Maize In Asia

Outcome of collaboration between International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, International Food Policy Research Institute, and International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Rice-maize (R-M) cropping systems have emerged in recent years on 3.5 million hectares in Asia in response to the increasing demand from a rapidly expanding human population for rice and livestock products. They are rapidly spreading in southern and northeastern India and Bangladesh, driven by the rising demand for maize by the poultry and fish sectors and the tightening world export-import markets. The recent development of short-duration rice varieties and maize hybrids with improved drought tolerance is also providing opportunities for the expansion of R-M systems into areas of South Asia with insufficient irrigation or rain for continuous rice cultivation. Agroecologically, R-M systems have the potential to expand into broad climatic zones across Asia. Because strong economic multipliers exist between food production and feed and livestock production, more diversified cropping systems are also likely to become a key engine for economic growth in rural areas of Asia. This will contribute to more diversified diets, improved human nutrition, reduced poverty, and greater investment in other aspects of quality of life such as education and health care. R-M systems will also provide new business opportunities for the local agribusiness sector, including hybrid seed production and marketing, the fertilizer sector, the agricultural machinery sector, and the grain marketing and livestock feed-processing sector. Recognizing the importance of diversifying cropping systems in Asia and the need for system-level research to support new opportunities for agricultural development, IRRI and CIMMYT scientists, in collaboration with NARES partners, have recently begun work on R-M systems in many countries of Asia. This report contains information on a strategic assessment of R-M systems for 29 selected sites representing diverse soils, climate, and agroecosystems across nine countries in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam). Conducted jointly by IRRI and CIMMYT, the process involves regional and site-level biophysical assessment, supported by socioeconomic evaluation using economic data at the regional level and some microeconomic data. Biophysical assessment includes agroecosystem characterization of R-M systems, analysis of historical daily climatic data, and regional-level prediction of yield potential for the 29 sites. The study then provides a detailed analysis of 10 selected sites to understand existing cropping systems, identify alternative potential systems, and explore measures to optimize these. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), a project funded by the Gates Foundation and USAID in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, was launched in early 2009. It now provides an overall strategy and a new umbrella for contributing new science and technologies to accelerate short- and long-term cereal production growth in South Asia's most important grain baskets. It builds on technologies developed and lessons learned from the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) and many other investments in agricultural R & D by both the public and private sector. Through creating and facilitating innovative and effective public-/private-sector partnerships in key "hubs" in South Asia. CSISA will boost the deployment of existing varieties, hybrids, crop- and aquaculture-related management technologies, and market information. The results from the strategic assessment of R-M systems are already being used in several CSISA hubs.

Whether humans crossed the seas between the Old World and the New in the times before Columbus is a tantalizing question that has long excited scholarly interest and tempted imaginations the world over. From the myths of Atlantis and Mu to the more credible, perhaps, but hardly less romantic tales of Viking ships and Buddhist missionaries, people have speculated upon what is, after all, not simply a question of contact, but of the nature and growth of civilization itself. To the specialist, it is an important question indeed. If people in the Western Hemisphere and in the Eastern Hemisphere developed their cultures more or less independently from the end of the last Ice Age until the voyages of Columbus, the remarkable similarities between New World and Old World cultures reveal something important about the evolution of culture. If, on the other hand, there were widespread or sustained contacts between the hemispheres in pre-Columbian times, these contacts represent events of vast significance to the prehistory and history of humanity. Originally delivered at a symposium held in May 1968, during the national meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, the papers presented here, by scholars eminent in the field, offer differing points of view and considerable evidence on the pros and cons of pre-Columbian contact between the Old World and the New. Various kinds of data—archaeological, botanical, geographical, and historical—are brought to bear on the problem, with provocative and original results. Introductory and concluding remarks by the editors pull together and evaluate the evidence and suggest ground rules for future studies of this sort. Man across the Sea provides no final answers as to whether people from Asia, Africa, or Europe visited the American Indian before Columbus. It does, however, present new evidence, suggested lines of approach, and a fresh attempt to delineate the problems involved and to establish acceptable canons of evidence for the future.

Corn production in China. Corn production in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea. Corn cultivation in Japan.