Hyderabad, India
14 February 2014
Empowering women smallholder farmers to overcome the unique hurdles they face in the semi-arid tropics, and thus securing the future of food production and the economic growth in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, was among the key messages at the Asia Regional Planning Meeting of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).
The meeting held on 10-12 February at the ICRISAT headquarters in Hyderabad, acknowledged the significant contributions made by women smallholder farmers and the transformative role they play in dryland agriculture.
“The efforts of ingenious and resourceful women smallholder farmers are helping us in our mission to achieve prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. They have always been at the forefront in fighting poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation. It is upon us to work with and provide them with scientific innovations and solutions to help increase the productivity of their crops and their incomes, while improving the resilience of their lands and livelihoods,” ICRISAT Director General Dr William D Dar said.
“ICRISAT now adopts a gender transformative approach in all its research for development activities in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Our interdisciplinary teams of scientists, with guidance from gender specialists, will methodically assess the women smallholder farmers’ control over resources and explore more opportunities for value addition to their services. Our aim is to achieve real gender equality and thereby significantly help empower women,” Dr Dar added.
Present during the meeting were two new gender specialists to be based in West and Central Africa (WCA) and Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) to complement the gender specialists based in its headquarters in India, for enhanced and active gender integration into agricultural research for development.
“This Regional Planning exercise helps us to ensure that ICRISAT’s research is aligned with the CGIAR Research Programs on Dryland Cereals and Grain Legumes that we are leading, as well as with all the five other CGIAR Research Programs we are involved in. But more importantly, it serves as a guide for us to make sure that we are still focused on the right questions, that we are relevant to the smallholder farmers, particularly women, and that we have strategies, tools and technologies in place for maximum impact,” said Dr CLL Gowda, ICRISAT’s Deputy Director General for Research, in his welcome remarks.
The meeting attended by over 100 ICRISAT scientists and senior staff mainly from its headquarters in India, and some from its WCA and ESA regional offices, consisted of a review of past research for development activities, as well as brainstorming and interactive sessions to help identify new areas of research and opportunities for scaling out improved technologies and tools.
ICRISAT’s 2014 work plans for Asia were drawn up and the way forward was mapped out with focus on inclusiveness – gender integration; working with and bringing in the concerns of smallholder farmers; enhancing their participation and engagement in the institute’s research for development activities; and working along the Inclusive Market-Oriented Development (IMOD) framework to give smallholder farmers access to scientific innovations and connecting them to markets.
Dr Deborah J Delmer, Chair of the Program Committee of the ICRISAT Governing Board, led a brainstorming session during the meeting on ‘Integrating genetic engineering with genomics for crop improvement, with social science and natural resources perspectives’. The technical deliberations stressed on the importance of a better integration of social science and natural resources perspectives in modern biotechnology, to maximize its potential applications in crop improvement and the betterment of farming systems in overcoming the serious challenge of feeding the rapidly growing world population in the future.
“The meeting helped us collect our thoughts, celebrate achievements and mull over the challenges. The brainstorming sessions were very helpful and the Board will welcome the inputs. I congratulate all the participants for the success of this event,” Dr Delmer said at the concluding session of the meeting.
Dr Paco Sereme, a member of the ICRISAT Governing Board, said: “For me, as a new board member, the meeting was very informative and helpful as I advocate ICRISAT’s efforts and achievements as a Board member.”
ICRISAT is a member of the CGIAR Consortium.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid tropics have over 2 billion people, and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT innovations help the dryland poor move from poverty to prosperity by harnessing markets while managing risks – a strategy called Inclusive Market- Oriented Development (lMOD).
ICRISAT is headquartered in Patancheru near Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, with two regional hubs and five country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. About ICRISAT: www.icrisat.org For scientific information: http://EXPLOREit.icrisat.org
CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research Centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org 
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