Improved maize fits niches in Indian and Nepalese hill farms. Validated RNRRS Output.
Abstract
This is one of 280 summaries describing key outputs from the projects run by DFID's 10-year Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) programmes.
Summary for Project title: R7281: Participatory crop improvement for maize-millet intercropping in the mid hills of the Himalayan region.
Farmers involved in testing improved varieties can be quick to see and take up possibilities. Hill farmers in India and Nepal given improved maize quickly chose those that fitted into empty niches in their traditional farming systems. In western India they chose maize suited for intercropping with horsegram. And in Nepal, subsistence farmers took the new varieties and intercropped them with finger millet in terraced agroforestry systems. Previously, farmers could do little with obsolete varieties—between 11 and 27 years old—that gave poor yields and didn't fit their farming systems. Now, nearly all farmers who have access to seed of improved maize choose to use them to boost production of food and fodder in various ways. The seed is also spreading through self-help groups and from farmer to farmer.
The CD has the following information for this output: Description, Validation, Current Situation, Current Promotion, Impacts On Poverty, Environmental Impact, Annex. Attached PDF (17 pp.) taken from the CD.
Citation
PSP09, New technologies, new processes, new policies: tried-and-tested and ready-to-use results from DFID-funded research, Research Into Use Programme, Aylesford, Kent, UK, ISBN 978-0-9552595-6-2, p 11.