Rice bred in Nepal is a hit with farmers in the Bangladesh lowlands

Rice varieties bred in the Nepal lowlands and introduced to farmers in similar environments in the High Barind Tract of Bangladesh are spreading rapidly. Stagnant yields of rice in the Barind mean that incomes of resource-poor farmers are falling. But big increases in quantity and quality, and early ripening varieties that allow a follow-on cash crop, could improve lives. Farmers managed the trials of the Nepalese rice themselves. They found the new varieties both yielded more and matured earlier. In less than two years, two-thirds of the farmers were growing the new varieties. And nearly half share seed with other farmers. Development organisations are promoting them and villages are already organising community-based seed production.

Project Ref: PSP12:
Topic: 1. Improving Farmers Livelihoods: Better Crops, Systems & Pest Management
Lead Organisation: CAZS-NR, UK
Source: Plant Sciences Programme

Contents:		Description
		Validation
		Current Situation
		Lessons Learned
		Impacts On Poverty
		Environmental Impact
		Annex

Description

Research Programmes:

Plant Sciences Research Programme

Relevant Research Projects:

R8269, R7122, and R8071

• CAZS-Natural Resources, UK (Dr. K.D. Joshi and Prof. J.R. Witcombe);
• Peoples Resources Oriented Voluntary Association (PROVA), Rajshahi, Bangladesh (A Musa and Nur Nabi)
• Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bangladesh
• Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD), Nepal. (Mr K. Devkota)

Research Outputs, Problems and Solutions:

Rice varieties for the transplanted rainfed lowland rice ecosystems of Bangladesh. These include Judi 582, Judi 572, Judi 567, Sugandha 2002, Barkhe 3004 and Super 3004 bred by client-oriented breeding (COB) in Nepal.

Other varieties are Barkhe 2001 and Sugandha 1 (from the COB programme) and Pant Dhan 10, PNR 381, BG1442, and Ekhattar (identified by participatory varietal selection (PVS) inNepal).

The varieties from COB (R7122 and R8071) were bred by LI-BIRD and CAZS-NR in collaboration with the National Rice Research Programme (NRRP) from 1997 to 2002 for the rainfed lowlands of the Nepal terai. The latitude and altitude of the Nepal terai and the High Barind Tract of Bangladesh (HBT) are similar, their ecosystems share some common characteristics, and early duration rice varieties fitted well with other research in the HBT on replacing the  fallows that follow rice with a profitable crop (PSP35). Hence, starting from 2002, varieties from the Nepal COB and PVS programmes were introduced into the HBT for testing by PVS in the rainfed lowland ecosystem (see Figure 1).

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the rice ecosystem in Bangladesh and the adaptation of some of the new varieties.

These varieties have proven to be much higher yielding and have other desirable traits such as earlier maturity, improved grain quality, and improved pest and disease resistance. Three of the varieties, e.g. Judi 567, Judi 572 and Judi 582, are adapted to all of the rice growing seasons in Bangladesh

• transplanted, rainfed main season (T. aman) grown from June to October-November
• transplanted, irrigated winter season (Boro) grown from November to May, and
• broadcast, rainfed spring season (Aus) grown from March to September. 

The other varieties vary in their adaptation (Table 1).

Table 1. Seasonal adaptation of the varieties in the High Barind Tract

Farmers in the HBT were growing largely varieties identified by farmers in their own innovation system that they had introduced from India and that had become popular such as Swarna, Parija, Noinmuni, Miniget or some old varieties e.g. BRRIdhan 28 particularly in boro season. Other recommended varieties from BRRI were not widely grown as they did not meet the demands of the farmers for one or more important criteria. Rice yields were lower than expected from the levels of inputs applied.

Rice is the staple food in the area and farmers are largely dependent on this crop. Only rice can be grown in much of the area so alternative crops are often not possible. Yields have been stagnant and incomes of farmers falling. Only substantial increases in rice grain yields or large improvements in rice grain quality that result in a considerably higher market price could significantly improve livelihoods. The urban poor, rural landless and those with less than 1 ha are also highly vulnerable to increases in the price of rice so greater production and stability of production helps them greatly.

Types of Research Output:

Major Commodities Involved:

The main commodity is the rice grown in all of the three rainfed lowland ecosystems as well as irrigated conditions. One of the original reasons of introducing them was to give farmers an earlier rice harvest to facilitate the sowing of a following crop such as chickpea, wheat or lentils.

