CHAPTER 2 - ICRISAT'S ACHIEVEMENTS AND IMPACT

2.1 Centre-Wide Recognition

During the last five years, ICRISAT has received the King Baudouin Award of the CGIAR on two occasions. In 1998, ICRISAT was recognized for "its development of high-yielding and disease resistant pigeonpea varieties and their contribution to agriculture and human welfare in developing countries." In 2002, with ICARDA, ICRISAT was recognized "for developing new chickpea varieties with higher tolerance to drought and heat, and better resistance to pests and diseases that provide stable and economically profitable yields." The significance of these awards is that they are presented only once every second year. It is remarkable that ICRISAT gained two out of the three awards available during the last five years in competition with the other fifteen international Centres of the CGIAR. While crop improvement was a central feature of the awards, the Panel considers them as being Centre-wide recognition because of the extensive team-work that took place. The following summary shows the remarkable achievements that can be made by international Centres in the specific circumstances where they have a major comparative advantage over other research institutions.

Documentation for the 1998 award to the pigeonpea programme shows how ICRISAT took a crop on which little research had been conducted and transformed it into a much more important crop. The new varieties and management methods that were developed by ICRISAT have provided many poor malnourished people in India and other parts of Asia with more protein and are beginning to have beneficial impacts in East Africa. Several significant scientific achievements were identified in the 1998 ICRISAT document "From Orphan Crop to Pacesetter - Pigeonpea Improvement at ICRISAT".

A major germplasm collection was developed for pigeonpea and classical studies enhanced scientific understanding of the collection by revising taxonomic classifications and ideas concerning the centre of origin of the crop species. By exhaustive screening of the germplasm collection, accessions were discovered with resistance to a major disease, fusarium wilt, which were evaluated by ICRISAT and a network of national programme collaborators. Through breeding, ICRISAT developed varieties with resistance to fusarium wilt that economic studies showed to have generated massive benefits to poor farmers. Yields of traditional pigeonpea were very low for a crop with a growing season of 6 to 10 months. Innovative reconstruction of the plant by breeding, guided by enhanced understanding of plant physiology, generated a radical new plant type that opened up new cropping-system opportunities triggering a major geographic extension of the crop on a world-wide basis, including a doubling of the crop area in India. The new plant type has a growing season of only 3 to 4 months and is short and compact, whereas the traditional varieties are tall and treelike. The new short-duration varieties were shown to require a substantial increase in sowing density. On-farm trials in India demonstrated that the improved variety/management package not only enhanced yields considerably, the crop also matured several months earlier so that farmers could sow their staple post rainy season crops on the same field. Some of the substantial impacts from the extensive adoption of this system in India were quantified by economic studies. A basis for future progress in India was established by developing pigeonpea as the world's first food legume hybrid to go into commercial production with a yield boost due to hybrid vigor of 25%. Use of hybrid types of varieties is particularly important in pigeonpea because pure line varieties are not very stable due to significant out-crossing (25-30%), although there is not sufficient out-crossing to maintain the crop as open-pollinated populations. A major pigeonpea improvement project was launched in East Africa that was coordinated by ICRISAT and resulted in the release of pigeonpea varieties in Kenya, Malawi and Uganda.

ICRISAT's contribution to the research that was recognized by the 2002 award included developing chickpea varieties and complementary management methods that have substantially expanded production on residual-soil-moisture rainfed conditions in India. Of particular importance was the development of short-duration varieties that escape terminal drought and also have some resistance to heat and fusarium wilt. In addition, innovative biological control methods have been developed to control pod borer, including a spray treatment with nuclear polyhedrosis virus that is less hazardous and costly than synthetic chemical pesticides. A cost-effective technology for producing the nuclear polyhedrosis virus has been developed and transferred to some villages in India. These management methods and varieties have revolutionized tropical chickpea farming and the range of the crop has moved far south of its historical zone. For example, there has been an increase in area cultivated in Andhra Pradesh state of India from 60,000 ha in 1986 to 400,000 ha in 2002. Concurrently, productivity in Andhra Pradesh increased from 260 kg/ha in 1986 to 1000 kg/ha in 2002. The new short-duration varieties of chickpea also have become popular in four other Indian states and Myanmar. In addition, ICRISAT-derived chickpea varieties have made possible increases in chickpea production in Bangladesh, Nepal, Ethiopia, Australia and Canada. Some of the substantial impacts of the new chickpea production systems were quantified by economic studies (section 2.2.3).

