WUA EMPOWERMENT FOR IMPROVED

IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT IN CHHATTISGARH

Chhattisgarh Irrigation Development Project (CIDP)

Asian Development Bank and the State of Chhattisgarh

Fifth Assignment Report

of the

Irrigation Agriculture Development Specialist(International)

James A. Litsinger

12 November-10 December 2007

KBR-JPS ConsultantsOffice: Water Resources State Data Centre, Sihawa Bhawan Complex, Civil Lines,

Raipur (CG) – 492 001+91-771-5532115; Tele-Fax: +91-771-2445117

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Table of ContentsI. Work Plan.........................................................................................................................3II. Tasks from the TOR and Summarized Accomplishments..............................................4III. Project Update...............................................................................................................6IV. Accomplishments by Task............................................................................................7

1. Work with DOA staff to determine potential for rabi cropping..................................7A. Visited district DDA offices to arrange for rabi crop seeds in pilot schemes........7

i. Mahasumund District.......................................................................................7ii. Raigarh District................................................................................................8iii. Koriya District.............................................................................................8iv. Raipur District.................................................................................................8v. Kabirdam District............................................................................................9

B. Organized with IGAU a demonstration day for agricultural implements to expedite rabi crop establishment.................................................................................9C. From DOA and IGAU offices obtained the recommended practices for rice and rabi crops...................................................................................................................11D. Contacted a KVK regarding CIDP’s on-farm research program..........................11

2. Identify constraints to rabi crop establishment..........................................................14A. Irrigation water delivery.......................................................................................14B. Acquiring seed......................................................................................................14C. Procrastination in farmers’ groups making crop decisions...................................15D. Lack of variety trials.............................................................................................15E. Long maturing kharif rice varieties.......................................................................15F. Waterlogging.........................................................................................................15G. Lack of implements for rapid and line sowing.....................................................16H. Predilection for wheat...........................................................................................16

3. Work with project irrigation specialists to identify the linkages between irrigation system and farm water requirements.............................................................................17

A. IGAU Water Resources Conference.....................................................................17B. Chhattisgarh Water Sector Review and Analysis.................................................18C. System for Rice Intensification (SRI)...................................................................18

i. Amakoni.............................................................................................................18ii. IGAU.................................................................................................................18

4. Develop farmer training curricula for rice and rabi crops.........................................19A. Developing and testing components of the future farmer training course in rice.19

i. Evaluation of kharif rice field trial methodology...............................................19ii. Performance of kharif rice field trials...............................................................24

a. Small plot experiments..................................................................................24b. Field trials with zinc......................................................................................25c. Field comparisons of farmers following the recommended package of practices.............................................................................................................26

ii. Plans for next kharif rice crop...........................................................................28B. Initiated a program for on-farm field trials for selected rabi crops.......................28

i. Rabi Crop Field Trials........................................................................................28a. Amakoni.........................................................................................................28

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b. Geg medium tank scheme..............................................................................29c. Beherakar.......................................................................................................29

ii. Plans for next year’s rabi crop...........................................................................295. Develop a training program for farmers....................................................................29

A. Training Needs Assessment Report on Rice.........................................................29B. IFAD and PRDIS Chhattisgarh Tribal Development Project...............................30C. Initiating Farmer Based Extension........................................................................32

6. Institutional strengthening of WUAs.........................................................................32A. Facilitated WUA selection of appropriate rabi crops...........................................32

i. Amakoni.............................................................................................................33ii. Bilaspur tank......................................................................................................33iii. Balar medium scheme......................................................................................33iv. Beherakar..........................................................................................................33v. Geg medium scheme..........................................................................................34

7. Work with the O&M Specialist to help develop alternative irrigation methods.......34A. Rabi Crop Irrigation Schedule further elaborated.................................................34B. Document experiences of rabi crop farmers in delivering water to their crop.....34

Key Informant Data Collection.........................................................................................35DOA Agr Engineering Office........................................................................................35ADB Discussions...........................................................................................................35Amakoni tank.................................................................................................................35Bilaspur tank in Raigarh................................................................................................38Geg medium tank...........................................................................................................40Balar medium tank.........................................................................................................42Beherakar tank...............................................................................................................45

Balar Medium Irrigation System.......................................................................................50Kharif rice crop..............................................................................................................51

Pisid...........................................................................................................................52Kharve........................................................................................................................53Semaria......................................................................................................................54Charod........................................................................................................................55

Kharif field trials............................................................................................................56Rabi crops......................................................................................................................61

Pisid...........................................................................................................................62Rabi crop................................................................................................................62

Kharve........................................................................................................................63Semaria......................................................................................................................63Charod........................................................................................................................63

Bilaspur Minor Irrigation System......................................................................................64Sunflower culture.......................................................................................................65Wheat culture.............................................................................................................66Kharif rice crop monitoring.......................................................................................67Field trials..................................................................................................................69

Beherakhar Minor Irrigation System.................................................................................69Kharif rice crop..............................................................................................................70Rabi crops......................................................................................................................71

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Wheat.........................................................................................................................72Chickpea....................................................................................................................72

Amakoni Minor Irrigation System.....................................................................................73Kharif rice crop..............................................................................................................73Trials..............................................................................................................................78Rabi crops......................................................................................................................79

INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1PROJECT BACKGROUND...............................................................................................1MISSION FINDINGS.........................................................................................................1

Project Implementation....................................................................................................1PMU Organization and Staffing..................................................................................1Project Consultants......................................................................................................2PMU Premises, Vehicles, and Equipment...................................................................3Project Implementation Schedule................................................................................4Loan Covenants...........................................................................................................4Study and Training Program........................................................................................4

TA 4573-IND: WUA Empowerment for Improved Water Management.......................5Imprest Account...............................................................................................................6Project Correspondence...................................................................................................6

FOLLOW-UP ACTIONS....................................................................................................6NEXT MISSION.................................................................................................................7OTHER MATTERS............................................................................................................7ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...................................................................................................7

I. Work Plan

The work plan for this fifth mobilization was to:

1. Visit each of the five active pilot project schemes and assess the progress of data collection from the kharif rice crop trials as well as make definitive plans for the rabi crop establishment and on-farm trials,

2. Collect data from the training needs assessment exercises for kharif rice of the farmer questionnaire and key informant farmer interviews would be summarized and made into a report, and

3. To strengthen the institutions (WUAs, DOA, IGAU, private sector) relevant to establishment of rabi crops

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II. Tasks from the TOR and Summarized Accomplishments

The work plan would address the following relevant tasks taken from the consultant’s TOR:

1. Work with the staff of Department of Agriculture to review, assess, and synthesize data to determine the technical potential for diversified cropping and improved rice production,

Accomplishments:A. Visited district DDA offices to arrange for

rabi crop seeds in pilot schemesB. Organized with IGAU a demonstration day for

agricultural implements relevant to rabi crop establishment and culture

C. From DOA and IGAU offices obtained the recommended practices for rice and rabi crops

D. Made contact with KVKs regarding CIDP’s on-farm research program

2. Identify and analyze technical, institutional, social, and economic constraints to diversified and rabi cropping in Chhattisgarh.

Accomplishments:A. Constraints to rapidly establish rabi crop

elaborated

3. Work with Irrigation O & M and Water Management Specialists to identify the linkages between irrigation system and farm water requirements to improved agricultural production with an emphasis on rabi cropping.

Accomplishments:A. Attended IGAU Water Resources Conference

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B. Attended Chhattisgarh Water Sector Review and Analysis in WRD by Philip Riddell

C. Reviewed data on the performance of rice water saving System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in various districts

4. Develop materials and capacity development curriculum for the PIM Unit agricultural support service activities for inclusion in the overall WUACDP (WUA Capacity Development Plan) for all WUAs.

Accomplishments:A. Developing and testing components of the

future farmer training course in riceB. Initiated a program for on-farm field

trials for selected rabi crops

5. Provide guidance for farmers in the rehabilitated schemes to help them develop and implement irrigation regimes that maximize the returns from irrigation water.

Accomplishments:A. ‘Guidance’ in the above statement will be

the realization of the farmer training program which is now concluding the training needs assessment

B. The NGO in charge of conducting the farmer training program is close to being mobilized and visited an IFAD project where they were actively working

C. Plan to initiate farmer based extension as a part of FFS methodology

6. Working with WUA Water Allocation and Distribution sub-committees to ensure planned release schedules optimal for the existing crop mix; develop methodologies to scale up under the Project that can be used to assure that planned release schedules are optimal for the existing crop mix.

Accomplishments:

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A. Through the project community organizers (COs) and farmers we are facilitating the water user associations (WUAs) in the selection of rabi crops to be grown after rice that is suited to projected planting dates and tank water reserves

7. Jointly work with the O&M Specialist to help develop alternative irrigation methods and regimes for various rabi crops.

Accomplishments:A. Continue to fine tune rabi cropping water

requirements as we are becoming more familiar with farmers’ choices

B. Made plans to review the performance in various intra-field irrigation water distribution schemes on selected farmers’ fields with regard to crop water use efficiency

III. Project Update

Er. S.K. Sakar has stepped down as Director of CIDP and is replaced by Dr. U.P. Chandrakar as of November.

ADB will send another review team in Dec 10 or so. ADB team is composed of Plamen Bozakov, Mission Leader and a financial officer as well as the Director with the Government of India for ADB projects Ms. Ravne Kaur This time they will see the rabi crops in Amakoni and Balar pilot schemes.

Two new sites are being considered as satellite sites from the now six active sites. I have not yet visited Pakanjore due to Naxalite presence but a CO is stationed there with an agricultural background. Kosarangi is 45 km from Kasdol and is being visited by the Balar staff from time to time. Also 22 km from Gej a new site of Amahar has been identified of 800 ha. According to the Project document the project needs to work in 25 systems in 2007 and in 6 months in 75 systems out of a total target of 100 systems.

Package C has submitted a number of designs for the rehabilitation work on some 15-20 schemes and work will start on most of them this dry season.

Three NGO companies have signed contracts and will begin operations with the new year. PRDIS is the NGO selected to run the farmer field school training. This is fortunate as this NGO has ample experience with this method as learned from a FAO contract in cotton IPM a number of years ago.

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IGAU sponsored South Asian Conference on ‘Water in Agriculture: Management Options for Increasing Crop Productivity per Drop of Water’ held at IGAU 15-17 November 2007,

Phillip Riddle has prepared a sector review for Chhattisgarh’s water sector which was requested by ADB as a precursor to further projects related to CIDP. The report was delivered 30 Nov in the WRD Data Centre.

My itinerary is given in Annex I and details on visits and discussions with key informants is given in Annex II.

IV. Accomplishments by Task

1. Work with DOA staff to determine potential for rabi cropping

A. Visited district DDA offices to arrange for rabi crop seeds in pilot schemesRabi cropping emphasis is on non-rice crops that will fit the local environmental and latitudinal requirements as well as irrigation needs in line with the amount of water available in the tanks. This will need to be dynamic and be able to respond to late rainfall which could increase tank capacity and the ability of growing crops which require more irrigations. A rabi rice crop is discouraged as it will utilize water at the expense of other farmers downstream in the irrigation flow. The objective is to allow the most number of farmers to plant a rabi crop as water allows. The DOA will need to become flexible to supply seed for crop selections that may change in the last minute. From discussions in the various DDA offices and from the DOA central supply coordinating agency the Central State Seed Corporation it appears that sufficient seeds can be made available at the last minute.

i. Mahasumund District

Dr. Sahu and I visited the Chhattisgarhi Department of Agriculture (DOA) office in Mahasumund where we met the Deputy Director of Agriculture (DDA) Vinod Kumar Verma who is one of his students. He gave us a list of available rabi crop seeds which included some 10 varieties of wheat. The farmers plan to grow two varieties and can purchase them from the DOA district office. He assured us that if the farmers come soon they can purchase the seeds. There was still plenty of seed. The DDA also gave us some farmer leaflets to distribute to farmers outlining the recommended practices for wheat and other rabi crops. We mentioned our intent to initiate a farmer field school training program and we would hold a district workshop to launch it in his district. He went over a number of programs that he is instituting in the district including Crop Diversification,

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SRI, and Farmers Field School. All of these are in line with our project and he assured us cooperation.

ii. Raigarh District

On a later trip we met the DDA in Raigarh L.M. Bhagat who also was very cooperative and assured us that there would be ample seed if the farmers came in the next several weeks. Farmers will have 6 or so wheat varieties to select from. He gave us farmer leaflets for the common rabi crops for us to distribute to the WUA and was very generous in this regard. The DDA said that they have farmers’ field schools in a number of locations and have farmers field days at demonstration plots. He also will fill some of the 100 vacancies for RAEOs in his district from the number of new positions that will be opened. We informed him of our training program and that there will be a district workshop in April or so in his district. He said that he could arrange a suitable venue for the event.

iii. Koriya District

We saw the Deputy Director of Koriya District in his office in Baikanthpur. Luckily he was at work as it was a holiday. He was waiting for shipments of seeds. He knew Dr. Sahu and so we were on good terms immediately. Dr. Sahu underscored the need to provide our farmers with wheat seeds when they come to request them and he said that there was sufficient quantity of seed and assured us the farmers could get their required need. Typically farmers purchased seed from the local markets not even knowing the names of the varieties. The DDA updated us on his programs including a farmers field school performed by the KVK as part of the National Integrated Oil Seed and Pulses Program but also includes maize, pigeon pea, and rice as part of the National Agricultural Development Plan. There are weekly training sessions, a field trial performed by farmers, and topped with a field day for the farmers to show the results to their neighbors. Unfortunately the nearest KVK is in Ambikapur as Koriya is a new district but there is a plan to place a KVK in Baikanthpur. The KVK is the only institution that does on-farm research. The Subject Matter Specialists (SMSs) from the DOA coordinate the trainings. There are two regions within Koriya each with 4 SMSs. One is the Sr. Agricultural Development Officer (SADO) and then one SMS each for Agriculture, Plant Protection, and Soils. There are thus 8 SMSs in the district. We briefed the DDA on the upcoming CIDP farmer training program and that we will work with him to host a District Workshop some time before the kharif rice season. The DDA also told us there are SRI trials in the field on rice and that the yields are good. The DDA gave us farmer leaflets of the latest recommendations for wheat and other crops that we can distributed to the WUAs. The DDA said that there is a 50% vacancy for RAEO positions in his district but that we was assured 40 new positions in 2008. Candidates will take an exam in late December and the new hirees will be those with a BSc in Agriculture and have the highest marks on the exam. The exam is operated by the Technical Board of Education.

iv. Raipur District

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While in Raipur we attempted to see the DDA C. Sarkar he was out of the office at the time. We met with the Asst Director for seed distribution Mr. Munger to supply the seed requests of Kasdol farmers as requested by the COs before our visit. Also an important contact is Mr. Jaiswal of the Central State Seed Corporation who is in the warehouse and is the closest to the source of seeds. There was a request for 200-250 quintal of wheat, 10-15 quintals of sunflower, and 3-5 quintals of mustard. There are three ways in which a seed request can be met from farmers at this late date as normally it should be planned through the local extension officer months ahead. The farmers can exchange seed of the same commodity, they can pay cash, or their Society can assume the liability of payment. The price is Rs 21/kg for wheat. Farmers can avail of credit if the amount they took before did not exceed their limit. Each farmer has a limit. They can pay off their loan for the rice crop and take out a new one for rabi. Seed from Kasdol can be shipped in a day from a nearby godown just across the river. Balar has some 100 villages in total. Rice is being purchased by the societies and prices differ by variety. For example it is Rs 695 for Swarna, Rs 750 if fit for seed, or Rs775 for fine grained and quality varieties. In the Balar tank there is enough water to sow 2000 ha of rabi but only 800 ha are slated for rabi crops. Of the 800 ha some 500 ha will be sown to wheat. Raipur district is on the transition zone for wheat which likes cool weather and cannot tolerate heat during grain development. As it rained in early November the harvest has been delayed as has rabi establishment. This will push the sowing date for rabi crops later and will increase the risk of yield loss from hot weather.

v. Kabirdam District

Dr. Sahu and I stopped at his office in Kawarda but he and his staff were out of the office. The DDA in Kabirdam was seen by Dr. Sahu and Nandi on an earlier trip just over a month ago.

B. Organized with IGAU a demonstration day for agricultural implements to expedite rabi crop establishment

In northern India, especially in Haryana and Punjab, farmers follow rice with wheat and over the past several decades have developed a very efficient method of establishing wheat through mechanization. The normal method is to plow the field several times and then harrow and finally rake off the plant debris and then level. Furrows are made next to sow the seeds which are covered and then irrigated. All of this takes much time with the result that the soil has dried out and irrigation is needed soon after sowing to initiate germination. Small farmers do not want to spend this extra time preparing the soil for wheat as they want to earn money or rice by helping their neighbors and large farmers to harvest. They often are the source of labor for larger farmers and need the added income as their small farms do not allow sufficient culture of rice to feed their family for a year.

IGAU agricultural engineers have developed a seed drill which has knife like blades to cut open a furrow to plant seed and fertilizer and four rows can be sown by bullock power or a larger tractor unit can also be used by the better off farmers. We visited the

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IGAU Department of Agricultural Engineering and Dr. RK Sahu head and Er. Verma who developed a seed drill for this use in Chhattisgarh. In our visits to the DOA district offices the DDAs have said that there are these seed drills available in the region and perform well especially if the soil is at the right moisture content. This of course may vary by year depending on the extent of late rains. However with irrigation a dry field can be irrigated to make it the desired moisture content once the irrigation systems are in full working order, thus this technology has great promise. The only problem aside from soil moisture is that sometimes the blades are damaged by running over tree roots. It is common in Chhattisgarh that large trees are growing on the bunds of rice fields and thus this is a potential problem. The problem is that there are few places that can repair agricultural machinery as for some reason there are few entrepreneurs who have taken up starting engineering businesses making machines locally thus the university is often the only supplier and there is a large backorder. We are hopeful that as the demand will increase that local manufacturers will emerge.

To introduce the seed drill to farmers we arranged with Er. Verma who graciously organized a field demonstration on Thurs Nov 29 at IGAU Department of Engineering and all of the COs would be invited to participate to learn how to operate this implement. Once we are able to get some units at our sites by the NGOs the COs will be able to instruct the farmers on how to use them properly. With a team of bullocks a farmer should be able to establish his rabi crop by the seed drill in one day. Thus groups of farmers would be encouraged to purchase a seed drill to be shared and even rented out. A farmer with a trained team of bullocks should be able to establish one hectare in one day with this implement. A wide variety of rabi crops can be sown with the seed drill including wheat, chickpea, and other crops with larger seeds. Only sunflower and small seeded mustard and rape would not be suited for the seed drill which also dispenses basal fertilizer at the same pass. Thus after using this implement the farmer would only have to worry about timing irrigation and an odd application of pesticide on some crops.

On Nov 29 all of the COs attended the IGAU field implement demonstration in the Department of Farm Machinery and Power of the College of Agricultural Engineering. Demonstrated were the bullock pulled drill seeder and then a thresher powered also by bullocks. A power take off also allowed straw to be cut for use as feed or compost making.

We then went into the field to see the bullock powered seed drill in action. The drills do not enter the soil very deep and just scratch the surface. Aside from seed fertilizer is dispensed as well. An iron plow was also demonstrated that could do inter-row cultivation now that the rows are seeded in rows.

We then went into the building to a meeting room where a PowerPoint demonstration was presented by Er. Verma showing most of the implements that are made. He was the one that designed and built the seed drill. In addition he showed the following:

a. Iron chisel plowb. Mould board plow

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c. Tractor drawn cultivatord. Tractor drawn 2-bottom mould board plowe. Tractor drawn disc harrowf. Tractor bund formerg. Tractor drawn rotavatorh. Puddling implements

i. Animalii. Power tiller

iii. Cage wheel tractor drawn tilleri. Seed treatment drum j. Sowing implements

i. Indira seed drillii. Animal seed drill

k. Maize planterl. Paddy drum seederm. Power tiller operated seed drilln. Tractor drawn seed drillo. Rotary weederp. Hand weeder with tinesq. Low lift hand pump r. Rice transplanters. Serrated hand sicklest. Self propelled vertical conveyer reaperu. Thresherv. PTO thresherw. Combine harvesterx. Inverted T seed drill

This last implement is the design that is used in northern India as all farmers have tractors that can pull the drill through the soil. The inverted T cuts much deeper into the soil rather than skipping along the surface. If the IGAU seed drill is not preferred by farmers our project will then import some inverted T units for demonstration.

C. From DOA and IGAU offices obtained the recommended practices for rice and rabi crops

Dr. Sahu translated the Package of Practices for Rice. 2002. Agriculture Technology Information Center, Directorate of Extension Services, IGAU, Raipur, India, 30 p. which is attached as Annex III.

Leaflets on rabi crop cultural practices were obtained from the IGAU office of publications and from several of the district DOA offices.

D. Contacted a KVK regarding CIDP’s on-farm research program

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Dr. Sahu and I visited the Bilaspur KVK on the branch campus of IGAU. In addition there is a research station and an agricultural college at the site. The KVK staff also teach at the IGAU branch college. By chance Dr. Sahu and I met the head of the KVK for Chhattisgarh Dr. Sengar who started 4 KVKs since taking over and now there are 14 in the 18 districts. The budget for the campus is 5% university and 95% state and national funds. The staff teach 20-30% of their time and teach 1-2 courses per semester.Staff of KVK

1. Dr. RK Shukla Agronomist and Programme Coordinator2. Ms. AK Awasthi Entomology3. Ms DK Sharma4. V. Singh Extension5. Ku V. Jain Fisheries6. Engineering position vacant

The Bilaspur KVK is the oldest and was established in 1984. The KVKs main role is to train the RAEOs but at the same time they also train some farmers. In 2006 they trained 2000 farmers and 215 DOA field staff. Of the field staff about 10% were women. There is no evaluation of whether the trainees learned or not as no pre or post training tests or surveys are conducted. In fact the staff seemed surprised that one would want to do such a thing as it is assumed that if the trainee attends a training that they learned the knowledge. In fact that is not the case as found in other countries.

Training is 1 day or 2-3 days. If the latter then there are two days of lecture and one day in the field to see trials on the station or trainees go to a progressive farmer’s field. The DOA trainees are nominated by their agency which pays their transportation costs while the stay at the KVK is provided by the KVK for lunch, 2 snacks per day if one day or for all meals when housed in the dorm.

