Canada and ICRISAT · Canada and ICRISAT ICRISAT has had a ... Valley bottoms of Ethiopian...
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Canada and ICRISAT ICRISAT has had a strong associaon with Canada since 1972. In the inial years, ICRISAT replicated some of the field experiments being undertaken by Canadian sciensts. Canada had a well-established dryland research program in India and the Internaonal Development Research Centre (IDRC) parally funded ICRISAT’s Semi-Arid Tropics Crops Informaon System in 1976 and 1986. The Canadian Internaonal Development Agency (CIDA) financed the Sorghum and Millet Improvement Program through the Southern African Development Community in Zimbabwe in 1990, and part of the Desert Margins Program in Africa in 1996. Collaborang to improve crop yields and nutrion ▪ infoSAT an electronic repository of reprints collected and preserved through the SATCRIS (Semi-Arid Tropical Crops Informaon Service) project, is the successor of SMIC (Sorghum and Millets Informaon Center), a project iniated in 1977, funded by the Internaonal Development Research Centre (IDRC). Approximately, 25,000 reprints have been collected and preserved at the ICRISAT library in India. ▪ Through the CGIAR-Canada Linkage Fund (CCLF) supported project (2000-03), improved variees of chickpea were first introduced in Tanzania. Since then, these variees have been released in Ethiopia (ICCV 92318) in 2004 and Tanzania (ICCV 9231 kabuli type, ICCV 97105 desi type) in 2011. The project collaborated with the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), Canada; NARS and NGOs in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya. ▪ The collaboraon has helped make Canada one of the world’s largest chickpea exporters. ICRISAT exchanged material for Ascochyta blight disease resistance in chickpea, a major issue faced with chickpea culvaon in Canada. Early maturing lines have also been shared with Canadian collaborators over the years. ▪ A collaboraon between ICRISAT and the University of Saskatchewan, (2012-14) has led to some interesng work on the nutrion quality of chickpea, and high quality outputs are expected from this very relevant research. ▪ Genome resequencing of Canadian chickpea, is a great achievement and connues to be an important area of collaboraon between Canada and ICRISAT. ICRISAT’s work with Canadian partners Photo: PS Rao Photo: ICRISAT
Transcript of Canada and ICRISAT · Canada and ICRISAT ICRISAT has had a ... Valley bottoms of Ethiopian...
Canada and ICRISAT
ICRISAT has had a strong association with Canada since 1972. In the initial years, ICRISAT replicated some of the field experiments being undertaken by Canadian scientists. Canada had a well-established dryland research program in India and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) partially funded ICRISAT’s Semi-Arid Tropics Crops Information System in 1976 and 1986. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) financed the Sorghum and Millet Improvement Program through the Southern African Development Community in Zimbabwe in 1990, and part of the Desert Margins Program in Africa in 1996.
Collaborating to improve crop yields and nutrition
▪ infoSAT an electronic repository of reprints collected and preserved through the SATCRIS (Semi-Arid Tropical Crops Information Service) project, is the successor of SMIC (Sorghum and Millets Information Center), a project initiated in 1977, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Approximately, 25,000 reprints have been collected and preserved at the ICRISAT library in India.
▪ Through the CGIAR-Canada Linkage Fund (CCLF) supported project (2000-03), improved varieties of chickpea were first introduced in Tanzania. Since then, these varieties have been released in Ethiopia (ICCV 92318) in 2004 and Tanzania (ICCV 9231 kabuli type, ICCV 97105 desi type) in 2011. The project collaborated with the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), Canada; NARS and NGOs in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya.
▪ The collaboration has helped make Canada one of the world’s largest chickpea exporters. ICRISAT exchanged material for Ascochyta blight disease resistance in chickpea, a major issue faced with chickpea cultivation in Canada. Early maturing lines have also been shared with Canadian collaborators over the years.
▪ A collaboration between ICRISAT and the University of Saskatchewan, (2012-14) has led to some interesting work on the nutrition quality of chickpea, and high quality outputs are expected from this very relevant research.
