MattersDevelopment May 2012

Revalorizing Small Millets:An action research project

Monthly Development update from DHAN Collective

EventIndia Water Week 24

FeatureMitigating Droughts and Floods 1

SharingRevalorizing Small Millets: An action research project 19

MattersMonthly Development update from DHAN Collective

Development

DHAN Foundation18, Pillaiyar Koil Street, S.S. Colony

Madurai - 625 016. Tamil Nadu, INDIA

Tel.: +91 - 452 - 2610794, 2610805

Email: dhanfoundation@dhan.org

Website: http://www.dhan.org

From the Editors’ Desk

Contents

Dear Readers,

Greetings!

Drought is prevalent in many states in India this year, which will have a serious impact on agriculture and our economy. Continuous negligence of our water bodies and exploitation of ground water resources has made water a precious commodity.

This special issue on drought features articles on Mitigating Drought and Floods, Combating Desertification and Conservation of Small Scale Water Bodies (DHANA Project). Role of Small Water Bodies in enhancing the livelihood and eco systems help us to understand the importance of water bodies. RESMISA project on Small Millets also finds a place in this issue. DHAN Participated in India Water Week 2012 event held at New Delhi, a note on which also appears in this issue.

Know your heritage is a new attempt, which will bring to the notice of the readers, the important heritage sites in our country. The readers are requested to send a note on heritage sites they knew so that it will be useful to all.

We expect the continued patronage of the readers and constructive feedbacks to improve the quality of our magazine. Your feedbacks can be sent to dhancdc@dhan.org

Happy reading!

1. Mitigating Droughts and Floods - Mutual Risk Reduction 1

M. Palanisamy

2. Combating Desertification by Reviving small water bodies 6

P. Subburaj

3. DHAN - Axis Bank Foundation project for Conservation of Small Scale Irrigation Tanks 10

N. Venkatesan

4. Know Your Heritage 13

5. Enhancing livelihoods and ecosystems - role of small water bodies in India 14

N. Rajasekaran

6. Revalorizing Small Millets: An action research project 19

M. Palanisamy & M. Karthikeyan

7. India Water Week 24

The action research project 'Revalorising Small Millets in Rainfed Regions of South Asia' aims to increase production and consumption of nutritious small millets and associated pulse and oil seed crops in rainfed regions of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. This project is supported by Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) promoted by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Vol. VI Issue 5 May 2012

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Feature

Mitigating Droughts and Floods - Mutual Risk Reduction

M.Palanisamy*

*Mr. M.Palanisamy, Programme Leader, DHAN Foundation

1.0 Introduction

Disaster is a sudden and unexpected orextraordinary misfortune, causing damage to thecommunity and community infrastructures. The disastercan happen to an Individual, a family, small group, acommunity or a region, a nation or the entire world.

Disaster is an event concentrated in time and space,in which a society or a community undergoes severedamage and occurs such losses to its members andphysical appurtenances that the social structure isdisrupted and the fulfillment of all or some of theessential factors of the social is prevented.

Drought is one of the natural disasters that occurfrequently, in India which leads to crop loss. Sometimesfloods also heavily affect the crops and otherinfrastructure. The frequency of the damages due todrought and flood are increasing year by year. Thismay be due to the climate change.

In India, 16% and 67 % of the country’s total areaand 67% of the total crop sown area is drought proneand about 50 million people get affected due droughtsituation every year

Problems encountered by all living beings includinghuman during the drought are very high. The country’seconomy is agrarian and hence the livelihoods of peoplewho depend on them are at stake when the droughtoccurs. The government also makes attempt to mitigatethe drought, but the red tapism and bureaucratic delayslimit the relief delivery to the affected masses.Therefore, DHAN Foundation decided to take upestablishing coping mechanism to mitigate the droughtamong the community through their own peopleorganisations and panchayats. Various droughtmitigation activities such as farm pond construction,irrigation tank renovation including the supply channeldesiltation, land leveling and tank silt application to theagricultural fields have been taken up through the

community based organizations promoted by DHANFoundation mainly to save the crop and livestock.Mutual insurances for Crop and Livestock are aninnovative idea, promoted and are being implementedin the working areas of DHAN Foundation, India.

2.0 Insurance experiences with DHAN Foundation

DHAN Foundation works in 13 states of India with10 lakh poor families mostly with marginalized farmingfamilies. The farmers are motivated, trained andsupported to take up various kinds of site specificactivities in their agricultural lands to increase their familyincome. The broad activities are in the areas ofagricultural land development, soil health enhancement,crop production enhancement, livestock developmentand activities for supplementary income to the farmersetc., Different kinds of risk reduction as ex antemeasures have been identified in consultation withfarming communities and implemented in the field. Lifeinsurance, health insurance, crop insurance andlivestock insurance are being taken up for managingfarmers’ risks.

Life insurance for farmers through group insuranceschemes of LIC and other private sector companiesBirla Sunlife Insurance Company and SBI-Life etc isfacilitated by DHAN. Few of the people federations alsohave their own mutual life insurance schemes. Healthinsurance is being run through the government schemesand also mutually. It is to be noted that the peoplefederations promoted by DHAN Foundation runshospitals and ensure better health services to the memberfamilies.

Crop insurance is being done both through insurancecompanies and through the Farmers’ Federations onthe principle of mutuality. As far as the livestockinsurance is concern, initially it was done throughvarious insurance companies such as Royal SundaramAlliance and United India Insurance Companies. Afterfacing problems in ensuring the payout to the affected

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farmers, now livestock insurance is done only on mutualbasis in the farmers’ federations.

Mutual insurance is properly designed and done inthe people federations with the facilitation of PeopleMutuals, a social security initiative of DHANFoundation. People Mutuals is also a people institutioncreated to facilitate the insurance activities for the poorcommunities with whom DHAN Foundation works.Customized insurance products are developed inconsultation with the communities and implementedwith the Mutual Insurance Committee (MIC) of thepeople federations.

3.0 Deficit Rainfall (DRFI) Insurance

There is a growing attention on weather insurancewith a number of experiments being undertaken all overthe world. The existing information on such productsfocus more on the perspectives of the promoters thatinclude national and international developmentorganizations, insurers etc.

DHAN Foundation started piloting index-basedweather insurance in the year 2004. It was pilotedDeficit Rainfall Insurance, a type of index based weatherinsurance in two locations namely Nattarampalli inVellore and Tirumangalam in Madurai districts of TamilNadu. In both the locations drought in various degreesis a recurring phenomenon and farmers perceiveddeficit rainfall as the major weather risk than any otherweather phenomena. ICICI Lombard, a commercialinsurance company evinced interest and developed asuitable weather insurance product for these rainfedfarmers. Two years of piloting Deficit Rainfall Insurancefor groundnut, cotton and black gram indicated thatthere is a limit to which the effectiveness of the productdone through insurance company can be improved.

4.0 Process DRFI product development

The rainfed farmers’ associations promoted byDHAN Foundation for implementing rainfed farmingdevelopment activities were very much useful fordesigning and implementing the weather basedinsurance. In general, no farmers voluntarily go forinsuring their crops. Only when they go for crop loanto the nationalized banks or from the primary agriculturalco-operative banks, insurance premium is deductedfrom the loan amount and paid to the agricultural

insurance company. Farmers are not informed aboutthe sum assured and other details such as claimadministration and payment details etc.,

However, it was able to educate the farmers onimportance of crop insurance in the primary groupscalled Uzhavar kuzhus and farmers’ associationmeetings. When it was talked about the weatherinsurance farmers were interested to ask severalquestions to understand it as it was new to them.Farmers’ workshops were conducted for the needassessment. It was started to talk on weather parameterssuch as rainfall, temperature and wind etc., whichaffects the crop production. As far as the rainfed farmingin our context, semi-arid tropics is concerned, rainfallis the single most weather parameter which decidesgermination, growth and yield of any rainfed crops.Deficit rainfall is more common during the croppingseason. Late onset of rainfall, long dry spell during thecropping season and early withdrawal of monsoon arethe issues faced by the farmers more frequently. Cropdamage due to excess rainfall is also faced by thefarmers, in few years. DHAN Foundation works onlywith small and marginal farmers poor farmers. Farmers’affordability to pay the premium is one of the majorfactors to design any insurance product. In view ofkeeping the premium at lower level, it was decided torespond only to the deficit rainfall.

Normal date of sowing, crop duration and waterrequirement at each stages of the crop was discussedwith the farmers in detail. The rainfall requirement ateach crop stage was discussed in the local unites andconverted into the standard unit of mm. Farmers havegiven the rainfall requirement as per the soil type. Inthe black cotton soil areas, farmers requested lesserquantity of rainfall compared to the red sandy soil areas.

4.1 Single phase policy to multiple phase policy

Total rainfall requirement of different crops werearrived and based on that single phase insuranceproducts were developed. Premium was collected fromthe farmers and implemented the deficit rainfallinsurance. The sum assured was finalized to meet thecost of cultivation alone to keep the premium at lowerlevel. As the farmers expressed that the premium amountwas high to have the gross return as sum assured, theinsurance product was finalized to cost of cultivation

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alone even less. As far as the rainfed crops areconcerned, more than the total quantity of the rainfall,rainfall distribution matters much for the crop growthand development. Hence, as per the needs of thefarmers, multiple phase policies were offered. However,both single phase policy and multiple phase policies areavailable and famers can choose.