The KVK staff have one jeep and one motorcycle to share between them and can do 4-6 trials per year on farm. They contact the farmers directly and do not go thru the DOA to find them nor to involve the RAEOs in any way in the trials. This is a mistake. They first identify a problem and then find farmers to test technology against the problem they chose. Fore example with tomato wilt they have a trial with 5 farmers each with a plot of 1 ha of land which the KVK visit twice a week as a group. The results are summarized in their annual report which they publish each year. Looking at several of the reports it seems that similar experiments are carried out each year. They have a field assistant for each field project and 1-3 laborers per assistant.

The ladies home economist works with women’s groups that are formed around caste or other social factor. They assess each member Rs10/day and with the small capital can get a larger loan from the bank or from a government department. Some groups grow mushrooms or raise goats etc. In fisheries men are organized in groups but not around enterprises.

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The state average is 2 t/ha for rice. They fine tune fertilizer application by maturity or soil. Through their testing of fertilizers they have fine tuned the national recommendation to that of the conditions in the district which is the purpose of a KVK.

Bilaspur recommendationVariety Soil N P K

Early Light matasi 60 40 20 (ma not need)Medium Dosa

Kanhar80 60 40

Late 100 60 40

National recommendationVariety Soil N P K

Early Matasi 60-90 40-50 40-50Late Matasi 100-120 50-75 40-50Tall Kanhar 40-60 (lodges) 20-30 20-30Semidwarf Kanhar 60-80 40-60 40-60Dwarf 80-100 40-60 30-40

Zinc if needed is 25 kg/ha zinc sulfate

We inquired about the potential of having students to undertake research at our CIDP pilot sites. There is a program for students to be exposed to farm conditions. The program is called the student on-farm rural work experience (RAWE) and takes place Apr-Jun for 3 months, unfortunately not a time that would be appropriate for our project.

Our purpose of visiting aside from information gathering from the only on-farm research entity in the state was to see if they would be interested in learning of the results of the farmers in our project who are doing on-farm research. They gave no response to the question as it perhaps seemed a new idea for them and they did not internalize it. I explained that the farmers could expand the scope of their on-farm research agenda. They did acknowledge that farmers could do adaptive research.

We met the wheat breeder Dr. Khan in the research station who unfortunately was out of station so his assistant entertained us. We were able to get 0.5-1 kg samples of four common wheat varieties for field trials in Beherakar and one more site. The idea is to test as many varieties at the sites as we can in small plots. Dr Sahu says that yields from small plots are higher than if planted in larger plots but our objective is to deselect those varieties which are not adapted in rapid testing which should be conducted on small plots to save seed. Yields reported for wheat vary widely from 1 t/ha to 3t/ha. Even 1t/ha is reported from Koriya which we felt was one of the best sites for wheat. The potential in Bilaspur is 3.3 t/ha. There is no rust and there is low incidence of smut < 1% normally. They recommend one weeded at 35 days after sowing (DAS) and 120-60-40 kg NPK/ha. Durum wheat produces farina while T. aestivum produces chipatis.

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2. Identify constraints to rabi crop establishment

A number of constraints emerged in our travels to the pilot sites and discussions with farmers.

A. Irrigation water deliveryWithout mentioning, it is generally agreed that lack of water is the number one constraint for many farmers in growing rabi crops. This year was an ideal rainfall year and most tanks have ample water supply. In Balar there is water to irrigate a far larger area than farmers are willing to plant which is a waste of water resource and a lost opportunity. A number of the tanks will have to be emptied to carry out dam repair and the water would be lost for agriculture.The decision of package C of the project only to rehabilitate and not upgrade the irrigation schemes will mean field to field irrigation will continue and many farmers will not avail of the water. Ideally farmers should have access to irrigation canals and not their neighbors’ fields.

B. Acquiring seedSeed availability was thought to be the most pressing of constraints to rabi crop planting but in fact seed of many kinds of crops is readily available from both the public and private sectors. The constraint that emerged was that farmers need to purchase it or organize their societies to order it ahead of time to obtain it. Seed suppliers need assurance that they will receive payment for the seed. As there is a delay between the time a farmer harvests and sells his crop and he actually receives cash, farmers need to have credit to purchase seed in a timely way. This vital institution is in place in the local societies for the kharif rice but not for rabi crops. Most farmers have availed of credit from their societies for the rice crop and do not have extra credit to appropriate for a rabi crop thus need their own credit line. Most efficiently it would be the societies that would provide the credit to the farmer and order seed for distribution. As rabi cropping is not common this institutional coordination does not yet exist. The WUAs will play a vital role in setting up the procedures for this to occur as rabi cropping becomes more common. The existing system is that the farmer groups notify their RAEO a number of months in advance of the time of rabi crop sowing as to the number of acres of rabi crops that will be sown. The RAEO then notifies his district DOA office of this need and the relevant staff orders it from the Seed Corporation in Raipur. The Corporation runs a number of seed farms and coordinates with farmers who also supply seed to meet the demand. This is a large activity of the DOA for all agricultural crops. In some cases farmers will want to purchase seed from private seed dealers who may have better varieties. This is the case for hybrid sunflower, thus farmers will have to purchase it directly from the dealers. Thus only large farmers have the resources to purchase such seed. Perhaps in the future small farmers can obtain credit from their societies to be able to purchase seed from the private sector.

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C. Procrastination in farmers’ groups making crop decisions

In a number of sites there was prolonged discussion over which crops were best suited to be rabi crops. In fact such locations as Pisid in Balar waited to the last minute to decide. In most cases delaying until the last minute will reduce the availability of seed from DOA offices. The sooner the DOA receives an order the more likely the farmers will get their first choice in varieties. Right now farmers are not that aware of the performance of the various varieties thus do not mind. Hopefully this will change after variety trials are run and superior performances by the best varieties will spur demand for these.

D. Lack of variety trialsKnowing what the most adapted rabi crop variety can make a significant difference in the yield potential of the crop. It is well known that certain varieties will out yield others by significant degrees. It is expected that a number of varieties will prove to be more disease resistant in certain locations against local strains of fungal and bacterial diseases thus finding the most resistant varieties will increase yield potential without added cost. Most of the farmers who had planted rabi crops before just purchased wheat seed from the food market thus they had no idea lf what variety they were planting. There has been a dearth of variety trials at each site so that those that perform the best are not known. Indeed very few varieties have even been tested at each site. Sowing the most adapted and fit variety that will perform the best under local conditions will therefore take a few years to develop.

E. Long maturing kharif rice varieties

Farmers are advised to sow long maturing varieties in the heavier kanhar soils at the bottom of the local toposequence. If sowing is delayed these fields will mature in late November and cause a delay in the establishment of a rabi crop. As the irrigation systems develop and rabi cropping becomes more a reality farmers will have to think ahead in the selection of the rice variety they will plant in relation to the expected date of harvest and thus the sowing time of the rabi crop. Wheat is particularly sensitive to late sowing as hot weather can come quickly in February and if the grains are not set the heat will cause sterility and low yields. Farmers could opt for sunflower which thrives in hot weather but late sown wheat poses a high risk.

F. WaterloggingIn a number of locations particularly at the head end of irrigation systems water is leaking from the dams causing farmers to want to plant only rice as a rabi crop as other crops will become waterlogged and fail. Hopefully when the dam leakage is repaired this problem will not persist. Similarly in bottomlands water will collect as happened this year with a late rain in the first week of November that delayed rice harvesting and the inability of the farmers to prepare their land for the rabi crop. Such rainfall events may cause farmers to change their mind about the most appropriate rabi crop to grow. If the farmers had first

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preference for wheat a late rain in the kharif rice would cause them to change their mind and thus acquiring seed may be a problem for a late change in selection.

G. Lack of implements for rapid and line sowingThe farmers’ method of land preparation for rabi crops is to plow several times and remove rice stubbles with the patta with the spikes down. A laborer with a small pick also walks the fields to break the large clods for better tilth. The seed is then broadcast and then plowed again to cover. In some areas seed drills can be used to sow in lines on the full tillage fields. These operations may take several weeks depending on soil moisture and the available time the farmer has. He may be still busy harvesting in other fields. A more rapid method of sowing is by zero tillage using a bullock or tractor drawn seed drill or inverted T drill pulled by a tractor offer more rapid establishment and the crop can be grown with one less irrigation than normal as the first irrigation can be omitted, with the seed germinating in the residual soil moisture from rice.

Having the rabi crop sown in rows reduces the seed rate and will allow inter-row cultivation with either bullock or tractor drawn implements to reduce weed competition. This greater aeration of the crop may reduce plant diseases as well.

H. Predilection for wheat

Wheat is the most preferred of the rabi crops by farmers. In the northern regions weather will be cooler and the cool growing season will extend longer making wheat more preferred for this location. Coming south to Bilaspur and Raipur runs the risk of a shorter growing season and warmer temperatures as these location lie in the transition zone between favorable and unfavorable climes. For example there are no trials on wheat conducted in Raipur and the wheat breeders are in Bilaspur and Ambikapur. The planting window for wheat is well known from IGAU trials thus wheat should be sown before December 15. This is quite fixed as the basis for the change in temperatures involves the seasonal rotation of the earth on its axis thus is fixed in terms of its occurrence for a calendar date.

In the annual report for the All India Wheat and Barley trials conducted in Bilaspur the main constraints for wheat are :

1. Timely sowing2. 4-5 irrigations vs 2-33. Nutrient imbalance4. Non-feasibility of land preparation5. Variety 6. Tillage of 2 plowings and 1 harrowing7. Weeds8. Short winter9. Abrupt change in temperature10. Lack of improved implements for seedbed nursery and seeding for lowland under

moist soil11. Delay in supply of improved seed

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One can see from this list of 11 constraints that 3 involve the risk of warm temperature. With zero tillage one of the irrigations can be omitted thus perhaps three irrigations will be enough. Just as we saw with rice, it will be important for the farmers to apply basal P and K and to use NPK. Zero tillage will avoid the fourth, sixth and tenth constraints mentioned above. As we have said selecting the best available variety is a high priority. We do not expect high populations of weeds as research at IRRI showed that when the soil changes from anaerobic to aerobic different weeds are preferred. The flooding during rice kills the upland adapted weeds that appear in the rabi crop and vice versa with the rabi crop and wetland adapted weeds. We have already mentioned the need to ensure supply of the seed choice before planting.

3. Work with project irrigation specialists to identify the linkages between irrigation system and farm water requirements

A. IGAU Water Resources Conference

I attended the IGAU sponsored South Asian Conference on ‘Water in Agriculture: Management Options for Increasing Crop Productivity per Drop of Water’ held at IGAU 15-17 November 2007 for three days. A co-sponsor was the Soil Conservation Society of India. The conference was organized by Dr. K.K Sahu, Head Dept of Land and Water Management IGAU.

I attended the Inaugural Session on Nov 15, the Technical Session VIII: Irrigation and Water Management the morning of Nov 16, and the Technical Session X on the Economic and Rural Development in the morning of Nov 17. Member of Discussion Panel in the afternoon. The organizing secretary Dr. KK Sahu of Land and Water Management asked us to remain until the closing ceremony and to write a brief paper.

On Nov 16 Philip Riddell presented a paper on ‘Water resource implications of expected increase in irrigated rice production with special reference to South Asia’ and our team leader C.M. Wijayaratna later presented one on ‘Developing water users’ associations as farmers’ companies’. I attended both sessions.

Some relevant results to our work included that water should have two prices, a service price and a resource price to make water utilization efficient by allowing economic incentives to come into force to save water. Water needs to be competitive and thus water markets should be encouraged. The irrigation schedule for wheat was found to be optimal 21, 47, 77, and 100 days after crop sowing.

The paper written for the proceedings is entitled Water Management Practices of Chhattisgarhi Rice Farmers Elicited by Surveys authored by Ram Kumar Sahu and James A. Litsinger. Data for the paper (Annex IV) came from the TNA survey.

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B. Chhattisgarh Water Sector Review and Analysis

Philip Riddell has prepared a sector review for Chhattisgarh’s water sector which was requested by ADB as a precursor to further projects related to CIDP. Such a review should have been done before CIDP was designed. I attended the 2-hour presentation to a group of government officials that included WRD and Groundwater plus DOA. There were a number of questions as well as suggestions.

It was stressed that in the future more attention should be paid to water allocation and less on storage to obtain better efficiencies of use as water is a limiting resource in the state.

C. System for Rice Intensification (SRI)SRI was developed in Madagascar and thus is also called ‘The Madagascar Method’ and when followed has increased yields ca. 25% over the traditional practices recommended by IRRI. SRI is relevant to CIDP in that it offers to save substantial irrigation water when followed as it practices shallow ponding and even soil saturation in order to encourage oxygen to enter the roots for better tillering and growth. SRI is being tested by IGAU and DOA in many sites. In our interviews with the district DDAs it was often mentioned among the many activities they are engaged in. We outline examples from two. This method is highly labor intensive and probably is best adopted by marginal and small farmers who wish to achieve highest yields. Hybrid rices which are gaining in popularity are also well suited for this method and stand to raise the yield potential substantially. We plan to introduce this technique in the farmer field school trainings where appropriate.

i. Amakoni DDA Mahasumund went over a number of programs that he is instituting including SRI. All of these are in line with our project and he assured us cooperation. We will visit next kharif season the site of SRI culture in Barnawapara near Pithora where they plan to plant 1000 acres. He has modified the normal SRI practice a bit and haw 20 cm rows instead of 50 cm rows but one seedling per hill is planted from a seedbed carefully prepared with organic compost so the young seedlings are well tended and healthy. So as not to harm the root hairs a plug of soil around each seedling is left in tact. Such care requires much labor so with 50 cm rows fewer seedlings need to be handled saving time but if the farmers had the time to carry out 20 cm rows, much the better. Transplanting is made on the square so both directs are marked off in the field. The field also has to be very level and good irrigation facilities are needed for this method to be successful. It will be interesting to visit his site next year for us to glean methods to be introduced into our sites as soon as the irrigation facilities are upgraded and improved.

ii. IGAUThe Agricultural Engineering Department showed their experiences with SRI culture via a PowerPoint presentation which we obtained a copy on a pen drive. The SRI culture they showed highlighted 25 cm wide drainage canals every 5 m or so in the field as at transplanting there should be no standing water. Great care is taken to grow the seedlings

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which are transplanted one per hill keeping the soil with the roots and uplifting them from the seed bed to be transplanted within 30 minutes of pulling. There are 3 weedings with the rotary weeders starting 10-12 days after transplanting and then at 10-12 day intervals. They also advocate a green manure crop to be planted before land preparation for rice with Sesbania for 50 days or so that was incorporated by a bullock pulled disc harrow.

4. Develop farmer training curricula for rice and rabi crops

A. Developing and testing components of the future farmer training course in rice

i. Evaluation of kharif rice field trial methodologyAs a prelude to the training program we set out in the time period before the NGOs were contracted to determine what the performance of the national recommended practices would be in each site. Such recommended practices will form the core of the training curriculum thus we wanted to test them out ahead of time. The outcome of local testing or technology verification would ensure that the practices that will be included in the farmer field school would actually perform as expected at each scheme. Without local testing we could not be sure of that.

Field trials were set out in selected farmers’ fields by the COs following guidelines given by Dr. Sahu and myself (see the last duty report). The purpose was to test some of the major recommended practices for growing rice mostly based on IGAU technologies and recommendations. Only a few changes were made, notably the final split of N fertilizer would be applied before panicle initiation rather than at booting as in the recommendations. IPM practices were also modified to reduce the insecticide applications by relying on crop compensation.

Most farmers do not follow the recommended practices outlined by IGAU which are taught to extension agents in KVK and other training venues. The COs were fielded early in the kharif season so recommendations involving FYM, seedbeds, and varieties were not possible this year but will be included next year. CIDP recommended practices for transplanted rice:

Practice Recommended practice Farmers’ practiceTransplanting 21-25 day old seedlings 30 day old seedlings

2-3 seedlings/hill > 5 seedlings/hillWater management

Vegetative stage 4-5 cm 10-20 cmReproductive stage 10 cm 10-20 cm

Inorganic fertilizerN, P and K basal Incorporate into soil during

land preparationBroadcast at the time of transplanting

N top dressing Apply 15 DT 25-30 DT5-7 days before panicle initiation

Booting

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Weeding First hand weeding beginning at 2 weeks after transplanting

First hand weeding 3-4 weeks after transplanting

Insect pest management If the crop is growing well no need for insecticides except in high infestation

Apply insecticide upon seeing pest or damage

DT = days after transplantingThe original idea was to test the various trials each testing one of the components of the recommended practices rather than the whole package. But it was soon discovered that each CO could not manage more than 10 trials thus they opted for testing a package of practices. The most trials were in Balar (17) with more COs present whereas in Beherakar, due to a late posting, only 3 were set out. Farmer involvement is crucial as the COs cannot set out these trials without their help and cooperation as there are no assistants or budget for casual laborers. One of the most laborious components was to construct a mud bund around each trial plot as water management of different water levels was needed in the trial as well as fertilizer applications. These would prove to entail quite an effort to realize.

The design of a trial was to mark off a 6m x 6m plot in each cooperator’s field and a similar size plot in the surrounding farmer’s field. Yield would be taken from both for comparison. Many COs had difficulty in bunding the plots as soil had to be scooped from the field itself. Next kharif season soil will have to be set aside for this during land preparation. Originally the yield cut would be made from the inner 5m x 5m area, leaving a border area but in actual fact, due to simplicity, most sites took 36 m2 harvest cuts, disregarding a border.

Dr. Sahu worked with the COs so that they were able to measure the amount of fertilizer to place in each 36m2 area which involved some mathematical calculations and a weighing scale to measure 100 g of fertilizer. Mathematical calculations are often difficult for many COs to master. Fortunately this was carried out well.

During the trial it was necessary to keep the stakes in place. Mostly farmers arranged bamboo stakes 1.5 m tall stuck in the four corners of the trial plot. Luckily most of the trials were transplanted and not direct seeded which would have required a biasi operation which would have dug up all of the bunds that would have to be replaced again afterwards. It was not so necessary to maintain a similar marking for the farmer’s yield cut as that could be done at the time of harvest taking a sample area representative of the farmer’s field. Taking the yield cut involved having the CO be present at the day the rice stalks were cut. This involved parting the rice along the plot boundaries and cutting the plants inside the plot boundary and laying them out to dry for a week inside the plot area. The farmer then hauled the plants from each trial plot separately to the threshing yard where they were individually threshed and winnowed and then weighed. The threshing floor is an area near the home where the ground has been made hard with cow dung slurry smeared over an area of 300 m2 or so thus the grains could be swept up and placed into a sack for winnowing and then weighed. Threshing was done with bullocks walking over the stalks. Each plot was threshed separately and the grains placed into cloth bags that Dr. Sahu distributed. Each bag will have a label placed inside with the grain stating

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the name of the farmer and the treatment. There should be two bags per trial, one for the harvested yield from the trial and the other from the farmer’s field. Sometimes the farmer weighed the sample on his own scale which was usually a spring balance that he held in his hand. Others had a balance scale. Both of these had accuracies to the nearest kg. Better were the sites where the samples were taken to a store with a top loading electronic scale with better accuracy.

Moisture content of rice is important to know as yields are expressed at 14% moisture. This can be achieved by letting the grain placed in a cloth sack sit in the sun for a week. But this causes delays and farmers want their rice to sell now so farmers have weighed the samples that have not been dried. We assumed that these samples weighed fresh were at 18% moisture content and deducted the water weight accordingly in the calculation.

Two procedural problems emerged that influenced the quality of the trials. In Amakoni the CO did not mark off the 36m2 area from the farmers’ practice and assumed that the yield would be that of the whole field. But this would be in units of bags/acre which is much less accurate than yield taken from a known plot area and weighed. We are asking the COs to record the farmers’ yield in his normal manner of bags/acre in addition to the plot yield in kg. This is much less accurate as bags can vary in weight depending on grain size from 70-85 kg/bag let alone differences in standard sizes. That is quite a variation. In addition the farmers do not weigh the bags but only counts the number. We assumed in our calculations that a bag weighs 75 kg each. The fact that most of the farmers were able to carry out the COs instructions for the trial plots shows that farmers can be highly useful in conducting such trials.

The second problem emerged in Beherakar where one farmer cooperator anxious to adopt the technology changed his farmer’s practice to that of the trial thus nullifying the trial. Fortunately only one farmer did this. It should have been explained that the trial is not a demonstration of a known set of practices but that we wish to test a set of practices in the trial plot to see how they compare to the farmer practice. The purpose of the experiments was not properly explained to the farmer and it came across that the trial was a demonstration of technology that we were recommending to farmers rather than as a trial where we did not know for sure what the best technology was which in fact was the reality. We did not know what technology would be best suited for Beherakar as we had not tested it. We were only introducing the recommended practice for the state. This is the difference between a demonstration plot and an on-farm research plot. In the latter we are undergoing technology verification, in the same role as a KVK. The reason we are not wanting to tell the farmers that we have demonstration plots is that we want to test the technology first as if there are problems then we have not caused much harm to the local farmers. If the state recommended practice was not suitable and we recommended it untested and it did not work we would lose the respect of the farmer much like a company would lose respect of its brand named products were found tainted. Without the farmers’ respect no matter what we will say in the future they will not follow. But we were lucky that the technologies we introduced did work as planned. As one can see farmers so respect the COs that many will blindly follow their recommendations.

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At the end of the interviews we asked the farmers who performed the trials or took our recommendations what they thought of the results of the trial. All so far that we have interviewed have said they would change their practices and follow the recommendations. It was evident during the interviews that many were still not sure exactly what the details of the recommendations were particularly with regard to the amount of fertilizer at each application because these trials have not been accompanied by a farmer field school training program. Look at the problems that emerged when we attempted to explain to our COs how to do these trials. Not all understood even after many discussions. The message is that learning is by doing at all levels!

Aside from our trials the COs have provided more interventions to assist farmers on request. Visits by Dr. Sahu and myself resulted in diagnosing a number of local problems shown to us after farmer meetings. As a result we gave recommendations of what to do to the COs and to farmers regarding an array of practices such as applying zinc or spraying for brown planthopper and gall midge. The results of these practices can also provide corroborative evidence especially if they can be compared to an adjacent field preferably with the same variety and management practices. The CO can document these results from interviewing the farmers who would state the yields in bags per area of harvested field. A form has been provided to record relevant data. In many of the trials the farmers did not spend any more money than they would have as most of the interventions involved improved timing of operations. Even farmers in our interviews have stressed that timely operations are essential to getting higher yields.

