Dear Friends,
The Indian economy continues to show steady growth, but predictions are for uncertain monsoon. The early predictions of weak monsoon have since been followed by an erratic but delayed monsoon. Erratic monsoon leads to imbalance in growth across regions, across rural-urban divide etc. Further concern remains about the gulf conflict, which has caused fuel price increase and supply uncertainties, with risk of cascading inflationary impact.
In face of such ucnertainties, there remains a significant concern for small and marginal farmers, landless etc.
WIN projects in water conservation and precision farming increase resilience, in face of such uncertainties. WIN nutri-garden projects also increase resilience at family level, by improving health in long run, and during difficult times, provide for nutritious vegetables and herbs. With typical government support for grains, this provides the healthy food combination. We are aiming at scaling up nutri-garden in selected villages to achieve high penetration - greater than 35% penetration among households, to extend the impact of nutri-gardens at village level.
As we exploit all sources of water for our farms to feed a large population, plus exports, we need to fine tune agriculture planning for each season. This requires prediction of water resources in each season. While monsoon weather predictions are improving over the years, local water information of water bodies and well levels are available locally. However, we would benefit much more if we had integrated information on water inflow, storage in surface and ground water sources, and consumption in agriculture, dairy and household. This would enable us to plan better for crops and optimise yield. Eg. Winter crops in a cluster can be planned based on water available on the surface and in aquifers. This would optimise production based on water availability, and reduce losses and debts. WIN has started building a model and data system for above, and this is covered in this issue.
In the Science in Action series, we talk about water modeling importance and articles by two project leaders in this, Dr. Shailja Singh and Dr. Sezina Bhimani.
The project update sections include our Mushroom farming webinar, Machharda new nutri-preneur unit inauguration and training, completion of phase 1 of the Kalavad water conservation project, Nutrigarden campaign for scale up in select Jasdan villages, and National and State level School Nutri-garden competition. The last one is aimed at creating a learning by doing experience for schools students spanning soil health, plant care and nutrition.
As in previous years, we are supporting the National Bio-Entrepreurship Competition, organized by C-CAMP, on behalf of Department of Biotechnology, for the nutrition domain category.
We look forward to your comments and suggestions, including any ideas for collaboration. Do write to info@winfoundations.org.
With warm regards and Jai Hind
Paresh Vora
Director - India Operations
