business. Her primary responsibilities were inventory management and marketing, as well as business management, which she found more difficult.

Reza Engineering Workshop began working with CIMMYT in 2020 as part of CSISA-MEA, an initiative that supports light engineering workshops in Bangladesh with staff development, access to finance, management, and business growth. Under this project, CIMMYT organized a management training at the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), which Akter attended. With the confidence these new skills gave her, she went back to the workshop and introduced a few changes, including building a computerized finance management system and updating the stack management. Moreover, she also established a dedicated restroom for female employees.

“We need human resources to maintain things in the business—and women can do a fantastic job”, Akter says. “We had no idea what good source of strength women workers would be for the factory. Therefore, if we provided them with adequate facilities, we could create jobs for many women who really need them”, she adds.

Akter’s current priorities are workshop safety and occupational health, two issues she’s tackling using the knowledge she learned in the CIMMYT training. Recently, she’s created some occupational health and safety posters, and established a series of workshop rules. “I used to think I wasn’t cut out for light engineering because it was primarily male-dominated, but I was mistaken”, Akter confesses. “This industry has a lot to offer to women, and I’m excited at the prospect of hiring more of them”, she adds.

Producing better quality rice has boosted the income of Rani and her family

Monika Rani lives in Khoshalpur, a village located in Dinajpur district in northern Bangladesh, with her husband Liton Chandra Roy and their two-year-old child. They farm just a quarter of a hectare of land, and Liton supplements their income with occasional wages earned as a day laborer.

Monika Rani wanted to increase her family’s income to provide better schooling opportunities for her children.

Rani was looking for ways to increase their income so they could give their children an education and a better life. During last year’s boro rice-growing season (December to May), she and her husband joined the premium grade rice production team of CIMMYT as part of CSISA-MEA. The market value and yield of premium quality rice is greater than other types, so when Rani heard that she could make more money producing that variety, she decided to make a start right away. CIMMYT provided her with five kgs of premium seed for the 2021-22 winter season and trained her in premium quality rice production technology and marketing, which she followed to the letter.

Through hard work and persistence, Rani and her husband avoided the need to hire any additional labor and were rewarded with the maximum yield possible. She dried the premium quality rice grain according to buyer demand and sold 1,600 kgs, in addition to 140 kgs to farmers in her town.

“Knowing about premium quality rice production has tremendously changed my future for the better,” Rani explains. “I had no idea that, through my own hard effort, I could have a better life”, she added.

Cover photo: Nilufar Akter is using the knowledge she gained in CIMMYT training to focus on workshop safety and occupational health in her business.

Shelves filled with maize seed samples make up the maize active collection at the germplasm bank at CIMMYT's global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. It contains around 28,000 unique samples of maize seed — including more than 24,000 farmer landraces — and related species. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)

New endeavor fast-tracks the power of crop diversity for climate resilience

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on March 17, 2022. Posted in Press releases.

A new $25.7 million project, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a Research Center part of CGIAR, the world’s largest public sector agriculture research partnership, is expanding the use of biodiversity held in the world’s genebanks to develop new climate-smart crop varieties for millions of small-scale farmers worldwide.

As climate change accelerates, agriculture will be increasingly affected by high temperatures, erratic rainfall, drought, flooding and sea-level rise. Looking to the trove of genetic material in genebanks, scientists believe they can enhance the resilience of food production by incorporating this diversity into new crop varieties — overcoming many of the barriers to fighting malnutrition and hunger around the world.

“Better crops can help small-scale farmers produce more food despite the challenges of climate change. Drought-resistant staple crops, such as maize and wheat, that ensure food amid water scarcity, and faster-growing, early-maturing varieties that produce good harvests in erratic growing seasons can make a world of difference for those who depend on agriculture. This is the potential for climate-adaptive breeding that lies untapped in CGIAR’s genebanks,” said Claudia Sadoff, Managing Director, Research Delivery and Impact, and Executive Management Team Convener, CGIAR.

Over five years, the project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to identify plant accessions in genebanks that contain alleles, or gene variations, responsible for characteristics such as heat, drought or salt tolerance, and to facilitate their use in breeding climate-resilient crop varieties. Entitled Mining useful alleles for climate change adaptation from CGIAR genebanks, the project will enable breeders to more effectively and efficiently use genebank materials to develop climate-smart versions of important food crops, including cassava, maize, sorghum, cowpea and rice.

The project is a key component of a broader initiative focused on increasing the value and use of CGIAR genebanks for climate resilience. It is one of a series of Innovation Sprints coordinated by the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C) initiative, which is led by the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

“Breeding new resilient crop varieties quickly, economically and with greater precision will be critical to ensure small-scale farmers can adapt to climate change,” said Enock Chikava, interim Director of Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “This initiative will contribute to a more promising and sustainable future for the hundreds of millions of Africans who depend on farming to support their families.”

Over the past 40 years, CGIAR Centers have built up the largest and most frequently accessed network of genebanks in the world. The network conserves and makes nearly three-quarters of a million crop accessions available to scientists and governments. CGIAR genebanks hold around 10% of the world’s plant germplasm in trust for humanity, but account for about 94% of the germplasm distributed under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which ensures crop breeders globally have access to the fundamental building blocks of new varieties.

“This research to develop climate-smart crop varieties, when scaled, is key to ensuring that those hardest hit by climate shocks have access to affordable staple foods,” said Jeffrey Rosichan, Director of the Crops of the Future Collaborative of the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR). “Further, this initiative benefits US and world agriculture by increasing genetic diversity and providing tools for growers to more rapidly adapt to climate change.”

“We will implement, for the first time, a scalable strategy to identify valuable variations hidden in our genebanks, and through breeding, deploy these to farmers who urgently need solutions to address the threat of climate change,” said Sarah Hearne, CIMMYT principal scientist and leader of the project.

Building on ten years of support to CIMMYT from the Mexican government, CGIAR Trust Fund contributors and the United Kingdom’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the project combines the use of cutting-edge technologies and approaches, high-performance computing, GIS mapping, and new plant breeding methods, to identify and use accessions with high value for climate-adaptive breeding of varieties needed by farmers and consumers.

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Sarah Hearne – Principal Scientist, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:

Marcia MacNeil, Head of Communications, CIMMYT. m.macneil@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 2070.

Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT. r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 1167.

Cereals research for sustainable health and well-being

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on November 8, 2021. Posted in Publications.

