Planning for Regenerative Farming Interventions in Partner Communities in India
This past August, the AidEnvironment team returned to India to visit areas under the Green Transformation Project (GTP) in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Junior consultant on land and water management, Marina Gutiérrez, together with Ruben Borges, an external consultant for the GTP project who specializes in soil fertility, conducted a two-week scoping mission, visiting different project areas in which regenerative farming interventions are being implemented.
The GTP is a program funded by the IKEA Foundation and implemented through a consortium involving FES, MetaMeta and Aidenvironment, led by PRADAN. The program aims to create a vibrant rural economy through fostering sustainable management of natural resources and regenerative agriculture practices to improve the quality of life within communities. Moreover, the program aims to enhance a circular local economy, one that is based on an extensive exchange of valuable products and services and is supported by strong institutions and value chains. The GTP wants to achieve this in a feminised context in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand in India. This means that women’s roles and contributions in the implementation of interventions are not only recognized, but also supported and enabled, since partners in India organize work in the fields through local women’s groups.
The team visited several bio-resource centres, cropping systems and composting facilities both in Madhya Pradesh and in Jharkhand. Through this, AidEnvironment gained a better understanding of how PRADAN promotes different regenerative farming interventions through women’s self-help groups and how farmers are getting trained. They also drew insights on the main challenges that farmers and the PRADAN teams experience when implementing new interventions. The site visits also included in-depth discussions with partners on how to make biofertilizer and biopesticide (as promoted by bio-resource centres), designing cropping patterns, multilayer models and kitchen gardens, small-scale composting by farmers, and discussing how large-scale composting facilities operate.
With the information gathered during the visit, AidEnvironment, MetaMeta, and PRADAN will develop a shared working plan to enhance the impact of regenerative farming interventions in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand during the month of September.
