Integrated systems approach for enhancing resilience of arid farming systems in South Asia

This paper aims to share the methods and processes of designing resilient farming systems to improve livelihoods under the drylands in South-Asia. The study is based on 250 randomly selected farm households along the rainfall gradient from Jodhpur- Barmer-Jaisalmer districts in Western Rajasthan in India. Our analysis demonstrates that the dryland smallholder farming systems occur within diverse agro-ecological and socio-economic environments and develop different livelihood strategies driven by opportunities and constraints encountered. Multiple livelihood assets determine different land use patterns and agricultural management practices in dryland systems in south Asia. Well-designed household survey on socio-economic and agroecological variables and statistical approach helped capture the diversity of livelihood assets to categorize households into homogenous farm types. The follow up FDG’s with farmers and stakeholder were equally important to validate farm typologies and prioritization of interventions. Engaging the innovation platform for identification of potential innovation options and their prioritization at district level; involving farmers for each farm typology, and ex-ante assessment of promising options led to the on-farm assessment of farm type specific most appropriate interventions in the action villages. Landscape and community level options were prioritized with the village development committee and proactive farmers. The institutional platforms experimented at village to regional level has strengthened the capacity of the community/stakeholders to innovate to improve the farming systems resilience and economic viability. An ex-post assessment demonstrates significant increase in farming systems productivity, household income and development of value chains as well as sustainable management of natural resource including common pastures. This study contributes to the understanding of how research for development through integrated systems approach can contribute towards stabilizing farm incomes, sustainable intensification and smoothening livelihood of resource poor farmers in vulnerable dry regions

Expedient method for oxidation of alcohol by hydrogen peroxide in the presence of amberlite IRA 400 resin (basic) as phase-transfer catalyst

Amberlite IRA 400 (strongly basic), a classical polymer imparts phasetransfer catalysis in the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols by hydrogen peroxide to give excellent yields of the corresponding carbonyl compounds or carboxylic acids in acetonitrile solvent at reflux temperature in 4–6 h. The catalytic system is inert to other susceptible oxidation sites such as carbon–carbon double bond

Integrated ecosystems approach for sustainable intensification of community based silvo-patoral systems in arid western Rajasthan, India: implications for upscaling

The common pastures in arid Rajasthan, India though are critically important for sustaining livestock dominant smallholder rural livelihoods and ecosystems services, but have been severely degraded due to several factors. Among others, the stakeholders’ perception of low returns on any investment of time or other resources for restoring these degraded common property resources (CPRs) is resulting into their continuous neglect. Generating sufficient on-farm evidence of enhanced biomass productivity and returns from CPRs employing integrated natural resource management and appropriate governance mechanisms are suggested strategies for enhancing community participation and influencing policies for their sustainable development. The present study aims to understand the key drivers of CPRs management and assess the potential of sustainable intensification of community silvo-pastoral systems for increased biomass production and returns in arid western Rajasthan, India. The study was undertaken in Jodhpur, Barmer and Jaisalmer districts across the annual rainfall gradient from 170 mm to 280 mm. The case-study analyses and the group-discussions were used as a starting point for facilitated community elaborations on how to adopt appropriate by-laws and identify opportunities and challenges of sustainable intensification of community pastures. Action-sites of 10 ha degraded common pastures were identified in each of the three communities to test silvo-pastoral rehabilitation options. Participatory Mozer-framework matrix accounted for local preferences and climate in selecting the plant species. The community was involved in in-situ and ex-situ water and soil conservation, species selection and monitoring, fencing, cut and carry systems and output sharing. The biomass assessment with respect to yield, species diversity, share of edible and non-edible species was carried out in pasture and control plots. The integrated ecosystems approach for rehabilitation of severely degraded community silvo-pastoral systems under arid region resulted in many-fold increase in biomass yield from 0.25-0.40 t/ha to 1.6–4.6 t/ha in the second year. The proportion of edible species increased from 15 -24% to 55 – 73%. The ex-ante analysis for a 10 year time horizon indicates payback period of about three years and over 30% IRR. Paper explores the potential to upscale the approach to at least one quarter of the common lands in west Rajasthan (1 m ha) producing about 2.5 million tons additional biomass. The study highlights the role of the structure and functions of the production system as well as social ecological system in designing appropriate NRM interventions, species selection, grazing system, market integration and institutional mechanisms

The biotechnological importance of the plant-specific NAC transcription factor family in crop improvement