▪ Genome resequencing of Canadian chickpea, is a great achievement and continues to be an important area of collaboration between Canada and ICRISAT.
ICRISAT’s work with Canadian partnersPhoto: PS Rao
Photo: ICRISAT
Valley bottoms of Ethiopian highlands - growing Chickpea using residual moisture after the main crop is harvested.
Ongoing project Scaling-up Pulse Innovations for Nutrition Security in Southern Ethiopia
Funders: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) through the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, CanadaGrant period: Mar 2015 - Mar 2018Principle Investigator: Tilahun AmedeProject Location(s): Ethiopia
This project will generate and promote ways to encourage large-scale adoption of improved pulse crop technologies from pilot sites to more areas in southern Ethiopia. It will demonstrate the broader impacts of promoting pulse crop production on food security, income, and children’s nutritional status. A team of Canadian and Ethiopian researchers will test and deploy multi-stakeholder platforms to scale up pulse-based innovations and food products. The project will benefit tens of thousands of small-scale farmers, producers, and consumers. Researchers will study the entire value chain for beans and chickpeas - from production to consumers. The project is expected to expand demand for nutritious, easily digestible, and culturally appropriate products to meet rural families’ nutritional and health needs.While ICRISAT will lead activities under objectives 2 and 5 of the project, in collaboration with the University of Saskatchewan, it will also contribute to the other objectives on demand basis.
Objective 2: To influence a policy shift in favor of pulses innovations that would address key institutional, market, and policy barriers affecting scaling-up of legume innovations.
Objective 5: To develop and expand the capacity of partners in integrating agriculture and nutrition.
Completed projectsRe-sequencing Canadian Chickpea
Funders: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada Grant period: Dec 2014 - Jul 2015 Principal Investigator: Rajeev Varshney
ICRISAT has established a set of 100 elite breeding lines to constitute a ‘resequencing panel of Indian varieties’. These lines have good phenotyping data with available seeds for distribution. Similarly, the Australian group (ACPFG), in collaboration with ICRISAT, has assembled “re-sequencing panel of Australian varieties”. Elite breeding lines of these re-sequencing panels possess majority of the economically important traits for which breeders are keen to find the controlling genomic region. However, these panels are missing Australian released varieties and elite breeding lines. University of Saskatchewan has assembled one “re-sequencing panel of Canadian varieties” comprising of 100 varieties and elite breeding lines. Together these three
Photo: T Amede, ICRISAT
panels have good variation for yield and related traits as well as traits of interest to breeders, such as disease resistances, drought, herbicide, heat tolerance and other important traits. Depending on the availability of defined germplasm lines, we may also add few wild species (Cicer reticulatum and C.echinosphermum) as sources of even more exotic alleles. Bioinformatics analysis is an important component in analyzing sequence information generated during re-sequencing. The ICRISAT team is closely working with international experts and is confident to use appropriate bioinformatics tools to mine the alleles for Canadian breeding program as well as compare genome architecture of elite varieties of major chickpea producing countries such as India and Australia.
Assessing the dynamics of poverty and land degradation in the sahelian countries of West Africa
Funders: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Grant period: Mar 2009 - Apr 2013 Principal Investigator: Jupiter NdjeungaProject Location(s): Burkina Faso, Niger, West and Central Africa
The long-term goal of this project is to contribute to improved rural livelihood outcomes and natural resource management in the Sahel. The immediate purpose is to improve understanding of the dynamics of poverty and land degradation and the factors affecting these, identify promising best-fit options to promote sustainable and poverty reducing development pathways suited to different development contexts of the Sahel, and recommend effective strategies to promote these options.
Women chickpea farmer showing her good chickpea growth using ICRISAT varieties.
Photo: T Amede, ICRISAT
Photo: ICRISAT
Moving forwardThematic priority areas overlap to a large extent for ICRISAT and Canadian agencies, with food security; pulses; agribusiness; watersheds; support to young researchers; climate protection and natural resource management being top priority.