The current focus in nutritional circles on micronutrient malnutrition and unhealthy eating habits has raised questions about continuing to invest in research on energy-rich cereal crops and related farming systems.

In this new paper in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, development scientists make the case that cereal foods are an important vehicle for enhanced nutrition – with additional improvement possible through plant breeding and interventions in processing, manufacturing and distribution. It also explains cereals are a rich source of both dietary fiber and a range of bioactive food components that are essential for good health and well-being.

The authors suggest a balanced, integrated research approach to support the sustainable production of both nutrient-rich crops and the basic cereals used in humanity’s most widely consumed and popular foods.

Read the full article: Continuing cereals research for sustainable health and well-being

Cover photo: Raw wheat grains in a wooden bowl and in a scoop, close-up. (Photo: Marco Verch/Flickr)

Hybrid seed production and marketing advances

Written by Emma Orchardson on June 18, 2021. Posted in Features.

“My goal is to produce and sell 200 metric tons of hybrid maize by 2025,” says Subash Raj Upadhyaya, chairperson of Lumbini Seed Company, based in Nepal’s Rupandehi district.

Upadhyaya is one of the few seed value chain actors in the country progressing in the hybrid seed sector, which is at a budding stage in Nepal. He envisions a significant opportunity in the domestic production of hybrid maize seed varieties that not only offer a higher yield than open-pollinated varieties but will also reduce expensive imports. Leaping from one hectare to 25 hectares in hybrid maize seed production within three years, Upadhyaya is determined to expand the local seed market for hybrids.

Nepal has long been a net importer of hybrid seeds — mainly rice, maize and high-value vegetables — worth millions of dollars a year to meet the farmers’ demand, which is continuously rising. Although hybrid varieties have been released in the country, organized local seed production and marketing were not in place to deliver quality seeds to farmers. The hybrid variety development process is relatively slow due to lack of strong public-private relationships, absence of enabling policies and license requirements for the private sector to produce and sell them, lack of suitable germplasm and inadequate skilled human resources for hybrid product development and seed production. This has resulted in poor adoption of hybrid seeds, especially maize, where only 10-15% out of 950,000 hectares of Nepal’s maize-growing area is estimated to be covered with hybrid seeds, leaving the balance for seeds of open pollinated varieties.

This is where experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have stepped in to unlock the untapped potential of domestic maize production and increase on-farm productivity, which is currently around 2.8 metric tons per hectare. Aligning with the goals of the National Seed Vision (NSV 2013-2025), the USAID-funded Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, implemented by CIMMYT, fosters private sector involvement in the evaluation, production and marketing of quality hybrid seeds to meet the growing domestic demand for grain production, which is currently being met via imports. In 2020, Nepal spent nearly $130 million to import maize grain for the poultry industry.

A graphic shows the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project’s innovations and intervention in hybrid seed. (Graphic: CIMMYT)

Teach a man to fish

Strengthening and scaling hybrid seed production of different crop varieties from domestic sources can be a game-changer for the long-term sustainability of Nepal’s seed industry.

Through the NSAF project, CIMMYT is working with eight partner seed companies and three farmers cooperatives to produce seeds of maize, rice and tomato. CIMMYT has played a vital role in making suitable germplasms and market-ready products of hybrids sourced from CGIAR centers available to the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and partner seed companies for testing, validation and registration in the country. But this alone is not enough.

The project also carried out the partners’ capacity building on research and development, parental line maintenance, on-station and on-farm demonstrations, quality seed production and seed quality control to equip them with the required skills for a viable and competitive hybrid seed business. The companies and farmer cooperatives received hands-on training on hybrid seed production and marketing coupled with close supervision and guidance by the project’s field staff assigned to mentor and support individual seed companies. CIMMYT’s NSAF project also provides financial support to selected hybrid seed business startups to enhance their technical and entrepreneurial skills. This is a new feature, as prior to the project starting nearly all of the seed companies were mainly involved in aggregating open-pollinated variety seeds from farmers and selling them with no practical experience in the hybrid seed business.

In 2018, CIMMYT, through the NSAF and Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) projects, and in close collaboration with NARC’s National Maize Research Program, engaged its partner seed company to initiate the first hybrid maize seed production during the winter season. Farmers’ feedback on the performance of the Rampur Hybrid-10 maize variety showed it could compete with existing commercial hybrids on yield and other commercial traits. As a result, this response boosted the confidence of seed companies and cooperatives to produce and market the hybrid seeds.

“I am very much motivated to be a hybrid maize seed producer for Lumbini Seed Company,” said a woman hybrid seed grower, whose income was 86% higher than the sale of maize grain from the previous season. “This is my second year of engagement, and last year I got an income of NPR 75,000 (approx. USD$652) from a quarter of a hectare. Besides the guaranteed market I have under the contractual agreement with the company, the profit is far higher than what I used to get from grain production.”

To build the competitiveness of the local seed sector, CIMMYT has been mentoring partner seed companies on business plan development, brand building, marketing and promotion, and facilitating better access to finance. As part of the intervention, the companies are now selling hybrid seeds through agro-dealers in attractive and suitable product packages of varied sizes designed to help boost seed sales, better shelf life and compete with imported brands. They have also started using attractive seed packages for selected open-pollinated rice varieties in a bid to increase market demand. Prior to the project’s intervention, companies used to sell their seeds in traditional unbranded jute bags which are less suitable to maintain seed quality.

AbduRahman Beshir, NSAF seed systems lead, gives an explanation on CIMMYT’s hybrid maize seed interventions during a field visit in Nepal. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Unite and conquer

Encouraging public-private partnerships for seed production is crucial for creating and maintaining a viable seed system. However, the existing guidelines and policies for variety registration are not private sector friendly, resulting in increased informal seed imports and difficulty to efficiently run a business. This draws attention to conducive policies and regulations patronage in research and varietal development, product registration, exclusive licensing, and seed production and marketing by the private sector.

CIMMYT supports the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN), an umbrella body with more than 2,500 members, to promote the private sector’s engagement in the seed industry and foster enabling policies essential to further unlock Nepal’s potential in local hybrid seed production and distribution. Together, CIMMYT and SEAN have facilitated various forums, including policy dialogues and elicitations on fast track provision of R&D license and variety registration by the local private seed companies. These are vital steps to realize the targets set by NSV for hybrid seed development and distribution.