A basis for future progress with chickpea breeding was established by developing the first DNA-marker-based linkage map in collaboration with ICARDA and advanced research institutes in Germany and the United States. In the future, DNA-marker-assisted selection may enhance breeder's ability to manipulate traits such as high root mass which ICRISAT has shown to enhance drought resistance of chickpea grown on residual soil moisture. Also, ICRISAT has produced transgenic chickpea plants with putative resistance to Helicoverpa pod borer using Bt genes and soybean trypsin inhibitor. Varietal resistance to pod borer would represent a major breakthrough, enabling farmers to more completely overcome this critical pest problem.

2.2 Genetic Resources and Enhancement

ICRISAT serves as a world centre for the improvement of sorghum, millet, groundnut, chickpea and pigeonpea. The crop improvement work was covered under the Genetic Resources and Enhancement Programme (GREP) during the period 1998-2001, when ICRISAT adopted a programmatic structure based on the 1996 EPMR; and GT1 (biotechnology) and GT2 (crop improvement and management) for a brief period during 2001 when a new O&M set up was anchored on six global research themes. During these periods, ICRISAT went through a period of multiple changes in leadership, reduced funding, paradigm shifts and downsizing. The Panel highlights the following scientific and technical accomplishments and impacts achieved during the review period notwithstanding the difficult and challenging conditions.

2.2.1 Biodiversity

Collection and repatriation. The Genetic Resources Unit of ICRISAT has had substantial accomplishments since the last EPMR including collection, maintenance and extensive characterization of germplasm. The Rajendra S Paroda Genebank at Patancheru currently has a very large active collection of the mandate species comprising 113,849 accessions (Table 2.1). In addition, a regional gene bank of 6,000 groundnut accessions has been established at Niamey, West Africa to support African germplasm enhancement and breeding programmes. Since 1997, 52,493 accessions have been placed in long-term storage in the Patancheru genebank (Table 2.1) bringing the total number of the accessions under long-term storage to 76,610 in 2002. The genebank distributed 65,752 seed samples (Table 2.1) to users in 80 countries from 1997 through 2002. As part of ICAR/ICRISAT Partnership Projects, the genebank repatriated to India (NBPGR) seeds of 39,559 accessions during 1998 to 2002. An additional 51,823 samples were used within ICRISAT for evaluation and regeneration from 1997 through 2002.

Table 2.1 - Current accession holdings and sample distributions by the Rajendra S Paroda Genebank, Patancheru, ICRISAT

Management and characterization. The value of the germplasm collections by scientists has been enhanced. Assessments of the genetic diversity of the collections were made by analyzing passport data, and characterization data and DNA markers. This information was used to establish core collections. The core collections were characterized for morphological traits and evaluated for agronomic and quality traits to establish mini-core subsets. This approach ensured that the cores and mini-cores encompass much of the genetic variability in the active collections (Table 2.2). Under-represented world regions in the pearl millet, chickpea and groundnut collections were identified by analysis of passport and characterization data. This information will permit prioritization of future germplasm collection missions.

Storage of groundnut seed is expensive. Analysis of eight years of data on storage established that the old system used in the active collection involving in-shell storage is only marginally more effective in maintaining seed viability than seed storage. The cost of seed storage is only 64% that of in-shell storage so seed storage is now being used at the Genebank for medium-term storage.

Table 2.2 - Core and mini-core collections of the ICRISAT mandate crop species

Wild species and unadapted germplasm. New sources of resistance to diseases and other pests have been found in the collections. Notable of these are resistance to rosette virus, early leafspot (ELS), late leafspot (LLS), bud necrosis virus and rust in groundnut; pod borer (Helicoverpa), sterility mosaic virus, Phytopthora blight (P2 isolate) and cyst nematode in pigeonpea, and Ascochyta blight, Botrytis grey mold in chickpea. New genes have been found for cytoplasmic male sterility in pigeonpea which permit the production of hybrid varieties. Genes for broad spectrum resistance to multiple stresses were identified in wild Cajanus and wild Arachis accessions. Genes have been found for the yellow endosperm trait (high beta-carotene content) in an unadapted pearl millet accession from Burkina Faso.

2.2.2 Biotechnology

Significant accomplishments were made by ICRISAT in biotechnology during the period under review. Notable achievements are the following:

Wide crosses. Achievements have been made in the use of wild relatives. They have important genes/traits that breeders could not access due to difficulty in making hybrids between the wild and cultivated species. ICRISAT now has produced the first hybrids between pigeonpea and Cajanus platycarpus, thereby transferring resistance to Phytophthora blight from the wild species. In addition, hybrids were produced between pigeonpea and Cajanus acutifolius, which transferred resistance to Helicoverpa armigera (pod borer) from the wild species. For groundnut, hybrids were produced for the first time with wild species from different sections of Arachis. These wild species have resistance to various foliar fungal diseases, Aspergillus flavus colonization, which is responsible for aflatoxin contamination, and some insect pests. Embryo rescue techniques were developed to produce hybrids between chickpea and the wild species Cicer pinnatifidium. This wild species has been incompatible with chickpea when conventional hybridization was attempted and has high levels of resistance to two major diseases of chickpea, Fusarium wilt and Ascochyta blight.

Applied genomics and transgenics. Prior to 2000, ICRISAT had lagged behind some CGIAR centres scientifically and operationally in its efforts to integrate new science and tools in its crop improvement programme. The Panel considers the establishment and operation of the Applied Genomics Laboratory as a significant achievement. Its establishment enabled ICRISAT to develop various IPGs in a short period. These IPGs include developing:

a) de-novo and in-silico microsatellites (SSR) in groundnut, de-novo EST and in-silico SSR markers for chickpea, SSR markers for pearl millet and pigeonpea in collaboration with ARIs, which were used to characterize the germplasm holdings of ICRISAT, to constructs maps for comparative genomics of sorghum and other cereals, to map traits for resistance to diseases and pests such as stem borer and shoot fly resistance in sorghum, Ascochyta and Botrytis resistance plus root hairs in chickpea, and late leaf spot and rust resistance in groundnut, and to integrate marker technology through MAS in a pearl millet drought resistance breeding programme.

b) protocols for high throughput genotyping, genomic databases, and on-line laboratory information/data management system.

c) efficient transformation and regeneration protocols for all ICRISAT mandate crops, except pearl millet, which are significant breakthroughs that led to the development and field evaluation of transgenic products such as groundnut with replicate gene of Indian Peanut Clump Virus (IPCV), transgenics with a Bt gene for podborer resistance in pigeonpea, and groundnut with coat protein gene of Groundnut Rosette Assistor Virus (GRAV), the latter for eventual deployment in Africa, where the disease is devastating.

Diagnostics. After many years of research, a major breakthrough was made by ICRISAT in 2000 through the identification and characterization of pigeonpea sterility mosaic virus. Another notable achievement is the development of a simple and robust diagnostic ELISA assay for aflatoxin. Aflatoxin contamination of groundnut grain and its products is a serious health hazard for humans and livestock in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the world. Available procedures for detecting aflatoxins were time consuming and expensive and were not suitable for automation. In collaboration with the Crops Research Institute, Scotland, ICRISAT has developed a simple and robust ELISA assay for quantifying and estimating aflatoxins which only costs about US$1 per sample, compared with US$8-12 by earlier methods. Small feed producers and poultry farmers in India are now using this ELISA assay to evaluate the extent of feed contamination with aflatoxins. The ELISA kit has potential for commercialization with Private Sector Companies. ICRISAT breeders are using the assay to develop groundnut cultivars with low levels of aflatoxin in grain. In addition, ICRISAT is using the assay together with GIS technology to evaluate the extent of the aflatoxin problem in the human and livestock food-chains.

2.2.3 Germplasm enhancement

Since the last EPMR, ICRISAT has many achievements in germplasm enhancement that have resulted in substantial beneficial impacts in addition to those discussed in section 2.1 that resulted in the two King Baudouin awards to the pigeonpea and chickpea programmes. In the following discussion ICRISAT-derived cultivars refers to either cultivars bred by ICRISAT or cultivars selected or developed from ICRISAT germplasm. Impacts depend upon the area on which a new cultivar is grown and the value of the cultivar in relation to cultivars previously used by farmers. Information of this type is available for some of the cultivars developed by ICRISAT. This discussion only covers those achievements and impacts that were brought to the attention of the Panel and are considered particularly important.

Pigeonpea. In three states in India, 800,000 ha are cultivated with two ICRISAT-derived cultivars (ICP 8863 named Maruti and ICPL 87119 named Asha). Maruti has resistance to Fusarium wilt and early maturity and the total net value of benefits was projected at US$61.7 m in 1996 with an internal rate of return on investment of 65%. Another four ICRISAT-derived cultivars are being grown on 85,000 ha in southern and eastern Africa. Sources of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility restorers have been discovered that could increase the effectiveness of systems for producing hybrid varieties of pigeonpea.

Chickpea. A large area of chickpea (7-8 million ha) is now cultivated in India. The new ICRISAT cultivar ICCV 1, which was adopted in Gujarat State, produced 84% more net income than the local variety and had a 23% reduction in unit costs of production that would benefit poor farmers. In five districts of Maharashtra State, chickpea cultivars developed by ICRISAT occupy 38% of the total chickpea area and bring an additional net benefit of US$80 per ha, which represents an increase in net returns of 86% over that of the local variety, Chafa. In five districts in Andhra Pradesh State, ICRISAT chickpea cultivars are used in 33% of the area and bring an additional net income of US$55 per ha compared with the traditional major variety, Annigeri. With respect to other countries, ICRISAT-derived chickpea cultivars have been released and adopted by farmers in Bangladesh (14,000 ha), Myanmar (120,000 ha), Ethiopia (30,000 ha), Canada (160,000 ha) and Australia.

Groundnut. Several ICRISAT-derived cultivars have been adopted in India with a roughly estimated area of the new cultivars of 500,000 ha in 2003. Substantial progress also has been made in Africa. The medium-maturity ICRISAT cultivar CG7 is being grown on 30,000 ha in Malawi and has been adopted by 50% of farmers in Zambia. A medium-maturity ICRISAT-derived cultivar with rosette virus resistance, ICGV-SM 90704, was released in Malawi in 2000. The early maturing ICRISAT-derived cultivar Nyanda is becoming popular among farmers in drought-prone areas of Zimbabwe where it is being grown on 10,000 ha. From materials supplied by ICRISAT, the Seed Co. Limited of Zimbabwe has identified a short-duration rosette virus resistant cultivar for release, ICGV-SM 99537, that should further enhance the stability of groundnut production in drought-prone areas of southern Africa. An early maturing ICRISAT-derived cultivar, ICGS 36E, has been adopted on 20,000 ha in Mali. A foliar disease resistant cultivar, ICG 7878, also has been released that is enhancing the livelihoods of the poor in the Kolokani region of Mali. Several confectionary groundnut cultivars bred by ICRISAT have been shown to be very effective when grown under irrigated conditions in Senegal. An early maturing rosette virus resistant cultivar bred by ICRISAT, ICGV-IS 96894, has been released in Nigeria, the largest groundnut producer in Africa. This cultivar has restored farmers' confidence in growing groundnut while confronting the most devastating disease of the crop in sub-Saharan Africa - the disease caused by the rosette virus.

Pearl millet. The greatest impacts have occurred in India with some impact in Africa. Hybrid varieties are grown on 60% of the pearl millet area of India and 60 of the 70 hybrids that were cultivated in 2002 have ICRISAT-bred parental lines or were developed from ICRISAT germplasm. Most pearl millet seed production in India is done during the summer by farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat States. One district of Andhra Pradesh (Nizamabad) is estimated as generating an additional income of US$2.5 million per year to these farmers. The ICRISAT-bred open-pollinated cultivar, ICTP 8203, was released in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh States and has been adopted on 100 000 ha within one year of its release. The success of ICTP 8203 and related cultivars demonstrated that the iniari group of landraces is the most valuable germplasm of pearl millet identified to date.

With respect to Africa, open-pollinated cultivars have been released that often had improved adaptation to terminal drought through earlier flowering and shorter cycle length. The ICRISAT discovered landrace Okashana 1 is currently grown on 100,000 ha in Namibia accounting for 50% of the total pearl millet area in the country. The ICRISAT-derived cultivar GB 8735 is grown on 30,000 ha in West Africa and SOSAT-C88 is grown on 50,000 ha in Nigeria. In Tanzania, the ICRISAT-derived cultivar Okoa has been adopted on 80,000 ha which is 27% of the total pearl millet area in the country. The ICRISAT-derived cultivar ICMV 221 has been adopted on 40,000 ha in Kenya and Eritrea.

Sorghum. Substantial impacts have occurred in both India and Africa. Hybrid varieties are grown on 4 million ha (80%) of the rainy season production area and 1 million ha of post rainy or rabi-season area in India. Out of 50 hybrid varieties that are being grown, 70% were released by the private sector and 75% of them were bred using ICRISAT-derived parental lines or germplasm. Eight private seed companies acknowledged that their most promising hybrids were based on ICRISAT-bred germplasm. The private sector has joined the sorghum hybrid parents diversification consortium, which is similar to the pearl millet hybrid parents consortium, and provides continuing grants to the ICRISAT breeding programme which illustrates how much they value ICRISAT-bred germplasm. The diverse male-sterile and restorer lines developed by ICRISAT are of substantial value to many national programmes. A total of 70,665 seed samples of these lines were supplied to 52 countries during 1996-2001.

With respect to Africa, ICRISAT-derived inbred-line cultivar Macia is grown over 20 to 30% of the sorghum area in Eritrea, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Inbred-line cultivar Gadam el Hamam is being adopted by farmers in Kenya, and Pato is being adopted by farmers in Tanzania. An ICRISAT-derived inbred-line cultivar, Phofu, which has adaptation to late-season drought due to early maturity and stay green foliage, has been adopted by 21% of farmers in Botswana. ICRISAT-derived inbred-line cultivar S35, also called ICVS 111, has achieved 10 to 15% adoption in Nigeria and Ghana, and ICSV 400 is popular in Nigeria. The extra-early inbred-line cultivar CSM 63 is being accepted by farmers in West and Central Africa. Seven new lines belonging to the Guinea race of sorghum have been released by the ICRISAT breeding programme in Mali. This race is grown by many farmers in Mali and some farmers in other countries in West Africa. Prior to this time only landraces of Guinea race sorghums were available to farmers.

2.3 Crop and Natural Resources Management

ICRISAT has made important achievements in integrated pest management (IPM) in India. Working with NARES and NGOs in a participatory mode with farm communities, they developed IPM methods for controlling legume pod borer in both pigeonpea and chickpea. These IPM methods combine new technologies, such as biological control using a virus and fungi, with traditional techniques, such as manual shaking and taking advantage of birds by placing perches in fields. ICRISAT developed a relatively simple and practical method for producing the virus that is used in the biological control. The IPM approach is being adopted, and in the first "IPM village" in Maharashtra State almost no insecticide is being used and production costs have been substantially reduced.

Of equal high quality are ICRISAT's achievements in integrated disease management (IDM) in Asia. Techniques were developed for reducing botrytis gray mold in chickpea that have been adopted by 10000 farmers in Nepal. For groundnut in India, reductions in collar rot, stem rot and bud necrosis have been achieved by using resistant cultivars. Combinations of resistant cultivars, early sowing and appropriately timed fungicidal sprays have been shown to substantially reduce yield losses caused by foliar diseases. In 2000 there was a sudden outbreak of a serious peanut stem necrosis disease in Andhra Pradesh that caused extensive damage with an estimated loss of US$60 million in one year. The causal agent of this disease (tobacco streak virus) and its alternate hosts were identified, and a package of control measures was devised by ICRISAT and its partners that was adopted on 0.5 million ha in 2001. Since then, the State Department of Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh has taken over responsibility for extending the IDM package and ICRISAT staff provided technical back stopping.

The EPR Panel had greater difficulty detecting any substantial verified achievements in the Natural Resource Management Programme (NRMP).

ICRISAT claims the following IPGs from the NRM work:

1) Improved participatory research methodologies for NRM
2) Improved simulation modeling capability and application in smallholder farming systems research
3) Methodologies for watershed development and soil fertility management
4) Introduction of legumes into rice and wheat fallows

The EPR Panel first examined a centre commissioned external review (CCER) conducted in 2000. The CCER team cautions that any claims of success in the NRM field (such as micro-dosing of fertilizers) could be challenged as they have many creators and advocates. They are positive sign of the quality and effectiveness of the partnership. The Watershed research was judged as classical, yet of little significance to farmers so far (see also IFPRI Research Report 127). Although the CCER Panel felt that the potential impact of the NRM research might be large, the report warns that ICRISAT is under pressure to prove that the returns on the investments in NRM research, particularly the modeling work, will have a pay-off in the near future. The Panel took note of the fact that ICRISAT has recently received funding for participatory watershed development in Asia. This is an indication of the continued interest of some donors in this area of work.

Systems diversification through the introduction of legumes into rice and wheat fallows has been pursued in the Indo-Gangetic plains of South Asia. This system improvement was built on extensive nutrient balance studies involving legumes carried on-station and on-farm, followed by the use of GIS to identify the potential for, as well as potential sites for, legume diversification.

