Ecologic – May 2013

radha — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:07:07 +0000

Ecologic is here again.. and this time with a story from the badly drought-affected district of Aurangabad. We also bring you an interesting ground-level experience with our weather-based, locale-specific agro-advisories and a nano-report on our training programme on Climate Adaptive Livelihoods held in Madhya Pradesh.

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Kachner faces down the drought of 2013

radha — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:15:21 +0000

Kachner Tanda is one of the few villages in the heart of the drought-land of Marathwada region of Maharashtra that has water for its people, cattle, and plants. But neighbouring villages a few kilometers away, like Adul and Jodwadi, are dealing with the death of their sweet-lime orchards that are dying due to lack of water. The freshly-bleeding stumps of Shaikh Akhtar’s orchards and the JCB engaged to dig out the dead roots has its own story to tell. “I have lost 2000 trees this year”, he laments, “there is simply not enough water to save them!” Akhtar of Adul village, however, is one of the richer farmers, and can perhaps take a hit that he has taken. Not so Gyansingh Naymane of Jodwadi village who has lost 500 trees. “We looked after them like our own children and it breaks my heart to see them dying bit by bit. But what can we do? Our well has just enough water for us… and we are saving up all we can for the coming month”, he says with tears in eyes as he watches his young sons chop down the dead trees with fruits still hanging on them. “I have invested Rs. 75,000 a year on them. They had just about begun to give returns…” wondering how he is going to recover from a loss he is not going to be able to withstand.

Gyansingh Naymane of Jodwadi, a neighbouring non-watershed village at his dead sweet-lime orchard

The 2013 drought is far more severe than the one of 1972. “Then we had no food, but had plenty of water… but now we have food but no water!” say the elders of all the villages recalling grim times past.

Kachner Tanda, however, seems to be in the eye of the ongoing storm all around. “We pump up around 15,000 litres of water from this well and supply water to the whole village”, says Narayan Eknath Chauhan showing the 10 and 5 hp pumps. “This well fills up 20-25 feet overnight. We can fill a 10-litre pot in 2 minutes flat, the rate at which water flows into well”, he proudly shares. He goes to the trouble of climbing down the well with a 10-litres-handa to prove his point, times himself when he starts filling the pot, and calls out triumphantly “2 minutes and full!” This is not the only well that has water. There are at least 4 wells which we counted that had anywhere between 10 to 20 feet of water.

So, what is so special about Kachner Tanda that it can survive a drought more severe than the one of 1972? Its people attribute this good fortune to the panlot karyakram (watershed development work) that the village had recently taken up. “We have worked on 1671 hectares around our hills”, says Pandit Babu Chauhan, the ex-sarpanch, “it is simple really… we followed a ridge to valley approach and built a variety of structures that slowed and stopped the water. This recharged our groundwater. This year is a bad year all around. We have had only 262 mm of rain, or else you would have seen our wells overflowing”.

“Water gives life” might be a so oft-used phrase it could almost be a cliché, but it couldn’t be truer than it is for Kachner Tanda. The village has seen its agricultural productivity double and sometimes tripled. Wheat production of the Tanda, for example, has gone up from 421 quintals to 1284 quintals. “We used to get 7-8 quintals of cotton normally. But last year I harvested 13 quintals”, says Narayan Chauhan. “Because of the increase of water in our wells, we can grow not only rabi crops but also vegetables. We have grown cluster beans, brinjals, ladies fingers, methi on our plots which we have sold in the neighbouring villages”, says Kavita Jadhav, an SHG member.

Watershed development is not only about implementing a technical solution. There is much that goes behind the farm bunds, gully-plugs and the contour trenches. If that was all, a whole lot of places would be tanker-free like Kachner. “It works only when people come together. It is not always easy”, says Kalpana Mohite, WOTR-staff, “In Kachner too we had our share of difficulties, especially when people encountered our wealth-ranking condition which employs differential contribution and benefits. Conflicts broke out. But once people saw the merits of the strategies things began to fall into place”.

Kachner Tanda is an agglomeration of 6 hamlets, 45 kms from Aurangabad city, located in Aurangabad District of the Marathwada region of Maharashtra where Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) and its sister organisation Sanjeevani Institute for Education & Development (SIED) has undertaken a Watershed Development program supported by Karl Kubal Stiftung and the BMZ. Kachner Tanda stands as a shining example of how the good practices of Watershed Development and water management can actually withstand the impacts of drought.

Summer Freeze

radha — Fri, 03 May 2013 05:37:12 +0000

This is the narration of the cold wave experienced in early February of 2012, which crippled crops in Akole area of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra. This same area has suffered climate erraticism for the 2nd year in a row now. The film indicates the high vulnerability of farmers – a harsh and in this case freezing cold reality.

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Does it ever rain this time?

radha — Fri, 03 May 2013 05:33:16 +0000

“Does it every rain at this time?” is a story of the actual impacts of unexpected and unusually heavy rain that devastated crops in Akole region of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra. It narrates what farmers are up against vis-a-vis climate variability.

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Climate Adaptive Livelihoods – plugging the leaks in local economies

radha — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:42:58 +0000

WOTR held one of its trainings of Climate Adaptive Livelihoods and Local Money Multiplier in Madhya Pradesh. The training’s objective is to help local communities identify and plug the leaks in their local economy.