To further enhance linkages among seed sector stakeholders and policy makers, CIMMYT, in coordination with NARC’s National Maize Research Program, organized a high-level joint monitoring field visit to observe hybrid maize seed production performance in April 2021. As part of the visit, Yogendra Kumar Karki, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, accompanied by representatives from the National Seed Board, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, NARC, Seed Quality Control Center and SEAN, interacted with seed grower farmers and seed companies on their experiences.

The trip helped build a positive perception of the private sector’s capability and commitment to contribute to Nepal’s journey on self-reliance on hybrid seeds. “The recent advances in hybrid seed production by the private sector in collaboration with NARC and NSAF is astounding,” said Karki, as he acknowledged CIMMYT’s contribution to the seed sector development in Nepal. “Considering the gaps and challenges identified during this visit, the Ministry will revisit the regulations that will help accelerate local hybrid seed production and achieve NSV’s target.”

In continued efforts, CIMMYT is also partnering with the government’s Prime Minister Agricultural Modernization Project (PMAMP) maize super zone in the Dang district of Nepal to commercialize domestic maize hybrid seed by partner seed companies. This will enable companies to invest in hybrid maize seed production with contract growers by leveraging the support provided by the PMAMP on irrigation, mechanization and maize drying facilities.

“Our interventions in seed systems integration and coordination are showing very promising results in helping Nepal to become self-reliant on hybrid maize seeds in the foreseeable future,” said AbduRahman Beshir, seed systems lead for the NSAF project. “The initiative by the local seed companies to further engage and expand their hybrid seed business is an indication of a sustainable and viable project intervention. The project will continue working with both public and private partners to consolidate the gains and further build the competitiveness of the local seed companies in the hybrid maize seed ecosystem.”

Nepal’s seed industry is entering a new chapter that envisages a strong domestic seed sector in hybrid seed, particularly in maize, to capture a significant market share in the near future.

Back to basics: COVID-19 labour crunch brings direct seeding of paddy in focus

Written by Mary Donovan on July 15, 2020. Posted in In the media.

There is no nationwide official data on how much rice in India is grown through DSR. M L Jat, principal scientist with Mexico-based CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), estimated that about 10 per cent of India’s 44 million ha under rice cultivation is through DSR.

In the past few decades, many state governments have been encouraging farmers to move to DSR because it is easier on the environment, but without much success.

A farmer in India uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)

Could coronavirus drive farmers to adopt sustainable practices in India’s breadbasket?

Written by Matthew O'Leary on July 7, 2020. Posted in Features.

June marks the start of the rice growing season in India’s breadbasket but on the quiet fields of Haryana and Punjab you wouldn’t know it.

Usually the northwestern Indian states are teeming with migrant laborers working to transplant rice paddies. However, the government’s swift COVID-19 lockdown measures in late March triggered reverse migration, with an estimated 1 million laborers returning to their home states.

The lack of migrant workers has raised alarms for the labor-dependent rice-wheat farms that feed the nation. Healthy harvests are driven by timely transplanting of rice and, consequently, by the timely sowing of the succeeding wheat crop in rotation.

Without political support for alternative farming practices, crop losses from COVID-19 labor disruptions could reach $1.5 billion and significantly diminish the country’s grain reserves, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) warned.

Researchers also fear delayed rice transplanting could encourage unsustainable residue burning as farmers rush to clear land in the short window between rice harvest and wheat sowing. Increased burning in the fall will exacerbate the COVID-19 health risk by contributing to the blanket of thick air pollution that covers much of northwest India, including the densely populated capital region of New Delhi.

Both farmers and politicians are showing increased interest in farm mechanization and crop diversification as they respond to COVID-19 disruptions, said M.L. Jat, a CIMMYT scientist who coordinates sustainable intensification programs in northwestern India.

“Farmers know the time of planting wheat is extremely important for productivity. To avoid production losses and smog-inducing residue burning, alternative farm practices and technologies must be scaled up now,” Jat said.

The time it takes to manually transplant rice paddies is a particular worry. Manual transplanting accounts for 95% of rice grown in the northwestern regions. Rice seedlings grown in a nursery are pulled and transplanted into puddled and leveled fields — a process that takes up to 30 person-days per hectare, making it highly dependent on the availability of migrant laborers.

Even before COVID-19, a lack of labor was costing rice-wheat productivity and encouraging burning practices that contribute to India’s air pollution crisis, said CIMMYT scientist Balwinder Singh.

“Mechanized sowing and harvesting has been growing in recent years. The COVID-19 labor shortage presents a unique opportunity for policymakers to prioritize productive and environmentally-friendly farming practices as long term solutions,” Singh said.

Sustainable practices to cope with labor bottlenecks

CIMMYT researchers are working with national and state governments to get information and technologies to farmers, however, there are significant challenges to bringing solutions to scale in the very near term, Singh explained.

There is no silver bullet in the short term. However, researchers have outlined immediate and mid-term strategies to ensure crop productivity while avoiding residue burning:

Delayed or staggered nursery sowing of rice: By delaying nursery sowing to match delays in transplanting, yield potential can be conserved for rice. Any delay in transplanting rice due to labor shortage can reduce the productivity of seedlings. Seedling age at transplanting is an important factor for optimum growth and yield.

“Matching nursery sowing to meet delayed transplanting dates is an immediate action that farmers can take to ensure crop productivity in the short term. However, it’s important policymakers prioritize technologies, such as direct seeders, that contribute to long term solutions,” Singh said.

Direct drilling of wheat using the Happy Seeder: Direct seeding of wheat into rice residues using the Happy Seeder, a mechanized harvesting combine, can reduce the turnaround time between rice harvest and wheat sowing, potentially eliminating the temptation to burn residues.

“Identifying the areas with delayed transplanting well in advance should be a priority for effectively targeting the direct drilling of wheat using Happy Seeders,” said Jat. The average farmer who uses the Happy Seeder can generate up to 20% more profits than those who burn their fields, he explained. “Incentivizing farmers through a direct benefit transfer payment to adopt ‘no burn’ practices may help accelerate transitions.”

Directly sown rice: Timely planting of rice can also be achieved by adopting dry direct seeding of rice using mechanized seed-cum-fertilizer planters. In addition to reducing the labor requirement for crop establishment, dry direct seeding allows earlier rice planting due to its lower water requirement for establishment. Direct-seeded rice also matures earlier than puddled transplanted rice. Thus, earlier harvesting improves the chance to sow wheat on time.

“CIMMYT researchers are working with the local mechanical engineers on rolling out simple tweaks to enable the Happy Seeder to be used for direct rice seeding. The existing availability of Happy Seeders in the region will improve the speed direct rice sowing can be adopted,” Jat said.

