Regional Project: South Asia

Bangladesh | India | Nepal

A research project that works to advance food security in South Asia by expanding access to pheromones and grafting technology, and by improving university-level agricultural education

Country Profiles

The IPM Innovation Lab has a presence in three countries in South Asia. This fact sheet provides an overview of the work we are doing in each country, May-2013-1666including our research challenges and accomplishments.

Bangladesh
India
Nepal

Description

This project builds on previous investment by expanding efforts in Bangladesh and India, extending and replicating the participatory IPM approach in Nepal, strengthening the network of linkages in IPM knowledge and expertise across all of South Asia, and undertaking significant and innovative graduate education.

Participatory appraisals, baseline surveys, and crop pest monitoring are conducted to help prioritize research with fruit and vegetable crops and pests. Research activities include pest and beneficial surveys in priority crops, laboratory, greenhouse, and on-farm field experiments on pest management components, assessment of socioeconomic constraints to the adoption of IPM, development and testing of IPM packages, transfer of results and recommendations to technology transfer organizations, and assessment of social, economic, and gender impacts.

Technology transfer takes advantage of mechanisms already in place and takes into consideration a diverse array of approaches in order to apply those that are most effective and efficient. With the help of such partnering organizations as CARE, MCC and Winrock, this project reaches tens of thousands of farmers. Aided by Winrock, the project stimulates small business development for IPM inputs such as pheromones, disease test kits, entomopathogenic organisms, and traps.

Project achievements and highlights

  • A gender analysis of Trichoderma production in India showed that the women producers of this beneficial fungus experienced an increase in income and improved family relations.
  • Use of the tomato package (a suite of techniques) in India was shown to significantly decrease the incidence of pests.
  • Pod borers and aphids are the major pests of country bean in Bangladesh. But when the crop was treated with a combination of sanitation and biocontrol agents as opposed to traditional pesticides, IPM researchers found the yield of country bean was significantly higher in IPM plots than non-IPM plots. Plus, pest management costs were cut in half.
  • In Nepal, the major thrust has been to develop and test IPM packages for high value vegetable crops. By applying an IPM package consisting of mostly compost (farm yard manure), farmers increased the yields of bitter gourd, cucumber, cauliflower, and even coffee.

Phase IV official project title

Regional Integrated Pest Management, Research, and Education for South Asia

Personnel

Principal Investigators

Ed Rajotte, Penn State | George Norton, Virginia Tech

Co-PIs/Collaborators

Bangladesh: Md. Yousuf Mian, BARI

India: R. Samiyappan, E.I. Jonathan, S. Mohankumar, G. Karthikeyan, C. Durairaj, S. Ramakrishnan, G. Gajendran, D. Dinakaran, S. Thiruvudainambi, G. Chandrasekar, P. Karuppuchami, N. Selvaraj, and L. Pugalendhi (Tamil Nadu Agricultural University); Nutan Kaushik (The Energy Resources Institute); KRM Bhanu (Biocontrol Research Labs)

Nepal: Luke A. Colavito and Bishnu K. Gyawali, IDE-Nepal