Building Climate Resilient Livelihood for Excluded Communities
The project aimed to develop the capacities of small land holding poor farmers so that they are able to improve their livelihood situation and mitigate the losses due to disasters. The project also worked towards the enhancement of their resilience capacities which enabled them to deal with the emerging challenges of climate change. The overall approach involved developing sustainable agriculture-based livelihoods in the drought and flood-prone areas of Bundelkhand and Eastern Uttar Pradesh as a model, having the potential for scale.
The key interventions undertaken were:
- Strengthening community-based institutions like Village Resource Centres, Farmer Interest Groups, Farmers Field Schools and Farmer Union and provision of technical support to farmers
- Linking farmers with existing robust farm models
- Participatory vulnerability and capacity assessment to review the existing plans and develop new plans
- Disaster and Climate Resilient Agriculture Support System by practices like the integration of forest and water bodies, drainage improvement, pasture conservation, seed and grain banks etc.
- SMS based weather agro-advisory helped farmers to be prepared to deal with the climate change patterns in a better way. The SMS which acts as an early warning system assisted the farmers in scheduling their irrigation, harvesting and other crop activities.
- Advocacy and linkages with appropriate government schemes/programmes to strengthen the farm models and management of common property resource
Following are the major impacts:
- The adoption of LEISA techniques have reduced farmer's dependency on market and has enhanced their net financial gains
- Intensified self-reliance mechanisms of the targeted households to demand their rights and perform their duties
- Wider impact of climate-resilient agricultural practices on other farmers who were not targeted directly