Crop diversification with maize: Replacing rice with maize in the monsoon season is another option to alleviate the potential shortage of agricultural labor due to COVID-19, as the practice of establishing maize by machine is already common.

“Research evidence generated over the past decade demonstrates that maize along with modern agronomic management practices can provide a profitable and sustainable alternative to rice,” Jat explained. “The diversification of rice with maize can potentially contribute to sustainability that includes conserving groundwater, improving soil health and reducing air pollution through eliminating residue burning.”

A combine harvester equipped with the Super SMS (left) harvests rice while a tractor equipped with the Happy Seeder is used for direct seeding of wheat. (Photo: Sonalika Tractors)

Getting innovations into farmers’ fields

Rapid policy decisions by national and state governments on facilitating more mechanized operations in labor-intensive rice-wheat production regions will address labor availability issues while contributing to productivity enhancement of succeeding wheat crop in rotation, as well as overall system sustainability, said ICAR’s deputy director general for agricultural extension, AK Singh.

The government is providing advisories to farmers through multiple levels of communications, including extension services, messaging services and farmer collectives to raise awareness and encourage adoption.

Moving toward mechanization and crop diversity should not be viewed as a quick fix to COVID-19 related labor shortages, but as the foundation for long-term policies that help India in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, said ICAR’s deputy director general for Natural Research Management, SK Chaudhari.

“Policies encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment will improve long term productivity of the nation,” he said.

Northwestern India is home to millions of smallholder farmers making it a breadbasket for grain staples. Since giving birth to the Green Revolution, the region has continued to increase its food production through rice and wheat farming providing bulk of food to the country.

This high production has not come without shortfalls, different problems like a lowering water table, scarcity of labor during peak periods, deteriorating soil health, and air pollution from crop residue burning demands some alternative methods to sustain productivity as well as natural resources.

Cover photo: A farmer uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)

A farmer uses a two-wheel tractor-mounted reaper to harvest wheat in Nepal. (Photo: Timothy J. Krupnik/CIMMYT)

Mechanized harvesting fuels rural prosperity in Nepal

Written by Matthew O'Leary on July 6, 2020. Posted in Features.

In response to increasing labor scarcity and costs, growth in mechanized wheat and rice harvesting has fueled farm prosperity and entrepreneurial opportunity in the poorest parts of Nepal, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have recorded.

Farmers are turning to two-wheeled tractor-mounted reaper-harvesters to make up for the lack of farm labor, caused by a significant number of rural Nepalese — especially men and youth — migrating out in search of employment opportunities.

For Nandalal Oli, a 35-year-old farmer from Bardiya in far-west Nepal, investing in a mechanized reaper not only allowed him to avoid expensive labor costs that have resulted from out-migration from his village, but it also provided a source of income offering wheat and rice harvesting services to his neighbors.

“The reaper easily attaches on my two-wheel tractor and means I can mechanically cut and lay the wheat and rice harvests,” said Oli, the father of two. “Hiring help to harvest by hand is expensive and can take days but with the reaper attachment it’s done in hours, saving time and money.”

Oli was first introduced to the small reaper attachment three years ago at a farmer exhibition hosted by Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), funded through USAID. He saw the reaper as an opportunity to add harvesting to his mechanization business, where he was already using his two-wheel tractor for tilling, planting and transportation services.

Prosperity powers up reaper adoption

Number of 2-wheel tractor-attachable reaper-harvesters operational through service providers in Nepal’s Terai, 2014–2019

Over 4,000 mechanized reapers have been sold in Nepal with more than 50% in far and mid-west Nepal since researchers first introduced the technology five years ago. The successful adoption — which is now led by agricultural machinery dealers that were established or improved with CSISA’s support — has led nearly 24,000 farmers to have regular access to affordable crop harvesting services, said CIMMYT agricultural economist Gokul Paudel.

“Reapers improve farm management, adding a new layer of precision farming and reducing grain loss. Compared to manual harvesting mechanized reapers improve farming productivity that has shown to significantly increase average farm profitability when used for harvesting both rice and wheat,” he explained.

Nearly 65% of Nepal’s population works in agriculture, yet this South Asian country struggles to produce an adequate and affordable supply of food. The research indicated increased farm precision through the use of mechanized reapers boosts farm profitability by $120 a year when used for both rice and wheat harvests.

Oli agreed farmers see the benefit of his harvesting service as he has had no trouble finding customers. On an average year he serves 100 wheat and rice farmers in a 15 kilometer radius of his home.

“Investing in the reaper harvester worked for me. I earn 1,000 NRs [about $8] per hour harvesting fields and was able to pay off the purchase in one season. The added income ensures I can stay on top of bills and pay my children’s school fees.”

Farmers who have purchased reapers operate as service providers to other farms in their community, Paudel said.

“This has the additional benefit of creating legitimate jobs in rural areas, particularly needed among both migrant returnees who are seeking productive uses for earnings gained overseas that, at present, are mostly used for consumptive and unproductive sectors.”

“This additional work can also contribute to jobs for youth keeping them home rather than migrating,” he said.

The adoption rate of the reaper harvester is projected to reach 68% in the rice-wheat systems in the region within the next three years if current trends continue, significantly increasing access and affordability to the service.

Private and public support for mechanized harvester key to strong adoption

Achieving buy-in from the private and public sector was essential to the successful introduction and uptake of reaper attachments in Nepal, said Scott Justice, an agricultural and rural mechanization expert with the CSISA project.

Off the back of the popularity of the two-wheel tractor for planting and tilling, 22 reaper attachments were introduced by the researchers in 2014. Partnering with government institutions, the researchers facilitated demonstrations led by the private sector in farmers’ fields successfully building farmer demand and market-led supply.

“The reapers were introduced at the right place, at the right time. While nearly all Terai farmers for years had used tractor-powered threshing services, the region was suffering from labor scarcity or labor spikes where it took 25 people all day to cut one hectare of grain by hand. Farmers were in search of an easier and faster way to cut their grain,” Justice explained.

“Engaging the private and public sector in demonstrating the functionality and benefits of the reaper across different districts sparked rapidly increasing demand among farmers and service providers,” he said.

Early sales of the reaper attachments have mostly been directly to farmers without the need for considerable government subsidy. Much of the success was due to the researchers’ approach engaging multiple private sector suppliers and the Nepal Agricultural Machinery Entrepreneurs’ Association (NAMEA) and networks of machinery importers, traders, and dealers to ensure stocks of reapers were available at local level. The resulting competition led to 30-40% reduction in price contributing to increasing sales.

