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BACKGROUND
Food requirements in South Asia are projected to increase for at least four decades before they
plateau, with at least a doubling of staple crop production required by 2050. The genetic
potential for wheat, maize, and rice yields have however increased only marginally since the
1960s. As the scope for large yield increase is limited, crop production can be increased by
expanding cultivated land area, although conversion of natural ecosystems conflicts with
sustainable development goals. The potential for agricultural expansion in South Asia is also
limited because most arable land is already cropped for at least part of the year.
In the highly productive northwestern Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, farmers utilize
groundwater irrigation to assure that at least two of these crops are sequenced on the same
field within the same year. Such double cropping has had significant positive influence on
regional agricultural productivity. But in the risk-prone and food insecure lower Eastern Indo-
Gangetic Plains in Bangladesh, cropping is less intensive. During the dryer winter months, arable
land is rarely irrigated and fallowed, or devoted to lower yielding, rain-fed legumes. Seeing
opportunity to boost cereals production, particularly for rice, Bangladeshs land use policy
makers have consequently reprioritized agricultural development investments in this
impoverished region.
Tapping groundwater for irrigation and intensified double cropping, however, is unlikely to be
economically viable or environmentally sound in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. The network
of largely underutilized rivers and natural canals in could conversely be tapped to provide less
costly surface water irrigation, so long as post-monsoon waterlogging is controlled and
managed, especially in polder systems.
Encouraging crop intensification in coastal Bangladesh however is not straight forward. Myriad
biophysical limitations, including soil and water salinity, poor drainage and waterlogging,
present consistent challenges. Poor transport systems, weakly developed markets, out-migration,
shareholder cropping, and overall production risk pose additional barriers to intensified rabi
season cropping in this region. In addition, not all farmers are the same different farmers and
farm types have differing capacities and interests in intensification, which must be accounted
for. These wicked problems call for new methods and approaches to study how and where
development investments and initiatives might target and sequence their interventions.
This workshop responds to these problems by presenting research that makes use of new
frameworks and methods in agricultural systems analysis to address these issues. Our goal is to
highlight research results and to stimulate discussion among policy makers, development
practitioners, agricultural scientists, and other stakeholders working in the region as to how to
address and overcome these wicked problems. Workshop outcomes will involve a short
document of recommendations emerging from post-presentation discussions, that can be
referred to and can inform future policy and development investment discussions. We will also
kindly request participants to evaluate their perceived usefulness of the systems analysis tools
and frameworks presented.
TENTATIVE PROGRAM
TIME ACTIVITY
09:00 Registration, refreshments
09:30 Introductions (Sattar Mandal)
Timothy J. Krupnik, with Urs Schulthess, Zia Uddin Ahmed, and Andrew McDonald
11:30 Investigating farmers past practices and future preferences: A panel data analysis of
farming systems trajectories and choice experiments to inform agricultural development
investments in the central coast of Bangladesh
Sreejith Aravindakshan, Timothy J. Krupnik, Jeroen Groot
12:15 Modeling perceptions of crop intensification and surface water irrigation: Farmer
and expert system understanding in Southern Bangladesh using Fuzzy Cognitive
Mapping
13:15 Lunch
15:30 Facilitated discussions on the relevance of systems research for policy formulation of
land use and crop intensification (world caf, facilitated by the ESAP and KIT team)
Workshop activities will include participatory exercises to understand the relevance and applicability of
these research findings for project planning and policy development related to land use and crop
intensification and for different types of stakeholders. The facilitated discussion also encourages
participants to explore how farm systems information approaches, such as those presented, can be
further developed to meet the needs of stakeholders to formulate policies or practices and to increase
the relevance of future research findings to meet organizational needs.
ORGANIZING INSTITUTIONS
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) was established in 2009 with a goal of benefiting
more than 8 million farmers by the end of 2020. The project is led by the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and implemented jointly with the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Operating in rural innovation hubs in
Bangladesh, India and Nepal, CSISA works to increase the adoption of various resource-conserving and
climate-resilient technologies, and improve farmers access to market information and enterprise
development. CSISA supports women farmers by improving their access and exposure to modern and
improved technological innovations, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills. CSISA works in synergy with
regional and national efforts, collaborating with myriad public, civil society and private-sector partners.
The Enhancing the effectiveness of systems analysis tools to support learning and innovation in
multi-stakeholder platforms (ESAP) project is a partnership between the Farming Systems Ecology
group at Wageningen University, and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), both in the Netherlands. Funded
by the MAIZE CGIAR research program, ESAP project aims to identify research tools for systems analysis
that can be applied effectively in multi-stakeholder settings to strengthen actors interactions and common
understanding of the system in which they operate. System analysis tools have long been integrated as
a component of conventional approaches to development and stakeholder interactions, however these
are typically designed to be oriented towards objectives of researchers and the scientific community.
This project seeks to better understand how select SA tools can be adapted and implemented for use by
on the ground stakeholders in decision-making, fostering multi-stakeholder discussion, and promoting
innovation processes. The ESAP project has partnered with FACASI in Ethiopia and CSISA in Bangladesh,
as case study sites for understanding stakeholder interactions and the implementation of SA tools.