dryland agriculture in africa and asia
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ISRAEL and ICRISAT
March 2006
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About ICRISAT
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Liaison OfficeCG Centers BlockNASC ComplexDev Prakash Shastri MargNew Delhi 110 012, IndiaTel +91 11 32472306/32472307/32472308 Fax +91 11 25841294
ICRISAT-Nairobi(Regional hub ESA)PO Box 39063, Nairobi, KenyaTel +254 20 7224550Fax +254 20 [email protected]
ICRISAT-Niamey(Regional hub WCA)BP 12404Niamey, Niger (Via Paris)Tel +227 20 722529, 20 722725Fax +227 20 [email protected]
ICRISAT-LilongweChitedze Agricultural Research StationPO Box 1096Lilongwe, MalawiTel +265 1 707297/071/067/057Fax +265 1 [email protected]
ICRISAT-Maputoc/o INIA, Av. das FPLM No 2698Caixa Postal 1906Maputo, MozambiqueTel +258 21 461657Fax +258 21 [email protected]
ICRISAT-Patancheru(Headquarters)Patancheru 502 324Andhra Pradesh, IndiaTel +91 40 30713071Fax +91 40 [email protected]
ICRISAT-BamakoBP 320Bamako, MaliTel +223 2223375Fax +223 [email protected]
ICRISAT-BulawayoMatopos Research StationPO Box 776,Bulawayo, ZimbabweTel +263 83 8311 to 15Fax +263 83 8253/[email protected]
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a nonprofit, non-political organization that does innovative agricultural research and capacity building for sustainable development with a wide array of partners across the globe. ICRISAT’s mission is to help empower 600 million poor people to overcome hunger, poverty and a degraded environment in the dry tropics through better agriculture. ICRISAT belongs to the Alliance of Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
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China a n d I C R I S A T
Partners for Better Dryland Agriculture in Africa and Asia
Feb 2007
ICRISAT, and Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture, advanced research institutes, and the Israeli Department of International Cooperation, MASHAV share many goals – to help alleviate poverty, sustain agricultural production, and protect the environment in desert prone regions. Given these common goals the Government of Israel and ICRISAT are in a collaborative research partnership to help the poor of the dry tropics.
Israel’s intensive agricultural production was made possible due to collaboration between growers, industry, extension and R&D in the agriculture sector. The ICRISAT-Israel collaboration was further enhanced when Israel joined the CGIAR and Dr David Cohen (Chairman, R&D Evaluation Committee, Chief Scientist’s Office, Ministry of Agriculture, Israel) was appointed Israeli liaison to ICRISAT. With wholehearted support from Prof Dan Levanon (Chief Scientist, Ministry of Agriculture, Israel), scientists from ICRISAT and Israel began working together from mid-2006 on joint projects of mutual interest. Currently four projects are underway.
Progress in Collaborative Research
Integrated management of mycotoxinsAflatoxin contamination in staple diets leads to malnutrition, and can affect food security, and the health and livelihoods of people in developing countries. The purpose of this project is to develop simple and low-cost mycotoxin diagnostic tools. In the last few months Dr Farid Waliyar (ICRISAT) and Dr Nami Paster [Agriculture Research Organization (ARO), Ministry of Agriculture, Israel] have been working on up-scaling integrated management of mycotoxins such as pre- and post-harvest technologies and resistant groundnut varieties.
Farmer participatory varietal selection trials were conducted with four aflatoxin-tolerant varieties in Anantapur district, and five varieties in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh state of India. In general, an average increase of 17-34% in mean pod yields were recorded with improved varieties against control, TMV-2, which yielded 590 kg/ha in Anantapur area. A variety of low-cost integrated aflatoxin management technologies and the use of mechanical pod threshers resulted in a significant reduction in aflatoxin contamination.
Diversifying sorghum end-uses to feed and fodder to enhance the livestock industry in Eastern and Central AfricaThis is a collaborative project between ICRISAT, ARO-Israel, and the University of Nairobi. Sorghum is a major cereal crop with high resistance to drought. In most of Africa, and especially in the semi-arid regions of Kenya where most of the livestock is raised, high productive dual-purpose (for food and fodder) types of sorghum, resistant to dry conditions could be very beneficial, but are not used. This project will develop the use of productive dual-purpose sorghums, in semi-arid
The SEF provides solutions to most constraints of the current rainfed production systems (low soil fertility, soil erosion, bio-diversity exploitation, inefficient use of labor, and most importantly, low income). It has the potential of transforming rainfed agriculture in the Sudano-Sahel, which in turn should lead to eradication of poverty on a massive scale, and in preserving natural resources (soil and biodiversity) for future generations.
The African Market GardenDeveloped by ICRISAT scientists, the innovative African Market Garden (AMG) uses gravity-based drip irrigation for vegetable farming. It has now been adopted by about 4000 farmers all across the Sudano-Sahel. Over the last 3 years itself, IPALAC has promoted the installation of about 2000 AMG units in Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, and parts of Nigeria.
In the AMG, a mix of vegetables (onions, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes) is interspersed between date palms. Varieties are chosen that can tolerate the Sahelian heat so they can grow year-round, more than doubling the length of the growing season, which was formerly confined to the cooler winter months. This spreads the labor requirements of market gardening more evenly across the year, and generates a steadier flow of food and income for the farm family. By using low-cost gravity-driven drip irrigation and a combination of other techniques the AMG reduces the drudgery of labor, increases yields and employment, raises produce quality, and improves the overall well being of the people, as well as the micro-climate of the region.
ConclusionIsrael and ICRISAT complement each other in furthering agriculture for the small-scale farmers of the SAT. ICRISAT is grateful to Israel, and especially to the Ministry of Agriculture, MASHAV, Ben Gurion University, and our other partners in Israel for helping us to do Science with a Human Face to alleviate poverty in the semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia.