“With the technical support of researchers through the CSISA project we were able to import reaper attachments and run demonstrations to promote the technology as a sure investment for farmers and rural entrepreneurs,” said Krishna Sharma from Nepal Agricultural Machinery Entrepreneurs’ Association (NAMEA).

From 2015, the private sector capitalized on farmers’ interest in mechanized harvesting by importing reapers and running their own demonstrations and several radio jingles and sales continued to increase into the thousands, said Justice.

Building entrepreneurial capacity along the value chain

Through the CSISA project private dealers and public extension agencies were supported in developing training courses on the use of the reaper and basic business skills to ensure long-term success for farmers and rural entrepreneurs.

Training was essential in encouraging the emergence of mechanized service provision models and the market-based supply and repair chains required to support them, said CIMMYT agricultural mechanization engineer Subash Adhikari.

“Basic operational and business training for farmers who purchased a reaper enabled them to become service providers and successfully increased the access to reaper services and the amount of farms under improved management,” he said.

As commonly occurs when machinery adoption spreads, the availability of spare parts and repairs for reapers lagged behind sales. Researchers facilitated reaper repair training for district sales agent mechanics, as well as providing small grants for spare parts to build the value chain, Adhikari added.

Apart from hire services, mechanization creates additional opportunities for new business with repair and maintenance of equipment, sales and dealership of related businesses including transport and agro-processing along the value chain.

The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) aims to sustainably increase the productivity of cereal based cropping systems to improve food security and farmers’ livelihoods in Nepal. CSISA works with public and private partners to support the widespread adoption of affordable and climate-resilient farming technologies and practices, such as improved varieties of maize, wheat, rice and pulses, and mechanization.

Cover photo: A farmer uses a two-wheel tractor-mounted reaper to harvest wheat in Nepal. (Photo: Timothy J. Krupnik/CIMMYT)

A member of a women farmers group serves a platter of mung bean dishes in Suklaphanta, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

Small but mighty

Written by Alison Doody on June 16, 2020. Posted in Features.

Nearly 65,000 farmers in Nepal, 40% of which were women, have benefited from the Agronomy and Seed Systems Scaling project, according to a comprehensive new report. This project is part of the Cereals Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and supported by USAID.

One of the project’s most recent successes has been in accelerating the adoption of the nutritious and stress-tolerant mung bean in rice-wheat farming systems.

Farmer Chhalu Bhattarai harvests her mung bean crop in Manikapur, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

Rice-wheat is the dominant cropping system in the lowland region of Nepal. Farmers typically harvest wheat in March and transplant rice in July, leaving land fallow for up to 100 days. A growing body of evidence shows, however, that planting mung bean during this fallow period can assist in improving farmers’ farming systems and livelihoods.

“The mung bean has multiple benefits for farmers,” says Narayan Khanal, a researcher at CIMMYT. “The first benefit is nutrition: mung beans are very rich in iron, protein and are easily digestible. The second benefit is income: farmers can sell mung beans on the market for a higher price than most other legumes. The third benefit is improved soil health: mung beans fix the nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil as well as improve soil organic content.”

Commonly used in dishes like dahl, soups and sprout, mung beans are a common ingredient in Asian cuisine. However, prior to the project, most farmers in Nepal had never seen the crop before and had no idea how to eat it. Encouraging them to grow the crop was not going to be an easy task.

Thanks to dedicated efforts by CIMMYT researchers, more than 8,000 farmers in Nepal are now cultivating mung bean on land that would otherwise be left fallow, producing over $1.75 million of mung bean per year.

The newfound enthusiasm for growing mung bean could not have been achieved without the help of local women’s farming groups, said Timothy J. Krupnik, CIMMYT senior scientist and CSISA project leader.

Employees select and clean mung beans at Poshan Foods in Butwal, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

An employee selects mung beans at Poshan Foods, in Butwal, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

After mung bean is toasted, employees at Poshan Foods select the beans. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

Poshan Foods uses mung bean for a wide range of products but has been particularly successful with baby food, which includes important nutrition advice for parents. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

Bringing research and innovations to farmers’ fields

Introducing the mung bean crop to farmers’ fields was just one of the successes of Agronomy and Seed Systems Scaling, which was an added investment by USAID in the wider CSISA project, which began in 2014. The project aims to move agronomic and crop varietal research into real-world impact. It has helped farmers get better access to improved seeds and machinery and strengthened partnerships with the private sector, according to Khanal.

CSISA support in business mentoring and capacity building of seed companies to popularize newly released, biofortified and stress-tolerant wheat varieties has led to seed sales volumes tripling between 2014 to 2019. The project also led to a 68% increase in the number of new improved wheat varieties since the inception of the project.

Nepal’s National Wheat Research Program was able to fast track the release of the early maturing variety BL 4341, by combining data generated by the project through seed companies and the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) research station. Other varieties, including Borlaug 100 and NL 1327, are now in the pipeline.

Empowering women and facilitating women’s groups have been critical components of the project. Nepal has seen a mass exodus of young men farmers leaving the countryside for the city, leaving women to work the farms. CIMMYT worked with women farmer groups to expand and commercialize simple to use and affordable technologies, like precision seed and fertilizer spreaders.

Over 13,000 farmers have gained affordable access to and benefited from precision agriculture machinery such as two-wheel ‘hand tractors’ and ‘mini tillers.’ This is a major change for small and medium-scale farmers in South Asia who typically rely on low horsepower four-wheel tractors. The project also introduced an attachment for tractors for harvesting rice and wheat called the ‘reaper.’ This equipment helps to reduce the costs and drudgery of manual harvesting. In 2019, Nepal’s Terai region had almost 3,500 reapers, versus 22 in 2014.

To ensure the long-term success of the project, CSISA researchers have trained over 2,000 individuals from the private and public sector, and over 1,000 private organizations including machinery manufacturers and agricultural input dealers.

Researchers have trained project collaborators in both the public and private sector in seed systems, resilient varieties, better farming practices and appropriate agricultural mechanization business models. These partners have in turn passed this knowledge on to farmers, with considerable impact.

“The project’s outcomes demonstrates the importance of multi-year and integrated agricultural development efforts that are science-based, but which are designed in such a way to move research into impact and benefit farmers, by leveraging the skills and interests of Nepal’s public and private sector in unison,” said Krupnik.

