Shalander Kumar

• Ph.D
• Deputy Global Research Program Director Enabling Systems Transformation and Cluster Leader- Markets Institutions and Policy at International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics

Our study analyzes the determinants, sources, and levels of protein consumption among 785 households across nine districts in six Indian states in the semi-arid tropics. We found that 80% of these households consumed less protein than recommended and relied on cereals for 60–75% of their protein intake. Notably, even when protein-rich foods are acc...

This article examines the potential of conservation agriculture (CA) in rainfed areas particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions of the Indian subcontinent. The CA practices under different types of rainfall, soil and production system were identified based on the analysis of studies undertaken in different agro-climatic regions of India. The n...

The design and diffusion of context-specific technologies is centrally important in the multi-dimensional, complex farming systems in arid and semi-arid regions. This paper uses a mixed-method framework to characterize the complexity and heterogeneity of smallholder farming systems and identifies constraints to and opportunities for sustainable int...

Rainwater harvesting and its utilization have a very important role to play in harnessing the production potential within dryland systems. This study assesses the performance of small rainwater harvesting structures (farm-ponds) in 5 major rainfed states of India over the period 2009–2011 using data from multiple sources and stakeholders. Rainwater...

CONTEXT:- India, a prominent global milk producer, faces suboptimal animal milk productivity primarily due to feed and fodder deficits and malnutrition of milch animals. In Tamil Nadu, landrace, dual-purpose and multi-cut sorghum fodder cultivars play a pivotal role in providing much-needed fodder under rainfed and limited irrigation conditions. OB...

Nearly 500 million farmers are smallholders, producing ~80% of food in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. • Smallholder mixed farming systems operate within complex socio-economic and environmental contexts, presenting both opportunities and challenges. • The smallholder farming systems are highly heterogeneous, vulnerable, and face a multitude of chal...

The resilience capacity of the smallholder households is one of the main drivers of their ability to continue to farm and make investments in the fragile dryland regions. This paper aims to assess the resilience profile of smallholder farmers in the face of climate change and the factors influencing it in three dryland sub-regions of Senegal: Louga...

Despite the promise of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) to improve food security in South Asia, most CSA practices and technologies have not been widely adopted. We identify the key barriers to CSA adoption in South Asia and suggest strategies to overcome them to increase CSA adoption at scale.

This study estimates changes in productivity and profitability and their respective components for two major Indian sse crops, pigeon peas and chickpeas. Results show that average profitability declined during the period under consideration (2009-2014) for both pulse crops. Lower profits are driven by increases in input prices and decreases in tota...

Kumar, Das and Jat discuss the potential to increase cultivation of millets, and outline some of the factors contributing to low demand for millets, despite effects to increase awareness about their nutritional benefits, they highlight the need for coordinated efforts between various stakeholders to make millets affordable for consumers and economi...

Climate change poses a significant challenge to farmers worldwide. It affects men and women differently due to their diverse roles, responsibilities, resource access and sociocultural norms. Understanding the gender perspective would help policymakers to develop evidence-based strategies that address unique vulnerabilities, promoting equitable, inc...

Sustainable livelihoods (SL) have emerged as a crucial area of focus in global environmental change research, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This field is rapidly gaining prominence in sustainability science and has become one of the primary research paradigms. In our study, we conducted scientometrics analysis using the IS...

Kumar S, Pramanik S, Yessofou A N, Gondwe T, Worou O N, Whitbread A. 2022. Gender-differentiated farmers' perception of climate risk and its impact, access to climate information, and adaptation strategies in Senegal. AICCRA Case Study. Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA).

The global ambitions to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture demand a complex transition of the current food environments for enabling sustainable healthy diets. The food environments in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) have been experiencing rapid and dynamic transitions across the gl...

Around the world, women along with men are key actors in every aspect of food systems, as farmers, processors, wage workers, traders, and consumers. Despite their significant role, the evidence shows that women are not only structurally disadvantaged in the food system, but also their contributions are often undervalued. Unraveling the gender dynam...

Grain legumes and drylands cereals including chickpea (Cicer arietinum), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), lentil (Lens culinaris), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), soybean (Glycine max), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) are the le...

