Person:
Malik, R.

Profile Picture
Email Address
Birth Date
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Job Title
Last Name
Malik
First Name
R.
Name
Malik, R.
ORCID ID
0000-0002-0030-8721

Filters

2007 - 200922010 - 20192
Reset filters

Settings

Type: Book ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    New frontiers in agricultural extension - volume 1
    (CIMMYT, 2019) Singh, A.K.; Craufurd, P.; Mcdonald, A.; Singh, A.K.; Kumar, A.; Singh, Randhir; Singh, B.; Singh, S.; Kumar, V.; Malik, R.
    India’s self-sufficiency in food is widely regarded as its greatest achievement since Independence. The green revolution has played a great supporting role in increasing the income of rural households (HHs) where farms are too small and ecologies are too diverse. The topdown scaling out process was fundamental to the accelerated adoption of green revolution technologies in late 1960s and 70s. However, with the current development of an extensive network of KVKs, Indian agriculture has the opportunity to use diagnostic surveys and analytical tools for planning and implementing scaling-up and scalingout strategies in a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down process. In this book, data based evidence has been utilised for monitoring, evaluation and learning (ME&L) of adoption patterns of technologies. The objective is to achieve accelerated adoption of technologies in different ways, wherein extension also acts as part of priority setting (testing and evaluation at scale plus learning/feedback), and the sum of these components brings the specific technological intervention to focus. This publication on “New Frontiers in Agricultural Extension”, based on a landscape diagnostic survey of approximately 8,000 fields, is the first in series of three publications from the BMGF-funded KVK-CSISA network project being implemented by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The publication provides evidence on how different technologies are being accepted by farmers and how to improve the delivery system of technologies. The challenge has been to analyse how technologies were modified as they diffused and became more reliable and acceptable by a larger proportion of farmers. The Agricultural Extension Division (ICAR), through its Agricultural Technology Application and Research Institutes (ATARIs), hoped to create an end-to-end feedback mechanism for research and extension, as well as a digital transformation based convergence program, that will define the impact pathways of its KVK system and change the way research and extension systems operate. The innovations include: methods to design spatially representative surveys, digital survey data collection tools that enable rapid data uploading, a web-based portal hosted by ICAR to make data visible and accessible, and data analysis packages in open-source software for analysis. Data have enabled us to increase the reach of KVKs, and once properly analysed such data sets can help KVKs and their parent institutions to serve in a better way and a much larger population of farmers. The first volume of this document “New Frontiers in Agricultural Extension” incorporates the main outcomes of landscape diagnostic survey (LDS) of wheat across 29 districts of Bihar and nine districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh with 7,648 data points (wheat) and from Odisha with 400 data points (rice). The project has set a target to conduct the LDS in 110 districts across eight ATARIs with more than 40,000 data points. This volume contains the methodology involved in LDS, data from respondent farmers on the production practices of wheat and rice, and their relationship with existing recommendations. It also contains a priority setting exercise that can be shared with multi-disciplinary research teams in the research institutes including State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) and with Department of Agriculture (DoA) in the concerned state. This publication will help in developing a vibrant and faster cycle of research and extension, by improving the linkage with DoAs for better seasonal planning and linking it with research institutions for setting research priorities and strengthening the monitoring, evaluation and learning (ME&L) in NARES.
    Publication
  • Thumbnail Image
    Integrated weed management in rice: training of trainers modules
    (CIMMYT, 2017) Kumar, V.; Yadav, A.K.; Malik, R.; Peramaiyan, P.; Kumar, A.; Krupnik, T.J.; Das, B.N.; Dubey, S.; Gautam, U.S.; Kumar, A.; Mishra, J.S.; Pathak, H.; Panwar, G.S.; Das, A.; Pattnaik, S.; Singh, S.; Mcdonald, A.
    In India, weeds are responsible for about 33% of total yield losses caused by pests, whereas insects and diseases are responsible for 26% and 20%, respectively. Weeds interfere with crops by competing for light, water, nutrients and space resulting in reduction of crop yield and quality. The yield reduction in any crop through weed competition depends on several factors such as weed flora and density, duration of competition, management practices and climatic conditions. Therefore, timely weed management is crucial for attaining optimal grain yield of a crop. However, none of the single weed control methods are effective for all weeds and to manage weeds effectively and sustainably in the long run, it is essential to develop and deploy flexible integrated weed management (IWM) practices. IWM consists of physical, cultural, chemical, and biological means developed on knowledge of weed ecology and biology. In addition, costs involved in weed management constitute a significant share of total cost of production. Weeds have also become major constraints in adoption of new resource-efficient (labor, water, and tillage) technologies such as direct-seeded rice and reduced/zero-till systems. In eastern India, hand weeding has traditionally been the most common practice of weed control in rice and other cereals crops. In recent years, because of rising scarcity of labor and increasing labor wages, farmers have started adopting herbicides for weed control. However, farmers have limited