Agrarian Straightjacket: Constraints to Achieve Yield Potential in Rice

The coastal zone of Bangladesh is the most vulnerable region of the eastern Ganges basin, occupies about 30% (46,000 km2) of the country’s land area and is home to some of the world’s poorest and most food insecure 39 million people, whose livelihoods depend primarily on agriculture and aquaculture. Key challenges to both agricultural and aquacultural productivity include excessive flooding during the rainy season, lack of access to fresh water and soil salinity during the dry season, and severe cyclonic storms and tidal surges throughout the year. These challenges will be exacerbated as a result of climate change and is expected to leave the communities most vulnerable and food insecure in the coming years

WLE Ganges Focal Region Meeting

Following the two-day WLE Ganges Regional Research Workshop on the CPWF Delta Program, a smaller meeting was held with fourteen participants. This meeting focused on providing insights from CPWF’s work in the Ganges and developing recommendations for the design team that will develop the WLE Ganges proposal. Discussions were based on the recently drafted Ganges Focal Region Development Challenge concept note following a WLE meeting in Amman, Jordan. Participants included key members of the CPWF-Ganges research team and representatives of the WLE Ganges ‘hills’ and ‘plains’ regions. WLE program staff led the meeting

Polder Tidings, Volume 1, Number 1, May 2016

United States Agency for International Developmen

Mapping Opportunities to Increase Productivity in Coastal Bangladesh

The Ganges Basin Development Challenge (GBDC) Program of the CGIAR Challenge Program for Water and Food is focusing on improving livelihoods and increasing productivity sustainably in the coastal polder zone, and has developed and tested innovative cropping systems and water management practices suited to the local conditions.Before a new cropping system can be recommended, it is important to identify its “extrapolation domain,” which determines where it could be successful

Mapping the suitability of selected crops in the Ganges Delta

Assessing the suitability of different crops in specific geographic locations is crucial for optimizing crop productivity, promoting climate resilience, and guiding land use decisions. This study assessed the biophysical suitability of rice, watermelon and maize in the Ganges Delta, one of the most densely populated deltas in the world and also extremely vulnerable to climate change. This delta is expected to increasingly experience more frequent and intense extreme weather events, sea level rise and food insecurity. The suitability maps could be used in targeting alternative cropping systems, adjusting crop calendar and recommending crop management practices to increase productivity and improve the resilience of the Ganges Delta

FR2.3: What influences women's participation in water governance? Preliminary findings from Bangladesh

The Bangladesh polder zones cover 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land and are home to around eight million people with women playing a critical role in agriculture and food systems. With limited access to and control over productive resources and incomes, women are disproportionately vulnerable to climatic risks. Their ability to make important decisions can have positive outcomes on the governance of natural resources, agricultural productivity, and livelihoods. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study aims to examine the extent and level of women's participation in water management groups (WMGs) and analyze the socio-cultural, political, economic, and biophysical contexts that influence participation. A structured-questionnaire survey of 720 households was conducted during April-June 2022 in four polders of the Khulna division. Focus group discussions with women and men members were conducted to reflect on the factors that influence women's participation in WMGs. Results reveal that while men contributed mostly to decisions on structure/equipment investment and the release and distribution of water that directly affected agriculture production, women were more involved in enlisting participants for training on homestead gardening, livestock and poultry, as well as leadership development. Both men and women highlighted that participation in WMGs resulted in access to innovations that improved crop productivity and incomes. Women members opined that participation gave them social recognition in the community. Despite these perceived benefits, more than 60% of women respondents believed that their participation in meetings and decisions in WMGs is constrained by unpaid domestic work and restrictive social norms. The preliminary findings highlight that tackling restrictive gender norms to redistribute the unpaid domestic work burden of women is one way of enabling effective participation in water governance