Dr. Sahu has contacted a number of farmers in each site who want to learn how to select for quality seed. This would be for the local farmers’ consumption and he could possibly sell to them. The procedure is for the farmer to grow a good crop of rice and then harvest the central panicle per hill in places in the field with the best crop growth and quality of seed (largest size and free of disease). He would also remove off types from the field and we saw a farmer do this in a transplanted crop in Semaria village in Balar with Sonam Mashauri variety. Greater care in seed selection can prevent many problems that reduce yield and these tasks are quite straightforward. More farmers will be given instructions on how to do this and maybe some can produce certified seed in the future. The state Seed Corporation is in need of increasing seed for farmers and would support this development.

The COs in Balar held classes with farmers to give them information in classroom settings on the life cycle of brown planthopper and stemborers. They held egg masses of stemborers but there was no hatching. Brown planthopper caused hopperburn in restricted areas thus some farmers had to spray. The COs recommended products we had said were best for this pest. Climbing cutworm that severs panicles was of minor occurrence. There was no increase in stemborer and gall midge nor did any diseases appear.

The water depth was recorded by COs in the trial fields and in one farm in Balar water level was 2-3 cm and 5-7 cm during 30-35 days after sowing (DS). At 50-60 DS it was 7-10 cm and then lower 5-7 cm at 70 DS. Flood water depths by growth stag:

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Age of crop in days after sowing Water depth in cm30-35 2-3, 5-7 after rain50-60 7-1070 5-7

Other data collection was an assessment of stemborer deadhearts which were as follows taken by a heavy wire quadrant of 0.5 m2:Age of crop in days after sowing Deadhearts (%)40 1560 1380 19100 5

These are moderately high densities but as the crop was growing so well that the farmer did not spray and saved Rs1500 from not doing so and still harvested 6.4 t/ha. So as the crops are growing so well that it not necessary to spray so much. Similar results occurred with gall midge and in some hot spots Dr. Sahu is recommending that farmers adopt Mahamaya resistant to gall midge. Almost all of the farmers were unaware of this recommendation. Brown planthopper is another pest that often causes localized hopper burn to the dismay of farmers. This pest has all of the symptoms of a migrating insect that in the case of Chhattisgarh would come in the monsoon winds from southern India and Sri Lanka. This has been proven as the source of brown planthopper in Japan which is carried on jet stream winds from China each year. Farmers need to be taught how to monitor for brown planthopper and what insecticides to apply when populations reach damaging levels. Guidelines for this are well known to researchers but not to farmers.

Other interventions were made based on field visits. In Amakoni we saw many fields down slope totally destroyed by caseworm. One farmer in Balar had a low yielding rice crop which he attributed to caseworm (chitari banki). He planted Swarna by direct seeding but it was heavily attacked by caseworm as water flows into his field from field to field irrigation from upslope and caseworms float down into his field. Some 10-12 fields drain into his. He also sprayed for caseworm using Angar which is 50% formulation and sprayed 20 liters/acre or 49 liters/ha which is way below the300-500 l/ha recommended depending on the growth stage. He sprayed at 100 ml rate on 0.5 ac which worked out to 0.245 kg ai/ha which is just at the level that would give some control. The farmer said it was effective. We advised the farmers next season to place screens at the field inlets to keep the larvae out.

The quadrants were also used to monitor gall midge damaged tillers (silvershoots) as well as productive panicle densities between plots. In Beherakar a farmer Mr. Moravee and Domendra monitored the gall midge which was found in 36 of the 46 hills per m2. There were 1.5 silvershoots per hill and 5 tillers per hill. So the 36 hills had 30% damaged tillers but over the field this worked out to 23% tillers affected. No insecticide was applied however.

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Before the Beherakar farmer had applied insecticide for chitari banki if he planted late. He sprayed 250 ml of insecticide at 50% EC per sprayerload and used only 1-2 sprayerloads per acre. His spray volume was 30 l/acre or 75 l/ha. His dosage was 0.125 kg ai/ha. He now would have used 8-10 sprayerloads but did not spray.

If farmers plant wheat or another rabi crop after rice it is possible that the rice stemborer problem will be reduced as if the stemborers are hibernating in the stubble over the summer (which needs to be proven) they will be killed during land preparation for the rabi crop. Greater survival is ensured in undisturbed stubble that results from growing only a single rice crop.

ii. Performance of kharif rice field trials

We differentiate three types of on-farm trials.

a. Small plot experimentsThe first set of trials are those where paired plots were set out in farmer’s fields to compare an introduced practice with the farmer’s practice. Results of six farmers in each of three sites were available at the time of the visit to each site (Table 1). More data will come in future visits as samples are still being harvested and processed.

The trial plot tested a package of practices involving timing and dosage of balanced inorganic fertilizer, reduced use of flood water in the field, early weeding, and reduced insecticide usage. From these four inputs there were large benefits amounting from 8-22% with an average of 15% over the farmers’ practice. It is assumed that the major factor in increasing yields was proper timing of fertilizer as water management and IPM were methods to reduce cost of production and not to increase production. For the most

Table 1. Yield results of on-farm trials comparing the project's recommended practice with the farmers' practice

Yield (t/ha)Site Variety Farmer Trial Farmers % difference

Bilaspur tank 1 4.80 4.32 112 4.70 4.36 8

Geg medium US312 hybrid 1 6.41 5.34 20Sonam 2 5.87 4.80 22

Beherakar MTU 1010 1 4.80 4.27 12Hybrid 2 4.00 3.47 15

Average 5.10 4.43 15

Project recommendation was:1. Inorganic fertilizer 80-50-30 NPK in three splits2. Water management at low ponding levels in tillering stage3. Early weeding4. IPM for insect pests and diseases, emphasizing reduced insecticide usage

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part weeds were not important in farmers’ fields that transplanted. It is also interesting that farmers obtained high yields following their own practices averaging almost 4.5 t/ha which is more than double the reported average rice yields for Chhattisgarh. The additional 0.67 t/ha pushed the average yield above 5 t/ha. Also of note was that it was not always the hybrids that obtained the highest yields.

In order to better interpret these results we need to document all the farmers’ practices from the trials and where-ever we took yields. We are attempting to do this with a new data sheet that is being circulated among the COs for them to do just this. By knowing the farmers’ practices we can interpret the results to more effectively pinpoint reasons why yields differed between treatments. As an example of farmers’ practices we interviewed a few farmers to record this information ourselves. In Geg farmer 1 who grew US312 hybrid, according to him there was a visible difference between the plots as the trial plot had more tillers per hill and more grains per panicle. The trial plot was bunded during the crop so that water levels were kept separate. He had deeper water levels in the vegetative stage with 10-12 cm water depth and did no weeding nor application of pesticides. He applied 1 bag of iffco basal NPK/acre and then 15 kg urea/acre at 22-24 days after transplanting (DT) for a total NPK usage of 32-40-20 kg/ha. It appears that he used much less than the 80-50-30 than recommended. N was particularly low. His basal application was at the time of transplanting and not incorporated into the soil during land preparation and no application was given at panicle initiation.

A second farmer’s practice is from Beherakar. In Bhimbore village we interviewed Jamal Singh Moravee (farmer 2 in Table 1) who had a 0.5 acre field where he was planting a hybrid that he got from MP but did not remember the name. He purchased 3 kg for Rs150. Gall midge was present but he did not spray or apply granules. Weeds were not much but he hand weeded twice beginning at the third week. Mr. Moravee’s fertilizer practice was 14 kg/acre DAP basal and 4 kg urea/acre twice at early growth and at heading for a total of 30-32-0 NPK/ha. His fertilizer level was low and unbalanced and he should have applied the last application a week before panicle initiation rather than at heading when it is too late. He and Domendra had monitored the gall midge which was quite high. Gall midge was found in 36 of the 46 hills per m2. There were 1.5 silvershoots per hill and 5 tillers per hill. So the 36 hills had 30% damaged tillers but over the field this worked out to 23% tillers affected. No insecticide was applied however but probably should have as this no doubt was the cause of the relatively low yield of 3.5 t/ha versus the trial plot at 4.0 t/ha . He did one hand weeding at 25-30 DT and the water level was 10 cm at tillering and the rest of the crop. The plot had a shallow bund and was transplanted on July 25 with seedlings 25 d old. FYM was 4 quintals/0.5 acre or 1 carts. No diseases were noted and no pesticides were applied. In his field last year he harvested 2.94 t/ha (7 bags/0.5 acre) so this year was a better year rainfall-wise and he benefited from this but if he had followed our recommendations would have gained 1 t/ha over last year’s harvest.

b. Field trials with zincA second type of trial resulted when we discovered zinc deficiency symptoms in a number of fields in all sites except Beherakar and Bilaspur. Farmers saw the change in

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rice growth within a few weeks of application based on the COs recommendation given by us during our visits. Most farmers had never heard of zinc fertilizer before but it was readily available in all the local fertilizer stores in nearby towns It was also inexpensive costing Rs100/acre treated. Many farmers adopted this practice and reported the yield increase compared to an adjacent untreated field. This became a different type of experiment. Yield was reported by the farmer in his units of bags/acre which we know is not highly accurate. But both the treated and untreated fields followed the same yield measurement and the differences were so great that more precise measurements were not necessary. In Table 2 we see that from three farmers’ comparisons that the yield differences averaged an astounding 39% benefit amounting to an average of 1.5 t/ha.

Zinc deficiency can arise from a number of situations. One of the most common is the scraping off of the top soil during field leveling while the second occurs in waterlogged fields. Alkaline soils also are prone to this malady. The symptoms were readily learned by the COs and farmers based on their experience. When taking yield from farmer’s fields in terms of bags per acre, off types removed and placed on the bund should be included in the weight of the crop. Children were seen gleaning the fields and picking up a handful of panicles left after bundling and removal of the cut rice stalks from the field. This is more yield that is unaccounted for by the farmer.

c. Field comparisons of farmers following the recommended package of practicesFarmers not only began adopting the zinc sulfate but also in meetings or from individual consultations the recommended practices that were carried out in the field trials were taken as fact and many farmers began adopting them. We gathered a number of ‘testimonials’ based on the outcome of farmers who had adopted the package as best they could. The yields were reported by the farmers in bags/acre and the package of practices was compared to a previous high experienced by the farmer in that same field.

We were able to record only a few of these examples from Beherakar but there are many more to report from all the sites and the COs have now been given a data form to collect more of these testimonials from the farmers.

Table 2. Yield results of farmers who adopted the project's recommendation of zinc sulfate compared to the farmers' adjacent fields without.

Yield (t/ha)Site Variety Field Trial Farmers % difference

Balar medium Sonam 1 6.43 4.04 59Swarna 2 5.33 3.86 38

Amakoni MTU1010 1 4.41 3.68 20

Average 5.39 3.86 39

Farmers' fields had shown zinc deficiency and were treated with 10 kg zincsulfate/acre which costs Rs100/acre

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We report the experience from Mr. Habi Khan Patel grew IR36, IR64, and Culture in separate fields in Beherakar (Table 3). He had approached Domendra saying that last year his crop did not tiller much and wanted his recommendation. The farmer was told to keep the water level down below the 20 cm level that he had in previous years so he put 4-5 cm water during the vegetative stage and 10 cm thereafter. Last year he transplanted 35 day old seedlings and now 25 day old ones. Last year he used 8-10 seedlings/hill and now only 2-3. He applied 1-2 carts of FYM. We used the same fertilizer quantity that he did last year but this time he broadcast the P (DAP and SSP) during puddling and harrowed it into the soil rather than broadcasting it at the time of transplanting. Before he applied urea at any time and not at a certain growth stage. This year he applied urea at 10-15 DT and then at heading (should have been before PI). In total he used 1 bag urea/ac, 1 bag SSP/ac, and 1 bag DAP/ac. He applied a total of 78-95-0 kg NPK/ha. In former years he applied insecticide for chitari banki if he planted late. He would spray 250 ml of insecticide at 50% EC per sprayerload and used only 1-2 sprayerloads per acre. His spray volume was therefore 30 l/acre or 75 l/ha. This four times less than the recommended 300 l/ha. His dosage therefore was 0.125 kg ai/ha where it should have been 0.3 kg ai/ha, 2.4 times more. He now would have to use 8-10 sprayerloads but did not spray. The increase of 47% in yield was due to the shallow ponding that the farmer adopted for this crop but had maintained 20 cm or more to conserve water. He did not know that deep ponding retards tillering.

ii. Plans for next kharif rice cropBased on our results in the 2007 kharif we would like to pursue a number of interventions which we believe could improve the recommendations:

1. Take more tillage operations to more properly level the field2. Undertake improved seed quality interventions

Table 3. Yield comparisons of farmers who had adopted portions of the project's recommended practices based on attending a WUA meeting compared to highest

yield in previous years.

Yield (t/ha)NPK Recommended Farmer's %

Site Farmer Variety (kg/ha) practice practice difference

Beherakar 1 IR36, IR64 78-95-0 4.59 3.12 47

2 IR64 3.92 1.72 128

Average 4.59 3.12 47

Adoption of transplanting younger seedlings, 2-3 seedlings/hill, shallow ponding, soil incorporation of P, early weeding

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3. Sow Mahamaya in gall midge infested areas4. Test zinc applied in the seedbed rather than in the field5. Initiate a trial comparing FYM in seedbed6. Test high levels of vermicompost and FYM on rice to note the yield potential

from different dosages7. In Bilaspur tank undertake a fungicide trial on dirty panicle8. Place mesh screen in Amakoni and Balar caseworm hot spots9. Monitor brown planthopper weekly and recognize the older nymph from the adult

stages

B. Initiated a program for on-farm field trials for selected rabi crops

i. Rabi Crop Field TrialsJust as in rice we want to initiate some field trials to test improved practices. The first priority will be variety trials for the main rabi crops, notably wheat, sunflower, chickpea. Just growing a rabi crop and taking yields will form a baseline for us and the farmers who mostly have little experience growing a non-rice crop.

a. Amakoni We will ask the farmers to organize some simple variety trials where some 10-20 m2 plots will be established in their fields each testing one different variety. The seed requirements are so little that the DDA in Mahasumund assured us that he could provide these free for us as the quantities were so small. In addition a private seed company representative met with us in Banjar Bahara, Roda in Amakoni and with the farmers to determine their seed needs. We explained that it would be good if he provided enough seed for two 20 m2 plots for each variety that he had of rabi crops that the farmers wished to grow. These plots would be established on the cooperators’ fields in two locations for each variety. The plots could be distributed among the farmer cooperators or placed on one farmer’s field as a group by each crop species. In speaking with Mr. Dridul Das of Avanta Seeds India, he first wanted to have 1 acre plots a few varieties while I told him it would be better to test more varieties on smaller plots at this stage of rabi crop development. Plots as small at 20 m2 provide equivalent information as 1 acre with a lot less effort. While at the Cropping Systems Program at IRRI we carried out such trials with farmers in many areas of the Philippines and tested the results statistically. The farmers however will be the final decision makers on which variety they want. We should also include varieties from different sources including the government Societies and DOA. The farmers should cultivate the most adapted variety and thus to determine this, variety trials should be the first priority. A good variety can increase the yield potential substantially thus finding the best performing one is desired therefore testing all of the varieties that are available is a priority. Variety trials should be carried out by the farmers over three years. In the beginning the worst performing ones will be discarded from future trials and new ones added each time until the best performers are identified. Farmers should be taught how to do this on their own.

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b. Geg medium tank schemeDr Sahu and I visited a farmer Mr. Bubu Singh in Kanchanpur He will grow two varieties of wheat WH147 and a new variety JK6. We will take yield samples from both varieties in 20 m2 plots at harvest and compare our yields with those taken from the whole fields. Farmers believe that to compare varieties that large fields are needed. We believe we can obtain the same result on small plots and will test this idea as well as getting good yield data on two wheat varieties. We requested the COs to promote more varietal testing plots among farmers.

c. BeherakarWe noted that the local extension agent had sown his own field of wheat by treating the seeds with a commercially available bio-fertilizer based on Pseudomonas. He had distributed this to farmers as part of the DOA program to assist farmers. We were with him when the distribution occurred early last rice season. The CO was instructed to test the bio-fertilizer in small plot trials in the last fields that will be sown to wheat in the days following our visit.

ii. Plans for next year’s rabi crop

Next year we can be more prepared to acquire and purchase seed from many sources to conduct wheat variety trials. One set to be planted on time and one for a late planting. Other sets of variety trials will be assembled for the most popular rabi crops and a number given to each CO for conducting field trials.

5. Develop a training program for farmers

A. Training Needs Assessment Report on RiceA questionnaire was developed in previous mobilizations and the Community Organizers were trained in giving the survey to farmers of about 100 questions taking 2-3 hours. Of the 15 COs from the first batch that were originally trained, each was requested to interview 10 farmers yielding a sample size of 150 farmers across the pilot schemes. The most questionnaires that any one CO gave was 7 and only 48 questionnaires were filled out and submitted. In addition Dr. Sahu and myself interviewed farmers in the five pilot sites during last mobilization. These were individuals and groups that gave a total of about 80 farmers for the survey.

The COs were from sites representing seven districts. Three of these sites represent the Chhattisgarh rice plain centered around the Mahanadi River Basin (Mahasumund, Raipur, Raigarh) while two represent the Northern Ganga Basin (Koriya, Sarguja) while two represent the Southern Godarari Basin (Kabirdham, Kanker). Thus the main agroecological zones were included. Farmers were chosen at random based on accessibility primarily.

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Dr. Sahu inputted the data from the questionnaires into an Excel datasheet and on this consultancy I summarized the results. Each question essentially produced a table and over 100 tables were constructed of which some 50 were put the TNA report (Annex V).

Most of my time during this mobilization was spent on summarizing and analyzing the TNA survey. The report describes the demography and farm size of the respondents which were predominantly from the small and marginal classes (Table 4). Livestock holdings were also assessed. Farmers goals and constraints were also elicited. Farmers were grouped also by source of water for rice which ranged from fully irrigated to rainfed direct seeded culture. Farmers were questioned on where they obtained agricultural information and their relationship with the extension service. Farmers were asked what technology they thought was important to obtain higher yields. They then were asked what training they would like.

The bulk of the questions assess their farming practices in growing rice and ended with a question on food security and then many of the same variables aggregated by farm size and irrigation class. For comparisons that were aggregated by farm size the medium and large farmers were joined to give a larger sample size.

B. IFAD and PRDIS Chhattisgarh Tribal Development Project

On the way to Baikanthpur Dr. Sahu happened to see a sign board along the highway in the village of Sisringa some 10 km from Pathalgaoan stating that this was the location of a farmers field school (FFS). We stopped to inquire and found people to explain that this was part of the IFAD project on Tribal Development which has now been active in Jashpur district. In Sisringa we were escorted by Sankarram Rathia secretary to the village for the FFS program that the sign board alluded to. The Tribal Welfare Department is a co-contributor. We were shown examples in the village of compost making, a new well, irrigated vegetables, and a line sown rice crop. The vegetables are even sprayed with organic derived insecticide based on local plants that the farmers make themselves. The cauliflower crop, prone to insect pests, looked free of insect pest damage so it must be working. The rice crop was sown at 20 cm rows only compost (3 cart loads/acre) was put in the field as fertilizer. It was tilled with a rotavator and transplanted one seedling per hill. A rope with knots was used to mark the planting at 60 hills/m2. Seed rate was 4-5 kg seed/acre. Weeds are controlled with rotary weeders. They also have installed 48 biogas units and Nardef compost pits (8ft x 5 ft x 3 ft). We traveled on to Pathalgaoan to the District Program Investigation Unit (DPIU) office where we met the agricultural director R.N. Dwivedi who is a former DDA in MP. Also present was Sandeep Sharma an anthropologist. As an aside Ms Shaila Nigar a former project head is now the collector in Koriya. They are undertaking a whole host of programs ranging from reducing alcoholism among the tribals, to vermicompost, Nardef compost making, biogas making, and organic farming. IFAD has 28 NGOs working for it in the district, each

Table 4. Classification of farmers by farm size

Farm size (ha) % farmersMarginal < 1 43

Small 1-2 27Medium 2-5 23

Large > 5 7

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taking a village. They also test SRI. The IFAD desk officer in Delhi is Aniruptan Nevali IAS Senior Advisor and Country Manager. In Rome the task officer is Leonard Bogy.

We acquired a copy of the FFS curriculum for rice and almost obtained a copy of a baseline survey but the computer was down so we could not get an electronic copy. The NGO Participatory Rural Development Initiatives Society (PRDIS) is active in the project.

The rice FFS is 16 weeks as per.1. Gathering, briefing. Seed treatment with cow urine.2. Nursery bed preparation and sowing.3. Planting rope for line sowing4. Main field preparation, FYM and fertilization, and line transplanting 5. Water management6. Weeding with rotary weeder7. Insect pests, insect zoo8. Insect zoo, top dressing, rotary weeder9. Useful insects10. Insect zoo, rotary weeder11. Stemborer life cycle12. Vermicompost13. Other crops14. Exposure visits (cross visit)15. sampling technique and data collection16. sampling technique and data collection

They also listed six experiments that they were setting up in six villages. Some villages had all six.

1. Varietal trial2. Seed treatment3. Stemborer damage management4. Insect zoo5. Neem leaf extract6. Beal leaf extract

PRDIS is poised to be the NGO contracted to carry out our FFS training and we see that they can organize farmers to undertake a variety of activities, many similar to ours. They will have less money for developing biogas generators than was the case with the IFAD project but they have shown us that they can make excellent progress. With the IFAD project they emphasized organic farming but we will adopt a more flexible approach to merge organic and inorganic farming to best effect. Let us see how they will perform in CIDP.

C. Initiating Farmer Based Extension In several of the DOA district offices they have prepared farmer leaflets giving district level recommendations derived from their local trials. However each KVK has limited

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staff and resources and they cannot conduct many on-farm trials each year. After training farmers to conduct field trials as will be done in the farmer field schools the farmers can expand the work of the KVKs. The results of our field trials for example can be sent to the KVKs for publication in their annual reports. First however we will recommend that the COs should organize a meeting when all of the data from the rice trials have been assembled and analyzed there is a need to share the results with the other farmers. The farmers can also prepare a plan for trials to be conducted in the following years. Field trials should also be encouraged to be conducted by farmers not in the training program to involve them in the field testing and learning exercises.

