Six million South Asian farmers would be able to produce an additional five million tonne grain annually and yearly income of the poor farmers would increase by at least $350 within a span of 10 years.

This goal is expected to be achieved under the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), announced by the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

The 10-year project would focus initially on eight hubs in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal, which represent key intensive cereal production systems and plays a major role in feeding close to a quarter of the world?s population.

The initiative will bring together a range of public and private sector organisations to enable sustainable cereal production. CSISA will be led by IRRI with support of $19.59 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation over three years and more than $10 million aid from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) over the first three years.

Achim Dobermann, IRRI deputy director general for research said, ?The food price spikes of 2008 were a stark reminder of what can happen when agricultural productivity growth which is reliant on continued research and development-tapers off and demand begins to overtake supply.?

?By contributing critical know-how to major national initiatives and private-sector investments in new technologies for improving cereal productivity and farm income in South Asia, CSISA can take big steps in the eradication of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty in a region that has grappled with these afflictions for far too long,? added Doberman.

CSISA aims to reverse declines in annual cereal yield growth of recent years, decrease hunger and malnutrition (almost half the region?s children under five are malnourished), and increase food and income security in South Asia through the accelerated development and deployment of new cereal varieties, sustainable management technologies, and agricultural policies.

According to Dobermann, CSISA?s 10-year-goal is for four million farmers to achieve a yield increase of at least 0.5 tonne per hectare on five million hectare and an additional two million farmers to achieve a yield increase of at least 1.0 tonne per hectare on 2.5 million hectare.

These figures translate into at least five million tonne of additional grain produced annually, with an additional economic value of at least $1.5 billion per year and substantial other savings in terms of energy and other production costs.

The other major objectives include better crop management and post-harvest technologies and practices, the development and dissemination of improved rice, wheat and maize varieties and creation of a new generation of agricultural scientists and professional agronomists.

Three other international agricultural research centres-the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT)-will partner with IRRI, national agricultural research organisations, education and extension systems, non-government organisations and private-sector companies to implement CSISA.

South Asia is home to 40% of the world?s poor with nearly half a billion people subsisting on less than $1 a day as they struggle to boost grain supplies in the wake of growing demand and strained natural resources.

By drawing on the combined strengths of a wide range of public and private sector partners, CSISA aims to accelerate the development and delivery of new technologies for resource-efficient, sustainable management of current and future cereal cropping systems. The initiative will build on past work by several initiatives in the region supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, including that of the Rice-Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains, which has developed and promoted with farmers and researchers resource-conserving technologies now used on as many as two million hectares.

This project is also expected to augment efforts in other parts of the world to alleviate poverty and hunger.