Integrating crop and resource management technologies for enhanced productivity, profitability, and sustainability of the rice-wheat system in South Asia

The rice-wheat (RW) system is the lifeline of millions of food producers and consumers in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of South Asia. Practiced over an area of 13.5 million ha, this system provides food, employment, and income to the local population of the four IGP countries_Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The RW system is highly intensive in the northwest and parts of the central 1GP with a liberal and often excessive use of irrigation water and chemical inputs to maximize crop yields. The system is becoming more and more unsustainable due to problems such as (1) a depletion and/or degradation of natural resources (water, soil, biodiversity), (2)low input-use efficiency (fertilizers, pesticides, labor), (3) pollution of the environment (soil, water, and air), (4) changing climate, and (5) fast-changing socioeconomic conditions (population growth, increasing poverty, fewer rural employment opportunities, rural-urban migration, increasing farm labor scarcity). In contrast, in the eastern 1GP the RW system is more or less traditional, with low productivity and income due to a lack of adoption of improved crop and resource management technologies. Both types of problems have to be overcome to enhance and sustain the high productivity and profitability of the RW system with the least adverse impact on the environment and thereby improve the livelihoods of the local people. In a project supported by the Asian Development Bank, a number of improved land and crop management practices, often termed resource-conserving technologies (RCTs), have successfully been developed and disseminated in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (lGP). Among the RCTs, the most popular are laser land leveling, zero- and reduced-till drill-seeded wheat, direct seeding of rice, and a leaf color chart for nitrogen management. As of today, approximately 4.0 million ha of combined rice and wheat area were under one or more RCTs in the 1GP countries. The vast majority of farmers have adopted them because of increased productivity, reduced costs, and higher profitability. The use of individual technologies did improve RW productivity and profitability to a certain extent, but combining and simultaneously applying a number of compatible RCTs is crucial for maximizing the overall benefits to farmers. Farmers generally integrated the new technologies into the portfolio of their own technologies already being practiced on their farms. This process of integrating new RCTs into an existing portfolio of technologies can be called integrated crop and resource management (10PM). Being highly dynamic, 1CRM will accept innovations as and when they become available. A good example of 1CRM is the combined use of precision land leveling and reduced tillage or zero-tillage and drill seeding together with a full package of crop management to maximize system efficiency, productivity, and benefit. Additionally, some RCTs under 1CRM have had positive effects on resource use and environmental quality. However, the adoption rates of 1CRM with new RCTs were highly variable in the three regions_northwest, central, and eastern 1GP This is because of variations across the 1GP in RW system characteristics such as (1) agroclimatic conditions and land types, (2) farmers knowledge, skills, resource endowments, and cultivation practices, (3) the time of introduction of 1CRM with new RCTs and the extent of farmers exposure to them, and (4) the amount of institutional and policy support to farmers. The key factors affecting the adoption of 1CRM with new technologies by farmers and suggested strategies to facilitate wide adoption are discussed in this paper. The need continues to be to develop an effective program for wider evaluation, refinement, and dissemination of proven RCTs within the framework of 1CRM for deprived farming communities, specifically in the eastern 1GR to realize their great impact on food security and farmers livelihood in South Asia.