Water and Agriculture

Advocating proven models in water and agriculture to materially improve farmer lives

On every Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) measurement, rural India ranks far behind urban India. Within this population, the Indian women are the ones who are the most impacted on account of this backwardness. Moreover, the poverty map of India overlaps with both the areas which are largely agrarian and face water stress. Yet, very little of civil society’s attention is focused on these areas and issues

Water and Agriculture: Scaling select proven models in water and agriculture to transform farmer lives.

With most of India’s bottom quartile overlapping with families of marginal farmers, uplifting them becomes central to the vision for a Viksit Bharat, and is a key part of ours

Water has always been a scarce resource in India, given we have 18% of the world’s population, but only 4% of its water resources. In a country where a large part of farming is still rainfed, increased incidence of climate change related droughts is causing acute Agri distress. This is resulting in loss of life, distress to farmers, and the need for expensive relief measures, including farm loan waivers at the extreme. The extreme drought in Maharashtra in 2013 was a turning point for us and we asked if there were some sustainable solutions to this difficult problem? With our partner, Caring Friends, our focus turned to the Rejuvenation of Waterbodies, which we have since templatised and scaled into a movement across 11 states impacting over a million villagers in partnership with Governments, NGOs and others.

Our farming practices since the green revolution have left our soil barren, while our productivity and income per acre at the median, across crops, is abysmal in both absolute and relative terms. At the same time, the country is spending over Rs. 175,000 crores in fertilizer subsidy, despite which there is concern on the impact of overuse of chemicals on soil and that of produce on the human body. We are supporting partners who are seeking to transform farming practices at scale, building replicable templates in the process. 

We are also seeking to make selective investments in a few very high potential /innovative solutions that could dramatically improve farmer incomes.

Water Security: Rejuvenation of Waterbodies

Addressing water security at scale

Aerial view of a wetland with water, patches of grass, trees, and surrounding farmland under a hazy sky. 
WHY

To alleviate water stress, we piloted and then scaled a cost and time effective model of rejuvenating waterbodies along with our partner Caring Friends (an informal group of stockbrokers who have come together to donate funds to the social sector). This is done keeping communities front and centre. 

WHAT

Our model starts with identifying dried up waterbodies, then we put an excavation machine in there and within two weeks we can desilt the waterbody and restore it to its original capacity. The silt from the waterbody is considered highly nutritious (farmers call it black gold), and the farmers cart it to their fields at their own costs. This eliminates their need to use chemical fertilizers.

Cost effective: ~30% of the cost is borne by the government or donors and ~70% of the cost is borne by the farmers. This has enabled us to scale across 61 districts and states.

HOW

  • Before the work begins, we prioritise water bodies that have better ground recharge using a GIS based tool called CLART.

  • We have also developed a content library with learning/training videos in 5 languages to enable NGOs and Government implement the model.

  • We use AVNI Gramin, a data collection app which has details on the waterbodies, farmers with in built checks and balances for data authentication.

  • This data gets populated into dashboards using Dalgo, which enables both donors and government monitor and evaluate the work.

  • Additionally, we use a chatbot to help with immediate troubleshooting on any issues our field staff might encounter. 

IMPACT

79,000

farmers carted slit driving average 120% in income over a year

6,000+

waterbodies regenerated in 5 states, 52 districts ~ 78% through Government Support

~ 5,868

crore litres surface water storage capacity restored benefiting  ~ 8,000 villages & 98 lakh people

8

driest states of India hold full-scale impact potential of ~ 1.7 lakh water bodies 

Partners
Collage of logos and images representing various organizations, including Dhara Sanstan, GRAVIS, OneStage, Srijan, Arunoday, Government of India, Caring Friends NGO, Tata Capital, and a smiling young person.

The impact of our Rejuvenation of Waterbodies work on Agriculture

Agriculture

At the A.T.E. Chandra Foundation, we are working towards an ambitious goal: to positively impact the lives of 25 million farmers over the next decade. Our mission to do this involves identifying bold, disruptive ideas led by visionary changemakers, and backing them to deliver transformative, scalable solutions for Indian agriculture. 

Partners