"Scuba rice" - adron.sr

Strengtheningt h e s y s t e mFor 15 years, the Rice-Wheat Consortium of the Indo-Gangetic Plains has been workingto help South Asian farmers reduce their costs, increase their productivity, and help theenvironmentIn the early 1990s, thenorthwestern Indian state ofHaryana—one of the country’smost agriculturally productive—faced a crisis. A weed,Philaris minor, hadevolved resistance toall commonly availableherbicides. Thiswas particularlyStory and photos by Adam Barclayalarming because Philaris wascausing havoc across the rice-wheatbelt, responsible for the vast majorityof the state’s wheat productionand employment. In the 1993-94season, wheat yields crashed. Theonly solution seemed to be newerbut more expensive herbicides.Haryana’s farmers andagricultural expertswere desperate.In an attempt toreduce farmers’ costsand make the newherbicides affordable,R.K. Malik andhis colleaguesat HaryanaAgriculturalUniversityin Hissarconvinced afew farmers touse a simpletractor-pulledplanting machinethat allowed wheatto be sowed withoutfirst tilling the landfollowing the riceharvest. The usualpractice was to tillJagdeep Singh Dhillon tows a Happy Seeder behind atractor. Punjab State’s first farmer to sow his entirewheat crop with a Happy Seeder, he has pledged to“never, ever burn rice residue again.”the land six to eight times beforeplanting rice. Although zero-tillagewheat would undoubtedly save laborcosts, previous efforts to test themethod had failed to gain traction.This time around, however, thingswould turn out rather differently.To Prof. Malik’s happy surprise,not only did zero tillage cut costs, italso solved the Philaris problem—theweed seeds inhabited the upper5 centimeters of the soil; any sortof tillage resulted in substantialPhilaris emergence. Better still,it saved farmers 2 weeks after therice harvest, allowing wheat tobe planted at the optimal time inearly November. When farmersspend time tilling the land afterharvesting rice, wheat planting tendsto occur later than is ideal, withthe attendant lower temperaturesleading to a yield penalty of around50 kilograms per hectare for everyday that planting is delayed.“Although zero tillage wasn’t apart of the management strategy forPhilaris,” recalls Prof. Malik, “themagnitude of the problem meant thatfarmers were desperate, and thereforevery open to new technologies.”Prof. Malik says that thisatmosphere converged with theestablishment in 1994 of theRice-Wheat Consortium (RWC),currently led by the InternationalFor more than 15 years, agronomist R.K. Malik hasadvocated zero-till wheat in the rice-wheat regionof Haryana State.Rice Research Institute (IRRI) butled then by the International Maizeand Wheat Improvement Center(CIMMYT) under soil scientist PeterHobbs, now at Cornell University.With farmers open to change and theRWC bringing together researchers,policymakers, and the privatesector, momentum built quickly.“The process of doing researchchanged,” says Prof. Malik. “Wewent straight to farmers’ fieldsand started to make farmers ourpartners. The RWC provided uswith four zero-tillage machines,which we immediately used toplant trial wheat crops in fourvillages in different districts.“We weren’t even sure if thecrop would grow,” he added. Wevisited some of the fields, about 70kilometers away, every day. Our firstobservation was that not only did thecrop emerge, but it emerged at least2 days earlier than with conventionalpractice. With those four machines,we planted about 6 hectares, all ofwhich performed wonderfully.”In the 1994-95 season, despitemuch initial resistance from farmers,Haryana Agricultural University, withthe support of the RWC, expandedthe zero-tillage trials to around 25hectares throughout the rice-wheatarea of Haryana.Feeding half the worldWhat is the Rice-Wheat Consortium and why is it important?More than 3.1 billion people livingin South Asia and China—almosthalf of humanity—depend on rice andwheat production for food. In a rice-wheat“system,” farmers grow at least one riceand one wheat crop on the same piece ofland each year. In South Asia, the ricewheatregion occupies nearly 13.5 millionhectares across the Indo-Gangetic Plains ofBangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Thisregion alone is home to 1.2 billion people,nearly 40% of whom live in extremepoverty. Rice and wheat account for 90%of the region’s total cereal production and,with the population growing at more than2% annually, there are more than 20 millionadditional mouths to feed each year.Over the past 30 years, the ricewheatsystem has emerged as the region’smajor production system, accountingfor more than 30% of the total rice areaand 40% of the total wheat area, andproducing nearly one-third of the region’srice and more than half of its wheat.During the Green Revolution era,production increases resulted fromexpansion in both rice-wheat area andproductivity. Now, however, with littleadditional land available, future demandgrowth will have to be met mainly throughincreases in yield. Further, the average 2%per year rice and wheat yield increasesseen from 1970 to 1990 have droppedoff with a combination of environmentalfactors—such as declining soil health andaccess to irrigation—and reduced supportfor public agricultural research causingyields to stagnate over the past 2 decades.The challenges are to producemore food at less cost and to improvewater productivity. Farmers needalternatives to help them conserveenergy and water resources, reducegreenhouse gas emissions, and improvethe quality of life for farm families. Toaddress these challenges, the Rice-WheatConsortium (RWC) for the Indo-GangeticPlains was established in 1994 by theConsultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research (CGIAR).The consortium brings togetherthe national agricultural systems ofBangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan(with China as an associate member);CGIAR-supported centers, includingthe International Rice Research Institute(IRRI), the International Maize andWheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT),the International Water ManagementInstitute, the International Crops ResearchInstitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics,the International Potato Center, andthe International Livestock ResearchInstitute; the Asian Vegetable Researchand Development Center; and severaladvanced research institutes, includingCornell University, CABI, the InternationalAgricultural Centre Wageningen, andRothamsted Research. Currently, IRRIserves as the convening center.The RWC’s key roles are asan innovator and supplier of newknowledge for the rice-wheat system,a “clearinghouse” for new approachesand technologies, and facilitator andcatalyst of research for development.The development and disseminationof resource-conserving technologies area key goal for the consortium. By the endof 2007, around 0.5 million farmers usedsuch technologies on 4 million hectaresof agricultural land: zero till, reduced till,surface seeding, and bed planting of wheat(1.94 million hectares); direct-seeded rice(0.19 million hectares); laser land leveling(0.07 million hectares); crop diversification(1.80 million hectares); the leaf color chart(0.06 million hectares); and unpuddledtransplanted rice (0.01 million hectares).The further development of therice-wheat system received a boost inearly 2009 with the announcement ofa major new project named the CerealSystems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA).With funding from the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation and the United StatesAgency for International Development, theinitiative will be led by IRRI in partnershipwith CIMMYT and the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute.18 Rice Today April-June 2009Rice Today April-June 2009 19