As recommended by ADB it would be useful to publicize the results of the field trials in local newspapers to bring attention to our project and hope that government will read those newspapers and support our work more. Such reporting also builds up farmer confidence and assertiveness in disseminating results to a wider audience, their neighbors. As such it supports the WUAs giving them a wider role. We could have reporters interview our farmer cooperators and have the farmer discuss in his own words how the project has benefited him. Before that we need to convene meetings in each village where the cooperators there would discuss the results of their trials and make some simple posters outlining the results in terms of yield increase and profit. Then a WUA wide meeting could be held where those from the various villages would give their results to a wider audience and the farmers could again make some simple posters and place them in public places where farmers convene. Farmers then could organize their own extension and at the WUA level we could invite the RAEOs and KVK to see the progress. Such activities are also in the CIDP agricultural section training plan with FFS.

6. Institutional strengthening of WUAs

A. Facilitated WUA selection of appropriate rabi crops

The farmers were very hopeful of growing a rabi crop and were preparing their fields as the rice crop has been harvested. We talked mostly about how they can secure seed. The district DOA office is a short bus ride away and thus is easily accessible. We told them to secure their seed there rather from the local market where the seed quality is low. They normally purchase wheat seed that is meant for consumption thus they do not even know the name of the variety. Seed quality is poor. This constraint can be overcome by purchasing from the DOA directly as the local society has not ordered wheat and other rabi crops. In future years the WUA can request through the RAEO for their seed requirements some months in advance. The RAEO will take the requests to the district DOA office to be compiled into a list to send to the Seed Corporation in Raipur. They then will send the seed to the districts and then to the societies. This can be short cut by purchasing directly from the DOA district office from the surplus that they normally have, but only a few farmers such as in our request can be served in this way. In the future the method of making requests will be needed and then the seed will be earmarked for the farmers who then will be assured of obtaining the seed in a timely way. The selection of farmers for rabi crops is presented in Annex VI.

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i. AmakoniIn Amakoni there is still nine feet of water in the dam and one of the main canals that services Banjar Bahara a hamlet of Roda will be available for irrigation of 100 acres. We met with the 17 farm families that will plant in the rabi season first as part of a farmer meeting the evening of 19 Nov and then the following day. They will grow some 20 acres to summer rice in the bottom lands and along the terraced slopes will plant mostly wheat but a few fields will be planted to sunflower and chickpea. A demonstration of the seed-drill was made for the farmers on 10 December during the ADB mission review.

ii. Bilaspur tankWe visited the Raigarh site and the COs Kamlesh Kumar Mimeliar and Duryodhan Megh. They said there will be150 acres of rabi cultivated by 70 farmers in three villages (Bubdepur TC1, Darri TC3, and Kirtmal TC4) and wheat and sunflower will be the preferred crops. Farmers in one canal will avail of water during the rabi season. In addition a demonstration of the IGAU bullock powered seed drill was made for the farmers also on 10 Dec.

iii. Balar medium schemeWe met the four COs who told us that rabi crops will be grown in 7 villages totally over 1700 acres. There is enough water in the reservoir to irrigate 2000 acres. But we found that there was only enough wheat seed in the society to sow 100 acres with Sujata variety so seed will have to come from other sources. Based on arrangements made by Dr. Sahu, the Seed Corporation can deliver the seed needs of Balar within a day if they are assured of receiving payment on the spot. Small and marginal farmers cannot purchase the seed until they sell their rice and can cash the check given which takes 10 days or so even after they sell their rice. This is too long a delay and we need to figure a way the farmers can avail of credit for rabi that is not dependent on paying off their loan on rice before they can get their rabi seed.

Dr. Sahu and I attended a meeting with farmers in Pisid at night meeting where farmers were still undecided on what rabi crops to grow but they will select a variety of them. We then went into the village to meet the farmers from Dhurabhata where the farmers said they will plant 54 acres of wheat and 10 acres to sunflower. We then visited Bagandobi village to meet a small group of farmers where they agreed to plant 50 acres to sunflower and also mungbean. Expected prices for these two commodities are Rs23/kg and Rs35/kg respectively.

iv. BeherakarWe then visited Pandaria where the farmers are scheduled to grow 300+ acres of wheat and 25 acres of chickpea. 80% of the area was planted and the crops were emerging. Farmers plowed their field twice either with the desai plow or by cultivator tractor. The wife broke the large clods with a small pick (kudali) The seed and DAP was broadcast and then plowed again to cover the seed to protect from birds. The field was then irrigated by flooding the small bunded fields. Water channels were made by a spade.

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Only Pandaria will plant a non-rice rabi crop. In Bhimbori at the base of the leaky tank farmers will sow a rabi rice crop as it is too wet to plant wheat.

v. Geg medium schemeGeg farmers will plant some 400 ha or about 1000 acres in wheat as a rabi crop. We meet with to meet a group of farmers and the sarpanch. They told us they are ready to plant 400 acres in just their village. The Geg site is really ideal for wheat due to the northerly latitude and the fact that the farmers said they got decent yields of 8-10 quintals/acre with just buying their seed at the local markets. They did not even know the name of the varieties they planted over the past years. They use fertilizer and there is little else to worry about as weeds will be minimum according to them. Dr. Sahu recommended an early variety as water is limited in the canals. There will be canal water from which they will pump to their fields. Despite the drought farmers were able to cope.

7. Work with the O&M Specialist to help develop alternative irrigation methods

A. Rabi Crop Irrigation Schedule further elaborated

At the request of the O&M Specialist Dr. Sahu and I made a calendar of crop operations for selected rabi crops taking increasing number of irrigations. Examples were given for wheat, chickpea, and sunflower Annex VII. It is important to sow wheat before December 15.

B. Document experiences of rabi crop farmers in delivering water to their crop

In each site farmers will have developed and tested different irrigation practices to bring water to their rabi crops. The COs will document the variations that farmers have utilized in water delivery. It is hoped that a number of them will be developed which we can test in future trials to measure water use efficiencies.

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Key Informant Data Collection

Table of contentsKey Informant Data Collection...........................................................................................1

DOA Agr Engineering Office..........................................................................................1ADB Discussions.............................................................................................................1Amakoni tank...................................................................................................................1Bilaspur tank in Raigarh..................................................................................................4Geg medium tank.............................................................................................................6Balar medium tank...........................................................................................................8Beherakar tank...............................................................................................................11

DOA Agr Engineering Office19 November Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Engineering Office for Raipur and Bilaspur regions in Telibaridha, Raipur

Met Er. Ghyanesh Pidiha who told us that their role was to organize testing of farming equipment designed and built by IGAU. They do not design equipment but in years past they had this role as well. They have had experience in the drill seeders.

ADB Discussions9 Dec discussion with Plamen of ADB on the agricultural program. He mentioned that it would be good to publicize the results of the field trials in local newspapers to bring attention to our project and hope that government will support it more. We could have reporters interview our farmer cooperators and have the farmer discuss in his own words how the project has benefitted him. Before that we could have meetings in each village where the cooperators there would discuss the results of their trials and make some simple posters giving the results in terms of yield increase. Then a WUA wide meeting could be held where those from the various villages would give their results to a wider audience and the farmers could again make some simple posters and place them in public places where farmers convene. Farmers then could organize their own extension and at the WUA level we could invite the RAEOs and KVK to see the progress.

Amakoni tank

Nov 19 Mon Dr. Sahu and I drove to Amakoni starting at mid afternoon and first visited the DOA office in Mahasumund at 3PM where we met the assistant DDA Mr. Kashyap to arrange seed for the rabi season. The DDA was not in so we made an appointment to see him the following day. We then moved on to the site and met with Sanjay Nimbalkar the

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CO who had arranged a meeting at 7PM with farmers in one hamlet of Roda who are near the head end of the irrigation system at the base of the dam. They can avail of irrigation water for a rabi crop of wheat and rice with a few farmers planting other crops such as sunflower. Dr. Sahu and I went with the CO after dark to Banjar Bahara. The farmers were very hopeful of growing a rabi crop and were preparing their fields as the rice crop has been harvested. We talked mostly about how they can secure seed. The district DOA office is a short bus ride away and thus is easily accessible. We told them to secure their seed there rather from the local market where the seed quality is low. They normally puchase wheat seed that is meant for consumption thus they do not even know the name of the variety. Seed quality therefore is poor. This constraint can be overcome by purchasing from the DOA directly as the local society has not ordered wheat and other rabi crops. In future years the WUA can request through the RAEO for their seed requirements some months in advance. The RAEO will take the requests to the district DOA office to be compiled into a list to send to the Seed Corporation in Raipur. They then will send the seed to the districts and then to the societies. This can be short cut by purchasing directly from the DOA district office from the surplus that they normally have, but only a few farmers such as in our request can be served in this way. In the future the method of making requests will be needed and then the seed will be earmarked for the farmers who then will be assured of obtaining the seed in a timely way.

In Amakoni there is still nine feet of water in the dam and one of the main canals that services Banjar Bahara will be available for irrigating 100 acres. We met with the 17 farm families that will plant in the rabi season. They will grow some 20 acres to summer rice in the bottom lands and along the terraced slopes will plant mostly wheat but a few fields will be planted to sunflower.

Nov 20 Tues we visited the field in a number of villages noting several locations where the rice field trials had been placed. Unfortunately the CO only took the yields of the trial but not the accompanying farmer practice. This shows the problems that arise by not having a dedicated CO for agriculture. Sanjay did not understand the experimental design even after our instructions. It was too late to do anything about getting a yield cut but we can take the farmers’ averages for their fields as a whole based on bags/acre which is more crude estimate. Luckily this is the only site where this happened and is the only site without a CO in agriculture. Sanjay has been highly cooperative and has interviewed many farmers for our questionnaire but has other assignments that take his attention away. In other sites a CO was always present during the yield cut which did not happen in Amakoni as only instructions were given to farmers as how to do it. The fact that the farmers were able to carry out his instructions for the trial plots shows that farmers can be highly useful in conducting such trials.

In Amakoni we saw WRD engineers surveying the damsite. We met the sub-engineer who told us the interventions they will carry out. First they need to strengthen the dam itself and fill in on the facing with more soil as it is highly eroded and leaks from the base. The will strengthen the toe and compact soil then fill in terraces up the face with new soil. Two sluice gates now leak and will need to be repaired.

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4PM Dr. Sahu and I visited the DOA office in Mahasumud where the DDA Vinod Kumar Verma is one of his former students. He gave us a list of available seeds which included some 10 varieties of wheat. The farmers plan to grow two varieties and can purchase them from the DOA district office. The DDA and Asst. DDA assured us that if the farmers come soon they can purchase the seeds. There is still plenty of seed. The DDA also gave us some farmer leaflets to distribute to farmers outlining the recommended practices for wheat and other rabi crops. We mentioned our intent to initiate a farmer field school training program and we would hold a district workshop to launch it in his district. He went over a number of programs that he is instituting in the district including Crop Diversification, SRI, and Farmers Field School. All of these are in line with our project and he assured us cooperation. We will visit next kharif season the site of SRI culture in Barnawapara near Pithora where they plan to plant 1000 acres in SRI. He has modified the normal SRI practice a bit and has 20 cm rows instead of 50 cm rows but one seedling per hill is planted from a seedbed carefully prepared with organic compost so the young seedlings are well tended and healthy. So as not to harm the root hairs, a plug of soil around each seedling is left intact. Such care requires much labor, so with 50 cm rows fewer seedlings need to be handled saving time but if the farmers had the time to carry out 20 cm rows, much the better. Transplanting is made on the square so both directions are marked off in the field with an implement. The field also has to be very level and good irrigation facilities are needed for this method to be successful. It will be interesting to visit his site next year for us to glean methods to be introduced into our sites as soon as the irrigation facilities are upgraded and improved. We cannot hope to do this now on rainfed rice.SRI is probably more suited to marginal and small scale farmers who have greater labor to land ratios.

We will also ask the farmers to organize some simple rabi crop variety trials where some 10-20 m2 plots will be established in their fields each testing one different variety. The seed requirements are so little that the DDA assured us that he could provide these free.

Return visit on Dec 4 with Satya and Joshi to prepare for the field tour Dec 10 with the ADB team of Plamen Bozakov, Mission Leader and the Director with the Government of India for ADB projects Ms. Ravne Kaur. We arrived at 10:30AM and went with the COs to Roda where we saw a farmer who had sown 5 acres of wheat irrigated by a tube well. He planted 200 kg Sujata wheat + 40 kg mustard and was irrigating parcel to parcel. We will show this field to the review team. Although the water is not coming from the tank our CO encouraged the farmer to grow the crop and gave him the recommended practices. Often it takes a larger farmer who is more an entrepreuner to initiate new technologies such as establishing a rabi crop where the local farmers do not. This is just an example of this process. Farmers then can pressure WRD to deliver water for rabi crops based on his experience.

We then went to Banjar Bahara where we met Dridul Das a salesman from Advanta India Ltd seed company, the farmers, and our DDA counterpart Ashwani Kumar Banjara. Later an engineer from WRD joined as we were leaving. We walked to the main canal and saw that irrigation water was being delivered to the hamlet. We then met in the village with the farmers to confirm the field day. Farmers will set up a check dam with sand bags to

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demonstrate how water would be delivered from the main canal that was flowing allowing the farmers to till their fields to grow rabi crops with high tillage. At the same time we want to purchase two units of the bullock powered seed drill for demonstration. On the return to Raipur we stopped by IGAU Agr Engineering to see about getting two units of seed drills. Er. Verma said he could get them from another project and brought in Er. Jogda who is the PI for that project which has ordered 24 units. During the discussion it was found that IGAU has given two units to each of the 11 KVKs for on-farm demonstration. Further discussion by Satya asked if our two projects could combine as they all cover the state and we could share resources such as seed drills and trained farmers. Now we are requesting that one of the farmers who is trained in the use of seed drills come to Bajar Bahara to demonstrate to the farmers how to operate the seed drills.

Later we learned that Satya was able to secure two units of the seed drill and gave one to each of the sites. A farmer from the Agr Engineering project on Implement Efficiencies also joined who then demonstrated the proper use to 20-30 local farmers.

Bilaspur tank in Raigarh

21 Nov Wed we left Raipur at mid-day and arrived in Raigarh before dark and overnight in Hotel Shirwad in the city.

22 Nov Thurs we visited the Bilaspur tank site and the COs Kamlesh Kumar Mimeliar and Duryodhan Megh in their house for an over-view. There will be150 acres of rabi cultivated by 70 farmers in three villages (Bubdepur TC1, Darri TC3, and Kirtmal TC4) and wheat and sunflower will be the preferred crops. Farmers in one canal will avail of water during the rabi season.

We then visited a number of our field trial sites and reviewed the data compilation and yield taking procedures. The kharif trials were conducted in Darri, Khondtari, Kuswahari, and Bubdepur villages. The COs have done a good job in this regard. They harvested 25 m2 samples from each trial and dried the stalks in the field and the farmer threshed and weighed them. We will provide them with cloth sacks for the next season to store the grain for drying. It was apparent that the samples were not dry to the normal 14% moisture and we assumed for the yield calculation that the samples were 18% moisture. We requested that some samples be sundried so we could get a measurement of the moisture content of newly harvested rice in the site. Six trials will have yield data and two have been harvested, dried, and weighed. We saw several trials in the field ready for harvest and went over the methodology to ensure as much accuracy in this measure as possible. We lack a good balance with accuracy to 0.1 kg but since the scales are the same for both our package of practices and the farmer’s crop we can make adequate conclusions. The COs had not interviewed the farmers to record how each farmer grew his crop so that we can document the farmer’s practice for each trial. They will do this. They have the yield results for two fields however which are encouraging. In the first field the yields were 4.8 t/ha for the package of practices and 4.3 t/ha for the farmer’s practice an 11% difference while the second field the yields were 4.7 and 4.4 t/ha

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respectively, an 8% difference. The fertilizer regime was probably the main reason but we need to examine the farmer practices to be more sure.

We visited one of the most progressive farmers Mr. Lal Kumar Patel who had taken such good records of his farming practices in the notebooks we distributed. He showed us his harvested crop ready to be threshed and the MTU1001 variety had a 30-40% loss due to a fungal disease on the grains. Only this variety was affected by the ‘dirty panicle disease’ and we can recommend a fungicide such as mancozeb or benomyl for next season. We will include this our training program and perhaps perform a field trial next year on his field. Perhaps changing the variety will be enough to reduce this high loss. In addition he had a field with neck blast developing and sprayed Hinosan fungicide and saved his crop. Farmers know that in a rainy year there are more pests and diseases. This year there were stemborers, gall midge, and caseworm as the main insect pests but surprisingly there was low incidence of diseases and only a few spots where bacterial leaf blight was seen. These tend to be low spots where effluent from FYM pits leak out into the fields. The farmer will sow wheat but does not know the name of the variety. Farmers appear to be very casual about farming as they do not know names of varieties of rabi crop nor do they remember the names of pesticides they have used.

We took the opportunity of visiting a nearby farmer who was undertaking vermi-composting and he showed us his operation. This is an expensive source of compost but is of high quality, certainly not for cereal but may be for some rabi crops but most assuredly for vegetables. He produces 8-10 trolley loads of compost every 2-3 months which he bags and sells for Rs5.90/kg. We offered to test the vermicompost on the rabi crop if he wanted to provide a sample. We may test it on rice next kharif just to see what yield benefit could result from better and organic matter and compare it to the farmer’s FYM. We intend to focus a great deal on improving the organic fertilizer application to ricefields in our training program. His vermiculture was in an open bullock stall that had been vacated for the purpose. It had a concrete floor and concrete walls and a sturdy roof without walls. FYM is placed within the piles of active compost making where the earthworms are active. He just keeps adding fresh FYM to new places in the long circular pile. The finished product is placed in sacks. At this stage the FYM has not odor and is a dry granular texture, black in color.

In the late afternoon we visited the Deputy Director of Agriculture located in the Collector’s building in Raigarh. We first went to the ADO office and met D.K Patel a RAEO nearby. We then went to the Collectors complex to meet Jain M. Vig the SDO in charge of seed next to the DDA’s office but he was not in so we saw the DDA L.M. Bhagat. We were assured that there is ample seed. We then met the DDA L.M. Bhagat. He was very cordial and we spent over a half hour with him going over the seed supply for our rabi crop farmers who assured us there was ample seed and the farmers could procure it directly from the DOA. The wheat varieties available were Sujata and HD2004 but they also had smaller quantities of Lok1, GW173, and WH197. He gave us a list of the existing seed stocks and there were a wide variety of rabi crops on hand. These include composite sunflower (hybrids need to be purchased from private companies), mustard, lentil, chickpea, and others. He gave us farmer leaflets on the common rabi

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crops for us to distribute to the WUA and went over some of the DOAs programs including Farmers Field Day, demo plots, Farmer Field Schools on rabi sunflower and mustard in a number of locations. He also will fill some of the 1000 state-wide vacancies for RAEOs in his district from the number of new positions that will be opened. We informed him of our training program and that there will be a district workshop in April or so in his district. He said that he could arrange a suitable venue for the event.

Geg medium tank

23 Nov Fri 6PM Dr. Sahu and I arrived Baikunthpur to meet COs Manju Lakra, Kamlesh Sahu, and Amit Tondar (Depak Darah was out of the site) for an overview. In 9 villages in Geg the farmers will plant some 400 ha or about 1000 acres in wheat as a rabi crop. They are at the peak of harvest and some farmers are plowing under the rice stubble in preparation for sowing wheat.

There were 7 fields where the trials were conducted with Manju with 5 and Amit with 2, while Kamlesh who is in a tail end village there were no trials, Kamlesh therefore helped with the other trials. The farmers have harvested some of the trials and some even have weighed each treatment. These are really farmer-led research trials. Kamlesh was in the field during the harvest of all 7 trials and the farmers dried the samples (2 per farmer as one is the introduced treatment of a package of practices involving water management with 5 cm water in the vegetative stage, timely application of 80 kgN, 50 kg P and 30 kg K with the N in three splits. The most important was the last one N application before panicle initiation. Early weeding was the third practice which was carried out at 30 DT but was not so important as all farmers transplanted and there were few weeds. Finally was IPM where no spraying was done in the trial area despite some stemborer infestation. The COs were able to convince farmers not to spray.

24 Nov Sat 9AM we went to Anie Village (head end) to meet a group of farmers and the sarpanch. The farmers told us they are ready to plant 400 acres in just their village. The site is really ideal for wheat due to the northerly latitude and the fact that the farmers said they got decent yields of 8-10 quintals/acre with just buying their seed at the local markets. They did not even know the name of the varieties they planted over the past years. They use fertilizer and there is little else to worry about as weeds will be minimum according to them. Dr. Sahu recommended an early variety as water is limited in the canals. There will be canal water from which they will pump to their fields. Despite the drought most farmers were able to cope

12 noon to Katra village to visit the farmer who handled a trial. He had already harvested the plot and weighed the samples. He grew US312 hybrid. According to him there was a visible difference between the plots as the trial plot had more tillers per hill and more grains per panicle. The trial yield was 6.4 t/ha and the farmer’s plot was 5.3 t/ha, a 20% benefit. He had deeper water levels in the vegetative stage with 10-12 cm water depth and did no weeding nor application of pesticides. He applied 1 bag of iffco basal NPK/acre and then 15 kg urea at 22-24 days after transplanting (DT) for a total NPK usage of 32-

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40-20 kg/ha. The trial plot was bunded during the crop so that water levels were kept separate. The CO was with the farmer when he took the yield cuts from the trial and a site from the farmer’s field that was representative of its growth. Yield cuts were 36 m2 (6m x 6m) from the staked plots whose measurements were determined by a meter tape. The cut stalks from each plot were placed in the center of the plots and dried for 5 days. The farmer then bundled the stalks from each plot separately and took it to a threshing floor which is an area where the ground has been made hard with cow dung slurry smeared over an area of 300 m2 or so thus the grains could be swept up and placed into a sack for winnowing and then weighing. Threshing was done with 4 bullocks walking over the stalks. He weighed the samples from a hanging spring scale accurate to 1 kg.A better scale would be preferred with accuracy to 0.1 kg and we are seeking places where farmers can go to achieve this accuracy. We asked the farmer what he concluded from the trial and he said he would change to the recommended fertilizer regime that we performed on the trial as he attributed the higher yield to more timely fertilizer. The CO had shown the farmer how to recognize the panicle initiation stage which will be a better timing rather than at booting. Timing at panicle initiation sets the number of grains per panicle and if the farmer applies at booting the grain number has already been determined on less fertile soil. The farmer already has purchased his wheat seed and is plowing his rice field now in preparation for sowing.

