Project Objectives are:-
The overall objective of the project shall be to contribute to the transition of small-scale farming systems from subsistence farming to intensified semi-commercial farming of fruit, nut and oilseed trees and of small scale private or community tree nurseries and micro-processors to more business oriented and profitable enterprises.

Activities are:

1. Purchase all equipment required for field work.
2. Organize field work in five ecoregions of India using paired plot design to assess their degree of recovery from degradation in Forest Ecosystems FES ecosystem rehabilitation sites.
3. Work with Ecosystems FES teams and other partners as appropriate, to collect data in all sites.
4. Subcontract with a local labaratory to analyze soils for total Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, (C, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, CEC,) exchangeables bases, Al toxicity and pH.
5. Compile all data into database.
6. Deliver a report with analysis of the dataset.

Deliverables.

1. A wokplan for the postdoctoral scientist
2. A summary report on the implementation of the work in India.

These new technologies are expected not only to maintain, but enhance productivity and the production levels. The scaling –up of high potential agricultural technologies would increase productivity of crops and livestock to meet the growing demand for food and improving food and nutrition security of the poor and vulnerable residing in the remote rural areas of the country. Additionally, it is envisaged that the transfer of high potential technologies would also make agriculture attractive to rural youth and create more livelihood opportunities resulting in less distress migration.

Goal:

The selection of appropriate ready to scale innovative and high potential technologies is the most vital aspect of this event.

ICRAF tasks

1) Developing an analytical framework and a set of technical, economic and social filters for identifying the best practices and prioritizing their cultural acceptability, familiarity, effectiveness, “sustainability” and scalability,

2) Using the framework, review the technologies under key themes (areas), such as the resource management, climate change resilient (smart) practices, knowledge management based applications and market linkage in relation to productivity gains and economies of scale,

3) Develop a scaling up process and implementation road map by involving various stakeholders, and

4) Package the scaling up of flagship technologies / practices in ecologically well characterized “technology fit matched – delineated” areas at scales, especially in external development portfolio supported states

Deliverables

1. Identification of 4-6 best “technologies” (technology models, packages, practices /concepts / processes) from a basket comprising different commodities, systems, methods & processes, etc. and screening them through various biophysical, socio-economic and cultural diversity filters via a task force composed of specialists in these disciplines,

2. Presenting the selected scalable “technologies” in a “Share Fair Workshop” having about 50-60 participants for critiquing and buy in in them and for supporting the scaling up efforts. This group will comprise of the representatives from the Department of Agriculture as well as relevant research institutions, State Governments and line departments, Financial Institutions, Knowledge Commission, CGIAR centers, UN nod other selected international organizations. Officials from other relevant ministries and the Planning Commission will also be invited.
The 2 day “Share Fair Workshop” will set a template for at least an annual workshop to be held each year to take stock and promote the potential technologies, particularly those that have been generated through the support of financial institutions, so that they can be built in the development portfolios of such institutions and provide benefits to a larger pool of clientele,

3. Determine the application domains of the “flagship technologies” by matching the profile of the technologies (technology utilization requirements) with the potential target area qualities and the utilizers (farmers in case of agri. technologies) resource base,

4. Package the scalable (smart agricultural) technologies and prepare a template for their scaling up and provide it to various stakeholders for wider clientele use.

CSISA will focus initially on 9 delivery hubs and 4 research platforms in areas of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal that represent key intensive cereal production systems. The hubs provide a basis for active learning about mechanisms for rapid adoption and intensification of improved cereal seed and crop management practices, for understanding critical components of public-private sector partnerships, and for developing business plans and supporting policies to stimulate private-sector investments. Improved cultivars and hybrids of maize, rice, and wheat selected under conservation agriculture practices will be developed and management concepts for future cereal systems will be designed and evaluated, alongside policy analysis and advocacy, and capacity building at all levels. By the end of year, 40,000 farmers will achieve a yield increase of at least 0.5 t/ha on 50,000 ha and an aditional 20,000 farmers achieve a yield increase of at least 1.0 t/ha on 20,000 ha. In its second phase the project will expand through Project-Related Investment models driven by the key project partners and reaching up to 500 hubs across the region within a decade.

Project objectives:

1. Widespread delivery and adaptation of production and postharvest technologies to increase  cereal production and raise incomes.
2. Crop and resource management practices for sustainable future cereal-based systems.
3. High-yielding, abiotic stress-tolerant, and disease- and insect-resistant rice varieties and hybrids for current and future cereal and mixed crop-livestock systems.
4. High-yielding, abiotic stress-tolerant, disease-resistant wheat varieties for current and future cereal and mixed crop-livestock systems.
5. High-yielding, heat-tolerant and disease-resistant maize inbred lines and hybrids for current and future cereal and mixed crop-livestock systems.
6. Technology targeting and improved policies for inclusive agricultural growth.
7. Creating a new generation of scientists and professional agronomists for cereal systems research and management.
8. Project management, communication and impact assessment

The project forms an important part of the  CGIAR Research Programs on livestock and fish

India is presently the largest milk producer in the world: 75% of rural households have bovines, 60% of dairy animals are owned by small farmers, and two thirds of marketed milk goes through the informal sector.

However, despite the importance of the informal milk sector, policy towards it is generally hostile. Informality leaves actors vulnerable to extortion, decreases investment in technology, chills the flow of innovation, and, paradoxically, makes foods less safe.

The huge burden of food-borne disease and the high level of pathogens in informal sector milk are well documented, as are the substantial, yet avoidable, milk losses from spoilage and spillage.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have developed an action research approach to help poor people get more from the traditional dairy sector. This involves engaging with policymakers, assessing health risks and improving standards of informal sector producers and value chain agents through training and certification. The approach has been very successful in East Africa and more recently has been extended to India.

