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Prashantha Kumar Mondol inspects his wheat crop in Takathi village, Rajburi district, Bangladesh. (Photo: Conor Ashleigh)

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MEDIUM-TERM STRATEGYThe Indian Government recognises agricultural development as a key mechanism of inclusive growth. The goals of agricultural development in India are: growth in productivity and incomes while maintaining food security; sharing growth, with an equity focus on small and marginal farmers, women and populations in eastern India; and maintaining sustainability of agriculture by concentrating on environmental concerns. Overall, agricultural R&D remains a high priority in India, with a strong focus on poverty reduction.

Australia and India share many of the same agricultural and natural resource management problems and research challenges. ACIAR has supported collaborative agricultural research between Australia and India since 1983. The large and well-developed national agricultural research system led by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is a cornerstone of the India program. The research activities have been increasingly linked to the food security problems of other South Asian states, and thus have a growing regional character, including the programs delivered in conjunction with the five IARCs active in the South Asian region.

Based on formal in-country consultations convened in India by ICAR and ACIAR during February 2011, the medium-term strategy for 2011–16 is centred on joint partnerships with increasing co-investment by ICAR and other Indian partners. The India program emphasises collaboration in areas of Australian and Indian research challenge and scientific expertise, in which there is potential for positive impacts at both field and national levels. The consultation confirmed increased emphasis on systems research, seeking synergies from multidisciplinarity within and across the research clusters, as well as a progressive shift in geographical footprint to the eastern states, where deep poverty persists. The medium-term strategy is focused around four clusters:

• Agricultural water management, particularly in rainfed areas

• Sustainable intensification and diversification of conservation agriculture zero-tillage cropping systems

• Faster breeding of improved varieties of wheat and other crops

• Assisting policy development in relation to agricultural adjustment and climate change.

As the current national projects phase down, increasing emphasis will be placed on subregional and regional engagements, noting the common contexts of extensive poverty and climate change, and the common agricultural research issues of agricultural intensification and better resource management. In this connection, trilateral partnerships with Australia, India and other countries (e.g. Nepal, Bangladesh) or regions (e.g. Africa) will be considered. Co-funding of research will remain the norm.

An outline of each of the four research clusters follows.

Key statistics

GDP per capita (US$)a 1,406

Population (million)a 1,241

Funding $m

2010–11 actual 3.23

2011–12 budget allocation 4.60

2012–13 budget estimate 5.01

a Data for 2011 at <http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/> (Tables 1a and 5a)

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Land and water resources clusterThe research is focused on water management in the less favourable rainfed areas, in recognition of the fact that these areas were largely bypassed by the green revolution and are relatively poor. The projects are multidisciplinary and based on watershed development at a range of scales, and recognise projections for climate change. The projects’ outputs are directed at influencing both water policy development and the implementation of watershed-based agricultural improvements, or both. The cluster approach has promoted cross-project collaboration, including data sharing. There is a need to consolidate and coordinate the communication of results, especially those with policy significance, to government and other stakeholders. The stakeholder consultation has suggested that there is scope to improve in the following areas:

• Planning of small water-storage structures in rainfed areas, particularly for groundwater recharge

• Technical and institutional solutions for improved use of water in small storages in rainfed areas

• Consolidated and coordinated presentation of policy recommendations from the projects to policymakers

• Exploration on extending the results to eastern India

• Implementation and scaling up of the results of the projects through multidisciplinary teams.

Cropping systems clusterFood security and poverty reduction, coupled with a threatened resource base for food production (water, soils), remain as common resource and crop management problems for India and Australia. Key initiatives from ICAR include systems research at the Modipuram complex of stations in eastern India, nutrient-based subsidies, and crop residue (including rice straw) management. The ICAR–ACIAR program has supported the development of zero-till rice–wheat cropping systems over nearly two decades, through the development of zero-till wheat systems, innovation with permanent beds and direct-seeded rice, nutrient and water management, pest and weed management, and development of the Happy Seeder—which is capable of zero-till sowing of wheat into 8 tonnes per hectare or more of rice straw, and maintaining or increasing wheat yields. With limited adaptation, the machine will be ready for testing in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain and rainfed areas. Consultations with stakeholders in India indicated the following areas of potential focus and research intensification:

• Sustainable intensification with diversification of farming systems

• A farming systems approach orientated to site-specific crop management for system productivity, climate resilience, water-use efficiency and nutrient-use efficiency

• Year-round zero tillage in rice- and wheat-based systems with integrated tillage – water nutrient management practices and carbon sequestration

• Technologies favouring precision agriculture

• Developing and testing of appropriate delivery models in resource-poor and remote areas.

