REPLACING RICE FALLOWS

Rice is the most extensively grown crop in South Asia, occupying nearly 50 million ha. Much of it is grown in the kharif (rainy) season. A substantial part of this area remains fallow during the rabi (post rainy) season because of several limitations, the prime one being limited availability of soil moisture. Precise estimates of such rice-fallows and their spatial distribution are not available.

Since rice is grown on some of the most productive lands of this region, there is substantial scope to increase cropping intensity by introducing a second crop during the rabi season.

A review of existing technologies indicates that it is possible to productively cultivate legumes in most of these identified rice-fallows. An economic analysis has shown that growing legumes in rice-fallows is profitable for the farmers with a benefit-cost ratio exceeding 3.0 for many legumes. Also, utilizing rice-fallows for legume production could result in the generation of 584 million person-days employment for South Asia (66.7 in Bangladesh, 503 in India, 10.2 in Nepal, and 3.6 in Pakistan; values are in million person-days). Thus, introducing legumes into these rice-fallows will have a multi-faceted impact on the economy through employment generation, poverty alleviation, food security, quality of nutrition to humans and animals, and contribution to the sustainability of these production systems in South Asia.

Vist the PSP project database and virtual library ("Impact Studies") for further details.

 

 

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