General objective
To evaluate the impact of a self-sustaining model for improving the performance traditional dairy through certification and training in order to generate evidence for scaling-up and scaling-out as well as provide recommendations that will help continue to improve performance of the traditional dairy in Assam.

Specific objectives

• To rigorously evaluate a model for improving the traditional dairy sector (based on training and certification of informal value chain actors) by assessing the impacts on capacity of value chain actors and net benefits accruing to milk value chains and consumers.
• To understand and document the process of policy influence and change which supports local ownership and sustainability of this model for improving the traditional dairy sector.
• To assess the economic impact and cost-benefit of the model for improving the traditional dairy sector.
• To gather lessons from the Assam experience to inform dairy development in other parts of India and in Bangladesh.

Funder: OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

This project places feed in a broader context and acknowledges that enhancing feed supply has both technical and institutional dimensions. The project tackles feed scarcity from a value chain perspective and employs innovation system principles. The emphasis on value chain and innovation approaches will necessarily involve consideration of issues beyond feed including enhancing breed quality and health status of dairy cows.

The overall goal of the project is to contribute to improved dairy-derived livelihoods in India and Tanzania via intensification of smallholder production focusing on enhancement of feeds and feeding using innovation and value chain approaches.

The objectives of the project are three-fold:

1. Institutional strengthening: To strengthen use of value chain and innovation approaches among dairy stakeholders to improve feeding strategies for dairy cows.
2. Productivity enhancement: To develop options for improved feeding strategies leading to yield enhancement with potential income benefits.
3. Knowledge sharing: To strengthen knowledge sharing mechanisms on feed development strategies at local, regional and international levels

The project is embedded in the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish.

The main aim of the project is to develop groundnut varieties with high yield, high oil content and enhanced O/L ratio to increase oil production in rainfed, drought-prone environments and oil stability (shelf life) of groundnut using both, conventional and molecular tools.

 The  project is significant as it aims to boost production of high quality groundnut oil in India, which is a net importer of edible oils. With enhanced oil content and O/L ratio in new groundnut varieties, the proposed project envisages increase in health benefits to consumers and a reduction in the importation of edible oil thus reducing the burden on India’s exchequer. In addition, the high oil recovery from new groundnut varieties will catalyze oil processing industry and as a consequence bring in additional incomes to poor groundnut farmers of the SAT regions in the country.

1. To identify best-bet crop management options (soil, crop and water management) including improved varieties to enhance productivity of the selected crops in targeted seven districts by 25%.
2. To undertake representative soil sampling (stratified sampling method forfarmers in villages in a district) to prepare GIS-based soil maps depicting micro- and macro- nutrient status of the soils.
3. To assess the likely impacts of climate change in the target seven districts and identify suitable adaptation strategies to cope with the climate change
4. To build capacity of the stakeholders (farmers and consortium partners) in sustainable management of natural resources, enhancing crop productivity in dryland areas and adaptation strategies to cope with climate change.

The specific objectives of this project are:

1.  To consolidate the science-led farmer-centric community watershed approach at nucleus benchmark watersheds for enhancing productivity and reducing land degradation in three districts, and to use these sites as sites of learning for scaling-out benefits in the three target districts;
2. To scale-out the benefits of productivity enhancement and community watershed management with technical backstopping in the target agro-ecoregion of M.P. (10+2 districts) and Rajasthan (9+1 districts); and
3. Capacity building of lead farmers, development workers, and consortium partners in the target region and provide technical support to development agencies in the area of Community Watersheds through establishment of a national support group for community watershed development (NSGCWD).

Project G5 is the “Coordination and Change-Enabling” project for the Ganges Basin Development Challenge. The Project G5 objective is “To enhance impacts in Bangladesh and India through stakeholder participation, policy dialogue and effective coordination among other Government, NGO’s, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and donors sponsored projects and programs in the Ganges Basin Develpment Challange (BDC)  research Program” There are two major, inter-related activities: (i) coordination with our partners in Project G1-G4; and (ii) enabling change.

Project G5 is responsible for maintaining the coherence, integration and focus with our partners leading Projects G1 to G4, through active leadership and ensuring effective communication among projects. Building upon the Ganges BDC impact pathways, Project G5 will lead and coordinate monitoring and evaluation of project progress and integration, with close attention to the quality of implementation, and research products emerging from individual projects.

Project G5 will utilize tools of Results Based Management (RBM) to ensure that Projects 1-4 are well integrated into a program of research that ultimately delivers change – development outcomes and impacts. RBM is an approach to adaptive management that strongly emphasizes participation and learning. Learning depends on good information and feedback that will be derived from and delivered by an effective Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system. G5 connects the research under each project across topics and scales, from household agriculture-aquaculture farming systems to community polder water management through to broader land use planning. The project is also an interface between the program and a variety of existing and potential stakeholders and works towards scaling out of research results to multiple stakeholders with common interest in achieving the BDC.

Project G5 outputs are knowledge sharing products such as: (i) policy briefs and other interventions tailored for policy makers; (ii) capacity building tools; (iii) demonstrated approaches for scaling out; (iv) scenarios for climate and hydrological change; and (v) outputs from innovation research. These will be achieved in various ways through activities involving coordination, identifying and enabling partnerships for change; innovation research; development and implementation of a communications strategy; operation of an adaptive management system; support to capacity building; and more generally serving in a leadership and team building role for the Ganges BDC. Impacts will include reduced poverty, improved food security and strengthened livelihood resilience for people in coastal Bangladesh and India.

