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IMODInnovate Grow Prosper
Vision
By the year 2020, CRP 3.6 DRYLAND CEREALS will help an additional
33 million poor smallholder farmers, especially women, to achieve a sustainable 15% increase in dryland cereal production on at least 45 million hectares in Africa and Asia, generating direct value of US$2.2 billion ($1.5 billion from an additional 22 million tons of grain, and $750 million from an additional 12 million tons of sorghum fodder). The Program will generate at least 150 new varieties that have traits preferred by smallholders and consumers, along with improved agronomic practices to enable the full expression of those traits. CRP 3.6 will also develop postharvest technologies to reduce waste and increase value capture, particularly for women. Improved sorghum variety Macia is spreading rapidly across
eastern and southern Africa.
CRP 3.6 DRYLAND CEREALS Consortium Research Program 2
A world apartFar from the capital cities where agricultural policy and investment decisions are taken, lie the vast dryland plains. One billion forgotten poor scratch out a living earning US$1.25/day or less along the margins of the great Sahara and Kalahari Deserts of Africa, the Thar Desert of South Asia, the Deccan Plateau of the Indian subcontinent, the dryland steppes of West and Central Asia, and other dry areas.
Adapting to these conditions, they developed a very different agriculture from that practiced in the fertile, irrigated valleys that benefited most from the Green Revolution. Livestock became a mainstay of dryland life because animals can move to avoid drought, finding water and vegetation wherever they can. As human populations increased and boundaries increasingly restrained the pastoral way of
Smallholder mixed farming (millet/cowpea/livestock) under harsh conditions in the Sahel of Niger.
Cattle graze on sorghum stalks in dryland Kenya.
life, the poor became more and more dependent on drought and heat-hardy crops such as sorghum, millets and barley, while also feeding the stalks to their livestock. Dryland cereals nourish these poor by supplying carbohydrates, protein, fiber, calcium, iron, and certain B vitamins.
The Green Revolution inadvertently left these dryland dwellers further behind by shifting urban consumption preferences towards crops that were adapted to wetter areas. The CGIAR’s priority is to help the poorest of the poor – a focus that can be powerfully served by helping the forgotten one billion whose lives depend on the dryland cereals.
Dryland agriculture is practiced in the semi-arid (dark yellow) and subhumid (green) climatic zones of Africa, Asia and Latin America, which abut the major deserts of the world (grey - hyperarid, and yellow - arid). Credit: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
The major dryland crops: sorghum, millets and barley - are currently worth US$27 billion annually at the farm gate in low-income food-deficit countries, as much as maize or wheat. Overall demand is projected to increase by 48% for sorghum, 39% for millets and 44% for barley by 2020 relative to the year 2000 driven mostly by population growth. Increasing productivity to meet this demand is imperative, but will not be easy; past gains have been relatively modest, less than 1% per year and insufficient to keep pace with population growth (2%-3% per year across most of the drylands). Yet if nothing is done, climate change is projected to reduce sorghum and pearl millet yields by about 17% by 2050 in Africa.
CRP 3.6 DRYLAND CEREALS Consortium Research Program3
Demand is split about equally for human vs. livestock uses, plus smaller but growing commercial markets for poultry feed, baby and weaning foods, malting, bioethanol and other high-value uses. Enhancing such market opportunities substantially lifts smallholder incomes. Rapidly increasing demand for meat and dairy products will further strengthen market demand for dryland cereal stalks to feed livestock.
