Day 18

43m² of ground of a family in India is made usable

Soil health creates livelihoods

Escape the drought and harvest nutritious fruits

Suparna Murmu lives in the Purulia district of the state of West Bengal in the far east of India. When she was a small child, she would regularly go to the village fields in the evenings during the dry season to admire the red soil at sunset. In June, the monsoon rains began, which lasted until October. Since Suparna has had to feed her children herself, she has looked at the red soils with helplessness and concern. Now she is struggling with their poor quality and the increasing water shortage. In recent years, the monsoon rains have also come later and later or have not come at all. But since the villagers learned to collect rainwater in ditches they have dug themselves, the situation has changed. The water collected can be used to save the rice harvest in the dry season and to grow water-poor plants such as mustard or linseed. Today, Suparna looks to the future with confidence.

Dr. Boryana Aleksandrova vom SODI e.V. stellt dir das Projekt vor

need

Optimizing land use in agriculture for resource-poor families in a semi-arid region of West Bengal, India

activity

Local NGO supports project participants in the construction of rainwater collection pits and the use of soil-protecting plants as well as the application of water-saving cultivation techniques

Measurable performance

Number of households adopting various soil and water conservation techniques to adapt to climate change

Result

It is expected that soil quality will improve in the project region and innovative climate-resilient agricultural practices will be established

Systemically relevant impact

Small farmers secure their food supply in the long term through climate-adapted land use

background

Stories like Suparna's describe everyday life in the red and barren soils of West Bengal. In addition to the weak water storage capacity, the fields here have become severely dried out as a result of irregular rainfall (Bhunia et al., 2019). Soil erosion and low agricultural productivity are the consequences. These slowly emerging risks are significantly exacerbated by the effects of climate change. In addition, the cultivation of water-intensive crops such as rice and the use of chemicals are negatively contributing to the problem. The latter has led to severe soil compaction over time and thus to decreasing fertility. The region has one of the highest rural poverty rates in India (DRCSC, 2022) and is predominantly inhabited by small farming communities who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. A quarter of the inhabitants in the two project areas in the districts of Purulia and Jhargram belong to particularly disadvantaged indigenous population groups (Census, 2011), who have largely involuntarily given up their traditional connection with the forest. Their agricultural land is inadequately developed and irrigated. As a result, indigenous people are often forced to engage in wage labor under often very poor conditions. Even though the people in the project villages feel the increasing drought and rainfall deviations intensely, they are not aware of the connection with climate change. They lack low-threshold access to information about adaptation options as well as to technological and financial resources.

The good deed

The good deed improves soil moisture in the project region through a variety of water and soil protection measures. As a result, several hundred families are sustainably strengthening their resilience to climate shocks and securing their livelihoods. Contour embankments, pits or rubble prevent the monsoon rain from running off and enable irrigation for nutritious food to be available all year round. Plantings also increase water storage capacity through the biomass produced. They increase the proportion of fast-growing, locally suitable plant varieties and thus produce green manure. The project participants also learn to practice organic farming without irrigation and soil cultivation. For example, the seeds of drought-tolerant legumes are sown shortly before the wet rice is harvested, as the residual moisture in the soil promotes their germination. Water losses are also minimized by collecting climate and soil data.

About India

New Delhi

Capital city

1,428,627,66

population

as of 2023

2,484.8

Gross domestic product per capita per year in USD

as of 2023

0.644

Human Development Index (Human Development Index)

as of 2023/2024

In terms of area, West Bengal is one of the smaller states in India, but in terms of population it is a giant. In the last 10 years, the population has grown by almost 14% to 103,553,153 people. The majority live in rural areas and a fifth of the population lives below the national poverty line.

About the organization and further information