Given the complexity of issues, we will adopt a three phase research approach. In Phase I, we will conduct situation analysis in six selected polders. This will enable us to understand the different uses of water in polders, the conflicting interests arising thereof and the different governance mechanisms that are in place to manage these conflicts and their comparative advantage and disadvantages. In Phase II, we will zoom into community governance issues of two polders and do a detailed study on pros and cons of community management of polders. Phase III will run concurrently with Phase I and Phase II and we will do training and capacity activities in this phase. The main output of the project will be generation of knowledge aimed at sustaining high levels of polder governance through community participation.

The project has five specific objectives, and each will produce an output contributing to the above overall objectives:

validate new germplasm suitable for various agricultural cropping systems and establish seed distribution networks in target zones;

develop and disseminate more productive, profitable, resilient, and diversified rice-based cropping systems (including rice-aquaculture);

enhance the productivity of homestead production systems;

develop novel brackish-water aquatic production systems for zones too saline for agricultural crops; and

produce technology and policy recommendations for up- and out-scaling.

The project maintains strong linkages with other projects in the Ganges BDC, builds on the success of the Phase 1Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) projects in the Ganges, notably PN 10 and PN 7, and will leverage the ongoing work of other projects in the coastal zones of Bangladesh and India, especially Stress Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA), USAID-Cereals Systems Initiative for South Asia (USAID-CSISA), and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)’s agricultural program.

It will use two complementary approaches:

farmer participatory validation/demonstration of promising crops, cropping patterns, homestead farming, and aquacultural technologies; and

in-depth process analysis of new crop/aquaculture systems—using on-station experiments and simulation modeling.

The expected outcomes of the project include

decision-makers/policymakers endorse the use of modern varieties, technologies, and homestead and cropping systems and provide policies/support that enable widespread adaptation of research findings;

seed producers will produce adequate validated varieties for farmers; and

large-scale adaptation of the more productive, profitable, and stable cropping systems in fields and in homesteads.

Before a technology can be disseminated beyond the study site where it is developed, it is important to identify its “extrapolation domain.” This requires matching the resource profile of an area with the resource requirements of a technology. The goals of these technologies—increased resilience, improved livelihoods, increased production—also require an understanding of how can the land in the coastal zones best be zoned and used to meet different goals and objectives? And, how should land use change for anticipated hydrological change scenarios? This project aims to answer the question of “what works where” now and under climate change scenarios.

The G1 project has four activities, each with one output.

Compilation of a geodatabase covering all spatial information related to the project.

Characterization of the test sites and study areas from projects G2 and G3.

Mapping extrapolation domains for each technology from G2.

Development of future land-use plans based on historical land-use trends, assumed changes, constraints, and interventions from future scenarios.

The likely impacts of G1 are

Better targeting information for local government and extension services, which in turn leads to a higher likelihood of adoption of new crop intensification and water governance strategies.

Better decision making at the local government level due to improved awareness of land-use options.

The objectives of this research are to: 

1. To elucidate the molecular genetic basis of phenotypic variation for symbiotic nitrogen fixation efficiency in Cicer spp, including C. ariteinum (cultivated chickpea) and C. reticulatum (the wild progenitor).

2. To quantify the impact of domestication on symbiotic nitrogen fixation in chickpea.

3. To initiate purpose-driven populations and association genetics to examine genetic potential for efficient nitrogen fixation in elite genotypes of chickpea.

 Objective 1: To enhance market opportunities, policies and partnerships along the legume value chain to increase income and nutritional security of smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and SA.

 Objective 2: To enhance groundnut productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

 Objective 3: To enhance cowpea productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA.

 Objective 4: To enhance common bean productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA.

 Objective 5: To enhance chickpea productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

 Objective 6: To enhance pigeonpea productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

 Objective 7: To enhance soybean productivity and production in drought-prone areas of SSA.

 Objective 8: To develop sustainable seed production and delivery systems for reaching smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas of SSA and SA.

Objective 9: To manage implementation of the project, including periodic meetings, reporting, data management and dissemination, and developing a revised logframe and milestones based on the Foundations’ Strategy.

The project aims to demonstrate a successful model for up and out scaling the sweet sorghum cultivation for ethanol production to increase the farmers’ incomes, without compromising the food or fodder needs of farmers. This paves way for most efficient whole plant utilization of sweet sorghum, a promising crop for the tropics particularly in the light of climate change. The project aims to increase the area of sweet sorghum from negligible area at present to 1500 ha by the end of the project directly benefiting at least 2000 farmers in each participating country (India, Thailand and China) through centralized model (within 50 km radius) and additional 200 ha each in India and Thailand through decentralized model (beyond 50 km radius) benefiting 200 farmers additionally in each country.

The overall goal of this project is to enhance food and nutritional security and income generation for the under privileged farmers of rainfed areas of Orissa

Objectives

• To evaluate and identify newly developed high yielding disease resistant varieties and hybrids of pigeonpea for further introduction and expansion
•  Promote cultivation of high yielding pigeonpea varieties in the marginal soils.
• To develop village-level seed systems to achieve self-sufficiency in seed of farmer-preferred improved varieties of pigeonpea.
• Capacity building of farmers, NGOs, and Self Help Groups in sustainable pigeonpea production technology components.
• Enhance profitability by linking production with dal processing and marketing.
• To provide research backstopping for refinement and research on pigeonpea components as identified by researchers and farmers in the target area

 The specific objectives are as follows: 

1. To form a multi-institution consortium comprising ICRISAT, AVDRC,  NGOs, private sector industries, University of Horticulture, SAUs, and Department of Horticulture to implement e Suvarna Bhoomi Yojane in 25 selected districts.
2. To understand input and output market value chains and identify market linkages for high-volume fruits and vegetable crops for farmers under SBY.
3. To implement a  science-based strategy for sustainable production of high-value crops
4. To build capacity of the consortium partners to manage  the  SBY project and undertake capacity building of stakeholders  in the value chain, especially farmers.
5. To monitor, evaluate and document progress, impacts  and lessons learnt on consortium formation and  functionfor strengthening the SBY.

