Climate change has become a real issue for the rural communities in India. Rural communities are experiencing frequent droughts, floods, cyclones, temperature variations and irregular rainfalls. This situation is leading to uncertain livelihoods for the smallholder farmers. Considering that a substantially large proportion of rural population still depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, it is important to safeguard the livelihoods of vulnerable communities. AKRSP(I) has further strengthened its traditional agriculture livelihoods improvement program considering the newer challenge of climate change. We remain committed to achieving nutrition security, income security and sustainability for smallholders in our key geographies. We have taken an integrated approach where empowerment of smallholders is the center of our program design.
We have identified large geographies where landscape level work is possible to achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation. Our geographies are varied in nature, including coastal, semi-arid, flood-affected and degraded hilly regions. These geographies are identified considering the vulnerability of communities living in these landscapes.
Our Agriculture and Climate Resilience work includes integrated work on the following aspects.
Organising farmers into their own collectives for large scale landscape level climate resilience work.
Addressing the issue of land degradation through soil conservation, land management and soil health improvement.
Improving the management of water within the selected landscapes. Water conservation, water efficiency, and rainwater harvesting remains a major focus of water related works.
Enabling farmers to adopt green energy for agriculture purposes, particularly for irrigation purposes. We see great potential in solar energy and biogas for achieving energy security of smallholders in rural areas.
Greening the selected landscapes is among the major thrust areas of our approach. We have done large scale work on community forestry, micro-forests, and horticulture development. Crop diversity and biodiversity restoration are integrated within our design of programs.
Sustainable transition of farming practices to regenerative agriculture is a large program for us. Millets and legumes must be brought back to the cropping systems.
Livestock development is key for large numbers of extremely vulnerable households in rural areas. Livestock health management is also key to reducing GHG emissions.
We believe that markets will play important role in transitioning of agriculture to more sustainable ways of production. Our design includes integration of smallholders into sustainable value chains of major market players for various agriculture produce.
Key Achievements of AKRSP(I) on “Agriculture and Climate Resilience”
Over 200000 farmers are being helped by the organization to transition towards regenerative agriculture practices. A large majority of them belong to tribals and other vulnerable groups. Women farmers are core to our agriculture interventions.
Over 10,000 hectares of land has been brough under sustainable community-based forestry management.
Over 350 Micro-forests have been established by the organization. We plan to establish 10000 micro-forests in the coming years.
Land development activities have improved land quality on over 65000 hectares of land, in addition to substantial reduction in soil erosion.
Our water efficiency, water harvesting, and water conservation works have benefitted over 100000 households. It has also provided assured irrigation on over 75000 hectares of land.
Livestock health management work has benefitted over 100000 women farmers.
42 Farmers Producers Organisations (FPOs) promoted by us have helped over 30000 farmers in better linkages with value chains.
Over 7000 farmers have been provided access to solar pumps for clean and affordable energy for irrigation purposes.