Integrated Landscape Approach: Closing the Gap between Theory and Application

Recently, the integrated landscape approach has gained increasing interest of the scientific community, as well as of organizations active in the field of sustainable development. However, the enthusiastic welcome is challenged by little consensus on theory, terminology and definitions. Moreover, the operationalization of the approach into practice is a major challenge. In this paper, we present a framework to operationalize the integrated landscape approach in practice by putting a long-term collaboration between scientists and various stakeholder at center stage. Based on encompassing understanding of landscape-level processes and interactions, four pillars addressing different steps of a joint-learning circle are described and illustrated with examples. We consider the integrated landscape approach to be a prime way of targeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but novel forms of collaboration between scientists and other stakeholders based on long-term commitments will be needed for operationalization in practice

Like Sign Dilepton Signature for Gluino Production at LHC with or without R Conservation

The isolated like sign dilepton signature for gluino production is investigated at the LHC energy for the $R$ conserving as well as the $L$ and $B$ violating SUSY models over a wide range of the parameter space. One gets viable signals for gluino masses of 300 and 600 GeV for both $R$ conserving and $L$ violating models, while it is less promising for the $B$ violating case. For a 1000 GeV gluino, the $L$ violating signal should still be viable; but the $R$ conserving signal becomes too small at least for the low luminosity option of LHC.Comment: (e-mail: [email protected]) Latex: No. of pages 21, no. of figures 6 - available on reques

Maintaining Diversity of Integrated Rice and Fish Production Confers Adaptability of Food Systems to Global Change

Rice and fish are preferred foods, critical for healthy and nutritious diets, and provide the foundations of local and national economies across Asia. Although transformations, or "revolutions," in agriculture and aquaculture over the past half-century have primarily relied upon intensified monoculture to increase rice and fish production, agroecological approaches that support biodiversity and utilize natural processes are particularly relevant for achieving a transformation toward food systems with more inclusive, nutrition-sensitive, and ecologically sound outcomes. Rice and fish production are frequently integrated within the same physical, temporal, and social spaces, with substantial variation amongst the types of production practice and their extent. In Cambodia, rice field fisheries that strongly rely upon natural processes persist in up to 80% of rice farmland, whereas more input and infrastructure dependent rice-shrimp culture is expanding within the rice farmland of Vietnam. We demonstrate how a diverse suite of integrated production practices contribute to sustainable and nutrition-sensitive food systems policy, research, and practice. We first develop a typology of integrated production practices illustrating the nature and degree of: (a) fish stocking, (b) water management, (c) use of synthetic inputs, and (d) institutions that control access to fish. Second, we summarize recent research and innovations that have improved the performance of each type of practice. Third, we synthesize data on the prevalence, outcomes, and trajectories of these practices in four South and Southeast Asian countries that rely heavily on fish and rice for food and nutrition security. Focusing on changes since the food systems transformation brought about by the Green Revolution, we illustrate how integrated production practices continue to serve a variety of objectives to varying degrees: food and nutrition security, rural livelihood diversification and income improvement, and biodiversity conservation. Five shifts to support contemporary food system transformations [i.e., disaggregating (1) production practices and (2) objectives, (3) utilizing diverse metrics, (4) valuing emergent, place-based innovation, (5) building adaptive capacity] would accelerate progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 2, specifically through ensuring ecosystem maintenance, sustainable food production, and resilient agricultural practices with the capacity to adapt to global change.This work was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) led by WorldFish with contribution from the CGIAR Research program on Water Land and Ecosystems (WLE) led by the International Water Management Institute. Both these programs are supported by contributors to the CGIAR Trust Fund. Additional funding support for this work was provided by the Australian Government and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research grant work was provided by the Australian Centre for International Research through the Development of Rice Fish Systems in the Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar (ACIAR project FIS/2016/135). The support through the United States Agency for International Development under Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-L-14-00006 and KAES contribution number 20-317-J and grant number AID-442-IO12-00001 are duly acknowledged. Photo credits: Anon., Finn Thilsted, Anon., Anon., Todd Brown (Figure 1)