2PM to visit the Deputy Director of Koriya District in his office in Baikanthpur. Luckily he was at work as it was a holiday and was waiting for shipments of seeds. He knew Dr. Sahu and so we were on good terms immediately. Dr. Sahu underscored the need to provide our farmers with wheat seeds when they come to request them and he said that there was sufficient quantity of seed and assured us the farmers could get their required need. Typically the local farmers purchased seed from the local markets not even knowing the names of the varieties. The DDA updated us on his programs including a farmers field school performed by the KVK as part of the National Integrated Oil Seed and Pulses Program but also includes maize, pigeonpea, and rice as part of the National Agricultural Development Plan. There are weekly training sessions, a field trial performed by farmers, and topped with a field day for the farmers to show the results to their neighbors. Unfortunately the nearest KVK is in Ambikapur as Koriya is a new district but there is a plan to place a KVK in Baikanthpur. The KVK is the only institution that does on-farm research. The Subject Matter Specialists from the DOA coordinate the trainings. There are two regions within Koriya each with 4 SMSs. One is the Sr. Agricultural Development Officer (SADO) and then one SMS each for Agriculture, Plant Protection, and Soils. There are thus 8 SMSs in the district. We briefed the DDA on the upcoming CIDP farmer training program and that we will work with him to host a District Workshop some time before the kharif rice season. The DDA also told us there are SRI trials in the field on rice and that the yields are good. He also will be hiring some. The DDA gave us farmer leaflets of the latest recommendations for wheat and other crops that we can distributed to the WUAs. The DDA said that there is a 50% vacancy for RAEO positions in his district but that we was assured 40 new positions in 2008. Candidates will take an exam in late December and the new hirees will be those with a BSc in Agriculture and have the highest marks on the exam. The exam is operated by the Technical Board of Education.

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3:30PM we visited a farmer Bubu Singh in Kanchanpur who had a trial with the same treatments as the farmer in Katra. He has taken the yield but cannot remember the results off hand but remarked that there was not much difference in the yields between the plots. We took down his practices which were water levels 7-10 cm in the early growth stages vs 4-5 cm for our treatment. Again there were not many weeds in his transplanted field and he did not spray insecticides. He applied basally 39 kg P /ha and 28 kg N/ha basally followed by a second application at booting of 11 kg N/ha. This is a total of 39-39-0 vs our 80-50-30 for NPK.

He will grow two varieties of wheat WH147 and a new variety JK6. We will take yield samples from both varieties in 20 m2 plots at harvest and compare our yields with those taken from the field as a whole. Farmers believe that to compare varieties that large fields are needed. We believe we can obtain the same result on small plots and will test this idea as well as getting good yield data on two wheat varieties.

5PM we visited a farmer in Basbevpur village who was at his threshing floor with his family. He had harvested his trial and remembered the yields on the Sonam Mashuri variety of 22 kg/ac for our trial and 18 kg/ac from his surrounding field. The CO was with the farmer while taking the yield but the farmer did all the threshing, winnowing and weighing. It was the same treatments with less water in the vegetative stage, early weeding, timely and balanced fertilizer application as well as IPM was compared. He had 5-7 cm water in the vegetative stage and then 10-12 cm in the later stages and did not weed nor apply pesticide. Thus the comparison was mainly between fertilizer timing. He applied 1 bag of DAP and 13 kg urea/ac basally followed by 13 kg urea/ac at 21 days after transplanting and then a third application of 13 kg urea/ac at 45 DT. Sonam Mashuri is a 140 day variety so all of his applications were well before PI, too early to affect the grain number. Thus the difference of 5.9 t/ha and 4.8 t/ha between the trial and farmer’s feld respectively, a 22% benefit. These both are high yields but the farmer said he would follow our recommended practice next kharif as he saw the difference in the field and took the yield himself. He used a hand held spring scale which is only accurate to 1 kg but still the difference was apparent. The field trial is a powerful teaching tool and will be even better associated with a farmer field school training.

Balar medium tank

26 Nov Dr. Sahu and I visited the Raipur District DOA office in Raipur in the Collector’s Compound to see the DDA Mr. C. Sarkar. The Joint Director of Agriculture Mr Chadrakar will be making an inspection tour at about the time we are in Kasdol and he will pass by there. The DDA was not in but we met with the Asst Director for seed distribution Mr. Munger to meet the seed need of Kasdol farmers as requested by the COs before our visit. Also an important contact is Mr. Jaiswal of the Central State Seed Corporation who is in the warehouse and is the closest to the source of seeds. There was a request for 200-250 quintals of wheat, 10-15 quintals of sunflower, and 3-5 quintals of mustard. There are three ways in which a seed request can be met from farmers at this

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late date as normally it should be planned through the local extension officer months ahead. The farmers can exchange seed of the same commodity, they can pay cash, or their Society can accept it. The price is Rs 21/kg for wheat seed. Farmers can avail of credit if the amount they took before did not exceed their limit. Each farmer has a limit. They can pay off their loan for the rice crop and take out a new one for rabi. Seed from Kasdol can be shipped in a day from a nearby godown just across the river. Balar has some 100 villages in total. Rice is being purchased by the societies and prices differ by variety. For example it is Rs 695 for Swarna, Rs 750 if fit for seed, or Rs775 for fine grained and quality varieties. In the Balar tank there is enough water to sow 2000 ha of rabi but only 800 ha are slated for rabi crops. Of the 800 ha some 500 ha will be sown to wheat. Raipur district is on the transition zone for wheat which likes cool weather and cannot tolerate heat during grain development. As it rained in early November the harvest has been delayed as has rabi establishment. This will push the sowing date for rabi crops later and will increase the risk of yield loss from hot weather in Feb.

27 Nov we left for Kasdol at 8AM and arrived before 11AM where we met the four COs. After an orientation meeting we visited some areas where field trials were held including Semaria and Kharve. We noted that rabi crops will be grown in 8 villages. There is only enough wheat seed in the society to sow 100 acres with Sujata variety so seed will have to come from other sources. The Seed Corporation will deliver the needs of Balar within a day if they are assured of receiving payment on the spot. Small and marginal farmers cannot purchase the seed until they sell their rice and can cash the check given which takes 10 days or so even after they sell their rice. This is too long a delay and we need to figure a way the farmers can avail of credit for rabi that is not dependent on paying off their loan on rice before they can get their rabi seed.

The COs held some classes with farmers to give them some information in classroom settings on the life cycle of brown planthopper and stemborers. They held egg masses of stemborers but there was no hatching. Brown planthopper caused hopperburn in restricted areas thus some farmers had to spray. The COs recommended products we had said were best for this pest. Climbing cutworm that severs panicles was of minor occurrence. There was no increase in stemborer and gall midge nor did any diseases appear. Some farmers plant vegetables near to the few wells that could be seen along the roads. Farmers build their carts from acacia wood and the parts cost some Rs5000 to build one. They are more expensive if the wheels are iron and not wood.

We visited Kherve village where there was a standing crop of direct seeded rice that had been planted next to a transplanted crop of Sonam. Zinc deficiency was observed in the farmer’s field. Wasib Sahu then was advised to apply 10 kg/ac of zinc sulfate at Rs100 cost which he did to one portion of the transplanted area. He reported 35 bags/ac (6.43 t/ha)from the zinc treated area and 22 bags/ac (4.04 t/ha) from the untreated, a 59% increase in yield. The direct seeded crop was also treated in the same manner but it was still standing in the field. The rain in early November has left the fields still muddy and standing water could be seen. Thus farmers have to wait before plowing up the field for rabi establishment. The water depth was recorded in Mr. Sahu’s field and was 2-3 cm and

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5-7 cm during 30-35 days after sowing (DS). At 50-60 DS it was 7-10 cm and then lower 5-7 cm at 70 DS. Flood water depths by growth stage

Age of crop in days after sowing Water depth in cm30-35 2-3, 5-7 after rain50-60 7-1070 5-7

There was also a survey for stemborer deadhearts which were as follows.Age of crop in days after sowing Deadhearts (%)40 1560 1380 19100 5

These are moderately high densities but as the crop was growing so well that the farmer did not spray and saved Rs1500 from not doing so and still harvested 6.4 t/ha. So as the crops are growing so well that it not necessary to spray so much. Brown planthopper however needs to be controlled as the natural enemy levels are not so high thus it can explode in number especially as we are putting in moderate levels of N.

We attended a meeting with farmers in Pisid at night when the electricity goes off for an hour. But with the headlights of the car and some lanterns we held the meeting where farmers were still undecided on what rabi crops to grow but they will select a variety of them.

28 Nov We met some extension workers who were waiting for the Joint Director to arrive in Kasdol. They gave us some more information on seed sources. We then went to Dhurabhata village where we saw some farmers harvesting. One farmer had a low yielding rice crop which he attributed to caseworm (banki). He planted Swarna by direct seeding but it was heavily attacked by caseworm as water flows into his field from field to field irrigatin from upslope and caseworm float down into his field. Some 10-12 fields drain into his. He also sprayed for caseworm using Angar which is 50% formulation and sprayed 20 liters/acre or 49 liters/ha which is way below the300-500 l/ha recommended depending on the growth stage. He sprayed at 100 ml rate on 0.5 ac which worked out to 0.245 kg ai/ha which is just at the level that would give some control. The farmer said it was effective. We advised the farmer to place screens at the field inlets to keep the larvae out. We asked for his fertilizer usage and he applied 39-59-0 kg/ha NPK which is out of balance. He applied twice, once at basal and then 30 days later the last 14 kg of N/ha.

We then went into the village to meet the farmers from Dhurabhata at the nursery school where we met the teacher and her aid making lunch gruel for the children. There were 43 children in the school. The teacher earns Rs 1200/mo and the assistant Rs 500/mo. Finally the farmers arrived. There are a few wells that we saw along the road where small patches of vegetables were being grown with the harvest mainly for home consumption

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but the excess will be sold in town. The best paying crops are eggplant and cauliflower. For vegetables, farmers use FYM but not in wheat. Their highest wheat yields were 7-8 q/acre or nearly 2 t/ha. The farmers will plant 54 acres of wheat and 10 acres to sunflower.

At 2PM we visited Bagandobi where we attended a small group meeting with farmers where they agreed to plant 50 acres to sunflower and also mungbean. Expected prices for these two commodities are Rs23/kg and Rs35/kg, respectively. At 5 PM we headed back to Raipur.

On 3 Dec we made a return trip to Balar with Satya and Joshi for a day trip. We left the office at noon and arrived in Balar at 2:30PM where we met Abhishek Tiwari (Agr)Ms. Abha Ekka (PIM) and drove to Pisid where we plan to establish a field demonstration for farmers on rabi crop establishment. We went to the main canal where irrigation water could be diverted to a chak or turnout. The farmers were still harvesting rice and the lateral canal was quite deep so that a check dam would have to be built very tall in order for the water to enter the chak. Farmers said that it was possible in the kharif but did not have experience in the rabi season. The COs are trying to organize a tractor drawn drill seeder to demonstrate sowing a rabi crop in the site. The soil moisture is just right now as determined by the ease of pulling a hill of rice stubble from the field, the texture of the soil when pressed between the fingers, and by throwing the hill of rice on the ground the soil stuck together and did not shatter. The bunds are high and it would be difficult to get a tractor into most of the fields but one or two could be tried. Otherwise due to the tall bunds and small field sizes a bullock drawn seeder would be preferred.

Another constraint was revealed. As the farmers are now only harvesting they need to sell their rice before purchasing rabi seed. Seed is available but cash is not. Farmers who sell rice are issued a check which takes about a week to cash. This delays rabi crop establishment which is particularly important for wheat as it should be sown before mid Dec and preferable in late Nov. Technically this could be done as many fields were harvested at this time. A drill seeder could sow one hectare in a day after the farmers and the bullock team gained more experience thus getting seed early is needed. The best way to accomplish this is to allow the farmers to take credit from the Society without having to pay back their loan they took for the rice crop in order to purchase rabi seed quickly. The WUAs and their local Societies need to work this out by next year.

Beherakar tank

6 Dec Dr. Sahu and I left Bilaspur at 9AM for Kawarda in Kabirdam district and arrived 12:30 PM but the DDA, R.K. Rathore was not in as the Agricultural Production Commissioner was visiting and all the staff went to meet him, so we pushed on. In the driveway of the office was a mobile soil testing laboratory truck which was brightly decorated with color photos of crops and the Chief Minister. At 4:30 PM we arrived in Beherekar via Chilpi. On the way the local people had harvested a wild plant cerota which they piled in the road for the traffic to thresh. They gathered the seeds to sell to

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buyers who use it as a medicinal plant. We met Domendra on the way who was with the WUA president. We drove with them to the tank and the WRD guesthouse. After a chat we drove 6 km to the PWD guesthouse in Damoh MP for the night. It was cool 55oF and luckily there were no mosquitoes. Electricity went out around 7 PM and stayed on until 5 AM. Lodging is Rs110 per night without food.

That afternoon we went to Usarwahi village to interview a farmer who had conducted a trial. There were only three trials set out in the kharif rice crop as Domendra was hired later than others. We elicited the farmer’s practices as apart from the trial plot but he changed them to be the same as the trial plot thus now there are only two trial fields in Beherkar This one will be a testimonial, where the farmer followed the introduced practice. The purpose of the experiment was not properly explained to the farmer and it came across that the trial was a demonstration of technology that we were recommending to farmers rather than as a trial where we did not know for sure what the best technology was which in fact was the reality. We did not know what technology would be best suited for Beherakar as we had not tested it. We were only introducing the recommended practice for the state. This is the difference between a demonstration plot and an on-farm research plot. In the latter we are undergoing technology verification, in the same role as a KVK. The reason we are not wanting to tell the farmers that we have demonstration plots is that we want to test the technology first as if there are problems then we have not caused much harm to the local farmers. If the state recommended practice was not suitable and we recommended it untested and it did not work we would lose the respect of the farmer much like a company would lose respect of its brand named products. Without the farmers’ respect no matter what we will say in the future they will not follow. But we were lucky that the technologies we introduced did work as planned. As one can see farmers so respect the COs that they will blindly follow their recommendations.

Later we interviewed Momat Khan as a testimonial who followed Domendra’s recommended practice on all of his field. He grew IR64 and instead of transplanting 35 day old seedlings he transplanted younger ones 25 days old that will tiller more. He transplanted now at 2 seedlings/hill instead of 3-5 and kept his paddy in shallow water during the vegetative stage to again encourage tillering rather than deep ponding to 20 cm depths. His fertilizer practice was that of Domendra at 80-50-30 but he does not remember what he did the year before but certainly he did not apply at the times specified by our recommendation which were timed to the needs of the rice plant. First a basal with the P and K where the fertilizer was broadcast during puddling operations and then harrowed into the soil just before transplanting. The urea is split between 15-20 DT and panicle initiation. His yield this year was 16 quintals/acre (3.92 t/ha) versus 7 quintals (1.72 t/ha) last year. Last year was a normal year without drought stress and still he got a very low yield principally not managing his crop well. Deep ponding and old seedlings retarded tillering, not applying N before maximum tillering he further did not stimulate tillering and by not timing his next N application before PI he did not stimulate the plant to set more grains.

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We then interviewed a farmer who had followed Domendra’s recommendations. Domendra had given his recommendations in the WUA farmer meetings to explain what he was doing at the site. Many farmers in turn followed his best practice without the intervention of a training program. Rocharan Sahu of Lohardardi village grew a hybrid 6444 for the first time. He transplanted one seedling per hill as required at about 20 cm spacing. In his 0.5 acre field he used 0.5 bag of DAP, 16 kg urea, and 10 kg of K (muriate of potash). DAP is 18-46-0 thus he applied 22 kg N/ha and 56 kg P basal and 18 kg N.ha from urea 46% N) and 7 kg K/ha so for a total was 56-56-30 compared to the recommended 80-50-30, so his nitrogen was low and for a hybrid even higher amounts are normally used. Basal P was applied on the soil surface and was not incorporated and the urea was applied at 25 DT and at booting (too late). He started weeding one month after transplanting instead of 2 weeks after transplanting but he said the weeds were few. There was good water and thus few weeds. He kept the water level down. The only pests were false smut and stemborer and he did not spray once. His crop is now being threshed so we will wait for the yield. He said he would plant potato after rice.

7 Dec we ate in Damoh and then went to the damsite and WRD guesthouse. There we met a WRD team who had spent the night and were studying a site for a new tank. They said that the repairs to the Beherakar tank will be made beginning in Jan including the dam face, sluice gate, and canal and a contractor has been identified who has to make a payment for security. We went to Bhimbore where we interviewed Jamal Singh Moravee who had a trial in his field. He also had a 0.5 acre field where he was planting an unknown hybrid that he got from MP but did not remember the name. He purchased 3 kg for Rs150. The intervention was 1) water management, 2) inorganic fertilizer timing, 3) early weeding, and 4) IPM. Gall midge was present but he did not spray. Weeds were not much but he handweeded twice beginning at the third week. Mr. Moravee’s practice was 14 kg/ac DAP basal and 4 kg urea/ac twice at early growth and at heading for a total of 30-32-0. He and Domendra had monitored the gall midge which was found in 36 of the 46 hills per m2. There were 1.5 silvershoots per hill and 5 tillers per hill. So the 36 hills had 30% damaged tillers but over the field this worked out to 23% tillers affected. No insecticide was applied however. He did one hand weeding at 25-30 DT and the water level was 10 cm at tillering and the rest of the crop. The plot had a shallow bund and was transplanted on July 25 with seedlings 25 d old. FYM was 4 quintals/0.5 acre or 1 carts. No pesticide or disease. Yield was 15 kg in the 36m2 plot (4.0 t/ha) and 13 kg in the farmer practice (3.5 t/ha) a 15% increase. In his field last year he harvested 2.94 t/ha which was 7 bags/0.5 acre.

Wse discussed the types of trials that Domendra would carry out on wheat. From Bilaspur we have the four common wheat varieties which will be tested in one field in 20 m2 plots per variety side by side with the farmer’s wheat. Next year we can be more prepared to purchase seed from many sources to conduct wheat variety trials. One set to be planted on time and one for a late planting. The RAEO’s wheat field is being sown with biofertilizer seed treated so we should test this also in a small plot trial in a farmer’s field. The biofertilizer will be compared to the surrounding untreated field. Both the wheat variety trial and biofertilizer trial will be sown this week by Domendra who will go to the fields to set these up for a few days.

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We then visited the area in Pandaria where the farmers are scheduled to grow 300+ acres of wheat and 25 acreas of chickpea. 80% of the area was planted and the crops were emerging. Farmers plowed their field twice either with the desai plow or by cultivator tractor. The wife broke the large clods with a small pick (kudali) The seed and DAP was broadcast and then plowed again to cover the seed to protect from birds. The field was then irrigated by flooding the small bunded fields. Water channels were made by a spade. The farmer plows either by buffalo or cow starting from 7AM to noon and then 2-5PM for a total of 8 h. Farmers are still harvesting millet which they stack next to rice in the threshing floor to be processed after the rabi crop is sown. We also saw upland fields of rape (tumeria), linseed (not flax), and lentil. These are all drought tolerant and can germinate with the dew condensation. Wheat can also germinate as such. Only Panderia will plant a non-rice rabi crop. In Bhimbori at the base of the leaky tank farmers will sow a rabi rice crop as it is too wet to plant wheat.

There was a problem in ordering the seed for the final 20% of the area as the RAEO did not pass on the order for seed to the District DoA office. We talked to him at his new farm that he bought and was making bunded areas. He said he could not take the risk if the farmers did not purchase the seed from the society. As this does not seem to be a problem elsewhere with RAEOs Domendra called a meeting that night between the WUA president, RAEO, and Domendra to sort out the problem. Seed can be secured within a day so that is not a problem. Farmers can even exchange their old wheat seed from last year for new seed this year which some have done. There are also private seed dealers in Damoh MP.

Back at the WRD guesthouse we divided up the wheat seed so that another site could test some of the varieties. We then interviewed a farmer who had attended a WUA meeting and had adopted part of the recommended practice that was told to him in a meeting by Domendra. The CO did not conduct a training but merely told the farmers what he was doing in the trials. Many farmers adopted some of the recommendations which we can compare to an adjacent field with the farmer’s practice or to the best yield the farmer got in previous years. Habi Khan Patel grew IR36, IR64, and Culture in separate fields. He had approached Domendra saying that last year his crop did not tiller much and wanted his recommendation. The farmer was told to keep the water level down below the 20 cm level that he had in previous years so he put 4-5 cm water during the vegetative stage and 10 cm thereafter. Last year he transplanted 35 day old seedlings and now 25 day old ones. Last year he used 8-10 seedlings/hill and now only 2-3. He applied 1-2 carts of FYM. We used the same fertilizer quantity that he did last year but this time he broadcast the P (DAP and SSP) during puddling and harrowed it into the soil rather than broadcasting it at the time of transplanting. Before he applied urea at any time and not at a certain growth stage. This year he applied urea at 10-15 DT and then at heading (should have been before PI). In total he used 1 bag urea/ac, 1 bag SSP/ac, and 1 bag DAP/ac. He applied a total of 78-95-0. Before he had applied insecticide for chitri banki if he planted late. He sprayed 250 ml of insecticide at 50% EC per sprayerload and used only 1-2 sprayerloads per acre. His spray volume was 30 l/acre or 75 l/ha. His dosage was 0.125 kg ai/ha. He now would have used 8-10 sprayerloads but did not spray. His yield this year was good at

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25 bags/acre (4.59 t/ha) versus 17 bags/ac (3.12 t/ha) on a good year before. This was an improvement of 47%.