Groundnut crop is one of the major sources of financial and food security for a large number of Tanzanian smallholder farmers. However, the production of groundnuts in Tanzania is underdeveloped, and yields are reportedly 2.5 to 3 times lower than in other African nations such as Nigeria. There are a number of factors that contribute to lower yield...

Groundnut crop is one of the major sources of financial and food security for a large number of Tanzanian smallholder farmers. However, the production of groundnuts in Tanzania is underdeveloped, and yields are reportedly 2.5 to 3 times lower than in other African nations such as Nigeria. There are a number of factors that contribute to lower yield...

World agricultural production has seen significant growth in the past four decades, yet malnutrition remains a persistent problem, particularly in the global south and more so in the rural areas. Need for a holistic approach to food systems is becoming crucial in designing policies that support the transition to sustainable and healthy diets. The p...

The analysis of household wealth dynamic remains an important methodology in the identification of poverty traps. To overcome measurement issues in survey data, livelihoods-based approaches of the dynamics of poverty are typically examined using panel regressions of a livelihoods regression on household assets and other socio-economic factors over...

This study undertakes a prioritization of investments for upscaling context-specific climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies across several districts in the semi-arid Telangana state of India. We first analysed the trade-off between expected agricultural income in these districts and deviation from it under drought and normal weather scenarios...

In support of the implementation of the AICCRA project in Senegal, an analysis of dryland cereal and livestock value chains was conducted. The AICCRA project envisions to increase access among agriculture research and extension providers in Africa to knowledge, technologies, and decision-making tools for climate resilience. The analysis resulted in...

Improved cultivars and agronomic practices have significantly increased chickpea production in Ethiopia in recent decades. Enhanced availability of chickpeas in Ethiopia, therefore, contributes to food, nutrition, and income security of the country. However, we know relatively little about the extent to which farmers have harnessed the full potenti...

Knowledge and evidence on how food value chains can deliver nutrition, especially micronutrients, are limited. A deeper understanding of the food value chains as part of agri-food systems approaches addressing hunger and malnutrition through agricultural development may provide pathways for nutrition and health outcomes.. This systematic review was...

Dairy farming is the subsidiary occupation for millions of farmers in India. Due to risks and uncertainties in rainfed areas, crop production alone was not much remunerative. Diversifying dairy with the crop and allied activities would generate better income, nutritional security, and regular employment to the farming community and ensure risk redu...

The vast majority of farmers in the drylands are resource-poor smallholders, whose livelihoods depend heavily on their farming systems. Therefore, increasing the resilience of these smallholders is vital for their prosperity. This study quantified household resilience and identified livelihoods and their influence on resilience in the semiarid trop...

The complexities of smallholder farming systems pose a challenge in demonstrating the potential benefits or risks of new technologies and policies. Using Integrated Analysis Tool, a rule-based dynamic simulation model, this study tried to improve the performance of major farming systems in the Tamil Nadu State of India. Amongst the four major farmi...

Improving food and nutrition security is a development priority for India and the outcome of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Also, to achieve the desired nutrition outcomes pinpointing the drivers of nutrition security of rural households is critically important though these drivers are governed by complex associations between multiple va...

We developed scenarios applying the model-based, whole-farm crop-livestock method to illustrate possible benefits and impacts of integrating dual-purpose crops and cultivars on farm productivity and income, and availability of animal-sourced food. Whole-farm scenarios developed with assistance from stakeholders and experts consultations were used t...

This report presents the socio-demographic and economic situation of farmers in the context of farming systems and climate change in the intervention areas of the AICCRA-Senegal project. It also highlights the baseline situation of the key performance indicators of agriculture and livestock value chains, plus the use of climate information and clim...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the reach of AICCRA supported community radio programs in Senegal cluster intervention areas. The methodology is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. It was found that the four community radio partners (Pakala FM, Jubu Jula FM, Ngaye FM, Ya Gaye FM) reached...

Background: India's food industries are hotly debated as there are numerous scandals involved in tainted food products, which deliberately lowers the public's confidence. These incidents made the organic food market growth in developing countries, especially in India. Objective: This study examines the underlying factors that influence consumer's w...

The interactions among complex sets of feedback loops (circular causal connections) between the production, trade and financial performance govern the cattle value chain in Nigeria. This paper aims to identify the key feedback loops influencing the structure and behaviour of trade dynamics in Nigeria’s cattle value chain. We deployed a qualitative...

