Western Producer reporter Mary MacArthur is on assignment in India exploring the alluring yet confusing entity that is India. Check out her blog here.
NEW DELHI, India– An Indian researcher is relying on the time-tested techniques of research plots, tours and discussions to help farmers adopt new crop varieties in rural India.
Ashutosh Sarker, regional co-ordinator and food legume breeder with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, is set to implement “teaching villages” across the dry areas of his region in South Asia and China.
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Sarker has selected 12 districts with distinct topography. Within each of those regions he is hoping to select five village sites and wants 30 to 40 farmers to compare their existing crop varieties with newly developed varieties.
‘We want them to test our varieties in their conditions side by side on their own site and see which has the comparative advantage,” Sarker said.
“Seeing is believing. This is the way we want to spread the technology.”
India’s three million tonne pulse deficit is forcing it to find ways to boost its pulse production. India consumes four million tonnes of pulses but grows only one million.
“One good thing is Canada is producing,” Sarker said.
Lentils are not the first crop choice for Indian farmers. Disease problems and poor drought tolerance result in low yields, and farmers choose other crops to plant after the rice harvest.
Sarker is developing lentil crops better suited for dry conditions.
“It is our mission to develop crops for those situations,” he said.
He has gone back to the gene bank looking for heat tolerance genes in existing lentil varieties and has selected 300 already grown in drought prone areas.
Promising genes will be sent to other researchers for use in their lentil development programs.
“This way each country selects a variety for their region,” he said.
Canadian farmers have already benefited from lentil research in India. Sarker estimates at least eight varieties used by Canadian farmers were developed with genes provided by India in the past 25 years.