4.2 Dynamic startup date

It was observed that the date of sowing the date ofseed germination varies in some years. One monthdifference was reported in between these two dates.Basically this problem was faced by the farmers whohave the practice of taking pre monsoon/ dry sowing.Famers wanted to have the insurance products reflectingthe ground reality. Meaning is that if there is yield loss,the loss must be reflected in the insurance product andthe loss must be compensated to the farmers, as perthe policy agreement. Hence we have gone for dynamicstartup date.

Here, the probable date of dry sowing is determined.Three to four insurance products are developed atweekly intervals close to the date of sowing. Thepremium amount varies across the sowing dates. Forthe maize crop, the premium was worked out as Rs.524,Rs.367 and Rs.210 respectively for the sowing datesof August 23rd, August 30th and September 13th of 2008for the assured sum of Rs. 2000. Among the fivepremiums for different dates of sowing, for one closerdate, the premium is collected and kept in the insuranceaccount of farmers’ federation. Then based on therainfall received, the germination date is finalized. Thepremium is then adjusted to the actual date ofgermination.

4.3 Automated rain gauges at working villages to reduce

the basis risk

In response to farmers’ feedback, various steps weretaken to match the insurance product with the groundreality. The IMD (Indian Meteorological Department)rain gauge’s rainfall reading was alone considered bythe ICICI Lombard insurance company for workingout the payout. For the working villages ofTirumangalam taluk, the IMD station is at the Maduraiairport which is situated around 25 – 30 kilometersaway. When the payout arriving stage farmers defended

that more quantity of rainfall was recorded in the IMDrain gauges than the rainfall of the insured villages.

Then it was decided to establish automated raingauges to record the rainfall at village level. But theinsurance companies were not able to use the local raingauge’s rainfall for calculating the payout. Hence DHANFoundation has gone for the mutual deficit rainfallinsurance.

Automated rain gauges are installed in the top of thebuilding of one the group member’s house or in the topof the village common buildings such as Panchayathbuilding, the building of the SHGs, bus stop shelter andetc,. Our group leader of the particular village is takingcare of the rain gauges. DHAN Foundation has installedaround 158 automated rain gauges in the workingvillages and does the rainfall insurance.

We are thankful for the Agricultural InsuranceCompany (AIC) for encouraging our models by theway of joint implementation of the rainfall insurance.The insurance products are designed in consultationwith the farmers. The Community Based organizationscalled Farmers Federations collect the premium fromthe farmers and pay the premium to the AIC. For thevillages which received the deficit rainfall than therequirement/ agreement, the payout is being given bythe AIC to the farmers through the people federations.The rainfall received in the respective village’s automatedraingauges is being taken for calculating the payout therespective village farmers.

5.0 Mutual Deficit Rainfall Insurance (MDRI)

Mutual insurance is an insurance mechanismimplemented by the farmers themselves through a

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Mutual Crop Insurance Committee (MIC) comprisedof farmers and federation staff. They decide on theissue to be covered by insurance, design of the productand implementation mechanism, with facilitation fromDHAN Foundation. MDRI is an insurance productwhich uses rainfall data during different stages of thecrop period as a proxy for assessing the rainfed cropyield loss.

After gaining experience of mutual deficit rainfallinsurance in our rainfed farming federations it wasextend to other programmes of DHAN Foundation also.Farmers are happy in using the local rain gauge rainfalldata for working out the pay out. Then it was stared toinstall the automated rain gauges in more number ofvillages for expanding the DRFI to the farmers. Totally,158 automated rain gauges were installed in the workingvillages of DHAN Foundation

As of now different kinds of insurance productssuch as mutual pest insurance, mutual crop incomeinsurance are available with DHAN Foundation and areimplemented through mutual insurance committees ofthe people institutions.

6.0 Community organization (CO) for Mutual Deficit

Rainfall Insurance (MDRI)

Community organization of farmers forms theplatform on which mutual deficit rainfall insurance isplaced. So well functioning CO of farmers is aprerequisite for taking up MDRI. DHAN Foundationbelieves that poverty reduction and grassrootsdemocracy go hand in hand and are necessary forsustained development. So it starts with promotingmember owned people institutions of farmers. TheseCOs are seen as demand stream for the State. The COmodel of rainfed farming development programme isgiven in the figure 1. Each CO has a general body,executive body and staff(s) and the executive body isrotated every 2-3 years. They have meeting on a regularbasis. There is intense face to face interaction betweenoffice bearers and staffs with individual members, aspart of implementation of farming activities. All COshave a full-fledged accounting system and focus oncost coverage from the beginning. Mutual deficit rainfallinsurance is taken up as one of the activities of suchpromoted farmers’ organizations.

A Mutual insurance committee (MIC) is formed atthe federation level (Figure 1). The number of membersin MIC is around 15 to 30. The generic roles of thiscommittee is,

Policy making related to the insurance product andreviewing the policy at periodical intervals,

Implementation of the insurance product along withthe concerned staff and

Managing the funds related to insurance.

The specific roles will vary depending on the product.The capacity of selected MIC are enhanced by exposingto similar initiatives in other places, training on the basicsof mutual insurance and ensuring their intenseparticipation in all the steps starting from design of theproduct, enrollment of members to claim payment.

Reinsurance: Reinsurance support is essential tomake Mutual Deficit Rainfall Insurance (MDRI)effective. Eureko Re, The Netherlands based insurancecompany came forward to offer reinsurance andtechnical support to MDRI pilots of DHAN Foundation.The structure of the reinsurance agreement betweenPeople Mutuals and Eureko Re is a stop loss contract.

7.0 Advantages of Mutual Deficit Rainfall Insurance over

conventional crop insurance

As the insurance products are evolved inconsultation with the farmers, need based productsare given to the farmers. Here, the previous years'experiences are taken into consideration andcustomized insurance products are developed in eachyear.

All the farmers are well informed about the insuranceproduct and they very well know about the payoutof that particular year.

Quick settlement of payout to the affected farmers.

There is no problem of moral hazard. The mutualinsurance committee is taking care to ensure properclaim settlement.

Administrative cost is less.

8.0 Learning

Mutual deficit rainfall insurance is one of the riskmanagement tools. But, it should not be the onlyanswer to manage risk.

Farmers need to be trained for taking the coping upmechanism like intercropping / mixed cropping, bund

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cropping, crop diversification, crop rotation,selection of right kind of crop varieties, use of qualityseeds, ensuring optimum date of sowing, better cropmanagement practices, go for perennial tree crops,soil and moisture conservation practices such assummer ploughing, field bunding and land leveling,farm pond construction for the supplementalirrigation, tank silt application to the agricultural fieldsetc.,

Insurance education to the farmers is very muchneeded. Investment is needed for promoting farmersorganization and for training the mutual insurancecommittee.

Euroko Re of The Netherlands has instituted thebackup guarantee. During the past years experiences,there was a reinsurance claim during 2007-08.However, overall the claim ratio has not exceeded100% of the premium.

Taking the mutual deficit rainfall insurance for moreareas with increased number of farmers is achallenge. Investment on insurance education is verymuch needed for taking forward in to a large scale.

9.0 Conditions for the Mutual deficit rainfallInsurance

Strong people institution structure must be availableto develop insurance product and for implementingthe Mutual deficit rainfall insurance. For all theorganizations who work closely with farmingcommunity, it is very much easy to implement themutual insurance.

Regular meeting of the mutual insurance committeeis very much essential to identify the problems andfor addressing the issues.

External or mainstream funding support is neededin the initial years for the infrastructural

developments like automated rain gaugeestablishment and for the backup guarantee.

10.0 Mutual Livestock Insurance

The People Federations run the Mutual LivestockInsurance with the active support Mutual LivestockInsurance Committee promoted for implementing thesame. The premium collected from the livestockfarmers is 4%. The Farmers Federation pays 3.5%premium to the People Mutuals, a registered apex levelpeople institution facilitating the insurance activities ofDAHAN Foundation, after retaining 0.5% premium tomeet out its administrative expenses. The MutualInsurance Committee takes the responsibilities ofensuring the payout within 10 days to the affectedlivestock farmer. As the Mutual Insurance committeeis taking the responsibility ensuring the genuineness inall the aspects, veterinary doctor is not engaged in thismutual livestock insurance activity.

11.0 Way Forward

In general, the administrative cost for theconventional insurance is high. In India, crop insurancedata says that more than four times of premium collectedhas been given as compensation against the crop loss.At the same time, farmers are not at all happy about theconventional insurance and hence the crop insurancepenetration is very poor. Moral hazard is very high inthe conventional insurance. To overcome all theseissues, mutual deficit rainfall insurance is the way forwhich the government can support for the peopleinstitutions promotion, mutual insurance committeedevelopment, insurance education, infrastructuredevelopment like automated rain gauge installation andmaintenance and for back up guarantee support etc.

Development News

Rs 20,000 cr solar energy project for Gujarat

Clinton Foundation, USA, is planning to develop what could be by far the world’s largest solar energy projectin Gujarat. The project will be an integrated solar city with a capacity of 5 gw—five times the size of thecurrent largest solar project in Mojave Desert, USA, being developed by BrightSource, with an eventual capacityof up to 900 mw. The facility is expected to cost Rs 20,000 crore (about $475 million) and will produce rawmaterials and manufacture panels on site. This is expected to reduce costs so that the power produced at thesite will cost about Rs 4 ($0.10) per (unspecified) unit. It has not been disclosed whether the project wouldemploy solar photovoltaic or solar thermal technology. The project, tagged as one of the largest foreign directinvestment in the state, will also be a landmark project as the cost of power generation is likely to be 70 percent less than the conventional cost of generation,

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Feature

An overview of Desertification and Climate Change

implications:

Desertification is a global environmental problem.To put simply, it is the process that turns fertile landinto land that is too dry to support life. Many factorslike climate change, depletion of natural resources andother human activities contribute to desertification. Manydefinitions exists for desertification of which mostaccepted one is of that the United Nations Conventionto Combat Desertification which defines it as "landdegradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areasresulting from various factors, including climaticvariations and human activities. 1 As per the EuropeanCommission note on desertification, drought anddeforestation are the two major causes of desertification.