The ICRISAT Governing Board in September 2014 made a decision to boost its research in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by investing US$5 million towards upgrading research infrastructure and building scientific skills on the African continent. This investment will be across SSA where ICRISAT has its offices and will focus on harnessing the required resources to further advance the productivity of smallholder agriculture in SSA for greater self-reliance and resilience, particularly in light of climate change, and for increased participation in the market economy. These new investments will provide greater opportunities for collaborative research and strengthen partnerships along the whole value chain.
The UN declared 2016 the “International Year of Pulses (IYP)”, with the aim to heighten awareness of nutritional benefits of pulses as part of sustainable food production aimed at food security and nutrition. ICRISAT and Canadian researchers
FV MacHardy Board Member, 1982–89, and Chair, 1986–89
AA GuitardBoard Member, 1992–95
Martha B StoneBoard Member,1996–2003, and Chair, 2001–03
Caroline PestieauBoard Member, 2003–09
The following Canadians have served on ICRISAT’s Governing Board, and four of them chaired the Board.Canadians’ involvement with ICRISAT
CF BentleyFirst Chair of the Governing Board, 1972–82
Notable Canadian staff members ▪ RC McGinnis, Associate Director, 1975–79 ▪ GF McGarrigle, Assistant Director General (Finance and
Administration), 1992–96 ▪ DG Faris, Coordinator of the Cereals and Legumes Asia Network
and Facilitator of the Rice-Wheat Consortium, 1980–95 ▪ Charles A Giroux, Information Officer, 1981–90 ▪ Said Silim, Director, Eastern and Southern Africa (1990–2013)
David Bergvinson Director General Since Jan 2015
Chandra A MadramootooBoard Member, 2009–14, and Chair, 2014–17
continue their work with pulses, testing, adapting, and promoting solutions across Asia and Africa.
IDRC promotes agribusiness in African countries and through projects such as “Cultivating Africa’s Future”, fund research to identify and field test new business models for taking innovations to scale and supporting Africa’s youth to engage actively in profitable agribusinesses. ICRISAT focuses in this area as well and through the ICRISAT Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP), promotes and supports sustainable agribusiness initiatives including setting up of agribusiness incubators, helping with product development and food safety and facilitating the setting up of Farmer Producer Organizations, across Asia and Africa.
Watershed management has been promoted and implemented by ICRISAT for several decades, recognizing it as an adaptation to climate change and important to manage natural resources for sustainable intensification of farming in both Asia and Africa. This is an area supported by the Canadian funding agencies in Africa.
Young research students are supported by IDRC as well as by Canadian universities. ICRISAT supports young researchers by offering internships, PhD and postdoc positions, and other research opportunities.
ICRISAT-India (Headquarters)Patancheru, Telangana, [email protected]
ICRISAT-India Liaison OfficeNew Delhi, India
ICRISAT-NigeriaKano, [email protected]
ICRISAT-MalawiLilongwe, [email protected], [email protected]
ICRISAT-NigerNiamey, [email protected]
ICRISAT-EthiopiaAddis Ababa, [email protected]
ICRISAT works in agricultural research for development across the drylands of Africa and Asia, making farming profitable for smallholder farmers while reducing malnutrition and environmental degradation.
We work across the entire value chain from developing new varieties to agri-business and linking farmers to markets.
ICRISAT appreciates the support of CGIAR investors to help overcome poverty, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the harshest dryland regions of the world. See http://www.icrisat.org/icrisat-donors.htm for full list of donors.
About ICRISAT: www.icrisat.org ICRISAT’s scientific information: EXPLOREit.icrisat.org
We believe all people have a right to nutritious food and a better livelihood.
ICRISAT-Mali (Regional hub WCA)Bamako, [email protected]
ICRISAT-ZimbabweBulawayo, [email protected]
ICRISAT-Kenya (Regional hub ESA)Nairobi, [email protected]
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/PHOTOS/ ICRISATIMAGES /ICRISATSMCO
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