Beijing, China
December 3, 2007
- Hardy legume makes a
dramatic comeback
- New groundnut varieties reinforce chinese leadership
- Watershed development projects address local needs
Chinese agricultural scientists
and rural communities have embraced diverse agricultural
innovations through a partnership with the India-based
International Crop Research
Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), resulting in
higher incomes and better living conditions for rural people.
These are among many benefits being highlighted at the 2007
Annual General Meeting of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR) in Beijing on 3-7 December.
“Our partnership with China, aimed at improving key crops and
natural resources, has benefited this country in multiple ways,
while also strengthening our work for the rest of Asia,” says
Dr. William Dar, ICRISAT’s Director General. “This is the spirit
of a true international partnership.”
Pigeonpea’s China Comeback
Having practically gone out of production in China during recent
decades, the hardy legume pigeonpea is making an astonishing
comeback. Innovative farmers in Yunnan, Guangxi and other
provinces have found diverse uses for the crop.
Among these are to prevent soil erosion; to serve as a substrate
for mushroom cultivation and rearing of lac insects (the
resinous secretion they produce is processed into “seedlac,”
which is used in varnish); to provide fodder for cattle, sheep
and rabbits as well as feed for fish; and to serve as a
vegetable in the human diet. To further popularize the use of
pigeonpea for food, Chinese food technologists have developed a
variety of snacks and other items, even pigeonpea noodles, using
dry and green pigeonpea seeds.
As a result of those efforts, the area planted to pigeonpea has
expanded from just 50 hectares in two provinces during 1999 to
100,000 hectares in 12 provinces last year. The crop is now
commonly seen growing on roadsides, slopes and riverbanks. Its
strong root system, particularly in perennial varieties, helps
hold the soil in place. This makes pigeonpea especially useful
in southern China, where 90 percent of the land is hilly.
“Pigeonpea has been found to be very successful in reducing soil
erosion,” says Dr. Zong Xuxiao of the Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) at Beijing.
China’s pigeonpea revival has resulted from collaboration
between ICRISAT and various local partners, including the
Chinese Academy of Forestry in Kunming, Yunnan , and the Guangxi
Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GxAAS) at Nanning, Guangxi.
Starting in the 1990s, ICRISAT supplied appropriate seeds and
production technologies, together with training. Since then,
Chinese partners have established strong research and extension
programs for introducing pigeonpea in diverse cropping systems.
The pigeonpea revival is expected to receive a further boost,
according to ICRISAT scientist Dr. K.B. Saxena, when new hybrid
varieties reach the country. “There is already interest among
Chinese seed companies,” Saxena says, “which could produce
hybrid seed both for the Chinese and Indian markets.”
Disease-Resistant Varieties of Groundnut Reinforce Chinese
Leadership
International exchange of disease-resistant groundnuts has
reinforced China’s leadership in the production of this crop,
while also benefiting various countries of Southeast Asia.
China was already a world leader in groundnut production, when
it began collaborating with ICRISAT in research on this crop.
The Center provided Chinese partners with varieties resistant to
various foliar diseases as well as capacity strengthening. For
its part, China supplied groundnut lines resistant to bacterial
wilt.
According to ICRISAT scientist Dr. Shyam Nigam, most of the
senior scientists working on groundnut in China have undergone
training at ICRISAT. Moreover, they play an active role in Asian
research networks, through which resistant groundnut lines from
China were used to deal with bacterial wilt disease in Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand.
Meanwhile, China remains Asia’s number one groundnut producer
and figures among the top producers in the world, registering
more than 14 million tons in 2004.
A New Model for Community-Based Watershed Development
Watershed development projects in Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces,
having significantly improved the well-being of rural people,
while protecting water and soil, now offer a model for
replication in other communities. A key reason for the projects’
success is that they gained the confidence of local communities
by first addressing rural people’s immediate needs. This created
an entry point for exploring other options to reduce rural
poverty and improve the management of natural resources.
In Guizhou’s Lucheba watershed, for example, the community’s
main problem was a lack of drinking water. With project funds
and community support, water from nearby springs was collected
in tanks and piped to the village. Having met this immediate
need, farmers then built structures for harvesting water to
irrigate high-value crops, such as kidney beans, chilies and
cabbage.
Next, with the aim of improving their access to markets, the
community convinced local government to support construction of
a 6.5-kilometer farm road. Vegetable sales and farmers’ incomes
increased.
Meanwhile, farm families began adopting biogas plants, which
produce gas from animal and human waste. The result was to
reduce women’s drudgery and improve their health by enabling
them to avoid walking long distances for firewood and inhaling
smoke from wood fires.
“Lucheba has become a model for introducing biogas plants in
community development projects,” says Dr. Suhas P. Wani, who
leads ICRISAT’s work on watershed management in Asia. In the
Lucheba watershed, this work is done in collaboration with local
communities and the Guizhou Institute of Integrated Agricultural
Development (GAAS). China now belongs to a regional network of
countries – including India, Thailand and Vietnam – which have
successfully improved watershed management with financial
support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and scientific
support from ICRISAT.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit, 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 aim is to 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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