Have you ever heard of a dual-purpose farm that is a reservoir in the monsoon and a fertile farm in the next season? If you did, it might have been about the ancient Indian haveli system – a 200-300-year-old rainwater harvesting system that once greened the Bundelkhand region, one of the most drought-prone areas in India. Read more
Migration is making a U-turn out of Bundelkhand region in India where a project is underway to double farmers’ incomes. Water harvesting efforts initiated earlier this year have helped families in a remote village return to their homes and farms after decades of migration. Read more
Covid-19 could not have caught India at a more vulnerable moment. Starting April, Indian farms go into mission mode to be able to feed a billion plus people within and millions more outside for rest of the year. That Covid may compromise the mission warrants strategies extraordinaire. Read more
ICRISAT collaborated with Akshaya Patra to trial millets in the school feeding program. Nutritionists and chefs designed menus combining millets, legumes and vegetables. While undertaking the feeding program with 1,500 children, the growth of children was measured and compared to a control group being fed the standard fortified rice Read more..
Parasai-Sindh watershed has added another feather to its cap. The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) recognized the project as among the best water practices in India. “Local community in the water scarce Parasai-Sindh region of Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh increased groundwater level by 2-5 meters and made 100 acres Read more..
How important are masons in agriculture? If the success of ICRISAT’s watershed efforts in Bundelkhand region is an indication, skilled masons are crucial in helping farmers double their incomes. The ‘Doubling farmers’ income in Bundelkhand’ project aims to develop 5,000 ha in each of the region’s seven districts. Read more..
Krushna Arjun Thorat, a farmer in the Indian state of Maharashtra, poor yield from his farm was unexplainable despite multiple efforts to increase it. That his farm’s shallow soil lacked fertility only became apparent after he began working with a JSW-ICRISAT project. During rainy season in 2015, the non-governmental organization Read more..
Water shortage forced farmer Thimappa to abandon agriculture and work a labor-intensive job in an industrial production unit to provide for his family. Two years after he quit farming, a JSW-ICRISAT watershed project helped him return to it.Chikantapur village in Ballari district of India’s Karnataka State is semi-arid with mean Read more..
Soaring coconut trees on Ravi Sagar’s five-hectare fruit plantation stand in stark contrast to Mentapally’s semi-arid landscape. This south Indian village in Telangana receives less than 600 mm annual rainfall but ideal conditions for farming persist on Mr Sagar’s farm, thanks to a community wastewater treatment unit. Before the wastewater Read more..
