Project Work

The field of activity of my host organisation:

In this blog entry, i will first describe some of the current research activities of bioRe and the FiBL here in India. Most importantly, there is the Long Term Experiment, a trial where the different farming systems, namely the Organic, Biodynamic, Conventional and Bt-Conventional, are compared. This experiment has been set up in 2007 and will run for at least 10 years. Cotton, Soya and Wheat are the crops which are rotated. The objectives are to quantify

• how organic farming affects yield and yield stability (especially in seasons with extreme weather conditions such as drought or flood), product quality and product storability, compared to the conventional system
• how organic farming affects the stability of the agro-ecological system, with emphasis on soil fertility, beneficial organisms and biodiversity, compared to the conventional system
• natural and economic resource effectiveness (output/input relationships) of the organic system compared to the conventional system.

Other current research activities are for example the Green Cotton Project and the Participatory Cotton Cultivar Evaluation trial. These trials aim at developing locally adapted cultivars as well as maintaining and increasing genetic diversity, because even though the majority of the world's organic cotton is produced in India, it became extremely difficult to find suitable cultivars for the organic production. Hybrids (adapted to high input farming) and GM-cotton are presently dominating the Indian seed market (> 90%) and as hybrid seed needs to be purchased each season farmers have lost their traditional knowledge on seed production.

Moreover, there is a large risk of contamination with GM cotton and the loss of locally adapted genetic resources. So the FiBL, bioRe (Ltd.) and the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) Dharwad initiated a long term Cotton Breeding Project with the main aim to safeguard the heritage of Indian Desi cotton, maintain genetic diversity, avoid GM contamination and support the organic farmers with suitable cotton cultivars. 

My project

Now, this is not all. As I have mentioned in an earlier blog entry, the study I am conducting here is embedded in the Participatory Technology Development, where the needs of the organic farmers are identified and addressed. The current efforts of the PTD go on the one hand into the improvement of manure management options, and on the other hand into the development of suitable pest management strategies for organic farmers. And my project only represents a part of the work which is done in this latter. 

On the one hand I am continuing the research (started by Claudia) about spraying intervals with different self-made pest control products focussing on their impact on pest infestation and yield. These trials are still going on, the pest control products are sprayed at a regular basis, observations are done and the weight of the harvested cotton is recorded. 

Every other week I go to the trials in the farmers fields, bring them the self-made product they should spray in their/our on-farm trial and I do different kinds of observations on pest infestation.
Here is one of our organic farmers, Ambaram, on who's field we have a pest trial. On this photo he is spraying a self-made organic product we prepared for him, namely Top 10, in the plots where we prescribe him when and what to spray. These plots are then compared to the plots where he sprays in the way he usually does (or in his case, does not spray at all).

Top 10 is made of cow urine, cow dung and the extract from the fresh green leaves of the following 10 plants: The Neem tree (Azadirachta indiaca), the castor oil plant "Arandi" (Ricinus communis), the sugar-apple tree "Sitafall" (Annona squamosa), the five-leaved chaste tree "Nirgud" (Vitex negundo), the pink morning glory "Tamesar" (Ipomoea carnea), Nerium Oleander "Kaneer" (Nerium indicum), the Devil's Trumpet "Datura" (Datura festiosa), the Indian Beech "Karanj" (Millettia pinnata), the Papaya "Papita" (Carica papaya) and the Sodom Apple "Acao" (Calotropis procera). 
It is a self-made pesticide against sucking pests and caterpillars and is effective due to bitterness, bad odor and other properties coming from the plant’s alkaloids. This is just one of the various self-made products which are used in the pest trials.

On the other hand, I am focussing on options and tools for pest monitoring. This is an important aspect of a good pest management strategy. Because usually the organic farmers only spray when the pest problems become visible, which often means that the economic threshold levels are reached, possible ways to monitor and estimate the pest pressures need to be found.
Since now, I have done a lot of literature review on this, I have compiled and collected ideas and I have tried to find out about the availability of monitoring tools on the local market. Yet this last aspect is difficult to do for a foreigner in India. The information is only orally available and many phonecalls are necessary for what you have to know at least Hindi, if not even the local language (Nimadi, the "d" more sounding like an indian "r")... And even if you find somebody who offers you what you are looking for, then you are never sure if you couldn't get the same thing from somewhere else (maybe closer) for much cheaper.

