A CGIAR-led Asian mega-deltas initiative (AMD), now in the 3rd year of its work in five Asian countries – Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Vietnam – has developed climate-resilient year-round production system with promise of doubling farm productivity in Bangladesh’s coastal polder zone comprising of 1.2 million hectares of farmland. There are as many as 162 polders, which are encircled embankments, mostly constructed in the coastal zone of Bangladesh during the early 1960s. These are the areas where salinity appears to be increasingly a big threat to farm productivity. By engaging with policy planners as well as the farming community in south and southwest Bangladesh, the AMD initiative has tried to develop agricultural innovations – in the dry season AMD introduced maize and sunflower crops that proved to be better resilient than commonly grown crops.
In an exclusive interview with Dhaka Tribune Executive Editor Reaz Ahmad, the AMD Initiative’s Lead, Dr Bjoern Ole Sander, shared many aspects of the initiative that has got all the prospects of changing the livelihoods of people living in Asian mega deltas. Dr Bjoern Ole Sander currently also leads IRRI’s country office in Thailand. He is a senior scientist and climate change focal point of IRRI.
Dhaka Tribune: What has AMD achieved over the past two years as far as Bangladesh's saline-prone coastal belt is concerned?
Dr Bjoern Ole Sander: The Asian Mega-Deltas Initiative (AMD) with the CGIAR agencies IRRI, CIMMYT, WF, IWMI, CIP, IFPRI and the Alliance has established a framework of working together for agri-food systems beyond our long traditional approach of working alone on specific crops or technology.
AMD has systematically collected and analyzed data for a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities in agriculture development, water management, food and nutrition security, climate risk and adaptation in agriculture, gender and social inclusion, overall economic development, government priorities in agricultural development in the coastal region.
AMD designed, tested, evaluated and scaled out different interventions, including building learning alliance; promoting productive, profitable, resilient, and nutrition-sensitive crop- and aquaculture production systems; reducing climate change impacts by delivering digital climate advisory services; and building R&D capacity of national agricultural systems in climate change.
Specifically, we have completed or are near completing some basic work of mapping crop suitability, risks and adaptation options in the coastal ecosystem. This is very important for further planning and development of the region
We have established some of the key partnerships with national agencies (ministry, departments, professional institutes, civil society agencies, etc.) that will be crucial for further consolidation of our work now and in the future.
Please find some more detailed examples of some of the agronomic interventions within AMD below:
In 2022 and 2023, we established 12 Learning Hubs (LH) in 5 polders of south-west (Khulna) and south-central (Barishal) coastal zones of Bangladesh on 105 ha land in which the LH farmers evaluated 5 improved cropping patterns, i.e. high-yielding varieties (HYV) of rice in wet/aman season followed by maize, sunflower, mungbean, chilli and okra in the dry/rabi season. (Note: in 2024 we included more crops like rice, potato and sweet potato in the dry season). We regularly monitored river water salinity and suggested that the water management group open the sluice gates when the salinity level permits rice cultivation in aman season.
We empowered the water management groups and LH farmers on improving water environment for HYV rice cultivation and fertilizer management at the critical growth stages of HYV rice for higher productivity in the wet/aman season through systematic operation of sluice gates synchronizing with the tidal phenomenon of the peripheral rivers of the polder ecosystem. The LH farmers evaluated four newly released climate-resilient and zinc-biofortified HYV rice in the aman seasons of 2022 and 2023. The mean yield of HYV rice was 5.0 t/ha, about 1.0 to 2.5 t/ha higher than the yield of HYV and traditional rice varieties cultivated by the neighboring farmers of the LHs (mean yield of the traditional was 2.4 t/ha and HYV rice was 4.2 t/ha).