“The outcomes from this project will continue to sustain, as the seed and market systems developed and nurtured by the project are anticipated to have long-lasting impact in Nepal,” he said.

Download the full report:
Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia: Agronomy and Seed Systems Scaling. Final report (2014-2019)

The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) is led by the International Maize and Wheat Center (CIMMYT), implemented jointly with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). CSISA is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Cover photo: A member of a women farmers group serves a platter of mung bean dishes in Suklaphanta, Nepal. (Photo: Merit Maharajan/Amuse Communication)

Injera, an Ethiopian sourdough flatbread made from wholegrain teff flour. (Photo: Rod Waddington)

From popcorn to roti

Written by Emma Orchardson on March 26, 2020. Posted in Photos. 1 Comment on From popcorn to roti

When asked to picture a food made of whole grains, your first thought might be a loaf of brown, whole-wheat bread. But wholegrain dishes come in all forms.

Take a virtual journey around the world to see the popular or surprising ways in which whole grains are eaten from Mexico to Bangladesh.

Popcorn, a wholegrain food and source of high-quality carbohydrates eaten across the world. (Photo: Alfonso Cortes/CIMMYT)

Roasted and boiled maize ears on sale in Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)

Maize-flour tortillas, a staple food eaten daily in Mexico and across Central America. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

Githeri, a staple food made with maize and beans, Kenya. (Photo: CIMMYT)

A loaf of whole-wheat bread, which could look brown or white in color, depending on how the wheat flour is processed. (Photo: Mattie Hagedorn)

A woman in Bangladesh prepares roti, an unleavened whole wheat bread eaten across the Indian sub-continent. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)

Tabbouleh, a Levantine salad made with a base of soaked bulgur wheat. (Photo: Moritz Guth)

Granola, a popular breakfast food made with a base of rolled, whole oats. (Photo: Alfonso Cortes/CIMMYT)

Injera, an Ethiopian sourdough flatbread made from wholegrain teff flour. (Photo: Rod Waddington)

A plate of cooked brown rice will accompany a meal in the Philippines. (Photo: IRRI)

A basket contains an assortment of whole, unprocessed maize and wheat kernels. (Photo: Alfonso Cortes/CIMMYT)

A farmer checks the drip irrigation system at his rice field in India. (Photo: Hamish John Appleby/IWMI)

Systems thinking at work in South Asia’s food production

Written by Emma Orchardson on March 20, 2020. Posted in News. 1 Comment on Systems thinking at work in South Asia’s food production

In 2009, state governments in Northwest India implemented a policy designed to reduce groundwater extraction by prohibiting the usual practice of planting rice in May and moving it to June, nearer the start of monsoon rains.

Although the policy did succeed in alleviating pressure on groundwater, it also had the unexpected effect of worsening already severe air pollution. The reason for this, according to a recent study published in Nature Sustainability, is that the delay in rice planting narrowed the window between rice harvest and sowing of the subsequent crop — mainly wheat — leaving farmers little time to remove rice straw from the field and compelling them to burn it instead.

Even though burning crop residues is prohibited in India, uncertainty about the implementation of government policy and a perceived lack of alternatives have perpetuated the practice in Haryana and Punjab states, near the nation’s capital, New Delhi, where air pollution poses a major health threat.

Land preparation on a rice field with a two-wheel tractor. (Photo: Vedachalam Dakshinamurthy/CIMMYT)

A farmer uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Vedachalam Dakshinamurthy/CIMMYT)

A farmer checks the drip irrigation system at his rice field in India. (Photo: Hamish John Appleby/IWMI)

Wheat crop in conservation agriculture. (Photo: Vedachalam Dakshinamurthy/CIMMYT)

A farmer ploughs a rice field with a water buffalo. (Photo: Licensed from Digitalpress – Dreamstime.com; Image 11205929)

Decades of research for development have enabled researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other partners to identify potential solutions to this problem.

One particularly viable option focuses on the practice of zero tillage, in which wheat seed is sown immediately after rice harvest through the rice straw directly into untilled soil with a single tractor pass.

In a new blog published as part of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Field Notes series, CIMMYT scientists Hans Braun and Bruno Gerard discuss the combination of agronomic and breeding conditions required to make zero tillage work, and propose a fundamental shift away from current incentives to maximize the region´s cereal production.

Read the full article:
Field Notes – Systems thinking at work in South Asia’s food production

The cereals imperative of future food systems

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on October 15, 2019. Posted in Features. 1 Comment on The cereals imperative of future food systems

Pioneering research on our three most important cereal grains — maize, rice, and wheat — has contributed enormously to global food security over the last half century, chiefly by boosting the yields of these crops and by making them more resilient in the face of drought, flood, pests and diseases. But with more than 800 million people still living in chronic hunger and many more suffering from inadequate diets, much remains to be done. The challenges are complicated by climate change, rampant degradation of the ecosystems that sustain food production, rapid population growth and unequal access to resources that are vital for improved livelihoods.

In recent years, a consensus has emerged among agricultural researchers and development experts around the need to transform global food systems, so they can provide healthy diets while drastically reducing negative environmental impacts. Certainly, this is a central aim of CGIAR — the world’s largest global agricultural research network — which views enhanced nutrition and sustainability as essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. CGIAR scientists and their many partners contribute by developing technological and social innovations for the world’s key crop production systems, with a sharp focus on reducing hunger and poverty in low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The importance of transforming food systems is also the message of the influential EAT-Lancet Commission report, launched in early 2019. Based on the views of 37 leading experts from diverse research disciplines, the report defines specific actions to achieve a “planetary health diet,” which enhances human nutrition and keeps the resource use of food systems within planetary boundaries. While including all food groups — grains, roots and tubers, pulses, vegetables, fruits, tree nuts, meat, fish, and dairy products — this diet reflects important shifts in their consumption. The major cereals, for example, would supply about one-third of the required calories but with increased emphasis on whole grains to curb the negative health effects of cheap and abundant supplies of refined cereals.

This proportion of calories corresponds roughly to the proportion of its funding that CGIAR currently invests in the major cereals. These crops are already vital in diets, cultures, and economies across the developing world, and the way they are produced, processed and consumed must be a central focus of global efforts to transform food systems. There are four main reasons for this imperative.