Climate change, malnutrition, and food insecurity are the inevitable challenges being faced by the agriculture sector today. Plants are susceptible to extreme temperatures during the crucial phases of flowering and seed development, and elevated carbon levels also lead to yield losses. Productivity is also affected by floods and droughts. Therefore, increasing plant yield and stress tolerance are the priorities to be met through novel biotechnological interventions. The contributions of NAC genes towards enhancing plant survivability under stress is well known. Here we focus on the potential of NAC genes in the regulation of abiotic stress tolerance, secondary cell wall synthesis, lateral root development, yield potential, seed size and biomass, ROS signaling, leaf senescence, and programmed cell death. Once naturally tolerant candidate NAC genes have been identified, and the nature of their association with growth and fitness against multi-environmental stresses has been determined, they can be exploited for building inherent tolerance in future crops via transgenic technologies. An update on the latest developments is provided in this review, which summarizes the current understanding of the roles of NAC in the establishment of various stress-adaptive mechanisms in model and food crop plants

Institutional and technological options for sustainable intensification of community based Silvi-pasture systems in arid ecoregions

In arid ecoregion of Rajasthan, India, common pool resources (CPRs) like common pastures and village water bodies provide ecosystem services such as fodder, fuel, timber, water and medicinal plants which are crucial for the livelihoods in particular of the poor. In western Rajasthan livestock keeping is the most important and resilient component of the agricultural systems which strongly depends on common pastures. However, the grazing areas have become severely degraded making the rural poor more vulnerable. A number of efforts have been made to improve the management of and rehabilitate the community pastures (Conroy and Lobo, 2002; Agrawal, 2003). The success of such initiatives was unreliable and even the strong involvement of elected village councils (Panchayats) has not helped. Post-project sustainability of new management practices remains uncertain due to cumbersome social dynamics, neglect of institutional arrangements as well as an overemphasis on technical and externally controlled interventions (Jodha, 2001; Chaudhry et al., 2011; Mishra and Kumar, 2007). Previous empirical research using the social-ecological systems thinking and framework (Ostrom, 1990, 2007; Wade, 1998; Baland and Plateau, 1996) has helped to better understand CPR governance challenges. Nevertheless, there is still no clear answer to the question why common pasture management works out in some Rajasthan communities and fails in others

Assessment of Agricultural Technologies for Dryland Systems in South Asia: A Case Study of Western Rajasthan, India

Western Rajasthan accounts for 61% of the total hot arid zone in India (31.7 m ha). The rest of the arid area is spread over Gujarat (20%), Punjab and Haryana (9%), as well as small parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka (10%). The arid region receives <450 mm annual rainfall with 40-80% coefficient of variation. With evapotranspiration (ET) four to five-fold higher than rainfall, aridity, deficit water balance, and scarcity of water for drinking and other purposes are often severe. Natural resources such as water, land and vegetation are very fragile and partly non-resilient, and hence the area is prone to irreversible land degradation and desertification under excessive pressure from human and livestock populations. Arable cropping alone is not a dependable proposition in these drylands. Animal wealth provides sustainable support to livelihoods, but the sector is not yet well organized. Only one crop can be grown during a good rainfall year, and on average, a year of good harvest is normal during a cycle of five years, while two are expected to yield moderate crops and at least two failures are usual. The arid region offers limited scope for water harvesting and recycling, particularly at a watershed scale. There is better scope for integrated land resource development on the basis of village clusters, index catchments and dune-interdune complex

Beam-Energy Dependence of Charge Separation Along the Magnetic Field in Au + Au Collisions at RHIC

Local parity-odd domains are theorized to form inside a quark-gluon plasma which has been produced in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. The local parity-odd domains manifest themselves as charge separation along the magnetic field axis via the chiral magnetic effect. The experimental observation of charge separation has previously been reported for heavy-ion collisions at the top RHIC energies. In this Letter, we present the results of the beam-energy dependence of the charge correlations in Au+Au collisions at midrapidity for center-of-mass energies of 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, and 62.4 GeV from the STAR experiment. After background subtraction, the signal gradually reduces with decreased beam energy and tends to vanish by 7.7 GeV. This implies the dominance of hadronic interactions over partonic ones at lower collision energies

Observation of D⁰ Meson Nuclear Modifications in Au + Au Collisions at √S\u3csub\u3eNN\u3c/sub\u3e = 200 GeV

We report the first measurement of charmed-hadron (D0) production via the hadronic decay channel (D0→K−+π+) in Au+Au collisions at √sNN=200  GeV with the STAR experiment. The charm production cross section per nucleon-nucleon collision at midrapidity scales with the number of binary collisions, Nbin, from p+p to central Au+Au collisions. The D0 meson yields in central Au+Au collisions are strongly suppressed compared to those in p+p scaled by Nbin, for transverse momenta pT \u3e 3  GeV/c, demonstrating significant energy loss of charm quarks in the hot and dense medium. An enhancement at intermediate pT is also observed. Model calculations including strong charm-medium interactions and coalescence hadronization describe our measurements