Overview
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) was established in 2009 to promote durable change at scale in South Asia’s cereal-based cropping systems. CSISA supports regional and national efforts to improve cereal production growth in South Asia’s Indo-Gangetic Plains, home to the region’s most important grain baskets. Operating in rural “innovation hubs” in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, CSISA involves more than 300 public, civil society, and private sector partners in the development and dissemination of improved cropping systems, resource-conserving management technologies, new cereal varieties and hybrids, livestock feeding strategies and feed value chains, aquaculture systems, and policies and markets. In essence, CSISA is an innovation systems platform that links a wide range of public, private, and civil society sector programs within and across South Asia. CSISA is run by a collaboration of five international agricultural research centers, all members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and each with a distinct but complementary expertise in agricultural production systems. Partners include: the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the WorldFish Center, and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Funded by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, CSISA utilizes strategic partnerships, participatory technology development, and future-oriented cropping systems research to catalyze locally-appropriate, sustainable change in rural communities across the region.