Specific activities to be undertaken are as follows:
1. Collect and analyse “information on Agroforestry Policy and Decision Making” in general for Africa and Asia, specifically in Brazil, Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Philippines, Tanzania and Zambia

2.Carry out and report on “Intervoes” among at least 10 policy and decsion making specialists related to agroforestry in India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Peru and Zambia

3. Carry out at least 4 “National Case Studies” in India, Indonesia, Kenya and Malawi and if possible, China and Brazil too

4. Provide advice to FAO for the 2 National Case Studies in Tanzania and Zambia
5. “Peer review the draft guidelines” to be formulated by the international consultant in line with the peer review process

6. Produce 2 policy briefs on the case studies realized to be distributed by ICRAF and FAO through existing research and development newsletters, journals and networks

7. Participate in the Institutional collaborative task force through virtual communications, when needed and when requested by FAO

The ultimate outcome anticipated from this research project is to develop improved varieties of groundnut and pigeonpea having higher levels of ß-carotene without compromising the yield and other agronomic traits related to farmers and consumers acceptance. This long-term sustainable strategy is expected to prevent/control micronutrient malnutrition in a vast population in the developing countries of the world where these crops are grown, including India, where they form a major component of diet as secondary staple. Such strategies are cost-effective, feasible, and can be sustainably implemented under conditions where supplementation and fortification are currently not practical or economically feasible.

Objectives:

1. To build, demonstrate and sustain a model agricultural knowledge organization and system in support of extension in India;

1. To develop and manage an online and offline  forum for management of farm level Q&A  and discussions which is integrated with knowledge  generation and organization;

1. To build and demonstrate an online as well as offline multi-modal information delivery arrangement linking online content and expert knowledge  with query services;

1. To build and sustain geospatial data and knowledge organization  systems  to support agricultural research, education  and technology transfer;

1. To build capacity among agricultural experts in the advanced management of highly integrated information services in support of education, research and extension; 

To develop methods for viable integration of back-end digital systems and processes to foster  autonomous, long term  collaboration between the ICT sector and the NARES organizations in India 

Objectives:

1.      To build, demonstrate and sustain a model agricultural knowledge organization and system in support of extension in India;

2.      To develop and manage an online and offline  forum for management of farm level Q&A  and discussions which is integrated with knowledge  generation and organization;

3.      To build and demonstrate an online as well as offline multi-modal information delivery arrangement linking online content and expert knowledge  with query services;

4.      To build and sustain geospatial data and knowledge organization  systems  to support agricultural research, education  and technology transfer;

5.      To build capacity among agricultural experts in the advanced management of highly integrated information services in support of education, research and extension;

To develop methods for viable integration of back-end digital systems and processes to foster  autonomous, long term  collaboration between the ICT sector and the NARES organizations in India

•  To establish a holistic participatory IGNRM model for the convergence of activities in 4 nucleus clusters (five villages in each cluster) encompassing suitable technical, institutional, gender equity, and policy options for enhanced agricultural productivity and crop-livestock management systems to alleviate poverty; and
• To provide technical know-how to farmers, landless rural people in the target districts, and partner NGOs supported by the SRTT in the region through empowerment by bringing together learnings from national and international experience.

1. Assess economic and environmental viability, enabling policies and institutions for promoting cultivation of sweet sorghum for bio-ethanol production and its impact on environment, rural incomes, livelihoods and social capital development.
2. Develop and establish pilot-scale Public Private People Partnership (PPPPs) value chain bio-ethanol enterprise models through “Seed-to-Tank” approach encompassing sweet sorghum production, processing, value addition, marketing and protecting environment.
3. Farmers’ participatory multilocation testing of the improved biomass (stalks and grain) and juice yielding sweet sorghum cultivars under on-farm situations and development of production and seed systems in the targeted area.
4. Fine-tuning of package of practices for increased harvest window, mechanization and development of protocols for by-product utilization.    
5. Capacity building and skill development of all the stakeholders including rural communities in the enhanced sweet sorghum production and value chain for bio-ethanol production.

The main objectives are:

1.  To enhance the productivity and production of legume crops (groundnut, chickpea and pigeonpea) through scaling up of  better adapted  cultivars and crop management technologies in target areas of India and Myanmar;
2.   To evaluate and fine tune the seed production model developed to consolidate the  legume seed requirement of the country; and
3.  To strengthen the capacity of partners (researchers and farmers) to develop, test and disseminate new varieties and crop management technologies that increase crop productivity and production

1. Consolidate and out- and up-scale the gains achieved in IFAD TAG 532-ICRISAT with the required fine-tuning of farmer participatory research outputs for new areas, particularly those covered under the IFAD loan-financed projects

2. Develop seed production, storage and distribution systems to make small and marginal farmers self-reliant and self- sufficient for seed requirements of FPVs of food legumes.

3. Promote forward and backward market linkages and value addition in legumes at local level.

4. Popularize the FPRE approach among NARS, extension officials and farmers, and assess its institutional impact; and

5. Assess the impact of FPVs and integrated crop management technologies (ICM) of grain legumes in rainfed production system on the socio-economic conditions of farmers vis-àvis sustainable increased productivity, food and nutritional security and improved family well being

Legumes form an integral part of rainfed agriculture. Not only do they help in improving the soil fertility and its structure, they also provide food and nutritional security and diversified sources of income for poor farmers and valuable protein-rich fodder to livestock. Legumes bring stability and improvement to rainfed agriculture and to the livelihoods of poor farmers.