In India around 81 Million hectares of land in Indiais in the process of desertification, as per the'desertification status map' created by the Indian SpaceResearch Organisation(ISRO). The study which usedsatellite imagery from an Indian Remote sensingsatellite, Resourcesat, also reveals that a third ofcountry's area (around 105 Million hectare) is alreadydegraded. The desertification is happening throughvarious processes. Among them water erosion has theprominent role which affects 10.21 percent of the totalgeographical area. About 15.8 percent area of country'sgeographical area is arid, 37.6 percent semi-arid, and16.5 percent falls in dry sub-humid region. Together,about 69 percent of the country constitutes 'dry land'.The study gives many reasons for land degradation.The important among them are changes in rainfall patternand over exploitation of natural resources. 2

In the new millennium, on our Earth planet, humanityneeds more water across the globe to produce food tothe demands of billions of people. More over better

Combating Desertification by Reviving small water bodies

P.Subburaj*

*Mr.P.Subburaj, Team Leader, DHAN Foundation

quality water is required to defuse the health/sanitarybombs created by human negligence and to preserveand upkeep the biodiversity of ecosystems for futuresystems, fresh water resources across the globe to beprotected. 3

Climate, the average weather experienced over a longperiod changes with increase in temperature, which inturn alter the wind and rainfall pattern. During twentiethcentury, the earth temperature rose by 0.74 degree Cof which, 0.4 degree C rise occurred between the mid1970's and new millennium.

Rainfall over land has increased by 5-10 % in thenorthern hemisphere, in parts of Asia as well as Africa,the frequency and intensity of drought has been on therise. 4

Increased trend of very short but intense spells ofrainfall is the contribution of climate change in Indiansubcontinent. About 14.5% percent increase in thenumber of incidents of extreme rainfall during everydecade in the past 50 years. Droughts and floods couldpose serious threat to food security, livelihoods andshelter. 5

1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification2 www.developmentchannel.org3 Speech by Mr.Loic Fauch, President, World Water Council in Opening Session on World Water Week, Stockholm, August 17, 20094 “Preparedness to Climate Change” – A study by Red Cross Climate centre 2000.5 A study by M.Rajeevan, Scientist of National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Tirupathi.

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Desertification in the context of southern coastal Districts

of Tamilnadu

The southern coastal districts of Tamilnadu viz.Pudhukottai, Ramanathapuram and Tuticorin aredrought prone and agriculture there is highly dependenton rainfall. These districts are characterized by thin filmof fresh subsurface water due its close proximity tosea. The factors that are responsible for thedesertification in these districts are discussed below.

1. Drought: Many times the disaster which brings lossthe human life are getting attention of the media,general public and the government. But slow onsetdisasters like drought which brings huge damage tothe economy of the nation as well as to the livelihoodsof the individual farmers are not getting due attention.The southern coastal districts, which falls into thesecond category do not have any perennial watersource for agriculture. Hence the agriculture dependsonly on rainfall. As the rainfall become highly erraticdue to changing climatic conditions, harvesting asuccessful crops becomes herculean task for thefarmers in these area. As the water is the lifeline foragriculture, drought becomes one of the majorcontributor for desertification in this semi-aridregion.

2. Poor Maintenance of Kanmois(Irrigation tanks):Irrigation tanks are small earthen bunded reservoirwhich are constructed across slope to capture therun off water from rainfall and distributes waterduring the rest of the crop season. These districtsare served by more than 1000 such water bodies.These structures has embankment for storing water,sluice for regulating water for agriculture and weirsafe disposal of excess water during heavy rainfall.These tanks some time will be fed by the feedercanal from rainfed river or irrigation tanks situatedin the upstream. Improper maintenance of thesestructure leads to reduced effectiveness. Forexample, weak embankments allows people to storeless water than its original capacity, silting up oftank bed leads to reduction in storage of water whichin turn leads to reduced command area and leavethe land as fallow. In the same way, the entirecommand area becomes fallow and infested withfull of Prosopis Julifera ( A thorny shrub which is asymbol of desertification in these districts) whenthe complete tank becomes dysfunctional.

3. Poor maintenance of Ooranies (Village Ponds):These districts have an exclusive structure called

Ooranies for the domestic purposes such as drinking,bathing and other household activities and forlivestock. These are dugout area having waterholding capacity of 2000 cubic meter to 15000 cubicmeter which holds water during rainfall and peopleuse the water stored in these village ponds till nextmonsoon. As these Ooranies are not desilted everyyear, the water holding capacity is reduced. Sometimes the Ooranies are not getting filled due todysfunction of feeder canal and mixing of sewagewater in the catchment area of these structures. Thismakes the people to migrate as the people do nothave one of the life supporting resource i.e. waterin their village.

4. Erosion of top soil : Top soil which is rich innutrients are getting eroded and are getting collectedin the tank during high rainfall. Earlier, there is amechanism called 'Kudimaramathu' which meansthe removal of silts deposited in the tank bed andapplying to the field by contributing free labour. Nowthis practice is extinct as the farmers are separatedfrom maintaining the common property due tocentralized maintenance. The loss of nutrients weremanaged by applying silt. Due to absence of thispractice, the lands are getting degraded, which leadsto reduction in the yield or high cost in applyingorganic manure to maintain the soil nutrients.

5. Absence of creation of new water harvestingstructures: The "water commons" that is presentnow are created centuries back and are designedbased on the needs of population at that point oftime. Due to increased population, new waterharvesting structures are not created. This again leadsto migration to places where there is water andabandoning of agriculture from the place wherepeople are migrating.

6. Gender insensitiveness: Even if new waterstructures are created, it is not created in a placewhich can be easily accessed by women. Hencewater structures created are not being used and doesnot arrest migration.

7. Local needs are unheard: Just by creating a smallinfrastructure worth of a lakh rupees, livelihood ofmore than 250 families can be saved. Since thepeople who are deciding the fund flow are notresident/do not have any stake in it, it is not becomingthe priority. For example, a backwater extendsbetween Vedharanyam and Nagapattinam. Duringhigh tides, the water from these canals enters into

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the fresh water canal and makes the canal base saline.When the fresh water comes, the water becomessalty due to salt deposits and crop growth is gettingaffected as the crop is irrigated with saline waterduring tender age. This leads to reduction in theyield and their voices are not heard. Continuousavoidance will lead the farmers in the area to abandonagriculture

8. Local wisdoms are unheard: Many times the localcommunity knows what they need and how to do iteffectively. When local community are involved/provided a space in designing and execution, theygive better long lasting solution for the existingproblem. The work out put also will be more than100% as the works are felt needs of the community.

9. Mismatch in availability of funds: As the fundflow into the village is based on departments fundavailability, sometimes money will be spent onrelaying roads which is not lifeline resource whencompared renovation of water bodies.

10.Vulnerability of poor: The predominant sectionof people who are doing agriculture is very poorwho do not have any assured income. Due to erraticrainfall, poor are now hesitating to go for agricultureand left the land as fallow. These uncultivated landsnow infested with prosopis julifera. The landswhich are infested with Prosopis Julifera is a signof desertification. The infestation of this thorny bushmake the land also less fertile.

11. Agriculture is becoming unsustainablelivelihood: As the income from the agriculture isdwindled due to many reasons such as increasedinput cost, high labor cost, people are abandoningagriculture. In many villages elders are onlypracticing agriculture and young one are migratingto near by town/cities/abroad in search of livelihood.In such condition, if rainfall fails, then it the situationbecomes still worse.

12.Conversion of Agricultural land for otheractivities: The agricultural land in coastal districtsare converted into salt pans and shrimp farms. Thesalt pan in addition to affecting the area where it islocated, also affects the land in the proximity due toseepage. The problems become severe when therun off from this enter another tank and affects thearea commanded by that tank. The shrimp farmsthat created in one of the block viz. Thirupullani inRamanathapuram district are abandoned more than5 years back. But the ill effect of are not even

subsided now. The Ooranies which are locateddownstream of it can not be used even now. Thismakes the people to abandon their village and shiftto near by town.

13.When the tank fails: The irrigation tanks act likeflood moderator and drought mitigator. When eventhese structures fails, farmers do not have/awareof alternatives to have successful crop or mechanismto mitigate the risk.

14.Availability of Financial Resources: Theirrigations which are more than 100 command areaare under the control of Public work departmentand are getting renovated. But the tanks which arehaving less than 100 acre command area are comingunder panchayat which does not have any fundsfor renovation.

15.Many times the centralized water supply schemesfail, as entire districts to be supported by bringingwater from another basin. People are not able to getwater even once in two days. This brings uncertaintyover the much needed resource for the day to dayactivity and force the people to migrate and thereby abandoning the agriculture.

Combating desertification - DHAN's Experience:DHAN Foundation in partnership with European Unionimplemented a project in the Costal districts ofTamilnadu. Through this project nearly 85 irrigationtanks and 40 Village ponds have been renovated and1080 farm ponds have been newly created to addressthe issues of Desertification.

Through this project water storage capacity of 1.2billion liters (1.2 Million Cubic Meter) of water hasbeen created to store rain fall run off. Through thisproject, the embankments of all the 85 tanks hasbeen strengthened which leads to the storage ofwater to its full capacity and farmers were able totake successful crop due to renovation. In few ofthe tanks, farmers were able to go for second cropdue to surplus water available.