Aneli Zárate Vásquez (left), in Mexico's state of Oaxaca, sells maize tortillas for a living. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT) — Aneli Zárate Vásquez (left), in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, sells maize tortillas for a living. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)

1. Scale and economic importance

The sheer extent of major cereal production and its enormous value, especially for the poor, account in large part for the critical importance of these crops in global food systems. According to 2017 figures, maize is grown on 197 million hectares and rice on more than 167 million hectares, mainly in Asia and Africa. Wheat covers 218 million hectares, an area larger than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined. The total annual harvest of these crops amounts to about 2.5 billion tons of grain.

Worldwide production had an estimated annual value averaging more than $500 billion in 2014-2016. The prices of the major cereals are especially important for poor consumers. In recent years, the rising cost of bread in North Africa and tortillas in Mexico, as well as the rice price crisis in Southeast Asia, imposed great hardship on urban populations in particular, triggering major demonstrations and social unrest. To avoid such troubles by reducing dependence on cereal imports, many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have made staple crop self-sufficiency a central element of national agriculture policy.

Women make roti, an unleavened flatbread made with wheat flour and eaten as a staple food, at their home in the Dinajpur district, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)

2. Critical role in human diets

Cereals have a significant role to play in food system transformation because of their vital importance in human diets. In developing countries, maize, rice, and wheat together provide 48% of the total calories and 42% of the total protein. In every developing region except Latin America, cereals provide people with more protein than meat, fish, milk and eggs combined, making them an important protein source for over half the world’s population.

Yellow maize, a key source of livestock feed, also contributes indirectly to more protein-rich diets, as does animal fodder derived from cereal crop residues. As consumption of meat, fish and dairy products continues to expand in the developing world, demand for cereals for food and feed must rise, increasing the pressure to optimize cereal production.

In addition to supplying starch and protein, the cereals serve as a rich source of dietary fiber and nutrients. CGIAR research has documented the important contribution of wheat to healthy diets, linking the crop to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and colorectal cancer. The nutritional value of brown rice compared to white rice is also well known. Moreover, the recent discovery of certain genetic traits in milled rice has created the opportunity to breed varieties that show a low glycemic index without compromising grain quality.

Golden Rice grain (left) compared to white rice grain. Golden Rice is unique because it contains beta carotene, giving it a golden color. (Photo: IRRI)

3. Encouraging progress toward better nutritional quality

The major cereals have undergone further improvement in nutritional quality during recent years through a crop breeding approach called “biofortification,” which boosts the content of essential vitamins or micronutrients. Dietary deficiencies of this kind harm children’s physical and cognitive development, and leave them more vulnerable to disease. Sometimes called “hidden hunger,” this condition is believed to cause about one-third of the 3.1 million annual child deaths attributed to malnutrition. Diverse diets are the preferred remedy, but the world’s poorest consumers often cannot afford more nutritious foods. The problem is especially acute for women and adolescent girls, who have unequal access to food, healthcare and resources.

It will take many years of focused effort before diverse diets become a reality in the lives of the people who need them most. Diversified farming systems such as rice-fish rotations that improve nutritional value, livelihoods and resilience are a step in that direction. In the meantime, “biofortified” cereal and other crop varieties developed by CGIAR help address hidden hunger by providing higher levels of zinc, iron and provitamin A carotenoids as well as better protein quality. Farmers in many developing countries are already growing these varieties.

A 2018 study in India found that young children who ate zinc-biofortified wheat in flatbread or porridge became ill less frequently. Other studies have shown that consumption of provitamin A maize improves the body’s total stores of this vitamin as effectively as vitamin supplementation. Biofortified crop varieties are not a substitute for food fortification (adding micronutrients and vitamins during industrial food processing). But these varieties can offer an immediate solution to hidden hunger for the many subsistence farmers and other rural consumers who depend on locally produced foods and lack access to fortified products.

Ruth Andrea (left) and Maliamu Joni harvest cobs of drought-tolerant maize in Idakumbi, Mbeya, Tanzania. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

4. Wide scope for more sustainable production

Cereal crops show much potential not only for enhancing human heath but that of the environment as well. Compared to other crops, the production of cereals has relatively low environmental impact, as noted in the EAT-Lancet report. Still, it is both necessary and feasible to further enhance the sustainability of cereal cropping systems. Many new practices have a proven ability to conserve water as well as soil and land, and to use purchased inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) far more efficiently. With innovations already available, the amount of water used in current rice cultivation techniques, for example, can be significantly reduced from its present high level.

Irrigation scheduling, laser land leveling, drip irrigation, conservation tillage, precision nitrogen fertilization, and cereal varieties tolerant to drought, flooding and heat are among the most promising options. In northwest India, scientists recently determined that optimal practices can reduce water use by 40%, while maintaining yields in rice-wheat rotations. There and in many other places, the adoption of new practices to improve cereal production in the wet season not only leads to more efficient resource use but also creates opportunities to diversify crop production in the dry season. Improvements to increase cereal crop yields also reduces their environmental footprint; using less land, enhancing carbon sequestration and biodiversity and, for rice, reducing methane emissions per kilo of rice produced. Given the enormous extent of cereals cultivation, any improvement in resource use efficiency will have major impact, while also freeing up vast amounts of land for other crops or natural vegetation.

A major challenge now is to improve access to the knowledge and inputs that will enable millions of farmers to adopt new techniques, making it possible both to diversify production and grow more with less. Another key requirement consists of clear signals from policymakers, especially where land and water are limited, about the priority use of these resources — for example, irrigating low-value cereals to bolster food security versus applying the water to higher value crops and importing staple cereals.

Morning dew on a wheat spike. (Photo: Vadim Ganeyev/CIMMYT)

Toward a sustainable dietary revolution

Future-proofing the global food system requires bold steps. Policy and research need to support a double transformation, centered on nutrition and sustainability.

CGIAR works toward nutritional transformation of our food system through numerous global partnerships. We give high priority to improving cereal crop systems and food products, because of their crucial importance for a growing world population. Recognizing that this alone will not suffice for healthy diets, we also strongly promote greater dietary diversity through our research on various staple crops and production systems and by raising public awareness of more balanced and nutritious diets.

To help achieve a sustainability transformation, CGIAR researchers and partners have developed a wide array of techniques that use resources more efficiently, enhance the resilience of food production in the face of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while achieving sustainable increases in crop yields. At the same time, we are generating new evidence on which techniques work best under what conditions to target the implementation of these solutions more effectively.

The ultimate impact of our work depends crucially on the growing resolve of developing countries to promote better diets and more sustainable food production through strong policies and programs. CGIAR is well prepared to help strengthen these measures through research for development, and we are confident that our work on cereals, with continued donor support, will have high relevance, generating a wealth of innovations that help drive the transformation of global food systems.