The aim of the project is to gain self sufficiency in chickpea-pulse production through increased productivity by expanding improved pulse production and protection technologies (IPPPT), and establishing village level seed system in the rainfed rice fallow lands (RRFL) of selected regions inIndia.Project objectives include:

•  To enhance capacity at field level for farmer-participatory research and extension (FPRE) in adoption and expansion of improved chickpea-pulse production and protection technologies (IPPPT) in rainfed rice fallow lands
• To multiply and distribute farmer-preferred chickpea varieties along with IPPPT (including IDM, IPM and INM) for sustainable intensification of rainfed rice fallow cropping systems
• Empowerment among farmers and participating local institutions, on FPRE/IPPPT to establish village-based seed system (s) to achieve self-sufficiency in seeds of farmer-preferred, improved varieties of chickpea at the village level
• Research backstopping for further improvement of chickpea varieties for traits and IPPPT components preferred by the farmers and traders in the target area

districts of Karnataka through increasing average productivity of selected crops by 20% in

four years.

The specific objectives are:

1. To identify and scale-up best-bet options (soil, crop and water management) including

improved cultivars to enhance productivity of the selected crops in selected 20 districts

by 20%.

2. To train DoA staff in stratified soil sampling at villages, analysis of micronutrients,

preparation of GIS-based soil maps, and guide DoA to establish high-quality Soil

Analysis Laboratory at Bangalore.

3. To build capacity of the stake holders (farmers and consortium partners) in the

sustainable management of natural resources and enhancing productivity in dryland

areas.

The specific objectives are:

1. To establish four Model  community watershed Sites of Learning in three target rainfall zones (<700 mm and 700  to 1100 mm, and > 1100 mm rainfall per annum) for demonstrating the potential of rainfed areas by adopting integrated water resource management approach;  and
2. To disseminate best watershed management practices in the areas of integrated watershed management for developing capacity of different stakeholders.

These knowledge and policy inputs will help fill gaps identified in a recent comprehensive study carried out by ILRI and partners, where organized marketing of milk in Assam was found to be relatively insignificant and traditional (or informal) markets for fresh liquid milk and dairy products account for most of the market opportunities for farmers.

Milk and milk products are consumed by most households, both rich and poor, and consumption is increasing; milk sales are an important livelihood strategy for rural households most of which are poor, and 82% of which keep cattle. Milk processing and trading provide a livelihood for large numbers of vendors and processors. Hence, enhancement of the traditional milk value chain can simultaneously improve the welfare of large numbers of poor farmers, intermediaries in the milk chain and consumers. Women have the major role in care of cattle and in making household decisions about purchase and consumption of dairy products; they will be the major beneficiaries of interventions at the start and end of the milk value chain.

The study found that most urban consumers are not satisfied with milk quality and safety, while most producers and milk chain intermediaries are unaware of hygienic milk handling. The high costs of informality and poor linkages between actors further constrain dairy development. Moreover, given increased consumer demand for safer milk combined with potential regulations in the horizon aimed at mandating safety standards, informal sector participants’ livelihoods in the dairy sector are under increased threat.

ANTICIPATED IMPACT
It is anticipated that enhancing dairy quality and capability of supplying milk, while simultaneously improving linkages and decreasing transaction costs, will lead to a demand-driven production system which will further stimulate investment in production technologies (e.g. artificial insemination, feeding, credit and veterinary services) that are available but under-utilized. The initiative aims to overcome the above knowledge, policy and institutional barriers to improving the traditional milk marketing in Assam through two inter-linked strategies clustered around knowledge management (out-scaling) and policy engagement (up-scaling).

The improvement is expected to result in significant livelihood benefits to those engaged in the value chain as more consumers purchase larger quantities of safer and higher quality milk, and farmers and traders see both their markets increase, costs decrease and losses from milk spoilage and wastage go down.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS
Out-scaling: Knowledge management and dissemination outputs
Output 1: Training materials and tools from East Africa adapted to the Assamese context
Output 2: A majority of milk value chain actors have improved skills and incentives for the practice of skills
Output 3: Increased consumer demand for and confidence in milk quality and safety

Up-scaling knowledge to action: Processes, policy and stakeholder engagement outputs
Output 4: Evidence on impact and cost-effectiveness in order to promote continued and extended adoption
Output 5: Attitudes, behaviour and institutions shifted toward pro-poor dairying

PARTNERS

• Department of Dairy Development, Government of Assam
• College of Veterinary Sciences, Assam Agricultural University
• Centre for Humanistic Development
• Fellowship for Agri Resource Management and Entrepreneurship Research (FARMER) – a local NGO
• Brihattar Guwahati Gopalak Sangstha (BGGS) – a dairy producers’ and traders’ association
• Catalyst Management Services – a national-level NGO
• BASICS Limited – a national-level NGO

Funding: UK Department for International Development (DFID)

Outputs expected from the project are, techniques standardized for screening chickpea genotypes for reproductive stage heat tolerance, a set of heat tolerant chickpea genotypes identified and selected lines evaluated at farmers’ fields, genetics of heat tolerance worked out and molecular markers identified for heat tolerance gene(s), and breeding material developed by introgressing heat tolerance in locally adopted cultivars.Activities include, standardize techniques for large scale screening of chickpea germplasm for heat stress at reproductive stage, screen a set of genotypes (germplasm, cultivars and breeding lines) at multiple locations for their ability to flower and set pods at high temperatures, study reproductive behavior of heat tolerant and heat sensitive genotypes under normal temperatures and under heat stress, study genetics of heat tolerance, develop RILs for mapping heat tolerance gene(s), identify molecular markers for heat tolerance gene(s) through association mapping and linkage mapping, develop heat tolerant breeding lines with suitable agronomic background, and evaluate selected heat tolerant lines at farmers’ fields.  Expansion of project to involve marker-assisted breeding for heat tolerance planned, if able to identify markers for heat tolerance under the current project, and studies on comparative genomics of legumes for heat tolerance.