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Annex II. Key Informant Interviews

Table of ContentsBalar Medium Irrigation System.........................................................................................1

Kharif rice crop................................................................................................................2Pisid.............................................................................................................................3Kharve..........................................................................................................................4Semaria........................................................................................................................5Charod..........................................................................................................................6

Kharif field trials..............................................................................................................7Rabi crops......................................................................................................................12

Pisid...........................................................................................................................13Kharve........................................................................................................................14Semaria......................................................................................................................14Charod........................................................................................................................14

Bilaspur Minor Irrigation System......................................................................................15Sunflower culture.......................................................................................................16Wheat culture.............................................................................................................17Kharif rice crop monitoring.......................................................................................18Field trials..................................................................................................................19

Beherakhar Minor Irrigation System.................................................................................20Kharif rice crop..............................................................................................................20Rabi crops......................................................................................................................22

Wheat.........................................................................................................................22Chickpea....................................................................................................................23

Amakoni Minor Irrigation System.....................................................................................23Kharif rice crop..............................................................................................................24Trials..............................................................................................................................28Rabi crops......................................................................................................................29

Balar Medium Irrigation SystemVisitation Schedule:Fri Sep 7 2007 leave Raipur 10AM arrive Kasdol 12:30PMPM to Pisid villageHotel Abhishek & Mangal BhawanSat Sep 8 10AM to Kharve 3PM to SemariaHotelSun Sep 9 10AM to Charod 3PM leave KasdolArrive Raipur 6PM

COs : Mr. Sourabh Tiwari (Agr)Mr. Abhishek Tiwari (Agr)Ms. Abha Ekka (PIM)

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Ms. Sandhya Dewan (PIM)

Balar serves 48 villages and the project has selected some 9 whose members are the most cooperative, 3 tail end, 2 middle, and 1 head end. There are 4 WUAs but there has not been a common meeting between them to decide when to open the irrigation canals. To date no canal is open and the farmers are relying on rain water and the overflow from the dam which is full. As of mid September there still were heavy rains thus most farmers may be able to grow rice rainfed this year saving most of the reservoir for rabi crops. Farmers can take supplemental irrigation water in the kharif from the overflow. The common meeting topic will be to decide on when to open the canal and what they want to do regarding a rabi crop. But surely the tail enders will not be able to be irrigated, but the head enders will. The only discussion will be the middle ones. They also need to decide what rabi crops they want to grow. Farmers can afford to purchase their own inputs as we are mostly working with the better off medium-scale farmers who are the leaders in the villages. They are of the upper castes. They rent land from the large landholders in the site who themselves do not farm. In the caste system there is a tradition that the upper castes take care of the lower castes who belong to the marginal and small farm groups. This includes teaching them how to grow rice when they meet in the village centers in the afternoons and evenings. At times they will take them to their own farms to demonstrate a point. A demonstration of this social obligation occurred in Kharve where one farmer used zinc sulfate as a member of one of the field trials. Once he saw the dramatic greening up of his field he told the other farmers from the lower castes who then came to his field to observe. This has tremendous impact for our training course. First it shows that farmers can become trainers as it is in their culture. The farmer field school trainers, at first will be selected from the upper caste group. Secondly training courses may need to be structured by caste groupings – upper caste and lower caste – for best effect in the training courses.

Kharif rice crop

The rice crop in Balar looks in excellent shape as this has been a banner year as far as rainfall, so much so that there has been little use for even supplemental irrigation. The main problems have been weeds which farmers have not had

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sufficient labor to remove. They all know the importance of removing weeds but as they do not use herbicides need to find the labor for hand weeding. Labor however is hard to find. If and when irrigation does arrive farmers will be facing the same problem in arranging labor to transplant. Transplanted rice culture will have the effect of reducing the need for labor later on for weeding as the ponding and older age of rice will provide more weed control. But there will be the same high labor demand for transplanters. So there will be a tradeoff between labor for transplanting and weeding. This may force some farmers to think about direct seeding pre-germinated rice (wet seeded rice).

There are surprisingly few insect pests and diseases in the fields. The only insect of significance is stemborer and the only disease is bacterial leaf blight, with the former being more abundant. There are fields where we could not even find a fungal leaf spot of any kind, thus the leaves can operate at full photosynthesis from maximum leaf area. This should produce some very high yields for those farmers who were able to apply their fertilizer in timely fashion using adequate rates of NPK. The rains should diminish and bring clear skies toward the ripening stage when solar radiation is so needed for obtaining high yields.

Pisid

Insect pests are of particular concern for farmers and they have found stemborer and brown planthopper so far as pests. They want to know what insecticides to use. We visited a farmer who was going to use phorate granules on his crop because of stemborer. He was unsure of the density of deadhearts but felt that if he did not control the stemborer he may lose his entire crop. He had purchased 1 kg of Volphor 10%G for Rp 50 made by Tata Rallis and he was going to apply that to 1 acre. As it is a 10% formulation this would be the equivalent of 0.1 kg ai/acre or (0.24 kg ai/ha) half the recommended rate of 0.5 kg ai/ha. He applied it by mixing it with urea to give it bulk.

The recommended insecticide for spraying stemborers is chlorpyrifos as phorate requires standing water to be effective. According to the COs farmers have found buprofezin or BPMC that will be recommended for brown planthopper if ever it would appear. We visited a field of the one farmer who just applied insecticide to his rice crop

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for stemborer. Indeed there were moderate levels of stemborer deadhearts in an elongating crop which otherwise was in good condition without any other problems. We requested the COs to make an experiment to have an untreated plot in such a field to see if there are benefits from control. We did not think that the situation warranted insecticide treatment for the following reasons:

1. The crop had only stemborer as a stress, otherwise the crop was vigorous

2. We estimated less than 10% deadhearts and a crop in this good condition can tolerate 20% or more, with the only caveat that it is the monsoon season and days are cloudy. We had in fact just had a heavy rain so the rains are continuing but based on the fact that rains will be diminishing there should be sunny days ahead during the crucial ripening stage

3. Dissecting the stems showed that the population was in the mid-larval stage so it will be 2-3 weeks before the moths emerge to lay the next generation of eggs.

4. We did not see any egg masses or adults while walking the field, thus if the farmer were to spray there is nothing that the insecticide can kill (it cannot reach the larvae in the stems)

5. The crop will have natural resistance to penetration of the young larva as soon as elongation is over thus the farmer should wait as the next vulnerable stage is panicle elongation

6. There were moderate population levels of natural enemies seen mostly as spiders and dragonflies which will kill the adult moths preventing egg laying.

Kharve

Farmers said their problems were stemborer and gall midge which strangely do not tend to occur together. Wild rice (karga) is also a problem particularly for early maturing rices such as MTU1010 as they cannot tell the species apart when they are young and often uproot rice plants trying. Virtually all fields are direct seeded in dry soil and biasi was performed. In many fields the plant and tiller density is low and this will limit yield. Farmers do not flood their fields early in the season for land soaking that also would control weeds by depriving them of oxygen. They understand that early ponding before and during land preparation will kill weeds but they do not pond. In late plantings some

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farmers will sow by direct seeding pre-germinated rice (WSR) to control weeds. There is some merit for support for WSR due to labor shortages. Transplanted rice (TPR) saves labor in transplanting but farmers need labor to weed while in dry seeded rice (DSR) farmers save labor in crop establishment but it is needed in weeding. WSR minimizes both of these concerns as the high seeding rates cause denser stands and more weed control.

There are four farmer-cooperators on rice trials. One on zinc, one on early weeding, and two using all recommendations. Pest monitoring has been done with farmer groups four times where all farmers visit the fields of the others. There will some trials established on stemborer control testing the farmers’ insecticide practice with untreated to see if rice compensates. A field of Swarna did not show zinc deficiency as it is longer maturing and the farmer had used high amounts of FYM. Swarna is susceptible to bacterial leaf blight as is HMT1010. We saw a field heavily infested with wild rice where the incidence was one in 20 plants was wild rice. Competition for nutrients is serious with this tall weed which has 6 or so stout tillers. The farmer would have a difficult time in eliminating it from his field as the seed is in the soil. The grains shatter so it is difficult to keep the seeds from falling when it sets seed. The seed has some value and there is one festival where the people eat only food that has not been cultivated, and wild rice growing in drainage canals is harvested for this purpose. One field had some incidence of bacterial leaf blight on HMT1010 and the RAEO recommended Agroderma a kind of Trichoderma (microbial fungicide) application for it. We have serious doubts that this could work but on the other hand there is not much to recommend. Perhaps farmers who experience this disease in their field should apply FYM in the following years. Otherwise there are some resistant varieties.

Semaria

We spent a few hours walking along the rice fields and saw some of the plots that were established by transplanting just as a demonstration. There was another trial we saw where the plots were weeded but the weed infestation was not high. Mostly there was damage from stemborer but in no field was it as high as we saw in Pisid, still farmers wanted to know what to do about it. In the field we saw our first

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stemborer adult and in no field have we seen eggs, meaning that the population is all in the stems. We saw a field that had some rice caseworm damage near the outlet but the damage was only barely noticeable. Farmers mentioned gall midge but none were ever seen. There are no foliar wind dispersed fungal disease symptoms.

Charod

A tour of the rice fields took us on a loop to see some of the trials as well as some of the fields farmers wanted us to see. We saw a field that looked like it had P or K deficiency symptoms as it was not a disease. A number of fields were less dense due to biasi removing rice plants but the crops in general looked good. Some had symptoms of overuse of N as fertilizer is not expensive and some farmers tend to overuse it. Farmer monitoring groups are using the IRRI leaf color chart to make some of these decisions. The main two weeds in the whole area are both tall and tower over rice. Their local names are chuka (the word for sedges) Cyperus iria and a broadleaf called badai or badau which has a yellow flower and is very woody. More than half of the farmers have good weed control but the remaining have moderate levels with these two weeds distributed unevenly in a field. Competition for nutrients definitely will decrease yields from these two weeds. Farmers have difficulty in arranging for weeders so the damage is done. The trials on early weeding are bound to show large yield differences. One trial on water management had a high weed population which could not be removed in a timely fashion so will affect the trial. In such cases we need to mark off the yield cut areas and be sure they get full weeding in the future.

The main problem mentioned by farmers was stemborer. We brought our insect net and 0.5 m2 wire frame and entered into a few fields to catch arthropods in the canopy and preserve specimens in alcohol for use in training programs. The farmer that went with us looked into the plastic bag in which the net contents was dumped and was surprised that very few pests could be seen in the sample and that most arthropods that were caught were spiders. We did collect a few grasshoppers that defoliate rice. These are adapted to wetlands and are smaller than the locust type. We did pick up a specimen of Conocephalus a katydid which is a good egg predator of stemborers. In the same field we took several 0.5 m2 samples with the wire frame held over the crop by one

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person while a second person counted the deadhearts after pulling each out to verify that they were caused by stemborers. We took the deadheart counts from the most densely infested areas. We then counted all of the tillers. In one sample there were 356 tillers per m2 then calculated 7-8% deadhearts. Stemborers lay their eggs in masses thus damage tends to be clustered and we took samples from these clusters so the average of the field will be less, nevertheless the density of damage can certainly be tolerated by the crop without spraying. After seeing the contents in the net and from the counts we made of the percentage of deadhearts the farmer was convinced that there was no need to spray. This was the lead farmer in the village and when we returned he immediately instructed another farmer on what he had learned so farmers do share their knowledge.

Farmers complained of a shortage of DAP in the Society and instead use Gaimol or 28-28-0 or 20-20-0-13. The last is sulfur. There is suspicion on the part of the farmer that some of these sources are adulterated.

Kharif field trials

There are trials in all 9 villages but the COs tended to combine treatments into single field plots rather than having only one variable tested in a plot with other farms as replicates. The latter was preferred but the message got mixed up. As a means of being able to undertake statistical analysis of single field trials we need to replicate the treatments. This can be readily done after the fact if the size of the plots is a single bunded field which is often the case rather than just one plot of the intervention practice in a larger field. In the case where the plot size is a bunded field, we can take 5 25m2 yield cuts in each field.

Rains were heavy in some villages and washed away the bamboo stakes from the 4-5 trials so the location was lost. The most dramatic effect has been the response of rice to zinc sulfate. Farmers are really excited as they have seen good crop vigor after using 10 kg/acre or even as low as 7 kg of zinc even when applied a month after crop emergence.

Topics of field trials:1. Early weeding and weed free plots compared to farmers

weeding.

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Farmers in Balar almost 100% dry seed and undertake biasi and hand weeding for weed control. They do not flood their field early in the season for several weeks to kill weed seeds during land soaking as is done in other areas. This was a good rainfall year in that the rains came early and were continuous thus farmers were able to conduct biasi on time with good effect. Consequently there are not many fields which are really weedy, but just the same there are fields where there are significant weed problems. These are from farmers who were not able to make as many passes in biasi and have a hard time getting weeders. The fields were mostly seeded at about the same time and there is uniform maturity across the landscape. The crop is now in tiller elongation phase and most fields have very good weed control while some 15% or so have patches of weeds. Women can be seen in some fields hand weeding. They are removing these plants which will prevent them from setting seed and increasing the weed load for the next rice crop as the damage to the rice has already occurred. This is why early weeding is important. Next year we will test several post-emergent herbicides which will be directed against young weeds. These are several contact herbicides and easier to use than the pre-emergent kinds. Farmers in Balar as elsewhere do not use herbicides because they did not know how to apply pre-emergent ones and as it takes some training to learn have had poor luck so have given up. There are several species which dominate: Cyperus iria (a tall sedge) and Ludwigia hyssopifolia (a tall broadleaf) both of which rise above the canopy of rice. They are both at full growth and are flowering and are well rooted as it is difficult to uproot them being large sturdy plants. These are the most important in terms of yield loss as they shade out the rice as well as compete for nutrients. One broadleaf weed was noted in a few fields which is low stature but numerous. Wild rice (karga) is potentially the most damaging and one field in Semaria was found where > 10% of plants were wild rice. Wild rice grows tall, a habit it probably evolved in association with tall traditional rices. It is also of equal size of rice as it can produce 8 or so tillers. It is long leaved and the drooping leaves rise up to 20 cm above the rice canopy at this stage. Its damaging effect is not in shading out the rice, however, but competes for nutrients. In the early maturing rices such as MTU 1010, farmers have the most difficulty in distinguishing it from rice in the early

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stages and in their attempt to uproot plants also uproot rice. Karga is not as important in later maturing varieties.

We expect to measure significant yield gain from even removing the moderate weed levels that this year brought. Last year the rains came very early but did not last and the farmers had to replant their fields several times. As a result of plowing their fields after 2-3 rain events they destroyed the weeds following a recommended weed control practice called the stale seedbed method just by chance but with great effect. This year was different but the timely removal of weeds last year has reduced the seed load in the rice soils. Thus in Balar there are only two weeds that are important. Unfortunately they belong to two different weed classes – sedges and broadleaves – and will require mixing two types of herbicides if we chose to test them next year. Surprisingly absent were grasses such as Echinochloa which is normally present but were controlled no doubt by biasi.

2. Fertilizer rates and timing – recommended practice vs. farmers’ method

Given that the pest situation involves only a few pests we will devote more resources to optimizing fertilizer application. In the future crop will also include farm yard manure (FYM) and compost. We are too late to introduce this in 2007. Zinc deficiency was the most commonly observed problem but occurred in only a few places. Interestingly an area that had a number of fields showing the symptoms had one without symptoms thus zinc deficiency is spotty. Here the farmer had applied greater amount of FYM thus it is probable that there is ample zinc in the soil but at low organic content the soil chemistry is not such that allows zinc to be in an available form for the crop to take up. FYM and compost probably create a better soil environment by changing soil pH. This is why we will encourage more farmers to get their soil tested so we can learn of more of the interaction between zinc content and pH. Our visit to the soil testing lab in Raipur revealed that about half of the soils tested are zinc deficient. Another factor is that longer maturing rices such as Swarna can tolerate zinc deficiency better. We have found few farmers who have even heard of zinc and zinc fertilizers so our COs are making a big and immediate impact such that their respect among farmers is at a high level. This will allow

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our program to receive good support among farmers as they can see benefits. Now our COs are on call by the farmers and their cell phones are buzzing! If Dr. Sahu gave out his cell phone number he would not have peace and quiet at home. Two zinc sulfate products were found in some input shops. Zinc sulfate at 10% concentration where a 5 kg bag cost Rs 120. a second better value product was High Zinc that was 25% and a 5 kg bag cost Rs165. Farmers have had good results with rates of 7-10 kg per acre.

3. Insect pest and disease control testing farmers’ methods versus recommended methods

Here the COs need more input from us as to what to do. IPM is a complex issue where we are not just going to solve each problem with a pesticide. One farmer was approached by a pesticide salesman who told him to mix four different insecticides together which included 250 ml bottles of imidacloprid, cypermethrin, chlorpyrifos, and endosulfan into a cocktail. The farmer purchase them for Rs 500 and sprayed the cocktail on his field. The CO said that he could not see any pest problem so the farmer was wasting his time and threatening to upset the ecological balance in his field.

We visited two pesticide dealers in Kasdol and checked what products they had that we could recommend. The dealers who are not farmers and have no farm land were making recommendations based on what salespeople told them. One said the most popular products were monocrotophos and chlorpyrifos which are broad spectrum and cheap. Pesticides are inexpensive in India thus farmers can afford to purchase them. Our job in training will be to reverse this trend and train them to recognize when it is economical to treat.

We made some sampling frames out of 3 m of heavy wire (Rs10) that are 0.5 m2 area (71 cm x 71 cm) that can be placed over the crop by one person holding it still while a second person counts tillers and deadhearts or gall midge damaged leaves. In this way we can begin to gather data on pest densities in a quantitative way as it is our purpose to carry out statistical analyses of our field trials.

I entered 5 or so fields in each village we visited and looked for insect pests, natural enemies, and diseases while walking around a bit. First of all it is remarkable

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that no symptoms of wind dispersed fungal diseases were noted as the leaves were absolutely clean of brown spots of various diseases known to attack rice. Blast was not recorded. The only disease was a few fields showing some bacterial leaf blight and even in these fields the incidence was unremarkable. The farmers of course wanted to know what to do. First we noted what varieties were affected which seemed to be the later maturing types such as Swarna and HMT. There is no pesticide for this soil borne bacterial disease. Because there are so few other stresses on the crop we believe the crop can readily tolerate the levels of damage seen. This does not appease the farmers however who want to spray something.

Insect pests observed were mainly stemborer deadhearts and there is only yellow stemborer present at economic densities. But the good growing conditions this season are encouraging thus it is believed that crops can tolerate even the most infested fields this year. There were surprisingly few other insect pests seen. A few damaged leaves < 1% of leaffolder were found and a few moths seen in the field but the densities are very low. In one field we saw some caseworm that damaged 10% of plants in one end of a field near an outlet (the caseworm larvae probably floated with the current to collect there). Larvae in cases were shown to the COs as well as the bright white adult moth. We saw another caseworm species that feeds on aquatic weeds and not rice which the COs also saw, it has black bands on the wings. Some farmers told us that gall midge damage was around but we did not even see a single onion leaf in our walkabouts. We asked the farmers that accompanied us to show us any problems that they had in their fields. This caused us to take a few long walks but we found that for the most part there are few pests. Most remarkable was the absence of green leafhoppers which I had thought were in every rice field in Asia but apparently I am wrong. We saw a few brown planthoppers and I probably saw less than 20 total among the four villages visited. Therefore it was not surprising that there were few natural enemies seen compared to other locations. Most common natural enemies were dragonflies and damselflies and some assorted spiders but in very low densities. However in the few leaffolder damaged leaves not one had a live larvae and apparently had been eaten as no pupal cases were found to indicate that any matured.

4. Water management trials in bunded fields

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In a few fields which could be bunded we tested using less water than the farmers’ practice which called for low water levels after transplanting or sowing to depths of 5 cm or less, and then raising them after maximum tillering to 8-15 cm to suppress weeds. In some fields there were trials that were not bunded so this biased the result. It is difficult to find soil to make bunds after the crop is established so that trials requiring bunding should be set out a planting time and if biasi occurs then the bunds need to be remade. We encouraged farmers to note down the water levels in the field at various times during the crop in the school books we supplied to some farmers who would pay Rs5 each.

The COs in Balar are giving cooperating farmers classroom instruction on improved agricultural practices. They have given two sessions in most of the Pilot villages so far. In the first session they discussed background information on fertilizers emphasizing the various kinds, rates, proper timing including on what 16-20-12 stands for. Each session lasts 2-3 hours in the classroom and 2-3 hours in the field. The second topic was pest identification and control. Farmers have the most problem in assessing pests and want to know the name of the best insecticide to use. These are the most frequent questions of RAEOs as well as our COs. Farmers just want to know what to buy. There is little learning from this approach so they need more background information which would be given in the farmer field school classes beginning next year. One reason we offered farmers notebooks so they can keep track of these details as well as calculate their profits.

Rabi crops

Due to the favorable rains and large water savings Balar farmers may be able to grow up to 4,000 acres of rabi crops this year. Last year they grew 2,000 acres of rice and in 1998 they grew 2,000 acres of wheat. Yields were very poor however, only 6 or so bags per acre (range 3-12) (1 t/ha). The principal reason for the low yield was that they obtained their seed themselves by buying eating wheat in the local market.

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Pisid

Rabi cropThe process of ordering seed will be left to the farmers through their village Farmer Committee made up of some of the older farmers. It is this committee that will meet with farmers to decide what rabi crops to grown. They will notify the Society of their needs for seed and inputs. They said they will not need credit as they will have just sold their rice so they have money.

Because the best location for rabi is in the lower lying strata, farmers will have to wait until January to plant as they have grown long maturing varieties in these locations. Even though it is a good rainfall year and the distribution has been ideal, they did not direct seed their rice crop until mid July and now the crop is only in the tiller elongation phase. If the crop had been transplanted they would be able to plant the rabi earlier. They said that next year they would select shorter maturing rices (but next year could have delayed rains). We cannot make decisions for next year based on this year’s rain they need to make decisions on the average rainfall.

In a town meeting in Pisid farmers will hold more meetings in order to come up with their plan of what crops to plant in the rabi. They are thinking about a third crop as well by growing til (sesame). For rabi they have tentatively selected

Groundnut,SunflowerMustardGramWheat

The most profitable rabi crops are oilseeds such as sunflower followed by wheat and groundnut.

We discussed about the possibility of sowing the rabi crop by seed drill in the future. None of the farmers knew about such an implement. They are interested in trying the bullock pulled version as few have tractors. We told them we would arrange for one to be tested by them to see if it works well under their local conditions. If so then groups of farmers would be encouraged to purchase and share drills or for one to purchase and then allow others to rent drills for a fee. We told them that they could sow an acre of rabi crops in a

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day and that it would save one irrigation if the rice fields were still moist.

Kharve

In 1995-6 farmers had planted wheat and harvested a disappointing 8 bags/acre (1.3 t/ha). They also planted some sunflowers which did better and they extracted the oil for home use from a local expeller facility. They use the cake to feed their cattle or used as a fertilizer.