Many farmers have reclaimed their land by takingsilt from the tank and depositing in their field. Thesoil below one foot is used for strengtheningembankments.

Community ownership has been created by creatingthe space for the community to design and executethe works. This leads to the good quality work andeffectiveness of tanks improved. This leads todecreased desertification.

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New village ponds have been established in additionto renovation of existing ponds. These village pondsare serving even the villages which are nearer to therenovated ponds. Otherwise these people have togo to other villages even for bathing. This ensureswater for their domestic purpose and prevents themigration. The water availability in these ponds hasbeen extended by more than 4 to six months by theincreased storage of water.

Local needs are heard: For example, InMathalapuram village in Tuticorin district, the needreconstruction of wall in one side of the well hasbeen requested. The project can meet out only 40%of the cost. But the community mobilized remaining60% of the cost and ensured quality construction.Once space is created for the poor, they perform.

Local wisdom are heard: For example, In Pudhurblock of Tuticorin district, while renovating thevillage pond, the people used the dugout soil to createan embankment in such a way that the run of wateris getting stored in the embankment in addition tothe dugout area. Once the water in the dugout arearecedes, the water collected in the embankment fillsthe ponds continuously. This water will be enoughfor them till next season.

The tanks act as flood moderator and droughtmitigator. Sometime even the tanks were unable tosupport to have successful crop when the rainfall isscanty. In such situation the farm ponds createdhave come to the rescue of farmers to irrigate thecrop during critical stage and to have successfulcrop. During last north east monsoon, the rain fallis low in Saveria pattinam village. They did not getrainfall after December 10, 2011. But they were ableto harvest good crop with the support of Farmponds. Nearly 200 farmers in the Mudhukulathurblock of Ramanathapuram got benefited due to this.Now the farm pond gives the confidence for thefarmers to go for agriculture even under rainfedcondition. They have seen that they can harvest goodcrop even the rainfall fails during critical stage withthe support of farm ponds and it acts as good toolcombat desertification.

With the limited resource, the works were done tothe highest quality without wasting a single rupeedue to the involvement of the farmers in execution.Many times they have ploughed back the incomewhich they have got through this execution andexceed the required quantity of the work to be done.

Community ownership created through this projectwill have positive impact in maintaining the tank forthe future as they have got the confidence of carryingout such a big work on their own.

Weather based insurance programme has beenintroduced in three blocks of Ramanathapuram tomitigate the risk faced by farmers in the event offailure of rainfall. This is part of ongoing programmesof DHAN in the development of small and marginalfarmers.

Recommendations:

Tanks are Life lines of underprivileged poor and ruralcommunity

Capital Investment in Tank Infrastructuredevelopment by the Government with Bilateralassistance of World Bank/ADB credit should focusCommunity driven, tank cascade development atsub basin level. In addition the centrally sponsoredprogramme Repair, Renovate and Rehabilitation(RRR) of water bodies by the Ministry of WaterResources must give priority to chain of non-systemrainfed tanks which are highly susceptible tobreaches induced by climate change implications.

The Ministry of Rural Development shouldcomplement rural drinking water supply programmesby allocating adequate resources to scientificallydevelop surface water based drinking water pondsin alluvial coastal plains and/or in water scarce,ground water exploited regions of the country.

Roles for CBOs, NGOs and Government should bewell defined with partnership principle

Convergence of schemes - Single Window Approachshould be given priority

Adequate Resource Allocation for carrying outAction Research on Tank Irrigation Systems byprofessionally qualified research institutions,grassroots agencies should be given importance

Small scale irrigation sources based agriculture willrequire increased support and an approach tofarming built on indigenous and native crop speciesto boost biodiversity is essential. Marginal and smalltank farmers require adequate schematic supportfrom government through policy changes andresearch that addresses their problem of livelihoods.

New Product development comprehensively totackle risks through Mutual Insurance should becomplemented.

10

Feature

About the project

A pilot project for conserving small scale irrigationtanks for livelihood protection of farm families relyingon agriculture and allied activities using tanks water asthe source is under progress in Pambar-Kottakariyarriver basin in South India. This model project is thecollaborative effort of Axis Bank Foundation and DVTFto revive the tank cascades for poverty reduction andsustainable agriculture. The total cost of the Project isRs.1648.76 lakhs of which, Axis Bank Foundation

DHAN - Axis Bank Foundation project for Conservation

of Small Scale Irrigation Tanks

N. Venkatesan*

*Mr.N.Venkatesan, Programme Leader, DHAN Foundation

shares Rs.1336.32 lakhs and Community contributesRs.312.44 lakhs. The total project period is for 5 yearsfrom the year 2011

Project Area

The project area is at the junction of four districtsnamely Madurai, Dindigul, Sivaganga and Pudukottaiwhere the four blocks are situated on contiguous basisnamely Natham in Dindigul, Kottampatti in Madurai,S.Pudur in Sivaganga and Ponnamaravathy inPudukottai districts. This entire belt is known forintensive tankfed agriculture and most of the familiesresiding here are small and marginal farmers and theymainly depending on agriculture for their livelihood.

The project area is part of the Pambar- Kottakaraiarriver basin on hydrological basis for drainage of rainwater during the monsoon. The area falls underThirumanimuthar sub basin with three ephemeralstreams namely Thirumanimuthar, Virusuliar andManimuthar and finally joins together at a point andthen drains to Pambar Kottakaraiar basin. This regionhas hundreds of small scale water bodies viz. irrigationtanks and village ponds which caters the irrigation,livelihood and drinking water needs of the people.

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Objectives of the project

Overall Objective

"Ensuring the improved agricultural and alliedlivelihoods to the underprivileged poor farming andlandless community living in disasters (flood induced/drought hit) ephemeral Pambar-Kottakariyar river basinin South India"

Specific Objectives

The following are the specific objectives of theproject

1. To organize the unorganized people in projectvillages into formal associations viz. Vayalagams,Cascade and federations in phased manner andempower their capacity through need based skill andleadership development programmes..

2. To enhance the bio diversity and Micro Environmentin the Project Villages with appropriate actions toovercome from Degradation and constant disasteroccurrences.

3. To create access to improved Drinking WaterSurface Water resources

4. To Financially include the Excluded by Promotingmicro finance activities

5. To empower the women folks by integrating theirneeds for occupational development and basic needsin the project area.

6. To create a mass awareness of the Climate ChangeImplications in Madurai City through MarathonEvent.

Programme Components

To ensure the above development interventions thefollowing programme components will be

a) Creating nested people institutions for the 750 water

bodies proposed

To achieve first objective of the project, oneprofessional and one community accountant will beplaced in each block. Primary people institutions willbe promoted at village level covering 156 tanks undereach block with 15 to 20 cascade of tanks and 31 villageponds per block. A nested people institution that covers750 water bodies and 75tank cascades will be created

b) Conservation and development of water bodies

To achieve the second objectives of the project, ourlocal team would ensure the rehabilitation of 156 tanksand 31 village ponds in each block. Each tank would befocused for rehabilitation of its supply channel,deepening tank bed, repairs of sluices and surplus weirsand provision of shutters to sluices. The priority willbe given for the most affected and needy poor farmingcommunity under each tank and ponds. Focus will beon increasing agricultural productivity and livelihoodenhancement through this developmental works.

c) Creating an endowment for 625 tank institutions

promoted

The endowment will be created for each water bodyproposed for rehabilitation and through this endowmentcreated the interest earned would be available for theannual regular maintenance of the tanks and ponds. Thisactivity would ensure the future sustainability of thepromoted institutions.

d) Creating demonstrations on sustainable agriculture

interventions for productivity enhancement

The farmers field school for selected crops, SRISystem Rice Intensification and plant clinics at cascadelevel etc. will be established in 80 cascades fordemonstration purpose. Crop Cultivation Competitionsis also planned at each block level.

e) Demonstrations on Livestock development for

enhanced productivity

It was observed that farm families in the projectarea own livestocks for generating additional income.Animal health camps are hence planned in the projectarea at cascade level at the rate of one camp per cascade.Based on the needs the packages of intervention will beevolved and integrated. The MFGs to be promotedwould take care of the credit needs for animal rearingand related activities.

f) Arresting the siltation of the tanks and channels in

the project area

It was observed that the project area and theThirumanimuthar sub basin is at the head reaches ofthe pambar and Kootakaraiar basin and is situated veryclose to hillocks with higher percentage of slope. Thiswould enhance the soil erosion and siltation of the link

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channels and tanks in the lower reaches. It was observedthat 25 to 40 percentages of the cultivable lands alongthe channels and drainage lines in the sub basin isaffected by this issue of siltation. In addition, this siltationalso reduces the storage capacities of the tanks andponds. Soil and water conservation measures such asloose rock check dams across the drainage lines, fieldbunding in the private lands, tree plantations in the landsof catchment's and in foreshore of the tanks and othersas suited in the particular tank catchment's inconsultation with the community is planned in theproject area to arrest siltation in 60 cascades.

g) Fisheries development for ensuring the food security

and enhanced revenue

Fingerlings will be provided for developing inlandfisheries in 300 tanks and water bodies anddemonstrations of the activity will be done. Theadditional revenue generated through fish rearing wouldbe used for sustainability of the people institutionsaround the water bodies for regular maintenance andmanagement of the tanks and water bodies.

h) Creating dead storage exclusively for the fish rearing

Out of 625 tanks, at 100 tanks exclusive focus wouldbe given to create dead storage which would be belowthe sill level and is available only for fish rearing andanimal drinking. This would be the unique product fordemonstration of fish rearing and replicated for the restin future.