Planned outputs of this project is (i) isolines with key stay-green QTLs having higher drought-adaptation and forage quality and better characterized molecular markers to facilitate MAS breeding; (ii) knowledge of traits related to a more efficient soil water use and their effects on yield, strategic knowledge on their relation to key stay-green QTLs, and assessment of their forecasted economic benefits.

Mixed crop-livestock systems are very dynamic and are evolving rapidly in response to external drivers such as demographic pressure, development of urban markets and increased demand for crop and livestock products, climate variability and change. In addition, the recent interest for bio-fuel production exacerbates further the pressure on biomass in production systems.

This study aims at better understanding the tradeoffs in crop residue uses in cereal based systems in South Asia region on wheat/rice based system. The major tradeoff in most system is the short term benefits of using crop residues to feed livestock versus leaving the crop residues in the field to improve soil productivity (nutrient balance, erosion control, and soil health).

The study focuses on the decision making processes at the farm/household level and will capture the diversity/contrasts and recent changes in CR uses at various scales in order to better target technical, institutional and policy options to improve livelihood without compromising long term system sustainability.

Multiple-use water services (MUS) is an innovative approach to water services. It unlocks new investment opportunities for poverty reduction and gender equity in peri-urban and rural areas. MUS takes people’s multiple water needs as the starting point of planning and design of new systems and upgrades. Universally, water users already use ‘domestic’ systems or ‘irrigation’ systems for multiple purposes, whether legal or not. By planning for these multiple uses, many more benefits from investments in infrastructure can be realized: health, freedom from domestic chores, food and income and gender equity.

The CPWF’s MUS project, supported by the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CP28) pioneered the implementation of MUS and scaling up of MUS at intermediate, national and global levels. Global partners were IWMI International Water Management Institute (lead institution), IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and IDE International Development Enterprise. Learning alliances were established with 150 governments and other institutions in the basins of the Andes (Bolivia and Colombia), Indus-Ganges (India, Nepal), Limpopo (South Africa and Zimbabwe), Mekong (Thailand), and Nile (Ethiopia). Global advocacy in collaboration with the MUS Group ensured that MUS obtained a place in the policy agendas of professional networks, such as the World Water Forums, and of international governmental and non-governmental water agencies, rural development and financing organizations. Project partners included local water user movements, NGOs, the domestic sub-sector, the irrigation sub-sector, and local government. From these diverse backgrounds, project partners innovated two successful MUS models: homestead-scale MUS and community-scale MUS.

Homestead-scale MUS: 50 – 200 litres per capita per day

Whenever water is available near homes and on adjoining lands, or ‘homesteads’, people use such water for domestic and many productive uses. This empirical relationship between water uses and availability is depicted in the ‘multiple-use water ladder’. The policy recommendation is to enable poor people ‘to climb the water ladder’ and to provide 50-200 liters per capita per day. Out of this, 3-5 liters per capita per day should be safe for drinking. Income generated enable repayment of most multiple-use systems investments within three years. Homestead-scale MUS is especially beneficial for women, who are disproportionately responsible for domestic water supplies and tend to have a stronger say over homestead production. The land-poor, who only have access to homestead land, also benefit.

Community-scale MUS: local-level integrated water resource management

Here MUS takes communities as entry point of water services. It holistically considers their multiple water uses (domestic, irrigation, animal watering, tree-growing, fisheries, enterprises, ceremonies, environment) from multiple water sources (rain, surface water, groundwater, wetlands) at multiple sites (homesteads, fields, open access). This integrated water resource management at the local level is (potentially) considerably more cost-effective and sustainable than single-use water services.

Reservoirs are only semi-natural ecosystems, usually being the result of humans having transformed a river into a lake, with a sometimes poorly adapted and consequently highly dynamic aquatic fauna. The productivity from reservoir fisheries can be increased through a number of approaches combining better harvesting strategies, carefully adapted stock enhancements, and aquaculture activities. To achieve this untapped potential while securing ecosystem services such as water quality and biodiversity, a holistic approach and improved understanding involving both bilogical principles and stakeholder participation is necessary. The natural biophysical constraints of the reservoirs define the ecological production processes and the socio-economic settings shape the human production enhancement possibilities. By synthesizing these mechanisms into general principles and predictive indicators it should be possible to provide various options and scenarios for improved productivity that can be adapted to the local cultural and institutional settings. The main objective of this 3.5 year CPWF project was to increase the productivity of reservoir fisheries and provide sustainable livelihoods to the rural poor through a series of interventions in tropical reservoirs.

The main project activities focused on two reservoirs in the Indo-Gangetic basin (Dahob in Madhya Pradesh, and Pahuj in Uttar Pradesh, both in India), the Lake Nasser in Egypt as part as the Nile basin, and the Volta Lake in Ghana as part as the Volta basin. For each of those sites the specific objectives of the project were:-          Objective 1: To identify, develop, and test in collaboration with the main stakeholders, fisheries enhancement tools and strategies leading to increased fish productivity and better community livelihood prospects;-          Objective 2: To improve the understanding about the overall human contexts of those reservoirs and identify potential socio-institutional obstacles to the adoption of increased fishery productivity innovations;-          Objective 3: To facilitate the implementation of these fisheries productivity interventions by improving the stakeholders’ management skills and fostering their institutional capacities;In addition to those objectives, the project encompassed an initial data inventory from a wide variety of tropical reservoirs within the three basins, and the detailed assessment of the selected reservoirs, including market evaluation and post-capture improvements.