This study investigated the climate change vulnerability of 6,214 households in the drought-prone districts of Telangana state in India. Principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis were used to group farm households based on their level of vulnerability to climate change and to suggest a portfolio of adaptation strategies. The PCA revea...

Study investigated the agribusiness opportunities, marketing channels and marketing efficiency of different supply chain systems for two important fruit crops kinnow and aonla (Indian gooseberry) in Rajasthan. Two districts, viz. Sriganganagar and Jaipur, having highest area under cultivation of these crops in the state, were purposively selected....

Sustainable Livelihoods (SLs) is now a high-priority field in global environmental change research, becoming one of the key research paradigms in sustainability science increasingly and an important component of the Sustainable Development Goals. A Scientometrics analysis based on Science Citation Index-Expanded was performed to understand the rese...

Climate change is already harming people and damaging ecosystems with frequent calamities occurring in nature. The arid regions of India are also facing the consequences of changing climate in the form of droughts, excessive heat waves, floods, etc. There are many international and national agreements to minimise the effect of global warming and em...

Context The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting health and economies across the world, although the nature of direct and indirect effects on Asian agrifood systems and food security has not yet been well understood. Objectives This paper assesses the initial responses of major farming and food systems to COVID-19 in 25 Asian countries, and consid...

This paper investigates the role of women's labor force participation in the household's dietary diversity and the value of home-production. Using unique household panel data from Semi-Arid tropics of India, empirical estimations from a household fixed effects model reveal a positive significant effect of workdays of women on dietary diversity (ove...

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting health and economies across the world, although the nature of direct and indirect effects on Asian agrifood systems and food security has not yet been well understood. Objectives: This paper assesses the initial responses of major farming and food systems to COVID-19 in 25 Asian countries, and consi...

Low adoption of improved crop production technologies has been an important factor in reducing the income, increasing poverty and reducing socio-economic status of the farmers in the arid region. Greengram is one of the important pulse crop mainly grown during kharif season in rainfed conditions of Rajasthan. Apart from harsh agro-climatic and poor...

We study the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the groundnut value chain and all the actors involved in its value chain in Ananthapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh, a leading groundnut producing state in south India. The results revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic created a double burden on farmers by disrupting farm production on one side and dec...

The purpose of the study is to identify the marketing channels, the relative profitability, and marketing efficiency of vegetables in a developing country, India, and identify points for critical intervention. The study uses field level data collected from farmers who cultivate carrot and tomato. Farm level data was collected from 240 farmers, 60 w...

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of India’s Agri food system and accentuated the need for agricultural market reforms and digital solutions to connect farmers to markets, to create safety nets and ensure reasonable working conditions, and to decentralize Agri food systems to make them more resilient.

Using panel data from 256 smallholder households from 2006 to 2014 in three semiarid regions India, this study develops a framework for quantifying vulnerability and resilience by accounting for a smallholder household’s ability to adapt and respond to climatic risk. Findings indicate that although smallholders with smaller landholdings are more vu...

This briefing note summarizes the key findings of the “Scaling up climate-smart agriculture in the Telangana State” project, carried out by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and partners, between 2016 and 2019. The science based CSA policy process outlined in this briefing note could easily be replicated in other...

This dataset belongs to a framed economic field experiment conducted in 2016 in Bhilwara district in Rajasthan state in India. A public good game was framed as dam management challenge. We made incentivized payments based on the game earnings. The data are organized as a panel defined by players and experiment rounds. The dataset contains the exper...

Low and middle-income countries increasingly face a triple burden of malnutrition encompassing undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and excessive energy consumption contributing to overweight and obesity. Food systems are also becoming more complex, supported by investments in food processing and retailing. Traditional approaches addressing hu...

The paper can be accessed till 30th June under https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Z1h41M27Rd0m4 Since the 1990s, India invested more than one billion USD in participatory watershed development. Amongst other interventions, the rehabilitation of small-scale water harvesting infrastructure is a main focus. Nevertheless, despite its multiple economic a...

Over the last decades, experimental economic approaches mainly carried out in the laboratory were used to disentangle behavioral motives and observe behavioral irregularities. These experiments were then also applied to non-standard subjects with experience in resource management but lower literacy. To establish a "meaningful" choice situation many...

A study at selected action sites in semi-arid region of Andhra Pradesh, India, showed widespread land degradation due to low levels of soil organic carbon (78% of fields) and deficiencies of available nutrients like phosphorus (34%), sulfur (93%), calcium (33%), zinc (84%), boron (73%), and copper (33%). Soil test-based addition of deficient micro-...

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is widely promoted as an approach for reorienting agricultural development under the realities of climate change. Prioritising research-for-development activities is crucial, given the need to utilise scarce resources as effectively as possible. However, no framework exists for assessing and comparing different CSA r...

The farm level rainwater harvesting which has huge potential for enhancing dryland farming systems resilience is yet to be fully harnessed. Here we have assessed the performance of small rainwater harvesting structures in different five rainfed agro-ecologies in India. Further we have taken a case of the state of Telangana in India and mapped the p...

Many Indian rural households depend on farming systems for their livelihood. A large share of them are smallholder farmers with often low and unstable productivity. At the same time, there has been a steady increase in the area under water-intensive crops such as sugarcane and cotton in the recent decades. Water use efficiency has national and glob...

This case study examines the opportunities for obtaining synergies between agricultural productivity, whole-farm profitability and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and highlights where trade-offs exist. We explore how agricultural practices and systems can be designed and managed to balance the synergies and trade-offs for smallholder farmers in sem...

The objective of this report is to identify technologies that can enhance the productivity and resilience of dryland production and livelihood systems in South Asia, especially in the arid western Rajasthan region in India. Clustering of technologies as system components related to biophysical, institutional and policy interventions for better impl...

Many Indian rural households depend on farming systems for their livelihood. A large share of them are smallholder farmers with often low and unstable productivity. At the same time, there has been a steady increase in the area under water-intensive crops such as sugarcane and cotton in the recent decades. Water use efficiency has national and glob...

Frequent droughts affect agriculture and livelihoods of millions of farm households in Semiarid India. Here we attempt to answer the question why some farm households are able to better cope with drought and bounce back quickly as compared to many others. The analysis considered 256 households-data from 2006 to 2014 from three semi-arid regions in...

Improvements in land use and management are needed at a global scale to tackle inter‐connected global challenges of population growth, poverty, migration, climate change, biodiversity loss, and degrading land and water resources. There are hundreds of technical options for improving the sustainability of land management and preventing or reversing...

This briefing note summarizes the key findings of the “Scaling up climate-smart agriculture in the Telangana State” project, carried out by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and partners, between 1st January 2016 and 31st December 2017. Key messages ■■ Rainfed farming systems in Telangana State, India are increasi...

Camel herding and breeding, an age old traditional occupation, is not only a significant source of livelihoods and household employment for animal pastoralist and farming communities in western and southern Rajasthan, but also an important desert draft animal for army, transportation and agriculture. In this study on characterization and financial...

This paper addresses the question: how do interventions in natural resource management, agronomy and livestock integration influence whole-farm bio-economic outcomes. The proposed interventions are modelled for farming systems in Telangana considering labour supply, consumption and market prices using the integrated analysis tool (IAT). The study i...

Purpose Changing climate has increasingly become a challenge for smallholder farmers. Identification of technical, institutional and policy interventions as coping and adaptation strategies and exploring risks of their adoption for smallholder farms are the important areas to consider. The aim of the present study was to carry out an in-depth analy...

The common pastures in arid Rajasthan, India though are critically important for sustaining livestock dominant smallholder rural livelihoods and ecosystems services, but have been severely degraded due to several factors. Among others, the stakeholders’ perception of low returns on any investment of time or other resources for restoring these degra...

Background: In arid parts of Rajasthan rural households heavily depend on Common Property Resources (CPRs). Especially community silvi-pastures are important for the diversified rainfed agricultural production systems. Such common grazing areas have, however, become severely degraded making in particular the rural poor more vulnerable. While effort...

Most of Western Rajasthan's farmers face an uncertain, impoverished future. The region is affected by frequent droughts, over-exploitation of groundwater, deteriorating soil and water quality, low productivity, weak institutions, malnutrition, continuously decreasing landholding size, and a burgeoning population of 28 million. With negative water b...