Wheat improvement clusterThe Indo-Australian program on marker-assisted wheat breeding (IAP-MAWB) is a co-funded program working on problems of mutual interest. Marker-assisted selection is the hub or delivery mechanism, and the output is better and faster developed wheat germplasm for farmers. The IAP-MAWB components cover faster breeding, bioinformatics, rust resistance, water-use efficiency through root architecture and crop establishment, waterlogging, micronutrient stresses, sodic soils and end-use processing quality. Since inception in September 2008, there has been excellent progress in all aspects of disciplinary research. The joint program is now underway, using basic data management and electronic field books. Extending these gains in bioinformatics to allele mining and functional genomics will require a longer term commitment by both countries. Future focus areas include:

• Widespread transfer of the abovementioned components to farmers’ fields through elite wheat varieties

• Bioinformatics research, association genetics and cross-prediction

• More wheat traits for conservation agriculture

• Improved human nutrition from wheat

• Marker-assisted selection for Sr26, and other traits such as aluminium and boron tolerance.

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IA Agriculture policy clusterPast ACIAR research to examine the facilitation of efficient agricultural markets in India assessed competition and regulatory reform requirements and policy options for a new framework. The project components include emerging trends in food value chains, application of policy and infrastructure development. Various options suggested by the consultations include:

• A regulation framework to include a transparent review process and regular monitoring of the farm sector

• Facilitating efficient input and output markets, with necessary targeted assistance and safeguards for vulnerable groups; application of competition law to food chains; and management of the buffer stock

• New farm programs that focus on more-appropriate measures of productivity and market failure issues, studies of markets and policies in the context of changing food consumption and demand, improving rural wholesale markets, and recent innovations such as contract farming and futures markets

• Policies related to climate change.

2012–13 RESEARCH PRIORITIES AND PROJECTS Water management clusterBetter water management is one of the highest priorities for improving livelihoods in the more marginal rainfed areas of central India. Water harvesting, as part of a broader watershed development agenda to increase water availability, is a key policy initiative of the Indian Government in these areas.

The program comprises closely linked projects to enable a more holistic approach to water resource management.

CIM/2007/120 (multilateral, ICRISAT) Improving post-rainy sorghum varieties to meet the growing grain and fodder demand in India The project addresses the growing demand for fodder in India, through the development of dual-purpose varieties with high grain production and higher quality stover for ruminants.

LWR/2002/100 Water harvesting and better farming systems for benefit of smallholder farmers in watersheds in the East India PlateauThe East India Plateau receives a lot of rain, but 80% of it falls in the monsoon months between June and September. The project is improving watershed management, including water harvesting, and introducing new cropping systems.

LWR/2006/072 Impacts of meso-scale watershed development (WSD) in Andhra Pradesh (India) and the implications for designing and implementing improved WSD policies and programsThis project aims to quantify the aggregated impact of watershed interventions on hydrology within and across watersheds at the meso scale. It will integrate and apply the knowledge arising from the project at local, state and national policy levels.

LWR/2006/158 Enhancing institutional performance in water resource development in Andhra Pradesh, IndiaThe project is working to enhance livelihoods in rainfed areas of the Indian Central Plateau by improving the institutional performance of WSD programs. It will recommend rules and coordinating mechanisms for ensuring that the development and extraction of groundwater remain within sustainable limits.

LWR/2007/113 Adaptation of water resource management to climate change in the Krishna Basin, IndiaThis project is assessing the potential impacts of WSD and climate change on the long-term water security for agriculture in the Krishna River Basin, and comparing the findings with forecast impacts and adaptation strategies in the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia.

LWR/2008/019 Building capacity of farming communities in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Bangladesh and India to adapt to climate changeThis project is building capacity of farming households to enable them to adapt their rice-based cropping systems to accommodate climate variability and change. It will also develop strategies that enable policymakers to deliver more-effective climate adaptation programs relevant to farmer livelihoods and food security.

LWR/2010/015 Improved village-scale groundwater recharge and management for agriculture and livelihood development in IndiaThe project will focus on assessing the effectiveness of current rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge structures and demand management strategies at the village scale. It will develop or adapt suitable best practice guidelines, and modelling and assessment tools, that can be applied using easily available local information.

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LWR/2010/033 Developing capacity in cropping systems modelling to promote food security and the sustainable use of water resources in South AsiaThe overarching objective of this project is to improve water productivity in rainfed and irrigated smallholder rice-based farming systems. It will establish a network of agricultural scientists in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member states, identify a suite of improved crop and water management practices that increase water productivity, and strengthen institutional support for systems analysis and farming systems modelling.

LWR/2010/082 (proposed) Improving livelihoods with innovative cropping systems on the East India PlateauThe project will build on the successes in adoption achieved by working with NGOs in project LWR/2002/100, and on scaling out to expand the community impacts.

LWR/2011/074 Scoping study to assess constraints and opportunities for sustaining tank irrigation ecosystems and smallholder livelihoods in eastern India and Nepal

This SRA will assess the characteristics and extent of tank irrigation in selected eastern Indian states (Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal) and Nepal, in order to draw lessons for improving the productivity of these systems.