The outputs focus on the provision of better rice varieties to farmers but also promotes the processes of PVS and COB by showing the value and wide adaptation of there varieties it can produce. These processes have important implications for policies on how farmers are integrated in the process of variety development, validation, promotion and marketing.

Production Systems:

Farming Systems:

Potential for Added Value:  

The introduction of new varieties of rice for the medium and lowland rainfed conditions can be linked with the rainfed rabi crops to replace fallows (PSP35) where short-duration varieties of rice can facilitate the cultivation of pulses or other crops in the rabi season. In PVS, the new intervention is a crop variety which can combine with the testing of other interventions that are synergistic with new crop varieties, i.e., crop protection and improved crop agronomy interventions. Since farmers evaluate varieties for all traits including fodder quantity and quality then clustering with improved livestock nutrition would be synergistic.

It can be combined with outputs from other RNRRS themes:

• CPP, Cost effective weed management packages for lowland rice in Bangladesh, R8412, R8234, R7471
• CPP, Extension and promotion of rodent technologies in rice based systems, R8424, R8164
• CPP, Good seed initiative, R8480
• CPP, Linking demand with supply of agricultural information, R8429, R8281
• CPP, Managing rice pests in Bangladesh by improving extension service information management for policy and planning, R8447
• CPP, Rice sheath blight complex, R7778
• CPP, Weed management in irrigated rice, R8409, R8233, R7377
• NRSP, Participatory Technology Development, R7412

Validation

How the outputs were validated:

The PVS process involves validation by the end users. These were resource-poor, farmers who cultivate smallholdings in the High Barind tract of Bangladesh (HBT). As a first step farmers were interviewed to find out their requirements in the varieties for the different parts of the rice continuum. We were then able to match the introduced variety to the upland, medium land and lowland ecosystems. However, farmers did not always get this right first time and over the years, knowledge of the varieties improved and they were better targeted to the parts of the ecosystem shown in Fig. 1.

Farmers’ experiments used participatory varietal selection (PVS) techniques including mother trials, where farmers grew the complete set of varieties and baby trials where farmers compared just one variety with their local variety. All farmers’ trials were conducted under farmers’ own management without a package of practices. The on-farm trials were jointly evaluated for quantitative and qualitative traits using household level questionnaires and focus group discussions.

The target groups of farmers were mainly resource-poor farmers in the villages in which PROVA was working (Table 2). Seed was provided to all categories of farmers and social groups (resource-rich and resource-medium including women farmers). Three wealth categories were determined through local informants primarily on the basis of land holding size and off-farm sources of income. Evaluation of PVS trials included participating and non-participating farmers (including women) for the evaluation of the pre-harvest traits such as fodder yield, shattering and earliness. However, the evaluation of the post-harvest traits invariably involved women in the household level questionnaires for assessing the cooking quality and taste, and quality of fodder as well as storage properties. 

Table 2. Number of farmers who validated the new varieties with on-farm trials conducted from 2003 to 2006 in three districts of Rajshahi Division of the High Barind Tract, Bangladesh

†The trials included mother and baby trials and informal research and development (IRD) where only a sample of farmers were interviewed in the evaluation process. In addition, 43 mother trials and 108 baby trials were conducted by partner NGOs and 64 baby trials by DAE.

Validation was primarily done by farmers who collaborated with researchers from PROVA, CAZS-NR and extensionists from the DAE.

The new varieties yielded substantially more but were earlier to mature (Tables 3 and 4). They also yielded more straw and were preferred for their better grain quality. They had many other desirable traits such as improved cold tolerance for the winter season.

Feedback from various Upozilla of DAE and NGOs on the performance of the new varieties during the Boro season indicated that with few exceptions Judi 567 and Judi 582 yielded more than the existing Boro rice varieties. All farmers preferred these varieties to their existing ones.

Table 3. Yield advantages of some of the new varieties, 2002-2004 and 2005-2006

^§ Based on the results of 25 demonstrations from 25 Upozilla of DAE and 4 demonstrations each from NGOs, e.g. Ashrai, RDRS, GKF, ASSEDO and Mohiuddin Foundation (Judi 567 was not tested by Ashrai and Judi 582 by RDRS).

In addition to the mother-baby design of PVS trials we also monitored farmers' reactions when they grew the new varieties as the result of (a) wider dissemination of the best of the new varieties and (b) as a result of farmer-to-farmer dissemination or (c) farmers’ innovation of trying a variety in a different season to the one initially targeted by researchers.

