Section 3 (Crop Management)

Proceedings of the 8 th Asian Regional Maize Workshop, Bangkok, Thailand: August 5-8, 2002
Maize in the Rice-Wheat Rotation of Indo-Gangetic Plains
Raj K Gupta, Gonzalez-Ceniceros Fernando, Sarvesh Paliwal,
SVRK, Prabhakar and Ashish Srivastava
CIMMYT-India Office, CG Block, NASC Complex, DPS Marg, New Delhi, India.
e-mail: r.gupta@cgiar.org
Abstract
The rice-wheat rotation is the most important cropping system in south Asia because of its role in
food security as consumers here prefer wheat ‘chapati’ and rice. Overexploitation of groundwater and
other natural resources resulted in either stagnation or decline in total factor productivity in this rotation
and calls for a systems approach to revive agriculture in this region. There is a need to diversify ricewheat
rotation and opportunities exist to do so. Keeping in view the nutritional and income security of the
population in South Asian countries, this paper discusses how tillage and crop establishment can provide
options to the farmers for diversification of rice-wheat rotation through incorporation of maize. Some of
the options include growing maize in zero-till and raised bed systems, and introducing maize as an
intercrop in the existing preferred crops. The alternative tillage and crop establishment practices help
reduce some of the problems identified by improving maize productivity in the region such as late
planting while improving the resource use efficiency.
Introduction
The rice-wheat rotation is the backbone for food security of South Asian countries comprising
Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. These crops are being cultivated in 13.5 mha of fertile lands
blessed with dependable irrigation facilities developed over the years (Gupta et al., 2002). These areas
were also the beneficiary of Green Revolution in food grain production owing to the bounty of natural
resources they enjoyed. However, of late, because of the over exploitation and injudicious use of chemical
fertilizers and irrigation facilities created, the productive soils have gradually started showing the signs of
fatigue such as significant decline in soil organic carbon content, development of micronutrient
deficiencies in recurrence, increased soil salinity, stagnation of growth in crop productivity in some places
with the signs of declining productivity (Ladha et al., 2003), requiring an approach hitherto unknown in
the post Green Revolution agrarian history of these countries. In 1994, The Rice-Wheat Consortium for
the Indo-Gangetic Plains, comprising of national agricultural research systems of Pakistan, India, Nepal,
and Bangladesh; international centers representing CGIAR (CIMMYT, CIP, ICRISAT, IRRI and IWMI);
NGOs, private entrepreneurs, and farmer groups, was formed as an ecoregional program of the CGIAR
with ICRISAT as lead center which later on was transferred to CIMMYT. The Consortium has been
evolving various concepts and technologies having potential to revive the declining trends observed in its
countries. Some of these technologies are zero tillage, bed planting, and integrated input management for
water, nutrients and judicious use of chemical inputs, while giving thrust on crop diversification as an
option for better nutritional and income security. Many of these technologies are centered on the basic
natural resource management methods such as zero tillage and bed planting systems.
Diversification of Rice-Wheat Rotation
While above mentioned problems in rice-wheat rotation reflect on one hand the deteriorating quality
of natural resource base, it also reflects, on the other hand, the nutritional and income security of
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