Anticipated benefit from the proposed project

750 tank based people institutions and 80 tankcascades will be promoted and in place for takingcare of the local management of these water bodiesfor generations.

10100 hectares of tank command area will getstabilized for their tank fed agriculture and assuredproduction by rehabilitating the 625 tanks.

4750 more ground water wells are getting rechargedbecause of the storage created additionally throughthe tank rehabilitation under this project.

The 30000 and more farming families will get anadditional income by stabilized agriculture and alliedactivities through this project. Indirectly another30000 and more landless would get benefit throughthis project for their agriculture wage labour throughthe stabilized agriculture

The 30000 and more livestock population in theproject area would get benefit through the ensureddead storage in the 750 water bodies in the projectarea. In addition livestock productivity will beincreased by conducting periodical veterinarydevelopment activities and introducing improvedbreeds.

The dead storage will be created in 100 water bodiesas an exclusive basis for aquaculture developmentand ensuring the nutrition security for the landlessand marginal farming communities.

Through the agriculture interventions, theproductivity at each farming household level wouldbe increased by 5 to 10 bags per season through theintegrated interventions.

The endowment created at 625 tanks would ensurethe annual regular maintenance of the tanks forensuring the future sustainability.

The small and marginal farmers will be mobilized asmicro finance groups among the tank farmers andthey will do savings, credit and insurance and getthe access to banks and KDFS for their credit needsfor economical and financial sustainability. 750 moreMicro finance Groups will be promoted and linkedwith the banks and KDFS for their credit needs onphased manner.

With the support of Axis bank, mass awareness onclimate change adaptation through Madurai marathonwill be created by involving the community and otherstake holders.

The impact and success stories of the project willbe documented as film, publications and it is madeavailable for replication of similar approaches to elsewhere in the country. The learning's will bedisseminated through organizing the seminars onvarious themes of the proposed project.

Through the village drinking water ponddevelopment, hardship faced by the women will beaddressed at 125 villages in the project area. Inaddition the women will be integrated in decisionmaking forums like executive and managementcommittees of the people institutions.

They also will be part of the 750 MFGs for theirlivelihood and agriculture development for addressingtheir poverty situations.

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Sharing

Know Your Heritage

As a whole, the project will ensure efficient systemof local management and sustainable developmentin 750 water bodies in the Thirumanimuthar subbasin.

Because of the reviving the missing links andenhanced storage, the frequent flood damages willbe reduced and community will take care throughearly warning system.

This project will be the demonstration model in thesub basin to address the tank management issueswith holistic approaches and it will influence themainstream policies to effectively implement thesmall scale water bodies' development throughcommunity participation in a holistic way.

Madurai- Athens of the South

Of all the ancient cities of India, Madurai has aunique place with its literary efflorescence, puranicglories and continuous long history. Madurai has tradecontacts with the cities situated on the banks of riverGanges and as well as the Greeks and Romans. Eventoday, Madurai keeps its glorious past, traditional templefestivals and political importance intact.

Thirumalai Nayak Palace : It is believed that thecelebrated Nayak King Thirumalai Nayak (A.D.1120-1659) erected this palace around A.D.1636. There weretwo main portions ie. Swargavilas and Rangavilas,enclosed by a high wall called Parimathil. Most of thestructures of the Palace have been destroyed and onlyone fourth of the palace exists today. The elephantstaple, horse court, vasanthavavi, garden, officersresidences, playground, the temple of the GoddessRajarajeswari and other parts of the original palace weredestroyed due to obvious reasons. The northern partof the Palace, seems to have existed by the side of theNaubat-Khana street. The king Thirumalai Nayakbelieved to have resided in the celestial pavilion calledSwargavilas, which still exists. The remaining existingparts of the Palare are a large courtyard, darbhar hall,pooja room, natakasala and bed chamber.

The upper portion of the Palace is decorated with anumber of beautiful domes supported by wonderful

short but heavy columns. Attractive arches, stuccofigures and stucco works are some of the artisticsplendours of this Palace. This is an ancient SouthIndian Palace constructed by lime, bricks, wood, andstone, showing curious workmanship and great beauty.The Palace is the best example of Indo-Sarasanicarchitecture, ie. an admixture of traditional Hindu andMuslim architecture.

Electricity Saving Tips

Light bulbs

The compact fluorescent lights (CFL) though mightbe costlier than normal incandescent bulbs, theysave much energy. Go for branded CFL bulbs withnecessary watts as an alternative for normal bulbsand tube lights both at office and work place.Compared to the investment you make you cansave more power and they will prove economicalin long run, more than compensating the cost youincurred on them

14

Feature

Enhancing livelihoods and ecosystems

- role of small water bodies in India

N.Rajasekaran *

*Mr. N.Rajasekaran, Team Leader, DHAN Foundation

1.0. Introduction

In rural India, tanks/ponds have been playing veryvital role in socio, cultural, economic and

environment development. Tanks & Ponds are thecommon property of Indian villages and support thelivelihoods of the marginalized community in rural,urban, coastal and tribal areas of India. These smallscale water bodies generate substantial income to villagecommon fund through usufructs (fishery, trees etc.),which in turn is used for village development work.Tanks are sources of fuel wood, timber and fodder tolivestock of marginalized people. During summerseason, landless people use tank bed for cucumber andvegetable cultivation to earn additional income. Severallakhs of farming families are dependent on tank systemin South India. There are about 5,00,000 tanks in Indiaand these tanks are intensely situated in semi arid partsof Peninsular India. These tanks capture the runoffwater of the monsoon rainfall occurring in a short spanof time and providing water for irrigation & othermultiple uses for the community who depend on this.These tanks were created by our forefathers andmanaged by the local communities over severalcenturies. These tanks and ponds are highly adoptiveto the implications of the climate change. This paperdiscussed about the role of these small scale waterbodies in enhancing the livelihoods of the localcommunity in rural, urban, coastal and tribal community.

2.0. Present Status and livelihood option

2.1. Rural context

The people living below the poverty line in rural Indiaare not getting adequate water and in a affordablemanner. The tanks and ponds are highly used foragricultural and other village uses in semi arid regionsof South India; However the degeneration of the thesewater bodies is happened due to sedimentation,encroachments, damaged water regulating structures,weak bunds, disappearance traditional community

governance, over extraction of ground water andchanges in the land use of their catchment areas. Theirperformance efficiency also has been deteriorating dueto inadequate maintenance and neglect. Many effortsare being made to enhance water storage by suchactivities as water conservation and rehabilitation of tankirrigation systems with community participation andmanagement in a most cost effective manner. Thesetanks are mostly spread over rural and drought proneareas and the users are predominantly small and marginalfarmers having land holdings less than 1 hectare each.Their livelihood depends on such small water bodies.They are vulnerable sections of the farming community,primarily depending upon the capricious monsoons.They do not have access to large scale canal irrigationsystems or to independent groundwater sources likewells. The only way to improve their crop productionfrom tank fed farming is to provide them access tosuch supplemental water resources like conservationof small water bodies like tanks and ponds throughparticipatory process and enable them to manage thewater distribution and thus become self reliant.

2.2. Urban context

Water demand is increased in urban area because offaster urbanization; the water need could not be fulfilledby the existing combined drinking water projects fromthe rivers. Because of the dense population ground water

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extraction is too high in urban area. However the tanks/ponds in the urban area have the high potential to bridgethe gap in the existing water demand of the urbanpopulation. But the urban water bodies are forced tothe environmental problems because of the dumping ofthe garbage in water bodies, draining sewage water into the tanks, construction of the government buildings& other infrastructures in the water spread area andencroachment of the water ways. This leads to theextinction of the water bodies, contamination of thewater bodies, spreading of the water borne diseasesand other environmental problems. Encroachment ofthe water ways resulted in heavy flood during themonsoon time. These water bodies have high potentialof ground water recharge and other water supply. Sothe way to supplement the existing water resources tomeet out the increasing water need, prevention ofextinction of water bodies, waste water recycling andother rainwater harvesting techniques.

2.3. Coastal context

In coastal areas, drinking water ponds still continueto be the primary source of drinking water and domesticwater use, where the ground water is saline and theseareas have no rivers to supply drinking water. In someof the coastal areas there is less intensity of thetraditional water resources and other water diversionstructures. Creating the new water bodies like commonponds, farm ponds, restoring existing water bodies andother water harvesting structures will help to cope upwith the saline ground water problem and enhance thelivelihoods of the poor people.

2.4. Tribal context

In tribal context, tank based watershed developmentresulted in the renovation of the ponds, tanks, creatingnew water harvesting structures, orchard developmentand wage employment for the poor families. In tribalareas the ground water resources are less utilized. Useof surface water supplemented with ground water willhelp for the poor families of tribal area. These waterconservation activities enhance the livelihood activitiesof the tribal poor.

3.0. Tanks and their Roles in Ecosystem Conservation

Tanks have been playing very vital role in conservingthe village ecosystem and environment development.The eco system perspective of tanks given under:

3.1. Wetland Ecosystem

Tanks/ponds are one of the wetland eco-systemswith many trees flora and fauna in their foreshore, waterspread area, channel area and bunds in addition to agro-climatic zone specific cropping pattern in commandarea of the tanks. It is act as the place for the bio diversityconservation of the local species of the village. Theygenerate greater revenue for the people who directlydependent on them. The local species of the village areconserved traditionally as sacred grooves in some ofthe village tank complex.

