Climate change and desertification put one billion poor people at risk
and ICRISAT is dedicating the necessary research and means to rectify
existing and future problems.


There are one billion poor people in the world who are vulnerable to
climate change, desertification, land degradation, loss of biodiversity,
water scarcity and shortage of fossil fuels. India alone accounts for 25.93%
of this population and China 16.66%. The remaining part of Asia and Pacific
accounts for 18.30%. In short, Asia is a hub where the poor, undernourished
and the vulnerable live. This is followed by sub-Saharan Africa, which
accounts for 23.94% of the one billion.

The other parts of the world are not far behind, with Latin America
and the Caribbean accounting for 6.22% and the North East and North Africa
4.57%. According to Dr William Dar, Director General of the International
Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Chair
of the Committee for Science and Technology of the United Nations Convention
to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the poor can be made less vulnerable with
greater science and knowledge-based interventions, and more importantly
significant donor support from the developed and developing countries to
support this research. "Business as usual will not help us meet the
Millennium Development Goals and much more the goal of reducing poverty by
half by 2015," Dr Dar said.

Many parts of the world are already showing signs of physical water
scarcity - India, eastern Australia, Pakistan, China, Central Asia, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, parts of southern Africa, southern USA and
northern Mexico. With greater demands from other sectors, the water
availability for agriculture is getting limited. "The nexus of climate
change and desertification, combined with land degradation, biodiversity
loss, water shortage and fossil fuel shortage, will make it even more
riskier for the farmers to farm in the drylands of the world. They will find
it more difficult to invest in farming, and there could be more diseases and
death" said Dr Dar.

ICRISAT believes that unless the livelihoods and resource base of such
vulnerable rural communities can be made more resilient, coping with climate
change and desertification may be next to impossible for poor dryland
farming communities. Working over decades with poor farmers in the drylands
of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, ICRISAT's research shows that a combined
effort to deal with current climate uncertainty, land degradation and water
scarcity is the only way by which the resilience of these communities can be
brought about.

ICRISAT's research is achieving this through improved climate
variability analysis, projects to overcome land degradation and water
scarcity, use of improved crop management options, improved crop breeding,
and a pro-poor BioPower strategy. With improved tools becoming available in
studying climate uncertainty, it has now become possible for decision-makers
and investors to formulate a development agenda integrating short-, medium-
and long-term timeframes. ICRISAT's integrated climate risk assessment and
management framework enables investors (governments, donors, researchers or
farmers) to understand better the risks and opportunities and get greater
returns from more diversified and targeted investments.

Land degradation, which is a persistent problem in the drylands of
Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, can be further worsened by climate change and
desertification. ICRISAT has been working with partners for years on
combating land degradation in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT has been
working on programs such as the Desert Margins Program, fertilizer
microdosing and Drylands Eco-Farm to help fight land degradation in the
sub-Saharan Africa. These projects diversify the basket of crops and
livestock systems, and provide appropriate dosage of fertilizers to crops,
to strengthen the resilience of the agro-ecosystems.

In Asia, ICRISAT's watershed development program overcomes both land
degradation and water scarcity through judicious soil and management
practices. This when supported by improved agronomic practices and
integration with livestock systems, it enables the farmers to overcome the
immediate problems of climate uncertainty and desertification. Based on our
work in the drylands we have proved that farmers can increase their
productivity four-fold and profits three-fold, using improved management
options including use of water efficient crops. There is also high carbon
sequestration as a result of improving dryland systems with technologies.

All these activities are strengthened with ICRISAT's crop improvement
research through which scientists continuously work to breed crop varieties
and hybrids that are more drought, pest and disease tolerant. These new
varieties strengthen the hands of farmers to deal with climate change and
desertification.

ICRISAT released the world's first pigeonpea hybrids based on the
cytoplasmic male sterility system. The hybrids developed at ICRISAT have
shown 30 to 150% yield advantage. The hybrids also produce 30-40% more root
mass that makes them more drought resistant. The adoption of hybrid
technology has been rapid. The yield advantages of hybrids and the ease in
their seed production have convinced the seed producers and at present 22
private and 3 public seed companies have adopted the technology. In 2007, a
total of 250,000 kg of hybrid seed is being produced. This will bring about
50,000 ha land under hybrid cultivation.

Using the molecular-marker assisted selection and breeding method
ICRISAT developed the HHB 67-2 pearl millet hybrid, which can withstand
downy mildew disease, which devastates pearl millet crops in the Northern
Indian states of Haryana and Rajasthan. When there is no natural resistance
in crops to pests or diseases, ICRISAT has been developing transgenic crops
with genes for resistance from outside the crop's gene pool. Under contained
field trials are ICRISAT-bred transgenic groundnut for resistance to the
Indian Peanut Clump Virus, transgenic pigeonpea and transgenic chickpea with
resistance to Helicoverpa armigera.

With the skyrocketing of fossil fuel prices, ICRISAT has initiated a
pro-poor BioPower strategy. Through this BioPower strategy ICRISAT works on
generating biodiesel from jatropha and pongamia in the wastelands of the
villages. ICRISAT and GTZ have has also initiated a public-private
partnership with Southern Online Biotech and farmers.

ICRISAT scientists bred sweet sorghum varieties and hybrids that have
higher sugar content in the juice in their stalks. Through the Agri-Business
Incubator ICRISAT partnered with Rusni Distilleries who established a
distillery to convert sweet sorghum juice to ethanol. In June 2007 the plant
produced world's first ethanol from sweet sorghum. The beauty of
ICRISAT-bred sweet sorghum is that while farmers get additional income from
the juice in the stalk, they still continue to get the sorghum grains.
ICRISAT's package empowers the farmers to meet the present day
uncertainties, so that they can meet the future climate change and also
reverse desertification
as it happens.


[www.icrisat.org]