South & Central Asia

The South Asia office was established in 2006 on the campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) near Hyderabad, India.

South Asia is home to a large proportion of the world’s vulnerable populations, most of whom live in rural areas. As poverty increases, diets often become less diverse and micronutrient malnutrition can increase as cheap starchy staples replace vegetables in diets.

Vegetable production in South Asia has been virtually static for the last two decades and per capita availability has declined as populations have increased.

Despite India’s rapid economic growth, there are still 300 million people living below the poverty line and 75% of the poor live in rural areas.

Per capita consumption of vegetables in India is only about 86 g/day, compared with WHO’s recommendation of 240 g/day. To improve the nutrition of rural families, vegetables production must be increased and better integrated into the region’s predominantly cereal-based farming systems.

At the same time, the increasing demand for food from the urban poor living in megacities needs to be satisfied.

The South Asia team:

• Promotes home gardens and urban/peri-urban vegetable production and marketing for income generation, nutritional security, diet diversification and health
• Promotes good agricultural practices to safely produce vegetables under covered production systems
• Hosts the Center’s legume breeding program, focusing on improved varieties of mungbean and vegetable soybean, with additional work on cowpea and yard-long bean
• Identifies and introduces suitable vegetable lines to share with national partners for distribution