Chickpea is an important source of protein in Nepal for both poor rural and urban families. Yields of legumes including chickpea have decreased in recent

years, primarily due to disease and insect pest problems, and the reluctance of farmers to invest time and money in a crop which increasingly fails. This project aimed to improve, validate and evaluate a complete integrated crop

management (ICM) strategy for chickpea on farms; to persuade farmers to adopt the strategy through workshops and farm trials in some of the poorest areas of Nepal; and to promote the strategy widely to the press.

and other stakeholders. The improved seed and technologies offered were in high demand by farmers, and the project produced evidence to show that the outputs (increased yield of a cash crop) have been translated into significant impacts on livelihood, including improved housing, debt repayment, education costs, clothes and healthcare. The value of the improved seed has been impressive and will benefit farmers in the longer term. An innovative promotional strategy promoted the findings to policymakers as well as farmers, and used the popular media in Nepal and the UK to publicise the wor

Bourai, Vinay A.

Chaudhary, Ram N.

Grzywacz, David

Neupane, Ram Krishna

Pande, Suresh

Rao, Narayana

Stevenson, Philip C.

Greenwich Academic Literature Archive

152DFID CROP PROTECTION PROGRAMME153ASIAISSUESChickpea is a major source of protein throughout South Asia; it is versatile and is important for making a variety of products including breads, sweets and biscuits. It also plays a religious role for Hindus. In Nepal, chickpea production has declined severely due to several pest and disease problems increasing in severity. There are tens of thousands of hectares of winter rice fallows where farmers could grow chickpea successfully, and the project aimed to encourage use of this land by demonstrating the viability of the chickpea crop, and by evaluating and promoting technologies that could reduce crop losses.Botrytis grey mould (BGM) is a disease that kills chickpea flowers and dramatically reduces yield. Incidence of this disease has increased severely over the past 10 years; in the 1997/98 season, high rainfall and humidity throughout the winter resulted in such high incidence that little seed could be saved by farmers or government agencies, and hardly any locally derived chickpea seed was sown in 1998/99.The Helicoverpa armigera pod borer emerges as a major pest threat where BGM has not occurred, or once BGM has been controlled, because there are pods for the borers to eat. The larva burrows into the pod and consumes the pea, and population explosions of the pest may devastate the crop. The insecticide thiodan (= endosulfan) is widely used to control pod borer, but the quality of the insecticide sold is often poor; farmer health and safety is invariably casual; and there are increasing reports of insecticide resistance in Nepalgunj and further west. A viable alternative to chemical insecticides is the biopesticide Helicoverpa armigera nucleo-polyhedrovirus Promoting the adoption of improved ICM technologies in chickpea by poor farmers in NepalR7885Philip Stevenson, David GrzywaczNatural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, UKSuresh Pande, Narayana RaoInternational Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), IndiaRam Krishna NeupaneNational Grain Legume Research Programme, Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC)Ram N. ChaudharyOilseeds Research Programme, NARCVinay A. BouraiDepartment of Economics, SGRR (PG) College, IndiaApril 2000–July 2003SELECTED PUBLICATIONSBOURAI, V.A., PANDE, S., NEUPANE, R.K. and JOSHI, P.K. (2003) Chickpea Production Constraints and Promotion of Integrated Pest Management in Nepal. On-farm IPM of Chickpea in Nepal – 1. Information Bulletin no. 64. ICRISAT, Patancheru, India.PANDE, S., JOHANSEN, C., STEVENSON, P.C. and GRZYWACZ, D. (eds) (2001) On-farm IPM of Chickpea in Nepal: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Planning and Implementation of On-farm IPM of Chickpea in Nepal. ICRISAT/NRI, Patancheru, India/Chatham, UK.PANDE, S., STEVENSON, P., NARAYANA RAO, J. et al. (2005) Reviving chickpea production in Nepal through integrated crop management, with emphasis on Botrytis gray mold. Plant Disease, 89: 1252–1262.SHARMA, H.C., STEVENSON, P.C. and GOWDA, C.L.L. (2005) Heliothis/Helicoverpa management: emerging trends and prospects for future research. pp. 453–462. In: Heliothis/Helicoverpa Management: Emerging Trends and Strategies for Future Research. Sharma, H.C. (Ed.). Oxford/IBH Publishers, New Delhi, India.Chickpea is an important source of protein in Nepal for both poor rural and urban families. Yields of legumes including chickpea have decreased in recent years, primarily due to disease and insect pest problems, and the reluctance of farmers to invest time and money in a crop which increasingly fails. This project aimed to improve, validate and evaluate a complete integrated crop management (ICM) strategy for chickpea on farms; to persuade farmers to adopt the strategy through workshops and farm trials in some of the poorest areas of Nepal; and to promote the strategy widely to the press and other stakeholders. The improved seed and technologies offered were in high demand by farmers, and the project produced evidence to show that the outputs (increased yield of a cash crop) have been translated into significant impacts on livelihood, including improved housing, debt repayment, education costs, clothes and healthcare. The value of the improved seed has been impressive and will benefit farmers in the longer term. An innovative promotional strategy promoted the findings to policy- makers as well as farmers, and used the popular media in Nepal and the UK to publicise the work.Chickpea production boosted using technologies promoted by the project152DFID CROP PROTECTION PROGRAMME153ASIABGM infects flowers, causing flower drop and reduced yield (left). The pod borer H. armigera burrows into pods and eats the seeds, and can decimate chickpea crops (right)(HearNPV). Thus an additional aim of this project was to evaluate and validate NPV in the laboratory, on research stations and in farmers’ fields.Towards the end of the project, livelihood benefits from growing chickpea were estimated with farmers.ACHIEVEMENTSA survey was carried out of the constraints to rabi (post-rainy-season) chickpea production and its impact on farmers’ livelihoods. The survey results helped determine the focus of the project, and established baseline data against which the improvements in chickpea production could be assessed.Based on these findings, an improved ICM strategy was developed and validated that was appropriate for poor farmers in the mid-hills and hillside regions of Nepal. The principal components are:•  adoption of an improved cultivar, Avarodhi, which is resistant to fusarium wilt•  use of seed priming•  control of BGM with carbendazim (Bavistin) once a week at flowering when morning mists do not clear•  control of pod borer with one or two sprays of thiodan•  fungicidal treatment of seed with thiram and carbendazim (Bavistin)•  use of Rhizobium inoculum•  application of diammonium phosphate fertiliser or farmyard manure•  maintenance of an open canopy by avoiding irrigation and excessive fertiliser application.New ICM promotion tools were produced and disseminated to hillside farmers in Nepal. These tools consisted of various devices for farmers attending field schools, mainly information sheets describing the nature of constraints to chickpea production and how to manage them.The project also included the evaluation and validation of HearNPV. Although laboratory studies indicated that chickpea reduced the efficacy of virus application through an interaction between the virus and the chickpea leaf surface, simple formulation ingredients based on milk powder improved the efficacy of HearNPV on chickpea up to threefold when it was sprayed as a mixture onto the leaves. HearNPV was at least as effective as the insecticide thiodan at controlling pod borer, and in many cases was more effective. Efficacy was affected by the variety of chickpea on which HearNPV was used. Avarodhi, the preferred variety for all other agronomic characters, was also the most suitable for optimum NPV control of the pod borer.Information, support and technologies were provided directly to assist about 3500 farmers over the course of three years, and many thousands more benefited through farmer-to-farmer dissemination. The results were also disseminated via other projects in Nepal which promoted the same technology tools and varieties to farmers (e.g. the DFID Plant Sciences Research Programme project on rainfed rabi cropping systems, R8098).Farmer socio-economic surveys were used to determine the impact on farmers’ livelihoods of adopting this ICM strategy. Overall, chickpea yields of participating farmers more than doubled, to 2100 kg/ha, when they employed ICM with improved varieties. The net cost of production decreased from NRs17.5 to NRs9.3 per kg. With a market price of approximately NRs30 per kg, this more than doubles profits from 154DFID CROP PROTECTION PROGRAMMEthis crop. Farmers increased their wealth by an average of US$216 per year by growing chickpea using the technologies promoted by this project. The impact on livelihoods was substantial – the majority of farmers described improvements in all aspects of domestic life, although the extent of these impacts depended on the size of their holding. One dramatic change was in the number of farmers moving from mud houses to brick houses (5–10%). Many farmers reported paying off debts (22%), with dramatic increases in expenditure on education for children, clothes and healthcare. In one village, Lalbandi in central Nepal, 400 farmers were provided with 1 kg of seed each in November 2002 – enough to sow approx-imately 13 hectares in total. Owing to the promotion by this project and farmers’ increased confidence to expand production, the extent of adoption in 2003 had increased to 110 hectares. 1997–98         1998–2000            2000–01           2001–02            2002–03Adoption of IPM of chickpea in Nepal, from the 1998 Asian Development Bank (ADB) forerunner project (RETA 5711) to 2003800070006000500040003000200010000Number of farmersYearBGM epidemicADB RETA5711110 50311005000 indirect>2000 directIn this village chickpea is rapidly taking over where, in years before, tomato lay rotting in fields or on roadsides, fetching only NRs2 per kg.The value of the private sector to the ultimate sustainability of chickpea ICM has not been ignored, and the project team has identified dealers in agricultural inputs, and helped to develop market links with chickpea farmers, especially in Lalbandi and Bardibas. At the end of 2003 an additional 7000 kg of seed (enough to sow 233 hectares) was distributed, along with the management practices promoted, to farmers not previously contacted by the project.FURTHER APPLICATIONA follow-up project (R8366, page 155) was established to raise awareness at senior levels in the ministry of the potential of chickpea ICM through an international workshop, that aimed to synthesise the results of this research and experience. The intention was to produce a policy document targeting senior government policy-makers in Nepal and elsewhere in Asia (particularly Bangladesh and India), NGOs, private-sector stakeholders, national agricultural research systems, extension organisations, and international donors and research institutes. Follow-up work was also carried out on the production and use of HearNPV.Farmers’ traditional practices produce poor yields (foreground) compared with dramatically improved productivity through ICM (background)155ASIAISSUESA robust, cost-effective and efficient ICM strategy for increased chickpea production, based on environmentally benign pest management technologies, was successfully validated and promoted on smallholder farms in Nepal under the forerunner CPP project R7885 (page 152). The ICM strategy required that farmers adopt the improved cultivars Avarodhi or Tara (good yield and tolerant to fusarium wilt), seed priming, judicial fungal and insect control using available pesticides or biological pesticides (Helicoverpa armigera nucleopolyhedrovirus, HearNPV), Rhizobium treatment in deficient areas, and management of sowing density, fertiliser inputs and water to prevent dense canopies. Uptake of the chickpea ICM strategy in the areas of Nepal targeted was widespread and profitable for farmers. It has been estimated by NARC that this approach could be extended to more than 100,000 farming households in Nepal, and larger numbers still in Bangladesh and India, where yields are similar to those in Nepal. The technology could be adapted for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and also East Africa where there is increasing interest in the potential of pulse legumes. This work aimed to identify and synthesise lessons from project R7885 to enable the development of a more robust and sustainable strategy and to broaden the adoption of chickpea ICM across Asia.ACHIEVEMENTSThe principal activities were based around discussions, consultations and meetings that focused on the synthesis of lessons learned and the development of a strategy for broad upscaling of the technologies in Nepal, while maintaining farmer field schools set up by the previous project, and distributing information to assist more farmers to redevelop their chickpea crop. Issues addressed included:•  how components of the chickpea ICM strategy in Nepal could be embedded in national Policy and strategy for improved chickpea ICM in Nepal and South AsiaR8366Philip Stevenson, David Grzywacz, Barry PoundNatural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, UKSuresh PandeInternational Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), IndiaMinistry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC), NepalRam K. NeupaneOutreach Division, Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC)April 2004–March 2005SELECTED PUBLICATIONSPANDE, S., STEVENSON, P.C., NEUPANE, R.K. and GRZYWACZ, D. (Eds) (2005) Policy and strategy for increasing income and food security through inproved crop management of chickpea in rice fallows in Asia. Summary of a NARC–ICRISAT–NRI workshop, 17–18 November 2004, Kathmandu, Nepal. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, India. 252 pp. ISBN 92-9066-479-7.SHARMA, H.C. et al. (2006) Host plant resistance and pest management in chickpea. In: The Chickpea. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK (in press).STEVENSON, P.C., PANDE, S., POUND, B. and NEUPANE, R.K. (2005) A strategy for wealth generation through chickpea production. Information Bulletin No. 70. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid  Tropics, Patancheru, India. 