Table 4. The time to maturity of two of the new varieties, as an example, compared to the control varieties BRRIdhan 32 and Swarna. Mean of 23 trials over three years, 2002-2004.

The final stage of PVS has also been reached where community-based seed production has been done by local farmers. The success of such ventures is the ‘gold standard’ for validation. Varieties that have been validated in this way are Judi 582, Barkhe 3004, Super 3004, Judi 567, Judi 572 and Pant Dhan 10.

The outputs were tested in the semi-arid system. Most of the trials so far have been in the shallow and medium rainfed lowland ecosystem. More recently, Barkhe 3004 and Super 3004 have been introduced for the semi-deep lowland ecosystem.

The validation was done with farmer groups working with PROVA and an expanding network of partners (Table 5). The network of DAE and NGOs that validated the rice varieties used Baby trials and IRD and also produced and marketed seeds.

The farmers represent those of the districts. They are mainly resource-poor, smallholders as the average landholding size in Bangladesh is small. Efforts were made to involve all groups, wealth classes and both men and women.

Table 5. The location of activities of the expanding networks of partners for the validation and scaling up of the new rice varieties bred by COB, 2004-2006.

^§ Testing and validation of COB rice varieties was done by PROVA in 2002 and 2003. The network of partners was expanded only after 2004.

Abbreviations:

• AAS = Agricultural Advisory Society.
• AID = Association for Integrated Development, Comillah.
• ASSEDO = Agriculture Sustainable & Socio-Economic Development Organization
• ASHRAI = A Bengali word (not an abbreviation) meaning ‘shelter’.
  BARI OFRD = Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, On-farm Research Division
• BRAC= BRAC
• CARE = CARE   
• DAE = Department of Agricultural Extension
• GKF = Grameen Krishi Foundation
• RDRS = Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service

Current Situation

Who are the Users?

Farmers are using the varieties in all of the rice ecosystems found in the HBT with the exception of the deeper water systems. They do so without changing their usual management practices as the new varieties do not require any special treatment.

The PVS on rice including rice varieties from COB started in 2003 and within two years period uptake and adoption of these varieties was 65%. And farmer-to-farmer seed spread was nearly 55% (Pandit, 2005) indicating that the magnitude of promotion of these outputs could be very high. Because most of these varieties were developed using a shuttle breeding system during spring and rainy season, as a result these have wide adaptation across seasons, e.g. most of these can be grown at least during two seasons - Boro and T. aman while many of them are even suitable even for Aus season greatly adding to the scope of wider promotion. Because of short duration, many of these are suitable for the promotion of winter crops, e.g. chickpea in the residual moisture and also in Haor area (flash flood areas) as these can be harvested before the flash floods come in late April or early May.   

The varieties are also being used by development organisations. PROVA was the primary partner for the work in Rajshahi Division. Subsequently, these varieties spread more widely beyond HBT of Bangladesh.

The main use of the outputs by farmers is currently in the Greater Rajshahi area (see Fig. 2) as this is where the varieties were first introduced in 2002. Of course, these varieties are also being used in Nepal (where they were bred). Some have been introduced into India and farmers there have adopted them.

Figure 2. The High Barind Tract of Bangladesh where all of the initial testing took place.

The use is more extensive than this (see Table 5) but the scale of use in areas outside of Rajshahi will be smaller as the introductions were not until 2006.

The trials commenced on a small scale in 2002 and have increased in scale. The trials of the semi-deep lowland varieties are still continuing in 2006.

Currently the varieties are expanding rapidly from farmer-to-farmer in the districts where the research began and reaching to new districts through a network of both DAE and several NGOs (Table 5). An adoption study by Pandit (2005) showed that farmers, even at an early stage of adoption where seed was inevitably limited, were distributing farm-saved seed to others. On average, half of the farmers distributed seed to two other farmers (to produce an overall doubling of the number of farmers from season to season). Moreover, the quantity of seed received by each recipient household was quite large and averaged over 27 kg, sufficient to transplant over 0.5 ha of rice.  This indicates that the scale of use is large but the high rates of increase add to the uncertainty of any estimate of adoption this early in the adoption process.

The major limiting factor in the scale of use of these varieties is the limited quantities of seeds. Currently large-scale seed production of these varieties is concentrated within the HBT of Bangladesh through individual farmers and farmers groups (Table 6). PROVA is facilitating seed production and marketing initiatives.

Table 6. Seed of the rice varieties produced and marketed by local communities, 2003-2006

^‡ Figures in the parenthesis indicate area in ha.

The Department of Agriculture and Extension have programmes for promotion and popularisation of rice varieties through demonstrations that are typical of those used in the training and visit model of agricultural extension and are invariably run with the package of practices. They are helpful in disseminating new varieties widely across Upazillas but they can also carry a negative message as some (certainly not all) of the COB varieties may not give highest return under high input conditions.

The Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) is responsible for the development and promotion of rice technologies in Bangladesh. They have evaluated some of the COB varieties in their on-station yield trials. For example, BRRI Regional Station Rajshahi evaluated at lest six varieties during the Boro season 2005-2006 and during the T. aman season as well.

The Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) are responsible mainly for the development of crop varieties through radiation. More recently, PROVA is collaborating with BINA for the exchange of rice germplasm and collaborative testing and promotion of rice varieties developed by both the organisations.

Large NGOs such as BRAC and CARE are involved in the evaluation of rice lines developed from COB (Table 5).

Several other innovation platforms are available for the scaling up of these outputs, e.g. Food security for sustainable household livelihoods (FoSHoL) project is aimed at identifying appropriate technologies, validate them for target farmer groups and effectively disseminate them. It is coordinated by IRRI and implemented by CARE, ActionAid and PracticalAction in various districts of Bangladesh.

Success has been due to networking researchers with the many stakeholders involved in development and extension. The field-based, participatory nature of the validation has proven to farmers that the varieties are of great value. Farmers have become some of the greatest advocates of the varieties in formal and informal meetings with research scientists.

Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways

The current promotion is mainly concentrated with the Rajshahi Division involving thousands of farmers. The varieties have also been evaluated in other parts of Bangladesh through a network of both GOs and NGOs (see Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Areas where the where the varieties are being validated and promoted in 2006 (indicated by the nearest large town placed within a rectangle).

In 2004, a one-day workshop was organised to help the promotion of the new rice varieties bred using COB in Nepal. This included the Additional Director, Rajshahi Region; the Deputy Director, DAE, Dhaka; Deputy Directors from eight districts; staff of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) within the Rajshahi Division and 32 Upazilla Agriculture Officers. Subsequently, this expanded to 48 Upazilla of 15 districts. As a result seeds of mostly Judi 582, Judi 567 and Judi 572 were distributed to Upazilla Agricultural Officers (UAOs) for field demonstration and promotion (Table 5). A typical demonstration run by the DAE involves growing the variety in a large plot using the entire package of practices and comparing the performance with the existing varieties under similar conditions.

In 2005, a similar workshop was organised in Dhaka to expand this collaboration with more NGOs (Table 5). Following the workshop, seeds of the new varieties were distributed by PROVA to 13 organisations, and five have shared their results so far.

Bangladesh has a very rigid system of varietal release. Regulations actually do not allow scientists to give non-released varieties for testing, and initially scientists demanded all of the seed back from the farmers to meet this requirement. Clearly, this was an unrealistic expectation and, if met, would have prevented one of the benefits of PVS, the simultaneous testing and promotion of new varieties.

BRRI has a very ‘transfer-of-technology’ way of working even though it has been exposed to participatory methods from various programmes including the RNRRS and the Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research in Asia (PETRRA). Individuals, but not the Institute, have accepted the value of farmer participation.

There is a poorly developed seed industry for rice that concentrates on hybrids. PROVA has produced seed but the uptake of seed production by other organisations is not so high mainly due to policy constraints. In Bangladesh, rice is a notified crop and only released varieties can be entered into any large scale seed production and distribution. Since all of the varieties bred by COB are yet to be officially released by the national system, this is the major barrier in the way of large-scale seed production and distribution.

Despite the legislative barriers, some of the Upazilla offices of DAE have initiated the production and marketing of seeds of these unreleased varieties, e.g. in 2005 the Boraigram Upazilla Agriculture office produced seeds of Judi 582 and Judi 567.

Experience with wheat scientists has shown that mindsets can quickly change as a result of experience. Initially, the scientists raised the legislative barriers as being very important but, once the benefits of working with farmers became apparent, the importance scientists gave to these barriers declined.

Not all organisations take notice of these legislative constraints. Many NGOs are perfectly content to supply seed of unreleased varieties. Farmers and farmer groups are also willing to take initiatives independent of the rules.

All that is needed to remove the barriers is to network likeminded organisations who are convinced of the approach while also involving more traditional partners in the network. Increased efforts are needed to make use of the huge network that can take place through NGOs, particularly BRAC.

Using Rogers (2003) diffusion of information as a framework for the lessons learnt:

1. The relative advantage of a technology compared to what it is replacing; This is extremely high given the already adequate yields in these rice ecosystems. Additional yield is substantial and can be as high as 1 t ha^-1. The growing of aromatic rice is very profitable. The yield advantages in the Aus season are spectacular.
   
2. The compatibility of the technology with existing systems and ways of doing things, which is closely related to culture; The compatibility of these technologies is extremely high and allows people to continue with there traditional rice growing systems. The processes of PVS and COB require scientists and extensionists to learn new ways of working that are incompatible with existing mindsets.
   
3. The complexity of the technology in terms of what people need to learn to make it work; The complexity is very low as there is no need to change the growing system. The processes of PVS and COB are relatively simple.
   
4. The observability of a technology in terms of how easy it is to demonstrate and observe performance; The observability is high.
   
5. The trialability of a technology in terms of how easy it is to test it before deciding to adopt. The trialability is very easy as long as seed is available.

Hence provision of a sustainable seed supply is the most important factor in getting this research into use. In relation to this, an intensification of the networking process of institutions willing to be involved in seed production and promotion is required.

Impacts On Poverty

Poverty Impact Studies: 

1. Joshi, K.D., Musa, A., Johansen, C., Harris, D., Devkota, K.P., Gyawali, S. & Witcombe, J.R. (2004). Short duration rice varieties for the High Barind Tract of Bangladesh: the initial impact of varieties from client-oriented breeding and selection in Nepal. CAZS Discussion Paper. Pp 1-33. Available at www.dfid-psp.org
2. Pandit, D.B. (2005). Assessment of the Adoption and Spread of Short Duration Rice Varieties in High Barind Tract of Bangladesh. 2005. (Not yet publicly available. Not completed).

The adoption i.e. the uptake of new varieties was found to be high (Table 7) by a randomly selected sample of households in project villages. Over 50% of the adopting households were not those that had collaborated with PROVA. There were clear indications that adoption was higher in villages where two crops could be grown although the comparison was confounded by the amount of project intervention.

Table 7. Adoption of the new rice varieties in the HBT, 2005 (after first introduction in 2002)

On average over half the farmers distributed seed to other farmers. More did so when they could grow both a T. aman and a Boro crop, presumably because the greater availability of seed was an important factor

Cost benefit studies have been made for new rice varieties in Nepal, India and Bangladesh (presentation made at the ‘Pathways Out of Poverty, Cambridge’ conference) of the three countries the cost-benefit is the most favourable for Bangladesh because:

• the potential area of adoption is the highest of the three situations
• the yield increase per hectare is the highest
• the potential rate of spread is highest as seed harvested in the T. aman can be sown for the Boro and the harvest from this season used for the T. aman.

Even with conservative assumptions - based on the adoption and seed spread data given above - the NPVs and the IRR were high. By 2011 with a 5% discount rate the NPV was anticipated to be £160 million and additional benefits per year post 2010 estimated at £182 million a year (non-discounted).

How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups):

Pandit (2005) investigated the increase in income after the adoption of the COB varieties. He found from interviews of 44 sampled households that had adopted a COB variety that increased grain sales gave an additional income of £28. The overall benefits were higher because grain self sufficiency also increased and would increase as the area under adoption increases. These benefits are very early in the adoption process since the seed of these new varieties was first introduced only in 2002 and the first impact assessment was made in 2005.

Many interviews have been conducted with farmers on the impacts of these varieties. One example is given below from Joshi et al. (2004).

Environmental Impact

Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits:

• Increased productivity per unit area without the use of additional external inputs especially pesticides is environmentally beneficial. Rice cultivation in Bangladesh accounts for about 1% of total global greenhouse emissions. A large proportion of this is because of methane produced under anaerobic conditions and C0₂ used to produce inorganic nitrogen (IPPC, 2001). Research done by International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) in Bangladesh indicated that nearly $80 million worth of urea applied on rice is wasted every year, through volatilization, leaching and run off losses causing major environmental implications (see www.ifdc.org).  As the new varieties use both water and N more efficiently this can help mitigate the production of greenhouse gases per unit of production.
• Increased productivity will reduce the pressure to increase the area under cultivation (Evenson and Gollin, 2003).
• Varietal diversification will help reduce crop loss due to pests and diseases and thereby reduce the use of pesticides. Introduction of new varieties always increased on-farm diversity as farmers adopted many cultivars for different niches. Introduction of aromatic new variety (Sugandha 2002) will increase on-farm diversity tremendously as it is un-related to any cultivated variety in Bangladesh.
• The better disease and pest resistance of the new varieties can reduce the use of water and soil polluting agro-chemicals. Reduced use of pesticides and insecticides will also reduce the risk to human life will help in the creation of a balanced pest-predator cycle.
• Earlier maturing rice varieties will facilitate the cultivation of rainfed rabi crops such as chickpea that can improve soil fertility.