Dr David Cohen (center) gets a warm welcome to ICRISAT from Dr WD Dar, DG-ICRISAT (left) and Dr BI Shapiro.
Aflatoxin reduction through integrated management practices.
B35 is an improved stay-green sorghum variety.
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The African Market Garden successfully intercrops vegetables and date palms.
I s r a e l a n d I C R I S A T
The African Market Garden uses gravity-based drip irrigation for successful cultivation.
Prof Dan Levanon,Chief Scientist, Ministryof Agriculture, Israel.
Dr William D Dar,Director General,ICRISAT.
I s r a e l a n d I C R I S A T
Israel a n d I C R I S A T
Central and Eastern Africa, for increasing grain and forage yields. It will also examine the possibilities of introducing into Africa the new Israeli/American dual-purpose sorghums.
Dr Mary Mgonja of ICRISAT and Israeli scientists, Drs Avner Carmi (ARO-Israel) and David Cohen are collaborating on this project. Twenty-five potential forage sorghum lines for dry lowlands were identified, made into a trial and established at three sites in Eastern Kenya in November 2006, under rainfed conditions. This will ascertain the suitability of the material for dual-purpose use in the drylands. This season has been exceptionally good and the trials are excellent, with some lines showing excellent dual-purpose potential. In the next trial, elite materials from Israel will be tested for their adaptability to African environments.
Genetics of root traits for enhancing the chickpea molecular breeding strategies for drought tolerance in the Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT)Chickpea is an important source of protein, minerals, vitamins, and fiber in the diets of millions in Asia and Africa. Terminal drought is the foremost constraint to chickpea production in over 70% of growing areas. Biotechnology and genomic tools have made it possible to breed for better root traits. This will enable plants to evade drought because of better root strength, which will enable it to extract water from deeper soil layers.
A team of ICRISAT scientists led by Dr RK Varshney, as well as Dr Shahal Abbo (Hebrew University, Israel) are working on breeding for drought tolerance in chickpea. Phenotyping of the mapping population for measuring root traits is in progress. Two parental genotypes of the mapping populations are being screened with molecular markers developed by Dr Abbo’s group in collaboration with Australia, and new SSR markers developed for identification of polymorphic markers.
Drought tolerance enhancement in sorghumThis project was developed to foster collaboration on sorghum improvement for water-limited production environments. Scientists working on this are Drs Tom Hash and Vincent Vadez of ICRISAT, and Dr Avner Carmi of ARO-Israel.
As the project started too late for the normal sorghum production season, ICRISAT scientists were forced to drop plans for parallel testing of introgression lines (at ICRISAT-Patancheru and Israel). Instead they focused on the final generation advance of a marker-assisted backcrossing program to further introgress several stay-green QTLS from donor parent B35 into the genetic background of Indian rabi-adapted pollinator line R 16. This was followed by initial field testing and multiplication of these materials during the 2006/07 postrainy season. This has resulted in sets of near-isogenic lines with and without the B35 alleles at stay-green loci stgB, stg1, stg3 and stg4 (individually and in several pair-wise combinations) in the genetic background of R 16. Ongoing assessment has identified several product lines with pronounced improvement of green leaf retention
under conditions of terminal drought stress combined with phenology and panicle characters similar to R 16. Dr Carmi visited ICRISAT-Patancheru and observed the project-multiplied seed of stay-green QTL introgression lines in other genetic backgrounds during this season.
MASHAV Activities
Training Courses given with MASHAVICRISAT and MASHAV are cooperating in giving training courses on vegetable and fruit production under IPALAC. MASHAV provides Israeli experts who teach the courses together with ICRISAT scientists. For instance, since 2005, four courses have been given as follows on:
• Nursery methods and tree propagation techniques in Niger in late 2005
• Nursery training at Sadore from 19-23 September 2005
• Vegetable seeds multiplication and storage from 7-11 November 2005
• Vegetable seed multiplication and storage methods in 2006.
The Jean Paul II Foundation Project (AMG)This project is co-funded by MASHAV and the Vatican through the Jean Paul II Foundation with the technical support of ICRISAT. About 300 African Market Garden units have been installed so far in nine Sahelian countries (Cape Verde, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad) within the framework of this program and the project continues.
Other Initiatives
The International Program for Arid Land Crops (IPALAC) IPALAC, a joint program of ICRISAT and Ben Gurion University, seeks to promote sustainable economic development in desertification prone regions through the judicious use of plants, associated technologies and human capacity enhancement. Core support for IPALAC comes from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, MASHAV, ICRISAT, Ben Gurion University, and the Brach family.
The main mover in IPALAC is Prof Dov Pasternak, formerly of the Institute for Agriculture and Applied Biology at BGU. Now working for ICRISAT and stationed at ICRISAT-Niamey, he has enthusiastically pursued ways to achieve a transformation of Sahelian agriculture like that accomplished by Israel in the Negev Desert. The year 2005 marked the beginning of large-scale dissemination of IPALAC technologies that had successfully passed the research phase. Presently the following are underway:
The Sahelian Eco-Farm (SEF)Over the last several years IPALAC has been developing and testing a new rainfed production system called the Sahelian Eco-Farm (SEF).
IESV 91131 is an improved dry lowland variety of sorghum from ICRISAT-ESA developed in Eastern Kenya.
Roots screening facility at ICRISAT Patancheru.
Typical stay green (left) and senescent (right) sorghum material.
Prof Dov Pasternak and others discuss new avenues for sustainable economic development within IPALAC.
The Sahelian Eco Farm employs various methods to overcome the constraints of current rainfed systems.
Training on tree propagation techniques.