In early December, researchers involved in the IFAD-NUS project   [5]in Nepal came together to work for 5 days in a collaborative and intensive "writeshop" in order to analyze and summarize the results of project activities. A handful of authors from LI-BIRD  [6] (coordinating organization in Nepal) were selected to participate in the workshop who came prepared with a concept, data and preliminary analyses. They presented their ideas to a panel of reviewers, including Bioversity International  [7] scientists Dr. Stefano Padulosi, Dr. Bhuwon Sthapit, and Ms. Gennifer Meldrum (MSc.), biometrician based at the National Genebank  [8] Dr. Bal Krishna Joshi, and LI-BIRD programme operations director Dr. Ram Bahadur Rana, who gave feedback to strengthen the research questions, discourse, and analysis.

In working together, the experience resulted in a kick-start and strong drafts for several research papers. It was also a supportive learning environment where participating authors were mentored in how to write a quality journal article. Papers that were crafted during the meeting include, among others:

• Characterization of amaranth diversity in Nepal: results of an experiment where nearly 300 accessions of amaranth were evaluated in three sites in Nepal
• Farmer descriptors for amaranth: results and discussion of an exercise where farmers were asked to describe diverse amaranth plants to help in harmonizing farmer and scientific descriptors
• Amaranth production in the vegetable lean season: results of an experiment investigating optimal planting dates for amaranth and potential to deliver harvest in the vegetable lean season
• Investigations into the use status of foxtail millet and finger millet in different communities

We look forward to sharing these papers when they are complete!

Final Project Meetings Coming Up

The project closing meeting for Nepal will take place in mid-February and project closing meetings for India and Bolivia will take place in a similar time frame. The aim of these meetings is to share the project findings with policy makers and other stakeholders in on-farm conservation and adaptation of agriculture to climate change. As the project findings are coming together, check back for more information and results coming soon!

Corresponding with the writeshop, we have also added some new pictures  [9] to our Flikr site from the writeshop, visit to the National Genebank and field trip to the village of Namdu in Dolakha district, where we have been working during the project.