About the Consortium
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Why Consortium
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Sustainable Development
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Challenges and Priorities
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Getting around
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Birth of Consortium
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Consortium Goal
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Sustainable development
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Sustainable development has been widely accepted as a concept that must be central to all future human endeavors. This concept embodies two basic notions; economic development and ecological sustainability. Rapidly mounting food demands and poverty in the South Asian region indicate that the economic and ecological issues must be addressed simultaneously. Public attention is invited to the conflicts between economic development and environmental enhancement. This is a worldwide problem but has particular sensitivity for the low income countries in South Asia who economic development must be given a hard push in the years ahead. The major challenge faced by the agriculturalists is to minimize these conflicts and also to generate synergy between these two important factors. In the immediate future, the countries in the Indian subcontinent have to increase their food production and they must do it differently from what has been the case in the past.
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It is thought that the International Agricultural Research Centers could be focal points for developing these linkages involving public and private sector research institutions and non-governmental agencies to attract attention on the priority research areas. The Green Revolution of the 1960s was a shot in the arm for the developing world and this cereal-based revolution contributed to overall economic development and helped achieve a sense of food security. The researchers developed high yielding rice, wheat, and maize and their yields responded to inputs of irrigation and fertilizers. It was the dawn of a new era where the researchers and policy makers joined forces to make the improved systems work.
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Challenges and Priorities
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Experience of past and an assessment of future needs to achieve sustainable agricultural development suggests three major challenges:
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  • Because of unparalleled increase in population, future increases in food production must exceed the population growth rate.
  • The green revolution should be moved and fine tuned to those ecologies and systems which are not very well endowed in terms of resources but possess higher potential for enhancement.
  • Lastly, the food production efforts must be coupled with sustenance of environmental quality.
The high priority, thus, for research to enhance rice and wheat production would include biophysical and socio-economic factors. Broadly these are:
Biophysical
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  • Genetic enhancement of rice and wheat
  • Integrated Pest Management
  • Efficient use of water and plant nutrients
  • Resource conserving production technologies
Socio-economic
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  • Policy change options at international, national, and local levels
  • Increase the economic conditions of the small land holders
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Getting around  
The fact that different technologies and different types of information are needed at different stages in the intensification process has important implications for the organization and management of agricultural research. The shift in emphasis from input-based technologies to knowledge-based technologies also suggests that changes are required in the organization of research. Most research organizations across the world are still organized along lines that reflect the needs of an earlier period. In the same context, insufficient attention was paid to understand the increasingly complex problems that threaten the sustainability of rice-wheat cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains.
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This intensive agricultural system developed and spread rapidly as more productive seed and practices for rice and wheat production became available to farmers. Now, in the wake of three decades of intensive farming, the productivity and sustainability of this critical food- and income-producing system are deteriorating. The livelihoods of millions and the resilience of the natural resource base are under threat. Researchers began to document and investigate problems with resource degradation in rice–wheat areas about ten years ago. In the first phase of this work, funded by the Asian Development Bank from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, researchers initiated diagnostic studies at selected sites and developed a regional management structure that included national research programs such as:
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
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Birth of Consortium
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The second phase of work, starting in 1994 with support from the Governments of Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank gave this work a more formal framework by establishing the Rice–Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains, now one of the prominent CGIAR’s Systemwide Programs. Strong emphasis was given to regional research management by Consortium members, who presently include the national programs of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan; CIMMYT (the convening center); IRRI; International Water Management Institute (IWMI); International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT); International Potato Center (CIP); researchers from a range of universities and advanced research institutes (e.g., Cornell University, Michigan State University); and representatives of the development community. China is an associate member of the Consortium. Research priorities of the Consortium are set by a Steering Committee which comprises of chief executives of these organizations.
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Our main objective is promoting research on issues that are fundamental to achieve enhanced productivity and sustainability of rice-wheat cropping system in South Asia. These objective are achieved through: 
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  • setting priorities for focused research on problems affecting many farms; 
  • promoting linkages among rice-wheat research specialists and other branches of research and extension; 
  • encouraging inter-disciplinary team approach to understand field problem and to find solutions; 
  • fostering quality work and excellence among scientists; 
  • introducing new research approaches e.g.., farmer participatory research; and 
  • enhancing the transfer of improved technologies to farmers through established institutional linkages. 
Consortium Goal
The goal of the Consortium is to enhance productivity and sustainability of intensive rice-wheat cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains through multi-disciplinary collaborative research that involves social, biological, and physical scientists in the countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.