All the farmers therefore wanted to plant sunflower in the rabi and they estimate that 200 acres can be planted. They will have to organize watchmen to keep out stray cattle. They will plant in January which is not too late for sunflower as it can tolerate heat whereas wheat has problems of sterility from heat. They will ask the Society to order the seed.

They plan to sow sunflowers in rows and dig canals by spade to get the water to the field. They will each pay Rs91 as an irrigation fee just as they would for rice. They estimate 3-4 irrigations and will hill-up the plants by covering the base of the growing plants with soil. They have no farmer committee as in Hatod so they will ask the Society to order the seed and inputs for them. They also do not need credit. They expect a price of Rs15/kg which they say is good. As an oil seed it has a government support price. Farmers will again make field channels by hand spade

Semaria

As there is no irrigation and no hope as the water passes through an upstream village that does not let any go to them, thus they will not plant a rabi crop.

Charod

Many farmers are interested in planting small plots of rabi crops for their home consumption. They chose to plant wheat and will sow before Dec 18 (a religious holiday) on about 100 acres. Irrigation water will come to them after passing through Kut village upstream but those farmers normally take all of the water. They will make field canals by spade and

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will irrigated in small blocks starting uphill as most fields have 2-4% slope, thus the water will flow downhill and spread into the small blocks from shallow lateral furrows in a 3 x 3 m checkerboard throughout each field. They will check the flow along a lateral and let the water enter a small field channel upslope and when the 3 x 3 m block is irrigated they will block it off and open the next one down slope. Wheat will need 3-4 irrigations depending on maturity. They expect to obtain a yield of 7-8 quintal/ acre. Credit is not a problem because they would have just sold rice but if they need credit they can avail of the new lower interest of 6% per annum. They will store their wheat either in gunny sacks which has more threat from stored product pests or for longer periods they use the cavity in their walls of their homes that is sealed with mud. Every village has a mill that can mill rice or wheat.

Bilaspur Minor Irrigation SystemCOs : Mr. Duryodhan Megh (PIM)Mr. Kamlesh Kumar Nimalkar (Agr)

ScheduleTues Sep 11 Left Raipur at 9AM with Dr. Sahu, arrived 4PM in COs home in Bhopdipur. Interviewed farmers in Bopdipur with guidance from the WUA President Mr. Sitaram PatelOvernight in New Hotel Jankee.Wed Sep 12 Arrive in Bhopdipur and from 10:30AM visited fields there and in four other villages (Dareri, Khondtari, Khushwabeheri, Charbhata) during the day with Duryodhan Megh, Mr. Patel, and interviewed one farmer in Khondtari regarding his rabi cropOvernight in Hotel Sirwad

According to Mr. Joshi’s report of his and Philip’s trip 24-25 Aug, “the scheme has been designed to serve an area of 800 ha spread over in 8 villages. During the 2007 monsoon season, the irrigation tank has not filled up to its full capacity so far and the extent of available storage is 17 feet depth of water as against a full depth of 23.5 feet viz. nearly 65 percent of live storage. The irrigation sluice has been operated twice for releasing water for 5 days in one spell and two days in second spell during the month of July but aside from that it has been kept closed. Accordingly the target area for rabi cropping would be nearly 250 ha for less water consuming crops. Farmers of the area have been earlier doing paddy in rabi and if the

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practice is allowed to continue the irrigated areas may not go more than 100 ha. In this scheme there is one main canal of 3.8 km length and a minor of nearly 3.0 km length. The main canal covers 2/3 of areas where as 1/3 is covered by the minor canal. Two tail villages are the worst sufferers. The WUA with backup of farmers’ support should decide which area/villages to be given water in the rabi. It is certain, that it may not be possible to do irrigation in more than 1/3 of the available area. The choice is between supply of water to villages covered by main canal or to villages covered by area. Water conservation can be carried out by allowing for 24 hours for filling of the main canal to allow the water to reach the tail. No outlet to be opened for at least 24 hours from the time of opening or irrigation sluice. When the canal is full then farmers can take their water.”

As of our trip on Sep 11 there had been more rain thus the tank is now filled to 20 feet. Also as WRD has scheduled a repair to the main canal in the rabi season, there will only be irrigation in the minor canal. Farmers who are getting irrigation are only those at the extreme head end and they will grow rice taking most of the water. The other farmers will grow sunflower or wheat, not banking on irrigation water as many have their own bore wells and those that do not will purchase water from those that do. The size of the fields of each farmer is small. In the kharif the system can irrigate 1000 acres but for the rabi this year only 250 acres will receive water.

Sunflower culture

Farmers growing sunflower either broadcast it or sow in rows. Row sowing means lower seeding rate of 2.5 kg/acre vs. 3 kg. They have been growing sunflower here over the past 10 years and use hybrids. According to the WUA president Mr. Sitaram Patel, he prefers Jalamukwi but all their selections are hybrids purchased from private seed dealers rather than the Society. There is no need of credit as our farmer cooperators, who are mostly medium farmers, have funds. Rice will be harvested by mid-November and when the soil is damp, the farmers will plow 3-4 times. In row seeding they make furrows by a pick tool (kudali) by hand at 1 foot widths and sow 1-2 seeds every 1 foot distance. They then pass a plank (pata) over the field drawn by a pair of animals to cover the seeds and level the field. After crop emergence farmers

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will thin the rows to allow only one plant per hill to grow. At 15-20 days after crop emergence, they loosen the soil with the pick tool and hill up the rows (pushing soil against the base of plants from both sides of a row). This operation also serves as a weeding although densities are low as the previous crop was flooded rice. Alternating flooded rice and a dryland crop causes havoc on weeds as the different species are adapted to either wetland or dryland habitats but not both thus weeds are generally not a problem on crops grown after puddled rice. Farmers apply fertilizer twice, once in the seed furrow with 2 bags superphosphate (16% P) and 1 bag of 16-32-12/acre (7 kg N, 24 kg P/acre) (17 kg N and 58 kg P/ha). The second fertilizer application is a ring of urea (a spoonful) (1 bag/acre or 23 kg N/acre or 55 kg N/ha) is placed around each plant before flowering which is then covered with the pick tool which scrapes the soil in the interrows. There are some 4-5 irrigations and if they get the water from the tank they pay Rs100/acre. The method for irrigation is to make shallow furrows through the field every 3 m and they make 3 x 3 plots bunded by soil which are irrigated individually until the water covers the area and then the next one and so on. This is small scale thus most work is done by hand. The farmers hire 7-8 laborers for furrow making, sowing, and 2 or so during irrigations.

Tall varieties are preferred as monkeys do not damage them as much. Monkeys come in groups of 10-20 to the field during the day and eat the stems. The farmers organize themselves so that there is a guard on duty all the time during the ripening stage over the last month of the 3-4 month duration crop. There is no need for insect pest or disease control. Birds are a problem particularly if the plantings are small where they can concentrate their damage, otherwise damage is tolerable. They expect a yield of 6-7 quintals/acre (1.4 t/ha). They consume most of it and if there is extra will sell to a middleman who pays them Rs18/kg who takes it in a truck to an expeller in the city and sells it for Rs20/kg. Thus they expect a gross profit of Rs25,200 per ha or Rs10,500/acre.

Wheat culture

Wheat is less preferred and the farmers get their seed from the last harvest and do not even know the name of the variety. Land preparation and crop culture are the same as

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in sunflower and all wheat is broadcast sown at a seeding rate of 40 kg/ac. They do not weed nor apply fungicides but may apply an insecticide (endosulfan) for stemborers to prevent whiteheads. All wheat is for home consumption and is grown on areas ¼ to ½ acre.

Kharif rice crop monitoring

July 11In Khushara Bahara village the most important problems seen on rice (which is in late stages of elongation) were yellow stemborer. The fields looked good in general with few weeds. We saw Cyperus iria and Echinochloa in the fields as the dominant weeds but in no field did it appear economically threatened. However if the farmers weeded late, early competition with weeds could have affected yield. We could see deadhearts in all fields and some clusters of them where the larvae hatched from an egg mass had spread out. Only one larva occurs per tiller thus the egg mass of 50-80 eggs gets dispersed around the oviposition site. Farmers again asked us what insecticide to use and they preferred chlorpyrifos. We were led to another field which was yellowing with the new leaves turning orange at the tips and then brown which is a nutrient deficiency. On such a field the farmer next season should put more FYM and then balanced inorganic NPK fertilizer. We told the farmer to apply zinc to one corner to see if that was the problem although the symptom was not exactly that of zinc, as varieties differ in nutrient deficiency symptoms that complicates diagnosis. We can do a soil analysis on this field in the dry season. Also present were scattered damaged leaves from leaffolder. There were obvious differences between fields in the color of the leaves with some that had used too much N and some too little, thus the need for the leaf color chart. We later discovered that this was the symptom of applying only N and not P and K thus balanced application of fertilizer should be emphasized.

July 12

During the visits to rice fields of six of the villages we saw that the rice crops looked very good as they did in Balar. The situation was very similar between the two systems both in terms of general crop vigor as well as the production problems we saw. Most fields were in late elongation but before panicle initiation. Most fields had

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adequate water with fewer deeply pounded fields as was more common in Balar. Only a few fields were only damp without standing water. Crop mixtures were becoming evident with uneven maturation and height as evident in a number of fields. We only saw zinc deficiency in one small area but a few fields were deficient in P and K which were yellowish over the entire field with stunted plants with fewer tillers and the new fully developed leaves were yellowish with burned tips. Either the farmers did not apply fertilizer or that the bags were adulterated. Many fields looked like the farmer applied too much N as they were deep green. More kinds of weeds were seen in Bilaspur but fewer very weedy fields were noted. Again Cyperus iria dominated along with Ludwigia hyssopifolia and water hyacinth. 3-4 grasses were also noted including Echinochloa, Digitaria, and Eleusine. Wild rice (karga) was also evident in many fields but we did not see an extremely bad field as we did in Balar. But this weed is very important for the farmers to eliminate. Ladies were still weeding well after the optimal time. Diseases seen were very light and of no economic importance in any field. In fact leaves were remarkable clean of fungal spots of any kind. We saw some blast in scattered fields. Insect pests recorded were more remarkable in what was not present than what was. Stemborers (but much less than in Balar) as deadhearts in one field never exceeded 1%. We saw some adults resting in the field but no egg masses. Using a sweep net we sampled a number of fields. We also slapped the foliage at the base to dislodge planthoppers. The most common pests were grasshoppers especially Oxya but a wide assortment of species but none at economic levels. A surprisingly high number of greenhorned caterpillars were noted but again not of economic importance. We saw some pupae and farmers had no idea what these were. Some scattered leaffolder damaged leaves were seen but never any larvae when the folded leaves were opened. Leafhoppers and planthoppers were virtually nonexistent. No caseworms, whorl maggot, or hispa were seen. We did see a few rice bugs which I expect could become much more abundant as the crop heads out. It is a likely site for high rice bug densities due to favorable aestivation sites nearby in wooded areas. A number of different kinds of natural enemies were noted. There are always high densities of dragonflies and damselflies patrolling the fields. A number of different kinds of spiders were seen but mostly those in the canopy rather than scurrying around on the water. Due to the low population of hoppers numbers were low. No Cyrtorhinus was ever found nor aquatic microvelia or mesovelia predators.

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Field trials

The COs Duryodan and Kamlesh set out trials in two fields in each of the eight villages. The treatments combined water management, dosage and timing of fertilizer, and IPM. We visited them in six of the villages and mostly they were unbunded which is not good for water management and fertilizer trials so this needs to be rectified in future trials. If the farmer is not willing to help bund the plots then they should select other cooperators. It only takes a half hour to bund a plot, less time if more assist. If water management is to be examined then the bunds should be intact. We took tiller counts with the 0.5 m2 wire frame in order to express the tiller density per m2. Instruction was given on how to identify a productive tiller from a nonbearing tiller.

Beherakhar Minor Irrigation System

CO: Mr. Domendra Kumar SahuScheduleSep 14 Fri Arrived at noon. Visited fields in Beherakhar, Loharidih and farmers in PandariaOvernight in PWD Guesthouse SalebaraSep 15 Sat 9:30AM visited farmers in Usarwahi and fields in Usarwahi, Pandaria, and Bhimori2PM leave for Raipur

From Mr. Joshi’s report “the R&U proposal of the scheme consists of replacement of the damaged sluice gate and cement concrete lining in the filling reaches where heavy leakage is causing drainage difficulty to lands in Usarwahi village. The repair to sluice gate would be taken in the month of May when the water level in the tank is at the lowest. The cement concrete lining of canal in the head reach will have to be taken up first and would require closure of main canal and hence this year Rabi cropping in the complete irrigation area will not be possible. There is water available in the tank for 150 ha and they have had a meeting to decide that 80% will be planted to wheat and 20% to gram. Three villages will grow rabi which are Beherakhar with 20-25 acres, Bhimori with 25-30 acres, and Pandaria with 95-105 acre.”

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Kharif rice crop

The general crop condition was the poorest of the sites in the Chhattisgarh Plain even though it was transplanted and not direct seeded dry as in Balar and Amakoni. Fields were commonly seen with many mixtures of varieties and off types and plant nutrients were often suboptimal. In addition at tail end villages there were many fields exhibiting drought stress even though this has been a good rainfall year which meant that the farmers should be able to grow a good rainfed crop but clearly this was not the case probably due to the light soils. It is also thought that soil lacked organic matter as well. The crops were mostly in the pre-panicle initiation stage but some fields were flowering while others were young. Some farmers are planting hybrids and in those fields which followed the COs recommended nutrient management, the crops looked good. Thus we are confident that nutrient management is lacking in most fields due to lack of knowledge.

Fields did not appear to be very weedy although the CO said that weeding was done late. The major weed was Cyperus iria with a smattering of grasses but few broadleaves. Some fields exhibited some symptoms of bacterial leaf blight but incidence was low. There was only one key insect pest and that was gall midge particularly in Bhimore and Pandaria villages. Some counts are as follows per 0.5 m2:Village Cultivar Tillers Galls % gall

midgeNo. hills

Tillers per hill

Bhimore 144 54 35% 29 5.0Pandaria MTU 1010 140 1 0.7% 36 3.8Pandaria Kultur 261 200 77% 41 6.4

The farmers helped in taking the counts and quickly learned the method. They wanted to know what insecticide to apply as they normally broadcast Phorate 10% granules at 1 kg product per acre. They said this does not work. Two factors will affect Phorate, the dosage and whether there is standing water in the field at > 4 cm depth. To achieve a dosage of 0.5 kg ai Phorate/ha which is the minimum effective dosage they would need to double their amount to 2 kg product per acre. In addition they need to have standing water in the field. The field with 77% gall midge was essentially dry with cracked soil. Thus the farmer would have to spray chlorpyrifos + cypermethrin that is the most available to farmers. It is believed that the permanently moist

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conditions in the villages which allows rice to ratoon and maintain gall midge is responsible for the problem. Fixing the leaking dam should go a long way in resolving not only the irrigation problem but the gall midge problem as well. Gall midge management should begin with farmers planting resistant varieties such as Mahamaya, MTU1001, Danteswari, and Chandrahasani as well as weekly monitoring. When galls begin to appear the farmers should take weekly counts with the 0.5 m2 wire frame as we did and when the incidence reaches 10-15% galls the farmer could apply insecticide.

We used a sweep net in fields from all the villages and what we found was remarkable in what pests were absent. The most numerous pest was greenhorned caterpillar and the farmers had no name for this defoliator. It along with other defoliators such as grasshoppers did very little damage, no where near to being economically important to reduce yield. Stemborer deadhearts could not be found but we saw some whiteheads. Planthoppers were absent. Only scattered leaffolders were seen. We saw some evidence of caseworm but the crop was getting too old for this to be prevalent. It was also too soon for rice bugs.

We visited all of the field trials which amounted to 6 fields which tested water and

nutrient management, combined in the same fields. No bunds could be made as the crop

was old when the trials were established. In the future bunds need to be put in after the

crop is planted.

Rabi cropsSome farmers grow Lathyrus as a relay crop after rice and consume all at home to make their dhal. Soils in Beherakhar are matasi thus are light textured with less waterholding capacity and organic matter thus yields are low. Only in Pandaria have farmers had experience growing rabi crops, those in Bhimori and Usarwaha have never grown them and will depend on the project for recommended practices.

Wheat

Farmers in Pandaria were interviewed as to their method of wheat cultivation. They had grown a crop some 10 years ago. They will sow in December after three plowings. The variety

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of choice is Navrada 4. Seed is broadcast at 40 kg/acre seeding rate and covered with the pata animal drawn implement. Before covering they apply the first application of fertilizer DAP at 1.5 bags/acre, the second application is urea at 25 kg/acre at 25-30 days after emergence timed with the first irrigation. They make canals with a spade and make a 3 x 4 m lattice of small canals in the field dividing the fields into blocks which they irrigate one block at a time moving from uphill to down hill. Two people can make the earthworks. There is no weeding as weeds are few, there are no diseases and the only insect pest is a stemborer which they do not spray. Birds are not pests. Stray cattle are kept out with a fence with watchmen taking turns. Yield is estimated to be 8-10 bags/acre (1.3 t/ha). 80% is sold expecting now a price of Rs8/kg and the rest consumed. They sell the balance as wheat is difficult to store. If they sold all of the crop they would earn Rs10,400/ha before expenses.

Chickpea

Again Pandaria farmers were interviewed. The same land preparation as for wheat is done and they broadcast sow but they do not know the variety (it is small seeded) nor the sowing rate. There are two irrigations, one at sowing and the other at 5-10% flowering. If irrigation occurs after flowering there will be few flowers so this calls for critical timing. There are no weeds but there is a wilt disease and a podborer. They do nothing for the wilt as when it comes the crop is essentially over. They apply endosulfan 35% EC spray for podborer and place two caps full (30ml) of insecticide per 15 liter sprayerload for 1 acre (0.05 kg ai/ha) which is underdosed by a factor of 9 as the rate should be 0.4 kg ai/ha. They expect to harvest 2 quintals (200 kg) per acre (0.48 t/ha) and fetch Rs15-20/kg. They sell all of the crop and earn Rs7,200/ha before expenses.

Amakoni Minor Irrigation System

COs : Mr. Sanjay Kumar NimbalkarMr. Kamlesh Kumar Sahu

Schedule

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Tues Sep 18 8AM leave for Amakoni with Dr. Sahu and Mr. Nandi, arrive 10AM visited fields and trials in Kutari most of the day ending up in Khumaria to visit fields and meet farmersReturned to Mahasumund at 8PMWed Sep 19 9AM buy supplies in Mahasumund10AM go to Roda for farmer meeting and to visit fields1PM visit fields in Amakoni3PM visit WRD rest house4:30PM leave for Raipur

There is only enough water stored in the tank for the kharif rice crop; the only possibility for a rabi crop would be if there were good rains this month (Sept). There are two canals, one is damaged while the other only leaks. The leaky one can be used. Soils are light.

Kharif rice crop

The site is a mixture of irrigated and rainfed rice. There are some very good looking fields and there are some of the poorest fields we have seen yet. The soils are light and quite a number of fields are suffering from drought stress. On the other hand we saw fields that lacked drainage and the crop was suffering from stagnated water and algal blooms in fields at the end of the irrigation system.

Some fields are in flowering and milky stage while others are in maximum tillering. Late planted crops have suffered high infestations of caseworm giving a symptom called chitri banki where losses will be high.

A number of fields are planted too densely. We saw a wet seeded field where the farmer

had chopped off 40% of the leaves in about half the field as the plants were lodging. We

saw transplanted fields that were too densely planted as well.

Mixtures were commonly seen in crops and farmers make few attempts to purify their seed for next year. We saw our trial where the farmer was growing rice for seed. He was instructed to remove all off types and mixtures at flowering and just before harvest to purify the seed.

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Regarding plant nutrition there are patches of zinc deficiency and the CO has become very popular as a result of making recommendations to use zinc sulfate which resulted in farmers becoming convinced that he knew what he was doing. As a result some 3-4 farmers on average come to his home each day to seek advice. They want him to go to their fields, some of which are very far away thus it takes much of his time. He does it however as we did as we want to encourage the respect of the farmers. The last field we visited in Khumari we walked about 1 km after the vehicle could go no farther. We went by foot crossing a stream in the moonlight and over barbed wire fences and brambles to ‘see’ that the farmer had zinc deficiency. I hope he said thank you.

We saw one field which exhibited the typical symptoms of nutrient deficiency that we have seen in other sites. New leaves were orange-yellow and turning brown at the tips. We interviewed the farmer regarding his fertilizer application and he said that he only put on N. thus the crop was suffering from P and K deficiency even though he used 4 cartloads of FYM. The local Society had not received enough DAP or ran out so all he had was N. These light soils are bound to be nutrient deficient in most elements and we will do extensive soil testing in the dry season. Compared to other sites there were fewer fields that overused N as leaf color was not dark green for the most part. Farmers will need a lot of assistance in getting the correct fertilizer rates and timing. We showed a farmer how to detect panicle initiation (PI) stage which is the time of the third fertilizer application. Almost all farmers time this application two weeks too late at booting. By this time the panicle has determined how many spikelets it will set. If the fertilizer was timed at PI there would be more spikelets and thus higher yield potential. We also demonstrated how to record the number of tillers per m2 which can foretell yield.

We saw more different kinds of weeds in the fields of Amakoni than in other sites. There were two prevalent sedges, Cyperus iria (pulanythah) and an unidentified other one they call chuka. There was Ludwigia plus another one with a purple flower Cyanotis axillaris and one with a blue flower Commelina sp.. Another was a hairy broadleaved called mokala. Water hyacinth was also seen in transplanted fields. Several Echinochloa species were noted as well. Farmers tend to weed too late as in other sites.

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We saw few diseases although on one field which was near to flowering we saw evidence that bacterial leaf blight was imminent. No blast was seen and all fields had very green unblemished leaves free of the common leaf spot diseases. What farmers call blast is zinc deficiency.

We saw very high incidence of gall midge which is a major pest in the area along with caseworm. There was some evidence of stemborer but in the several 0.5 m2 samples we took, there was hardly one deadheart. Gall midge however was another story. We took several 0.5m2 samples in fields showing high gall midge.

