Rajeev K Varshney FRS

Humankind’s biggest challenge in the 21st century is to ensure food and nutritional security for the growing population and improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers. World population is estimated to swell to 9.3 billion by 2050. India has to feed 1.4 billion people by 2025 and water demand for food production will increase dramatically. This challenge becomes increasingly acute in light of the depleting water resources (5177 m3 in 1951 to 1545 m3 in 2011), degrading land and increasingly variable weather associated with climate change. The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India has taken a novel initiative to transform agriculture in India as part of the Digital India program by transforming the rural economy and creating skilled jobs in rural areas. The Government of India has initiated various innovative schemes to enhance food production and to mitigate impacts of climate change. At the request of the Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, to prepare a long-term strategy to increase economic opportunities for rural families in India, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)1 has prepared a set of six strategy papers: 1) Pulses2 2) PMKSY3) Soil Mapping4) Agri Markets5) Crop Insurance6 and 6) Digital Agriculture. The draft versions, based on the PMO request, were discussed with the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India7 and its senior officers made detailed suggestions to refine and strengthen these papers. This summary, elaborated in the following sections and the set of strategy papers, attached separately, incorporate the suggestions made by the Ministry officials and other leading sector-specialists from India.

Peanut/groundnut is a protein‐ and calorie‐rich subsistence and cash crop in Africa serving as an excellent source of human nutrition as well as for soil enrichment due to its symbiotic nitrogen fixing capacity. Much of the crop is grown by small‐holder farmers, frequently women. In the absence of severe disease pressure, haulms serve as livestock feed, thereby increasing the utility of the crop. Peanut yields are lower in Africa than in any other region of the world, and pod production is negatively impacted by many pests and diseases for which chemical control is not readily available. Apart from low yields, seed quality often declines under water deficit during maturation in part due to the incidence of aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxin contamination of peanut is a global threat to human health that is largely controlled in developed countries by irrigation and post‐harvest sorting. Small‐holder farmers in developing and feed‐the‐future (FTF) countries lack water resources to reduce pre‐harvest aflatoxin contamination (PAC) through irrigation and encounter significant crop loss with post‐harvest sorting. Pre‐harvest aflatoxin contamination contributes to the potential for contamination to proliferate during post‐harvest storage under suboptimal conditions. While peanut is a highly nutritious addition to the diet, high levels of carcinogenic aflatoxin can have serious health consequences.

Farmers in different villages confirmed that water level in open wells increased on an average in the range of 3 to 15 feet during the SW monsoon rainy season and availability is extended by about 2 months in the dry season during year. Farmers mentioned that period of water availability in open wells for irrigation extended from January before the IWDP initiative to end of March after the watershed development. This situation favored a change to double cropping with four or six supplemental irrigations for second crop between January to March. All this impact was felt by the beneficiaries because of good quality soil and water conservation interventions and water harvesting structures at right location developed through this project. Commendable efforts by the project managers, staff, as well as WC were responsible for these positive impacts in these watersheds.