The Ohio State University Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering (FABE) associate professor Sami Khanal will lead a two-year United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiative to collaborate with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) to explore and promote climate-smart nitrogen fertilizer management practices for sustainable rice and wheat production in Nepal.
The efforts started in December 2023, when Khanal and other Ohio State representatives traveled to Nepal to begin discussing the research gap in agricultural technology in South Asia. During discussions with NARC, the team found a lack of ground truth greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data from agricultural fields in Nepal—the data critical for helping farmers understand how improper nitrogen management can negatively affect both their profitability and the environment.
Khanal’s lab in Columbus extensively works toward measuring and analyzing GHG emissions and other soil and crop data for effective nutrient management. In collaboration with other research groups at OSU, her team collects these data from farmers’ fields across Ohio, and uses them to better parameterize different models, improving their reliability in simulating GHG emissions under various management practices, including nitrogen fertilizer application.
As a result, this USDA program will bring a research fellow from Nepal to Ohio for three months this fall and train the fellow in the measurement and analysis of GHG emissions data to derive insights for nutrient management. Once trained, the fellow will return to Nepal to set up field experiments and monitor GHG emissions from experimental fields planted in wheat and rice. The fellow will also share the skills learned at OSU with NARC colleagues and other relevant stakeholders through workshops and publications, which will help to build the necessary workforce for future research and extension endeavors.
"Rice and wheat are staple crops in Nepal, contributing about one-fifth of the country’s agricultural GDP. However, their productivity lags behind that of its two big neighboring countries–China and India. To meet the needs of its growing population, Nepal imports rice and wheat from these countries. To increase yields, farmers often rely on heavy use of chemical fertilizers, particularly nitrogen, but inefficient fertilizer application raises concerns about nutrient loss and GHG emissions.” said Khanal. "The outcomes of this project can empower the associated researchers and stakeholders in Nepal on the different ways to collect and use data, hopefully, make good decisions, improve nitrogen management practices, and address the yield gap by translating it to the farming community."
"This project will contribute to the targets set by the Government of Nepal to reduce hunger and mitigate GHG emissions, as well as directly align with the U.S. government’s commitment to combat poverty, hunger, and climate change," said Khanal. "By training researchers in developing countries, we are helping the cause of bringing sustainable agriculture to all."