January 30, 2014
Source: CIMMYT Blog
By Surabhi Mittal/CIMMYT
A new project aims to generate quality data on the uptake and diffusion of CGIAR research outputs and assess their impact and alignment with the Consortium’s goals.
The planning and inception meeting for the activity on tracking varietal adoption under the project Strengthening Impact Assessment in CGIAR (SIAC), an initiative of the CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA), was held in Bangkok on 15-16 January. Crop representatives from CIMMYT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the International Potato Center (CIP) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) attended the meeting, as well as representatives from the national agricultural research systems of 15 South and East Asian countries.
Photo: Courtesy of the Sofitel hotel staff
CIMMYT’s Surabhi Mittal represented the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat along with nominated research system representatives from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Nepal and Pakistan. This project will replace long, detailed household surveys with expert elicitation for the costeffective generation of data on varietal adoption. The project will collect data on national varietal release and adoption for CGIARmandate crops as well as test and standardize “best practice” protocols for assembling varietal production and adoption data.
The one-year project will start in March 2014 and help generate a database for CIMMYT germplasm and test this new methodology for future use. Mywish Maredia of Michigan State University is leading the project, with guidance from SPIA experts and senior researchers including Tim Kelley and Tom Walter. Detailed crop-country-combinations (CCC) have been developed by the project to help prioritize the selection of countries and CGIARmandated crops. For wheat and maize, countries with more than 100,000 hectares of area under either crop have been identified to generate adoption data at the national level. For large countries such as China and India, provinces and states have been selected. CIMMYT will work on more than 40 CCCs for both crops.