Capitalizing on diversityCan research-for-development make a difference in these harsh and variable environments? Yes it can, but a different, innovative approach is required. The approach starts by recognizing that the conventional approach of eliminating all stresses through costly irrigation and agrochemicals in order to grow only a few high-yielding crop varieties over large areas, will not succeed in the parched, impoverished drylands. Instead, CRP 3.6 will apply the strategy that dryland farmers themselves have always used with great success – it will treat diversity as an asset rather than an obstacle – utilizing genetic adaptive traits to optimize performance in diverse agro-ecological settings.Diversity is complexity, unless it is understood – and then it becomes a treasure trove of riches. The astonishing revolutions in genomic and bioinformatic tools along with geospatial mapping and modeling of environmental conditions now enable us to achieve a far more effective understanding and use of diversity than ever before. In CRP 3.6, integrated breeding platforms will streamline the process of identifying ‘raw’ but valuable genetic diversity in large germplasm collections and genomics studies, and put it to use in targeted ways for
crop improvement. CRP 3.6 will meld these advanced science tools with farmer’s local knowledge to create and deliver at least 150 varieties ideally adapted to their agro-ecosystems. These varietal releases will be accompanied by dryland crop management techniques custom-tuned to get the
most out of those varieties. Techniques to reduce post-harvest losses as well as to enable the poor to benefit from post-harvest processing innovations will also be developed.
The benefits of CRP 3.6 will reach well beyond its own domain. Since the dryland crops are the evolutionary vanguard in terms of drought and heat tolerance, lessons about the functional genetics of those traits will be of global interest to a world facing climate change. Traits that improve livestock feed quality will contribute to the success of sister Consortium Research Programs (CRPs) on livestock and on dryland farming systems, and human nutritional traits such as micronutrient content will contribute to the progress of the sister CRP on health and nutrition.
Probability of association of days to flowering in sorghum with 47,000 single nucleotide polymorphism markers (differences among single DNA base pairs). Markers at the ends of chromosomes 2 and 5 are strongly associated with the trait, indicating the likely locations of genes that control days to flowering. Colors distinguish each chromosome from the next.
Genetic Mapping of Days to Flowering in Sorghum
Family-scale sheep and goat herding relies on barley fodder in West Asia and North Africa.
CRP 3.6 DRYLAND CEREALS Consortium Research Program 4
CRP 3.6 Strategic Objectives
Training national scientists in geographic information systems technology to target germplasm to locations with suitable climate and soils.
Following taste-testing in Mali, gathering feedback from mothers to identify sorghum breeding lines that are most palatable to children.
Drought-resistant barley complemented by water harvesting on slopes in Ethiopia.
Hybrid Parents Research Consortium is an innovative partnership that unites the private seed sector with ICRISAT to accelerate the flow of improved seed to farmers; here they jointly review promising lines in the field.
Demonstrating higher-value products from sorghum flour for commercialization in Kenya to stimulate market-oriented smallholder development.
• SO 1 – Better targeting of opportunities for technology development and delivery of dryland cereals to smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia.
• SO 2 – Enhancing the availability and use of genetic diversity, genomics and informatics to enhance the efficiency of dryland cereal improvement.
• SO 3 – Developing improved dryland cereal varieties and hybrids for increased yield, quality and adaptation in smallholder farmers fields.
• SO 4 – Developing sustainable crop, pest and disease management options to capture genetic gains from improved dryland cereal varieties and hybrids.
• SO 5 – Enhancing effective seed and information systems for better delivery of improved technology packages to smallholder farmers.
• SO 6 – Adding post-harvest value and improving market access of dryland cereals to provide smallholder farmers more benefits from dryland cereals.
Enormous genetic diversity in center germplasm collections is reflected in the wide variation of the grain-bearing heads (panicles) of sorghum (left) and pearl millet (right).
The welfare of Sahelian children depends on that of their mothers, and both of them depend on sorghum and millet.
Knowledge sharing to accelerate gainsIn the past, CGIAR centers worked separately in the tropical and temperate latitudes on dryland cereals. This created knowledge gaps and overlaps because many important themes cut across these two zones. Joining forces will accelerate knowledge and efficiency gains in areas such as:
• Understanding cross-crop stress tolerance mechanisms, eg, to drought, high temperature and low soil fertility;
• Understanding cross-crop productivity mechanisms, eg, to increase stalk yield and quality for livestock fodder;
• Cross-learning and innovation about smallholder-appropriate soil, water and weed management strategies;
• Cross-learning on ways to improve seed delivery systems and smallholder’s access to higher-value markets; and
• Ways to improve post-harvest processing that apply across crops and latitudes to achieve higher value, better shelf life and increased nutrient content in dryland cereals.