3.2. Ground Water Recharge Basins

Tanks are predominantly situated in hard rock areaand most of them varying from shallow 1m depth upto 6 metres depth. They store monsoon run-off formore than 4 to 6 months. They facilitate ground waterrecharge in their zone of influence and facilitate theground water level increase in many places. The aquifersin the wells in the vicinity within the radius of onekilometre of the water bodies were revived and haveagain come into life through ground water rechargeafter the tank development works, since the pores closeddue to siltation opened up after rehabilitation of tanksystems.

3.3. Tank cascades/tank based watersheddevelopment

Tanks in the Southern India are situated in DeccanPlateau in cascades. The monsoons received in thecatchments are equitably distributed among the tanksin cascade based on their capacity and hydrologicallinkage. There is least amount of conveyance, seepagelosses in tank cascade systems as against the canal

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irrigation systems. These tank cascades are acts as aflood moderator at the time of monsoon season. Theequitable distribution of water and smaller land holdingin command area of each tanks facilitate higherproductivity if the tank cascade systems perform totheir optimum efficiency. In tribal area tank basedwatershed development includes the renovation of theexisting water bodies and catchment area treatment forthe effective storage of the rainwater.

3.4. Tanks and Inland Fisheries

As the tanks hold water for 4 to 6 months period,the village community take up pisciculture activities asthe freshwater ecosystem nurture the growth of fishesand gives good income to the community. In somevillages fish rearing activities help to ensure thenutritional security of the poor people of villages theirown household consumption.

3.5. Tanks and Afforestation

In the context of South India, especially in TamilNadu, the Forest Department is allowed to raise socialforestry (acacia plantations) in the tank bed; in a periodof 5 to 6 years, they mature to a sizable bio-mass whichare cut and sold for fuel and timber. Also, a sizeableamount of resource mobilized from selling woods islikely to be shared by the local institution for managingand maintaining the tanks. In addition to this the treesplanted in the rear of the bund and foreshore by thetank farmers associations and local panchayat and itgives good income to the village. It is used as a fodderand fire wood by the local people. Orchards developedin the tank catchment area of tanks reduce the erosionand it ensures the livelihood security of the tribal families.

3.6. Tanks and Grazing

After rehabilitation of tanks, if foreshore plantationis carried out and grasses are grown under the treesand bunds, then the grasses are used to the livestock asgrazing land. As such in Tamil Nadu State, there is nocategory under Land Use pattern for grazing lands, onlythe tanks provide source for grazing immediately aftermonsoon season.

3.7. Tanks and Bird Sanctuary

The trees for shelter and availability of sufficientfeed in the water make the tanks as a better place for

residing of birds. In many South Indian tanks, the birds’sanctuaries are situated. To quote few, Vedanthangal inKancheepuram District, Vettakudi in Sivagangai district,and Chitrakudi tank in Ramanathapuram District serveas bird sanctuaries. The community even now preservethe sanctuaries by deputing their own watch and wardand impose social norms such as no fire crackers use,banning hunting practices and the like.

4.0. DHAN Foundation’s approach in Enhancing

livelihoods and ecosystems

Since 1992, DHAN Foundation a professionaldevelopment organization based at Madurai has beenimplementing tank conservation and watersheddevelopment projects including rejuvenation of drinkingwater ponds in south India. DHAN Foundation’sap-proach is mainly reviving the communitymanagement in small scale water bodies which arealready locally managed in terms of water distributionand utilization. Our efforts over the past two decadesin drought prone areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,Pudhucherry , Odhisa and Karnataka in south India formaking the tanks more useful to the rural communities.The program named Vayalagam tank fed agriculturaldevelopment is being implemented for livelihoodsdevelopment of poor marginalised farming community.The programme is working with 212879 farmingfamilies who are depending on the small scale waterbodies. 75% of the members reach is from rural context,2% of the member from urban context, 15% of themember from coastal context and 8% of the memberreach from the tribal context. The programme has thefollowing major components.

4.1Community mobilisation: Promotion of the peopleinstitution for the small water bodies is of core ofthe programme wherein the communities aremobilized to conserve their water resources in asustainable way.

4.2Integrated tank development and tank basedwatershed development: Component ensures theconservation works like tank renovation, pondrenovation, clearing the link channel, catchment areatreatment works are done in a tank cascade/watershed basis ensuring highest possible returnsto the farming families.

4.3Tank fed agriculture development: Tank fedagriculture development provides appropriatemethods and techniques in using the water and land

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efficiently for improving the productivity of the tankcommand area and catchment areas.

4.4Tank endowments: A corpus fund is generated tovillage tank institutions on a matching basis to sustaintheir conserved tanks.

4.5Micro finance activities: Micro finance groups areformed within the tank farmers associations andtimely credit need is availed through the bank linkagefor livelihood activities of the farmers and it helpthe tank farmers to meet at regular intervals.

Water bodies

Irrigation tanks

Village ponds anddrinking water ponds

Focus

Approach

Programme reach of2 Lakh + families

Rural

High to moderate foragricultural use

High to moderate

Conservation anddevelopment

Communitymobilization andconservation workswith communityinvestment

75%

Urban

Low to negligible dueto pollution andencroachment. Thereis good scope forgroundwaterrecharge

Negligible due topollution andencroachment

Prevention fromextinction

Demonstrating thewaste waterrecycling anddissemination of theknowledge to thevarious stakeholders& general public,ensuring the safedrinking water tourban households

2%

Coastal

ModerateuseComplementingthe drinking water

Moderate use andcomplementing thedrinking water

Conservation anddevelopment,disaster preparedness and riskreduction Creation ofnew water bodies

Communitymobilization andconservation workswith communityinvestment

15%

Tribal

High to moderate foragricultural and otherdomestic use

High to moderate usefor domestic andlivestock purpose

Creation of newwater bodies

Communitymobilization,ensuring theemployment,integrateddevelopment

8%

Ecosystem/context

5.0. DHAN’s works for Enhancing livelihoods and

ecosystems

Since from the inception of the programme,community is organized into 2673 tank associations,168 tank cascade associations/watersheddevelopment associations and 31 block tank farmersfederation in different contexts.

The programme

State government of Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, & Orissa,

NABARD, Local banks

Funding agencies Ford foundation, Europeanunion, UNDP, FAO

Corporates like HUL, Axis bank, ITC Ruraldevelopment trust, Bharath Petroleumcorporation and others

The community investment for all the conservationworks ranging from 10-25% either by cash or kindfor common resources and 25-50% for individuallyowned water resources such as farm ponds.

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The tank rehabilitation and other tank developmentworks were completed for 1338 tanks, 882 pondsand 61 watersheds have benefited over 1,50,840hectares of land owned by small and marginalfarmers.

Microfinance groups promoted among the tankfarmers including both men and women were ableto mobilize the Rs296.42 million worth loans fromthe local commercial banks for the livelihooddevelopment activities.

Social security programmes like life insurance andcrop insurance is facilitated to the farmers to copeup with risk and vulnerabilities.

By the promotion of the inland fishery, additionalincome along with the enhanced nutritional securityin the poor families is ensured. In the year 2010-11fish rearing activities were taken up in 367 waterbodies.

In urban context, renovation of urban water bodiesincluding the temple tanks, improved access to safedrinking water through bio sand filters,demonstration and dissemination of the decentralizedwaste water treatment is being done by the Centrefor Urban Water Resources(CURE) promoted byDHAN Foundation.

6.0. Way forward

Thrust needs to be given to people's involvementand to build their stake in implementing

Each and every phase of tank development andwatershed development programmes ofGovernment.

Tank development and watershed developmentactivities have to be converged together to ensurethe better impact. The treatment of catchment areain the watershed has decreased the silt deposition inthe tanks. So Inclusion and rehabilitation of tanksas a part of watershed treatment or vice versa couldbe done for better impacts.

Context specific or ecological based planning andimplementation of the watershed development andtank development works.

There are variations across the regions, localenvironments, practices and tank user regimes, andso the conservation and development approacheswill be varying from place to place.

Government must be careful in constructing newpercolation tanks in red soil area where most of the

tanks are situated and construction of percolationponds would diminish the runoff to the existingtanks.

Another issue in tank conservation is silt removal.The Government can consider investing it funds indesiltation / give ownership of the silt to landlesspeople to encourage equity in irrigation development.

Public-Private participation in developing andimplementing conservation and sustainable usepolicies and programs should be provided for andencouraged in the country.

Projects like TN-IAMWARM, JSYS, and APCTMPcan be implemented by joining hands with the existingTank association/water user associations(Vayalagam) in community management of waterbodies in real time.

Urban water resources should be protected fromencroachment and extinction by suitable protectionact by the State government.

Poverty reduction needs to be approached in longerperspective for the under developed tribal area.

Development News

Mission Milk

The ambitious Rs 2,242-crore National Dairy Planphase-one (NDP-I) also called as Mission Milk waslaunched on 19th April, 2012 by Union agricultureminister Sharad Pawar at National DairyDevelopment Board (NDDB), Anand. NDP-1 Is amulti-state initiative aimed at increasing theproductivity of milch animals and enable Indias 70million rural milk producers a greater access toorganized milk processing sector. NDP-1 will focuson 14 major milk producing states namelyAndrapradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Hariyana, Karnataka,Kerala, Madhyapradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha,Punjab, Rajasthan, TamilNadu, Uttarpradesh andWest Bengal which accounts for country's 90 %of milk production. The Mission Milk will beimplemented by NDDB through identified Endimplementing agencies like State cooperative dairyfederations, District Cooperative milk Producersunions, registered societies/trusts, Section 25companies and other related institutions.

