Making Every Moment Count

The short 4-6 month growing season is a fleeting window of opportunity that can make or break the livelihoods of the poor in the dry tropics. Farmers struggle to extract every possible bit of green from the grey landscape while they have the chance. But a single low-yielding cereal crop is often all they can muster.

Through a range of ingenious technologies that enable them to fit more and higher-value crops into their systems, ICRISAT and partners are helping these farmers turn their grey world green. The benefits come through major jumps in total farm productivity, while greater system diversity helps cushion them against risk.

The key to success has been in adapting crops to more fully take advantage of the natural characteristics and variability of their environments - helping farmers get more from what they have, rather than by purchasing external inputs they can hardly afford.

Use it or lose it. The Vertisol soils that cover major areas of the dry tropics in Asia and Africa used to lay idle during most of the rainy period. Because they are heavy and sticky when wet, farmers could do little but wait until the rains nearly ceased to till them and plant.

ICRISAT is well known for helping develop a solution to this dilemma called broadbed-and-furrow (BBF) planting. The concave surface of the bed resists hardening while the furrows drain away excess moisture and enable farmer access. About 25,000 inexpensive BBF-makers (cattle-drawn) designed by our sister Center ILRI are already being used in the Ethiopian mid-altitude highlands, where staple cereals like wheat and teff can now be followed by a second crop of chickpea, lentil, or grasspea.

Legumes for health and wealth: pigeonpea. Few leguminous crops can tolerate heat and drought the way pigeonpea can. Nor can they match the crop’s multiple-use and sustainability attributes, associated with its treelike growth habit. ICRISAT and partners have had striking success in Asia and Africa by fitting this pliable crop into a diverse range of cereal-dominated cropping systems.

They achieved major impact in west-central India (Maharashtra) by transforming the plant’s architecture to a short, quick-maturing bushlike habit. The breakthrough variety ‘Pragati’, maturing in just four months compared to the typical six for this crop, moved into lands that were otherwise left idle in wait for a postrainy season crop of sorghum, chickpea or wheat. It delivers 93% higher yield and 30% higher net income than the previously-dominant variety (BDN 2).

Spanning four countries (Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh) and supporting 260 million poor, South Asia’s Indo-Gangetic Plain stands at a critical juncture. Scientists are troubled by worrying signs of declining sustainability of the dominant rice-wheat cropping system. Breaking the continuous cereal cycle with a legume could make them more robust. Indian research organizations are testing the four-month pigeonpea line ICPL 88039 from ICRISAT that can fit into the rice slot but be harvested in time for the wheat sowing date. Trial farmers are extremely enthused about the variety.

Chinese scientists from the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences concerned about rapid degradation of watershed slopes in highly populated areas of the south came to ICRISAT for help. Pigeonpea, a bushy plant that creates a protective soil cover while adding nitrogen and organic matter to the soil, spiked their interest. It has multiple uses including fodder for livestock and fuelwood (stems) to provide farmers an alternative to felling more trees.

Introducing new pigeonpea types of China