a)    To develop improved high biomass and juice yielding sweet-stalk and brown mid-rib sorghum cultivars and high biomass and/or sugary cassava varieties; standardize propagating techniques for true breeding large-scale multiplication of high yielding collections of jatropha, and evaluate them for seed yield and oil content;

b)    To conduct regional testing using available sweet sorghum and cassava cultivars and established jatropha nurseries; to fine tune production packages including pest and disease management with the selected sweet sorghum and cassava lines; and “plus” tree jatropha collections for each of the target countries to maximize productivity and build seed systems to produce sufficient stocks of seed materials for each country for each crop;

c)    To facilitate the development of enterprises and mechanism(s) for supply of inputs for crop production, and buy-back of sweet sorghum stalks, cassava roots, and jatropha oil seeds by the industry for bio-ethanol and bio-diesel production respectively;

d)    To develop and evaluate improved technologies to assess the role of various by-products as organic manure and/or pesticide; and

e)     To build the knowledge base of farmers, NGOs and line department staff on the importance of bio-fuel needs, various technical aspects related to their production, cultivation practices and their seed (sexual/asexual) systems, and supply chain management

This will involve developing cultivars tolerant to drought and the major pests and diseases using modern plant-breeding techniques such as marker-aided selection (which will be developed under the Tropical Legumes I Project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). A major thrust will be to develop and operationalize sustainable seed production and delivery systems in project countries, to enhance the access of farmers, especially those who are resource-poor, to improved cultivars.

Social science research will be used to analyze and provide advice concerning the social and cultural environments that influence the sustainable adoption and spread of promising varieties, technologies and innovations, and the scaling-up and scaling-out work done amongst farm communities. Social science inputs will also support research developments in breeding through a feedback process, policy dialogue, and by identifying lessons learnt for technology dissemination. Ensuring capacity building and infrastructure development among national program partners involved in breeding and seed delivery systems will be a major activity, in order to ensure the sustainability of legume breeding efforts in the project countries.

Musa (banana) genetic resources are conserved within a worldwide network of field collections (MusaNet) and in vitro at the International Musa Germplasm Collection (ITC), managed by Bioversity International at the Katholieke Universiteit (KUL) Leuven, Belgium. The participants in MusaNet are loosely connected through shared initiatives, regional research networks and information and germplasm exchanges. The effectiveness of the system has been constrained by limited capacity and resources in all institutes to manage the entirety of their collections to appropriate standards, and to complete safety duplication, characterization and documentation of accessions. Consequently a significant number of accessions continue to be lost or threatened.

Funded by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, this project has focused on strengthening collections, exchanges and communities of practice within MusaNet in order to provide access to and promote the use of a wider range of Musa diversity to respond to the diverse and evolving needs of present and future germplasm users, producing four main outputs focussing on regeneration and safety duplication in priority field collections, improving the genetic coverage of the international collection at the ITC, improving specific areas of taxonomic understanding and completing cryopreservation of the in trust collection.

The work remains on target to regenerate, duplicate and document accessions in priority collections, as well as improving the coverage of the international collection at the ITC. The project has also contributed to building capacity in cryopreservation and virus-indexing, initiatives that have been much appreciated by partners.

Holding more than 1200 accessions, Bioversity’s International Transit Centre (ITC) in Leuven is the transit centre for Musa germplasm. It is central to the safe movement of germplasm and has received most of its holdings from field collections that are part of MusaNet (a Bioversity coordinated network that exchanges Musa data and knowledge). Consequently, there is overlap between ITC accessions and those from the donor collections. With ITC being an in vitro collection, no field observations or measurements are made there. Thus, passport data have to be linked to the donors’ data sets on characterization, evaluation, agronomy. Comprehensive identification of common holdings accounts for the fact that traits for characterizing a variety may vary according to environment. The entire ITC collection recently went through a field verification process carried out by partner collections, to check the true-to-type status and identity of the accessions. This information is being used to identify somaclonal variants at the ITC. The proposition is to start from the ITC records and retrace the origin of a given accession, either a collecting mission or another collection.

The original work plan to establish this Crop Musa Register was as follows:

• Musa Crop Register coverage
• Descriptors to be collated and included in the Crop Register:
• ‘Core data sets’, i.e. descriptors common to all GPG2 Crop Registers
• Crop-specific descriptors
• Procedures developed to collate/harvest the data from co-operators
• Implementation of database for Crop Register – database/data work/ products

Significant progress has been made as follows: drafting partners’ agreements and data sourcing; developing a template to facilitate a common agreement on minimum descriptors; amassing a 1340 reference-set of records for the implementation of the Crop register; using IITA collection data to pilot current developments; harmonizing the botanical classification and validation in the 2008 Taxonomy group (TAG) workshop; adapting algorithms for performing comparisons; developing an on-line alpha version of the data processing tool; developing a web interface, and populating the database.

The Musa Crop Register website is not yet fully operational. The comparison method used needs to be fine tuned. A test performed by IITA highlighted a problem on the accuracy of the comparison, so calibration of the method with more data is needed. As the Musa Germplasm Information System (MGIS) is already a register of Musa collections but without cross-referencing, it was decided during the Crop Registers’ Workshop (Aleppo 2010) to merge the Crop Register website with the MGIS website, allowing effective maintenance of the Musa Crop Register in the long-term. This will also improve the content of the MGIS database, with the addition of the cross-referencing methodology developed. According to a new work-plan, website merging will be completed after the end of the GPG 2 project. Follow-up work may be completed within the MusaNet framework, as although this specific grant from ICARDA has come to an end, the work of MGIS continues through the CG system, and further funding will be actively sought, including in the context of proposed the new CG research programmes (CRPs) such as the Roots Tubers and Banana programme.