Martin Kropff is the Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Matthew Morell is the Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Direct sowing of wheat seed into a recently-harvested rice field using the “Happy Seeder” implement, a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to burning rice straw, in northern India. (Photo: BISA/Love Kumar Singh)

Happy Seeder can reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions while making profits for farmers

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on August 8, 2019. Posted in Press releases. 2 Comments on Happy Seeder can reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions while making profits for farmers

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.

CIMMYT principal scientist M. L. Jat shows a model of a no-till planter that facilitates no-burn farming. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)

“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.

Read the full study

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.

India’s farmers feed millions of people. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam)

Alternatives to burning can increase Indian farmers’ profits and cut pollution, new study shows

Written by Mike Listman on August 8, 2019. Posted in News.

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.

A combine harvester (left) equipped with the Super Straw Management System, or Super SMS, works alongside a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Sonalika Tractors)

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.

Read the full study in Science

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

Reconciling food security, resource depletion and environmental quality trade-offs in India

Written by Matthew O'Leary on June 28, 2019. Posted in Features.

Northwestern India is home to millions of smallholder farmers making it a breadbasket for grain staples. Since giving birth to the Green Revolution it has continued to increase its food production through rice and wheat farming providing food security to the region.

This high production has not come without shortfalls; groundwater tables are falling from excessive irrigation and climate change has brought erratic rainfall. In response, the state governments of Haryana and Punjab introduced separate legislation forcing farmers to delay rice planting to coincide with the arrival of the monsoonal rains in late June.

With rice sowing pushed back to tackle a looming water crisis, the time available between harvesting rice and planting wheat has been reduced. Consequently, the majority of farmers opt to burn the post-harvest rice straw to quickly prepare their fields for wheat. The majority of the 34 tons of rice residues the region produces is burned in a short window of time, throwing a lot of toxic smoke into the air.

New research, by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), delved into linkages between groundwater and agricultural burning policies. The study uncovered that groundwater conservation policies in Haryana and Punjab are exacerbating the nation’s air pollution crisis by concentrating crop residue burning in the late fall.

“Despite being illegal, the burning of post-harvest rice residues continues to be the most common practice of crop residue management, and while groundwater policies are helping arrest water depletion, they also appear to be exacerbating one of the most acute public health problems confronting India – air pollution,” said CIMMYT scientist and author of the study, Balwinder Singh.

Millions of farmers burn the straw that remains after the rice harvest to prepare their fields for a wheat crop. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)

Getting to the guts of air pollution’s chokehold on India

Air pollution in India has increased significantly since 2000. Each fall, from late October to November, a toxic fog containing a mixture of dust, carbon and particles covers northwestern India. For the 18.6 million who live in New Delhi the smog not only brings daily life to a standstill but slices years off life expectancy. It kills an estimated 1.5 million people every year, with nearly half of these deaths occurring in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, the northernmost part of the country that includes New Delhi.

The analysis suggests that temporal changes in burning are a prime contributor to the air quality crisis. The limited amount of time to prepare fields for wheat planting has caused fire intensity to increase by 39 percent, peaking in November with a maximum of 681 fires per day. This increase occurs when temperatures in New Delhi are lower and winds are weak. The still conditions trap pollution and limit the amount that can escape.

Recognizing policy tradeoffs is important for sustainable agricultural intensification

Agriculture for development researchers with CIMMYT investigate how best to sustainably intensify food production. This seeks to produce more food, improve nutrition and livelihoods, and boost rural incomes without an increase in inputs – such as land and water – while reducing environmental impacts. Policies can help to shape efforts towards sustainable intensification by encouraging farming practices that save resources and protect the environment. However, it is important that governments strike the right balance between food security, resource depletion and environmental quality.

The research results shed light on the sustainability challenges confronting many highly productive agricultural systems, where addressing one problem can exacerbate others, said Andrew McDonald, a professor at Cornell University and co-author of the study.

“Identifying and managing tradeoffs and capitalizing on synergies between crop productivity, resource conservation, and environmental quality is essential,” he said.

Policies to promote sustainable intensification can also burst India’s pollution bubble

Surface crop residue retention and incorporation are the promising on-farm management options to address the issue of burning as well as maintaining soil health and long-term sustainability, said M.L. Jat, a scientist with CIMMYT who coordinates sustainable intensification programs in northwestern India.

Apart from pumping toxic smoke into the air, ash left on fields after residue burning can negatively affect soil health in the long term. However, if residue is mulched into the soil, nutrient levels improve and carbon sequestration capacity increases, lowering the release of greenhouse gases. Additionally, residue retention reduces evaporation and increases soil moisture by as much as 10 percent during the wheat-growing season.

“A sensible approach for overcoming tradeoffs will embrace agronomic technologies such as the Happy Seeder, a seed drill that plants seeds without impacting crop residue, providing farmers the technical means to avoid residue burning,” he explained.

“When rice is ready to be reaped, a tractor or a harvester collects the grain, a spreader distributes the straw that remains on the ground and the Happy Seeder drills into the land to seed wheat,” Jat said. “Farmers no longer need to till the land to plant their wheat, instead they practice a form of conservation agriculture.”

M. L. Jat, CIMMYT Cropping Systems Agronomist with a no-till planter that facilitates no-burn farming. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)

Researchers at CIMMYT and Punjab Agricultural University have undertaken extensive trials in farmer fields and the new technology has proven itself as a step forward for developing viable solution to rice crop residue burning.

The Indian government launched a $157 million initiative to discourage burning through agricultural machinery innovations. However, the Happy Seeder is yet to be adopted widely. It is estimated that to cover 50 percent, 5 million ha, of the total acreage under rice-wheat cropping systems in India, about 60,000 Happy Seeders are needed. At present, there are only about 10,000 available.

A recent policy brief suggests rapid adoption needs a major government push to publicize and popularize the technology. The brief suggests delivery of machinery hire services through Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies and private entrepreneurs with ongoing government support is a viable tool to equitably reach farmers.

Access the journal article on Nature Sustainability:
Tradeoffs between groundwater conservation and air pollution from agricultural fires in northwest India

Policy Brief:
Innovative Viable Solutions to Rice Residue Burning in Rice-Wheat Cropping System through Concurrent Use of Super Straw Management System-fitted Combine and Turbo Happy Seeder

Video demonstration:
The concurrent use of super SMS-fitted combines and Turbo Happy Seeder