19

Sharing

Revalorizing Small Millets: An action research project

M.Palanisamy and M.Karthikeyan*

*Mr. M.Palanisamy, Programme Leader and Mr. M.Karthikeyan, Programme Leader, DHAN Foundation

About the Project

The action research project 'Revalorising SmallMillets in Rainfed Regions of South Asia' aims to increaseproduction and consumption of nutritious small milletsand associated pulse and oil seed crops in rainfed regionsof India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It focuses on overcomingexisting constraints related to production, distributionand consumption of small millets and associated cropsIt pursues a multi-pronged research strategy related toconservation, productivity enhancement, value addition,post-harvest processing, promotion and policy actionto raise the profile of small millets. The project hasselected six research sites in the backward and tribaldominated pockets of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,Odisha and Jharkhand states of India and one site eachin Sri Lanka and Nepal. . This project is supported byCanadian International Food Security Research Fund(CIFSRF) promoted by Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency (CIDA) and InternationalDevelopment Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. Thisthree and half-year project is anchored by DHANFoundation in association with Canadian MennoniteUniversity. In India the project is implemented throughDHAN Foundation,Tamil Nadu Agriculture University,All India Coordinated Small Millets ImprovementProgram, Indian Council of Agriculture Research andWatershed Support Services and Activities Network(WASSAN)

Objectives

The major objective of the action research is toincrease production and daily consumption of nutritioussmall millets, pulses and oil seeds in rainfed regions ofIndia, Nepal and Sri Lanka by using gender sensitiveparticipatory approaches to address constraints relatedto the production, distribution, and consumption ofunderutilized species. This project has the followingspecific objectives.

To promote sustainable use and on farmconservation of agro biodiversity of small millets

that are important for minimizing climate changerelated risks in agriculture and improving human andanimal health in rainfed ecosystems.

To develop sustainable agriculture kits, throughgender sensitive farming system based participatoryresearch, for minimizing agronomic and productionrelated constraints experienced by small millets basedcropping systems in rainfed regions.

To develop and adapt appropriate post-harvesttechnologies and add value for increasingconsumption of small millets, especially among ruralwomen and children, and to create sustaineddemands in local markets.

To revitalize indigenous knowledge and socioculturalpractices that augment cultivation, processing,storage, and utilization of small millets.

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To enhance the consumption and social status ofsmall millets as a wholesome foods in rural and urbansettings.

To undertake policy analysis and advocate for apolicy environment that counterbalances incentivesfor green revolution crops and provides a levelplaying field for production and consumption ofsmall millets.

Outputs

The expected major outputs of the project are asfollows:

Significant improvement in food availability andnutrition levels of women and children.

Increase in production of minor millets and pulsesby 20 to 25 per cent.

Increase in spatial distribution and richness of geneticdiversity of minor millets on farmers' fields.

Site specific sustainable agriculture kits forcultivation of underutilized species.

Development of at least three low cost technologiesfor processing and value addition of target species.

Scaling up of at least two value added products fromminor millets either by local entrepreneurs or publicinstitutions.

Practice manual or recipe book on the cultural andnutritional significance of minor millets and otherunderutilized species.

A policy brief for supporting consumption andproduction of millets and supporting sustainableagriculture.

Academic and non-academic publications includinga book documenting indigenous technologies andpractices. The project will organize two workshopsand a national policy meeting to disseminate findings.

Project Themes

Theme 1: On-farm conservation of crop varietaldiversity and improvement of crop varieties

There is a growing realization that crop varietaldiversity, cultivated by small and marginal farmers inthe global South, has enormous public value for ensuringglobal food security, poverty alleviation, andenvironmental sustainability. The research projectexamines the current state of crop varietal diversity of

small millets in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka to understandthe constraints and opportunities in promoting on farmconservation of crop varietal diversity. This projectstrives to strengthen farmers' efforts to improve, useand conserve crop varietal diversity of small millets.This will be achieved through the following researchactivities in the project sites.

1.1Documentation and characterization of agro-biodiversity of small millets : A systematic surveyof existing varietal diversity of different small milletswill be conducted in each project site usingparticipatory tools such as Diversity Fairs (locatingdiversity) and Community Biodiversity Registers fordocumenting associated traditional knowledge. Thestudy will focus on inter crop and intra crop varietaldiversity in small millets based cropping system. Thefarmers' taxonomy or folk classification will be usedfor identification and classification of crop geneticdiversity. The data collected on crop geneticdiversity will be analyzed for classifying varietieson the basis of their pedigree (farmers' varieties fromwithin and outside the region, modern varieties, andcreolized varieties) and spatial distribution indicatingrichness and evenness. The scientific measures dooffer precise information on classification but areextremely costly and labour intensive. This projectwill employ molecular or DNA level analysis at theUniversity of Guelph Centre for BiodiversityGenomics only when genetic diversity is notmanifested in distinctive morphology attributes.

1.2Participatory varietal trials and evaluation:Promising genetic materials collected fromdocumentation of agro-biodiversity and materialsfrom gene banks will be selected on the basis offarmers' yields, consumption, and local marketpreferences. Selected material will be used inparticipatory varietal trials, employing Mother andBaby trials. The mother trial will be established infarmers' fields using Randomized Complete BlockDesign (RCBD) with one replicate allocated perfarmer. These experiments will be researcherdesigned but farmer-managed with farmers' normallevel of input use. Data management will be doneby researchers with major yield attributingparameters relevant for on-farm evaluation. Localmale and female farmers and researchers will jointlyvisit the trial plots at the time of maturity of the

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crop to evaluate the performance of the varieties.After the visit to the trial plots, focus groupdiscussions with women and men will be organizedto rank the tested varieties.

Existing self-help groups (SHGs) and farmers'groups (FGs) will be involved in seed multiplicationof tested varieties in micro-plots to assure the projectof enough seeds of preferred varieties for distributionto farmers under baby trials in subsequent years.For baby trials, one or two cultivars from the mothertrial per farmer will be distributed to a large numberof farmers through kits for testing in their plots.Unlike the mother trial, baby trials will be completelyfarmer managed with farmer inputs and supervision.The evaluation will be on the basis of farmers'perceptions collected at the household level througha simple questionnaire.

1.3Mapping of seed channels and improving farmers'access to varietal diversity: Farmers' networks playa significant role in flows of information and geneticmaterials. A network analysis approach thus will beused to explore and map seed flow channels andthe processes involved in maintenance of cropdiversity on-farm. A socio-metric survey will be usedto obtain relational/linking data among individualsand institutions. Snowball sampling will identify theinitial sample of respondents as 'starters' who willprovide data on their socio-metric links. The socio-metrically indicated individuals then become secondstage respondents, and they in turn lead to third stagerespondents. The process ultimately will identify anetwork of individuals and institutions (seed sellers)linked through seed and information flows. Thenodal persons identified in the network will be usedby SHGs/FGs in provision of project identifiedvarieties and information to enhance farmer's accessto diversity. The project will improve the farmers'access to different seed sources (community, public,private), and support farmers' visits across projectsites for exchange of knowledge and practices aswell as genetic materials. Seeds of lost varietieswould be revived through mobilization of SHGs/FGsin local communities.

Theme 2: Crop Production Enhancement

According to a recent report of the All IndiaCoordinated Research Project (AICRP) on small millets,

there is a wide gap in productivity between small milletson research stations and on farmers' fields. Thisindicates that either currently available technologies areinappropriate for farmers' fields or they are notdisseminated through site specific action research. Thisproject seeks to revive the culture of farmers'experimentation by engaging them in diverse researchactivities to adapt and improve available scientifictechnologies.

2.1Preparing sustainable agriculture kits: A systematicsurvey will be carried out on soil fertility, cropnutritional deficiency symptoms, farmers' cultivationpractices, water management, disease and pestissues, abiotic stresses, post-harvest storage andother constraints. Based on the study outcome, aninventory of best scientific practices and availabletechnologies to match these challenges will becompiled from national, regional, and internationalresearch centers (e.g. ICRISAT) as well as fromindigenous knowledge systems (elsewhere in Indiaand Africa). A number of low-cost approachesalready exist to address the problems of soil fertility,water management, and plant protection in asustainable manner but have yet to be exploited forconditions experienced by small farmers.

One of the most promising of these innovations isthe idea of low-cost agricultural kits. A team ofinnovative farmers, scientists, and village leveldevelopment workers will adapt these locally throughinclusion of seeds (improved millet seeds, improvedseeds that can be intercropped with millets topromote nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization,and "push-pull"-type organic pest management), lowcost technologies (to help farmers with on-farmdiagnostics of soil nutrition; low cost grain storagebags; microbial bio-fertilizers, etc.) and a picturebook of best practices for illiterate women farmers(e.g. how to make own quality seeds; cleaning seedof fungal pathogens; water harvesting).

The goal is to rapidly disseminate global knowledgeand already-available low cost technologies to localwomen farmers based on local needs. The kits willbe distributed first to the most innovative farmerswho have the highest probability of using the seeds,technologies and information to start local grassrootsagri-businesses.

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2.2On farm research on agronomic practices: Sitespecific on farm research trials will be conductedon farming and cropping systems. The on-farmexperiments in this project will be conducted onfields of small and resource poor farmers. Theproject will also ensure participation of womenmanaged farms resulting from male outmigration.

2.3Promoting soil and water conservation: The projectwill explore opportunities to promote long term soiland water conservation measures at individual farmand collective levels as they complement the project'sfocus on small millet production. Based on DHAN'sexperience, the project will develop a location specificpackage of livelihood focused natural resourcemanagement measures on a pilot scale.