As a second source of information, the briefing report ICRISAT prepared in February 2003 for the EPR Panel made mostly the same claims as the earlier briefing paper prepared for the CCER. The ICRISAT document adds as an accomplishment, the approach to community-level fertilizer introduction being explored in collaboration with the FAO in Niger (Warrantage). This approach is a progression of earlier pilot studies conducted with IFDC-Africa with funding from the World Bank and USAID. The project adopts the ICRISAT/IFDC/University of Hohenheim micro-dosage approach and is largely financed and coordinated by the FAO with assistance from the micro-credit scheme of GTZ. Farmers are given credit against secure stockpiling of their grain following harvest in order to pursue alternative income generating activities, and return the credit when they sell these products at competitive prices late in the dry season. The FAO representative in Niger emphasized the importance of the partnership with ICRISAT in this pilot scheme, but the current scientific contribution of ICRISAT appears small. Surprising to the EPR Panel, necessary accompanying research, such as long-term studies to assess the accumulated effect of micro-dosing or the proposed elimination of K from the fertilizer recommendation for the Alfisols/Entisols-complex of West Africa has not been taken up by ICRISAT. The soil fertility problems of Africa remain largely unsolved.

2.4 Socioeconomics and Policy

Over the 1996-2001 period the CCER noted that the Socioeconomics and Policy Programme made five main types of contributions towards achievements of ICRISAT's goals:

1) Helping to set ICRISAT's research priorities and the definition of its research agenda
2) Contributions to the socioeconomics knowledge base for the SAT
3) The development of analytical and methodological tools for use by NARS
4) Provision of information and analysis to inform policy making
5) Strengthening capacity among national partners

With regards to its mandate of producing IPGs, this Panel concurs with the CCER that social scientists have made some methodological/analytical contributions including:

1) Approaches to developing typologies of production systems that combine socioeconomic and agroecological factors using participatory approaches

2) Development of conceptual frameworks for analyzing institutional change and networks in agricultural innovation systems, with special references to public interactions and post harvest systems

3) Contributions to experimental economics, especially pilot action research on input-supply strategies for small or marginal areas (e.g. pilot testing of small packs of seed and fertilizer)

4) Contributions to trade analysis for decision making in the setting of research and development agendas

However, the contributions have been less than should have been expected, given the size of the programme and the history of significant contributions to knowledge made in previous periods. For example, although Village Level Studies (VLS) data collection was re-launched in 2001, only a small start has been made by ICRISAT in studying the dynamics of change using the database which is ideal for such analysis. Impact assessment studies used standard economic surplus methods, and missed the opportunity as probably the activity consuming the largest proportion of socioeconomics budget in the CGIAR, to make contributions to tackling current methodological issues in impact assessment. These include the problems of partitioning benefits between NARS, IARCs and extension systems, or analysis of the impacts of unintended or inappropriate outputs within the CGIAR. An encouraging start has however very recently been made in identification of difficult methodological issues in assessment of NRM impacts.

None the less GT6 and its forerunner, the Socioeconomics and Policy Programme have had discernible impacts in a number of areas, as shown by the examples in the CCER. These include impacts within ICRISAT (regular contributions to priority setting and allocation of resources), impacts on policy (re-designing of emergency seed distribution systems in Southern Africa, increased funding of ICRISAT programmes), impact on NARS capacity (priority setting and impact analysis), impacts on the private sector (revised approaches to seed marketing in Southern Africa), and impacts on gender analyses.

2.5 Information Management

According to ICRISAT, accomplishments in information management during the review period include: the establishment of an institute-wide information platform, or a global intranet; the e-Library initiated through IRMP in 2001; and the setting up of five types of learning initiatives: scholarly studies, joint project attachments, specialized skills course, ICT-enabled learning, and computer-based tutorials. ICRISAT adopted a MS-Window based client-server computing architecture, a transition from the VAX computing platform. It also created an institute-wide connectivity and networking infrastructure, offering a virtual collaboration and conferencing facility, and established a Internet web site service for the entire Institute. In the area of library and documentation, ICRISAT developed an Electronic Library.

All the above listed accomplishments are considered by the Panel as "moving forward with the times" in making use of the potential of ICT for connectivity and networking, and for information sharing and dissemination. ICRISAT is commended for the emphasis on knowledge sharing within the Institute, and the establishment of an Institute-wide information platform, or a global Intranet. The pilot ICT-based open distance learning initiative for sharing information and knowledge, and skills with poor communities is dealt with in section 6.4.