What's New

The sweet taste of success

Because of its fertile soils and congenial climate, Mozambique has a great potential for biofuel production. Recognizing this, the country established a bio-fuel task force in 2007 and has been developing a biofuel national policy framework. In order to contribute to this new interest, ICRISAT-Maputo partnered with Eco Energia, a Mozambican company with ties to the Swedish company SEKAB, to test sweet sorghum varieties in the Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique. Eco Energia/SEKAB plan to use both sugarcane and sweet sorghum to produce and eventually export bioethanol to countries such as Sweden that are starting to require increasing quantities of ethanol in their efforts to meet EU regulations. Eco Energia/SEKAB will work with smallholder farmers in Mozambique and give them the opportunity to grow sweet sorghum for ethanol production.

A good stand of sweet sorghum in Mozambique.

ICRISAT gave Eco-Energia/SEKAB 24 varieties of sweet sorghum to screen for a variety of traits such as the overall yield, Brix values (sugar content), biomass yield per hectare, and quantity of juice. The sweet sorghum was planted in three areas in Cabo Delgado - Ocua, Chipembe, and Catapua - sites that were chosen for their different soil types, climates and average rainfalls.

After one growing season the results seem promising. Early data analysis shows that the varieties are doing very well in Chipembe. The varieties are producing sugar within 90-120 days, and some even earlier than that. The wide variability in the response of these lines in term of sugar content, juice volume and grain yield is encouraging (Table 1)..

ICRISAT-Maputo's partnership with Eco Energia/SEKAB is a good example of partnerships that promote research and encourage new developments for small-scale farmers in the region. In September a delegation from SEKAB visited ICRISAT headquarters in Patancheru to meet with scientists working on sweet sorghum as well as officials from Rusni Distilleries who are also partnering with ICRISAT to assess the viability of sweet sorghum for ethanol production. The visit proved very fruitful in guiding further research and developing the right research questions to benefit Mozambique.

For more details contact: c.dominguez@cgiar.org

Genomics to jump-start drought tolerant groundnut

Most farmers in Asia and Africa depend on the rains to grow their crops. However, rainfall is not uniform. In 2006, 112 of the 533 meteorological districts in India, received excess rain, while the situation was normal in 193 districts. Also, India has vast stretches of land that are drought-prone, so the legumes grown here have very low productivity. Crop breeders have been working tirelessly to develop drought tolerant varieties for decades with some success. However, it takes a long time to breed such varieties with conventional breeding. Recent advances in crop biotechnology, in the form of genomics and genetic engineering, can provide speedier results.

We need groundnut varieties that can overcome the harsh conditions of the semi-arid tropics.

The use of genomics in breeding is internationally accepted. For many temperate cereal crops, genomics approaches have facilitated the development of superior varieties. However, this has not been the case for legume crops due to the non-availability of appropriate tools (molecular markers, genetic maps in semi arid tropic legumes like groundnut). Once these genomic tools are available and genes are identified for drought tolerance, they can greatly facilitate the breeding for this trait. Such varieties, developed eventually by a combination of conventional and molecular breeding, can produce seeds that can be grown even in drought-prone areas, which should produce higher yields.

Together with colleagues from the Catholic University of Brazil, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the University of Georgia and Tuskegee University of USA, the genomics team at ICRISAT is actively engaged in developing genomic tools for groundnut. Research carried out by an interdisciplinary team of scientists over the last three years has resulted in developing the first genetic map for cultivated groundnut. This is an important step toward identifying genes that will help in conferring tolerance/resistance to drought and other diseases.

While analyzing this genetic map together with physiological data on the mapping population, a few genomic regions (called QTLs) associated with components of drought tolerance have been identified. However, right now these QTLs are not the candidates for use in breeding programs. But this is the first step towards molecular breeding for drought tolerance in groundnut. Molecular markers and the genetic map developed by ICRISAT scientists are being shared and used by NARS partners such as National Research Centre for Groundnut, Junagadh and University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad in India and EMBRAPA in Brazil. Part of these results have been published in Open Access journal (BMC Plant Biology 2008, 8:72) and some results are under communication to other journals.