Theme 3: Post-harvest processing and ValueAddition

3.1Evaluation of nutritional content and otherattributes: A comparative biochemical analysis ofnutrient content will be carried out for importantvarieties identified by farmers and rural consumers.The laboratory research will include proximateanalyses (moisture, protein, lipids, carbohydrate andash), and mineral composition (calcium and iron)as well as their bio-availability in products. Further,some recent studies have validated farmers'knowledge about use of small millets for people withdiabetes. Research will focus on characterizingdifferent attributes of starches extracted from smallmillets. Nutritionally promising varieties will beassessed for their potential in developing value addedproducts to address nutritional insecurity and thegrowing rural and urban epidemic of diabetes.Selected varieties will be recommended for theparticipatory breeding program to improve theirproductivity.

3.2Development of millets based food products forrural and urban consumers: Millet based productsare typically consumed immediately after preparationand have a very short shelf life. There are very fewmillet based products on the market; a commonexception is a dried enriched malted powder that isused as a breakfast drink. Given the healthfulattributes of millets compared to other grains,however, there is ample opportunity to develop retailproducts as well as improving the shelf life ofproducts for rural household consumption. This

project will draw on women's knowledge oftraditional foods to develop improved cookingprocesses and enhance the nutrient values and shelf-life of home cooked food products. This projectwill focus on alleviating health issues in the regionincluding anemia, malnutrition and diabetes.Products will be evaluated for quality, shelf life andnutritional attributes. Consumer sensory evaluationwill also be part of the product development process.Attention will be paid to the processes (unitoperations) required to make products locally giventheir potential to generate income and employmentin rural areas as well as to enhance ruralconsumption of these beneficial products.

3.3Technology for de-hulling and milling of smallmillets: The post-harvest technology currently usedby farmers for de-hulling is primarily designed forlarge sized grains. It yields a product that is inferiorin terms of storage, taste and nutrient content. Thisproject will develop a low cost, easy to use,efficient, and high capacity alternative appropriatetechnology. The project will assess availabletechnology, if any, and make a plan for its adaptationto small millets. Students of local engineeringcolleges and local innovators would be engaged tobrainstorm ideas for developing this technology.Prototypes will be constructed and tested at TamilNadu Agricultural University with part of the designand experimental work executed at McGill University,Canada. Once an appropriate technology isdeveloped, it will be tested for quality of final output(cleaned grains and flour). These analyses willmeasure compositional, thermal and physical-chemical properties of the flours and compare themto traditional hand-pounded flours. A panel will beconstituted and trained to evaluate sensory attributesof the flour slurry developed from the control flour.

Theme 4: Revitalize indigenous knowledge andsocio-cultural practices

The project will approach indigenous knowledgesystems as: (a) the 'practice of ecology' and (b) the'ecology of practice'. Research on these two ways ofunderstanding indigenous knowledge systems byadopting gender sensitive methods and empoweringwomen as women play crucial roles in many agriculturaloperations and conducting competitions on this themein schools and colleges will be done to revitalize theindigenous practice.

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a) Practice of ecology

This perspective emphasizes research on farmers'practices, knowledge and skills related to farming; theirnatural resource management; and their food andlivelihood options. The project will focus on agronomicpractices, soil and water conservation, plant protection,characterization of crop varieties, conservation andimprovement of crop varietal diversity, harvesting andprocessing of crop produce, grains storage and quality,coping mechanisms for environmental risks, nutritionalqualities, and cooking and consumption of small millets.This area of knowledge systems can be codified,explained, validated, and augmented through theapplication of formal sciences. Some innovativeagricultural practices developed by farmers will beincorporated into project participatory varietal selectiontrials, on-farm experimentation, and value additionresearch. These activities will help bridge betweenformal scientific and informal indigenous knowledgesystems while acknowledging the role and significanceof socioeconomic and cultural factors. The outcomeof documentation of indigenous practices andsubsequent validation and value addition will bedisseminated to farmers within and across project sites.

b) The ecology of practice

This dimension of the research focuses on forcesshaping or driving change such as ethnicity, gender,economic conditions and livelihood options, socioculturalinstitutions, and politics. The project will collect dataon socioeconomic variables at individual, household,and community levels. A particular focus will be tounderstand how the power dynamics of resourceallocation, reinforced through sociocultural institutionsand the state, affect the poor, women, and marginalizedsocial groups. Quantitative socioeconomic data will begathered to analyze trends related to topics includingresource use, access to land, and the nutritional balanceof food consumption, food habits and daily energy use.Understanding the sociocultural context in whichknowledge is produced and reproduced will help toidentify structural limitations on disseminating anychanges introduced by the project. Awareness of theselimitations will increase the likelihood that interventionswill reach marginalized groups, especiallyunderprivileged women. Decoding the ecology ofpractice requires long term research and reflection,combining insights from both external viewpoints andlocal positions.

Theme 5: Promoting Consumption

In contemporary globalized agriculture, farmproducers are not necessarily consumers of their ownproducts and linking local production and consumptionof small millets is complicated. Challenges arise fromthe inferior social status of small millets, their increasingdemand in urban niche markets, and the labour intensivemethods of preparing traditional foods. In order toensure that increased cultivation area and productivityof small millets translate into a matching increase inconsumption at the household level, the project willexamine various means to:

enhance the social profile of small millets based dietin rural communities

increase access to small millets based products inlocal as well as distant markets; and

improve the distribution of small millets basedhealthy foods or nutraceuticals across gender andclass lines locally.

The project will pursue the following activities forpromoting a brand called Mighty Small Millets.Consumer Survey, Promoting small millets through localentrepreneurs, Public and community based channels,Public outreach events like recipe contest and exhibitionand educational campaigns will be done to promoteconsumption of small millets

Theme 6: Public policy analysis and change aimedat conducive policy environment for small millets

The project will analyze existing policy documentsas well as the process of policy formulation,implementation, and enforcement. DHAN's experiencewith policy change suggests that policy makers arepositive about taking action on policy recommendationswhen the latter are based on empirical evidence drawnfrom various sociocultural and political environments.In keeping with this point, the project offers anappropriate diversity of policy contexts and instrumentsas the selected research sites fall in six differentgeopolitical jurisdictions in South Asia. Policy analysis,opportunities in existing policies, reallocating directsubsidies provided to beneficiaries of PDS, networkingwith policy makers and like-minded NGOs and creatingawareness in scientific institutions will be carried outto effect policy change during and after wrap-up of theproject.

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Event

DHAN Foundation, Madurai took part in a weeklong "India Water Week" convened by Minsitry of WaterResources, Government of India, New Delhi. The eventgot organized at Vigyan Bhavan, India Habitat Centerand Central Board of Irrigation andPower(CBIP)between 10th April 2012 to 14thApril,2012. The inauguration was done byShri.Manmohan Singh, Honorable Prime Minister ofIndia in the presence of Mr.Pawan Kumar Bansal, andHonorable Minister for Water Resources and Mr.SharadPawar, Honorable Minister for agriculture.

As a part of this grand event, DHAN VayalagamFoundation conducted an exhibition at Pragathi Maidan,New Delhi (Hall No : 9, Stall 11), highlighting thegrassroots water resources development interventionby DHAN Foundation between 10th April,2012 and 12thApril,2012. Many delegates and general public visitedthe exhibition. On 13th April 2012, DHAN VayalagamFoundation conducted a National Seminar on 'Waterbodies(irrigation tanks) sustaining food security' atCentral Board of irrigation and Power" Chanakia Puri,New Delhi. Shri Jayaram Ramesh Honorable Ministerfor Rural Development. Government of Indiainaugurated the seminar and released a Manual on" Ahur-Payne rehabilitation in South Bihar". In his inaugural

India Water Week

A. Gurunathan*

*Mr.A.Gurunathan, Programme Leader, DHAN Foundation

speech, he highlighted the contribution of MGNREGsin creating water assets in rural India and said that theMinistry is in the path of constantly improving theeffectiveness of the MGNREGs. He appreciated thecontributions of DHAN for improving the status of waterbodies to benefit poor farmers in small scale watersectors. Mr.M.P.Vasimalai, Executive Director in his Keynote address reiterated the necessity of stringentconservation laws and rolling out of massive tankfedagricultural mission. Earlier Mr. A.Gurnanathan, CEO,DHAN Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation welcomed theparticipants. Many other experts and DHAN'sprofessionals presented technical papers on the subjectMr.N.Venketesan, COO delivered the vote of thanks.

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Development Cartoon

Art by:Mr.Sundarajan, CDC, DHAN Foundation

Avoid Incandescent Bulb

DHAN Foundation18, Pillaiyar Koil Street, S.S. Colony, Madurai 625 016. Tamil Nadu, INDIA

Tel.: +91 452 2610794 / 805 Fax: +91 452 2602247

Email: dhanfoundation@dhan.org Website: http://www.dhan.org

lleviating the A“Greenhouse Effect”,

trees act as “Carbon Sinks”.

One acre of tree plantation will

sequester about 2.5 tons of

carbon annually. For every ton

of new wood that grows,

about 1.5 tons of Carbon

dioxide is removed from the

air and 1.07 tons of life-giving

oxygen is produced. Trees

planted in between or

interspersed with crops can

enhance soil fertility, increase

soil moisture and reduce

erosion. Trees act as

windbreaks, attract bees and

other insects that pollinate

crops, and they can supply

food for livestock. Horticulture

trees provide commercial

products like fruits, fodder and

fiber, bringing assured

additional income to farmers.

Trees stabilise the soil and in

arid areas they can prevent

erosion of soil and its

nutrients, thereby preventing

the lands from desertification.

Greening through farm orchards