International Wheat and Maize Research Institute (CIMMYT)

Interventions
The CASPL’s clients include leading international agencies such as World Bank,, Michigan State University, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among various others. The organisation also works closely with the Central and State governments as well as donor agencies such as Sir Ratan Tata Trust, among others.
Some of its recent projects focus on contemporary issues such as conducting structure-conduct-performance of the onion value chain to understand the factors leading to price volatility; identify impact of using Laser Land Leveller – water saving technology – on productivity of major crops; assessing impact of climate change on agriculture across the Indo-Gangetic belt covering India, Nepal and Bangladesh; identifying the major areas of intervention in the goat sector which is increasingly being recognised as an important area of intervention for the poorest segment, especially in ecologically vulnerable geographies; designing value chain for vaccination of backyard poultry sector; conducting impact evaluation of leading projects as well as engaging in designing large scale projects funded by international agencies.
Engagement with farmers
CASPL conducts research on behalf of clients who are engaged in agriculture and rural development through policy advocacy as well as designing and implementing projects for the farmers. In that sense, it does not directly engage in implementing projects that benefit farmers. “We work with the stakeholders who engage with farmers to provide the critical information needed to design impactful projects. From that perspective, our engagement with farmers is indirect,” Dr. Mehta says.
The organisation engages with large scale teams of enumerators who approach farmers to collect the relevant information. These amounts of data collected from a large number of farming households, often 2,000-5,000 households, are then analysed to provide the critical input which the clients can use.