Cross-cutting focus on women
Women are closely engaged in dryland cereal farming, particularly crop management and postharvest operations. Women are also the prime caretakers in most households; the welfare of children depends especially on women’s well-being. Yet women’s needs and aspirations received little special attention in the past. With CRP 3.6, this will change.
Gender-disaggregated knowledge will be explicitly gathered and utilized in pursuit of each of the six Strategic Objectives, more fully understanding the differing roles of men and women in order to better guide our research-for-development priorities. Capacity-strengthening activities will proactively seek and include women in equitable numbers. Technologies will be developed with two major aims: to unleash higher income-earning opportunities for women, and to reduce the drudgery of tasks such as harvesting, hand-milling, cooking and other post-harvest operations.
CRP 3.6 DRYLAND CEREALS Consortium Research Program5
Oct 2011
About ICRISATThe International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid tropics have over 2 billion people, and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these poor people to overcome poverty, hunger, malnutrition and a degraded environment through better and more resilient agriculture.
ICRISAT is headquartered in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, with two regional hubs and four country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. It belongs to the Consortium of Centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
Contact Information
www.icrisat.org
ICRISAT-Patancheru(Headquarters)Patancheru 502 324Andhra Pradesh, IndiaTel +91 40 30713071Fax +91 40 [email protected]
ICRISAT-Liaison OfficeCG Centers BlockNASC ComplexDev Prakash Shastri MargNew Delhi 110 012, IndiaTel +91 11 32472306 to 08 Fax +91 11 25841294
ICRISAT-Nairobi(Regional hub ESA)PO Box 39063, Nairobi, KenyaTel +254 20 7224550Fax +254 20 [email protected]
ICRISAT-Bamako(Regional hub WCA)BP 320Bamako, MaliTel +223 20 223375Fax +223 20 [email protected]
ICRISAT-NiameyBP 12404, Niamey, Niger (Via Paris)Tel +227 20722529, 20722725Fax +227 [email protected]
ICRISAT-BulawayoMatopos Research StationPO Box 776Bulawayo, ZimbabweTel +263 383 311 to 15Fax +263 383 [email protected]
ICRISAT-LilongweChitedze Agricultural Research StationPO Box 1096Lilongwe, MalawiTel +265 1 707297/071/067/057Fax +265 1 [email protected]
ICRISAT-Maputoc/o IIAM, Av. das FPLM No 2698Caixa Postal 1906Maputo, MozambiqueTel +258 21 461657Fax +258 21 [email protected]
Partnerships = powerCRP 3.6’s strategy to capitalize on diversity also extends to partnerships. It recognizes that delivering on diversity requires supporting partners’ efforts to locally customize and deliver seeds and knowledge. As discussed earlier, women’s needs and opportunities will be a cross-cutting focus in all CRP 3.6 activities.
CRP 3.6 will improve CGIAR efficiency and effectiveness by uniting ICRISAT (lead) with ICARDA and with additional partners across these four crops and across tropical and temperate latitudes. Additional core partners include the CGIAR Generation Challenge Program (GCP), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Iranian Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), France’s L’institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD) and Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherché Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), the USAID-supported Sorghum, Millet and Other Grains Cooperative Research Support Program (INTSORMIL), more than 60 national agricultural research and extension programs in Africa and Asia, 20 advanced research institutes, and 25 NGOs, CSOs, farmer organizations and private sector companies.
The direct budget of CRP 3.6 will be approximately US$25 million per annum over the period, though the efforts of these partners leverage large additional resources for shared goals. Costly facilities and specialized knowledge will be shared in genomics, stress resistance, information management and partnership-building activities.
Farmers are key partners of CRP 3.6.(above) reviewing sorghum and millet in Mali, (below) reviewing barley lines in Algeria.
CRP 3.6 DRYLAND CEREALS Consortium Research Program 6
