Major agricultural revolution sweeping across Asia's breadbasket regions: potential to help millions

Abstract

As many parts of the world, including the European Union, debate restructuring agricultural policy to be more focused on environmental and food security needs, scientists will announce at a news briefing in The Hague on 2 October that a major agricultural revolution is sweeping across Asia's breadbasket regions. This transformation to so-called "low-till" farming-which does away with intensive and repeated plowing of farmers' fields-could have major implications for charting a course toward more ecologically-friendly, higher-producing, and cost-effective agriculture, particularly relevant for the developing world. This work is largely the result of pioneering agricultural research begun in the region by CIMMYT, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, and has been funded in large part by the International Cooperation of the Government of the Netherlands (DGIS). At the news briefing, scientists will outline the benefits of low-till agriculture, such as increasing harvests, saving water, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and herbicide use, and the speed at which the practices are being taken up in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. They say the impact in the region could be as great as-and greener than-the Green Revolution of the 1970s. The success of the approach comes at an opportune time as water scarcity in Asia and, more specifically, a three-year drought in Pakistan, threaten to further whittle away the region's yields of rice and wheat. Other organizations involved include national research programs in the countries that are part of an alliance known as the Rice-Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains (RWC) and the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). IRRI and CIMMYT are Future Harvest centers. Future Harvest is a global, non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that builds awareness and support for food and environmental research around the world.