Progress and prospects of developing climate resilient wheat in South Asia using modern pre-breeding methods

: Developing climate-resilient wheat is a priority for South Asia since the effect of climate change will be pronounced on the major crops that are staple to the region. South Asia must produce >400 million metric tons (MMT) of wheat by 2050 to meet the demand. However, the current average yield <3 t/ha is not sufficient to meet the requirement. In this review, we are addressing how pre-breeding methods in wheat can address the gap in grain yield as well as reduce the bottleneck of genetic diversity. Physiological pre-breeding, which incorporates screening of diverse germplasm from gene banks for physiological and agronomic traits, the strategic crossing of complementary traits, high throughput phenotyping, molecular markers-based generation advancement, genomic prediction, and validation of high-value heat and drought tolerant lines to South Asia, can help to alleviate the drastic effect of climate change on wheat production. There are several gene banks, if utilized well, can play a major role in breeding for climate-resilient wheat. CIMMYT’s wheat physiological pre-breeding has delivered several hundred lines via the Stress Adapted Trait Yield Nursery (SATYN) to the NARS in many South Asian countries; India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Iran. Some of these improved germplasms have resulted in varieties for farmer's fields. We conclude the review by pointing out the importance of collaborative interdisciplinary translational research to alleviate the effects of climate change on wheat production in South Asia.

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Climate change and women in South Asia: a review and future policy implications

World Journal of Science Technology and Sustainable Development ◽

10.1108/wjstsd-10-2018-0059 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 145-166

Author(s):

Sangram Kishor Patel ◽

Gopal Agrawal ◽

Bincy Mathew ◽

Sunita Patel ◽

Biswajit Mohanty ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Asia ◽

South Asian ◽

Focal Point ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Asian Countries ◽

Physical And Mental Health ◽

The South ◽

Content Type ◽

Future Policy

Purpose South Asian region is a focal point owing to its vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive diseases, dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods, projected levels of crop decline in the region, and high rates of poverty and malnutrition. Women are particularly vulnerable to climate change and this affects women disproportionately during different extreme events. The purpose of this paper is to understand the issue of climate change and its impact, and climate resilience among women in South Asia. Further, it also identifies the gaps and suggests future policy implications. Design/methodology/approach Climate change is increasingly being recognised as an alarming issue and the present review is important when South Asian countries are facing the brunt of climate change impacts. This paper tries to understand the issue by review of the literature and conceptual framework methodology. To understand women’s vulnerability due to climate change and its aftermath, the authors conducted both offline and online desk reviews for this study. Findings The findings of this study show a clear linkage between climate change and women’s vulnerabilities in South Asia. Climate change has significant socio-economic impacts on women, and it affects them disproportionately in various domains of agriculture, livelihood, food security, both physical and mental health, water and sanitation in the South Asia region. Practical implications The paper also highlights that the programmes that aim at combating the effects of climate change require a gender-sensitive approach so that climate change does not obstruct the development and reduction of poverty in the region. Social implications The findings of this paper will add value in helping families to come out of poverty by undertaking adaptive measures with proactive assistance from the government and grassroots level organisations. Originality/value The present study also advocates for more gender- and climate-sensitive measures from governments, and implementation of intervention- and evidence-based research in the South Asian countries.

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South Asia will focus on easing impact of large floods

Emerald Expert Briefings ◽

10.1108/oxan-db239109 ◽

2018 ◽

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Asia ◽

South Asian ◽

Living Standards ◽

Asian Countries ◽

Content Type ◽

Risk Maps ◽

Large Floods

Significance India and Pakistan face a higher risk of heatwaves. Rising average temperatures may be linked to increased monsoon-related emergencies in South Asia. Impacts India will likely exceed its intended nationally determined contribution targets arising from the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference. Declining living standards due to climate change could raise migratory pressures across South Asia. South Asian countries will increasingly use drone technology to create risk maps charting climate change.

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Climate change will prompt major reform in South Asia

Emerald Expert Briefings ◽

10.1108/oxan-db246362 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Asia ◽

South Asian ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Asian Countries ◽

Political Debate ◽

Content Type ◽

Weather Events ◽

Major Reform ◽

Flood Defence

Subject Responses to climate change in South Asia. Significance The Maldives last week hosted the fourth Indian Ocean Conference, at which representatives from South Asia and beyond discussed challenges to the region such as climate change. South Asian countries are experiencing increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as flooding and drought. Impacts The Maldives and Sri Lanka, the region’s island nations, will invest heavily in flood-defence systems. South Asian authorities will be under pressure to improve medical services to help cut deaths from flood-related diseases. Climate change will be an increasingly prominent feature of political debate in many of the region’s countries.

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Natural Hazards Governance in South Asia

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.231 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Mihir Bhatt ◽

Kelsey Gleason ◽

Ronak B. Patel

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Asia ◽

Natural Disaster ◽

Natural Hazards ◽

South Asian ◽

Disaster Risk Reduction ◽

Natural Hazard ◽

Disaster Risk ◽

Socioeconomic Conditions ◽

Asian Countries

South Asia is faced with a range of natural hazards, including floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, and tsunamis. Rapid and unplanned urbanization, environmental degradation, climate change, and socioeconomic conditions are increasing citizens’ exposure to and risk from natural hazards and resulting in more frequent, intense, and costly disasters. Although governments and the international community are investing in disaster risk reduction, natural hazard governance in South Asian countries remain weak and often warrants a review when a major natural disaster strikes. Natural hazards governance is an emerging concept, and many countries in South Asia have a challenging hazard governance context.

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Climate Change and Agriculture in South Asia

10.1596/26792 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David Laborde ◽

Csilla Lakatos ◽

Gerald Nelson ◽

Richard Robertson ◽

Marcelle Thomas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Asia

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Wasting and Associated Factors among Children under 5 Years in Five South Asian Countries (2014–2018): Analysis of Demographic Health Surveys

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18094578 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (9) ◽

pp. 4578

Author(s):

Nidhi Wali ◽

Kingsley E. E. Agho ◽

Andre M. N. Renzaho

Keyword(s):

South Asia ◽

South Asian ◽

Health Surveys ◽

Associated Factors ◽

Common Factor ◽

Household Wealth ◽

Health Concern ◽

Demographic And Health Surveys ◽

Asian Countries ◽

Sampling Weights

Child wasting continues to be a major public health concern in South Asia, having a prevalence above the emergency threshold. This paper aimed to identify factors associated with wasting among children aged 0–23 months, 24–59 months, and 0–59 months in South Asia. A weighted sample of 564,518 children aged 0–59 months from the most recent demographic and health surveys (2014–2018) of five countries in South Asia was combined. Multiple logistic regression analyses that adjusted for clustering and sampling weights were used to examine associated factors. Wasting prevalence was higher for children aged 0–23 months (25%) as compared to 24–59 months (18%), with variations in prevalence across the South Asian countries. The most common factor associated with child wasting was maternal BMI [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) for 0–23 months = 2.02; 95% CI: (1.52, 2.68); AOR for 24–59 months = 2.54; 95% CI: (1.83, 3.54); AOR for 0–59 months = 2.18; 95% CI: (1.72, 2.77)]. Other factors included maternal height and age, household wealth index, birth interval and order, children born at home, and access to antenatal visits. Study findings suggest need for nutrition specific and sensitive interventions focused on women, as well as adolescents and children under 2 years of age.

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Agroforestry to Achieve Global Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Targets: Are South Asian Countries Sufficiently Prepared?

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12030303 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 303

Author(s):

Shalini Dhyani ◽

Indu K Murthy ◽

Rakesh Kadaverugu ◽

Rajarshi Dasgupta ◽

Manoj Kumar ◽

...

Keyword(s):

South Asia ◽

South Asian ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Global Climate ◽

Well Being ◽

Agroforestry Systems ◽

Climate Mitigation ◽

Asian Countries ◽

Implementation Phase ◽

Adaptation And Mitigation

Traditional agroforestry systems across South Asia have historically supported millions of smallholding farmers. Since, 2007 agroforestry has received attention in global climate discussions for its carbon sink potential. Agroforestry plays a defining role in offsetting greenhouse gases, providing sustainable livelihoods, localizing Sustainable Development Goals and achieving biodiversity targets. The review explores evidence of agroforestry systems for human well-being along with its climate adaptation and mitigation potential for South Asia. In particular, we explore key enabling and constraining conditions for mainstreaming agroforestry systems to use them to fulfill global climate mitigation targets. Nationally determined contributions submitted by South Asian countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change acknowledge agroforestry systems. In 2016, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’s Resolution on Agroforestry brought consensus on developing national agroforestry policies by all regional countries and became a strong enabling condition to ensure effectiveness of using agroforestry for climate targets. Lack of uniform methodologies for creation of databases to monitor tree and soil carbon stocks was found to be a key limitation for the purpose. Water scarcity, lack of interactive governance, rights of farmers and ownership issues along with insufficient financial support to rural farmers for agroforestry were other constraining conditions that should be appropriately addressed by the regional countries to develop their preparedness for achieving national climate ambitions. Our review indicates the need to shift from planning to the implementation phase following strong examples shared from India and Nepal, including carbon neutrality scenarios, incentives and sustainable local livelihood to enhance preparedness.

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Suicide methods in South Asia over two decades (2001–2020)

International Journal of Social Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/00207640211015700 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002076402110157

Author(s):

S M Yasir Arafat ◽

Syeda Ayat-e-Zainab Ali ◽

Vikas Menon ◽

Fahad Hussain ◽

Daniyal Shabbir Ansari ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sri Lanka ◽

South Asia ◽

South Asian ◽

English Language ◽

Public Health Problem ◽

Asian Countries ◽

Pubmed Central ◽

Suicide Methods ◽

Search Terms ◽

Quantitative Studies

Background: Suicide is a global preventable public health problem. About a quarter of all suicides in the world occur in South Asia. As means restriction is an important suicide prevention strategy, gaining knowledge of the common suicide methods and their changing trends in each country and region is crucial. Aims: We aimed to assess the suicide methods in South Asian countries over the last two decades. Methods: A search was performed in PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Google Scholar with the search terms. Original articles of quantitative studies, published in the English language, from 2001 to 2020, with full-accessible text, that rank different methods of suicide in eight South Asian countries, were included. Results: A total of 68 studies were found eligible for review. The Maximum number of studies were found from India ( n = 38), followed by Bangladesh ( n = 12), Pakistan ( n = 9), Sri Lanka ( n = 6), and Nepal ( n = 3). Hanging ( n = 40, 55.8%) and poisoning ( n = 24, 35.3%) were the two most common suicide methods reported, in that order. Hanging followed by poisoning were the commonest suicide methods in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan while in Sri Lanka, poisoning was the preferred method to hanging. There is a decline in suicide by poisoning and an increase in suicide by hanging in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India. Although hanging is still the commonest method in Pakistan, the use of firearms is growing in recent years (2011–2020). Conclusions: There is a steady decline in the incidence of suicides by poisoning following pesticide regulations in South Asian countries. However, there is heterogeneity of study methods, probable under-reporting of suicide, and lack of robust suicide data.

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Advances in Cereal Crop Genomics for Resilience under Climate Change

Life ◽

10.3390/life11060502 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 502

Author(s):

Tinashe Zenda ◽

Songtao Liu ◽

Anyi Dong ◽

Huijun Duan

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Genome Sequencing ◽

Gene Editing ◽

Agronomic Traits ◽

Cereal Crops ◽

Agricultural System ◽

Plant Genomics ◽

Crop Species ◽

Underutilized Species ◽

Recent Developments

Adapting to climate change, providing sufficient human food and nutritional needs, and securing sufficient energy supplies will call for a radical transformation from the current conventional adaptation approaches to more broad-based and transformative alternatives. This entails diversifying the agricultural system and boosting productivity of major cereal crops through development of climate-resilient cultivars that can sustainably maintain higher yields under climate change conditions, expanding our focus to crop wild relatives, and better exploitation of underutilized crop species. This is facilitated by the recent developments in plant genomics, such as advances in genome sequencing, assembly, and annotation, as well as gene editing technologies, which have increased the availability of high-quality reference genomes for various model and non-model plant species. This has necessitated genomics-assisted breeding of crops, including underutilized species, consequently broadening genetic variation of the available germplasm; improving the discovery of novel alleles controlling important agronomic traits; and enhancing creation of new crop cultivars with improved tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses and superior nutritive quality. Here, therefore, we summarize these recent developments in plant genomics and their application, with particular reference to cereal crops (including underutilized species). Particularly, we discuss genome sequencing approaches, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and genome-wide association (GWAS) studies, directed mutagenesis, plant non-coding RNAs, precise gene editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9, and complementation of crop genotyping by crop phenotyping. We then conclude by providing an outlook that, as we step into the future, high-throughput phenotyping, pan-genomics, transposable elements analysis, and machine learning hold much promise for crop improvements related to climate resilience and nutritional superiority.

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Safety verification of genetically modified rice morphology, hereditary nature, and quality

Environmental Sciences Europe ◽

10.1186/s12302-021-00516-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Dong Won Jeon ◽

Jae-Ryoung Park ◽

Yoon-Hee Jang ◽

Eun-Gyeong Kim ◽

Taehun Ryu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Gene Flow ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Genetically Modified ◽

Germination Rate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Yield Reduction ◽

Drought Tolerant ◽

Gm Plants ◽

Gm Rice

Abstract Background The drought environment occurs frequently due to the unpredictable future climate change, and drought has a direct negative impact on crops, such as yield reduction. Drought events are random, frequent, and persistent. Molecular breeding can be used to create drought-tolerant food crops, but the safety of genetically modified (GM) plants must be demonstrated before they can be adopted. In this research, the environmental risk of drought-tolerant GM rice was explored by assessing phenotype and gene flow. Drought resistance genes CaMsrB2 inserted HV8 and HV23 were used as GM rice to analyze the possibility of various agricultural traits and gene flow along with non-GM rice. Results When the traits 1000-grain weight, grain length/width, and yield, were compared with GM rice and non-GM rice, all agricultural traits of GM rice and non-GM rice were the same. In addition, when the germination rate, viviparous germination rate, pulling strength, and bending strength were compared to analyze the possibility of weediness, all characteristic values of GM rice and non-GM rice were the same. Protein, amylose, and moisture, the major nutritional elements of rice, were also the same. Conclusions The results of this research are that GM rice and non-GM rice were the same in all major agricultural traits except for the newly assigned characteristics, and no gene mobility occurred. Therefore, GM rice can be used as a means to solve the food problem in response to the unpredictable era of climate change in the future.

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