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30 June 2016 - The 18th National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF)-South32 Awards Gala Dinner was held in Gauteng on Thursday, 30 June 2016. Contributions to excellence in science, engineering and technology (SET) and innovation in South Africa (SA) were awarded and celebrated in the following broad areas:
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This article originally appeared on icrisat.org.
Mr Shobhana K Pattanayak, Secretary, Agriculture, Department of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DoAC & FW), Government of India, has called on all value chain actors including farmers, seed companies, private sector and research organizations to find a joint solution to resolve all hurdles and issues that are preventing Indian farmers from meeting their demand for hybrid pigeonpea seeds and other pulses.
At the request of the Government of India, ICRISAT recently hosted a high-level planning meeting at its headquarters in Hyderabad, which was chaired by Mr Pattanayak.
Over forty participants including farmer representatives, government officials from five State Departments (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Odisha), state agricultural universities and eight seed companies involved in the production of hybrid seeds came together and started a new initiative to explore ways of making India self-sufficient in the production of pulses, in particular hybrid pigeonpea.
At a time when India is keen to be pulse self-sufficient and is committed to overcome the under supply and export costs, popularization and increasing the uptake of hybrid pigeonpea across India was recognized as one of the key solutions during the deliberations.
“We want to hear from all the sectors on what is stopping the popularization of hybrid pigeonpea and what can be done about it. We need to popularize the pigeonpea hybrids in major pigeonpea producing states of India, and this action plan has to address the issue of seed production and availability of hybrid seeds to the farmers. The solution needs to have all the parties playing a part,” said, Mr Pattanayak.
“In order to meet its ever-growing demand for pulses, India needs to achieve self-sufficiency in pulses. We need to make pulses production more profitable by reducing production costs through mechanization, using hybrids and minimizing the post-harvest losses.” said Dr David Bergvinson, Director General ICRISAT, during his address to participants via video conference from USA.
Reiterating ICRISAT’s extensive research in pulses, Dr Bergvinson said that hybrid pigeonpea is the world’s only hybrid amongst the legumes, which was developed by ICRISAT along with its partners in research over the last 30 years. But despite being hailed as a great scientific breakthrough and huge success, uptake is nowhere near what it could be.
Looking at the success of some farmers who have cultivated hybrid pigeonpea and market demand, ICRISAT has seen a huge surge in enquiries for hybrid pigeonpea, and scientists have received over 700 phone calls from Indian farmers in the last three weeks asking for seeds.
Mr Manik Kadam a farmer from Donoda village of Maharashtra, who took part in the deliberations, was proud to say that he has successfully growing ICRISAT’s pigeonpea hybrids for the last 5 years.
“Hybrid pigeonpea gives yield of over 3 tons per ha as compared to local varieties’ yield of 1.7 to 2 tons per ha; it has helped to increase my income. Also compared to local varieties, hybrids like ICPH 2740, ICPH 3762 are resistant to diseases, hence reducing the cost involved in pesticide spraying,” said Mr Kadam.
With regular monitoring and guidance from ICRISAT scientists, Mr Kadam is now an expert in hybrid pigeonpea technology and has become a popular farmer in his region, attracting other farmers and agriculture officers to see his hybrid fields.
Mr Sanjay Lohiya, Joint Secretary, DoAC & FW stressed the need to harness the potential of hybrid pigeonpea to achieve pulse self-sufficiency and said that we need to discuss all aspects of hybrids including seed cost, target areas suitable for hybrid cultivation and workout the plan by leveraging ongoing schemes of the Government of India.
He also said that since there are government incentives in the form of subsidies for seed production and seed distribution, a cluster-based approach for demonstrating the potential of pigeonpea hybrid needs to be prepared along with the road map and this is the best opportunity to popularize pigeonpea hybrid.
Dr Suhas P Wani, Director, Regional Program for Asia at ICRISAT presented the challenges and opportunities for harnessing the potential of hybrid pigeonpea in different Indian states and proposed a detailed road map for covering the large areas during the year 2016 and as well as plans to produce hybrid seeds and also the parental lines needed for scaling-up the pigeonpea hybrid cultivation.
ICRISAT and state officials chalked out the detailed strategy for the rainy season of 2016 for popularizing hybrid pigeonpea cultivars in different states as well as the plans for seed production to cover larger areas during 2017-18. The work plan till 2018 aims to cover an area of over three million ha under pigeonpea cultivation.
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Harriet Lowalem participated to the LovePulses Showcase competition and arrived second in the international virtual competition. Her innovation will be presented at IFT in Chicago, one of the biggest food exposition events in the world! She developed with her team the “Bean- Amaranth energy bar”, a healthy option for snack lovers. The product is made of basic commodities such as beans, amaranth, honey and sugar. In an interview, she tells us more about her innovation and her enthusiasm in taking part in the International Year of Pulses through this competition.
Who worked with you on this innovation?
This product was a result of brainstorming sessions from a team of nutritionists and food scientists. It was a collaborative effort of members from National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and Makerere University (Cathy Ndagire - Nutritionist, Hedwig Natabirwa - food scientist and Christine Karungi - food scientist).
Why did you decide to participate to the competition?
The team decided to participate in the #LovePulses showcase because they felt that they could contribute to the creation of new innovations using pulses that were nutritious. This drive was centered towards using locally available commodities that are often not considered possible snack ingredients. In addition we looked at creating a product that could meet the nutrition challenges in our country since Uganda has been reported to have a stunting prevalence of 33% in the recent Demographic and Health survey.
Could you present us your innovation?
The product is the Bean Amaranth Energy bar and it consists of precooked beans, popped amaranth, honey and sugar. This product is nutritional beneficial because it is very rich in protein and micronutrients. The product is socially acceptable because local commodities are used and it is sustainable because it has a very short cooking time. It is a convenient snack that doesn’t require any further processing.
What is unique about your product? What would you like your product to become?
This product is nutritionally rich with no added artificial sweeteners. It is purely natural. We would like our product to become a leading snack choice in Uganda.
What does the International Year of Pulses represent for you?
The International Year of Pulses gives us an opportunity of creating awareness of the importance of pulses both commercially and nutritionally for all population groups. It also helps us draw attention to a crop that we have taken for granted yet it could be critical in enhancing wellbeing of our communities.
What would you like to see accomplished this year?
We would like to carry out a market survey for our product to establish uptake and consumer preference. In addition we would like to develop more product variants of the energy bar to target a larger market.
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IPGA has launched a major WATER RESOURCE REVIVAL PROJECT in drought-hit villages of Bhokardhan Taluka in Jalna District and Phulambri Taluka, in Aurangabad District of the Marathwada region of Maharashtra State. IPGA has undertaken this project as an IYP2016 initiative and achieve the objective of promoting the increase in Pulses production in India. The project was inaugurated by Mr. Raosaheb Patil Danve, Member of Parliament and Maharashtra State President for the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) on May 18th, 2016.
Marathwada is historically a pulses producing State but due to three consecutive years of drought farmers have started moving away from pulses to crops like Cotton, Maize and Soyabean. By the end of the Water Resource Revival Project, close to 400,000 cubic meters of river beds/nallahs have been excavated, creating a storage capacity of 40 crore litres and three infiltrations of the cached water which will percolate over 100 crore litres of water into the land around these sites. If the monsoons are normal this year, it will solve the water issues for a minimum period of one year.
The project involves widening and deepening of the riverbeds and nallahs in these villages to ensure that rain water is captured in the riverbed for it to percolate into the surrounding soil. This will not only improve the water table in the soil but will also replenish the water in the wells and bore wells of the villages making enough drinking water available to villagers. The widening and deepening of the riverbed/nallah in each village will be done for around 2 km to 3 km in length, across the entire span of the river bed or nallah and 2.5 to 3 meters deep. The span of the river beds vary from 25 mtrs to 65 mtrs.
IPGA has adopted the DOH (डोह) model for the excavation process. In this process, multiple pockets of about 300 meters in length at a distance of 10 to 15 meters are created within the riverbed/nallah. These pockets capture the water which then percolates into the surrounding soil replenishing the water table.
The project will directly and indirectly benefit close to 25 villages and over 150,000 villagers in Bhokardan and Phulambri talukas. The improved water table level and availability of water will ensure that farmers in the area will have abundant supply for irrigation, increase sowing and therefore production of pulses in the region. The increased farming activity will help generate employment as well as reduce the migration of youth from the villages to nearby towns and cities in search of employment.
There is a lot more work to be done in this region and the Water Resource Revival Project is just the first step. As a next step we plan to adopt a few villages in the region and convert them to smart villages by improving availability of basic requirements like schools, medical centres, sanitation, roads, etc. The list is long and funds required are a plenty. We appeal to you to help us get financial support for this project so that we can achieve the objective of helping the farmers.
IPGA has planned to undertake activities that will ensure the all-round development of Bhokardan and Phulambri by providing long term solutions. While the Water Resource Revival Project is the first such initiative, many more activities are in the planning stage. To this end, MoUs have already been signed with ICRISAT to conduct training programs for farmers. They are also speaking with IIPR and ICAR for similar MoUs wherein they will plan a range of ground activities in rural India to educate farmers on the various techniques they can adopt to increase production and yield of pulses.
Watch the project showreel below: