Phase II of the CGIAR Challenge Program for Water and Food (CPWF) is a multi-institutional and inter-disciplinary research for development initiative focused on increasing the resilience of social and ecological systems through better water management for food production.Phase II in the Ganges Basin began in 2011 and is scheduled to end in 2014.

This working paper reviews the experiences of the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) with 14 “small

grants for impact” that were contracted in early 2006 and operated for periods of 12 to 18 months. For a total

investment of under US$1 million – less than the equivalent of a typical 3-5 year CPWF research for development

project in Phase 1, the small grant projects made significant contributions to identifying water and food technology

for specific end users (thus showing the potential of CPWF research in general); to better understanding of

The project validated and disseminated a large number of improved rice-based cropping systems technologies suited to upland agro-ecologies. These improved technologies have good potentials to raise the productivity of water, land, and labor. The innovative strategies employed by the project including the paradigm of landscape management, multi-institutional partnership, multidisciplinary teamwork, farmer participatory approach to technology validation, and community-based seed production led to successful generation and dissemination of technologies.

Investigates the effects of improved surface drainage on the productivity of Vertisols in a wheat-and-chickpea cropping trial conducted in 1987 at ILCA;s Debre Zeit research site in the Ethiopian highlands. Chickpea plots were subjected to four irrigation treatments, viz, no irrigation, irrigation at planting, 35 days and 70 days after planting. The trial showed that with a starter irrigation to aid the germination of a second crop, sequential cropping of two crops in the same growing season is feasible in the Debre Zeit.