24 pp. ISBN 92-9066-482-7.A previous project (R7885) demonstrated that adopting high-yielding chickpea varieties along with an integrated crop management (ICM) strategy increases the income and food security of poor farmers in Nepal. This project continued that work to enable the development of a robust and sustainable strategy for adoption of ICM of chickpea in all suitable areas of Nepal. Awareness of the potential of chickpea ICM was raised through an international stakeholder workshop, and through production of a policy document targeting senior government policy-makers in Nepal and elsewhere in Asia (particularly Bangladesh and India), NGOs, private-sector stakeholders, national agricultural research systems, extension organisations, and international donors and research institutes.Filling a sprayer with HearNPV156DFID CROP PROTECTION PROGRAMMEprogrammes, especially in mid-western and far-western Nepal•  the efficacy of chemical-based pest management technologies for insect and disease management (insecticide resistance/tampering with chemicals/production quality/cost)•  the cost and feasibility of farmer mini-kits as a simple and workable implementation and extension strategy for the MoAC productivity to promote agriculture’, 18 November 2004, p. 3). Presentations on scientific and livelihoods aspects of upscaling technologies, made by 20 scientists over the course of two days, were published as the Workshop Proceedings.Lessons learned from the previous project (R7885), and from similar projects in Nepal with a goal to achieve broad uptake and impact, important to enable joined-up extension services and technology support•  seed storage is currently a low priority for both farmers and extension services, and needs greater focus and investment•  pesticide quality and insecticide resistance need monitoring•  the infrastructure and policy/legislation to support biological alternatives need developing•  agricultural knowledge dissemination to farmers needs updating and improving•  there should be more farmer self-help involvement in seed multiplication.Stakeholders, including NGOs and farmers who attended the November 2004 workshop, were made aware of novel funding strategies currently being implemented by the Government of Nepal under the guidance of the Agricultural Perspective Plan Support Programme for the decentralisation of agricultural development funds to Local Initiative Funds and District Extension Funds.FURTHER APPLICATIONA follow-on project (R8427) has the principal aim of ensuring that ICM of chickpea in Nepal, with its proven success and positive impact on farmers’ livelihoods, becomes embedded in the national agricultural strategy of Nepal. It aims to achieve this through stewardship of the adoption of the outputs of project R7885 into policy and strategy through training, education and development of tools such as mini-kits, to promote its adoption. By establishing marketing links and networks for community-based and private-sector initiatives, this project will help ensure sustainability and develop wealth-creating environments for stakeholders. Through careful targeting of efforts, ICM of chickpea could be established as normal farmer practice throughout mid-western and far western Nepal – the poorest areas where aid has previously had little impact.Farmers learning to spray NPV effectively•  consolidating knowledge and facilitating key relationships between private sector, farmers, and non-governmental and government officers•  the acceptability to farmers of biological pesticides such as NPV, and the feasibility of importation or local NPV production.A workshop was held in Kathmandu in November 2004 to raise awareness of, and define a strategy for, countrywide uptake of chickpea ICM technologies. This was attended by up to 80 participants from South Asian countries, including Bangladesh and India, to help raise awareness beyond Nepal. The meeting was covered by various media including the evening news on Nepal TV and national newspapers (Rising Nepal: ‘Commercialisation of agriculture stressed’, 18 November 2004, p. 1; Kathmandu Post: ‘Enhance were synthesised through group discussions with policy-makers, extension workers and scientists to ensure that scaling up of chickpea ICM in Nepal is well considered and well planned.One of the principal outputs of the workshop was a policy strategy for large-scale uptake of chickpea ICM in Nepal. Its key findings are:•  chickpea is a crop that can compete with alternatives; it is highly profitable when grown with appropriate technology and improves the livelihoods of poor farmers•  markets per se are not a limiting step for the nationwide expansion of improved chickpea production in Nepal (most chickpea consumed in Nepal is still imported), but some aspects of marketing need to be addressed•  complementarity between research and extension organisations in Nepal will be 

Promoting the adoption of improved ICM technologies in chickpea by poor farmers in Nepal

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