ICRISAT and its partners have worked together to successfully develop and disseminate improved crop varieties for a range of farming systems across the region. But without improvements in crop and natural resource management, smallholder farmers will be able to capture only a part of the yield gains these varieties offer.

Resource management research is essential to sustain the productivity of semi-arid farming systems; and to create ways to use water, soil, and nutrients more efficiently, and thus meet the needs of a growing population while arresting (and perhaps even reversing) land degradation. The semi-arid tropics include some of the world’s harshest farming environments. Drought is a constant threat -- it occurs two years out of five in 40% of the SAT, and the frequency of dry years is increasing. Soils are poor. Poverty and food insecurity are widespread. Populations are growing rapidly, straining land and water resources to their limit.

Natural Resources Management research at ICRISAT has addressed such challenges as sustainable management of Vertisols (heavy, black, clayey soils); watershed management, enhancing soil fertility and rain water use efficiency; farmer participatory trials; and wind-erosion research.