It is important to consider the progress we are making in our project which aims to improve the livelihoods of women, marginal and tenant farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, through improved dry season irrigated agriculture. Overall we can be pleased with progress. While there is still much to be done, the foundation is sound. […]

by Stephanie Leder, WLE-IWMI, and Dipika Das, IWMI In all project sides in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, we observed gendered divisions of labor in agriculture, as well as gendered norms in the villages on speaking up and mobility, which hinder women to take up tasks. Within this context, how can the groups work effectively as […]

By Debojit Dutta and Prasun Deb Kanoe In early February 2016 the DSI4MTF team and the SRFSI team collaborated to undertake training in soil sampling. Alison Laing from CSIRO and Arunava Ghosh from UBKV (Department of Agricultural Statistics) were able to accompany IWMI and UBKV field staff to Dholaguri village in West Bengal. In Dholaguri, […]

Recent press coverage of the India Union Budget 2016/2017 highlights the close alignment of our work to national priorities. The article below provides a good summary. The need for production of non-cereal centric crops, with emphasis on better irrigation management using ponds and groundwater is emphasised. The need for improved water and fertilizer use efficiency and […]

Raj Kumar G.C, Program Director, iDE Nepal Rabindra Karki, Program Engineer, iDE Nepal Gun Magar, Senior M and E Officer, iDE Nepal Overview of project progress Since initiating the project one and a half years ago, it has encountered massive earthquakes and political strikes with a devastating blockade of essential supplies that still hampers full […]

Dr Fraser Sugden, IWMI Nepal Collective farming has been often written-off as irrelevant in the 21st century – yet a new model of collective production has the potential to revolutionise smallholder irrigated agriculture and gender empowerment in the Gangetic plains. The project Improving Dry Season Irrigation for Marginal and Tenant Farmers in the Eastern Gangetic […]

Sakhi with the support of IWMI, ICAR and local farmers are implementing innovative dry season agriculture pilot farms in two blocks of Madhubani district namely Andhrathari and Babubarhi. During the first Rabi season (2015-16), the team is working with 45 farmers directly. A total of 5 farmer groups have been formed and cultivation was initiated […]

Despite ongoing strikes and blockade in the district, nursery raising and off-season vegetable training was successfully conducted in four different sites of our project area in January 2016. On-farm nursery raising trainings were organized, facilitated by an agriculture technician from our Saptari based local partner “Jilla Krshak Samuha Sangh (JKSS)”. The overall objective of the […]

The land and water (L&W) project seeks to optimize agriculture based livelihoods opportunity for the small, marginal and landless communities during the dry season. In the Cooch Behar site large tracks of land remain fallow during the dry season. The project works with the communities and the local University to together work out strategy and […]

  Farmers’ training and demonstrations were held in the project sites of West Bengal on 13-14th November, 2015 on use of residual soil moisture through relay cropping (rainfed paddy-lentil). The farmers were given hands on training on seed preparation and sowing of lentil in standing paddy fields. The interventions were taken up at two sites […]