Increasing food security and farmer livelihoods through enhanced legume cultivation in the Central Dry Zone of Burma

The project commenced in January 2007 followed by a Project Inception Workshop in March 2007. The Project was reviewed by the project team in February 2008. It was clear from the outcomes of the meeting that the project is progressing well and has achieved essentially all of the milestones for Year 1. In March 2007, a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) was conducted involving 163 farmers from the Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway Divisions of Myanmar's Central Dry Zone (CDZ). The PRA provided intelligence on farmer's preferred traits for legume varieties of chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut, as well as current knowledge and practices relevant to the use of legume inoculants and legume production. Progress in the Farmers' Participatory Varietal Selection (FPVS) program in the Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway Divisions was particularly impressive. A total of 45 'Mother' and 150 'Baby' trials involving chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut were conducted during the 2007-08 monsoon and post-monsoon seasons. Results of Year 1 gave clear ideas to scientists as to which varieties of the three legumes were preferred by the farmers in the different parts of the three Divisions. In the case of groundnut, a number of the ICRISAT varieties performed extremely well. In the case of chickpea, a strong preference for Desi chickpea was noted in Mandalay and Magway Divisions while 'Kabuli' was preferred in Sagaing Division. Pigeonpea lines faced the major challenge in farmers' fields where the local check lines performed better. Two field days were conducted, at Pyint Phyu Seed Farm, Magway Division, and Pankon Research Farm, Sagaing Division, and were designed to involve farmers in selecting legume varieties. About 300 farmers at the Pyint Phyu farm and 100 farmers at the Pankon Farm selected top three chickpea varieties out of the eight grown as part of the 'Mother-Baby' trials. The FPVS trials will be conducted at the same level in the 2008-09 season with a stronger focus on involving farmers in the neighbourhood of the trials in varietal selection.

Field experiments relevant to low-cost and biological approaches of crop production, involving in-situ generation of plant biomass as crop nutrients and botanicals to protect crops and based on eight years research at ICRISAT, were accepted enthusiastically by Myanmar scientists. It is still too early to judge performance of the two different bio-intensive crop husbandry practices. The control involves recommended levels of fertilisers and pesticides. A significant area of chickpea in the Magway Division is after rice where emergence is an important issue and is highly likely to be benefited by seed-priming. This line of research will be given importance in 2008-09 season.

A major component of the Project aims to improve the supply of high-quality rhizobial inoculants to the legume farmers of Myanmar. During 2007-08, a total of 63 field trials were conducted in farmers' fields (26 for groundnut, 19 for pigeonpea and 18 for chickpea) with two treatments (+ inoculation and no inoculation). Observations were made on nodulation and plant colour. The results suggested responses to inoculation at many sites and marginal improvements in crop colour that, at face value, are very promising. Because of continuing issues with inoculant quality, no field trials are planned for 2008-09. Instead, all effort will be directed at improving the capacity of the Rhizobium laboratory to produce large volumes of high-quality inoculants that are subjected to appropriate quality assurance (QA). Once this has been achieved, the field program will be resumed.

All the aspects of capacity building, particularly training of staff and equipment purchase are progressing well. Training project personnel during 2007-08 was at ICRISAT (seven in legume production, low-cost production systems, extension methodologies) and in Thailand (four in inoculant production technologies). Purchase of project equipment is almost completed. The major focus in the future will be the 'in-country' capacity building.