49 people from 8 villages participate in the Climate Adaptive Livelihoods training program

The training started with the Money Outflow Game. This game helps understanding the concept of money inflows and outflows within a village. It raises the question how many times does the money rotate within the village and/or the local economy? It also brings to attention how people spend and on what?

It next addressed resources outflows from the village – resources of money, water, and people.

Finally it identified the overall spending patterns within the clusters.

The participants were shocked to amount of resources that flowed out of their villages. They decided to plug the highest leaks first through a cluster approach. They identified top 4 outflows – seeds, fertilizers, groceries, and fancy stores.

The training was important for villagers as it generated an awareness about the leaks within the local economy and generated a call to action to plug these leaks.

Food & Nutrition Security – a Position Paper

radha — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:50:22 +0000

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Food and nutritional security (FNS) is a complex issue given its reliance on climatic as well as non-climatic factors that are intertwined and interdependent. When climate change is superimposed, it further worsens the situation as food production, one of the critical ecosystem services, is impacted the most.

The paper, “Food and Nutrition Security and Climate Change: Strategies for a Sustainable Future”, examines the existing supporting systems – institutional and social - especially in the semi-arid and dryland regions in India. It pinpoints key approaches within the system that work and those that require further improvement. It further proposes the approaches needed – at community as well as policy level – towards food and nutrition security.

A ground-feedback on Agro-Advisories

radha — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:02:38 +0000

We got a message (in reply) from Aravind Ghule of Sawargaon Ghule village, Sangamner taluka who said “Very important information i have received from Wotr through sms. It is useful for recent cropping pattern. And also i would provide this information to other farmers through discussion. Thanks.” …and we knew YES! It works.

Aravind Ghule’s SMS was in reply to the agro-advice for the week for the Gram crop to control gram-pod borers with pheromone traps. It was an advice which popped up on Aravind Ghule’s mobile as an SMS. In a language he could read – Marathi. Which was specific to the weather conditions in his village. Specific to the crop he was growing. And because of this, relevant to Aravind Ghule. Hence his happy gratitude.

It is not everyday an NGO gets kudos from a farmer. Hence, appreciation from the field, from the last guy down the line becomes an honor badge we feel happy to wear. Especially so in the case of locale-weather-crop specific agro-advice by SMS – in Marathi. It was a long struggle to bring together diverse entities, marry high-end technology to local-underdeveloped communications, infrastructure, and literacy conditions, leap over obstacles of band-width, language, and data-assimilation, and on top of it convince a suspicious wait-and-watch community of its efficacy.

Zzzzzt. Rewind to the beginning.

Pan to the Situation:

Remote villages. Non-existent communication systems. Unpredictable weather conditions. Meteorological data which did not apply to the local situation. Generalised agro-advisories from experts. Disappearing traditional knowledge systems.

The Solution:

Locale-specific meteorological information. Weather-and-crop specific agro advisories. Building on existing good-practices. Promotion of Environment-friendly solutions.

The Process

(Step 1): Met stations installed in villages. Local village youth trained to read the met-data. Information displayed on black boards in public places. Community people sensitized to “read” and understand this new met-language. Trainings on maintenance of weather stations conducted.

(Step 2): Hourly local Met-data sent via SMS to WOTR’s servers. Daily 3-day cluster-level weather forecasts received from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). Forecasts sent verbally to the villages.

(Step 3-simultaneously with Step-2): Demo plots taken up on specific crops. New farming practices introduced and show-cased on demo-plots through Farmer Field Schools.

(Step 4-simultaneously with Step-2 & 3): Data on cropping patterns and agri-practices collected. Collected data plotted on GIS maps. Traditional agricultural practices documented.

(Step 5): Agro-advisories based on locale-specific weather and crop conditions generated and circulated through weekly wall-papers.

(Step 6): Pilot SMS service set up with 300 farmers in 28 villages. Local language SMSes set up and tested.

(Step 7): Farmers’ feedback loops set up.

(Step 8): Agro-advisories sent in local language (Marathi) to 300 farmers for 5 crops – Sorghum, Gram, Wheat, Tomato, Onion.

Each of these steps had their own difficulties – right from physical difficulties of installations in remote villages to the seeming impossibility of tying it all up together.

Aravind Ghule’s reply-SMS thus becomes important. For us it has become a symbol – a (satisfied) communique from a farmer. A communication that, for us, shows that all the steps set up are functioning coherently and smoothly. Resulting in a two-line timely advice a farmer can use. An Orwellian dream-come-true of the Future which for the rural farmer is HERE and NOW.

Annual Report – 2011-2012

radha — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 04:16:50 +0000

WOTR’s Annual Report for the year 2011-2012.
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The Hot Water Chullah : Findings from an assessment

radha — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:46:18 +0000

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A short report on the findings from the assessment of HWC

Andharatun Prakashakade – Going towards Light

radha — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:23:52 +0000

Andharatun prakashakade (Marathi, 8.16 mins) meaning “Going towards Light” is a short film showcasing WOTR’s Solar Home lights and Solar Street Light interventions and their impacts on rural lives.