RESILIENCE project completed one year – All partners annual review meeting was hosted by OUAT and NRRI from 13-15th November in Odisha

The Resilience project partners and stakeholders participated in the annual review meeting and field exposure visits to Tangi block (Cuttack district, Odisha state) on the 14th November, to observe the different farmer community-led on farm demonstration of selected climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) interventions. Row planting of rice seedlings was one of the practices introduced along with short duration rice varieties by NRRI in the village Abhayapur.

Farmer community led demonstration of climate resilient rice varieties in Abhayapur village

Mr. Jaganath Bal is one of the project lead farmers from village Abhayapur who has shown interest to apply row planting of rice seedlings in his field. Previously, he was using local varieties where yield was lower (3-4 tons/ha) and has now shifted to row planting with improved varieties (5-6 tons/ha). He has seen the advantages of row planting that includes higher grain yield, less exposure to weeds, pests/diseases, easy for weeding and harvesting operations. He is keen to continue applying the row planting and other recommended agronomic practises by the project. Several farmers (from neighbouring fields) have visited his fields and are asking him for seeds supply.

In addition, the following activities are being implemented in Cuttack district project areas:

  • NutriGarden interventions: to enhance the nutritional aspects of food security by growing several types of fruit trees (e.g. mango, banana, citrus) and vegetables (e.g. cabbage) around homesteads. This will address the impact of the project on food and nutrition security of smallholders.
  • Value addition of agricultural products and income generating activities by Women Self Help Groups: The activities included oyster mushroom cultivation, apiculture, small poultry farming, producing vermicompost. This will address the impact of the project in improving the livelihoods of smallholders

 

Nutrigarden initiatives for smallholders in Cuttack district promoted by RESILIENCE project

Village Knowledge centre (VKC)/KVKs at NRRI

About 650 farmers have been connected so far through the Village Knowledge Centre (VKC) in Cuttack district. The VKCs and KVKs are closely working together and provide various services to farmers in the area. This includes agriculture-related information, weather-related information collected from the Indian Meteorological department (IMD). The comparative advantage of VKCs include: disseminating voice short message services (SMS), effective mode of dissemination, and effective timely delivery of SMS. The KVKs uses some of the dissemination materials developed by VKCs when training farmers in the farmer training centres (FTC).

On the 15th November, the annual review meeting was organized at OUAT, where all partners and stakeholders were present to discuss the progress made during the first year, the main outputs achieved, risks encountered and addressed. Dr. Roul, Dean of Extension, OUAT, welcomed the participants and presented the overall framework of the project, and the main activities and results achieved in the Odisha project sites.

The Director of Environment, Government of Odisha, Mr. Murugesan was present at the meeting. He was positive to know the progress made so far by the project partners and suggested to share the results with key stakeholders in the state and also ensure that the outputs can be useful to similar other areas in the state.

Dr.Udaya Sekhar Nagothu, Director, Centre for International Development, NIBIO, Norway, commented that RESILIENCE is a well-planned project, engaging stakeholders all along, and also emphasizing on the cross disciplinarity. He also informed that, project emphasis on developing innovative digital applications to enhance precision-based agriculture is something highly relevant to address challenges due to climate change.  

The progress of WP1 and details of the various tasks were presented by individual partners. Dr.Nayak from NRRI and Rajkumar from MSSRF presented the progress from WP2 and WP3 respectively. The latter focused on the knowledge exchange and the activities of 5 VKCs established during the 1st year in Odisha and Assam.  The importance of gender mainstreaming in the project was highlighted by Dr.Rengalakshmi. Overll, the feedback from the stakeholders was positive so far.