Biologicals

Nepal Scientists Embrace The Role Of Better Evidence

03 February 2025, Nepal: Nepal scientists have been exploring how to produce better evidence in informing decisions on agriculture to improve livelihoods and food security.

They attended a workshop on evidence synthesis convened by the Juno Evidence Alliance, a global platform helping decisionmakers to produce and use robust evidence to solve problems across the agrifood sector.

Evidence synthesis is a research method that combines information from multiple sources to create a ‘whole picture’ view of current knowledge on a topic.

The workshop took place as Nepal’s scientists and government are working to better understand how to feed the country’s population of 30 million without further increasing its dependence on food imports.

Nepal’s crop productivity has stagnated over recent decades despite a long history of crop breeding efforts. This problem has been compounded by the impact of climate change and the reduced availability of arable land and agricultural labour.

Study reveals differences in crop yields

The workshop illustrated the potential of evidence synthesis for improving agrifood decisions through a newly completed systematic study which reveals ways in which Nepal can increase crop yield through different breeding methods.

The systematic review was conducted by the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) in collaboration with Juno and funded by the FCDO. The review identified, collated, and synthesized all available evidence on the effectiveness of different crop breeding methods in Nepal.

In assessing literature on the performance of crop breeding methods in Nepal, the study found over 40,000 potentially relevant records. It used artificial intelligence to narrow these down to 81 records containing quantitative yield data suitable for statistical analysis across the studies.

Commenting on the findings, Dr Ram Khadka, lead author of the study and Research Scientist at NARC, said: “The results indicate that crop varieties developed through hybridization and introduction generally have higher yields and resilience to biotic and abiotic stress compared with those from domestication.

“The number of articles on potato and vegetable crops is quite limited compared to rice, maize, and wheat despite their huge roles in food and nutritional security,” he added.

Evidence informing policy

From the findings, the study goes on to make several policy recommendations.

Crop breeding research should be prioritized to improve farmers’ access to better-performing varieties. Investment in modern breeding techniques should be increased to improve the research capacity of local researchers and breeders, as well as to accelerate plant variety development.

There also needs to be more research on local landraces (evolved varieties of a domesticated crop) and their utilization in hybridization programmes to enhance the yield under local contexts. More research and development of vegetable and potato varieties in is also needed in Nepal.

Research that’s relevant for the local context

Dr Sini Savilaakso, Evidence Research Lead at Juno Evidence Alliance, is a report author who led the training at the end of December 2024 in Kathmandu.

“We embarked on this research and training workshop in Nepal to support the country’s ongoing work in seeking ways to improve agricultural productivity,” she says.

“It is crucial that country decisionmakers are able to produce and use agrifood research that’s comprehensive and relevant for their local context.”

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