A consortia of international institutes, including the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) will get the benefit of a three-year, $21-million project known as Tropical Legumes II (TL-II), funded by the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation.

It is the second phase of an agriculture research and development project and part of a ten-year plan that seeks to improve the livelihoods of 60 million smallholder farmers and their families in 15 countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. It is also expected to bring about $1.3 billion in added value to the productivity of the target crops, namely: chickpea, common bean, cowpea, groundnut, pigeon-pea and soyabean.

Access to seeds

Grain legumes contribute to the livelihoods, health and nutrition of more than 700 million poor people in the dryland tropics of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

The project will help smallholder farmers overcome productivity constraints such as drought, pest and disease problems, and unavailability and lack of access to quality seed of improved legume varieties, a release from Icrisat said.

With this additional support from the foundation, the Icrisat and such sister centres as the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), together with several national programmes, private sector, and NGO partners, will work closely with smallholder farmers to ensure that seeds of improved varieties from the project reach farmers' fields.

Icrisat Director-General, Mr William Dar, said: “By the end of 2014, we will have reached an additional 10 million smallholder farmer households.

soma@thehindu.co.in

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