Financed mainly by the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) through the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO), the work aims to contribute towards greater diversification of cocoa markets through the identification and characterization of high quality cocoa origins. It will benefit cocoa producers, through increased opportunities to be rewarded for producing high quality cocoa beans. Operators in the supply chain will also benefit from increased awareness on high quality cocoa origins, as well as the consumers; by having access to better and more diverse cocoa products. Mars Inc., Barry Callebaut, Belcolade, The World Cocoa Foundation and CIRAD have also provided support.

In preparation for the official start of the grant, a pilot event was staged in 2009, involving 20 countries submitting 152 cocoa samples from a wide diversity of cocoa origins. 40 of these samples (from Latin America and the Caribbean) were selected, processed and judged for an award entitled Cocoa of Excellence (COE), in the 2009 Salon du Chocolat in Paris. The results confirmed the reputation of Venezuela, Ecuador and Trinidad as producers of fine cocoa.

For its 2010 edition  the Salon du Chocolat of Paris invited the general public to attend the International Cocoa Awards, showing consumers how their chocolate consumption can improve the lives of the smallholder farmers who grow most of the world’s cocoa production, and in the process contribute to the conservation of cocoa diversity.

Of the 148 cocoa samples received and analysed, 50 made it through the Cocoa of Excellence selection process and competed in their geographic area of origin: West Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, or Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The jury of professionals and connoisseurs assembled for the occasion scored the cocoa/chocolate, sweet, floral, fresh fruit, brown fruit, nutty, spicy and woody notes of each sample.

Fifteen of the nineteen participating countries were represented at the award ceremony. Entries that best represented the three dominant flavour categories of their region were singled out for recognition, provided by individual producers from:  West Africa (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana); South America (Brazil, Colombia Ecuador); Central America and the Caribbean (Jamaica Trinidad and Tobago) and South-East Asia and Oceania (Madagascar PNG)

An invitation to participate in the Cocoa of Excellence (CoE) celebration 2011 has just been announced (deadline for sample submission 31 March 2011)

The aim of this project is to launch a food-based intervention against micronutrient deficiencies in the humid forest and mid-altitude regions of sub-Saharan Africa, through a combined strategy of improved productivity to assure food security, improved nutritional quality using genetically-enriched plantain and banana, and improved processing options to conserve nutritional quality. This work is funded by HarvestPlus, a body formed from the CG Challenge Program and funded by the Gates Foundation. The work has included:

• Identifying the best varieties with high micronutrient content from the existing elite and adapted germplasm for immediate multiplication and distribution to farmers,
• Carrying out wide scale screening of Musa germplasm to identify useful genes from within the Musa gene-pool for use in genetic improvement programmes;
• Incorporating identified genes (Musa and non-Musa) for nutrient enhancement into existing genetic engineering programmes for banana and plantain,
• Identifying and promoting post-harvest processing options that do not alter the bio-availability of micronutrients.
• Determining the inheritance of micronutrients to support a deliberate effort for genetic fortification of most productive varieties through conventional cross-breeding supported by marker-assisted selection,
• Refining technology packages by determining genotype x process interaction effects on micronutrient stability using the best genotypes,
• Disseminating genetically-fortified varieties and micronutrient-conserving processing options.

Research activities for phase 2 (2010-2011) are focused on optimising mechanisms through a proof-of-concept of fast-tracking high-vitA cultivars of different subgroups in East and Central Africa, and identifying the mechanisms underlying vitA accumulation in Musa fruits.

All findings and tools will continue to be disseminated through the regional banana and plantain research networks in East and Southern Africa, West and Central Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia and the Pacific, through the Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) and through Bioversity-coordinated initiatives such as ProMusa, the global programme for Musa improvement.

Proposed Outcomes: Deliver a series of databases, tools, analyses, and syntheses designed to improve strategic investment and policy decisions. “Bottom-line” deliverables are spatially (and socio-economically) explicit estimates of the potential welfare benefits of a range of interventions (e.g., at on-farm, market and national policy scale) aimed at improving the production and profitability of specific crops and cropping systems. These materials (maps, tables, graphs, and text) provide information of direct relevance to agricultural development investors and policymakers.

This project will be carried out in the frame of the foreseen Challenge programme: ‘ High Value Crops- Fruits and Vegetables’. As part of this programme, the study will contribute to increased smallholder agricultural production, livelihood opportunities, and incomes in Eastern and Southern Africa through the development of intensive fruit-based agroforestry systems.

The above study will compile basic data and knowledge about small-scale fruit based agroforestry systems and selected fruit tree species.

Specific project objectives include the following. 1. To analyze and compare function and characteristics of existing garden-like agroforestry systems in India and Eastern Africa (particularly Kenya and Uganda). 2. To study potential and constraints for intensifying fruit garden systems in different climatic regions of Kenya and Uganda. 3. To gather data on genetic and nutritional variability of selected underutilized fruit tree species and varieties from India.

Expected project outputs are as follows. 1. Knowledge about function and characteristics of existing intensive small-scale fruit garden agroforestry systems in India. 2. Improved data on the practicability and constraints of high intensity fruit garden agroforestry systems in three pilot sites of Eastern Africa including GIS-based maps. 3. Qualitative and genetic characterization of selected fruit tree species and varieties. 4. Capacity building of national agricultural research institutes in the three pilot sites and awareness creation among public and private advisory services in at least five countries of Eastern and Southern Africa.

In the three East African countries (Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda), CAFNET focuses in watersheds that have a major national importance in terms of area and volume of coffee grown in the country, where coffee growing is mostly a smallholder enterprise, and which have a marked potential to respond to market demand for high quality, sustainable coffee.

The initiative has established successful collaborations with numerous regional and subregional organizations in Africa as well as Asia, Middle East, and Latin America to facilitate the initiation of national surveys. Since 2001, ASTI has published a broad set of country briefs and regional synthesis reports, which have been cited widely in national and international agricultural research policy documents. See the ASTI website at www.asti.cgiar.org