knowledge on proper herbicide handling, selection of herbicide molecules and their time of application, application technologies for better efficacy, and environmental and human health risks associated with their incorrect use. Therefore, there is a need to train and develop master trainers with a strong understanding of IWM, who will help to pass on this knowledge on to farmers. This training module covers critical topics on the principles and practices of IWM, in the context of Indian agriculture, where the majority of farmers are smallholders. Strong emphasis has been placed on hands-on learning and learning by experience. This module aims to provide guidance to the training facilitators to conduct rapid two-day trainings on IWM, including step-by-step detailed instructions on how to facilitate the training, training materials required for successfully conducting different sessions, and instructions on how to conduct hands-on trainings, field visits and practical sessions. IWM principles can be better learned through multiple training sessions combined with practical sessions, or as part of a farmer field school than a single classroom session covering different aspects of IWM. Hence, while this module covers five training sessions that can be conducted consecutively over two days, they can also be delivered as individual modules, for example, during a season-long farmer field school.
    Publication
  • Thumbnail Image
    Adoption and impacts of zero tillage as a resource conserving technology in the irrigated plains of South Asia.
    (IWMI, 2007) Erenstein, O.; Farooq, U.; Malik, R.; Sharif, M.
    The recent stagnation of productivity growth in the irrigated areas of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia has led to a quest for resourceconserving technologies that can save water, reduce production costs and improve production. The present synthesis of two detailed country studies confirmed widespread adoption of zero tillage (ZT) wheat in the rice-wheat systems of India’s Haryana State (34.5% of surveyed households) and Pakistan’s Punjab province (19%). The combination of a significant “yield effect” and “cost-saving effect” makes adoption worthwhile and is the main driver behind the rapid spread and widespread acceptance of ZT in Haryana, India. In Punjab, Pakistan, adoption is driven by the significant ZT-induced cost savings for wheat cultivation. Thus, the prime driver for ZT adoption is not water savings or natural resource conservation but monetary gain in both sites. Water savings are only a potential added benefit. ZT adoption for wheat has accelerated from insignificant levels from 2000 onwards in both sites. Geographic penetration of ZT is far from uniform, suggesting the potential for further diffusion, particularly in Haryana, India. Diffusion seems to have stagnated in the Punjab study area, and further follow-up studies are needed to confirm this. The study also revealed significant dis-adoption of ZT in the survey year: Punjab, Pakistan 14 percent and Haryana, India 10 percent. Better understanding the rationale for dis-adoption merits further scrutiny. Our findings suggest that there is no clear single overarching constraint but that a combination of factors is at play, including technology performance, technology access, seasonal constraints and, particularly in the case of Punjab, Pakistan, the institutional ZT controversy. In terms of technology performance, the relative ZT yield was particularly influential: dis-adopters of ZT reporting low ZT yields as a major contributor to farmer disillusionment in Punjab, Pakistan and the lack of a significant yield effect in Haryana, India. In neither site did the ZT-induced time savings in land preparation translate into timelier establishment, contributing to the general lack of a yield increase. Knowledge blockages, resource constraints and ZT drill cost and availability all contributed to nonadoption. This suggests that there is potential to further enhance access to this technology and thereby its penetration. The study highlights that in both Haryana, India and Punjab, Pakistan ZT has been primarily adopted by the larger and more productive farmers. The structural differences between the adopters and non-adopters/dis-adopters in terms of resource base, crop management and performance thereby easily confound the assessment of ZT impact across adoption categories. This calls for the comparison of the ZT plots and conventional tillage plots on adopter farms. ZT-induced effects primarily apply to the establishment and production costs of the wheat crop. Both the Haryana, India and Punjab, Pakistan studies confirmed significant ZT-induced resource-saving effects in farmers’ fields in terms of diesel and tractor time for wheat cultivation. Water savings are, however, less pronounced than expected from on-farm trial data. It was only in Haryana, India that there were significant ZTinduced water savings in addition to significant yield enhancement. The higher yield and water savings in Haryana, India result in significantly higher water productivity indicators for ZT wheat. In both sites, there are limited implications for the overall wheat crop management, the subsequent rice crop and the rice-wheat system as a whole. The ZT-induced yield enhancement and cost savings provide a much needed boost to the returns to, and competitiveness of, wheat cultivation in Haryana, India. In Punjab, Pakistan, ZT is primarily a cost-saving technology. Based on these findings the study provides a number of recommendations for research and development in South Asia’s rice-wheat systems.
    Publication
  • Thumbnail Image
    Adoption and impacts of zero-tillage in the rice-wheat zone of irrigated Haryana, India
    (RWC, 2007) Erenstein, O.; Malik, R.; Singh, S.
    This study documents the adoption and impacts of zero-tillage (ZT) wheat in the rice-wheat systems of India’s Haryana State primarily drawing on a detailed empirical survey of 400 rice-wheat farmers. Our random stratified sample revealed 34.5% to be ZT wheat adopters and a quarter of the wheat area in
    Publication