Minor millets in South Asia: learnings from IFAD-NUS project in India ...

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executive suMMAry 5 and seed exchange involving more local farmers and to provide on-farm capacity building on production of quality seed. Refinement in crop production management was an important approach used to enhance productivity of these millets. In India, these crops are more often grown as crop mixtures, while in Nepal they are largely grown as sole crops, although sometimes intercropped with legumes. Indian farmers largely grow them by broadcasting a seed mix comprising different species in different proportions. The species in these mixes and their relative proportions are location specific and intelligently chosen to suit the local agro-climatic conditions to meet the food and cash needs and to minimize the risks possible from climatic vagaries of marginal dryland farming. While farmers in most of the project villages sow the crop by broadcast method, those in Southern and Northern Karnataka grow these crops as intercrop planted in rows with variable row ratios for millets and non-millet crops. An important non-cereal component of crop mixture/intercrop is a legume, either pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) or black gram (Vigna mungo). The marginal farmers rarely manure the crop either organically or chemically. The farmers in Kolli Hills and Jeypore used only organic manure, while the farmers in Karnataka applied low levels of chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilization was far less frequent in Nepal. Similarly, inter-cultivation or weeding was uncommon in the crop sown by broadcast method, while this was practiced in row-planted crop. Thus, most of these traditional crop management practices resulted in productivity much lower than the actual potential. Therefore, apart from better variety and quality seed, there is a need to adopt improved production methods in order to have enhanced production for improved food security and income generation. These methods involve judicious location-specific choice and proportion of intercrop species, row planting and better agronomic management. A farmer friendly and sustainable intercrop system has to have farmer chosen crop combination along with good management to ensure nutrient use efficiency, soil nutrient enrichment, also by promoting biological nitrogen fixation, reduced cost of production and enhanced net profit. Farmer participatory production refinement regime was determined jointly by farmers and project scientists for each region and this was tested with farmer-practiced (traditional) method. Such trials at Kolli Hills and Jeypore showed that with farmer selected varieties, yield gain was 23 - 33% and the relative increase in net return was 2.8 times higher. Similar trials showed income enhancement of 31- 46% in UAS, Bangalore and 21% in UAS, Dharwad. In terms of strengthening of food security arising from increased nutritious millet grain productivity contributed by improved agronomic practices, it was 39% in the case of finger millet, 37% in the case of little millet and 31% in the case of foxtail millet. The yield from improved practice was consistently and significantly higher than that from the traditional practice of cultivation in all the three millet species. The finger millet variety GPU 48 performed superior to other varieties consistently across the demonstrations in Kolli Hills. The little millet varieties Kattavetti Samai
6 Minor Millets in south AsiA in Kolli Hills and OLM 203 in Jeypore performed well across the demonstrations. The yield data from these trials, apart from demonstrating the strength of improved agronomic practices in enhancing the yield also validated the precision achieved in the farmer participatory variety selection. The results of participatory field testing undertaken by MSSRF, Chennai showed that some of the local varieties are as good as or more preferable to farmers than the improved varieties. For example, both in Jeypore and Kolli Hills, the local Italian millet cultivars were ranked first and their grain yield also justified such ranking. Similarly, in the case of little millet, farmers widely preferred both improved and traditional varieties (Kalakosla at Jeypore and Kattavetti Samai at Kolli Hills) and they did not show significant yield differences. In the case of finger millet, the improved variety chosen at Jeypore had 34% yield advantage over the best local variety Athangulia Mandia, while the top variety selected at Kolli Hills (GPU 48) had 52% higher yield over the best local landrace Sattaikevuru. Thus, participatory variety selection confirmed the agronomic superiority of the respective local varieties of Italian millet and little millet and led to the identification of varieties capable of giving significantly higher yield in finger millet and broadening the genetic base of all the three millets. This selection process also assisted farmers to identify rarely available white-grained variety of finger millet, which is highly preferred for making specific cuisines. In Nepal, the comparative study on the performance of improved and local varieties under improved and local cultivation practices was undertaken by NARC at Pipaltar, Khanigaun and Kabre in 2004. The results revealed that local variety with improved practice produced the highest grain yield of 35.75 q/ha at Pipaltar and 27.67 q/ha at Khanigaun, while the improved variety with improved practice produced the highest grain yield of 17.72 q/ha at Kabre indicating thereby that the performance of varieties was location specific. This clearly established that the recommendation on varieties and production practices have to place more emphasis on location specificity. The need for quality seed of the selected varieties emerged due to increased local demand. Quality seed and its local availability at affordable price have tactical significance in millet cultivation and yield in South Asia, largely due to the associated poor economic and agricultural resources. Poverty and food shortage rampant among the poor do occasionally force these farmers to consume the saved seed. Physical and genetic purity of seed is compromised because these crops are more often sown and harvested in mixtures. Hence, this project has given importance in capacity building on quality seed production and its safe storage in community managed seed-grain banks advocated by MSSRF. The results from MSSRF component of the project showed how seed bank had helped in making the quality seed available to larger number of farm holdings in a short time. A total of 78 farmer participatory field demonstrations on improved agronomic practices were conducted in 2004 in Kolli Hills and Jeypore to increase yield of millets and millet-based cropping
Page 2 and 3: Minor Millets in South Asia Learnin
Page 4 and 5: contents iii Contents Foreword v Pr
Page 6 and 7: foreword v Foreword The project,
Page 8 and 9: foreword vii Foreword I extend my c
Page 10 and 11: prefAce ix Preface The small millet
Page 12 and 13: executive suMMAry 1 Executive Summa
Page 14 and 15: executive suMMAry 3 women. Informat
Page 18 and 19: executive suMMAry 7 systems. These
Page 20 and 21: executive suMMAry 9 available for s
Page 22 and 23: executive suMMAry 11 dissemination
Page 24 and 25: introduction 13 Introduction Backgr
Page 26 and 27: introduction 15 The project was dev
Page 28 and 29: introduction 17 l Develop value add
Page 30 and 31: promoting nutrious millets in tamil
Page 58 and 59: enhanCing Food seCuritY and inCome
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enhanCing Food seCuritY and inCome
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Food seCuritY and inCome enhanCemen
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staFF inVolVed in implementing iFad
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Chennai platForm For aCtion 179 Ann
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Chennai platForm For aCtion 181 i.
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aCronYms 183 Acronyms ABD : Agricul
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aCronYms 185 PDS : Public Distribut
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Minor millets in South Asia: learnings from IFAD-NUS project in India ...

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