Cropping systems cluster

The cropping systems research priority adds impact to improved wheat germplasm in two ways. Research is conducted on improved management of rice–wheat cropping systems, to increase cereal and oilseed crop yields and improve the efficiencies of water, nutrient and other input use. This research also increases the resilience of cropping systems to climate change and other risks through conservation agriculture, thus stabilising farmers’ incomes.

CSE/2004/033 Zero-tillage rice establishment and crop weed dynamics in rice and wheat cropping systems in India and Australia. The project involves testing direct-seeded rice and improvement of weed management solutions in Punjab, Haryana and Bihar.

CSE/2011/077 (proposed) Climate-resilient farming systems in Bangladesh, India and Nepal Building on the success of past projects in north-western India, this project will adapt conservation agriculture technologies for Bihar and West Bengal states, in close association with related research on conservation agriculture in northern Bangladesh and the eastern Terai of Nepal.

Wheat improvement clusterA set of projects revolves around the development of improved wheat varieties able to cope with biophysical soil constraints such as waterlogging, soil sodicity/salinity and other biotic constraints. A subset of these wheat breeding projects constitute the IAP-MAWB, following the 2007 agreement to strengthen the focus on application of marker-assisted selection as a tool to achieve greater efficiencies in wheat breeding.

CIM/2005/020 Molecular marker technologies for faster wheat breeding in India The project has refocused India’s considerable capability in DNA-based technologies on wheat cultivar development. It also targets enhanced management of genetic information to increase breeding efficiency in north-western India, and provides a data management hub for all projects within the IAP-MAWB.

CIM/2006/071 Indo-Australian project on root and establishment traits for greater water-use efficiency in wheatNew wheat-root architecture for better water extraction from the soil, as well as semi-dwarf wheats with long coleoptiles for better emergence and crop establishment, have been introduced in India through the project, extending the IAP-MAWB’s reach to central India, where rainfed wheat predominates.

CIM/2006/177 Wheat improvement for waterlogging, salinity and element toxicities in Australia and IndiaThe project focuses on exploiting interactions between micronutrients and soil water status in wheat cultivar development in environments with high levels of soil stress. The two main Indian nodes are at Karnal and Faizabad, the latter facilitating the IAP-MAWB’s reach into eastern India.

CIM/2007/084 Molecular markers for broadening the genetic base of stem rust resistance genes effective against strain Ug99Diagnostic molecular markers for genes with significant effects on processing quality have been identified, and will be used to predict the quality outcomes of potential crosses between available parental wheat stocks in north-western India. Such predictive capacity increases breeding efficiency, and traits beyond industrial quality can be targeted in the longer term.

CIM/2010/048 (multilateral, ICRISAT) Bioinformatics for breeding: data management and cross-predictionThis project aims to expand and support the user base for the International Crop Information System in South Asia.

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IA Agricultural policy clusterCreating the most appropriate domestic policy environment for reform in the agricultural sector has the potential to deliver major positive impacts. Australia has significant expertise in policy analysis, particularly in assisting India with the implications of its transition from a highly regulated economy to a more open market economy. The current ACIAR partnership is addressing scope for phased deregulation and market reform options. As India moves towards domestic reform, its capacity to engage in more-open domestic and international markets is expected to increase, with consequent productivity and income opportunities for Indian farmers. In the broader environmental context, agricultural offsets are emerging as a key element of potential future greenhouse gas abatement policy in many countries. In India and Australia, there is increasing interest in policy and program mixes targeted at exploitation of cost-effective abatement schemes as new opportunities for farmers.

ADP/2010/008 Capturing the potential for greenhouse gas offsets in Indian agriculture This project will assess the economy-wide impacts of agricultural policy reform and the introduction of an agricultural carbon offset scheme on agricultural productivity, food security, rural incomes, trade and emissions, and will analyse the scope for cost-effective emissions abatement within India’s agricultural sector, including case study regions.

Principal regional coordinator

Dr John Dixon

Key program managers

Dr John Dixon, Cropping Systems and Economics TBA, Crop Improvement and Management Dr Simon Hearn, Agricultural Development Policy TBA, Land and Water Resources

Country manager

Dr Kuhu Chatterjee

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (2012–13) • Identification of key research issues for climate-

resilient farming systems intensification and diversification in eastern India and Bangladesh

• Delivery of domestic market policy options for consideration by Indian Government advisers and decision-makers

• Establishment of working relationships with Indian research and advisory agencies, to address climate policy research issues for agriculture in India and Australia

• Research priorities for climate-resilient farming systems intensification in India, eastern Nepal and Bangladesh established and implemented

• Full integration of the use of molecular markers into three wheat breeding programs in India

• Development of robust diagnostic markers for two resistance genes providing protection against wheat stem rust disease

• Development of climate-change policy research partnership with India