NATION BUSINESS REPORT
A new project aiming to help six million farmers in four South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, has been taken up to boost crop yields and their income over a period of 10 years, said the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
To be led by the Manila-based IRRI, a good number of international organisations will fund the project titled ‘The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA)’, it said, adding the project was launched in Manila recently.
The initiative will focus initially on eight hubs in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal, which represent key intensive cereal production systems that play a major role in feeding close to a quarter of the world’s population.
Major objectives of CSISA include better post-harvest technologies and practices; the development and dissemination of improved wheat and maize varieties; and the creation of a new generation of agricultural scientists.
The project, built on past cereal research achievements in the public and private sectors, aims to produce an additional five million tonnes of grain annually and increase the yearly incomes of the targeted poor rural households in the region by at least $350.
CSISA’s 10-year goal is for four million farmers to achieve a yield increase of at least 0.5 tonnes per hectare on five million hectares, and an additional two million farmers to achieve a yield increase of at least 1.0 tonne per hectare on 2.5 million hectares.
These figures translate into at least five million tonnes of additional grain produced annually, with an additional economic value of at least $1.5 billion per year and substantial other savings in terms of energy and other production costs.
According to the IRRI, the CSISA comes at a crucial time for key nations in the region — home to 40 percent of the world’s poor with nearly half a billion people subsisting on less than US$1.0 a day — as they struggle to boost grain supplies in the wake of growing demand and strained natural resources.
It will bring together a range of public and private-sector organisations to enable sustainable cereal production in the four South Asian countries, it said.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $19.59 million for the project over three years while more than more than $10 million will be available from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) over the first three years.
Three other international agricultural research centers — the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) — will join the project implementation process.
The project aims to reverse declines in annual cereal yield growth of recent years, decrease hunger and malnutrition (almost half the region’s children under five are malnourished), and increase food and income security in South Asia through the accelerated development and deployment of new cereal varieties, sustainable management technologies, and agricultural policies.
“The support from the foundation and USAID signals an increasing recognition worldwide that agricultural research needs committed, long-term funding,” the IRRI said, quoting its Deputy Director General for research, Achim Dobermann.
Dr. Dobermann was also quoted as saying: “The food price spikes of 2008 were a stark reminder of what can happen when agricultural productivity growth-which is reliant on continued research and development-tapers off and demand begins to overtake supply.”
Courtesy: nation.ittefaq.com
