Climate Exchange

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griculture

the East India Plateau are among the poorest in India.

Traditional farming practices are based around the

annual monsoon, with rice crops planted to coincide

with those rains. The rice is harvested from farms less

than 1 hectare in size on low-lying land.

Most families are faced with not growing enough

food, and it is common practice for men to emigrate in

search of seasonal work to supplement meagre incomes.

Women are left to undertake the roles done by men, but

they lack support and resources, especially labour and

access to technical know-how.

One place where technical know-how exists is the

rural development organization, Professional Assistance

for Development Action (PRADAN), which had trialled

water-harvesting technology to capture run-off and tap

shallow underground water sources. Such technology

can be very effective in areas with high seasonal rainfall,

such as those that experience the monsoon season.

The difficulty for farmers of the East India Plateau

is that enough rain falls for two rice crops, but almost

all that rain falls in one concentrated period. Water-

harvesting technologies present an opportunity to

extend the benefits of that rainfall across a much longer

period of the year.

ACIAR developed a project linking scientists from

the University of Western Sydney and the Australian

National University with the Indian Council for

Agricultural Research’s Research Complex for Eastern

Region and PRADAN.

The aim of the project was to test the PRADAN water-

harvesting technology – a network of storage pits in the

uplands with channels to funnel water to those pits,

allowing increased infiltration of monsoonal rain that

could be accessed later using seepage tanks in low-lying

areas near villages. PRADAN also worked with villag-

ers to ensure local participation, using participatory

methods to ask farmers, particularly women, to identify

research questions and carry out field trials.

In the village of Pogro a village core committee

(VCC), comprising self-help group representatives,

was established to improve project implementation and

build social capacity, shifting ownership, responsibility

and control to the villagers. The model helped women

in the village lead changes, such as managing weeds

through planting techniques, to support the water-

harvesting network. The VCC oversaw (with project

support) the initial implementation of the watershed

development plan, along with the introduction of

improved rice varieties that mature faster, allowing a

second crop, such as mustard or wheat, to be planted

in rice paddies.

The results have included dietary improvements and

additional income. This has allowed some Pogro villag-

ers to own houses and livestock for the first time and

to spend money on educational materials and books for

their children. Perhaps the most important change is

the strengthening of family units, as the ability to gener-

ate income in the village is helping prevent the seasonal

exodus of men in search of work.

nered with the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and

Visayas State University, to identify ways to better link the climate

science with the community.

A typical case study in the Philippines involved corn farmers in

the Visayas region. Team members compiled a brief description of

dominant cropping patterns and corn production practices in the

study area, then reviewed and presented a valuation framework for

estimating the economic benefits of SCF information under various

assumptions of risks and uncertainty. Their task was then to quan-

tify the potential economic value of SCFs to corn farmers in Leyte.

These data, along with the findings of another study of corn farmers

in Isabela, helped them to draw up policy implications on the useful-

ness of SCFs to corn farmers throughout the Philippines.

Surveys showed that farmers had a high degree of concern about

climate risk and were well aware of El Niño, but they only made

moderate use of the information in decision-making. As part of the

project, the team refined an Excel-based game that allows participants

to work out the best decisions for their situations, based on forecasts

that are more than guesswork, but fall short of perfect information.

Water harvesting

In India, research has helped communities to harvest water and use

this harvest to produce better returns. Farmers working land on

Women from the Liganwa farmers’ group in Siaya, Western Kenya, celebrating their

maize harvest

Image: Tesfaye Legesse