The Generation Challenge Program of the CGIAR and the National Fund of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Government of India) are the main sponsors of the research being undertaken on groundnut by ICRISAT's genomics team.

For more information contact: r.k.varshney@cgiar.org

Managing water in eastern Africa

Water is a basic necessity for life, and agriculture that supports human food systems would be nowhere without water. But water is a scarce commodity in the dry and semi-arid regions of the world and has been a serious concern for agriculturalists in these areas for decades.

ICRISAT scientists participated in the third Agricultural Water Management Regional Conference that was held at the United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 15 to 19 September, and shared experiences on water management in the semi-arid tropics by adopting integrated watershed management.

ICRISAT's watershed doyen, SP Wani, speaks to workshop participants in Ethiopia.

ICRISAT's contributions were via two papers titled A new paradigm for unlocking the potential in rainfed agriculture through community watersheds for sustainable development and Enhancing collective action and equity in community watersheds through institutional innovations. Both the papers were very well received and discussed in detail. There was keen interest from a number of countries to strengthen collaboration between Asia and Africa, capitalizing on the lessons from watershed work in Asia. The major recommendations that emerged from the conference are

• Increase the investment in agricultural water management, particularly in rainfed areas for improving food security, reducing poverty and generating employment,
• Promote private sector investment in agricultural water management and integrate it into the agricultural value chain,
• Strengthen water institutions and governing mechanisms, enabling policy and an institutional framework in Africa,
• Enhance research and management capacity in the region.

ICRISAT's watershed team has so far done appreciable work in Ethiopia but needs to follow-it up with assessment and scaling up.

The Improved Management of Agricultural Water in Eastern Africa (IMAWESA) Network has assembled a good number of best practices. ICRISAT advocates formal documentation of the same, which will help in assessing the practices and diagnosing constraints to weave into the solutions using a watershed approach.

ICRISAT will also foster partnerships with similar Networks in order to develop a relevant rural development approach for productivity enhancement and poverty reduction through Integrated Watershed Management for Eastern Africa. This opportunity to foster partnership with nine countries in eastern Africa through participation in IMAWESA will enhance our outreach and also pave the way to scale out watershed experiences from Asia to Africa.

For more details contact: tksreedevi@cgiar.org

Peeping into the future

IMPACT is an acronym for the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade. The model was developed at IFPRI in the nineties and has now been adapted to address future scenarios for dryland cereals, pulses and oilseeds. It is a global, partial-equilibrium, multi-commodity agricultural sector model for crops and livestock. The model generates projections for supply, demand, net trade, world prices and per capita demand for 115 regions and 40 agricultural commodities up to 2020. Earlier, much of the IMPACT work centered around providing a forward-looking perspective on what is needed to meet future food needs, and the implications for key CGIAR mandate commodities. It was designed to look at the medium-to-long term periods. Yet the model is most effective for projections and not prediction.

Using the IMPACT model, scientists examined what effect a 25% increase in chickpea yield growth rates in India would have on global prices, trade and production patterns compared to the baseline (business-as-usual) scenario. In the baseline scenario in 2020, the chickpea area in India will decline while increasing yields will drive production growth (see Table). Despite the production growth, India will be a net importer with net trade increasing from -408, 000 tons to -910,000 tons in 2020. The projection for world prices (2000 constant prices) is an increase from US$566/ton to US$620/ton.

Under the chickpea yield growth for India scenario, production quantity in 2020 will be higher by 8% in India compared to the baseline value in 2020. Consequently, the world prices decline by 17%. Under this scenario, India also imports 50% less compared to the baseline scenario in 2020. Owing to this change, there will be a marginal decline in the exports from Canada (see figure below).

Chickpea net trade patterns for India and Canada under baseline and 25% increase in yield growth rates in India scenarios.

Chickpea production, trade and prices in 2020 under baseline and 25% increase in yield growth rates in India scenarios.

For more information contact: p.partha@cgiar.org or s.bhagavatula@cgiar.org