Owing to the introduction of HYV rice in the aman season, farmers were able to cultivate the dry/rabi season crops at least a month earlier than their traditional practices and harvested the DS crops before the onset of the pre-monsoon or climatic season. We introduced semi-mechanized cropping practices for cultivation of maize and sunflower in which the seeds were sown by dibbling on moist soil. The DS crops were harvested before the onset of the pre-monsoon or cyclonic season. Therefore, HYV rice followed by semi-mechanized maize and sunflower cultivation are considered as the most climate-resilient cropping practices for the coastal polder zones of Bangladesh. The mean yield of maize and sunflower was 5.0 t/ha and 2.0 t/ha, respectively. While the yield of green chilli, mungbean and okra cultivated by the farmers was 6.1 t/ha, 1.2 t/ha and 5.5 t/ha, respectively.
The overall system productivity of the improved cropping patterns was 2-3 times higher than farmers' cropping practices.
The learnings were shared with different stakeholders, including farmers, community leaders, input dealers, students and teachers, officers of government organizations, NGO staff and mass media.
Dhaka Tribune: At the end of first 3-yr cycle of AMD - by the end of 2024 - how many farmers or farming households in Bangladesh, in particular, and all the AMD mandated delta belts, in general, will be benefited?
Dr Bjoern Ole Sander: AMD aims to reach and benefit more than 10,000 HHs in Bangladesh with climate advisory, nutrition awareness programs and improved agronomic advisory by the end of the first cycle. We are targeting more than 100,000 HHs in all AMD countries (building strongly on earlier successful work in Vietnam). These targets will, of course, not be reached by AMD alone but through strong partnerships with scaling partners (e.g. national and international programs).
Dhaka Tribune: What would be the main thrust areas of a probable 2nd cycle (2025-2027) of AMD?
Dr Bjoern Ole Sander: AMD will work closely with the government and national agricultural research and extension services (NARES), develop interventions in aligning with government needs and priorities, scaling of proven technologies to deliver impact at scale, and support the government on delta development planning.
AMD will try to align its R&D activities with national policies and priorities so that our activity helps national agencies to achieve the desired national objectives. Looking for synergy with what other national agencies are working on in the areas of climate change and how we can work together and strengthen the collective impact, would be a priority.
Scaling innovations that AMD develops will be a priority. So, preparing appropriate interventions, strategies, forming partnerships and development of appropriate communication materials and tools will be our priority.
In particular, AMD plans to focus on the following action points for our agronomy work:
In the first phase (2022-2024), we worked at small watershed-scale and developed improved production systems establishing Learning Hubs in different parts of 5 polders of the south-west and south-central coastal zones of Bangladesh. In the second phase, we aim to scale this proof of concept.
We will develop land suitability maps of the study polders and using micro-modelling will develop the land suitability map of the entire polder zone. These maps and information will be shared with the agricultural extension and water management professionals and policymakers engaged in agricultural development of the coastal zone for wide-scale adoption of the improved production systems to address future food security challenges of Bangladesh.
We will study and develop environment-friendly agricultural technologies such as use of nano-fertilizers in improving productivity of the climate-vulnerable coastal zones of Bangladesh. We will work on developing local service providers engaging the private sector to expedite agricultural mechanization programs of GoB and to make agriculture profitable for the farmers. We will work on value chain and market linkages so that the farming community gets a fair price for their produce.
We will continue the capacity building program of the stakeholders on crop and water management of the coastal polder zone. In addition, we will engage postgraduate students to conduct their thesis research in the polder zone and high school students to build them as “Climate and Agriculture Ambassadors” of the coastal polder zone of Bangladesh.
Dhaka Tribune: Is AMD getting the amount of budget it requires to implement all its goals?
Dr Bjoern Ole Sander: AMD was designed as a larger Initiative and had to downscale due to funding limitations. However, I think AMD has been very successful in getting important work off the ground and building important scaling partnerships and knowledge networks. The current main funders are the governments of New Zealand, the Netherlands and Australia.
We are now entering the proposal development phase for the next business cycle and hope to receive funding for 2025-2027 to continue important ‘research for development’ and scale successful pilots in collaboration with national and international partners.