Village Variety Hills Gall midge

Tillers Total tillers

% galls 1/

Kutari Kultur 32 42 53 95 44%Amakoni Kultur 26 11 62 73 15%Roda Swarna 27 7 46 53 13%1/ Per 5 hills

The field with 44% gall midge damaged tillers surely will suffer yield loss whereas the

crop may be able to tolerate the 13-15% levels, but as it also suffered from high

caseworm defoliation, we recommended Phorate 10%G. The Amakoni farmer said he

applied an insecticide ‘Bhradahan’ at 100 ml/acre without control. We do not know what

this product is but even if it were formulated at 100% the dosage of 0.24 kg ai/ha is less

than lethal 0.4 kg ai/ha. If there is standing water in the fields we recommended Phorate

10% granules to be applied at 2 1-kg bags per acre. The farmer thought that the

caseworm moths flying when disturbed by our walking in the field were the adults of gall

midge. This shows great ignorance on the part of farmers and need for training. Farmers

stand a better chance of achieving adequate dosage with broadcasted granules than with a

spray.

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According to Dr. Sahu Mahamaya and MTU 1001 are resistant to gall midge and farmers that suffered high infestations should plant them next year. Mahamaya is an early rice but farmers want a longer maturing type such as MTU 1001. However we found a field of MTU 1001 with high infestation. On speaking with a key farmer who is our cooperator in the seed quality trials he said that he observed that other fields of MTU1001 as well as some of Mahamaya are free of gall midge. Thus we suspect that there are mix-ups in the varieties where what the farmer thought he was purchasing was MTU1001 but was actually something else. This is common as farmers often get varieties from their neighbors who may be mistaken on the actual name of the variety. There is little that a farmer can know just looking at its features. Dr. Sahu can recognize some of them by morphological characters but not all.

We saw three new insect pests in Roda, two minor and one potentially serious. In one of the last fields visited during the trip slapping the foliage of a crop (3 hills slapped three times very hard and opening up an area to see the insects that had fallen on the water surface) after maximum tillering produced some 20-30 young nymphs of brown planthopper. We had taken some sweeps in the area and noted that spiders were prevalent so it is possible that natural enemies can deal with this situation. The farmer and CO were instructed to monitor the field twice a week looking to note when the population reached the older nymphal stage. At that point if the density reaches > 1/tiller the farmer should spray BPMC (Bipin) at 0.4 kg ai/ha.

A farmer also complained of damage to his panicle which caused empty grains. Dr. Sahu thought it could be birds but more likely it was Conocephalus a long antennae katydid that is both a predator and feeds on rice grains. The reason the damage was high was that it came from the first panicles that emerged in the field thus the pest became concentrated as it prefers panicles to foliage. Once greater numbers emerge the damage will be diluted. The density of the katydid is not such that it could cause economic harm to the crop and its role as a predator counteracts the minimal damage it does to a few panicles.

In another problem brought forward was termite damage in the field. Roda is an irrigated area and fields are transplanted and to have termites eating off the roots under the soil is remarkable. It turns out that the farmers were correct and

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termites had eaten the roots of several hills of rice near to the bunds. Termites will die when flooded but the field was sandy and very light and well drained soil without standing water allowing the termites which inhabit the bunds to come into the field and forage on rice roots. Actually the infestation was minimal but farmers become alarmed when a few panicles show damage or a few hills of rice are killed as they fear that in a few days the whole field will be affected at serious loss. We recommended diazinon which is a soil insecticide to be applied just along the bunds at a high water volume to allow the insecticide to enter the soil profile. If it rained hard or the farmer could irrigate the field there would be no reason to spray.

Caseworm is also very common at the site and we saw a very high infestation in Khutari at the end of the irrigation system that was poorly drained. In such an area caseworms accumulate as they move field to field in their cases which float on the water surface. Thus the become highly abundant to the chagrin of the farmer we met where there were large patches of heavily defoliated plants and yield loss would be more than 50% in that field. On the other hand caseworm is one of the most sensitive insect pests to insecticides and can be controlled by almost any one chosen. We will recommend only the safest products such as neem or imidacloprid (Confidor) with low mammalian toxicity thus safe to the farmer who applies them.

Other pests noted were leaffolder but again as in other sites we saw many moths but little damage and no live larvae feeding. This is an indication of high populations of natural enemies. We took net sweeps of a number of fields and found spiders and damselflies and dragonflies as the dominant predators. We also saw corixids or waterboatmen in the paddy water so that if an insect fell onto the water surface they would be attacked immediately. We saw no planthoppers or leafhoppers. Only some stemborer damage including whiteheads was found but all at subeconomic levels. There was the usual greenhorned caterpillars but very few grasshoppers.

It is indicative that if farmers cannot control caseworm which is the easiest insect pest of rice to control, it can be concluded that they are not controlling any of the insect pests in their fields. The main reason is low dosage which is a consequence of low spray volumes.

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Trials

There are more field trials here than in any one site we visited. Here is a summary of the

trials:

Trial Kotari Roda Amakoni KumariDapog planting method

2 1

2 seedlings per hill

5 5

Water management

1 1

Seed quality

1 1

Zinc sulfate

1

Early weeding

4 4 2

Damage simulation

2

Total 9 6 5 10

All the trials seen looked to be well carried out. The water management trial was the only one that required bunding and all were bunded. While in Kumari we instituted a new trial to take advantage of a farmer who lop off rice leaves from his field. We had wanted to do this trial in all sites but no farmer would allow even 10% area to be cut from their leaves. In this field is approached 50%.

Aside from formal field trials where we mark out a 36m2 plot with stakes the CO is making recommendations to farmers and following up to see if they resulted in a good effect. This is another way of testing just by following up on fields where the CO has made recommendations and verified if farmers had followed them. This will be a good way of determining the inorganic fertilizer rates for NPK and will speed up technology verification.

On-farm trial results

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Rice yield t/ha

Site Cooperator Village VarietyRecommended

packageFarmer’s

field%

differenceBilaspur tank

Farmer 1 4.80 4.32 11

Farmer 2 4.70 4.36 8

Geg Farmer 1 Katra US312 6.41 5.34 20Farmer 2 Basbevpur Sonam 5.87 4.80 22

Average 5.45 4.71 15.3

Rabi crops

Rabi crops are only possible in the hamlet of Roda called Banjabara for about 100 acres. The farmers are still deciding what crop they will grow. One problem is that because farmers are near to the forest there are packs of monkeys, as many as 60-80 that invade fields and there is no way a watchman can keep them out as they can get aggressive. They will eat most rabi crops including groundnuts. Wheat is possible as they may disturb it less.

AIDE MEMOIRECONSULTATION MISSION FOR LOAN 2159-IND

CHHATTISGARH IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT PROJECT(14-19 SEPTEMBER 2006)

INTRODUCTION1 The Asian Development Bank (ADB) fielded a consultation mission (the Mission)1 for the Chhattisgarh Irrigation Development Project (CIDP) from 14 to 19 September 2006. The Mission held meetings with the Honorable Chief Minister Dr. Raman Singh, members of the Legislative Assembly, the Principal Secretary, Energy and Water Resources Department, Secretary, Department of Finance, Chhattisgarh Government; with senior officials of the Water Resources Department (WRD), Project Management Unit (PMU), and the loan and technical assistance consultants, to discuss project implementation arrangements, progress, and priority activities. The Mission also visited selected CIDP subproject sites, and one of the sites for the new projects proposed by the Chhattisgarh Government. The findings and recommendations of the Mission, as recorded in this Aide Memoire, were discussed with the Principal Secretary, Energy and Water Resources Department. A list of persons met is in Annex 1.

PROJECT BACKGROUND2 The loan of $46.1 million was approved by ADB on 29 March 2005 and became effective on 30 June 2006. The Project will improve irrigation services, enhance agricultural practices, and strengthen water resources management to increase the productivity of irrigated agriculture in Chhattisgarh. The Project will also: (i) attain more effective management, development and sustainable operation and maintenance of the irrigation systems by WRD and Water User Associations (WUAs) for improved irrigation service delivery through institutional reforms within WRD and capacity development of WRD and WUAs; (ii) rehabilitate and upgrade minor and medium irrigation systems through a participatory process directed by WUAs; and (iii) introduce improved agricultural practices to expand areas cropped in the dry season (rabi) and diversify cropping. The Project will be implemented over a period of seven years. The WRD is the Executing Agency (EA) and has the overall responsibility for the implementation of the Project.

MISSION FINDINGS

Project Implementation

PMU Organization and Staffing

3 The Project Director was appointed in September 2004. In June 2005, the Chhattisgarh Government and ADB agreed to establish a PMU that will manage project activities and maintain liaison with local authorities and beneficiary organizations. The PMU, design, social

1 The Mission comprised P. Bozakov, Water Resources Specialist/Mission Leader, SANS and Jaya Chatterji, Project Implementation Officer, India Resident Mission.

development and dam safety units were formally established through an order of the Engineer-in-Chief, WRD in July 2006.

4 The pace of mobilization of the PMU staff has been slow, and to-date out of 57 staff only 7 have joined the PMU.2 To accelerate the process, it was agreed with the Chhattisgarh Government that: (i) the PMU staff will be mobilized on priority basis, starting with the mobilization of key design staff within one month; (ii) personnel for the Social Development Unit and PMU accountant will be recruited from the market through a transparent selection process; and (iii) agricultural officers3 will be recruited through the NGOs that will be selected and contracted by the Project. The consultants will assist PMU in the preparation of job descriptions, selection, and recruitment of PMU staff.

Project Consultants

5 In accordance with the loan agreement, two individual project management consultants (one international and one local) under consulting Package A were selected by ADB in July 2006. The negotiations for the consulting Package A were completed on 16 September 2006, and the consultants will be mobilized in October 2006.4 Consulting services for the preparation and implementation of the Participatory Irrigation Management Act (PIM) under the TA (consulting Package B) commenced in November 2005 and are on schedule. The TA progress, activities and issues are discussed in para 16.

6 Proposals from the shortlisted firms for consulting services WRD institutional strengthening, planning, and design (consulting Package C) were received in February 2006, and the negotiations with the first-ranked firm Hydrosult of Canada were completed in July 2006. The Package C team leader was mobilized in Raipur on 8 September 2006, and the schedule for the mobilization of key team members has been agreed (para 7). Priority activities under Package C during the inception phase will include:

(i) Organizing discussions, presentations, and workshops to raise the understanding of the Project objectives, components and implementation arrangements within the WRD.

(ii) Selecting and prioritizing, in close cooperation with the Consultants of Part “B” of the Project and based on the work they have already accomplished in consulting and mobilizing the WUAs, irrigation schemes to be targeted for first year of the Project.5 The design and implementation of the four irrigation schemes appraised during project preparation will be initiated on priority basis, followed by 12 pilot projects, at least one in each district.

(iii) Start capacity assessment of the WRD on which a comprehensive training plan for capacity building can be based.

2 Some 22 counterpart staff will have to be urgently assigned to Package C consultants to select, appraise and design rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure over an area of 200,000 ha.

3 The timely assignment of such specialists by the Department of Agriculture cannot be assured.4 Reallocation of loan funds from unallocated category to consulting services category will be effected after the

award of Package A to reflect the actual cost of consulting services. 5 The subproject selection criteria are in Appendix 5 of the “Report and Recommendation of the President on the

Proposed Loan and Technical Assistance Grant to India for the Chhattisgarh Irrigation Development Project”.

2

(iv) Prepare, in consultation with PMU, detailed project work and procurement plans and an accelerated staff mobilization schedule covering at least an 18-month period.

(v) Identify the scope of topographic surveys and field investigations required for the rehabilitation of project infrastructure; prepare a prioritized implementation schedule, contract packages and bidding documents for these works.

(vi) Complete the Inception Report by 20 October 2006.

7 To accelerate project implementation, key Package C specialists will be mobilized during the inception period as follows:

(i) Deputy Team Leader (local): end of September 2006; (ii) Irrigation Design Specialists (int’l and local): early October 2006; (iii) Capacity Development Specialists (int’l and local): early October

2006; (iv) Procurement Specialist (local) would be mobilized ahead of

schedule (end of September 2006) to allow procurement of equipment (computers, software, survey equipment, etc.) without delay and start preparation of documentation for tendering outsourcing of topographic surveys and construction.

PMU Premises, Vehicles, and Equipment

8 The ground floor the Data Centre of WRD has been provided by WRD to accommodate the PMU and consultants’ staff. However, this office space will be insufficient when all the consultants and PMU staff are mobilized. It was therefore, agreed that the design, costing and procurement for one additional floor of the WRD Data Center6, currently estimated at $0.25 million, and for two training centers (including 4 small residential quarters) will be initiated immediately, and financed from the civil works component. The remaining two training centers will be constructed after the further expansion of the project training activities, anticipated in 2009.

9 Against the 29 vehicles budgeted in the project cost estimates for the first year, the Department of Finance has sanctioned only 12 vehicles. In order to facilitate the extensive field investigations related to the screening, appraisal and design of 200 to 300 subprojects that will be rehabilitated under the Project; and the on-going and future social mobilization activities it is recommended to: (i) prioritize the utilization of the already approved vehicles for field visits; (ii) initiate the early procurement of the remaining 17 vehicles, and (iii) make arrangements for hiring additional transport, as required for field work. The consultants will prepare a work plan and cost estimates (also related to transport requirements and logistical support) and submit there to PMU for approval. Furthermore, CG assured that that all project vehicles will be used only by the Project.

6 During the construction period, the PMU staff and consultants will work in the allocated office space.

3

10 The specifications and procurement packages for the PMU equipment (computers, printers, software, survey equipment, furniture, etc.) will be prepared by the Package ‘C’ Consultants after a detailed assessment of project requirements.

Project Implementation Schedule

11 It is estimated that some 40 subprojects will have to be prepared for rehabilitation and upgrading (R&U) each year. This will require extensive topographic and condition surveys to be undertaken simultaneously in a number of districts. Therefore, it has been agreed to execute these surveys through private contractors. The Package ‘C’, jointly with the TA consultants, will assess the scope of works, and prioritize their implementation; prepare contract packages and bidding documents, and assist in contract award, management and quality supervision. All procurement of goods and services financed under the Project will be undertaken in accordance with ADB’s Procurement Guidelines.

12 The Mission recommended that detailed work and procurement plans and an accelerated staff mobilization schedule covering at least an 18-month period should be prepared and presented in the Package C Inception Report. These plans should also indicate the budgetary allocations required under the Loan and the counterpart financing required from the Government and from project beneficiaries. The work plan should consider intensification and harmonization of project activities to make up for the initial delay experienced in loan signing and effectiveness.

Loan Covenants

13 The Mission discussed with the Chhattisgarh Government the due dates for compliance with the following covenants, and it was agreed to implement measures to ensure compliance by the specified period:

(i) Within 4 months of effective date the Chhattisgarh Government, through the PMU, shall establish a Project Performance and Monitoring System. This shall be developed and implemented in accordance with monitoring and evaluation parameters as required by ADB. Schedule 6, para 16.

(ii) Chhattisgarh Government shall submit to the Borrower and ADB, project performance reports on a quarterly basis within one month of the end of each quarter. Schedule 6, para 17(b).

14 The consultants will assist PMU in establishing the project performance and monitoring system, and project reporting.

Study and Training Program

15 The study and training programs to be financed by the Loan were discussed in detail. It was agreed to adopt a three-phase approach: a high level visit to countries with similar institutional set-up at secretary level including meetings, workshops, and policy discussions and field visits; this will be followed by overseas and in the country training (2-4 weeks) of junior

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project staff in advanced design techniques and PIM. This component of the training program should be initiated in early 2007, after the full deployment of the PMU counterpart staff.

TA 4573-IND: WUA Empowerment for Improved Water Management

16 The associated grant-financed TA in the amount of $1.9 million was provided to support capacity development activities for WUAs as well as for project monitoring and evaluation. The TA will support the WUA training program to develop the capacity of (i) WUAs to assume responsibility for irrigation system management and O&M, and (ii) WUAs and farmers to adopt diversified and rabi cropping. TA activities are directly integrated with the Project under the WUA strengthening and agricultural support services components. Consulting services for the Participatory Irrigation Management Act (PIM) under the TA commenced in November 2005, the Inception Report was submitted in January 2005, and the TA Phase II report is due in mid October 2006. To-date the following main activities have been undertaken:

(i) Chhattisgarh PIM Act has been developed through a participatory consultative process and it was approved by the Legislative Assembly in March 2006. WUAs rules have been developed and submitted to WRD in May 2006. WRD is following up with the approval process.

(ii) Initial awareness building on CIDP, PIM in general and WUA elections is in progress.

(iii) A detailed TOR for NGOs involvement in participatory O&M and agricultural production support services has been prepared.

(iv) Strategies for the implementation of the participatory irrigation management (PIM) processes have been proposed and discussed at a State-level workshop held with senior staff of WRD. These included including irrigation O&M and water management, focusing on post R&U, shared management by WUAs and WRD, agricultural support, monitoring and evaluation, and management information systems.

(v) An information, communication and education specialist has been selected and an awareness campaign is being planned to enhance farmer awareness on PIM throughout Chhattisgarh.

17 The following issues relating to the TA implementation need close monitoring:

(i) It was agreed with the Chhattisgarh Government that the WUA elections will be held in the last week of December 2006. A schedule of activities to be completed prior to the elections has been prepared by the TA consultants, including the approval of WUA rules, which is a prerequisite for the WUA elections, and needs to be followed-up by the PMU and WRD.

(ii) In order to continue developing WUA capacity and implement the agricultural training and capacity building programs, it was reconfirmed that the “Training and Workshops” budget available under the Loan will be used to finance these activities. TA consultants, jointly with Package C consultants, will prepare

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detailed field visit and work plans (including transport requirements and related logistical support7) that will be financed from this component and submit these to PMU for approval by end September 2006.

Imprest Account

18 It was confirmed by WRD that the imprest account is not required at present, due to financial implications (payment of interest charges to ADB). Provisions have been made in the WRD annual budget for project financing, and withdrawal applications for payments eligible under the loan will be submitted to ADB as required. Payments in foreign currency to consultants and contractors would be arranged through ADB.

Project Correspondence

19 The Mission advised the PMU to use e-mail for informal consultation on project administration matters with ADB staff at the Headquarters and INRM. However, it was emphasized that matters that need ADB’s approval should be sent formally to ADB by letter or by fax. The Mission informed PMO to address all correspondence to:

Mr. F.C. Roche, DirectorAgriculture, Natural Resources and Social Services DivisionSouth Asia DepartmentAsian Development Bank, 6 ADB Avenue0401 Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, PhilippinesFax Number: (632) 636-2391

FOLLOW-UP ACTIONS20 The follow-up actions tabulated below have been agreed upon, and the status of their implementation will be reflected in the quarterly progress reports for the Project, starting with the report for the quarter ending September 2006.

7 TA consultants are responsible for managing and guiding the NGOs in mobilizing WUAs, their training and capacity building and post-R&U water management and agricultural development. It is therefore, crucial to provide the TA with adequate transport facilities till the end of TA period.

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ACTION DUE DATE1 Submission of TA Phase II Report 15 Oct 20062 Preparation of project implementation and procurement plans, staffing

schedules and transport requirements for field activities 20 Oct 2006

3 Establish Project Performance and Monitoring System 31 Oct 20064 Mobilization of key counterpart staff 31 Oct 20065 Submission of Quarterly Report (Jul-Sep 2006) to ADB 31 Oct 20066 Preparation of bidding documents for office and training centers 30 Nov 20067 Selection and contracting of social mobilization NGOs 30 Nov 20068 Preparation of bidding documents for office equipment 30 Nov 20069 Preparation of bidding documents for surveys and investigations 30 Nov 200610 Clearance by the Assembly of purchase of 17 additional vehicles 31 Dec 200611 WUA elections 31 Dec 2006

NEXT MISSION21 It was agreed that an Inception Mission will be undertaken in November 2006, after the submission of the Package C Inception Report.

OTHER MATTERS22 Proposals for extending the cooperation between the Chhattisgarh Government and ADB in the water sector were discussed during a meeting with the Honorable Chief Minister Dr. Raman Singh, held on 16 September 2006.8 Two projects for ADB financing were proposed by the Chief Minister: (i) recharging of groundwater aquifer in agriculture lands adjacent to large rivers through low-head weirs; and (ii) development of groundwater potential employing high-efficient irrigation technologies. The Mission visited one of the how-head weir sites to inspect the facilities and collect first-hand field information. Upon return to the ADB headquarters, the Mission will convey the Chief Ministers’ proposals to the Management.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT23 The Mission expresses its appreciation to the Government, WRD, provincial authorities, PMU, and other concerned Government agencies for their excellent cooperation and courtesies.

Raipur 18 September 2006

P. BozakovWater Resources Management Specialist

Mission Leader8 Initial consultations for further cooperation in the sector with the Principal Secretary, Energy and Water Resources

Department took place on 15 September 2006.

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LIST OF PERSONS MET BY THE MISSION

Government of ChhattisgarhHonorable Chief Minister Dr. Raman SinghMr. Raj Kamal Singhania, M.L.A.

Water Resources DepartmentMr. Vivek Dhand, Principal Secretary, Energy and Water Resources Department

Mr. S. K. Bhaduri, Engineer-in-Chief, Water Resources Department

Financial DepartmentMr. D.S. Mishra, Principal Secretary Mr. K. Pariyar, Deputy Secretary and Additional Director (Institutional Finance)

PMUMr. S. K. Sarkar, Project Director

Mr. S. V. Bhagwat, Training & IT Coordinator (Deputy Director, Hydrometeorology

Division No-4, Raipur)

Mr. V. K. Ratrey, M&E and MIS Specialist

PIM UnitMr. K. S. Shinde, Administration (PIM)

TA Consultants (PIM): International - Kellogg, Brown & Root Pty. Ltd., AustraliaMr. Robert Harrison (General Manager, ODA Project)

Dr. C. M. Wijayaratna, Team Leader/PIM Specialist

Mr. Philip Riddell (Irrigated O&M and Water Management Specialist)

Dr. James Litsinger (Irrigated Agriculture Development Specialist)

Mr. Victor Gillespie (MIS and M&E Specialist)

Domestic – JPS & Associates, New Delhi, India Mr. O. P. Nigam (Vice President)

Mr. Satya Mishra (Deputy Team Leader/PIM Specialist)

Mr. B. O. Joshi (Irrigated O&M and Water Management Specialist)

Project Implementation Consultants (Package-C): Hydrosult Inc. CanadaDr. Michel Wakil (Project Manager)

Mr. Robert De Krueff (Team Leader)

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