Impact of dynamic land use and land cover changes on the livelihood of local communities and ecosystem services is a major concern. This is particularly evident in most dryland agricultural systems in South Asia. We study land use/land cover (LULC) changes over the last two decades in a watershed (9589 ha) located in semi-arid eco-region in South I...

Kachchh with45,652 sq. km. geographical area is the biggest district of Gujarat. The monsoon is very erratic and the frequent occurrence ofdrought or scarcity of rainfall is very common feature in this region. The soils as well as water are saline at most of the places and the irrigation is mainly tbrough underground water. The agriculture under th...

The livestock production system is considered equally sensitive to climate change as that of core agriculture system and at the same time livestock itself is also contributing to the phenomenon. The present paper attempts to analyze the sensitivity of livestock productivity in rainfed regions to climatic variability, significance of climate change...

India has experienced rapid growth in potato production during recent past and the country has almost doubled its potato production during 2003-2013. The potato productivity improved 31.4% over this period of time. However, potato production scenario in southern states of India is quite grim and with the result potato consumers of these states alwa...

Extended abstract Introduction: In arid ecoregion of Rajasthan, India, common pool resources (CPRs) like common pastures and village water bodies provide ecosystem services such as fodder, fuel, timber, water and medicinal plants which are crucial for the livelihoods in particular of the poor. In western Rajasthan livestock keeping is the most impo...

Woody vegetation store large amount of carbon both above and below ground. Present study was conducted to quantify the amount of carbon stored by woody vegetation in parts of arid western Rajasthan. On an average carbon store in the trees across all the sites was 6.84 t/ha. The carbon stored by shrubs raised from 1.69 t/ha to 4.16 t/ha.

1 Introduction The arid agro-ecosystems of South Asia are affected by severe resource degradation, low and unstable farm-based livelihoods and persistent poverty. In these environments, a major research program, the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) Dryland Systems, is underway that utilises multi-disciplinary and systems approaches that build on the i...

The paper analyses interstate movement of graded Murrah buffaloes and sustainability issues in their rearing on urban dairy farms. The data related to buffalo rearing, channels of their supply and disposals were collected from randomly selected 48 dairy farms in Hyderabad, Telangana in the year 2009-10. The other data points were traders from Harya...

Climate change increasingly becomes a challenge for smallholder farmers. Strategies that will help farmers to cope with vulnerability are important. These strategies comprise a variety of interventions ranging from technical, institutional to policy. This study is an in-depth analysis of household level climate change shocks, farmers’ perception of...

Climate Change, Gender and Adaptation Strategies in Dryland Systems of South Asia A Household Level Analysis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan States of India

As per FAOSTAT database, India is the second largest producer of potatoes (45.34 million tonne in 2013) after China (88.99 million tonne in 2013). However, Indian potato production has not been uniformly distributed over its regions and states. About 80% potatoes are produced in Indian Indo-Gangetic plains whereas southern states collectively produ...

Improving the productivity of rainfed agriculture and income of farmers is important to achieve sustainable and equitable growth. This paper has examined the role of technology and credit, the two important factors of agricultural growth, in increasing farm incomes using farm-level data from three rainfed districts, namely Adilabad, Mahabubnagar an...

This paper has assessed the impact of high-yielding short-duration pearl-millet hybrid on farmers’ income in the arid region of Rajasthan. The decomposition of total change in net returns has shown that adoption of modern technology accounted for 86 per cent of the incremental net income, in which the share of varietal change was 58 per cent. This...

Enhancing resilience among small farm households in dry regions is important to cope with extreme weather conditions and changing climate. This study presents the results of assessment made in Western Rajasthan (Thar) covering 19 million ha area which is the most densely populated desert region in the world. Agriculture which is the important sourc...

The study uses cross-sectional data of a sample of 350 individuals from two villages in Jodhpur district of western Rajasthan. This paper examines the socio-demographic characteristics, extent of food insecurity, dietary diversity and nutritional status at the household level. To this end, subjective and objective measures like Household Food Insec...

A study based on regional and micro level household data was taken up to inquire in to the impacts of a national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) in India. Studies in four sample districts in predominantly rainfed areas, which benefited from the scheme for the last six years indicated that the scheme attempted to address the core issue of...