Adverse Environmental Impacts:

None are anticipated.

Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters:

Earlier maturing varieties have increased the resilience of farmers by making available extra time for other operations, lower cost of production, reduced use of water and nutrients besides, in some cases, increasing cropping intensity (two crops a year in the place of one) 

The new varieties do much better than existing varieties under limited irrigation or drought under rainfed conditions but they also respond well to better conditions thus increasing the resilience of farmers to cope with climatic variation.

Varietal diversification increases the resilience of the system. The staggered deployment of varieties that take different times to mature reduces the risks from drought, diseases and pests, and adverse weather (high winds, hail, and floods). Increased diversity reduces the risks from disease epidemics.

Annex

References

Bhuiyan, N.I. (2004). The International Year of Rice – 2004: Meeting the challenge of tomorrow. Keynote paper presented at a National Seminar in observance of The International Year of Rice – 2004 held at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21 June, 2004.

Das, T., Hague, M. & Dewan, B.A. (2001). Status of rice varietal improvement and future challenges. In the Proceedings of the workshop on modern rice cultivation in Bangladesh, 14-16 February 1999.

Evenson, R.E. & Gollin, D. (2003). Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000. Science 300: 758 – 762.

Hossain, M. (2002). Rice research and poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. CPD-IRRI Policy Brief 2. Centre for Policy Dialogue and International Rice Research Institute.

IPCC (2001). Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [eds: Houghton, J.T.Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K.

Joshi, K.D., Musa, A., Johansen, C., Harris, D., Devkota, K.P., Gyawali, S. & Witcombe, J.R. (2004). Short duration rice varieties for the high-Barind Tract of Bangladesh: the initial impact of varieties from client-oriented breeding and selection in Nepal. CAZS Discussion Paper. p 1-33. Available at www.dfid-psp.org

Pandit, D.B. (2005). Assessment of the Adoption and Spread of Short Duration Rice Varieties in High Barind Tract of Bangladesh. 2005. (Not yet publicly available. Not completed).

Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. 5^th Edition. New York: Free Press.

Relevant Research Projects, with links to the
Research for Development (R4D) web site
and Technical Reports:

R4D	Project Title	Technical Report
R7122	Participatory Plant Breeding in Rice for High Potential Production Systems in the Terai and low hills of Nepal
R7377	Development of sustainable weed management systems in direct seeded, irrigated rice
R7412	Incorporation of local knowledge into soil and water management interventions which minimise nutrient losses in the Middle Hills of Nepal
R7471	Developing weed management strategies for rice based cropping systems in Bangladesh
R7778	Rice sheath blight complex caused by Rhizoctonia species: pathogen epidemiology and management strategies
R8071	Participatory plant breeding in high potential production systems - an evaluation of products and methods
R8164	Applying benchmarking as a tool for irrigation management reform
	The River Basin Game Manual. A water dialogue tool
R8233	Promotion of integrated weed management for direct seeded rice in the Gangetic Plains of India. Main Report. Annex 1, Annex 2, Annex 3, Annex 4.
R8234	Promotion of cost-effective weed management practices for lowland rice in Bangladesh
R8269	Improvement of rainfed cropping systems in the High Barind Tract of Bangladesh
R8281	Linking the demand for, and supply of, agricultural production and post-harvest information in Uganda. Main Report. Annex.
R8409	Promotion of weed management options for irrigated rice in India and the development of materials and decision support.
R8412	Decision support frameworks for weed management in lowland rice in Bangladesh
R8424	Rodent management in Bangladesh
R8429	Linking supply and demand in Uganda phase 2. Main Report. Annex.
R8447	Rice pest information management
R8480	The Good Seed Initiative - sharing the learning from CPP programmes into pro-poor seed systems in East Africa

For relevant research projects, with links to further information

Geographical regions included:

Bangladesh, India, Nepal,

Target Audiences for this content:

Crop farmers,