The aim is then to assess the potential of these options and tools to monitor pest infestation firstly for on-station trials and secondly to assess the applicability for farmers. For this purpose I am setting up demonstration trials, I conduct workshops and most importantly I do surveys with bioRe staff, extension officers and farmers to find about their view on this subject.

Only just last Monday I had my fist workshop with the farmers advisory committee. I gave a small presentation, demonstrated some monitoring tools on the demonstration farm and had my questionnaires filled out by them.

I am happy to share some photos of that day:

The further steps that are planned are of course to install more demonstration trials and reach as many farmers as possible to demonstrate them to and to get their opinion on the possibility to use such monitoring options and tools. 

For the other trials the aim is to continue to collect data and to do a cost-benefit analysis to find out, if and which spraying interval/ treatment could be worth adopting in the future. 

The reality of life from next door

Since quite a while I was thinking about sharing some photos of the surroundings, not of where I live, but some impression from just outside this little paradise where I live in...

There is especially one family that I would like to portray here. Unfortunately I know quite nothing about them, but there's still some time and I hope to at least get to know some of their names. I have given them some old clothes from other people and myself and occasionally brought them something small to eat, like bananas or some sweets for the Diwali Festival. 

They live just in front of the bioRe campus in a shabby home and I think they own this ox, because this one is always tied there near a tree. I was told that the father works as the guard of the fields (sugar cane) and earns 2000 rupees (30 swiss francs) in a month. 

There are four children, all with adorable faces and a vivid eyes. 

 The oldest girl usually takes care of the younger siblings. And she comes often close to our room and wants me to come over so we can crush some of the very tasty Indian Almonds together (Terminalia catappa, in Hindi called Padam). Or she would climb up a small Guava tree (Psidium guajava) and offer me some fruits, though they were usually not quite ripe enough when she picked them....

And here is their mother. She was very proud to be taken on a photo and I showed it to her afterwards, which was when I could tell that this woman must have no proper access to any water body, let alone sanitary facility...

It makes one feel helpless when one gets insights into these realities and I find it astonishing how normal this is for the Indians which are a little bit better off. The poor are given no attention, they're just there, that's how it is. At the same time it is not astonishing, because what else is one supposed to do? And it is of course the dominant image of the country. However, I've been told that where the gap between rich and poor is much wider, there is real disgust, and this I find is a true cause for concern.

The ginning factory

Last week, the Open House Days took place and I had the chance to participate and get to see the ginning factory:

In these machines the seeds are seperated from the fibre:

The cotton fibre is then pressed into these blocs

All good things take time

Several weeks have passed since my last entry and many things have happened in the meantime. But in this post I will focus on the cultural differences and aspects I've come to know since I'm here... 

Having been in Nepal and India before, I’d say that the cultural shock was minor. Yet getting to know the environment and way of life here in Madhya Pradesh was of course very exciting and took some time. In the beginning, I couldn’t take enough pictures of the beautiful ox-carts and observed and questioned everything about the agricultural or cultural practice here.

This fascination unfortunately decreases quite fast and things start to become normality. But of course I’m still eager to get to know much more, the curiosity remained. I’d still love to learn about each tree or plant and everything I cannot identify on the market or elsewhere… And I still try to remember as many Hindi words as I can, but in the meanwhile I’m often too exhausted for that.

Normally, our days start at 8:30 with the breakfast here at the “Campus” called Training Centre. The Research Centre, where Seraina and I work at, is only a short walk of some minutes down the road. Once we arrive there and receive warm greetings from whoever is already there, the working atmosphere comes up only slowly. First, the morning Chai is served and the team members discuss this or that while slowly starting the day of work (ok, now this might not be fair, because it does not always include everyone and I am not aware of how their mornings look like at theirs homes…;)).

But the handling of time is for sure the most obvious cultural difference between India and Switzerland. Ten minutes usually become at least half an hour or easily more. However, I feel that I cannot judge the efficiency with which the work is done. Mobile phones are an extremely essential tool in the organisation and planning of everything. Of course, how else would they get anything? How else could anything be arranged? Their mobile phones ring all the time and there are no situations such as meetings or discussions, where they are not answered. So you just wait for the person to finish the phone call and be at your disposal again… and no excuse is expected, even if one needs to repeat what was said in the meantime. What is more, the ringtones could not be any fancier and the volume needs to be at its maximum so that it can also be heard when on the motorbike… ;) This made me laugh so many times (e.g. some song with the lyrics "you're my pumpkin pumpkin hello honey bunny" and this AT WORK from the phone of a grown up MAN?! :D). 

But I think their spontaneity and relaxed manner is great! The noise however, can really start to unnerve when you try to concentrate or when you’re not feeling quite alright.

The same goes for traffic. I am not sure if any Swiss person would be able to display as much patience and nerves when it comes to the many obstacles on the roads, their overtaking practice and the constant horning! The number one discipline my colleagues from work need to excel at is to slalom on their motorbikes through sheep, goat or cow herds and breaking down and speeding up again endlessly. When I sit on the back of the motorbike on one of these rides I enjoy seeing so much of the country, but I’m done in the end and my head feels dizzy from all the bumping on unpaved roads.

I can really learn a great deal from this stressless way of living with whatever fate may bring. And another thing I really think is wonderful is how people are all so very warm hearted. One is welcomed and invited all the time, people love to serve you with their delicious food, they love to show you their homes, introduce you to all their family members and they’d love to show you the places they know and consider as worth seeing! Shouldn’t we welcome tourists in Switzerland with a bit more hospitality?

On the contrary, what makes me sad here in India is that the rubbish problem is still as big as ever and (at least here in the countryside) nothing is done about it. Even in their minds it seems that nothing has changed. After eating or drinking all the papers, packages and bottles are just dropped on the roads or fields. At work or during workshops we tell our Indian friends not to, and they apologize… But what does it take to really change this habit?

Diwali (Deepawali) festival and a visit to the Kathora village

On Diwali, all the cows and oxen get nicely decorated and their horns are painted in all different colours...

In front of every home, people make beautiful mandalas and form figures out of cow pats.

Three wonderful women ;) we had a very tasty lunch at their place!

Some typical sweets, always plenty offered on Diwali

And when it gets dark, little lights in clay cups with soja oil and a cotton thread are lit up:

Visiting the cotton farmers

Cotton

Most of the cotton grown in India is genetically modified BT-cotton. It had been developed in order to reduce lepidopteran pests, mainly the bollworms. Yet, the BT protein does not protect the crops from other pests, so that still many insecticides have to be applied. In addition to that, BT-cotton is always also hybrid-cotton. This causes a great reliance of farmers on Monsanto and co. for the seeds. Even non GM-cotton varieties are often hybrids, so that the farmers cannot recover seeds for sowing in the following year.

bioRe®, the enterprise for the production of organic cotton aims at strengthening farmers' families by means of organic farming and thus creating a better livelihood. Organic farming is expected to be not only environmentally friendly, but also fair and socially responsible. bioRe® extends advisory services to all its farmers. bioRe® also engages a lot into research with the aim of gaining scientific knowledge on organic agriculture in order to better advise farmers and extension staff, and in order to explore agricultural innovation to further increase productivity of organic farming systems. 

And here is where my work comes in. The research that I will conduct during my internship is part of the PTD, the participatory technology development. This means that investigation reveals the needs of farmers and then trials are set up in order to test different possibilties to encounter these needs. Next to an on-station trial, there are also on-farm trials as a validation under farmer's conditions. Workshops with the farmers are then organised where they are asked about their opinion, how they evaluate the trials and what they could imagine to apply in practice. 

My focus will be on suitable pest management strategies in organic farming. The very precise question that I will try to answer is yet to be defined. There is now a trial on different spraying intervals and different organic pesticides still going on which Claudia, a student from HAFL, had set up. I am taking over these trials now and will continue to collect data, do pest observations and the sprayings. In addition to that, I will do a profound research on the options for pest monitoring, e.g. with sticky traps or pheromone traps. 

A first impression of the trial fields at the research site

an open cotton-fruit:

Gossypium hirsutum variety: The hirsutum-cotton varieties can be recognized by their leaves which are mostly only 3-lobed and larger. The flowers are pointing upwards and their fibres are longer, which makes it possible to obtain a thin thread. Gossypium hirsutum is originally from tropical America.

Gossypium arboreum variety: The arboreum-varieties usually have 5-lobed and smaller leaves. They grow higher and their flowers are hanging downwards (not clearly visible here). Their fibre is shorter which means that more fibre is needed to obtain a thread which won't tear apart, it gets thicker. Gossypium arboreum is native to India (tropical Asia).

Arrival in India

Namaste! Welcome to India, madam!

This is what I hear from everywhere since my arrival...At first, I was in the safe "cocoon" of airports, taxis and the fancy Ibis Airport Hotel in Mumbai where I stayed for one night.

The next day I had to take another plane to Indore. One exciting moment during travel was the evacuation excercise at the Mumbai Airport. We all had to leave the domestic gate, they delivered drinking water and chairs and we sat under beautiful trees full of huge "bats"... I think it must have been flying foxes or fruit bats, no one could tell me exactly...

Only on that second day, when I got off the plane in Indore, it felt like diving into it all: into the colours, odours, tastes, into the heat and the horning of the cars and trucks...simply into the chaos! Into incredible India! I've let it all pass by, since the guy who picked me up form the Indore-Airport couldn't speak any English. He just held the sign in his hands "bioRe India Ltd." and we both understood we've found the person we were looking for... I followed him and two other guys followed us. I sat in the front and the two guys behind. We drove through Indore and picked up another guy who jumped in at the back. We stopped once more and the driver tried hard to pronounce something in English. Finally I understood he said "one purchase, madam". One of the guys at the back hopped off and came back with a bottle of water for me. And then we left Indore...

I looked out the front window and absorbed everything, dusk came and soon everything was dark...The guys exchanged a lot of news, it seemed. They gossiped like I would have only imagined women could ;). Only rarely they said some words to me. After two hours we stopped at a "roadhouse" so they could pee and have a chai. The driver showed me to the back of the building and it was the first time I had to use my hindi skills to find out which were the girls'-toilets. I was very happy to find myself remembering at least these basics... There were several squating toilets, I went into one and found I couldn't close the door, since the lock did not fit at all. I inspected two or three but soon decided not to pee...it was not urgent and the smell of urine was to obtrusive, there were no flushes, I had no paper... ok, let's not go into any further details.
The driver offered me something to eat and I declined, since I didn't want to strain my digestion too much just in the beginning.
But I realised these offers were his efforts to make me feel comfortable and I was very grateful for it. He said it would be another 30min until we'd arrive at bioRe. We continued on the dark roads, horning at every motorbike, bicycle or person walking or sitting along the steet, doing scary overtakes and avoiding run over, dead dogs...

When we finally arrived at bioRe at around 20:30, I was shown to my room with a torch. I could not see much from the campus, but I noticed that the paths and borders were all very neat and tidy. Then I got to meet Claudia, the student form HAFL who's research work I am going to continue. Also Monika Messmer from the FiBL was there for a short visit in India. We sat together and talked and discussed what will need to be done in the next few days. At the Garden Kitchen the cook warmed up some dinner for us and I really savoured it, I was hungry from the long journey.

The next day I was all mesmerized by the sunlight, the fresh green and the beauty of all the flowers. Here you see the building where I'm staying:

And here's a glimpse into my room. I will share it with Seraina.

The chipmunks are all around the place: