Bundelkhand is characterised as a semi-arid agro-climatic zone. Such zones are long stretches of unfertile land resulting in a famine prone zone with very unreliable rainfall. The vegetation mostly comprises grasses with a few scattered trees due to the rainfall. Hence this area is not very well-suited for permanent agriculture.

The situation becomes more critical when the majority have realised the need to migrate for employability instead of mitigating the risk and optimum utilisation of available resources.

The WADI approach has an integrated approach, which will include helping the people to discover their own unexplored capabilities and realise the potentials of their own under-utilised resources for their sustainable small farm based livelihoods. Simultaneously it would build their awareness about the local environment and its linkages with sustainable livelihoods.

The WADI (Agri-Horti Based Livelihoods) may represent a unique opportunity for small and marginal farmers to get greater control over their own development and management of their natural resources. In practice, however, the community needs to develop considerable capacity for self-development to be able to take advantage of these provisions in future. Along these lines, WADI "An orchard" model is proposed to be adopted in the region to enhance the small livelihoods.

Components & Approaches

WADI follows an integrated approach & has three major components consisting of three major sets of activities:

The first component would address the capability building of local communities ensuring the participation of each family in the programme. Gradually, these groups would be taken through intensive training and exposure on improved natural resource management practices and environmental regeneration.

The second component would cover one acre of under-productive land of each family in an orchard programme, which would be based on a farming system approach that includes horticulture, forestry, intercrops for food and cash income, and intensive cultivation of cash crops. It would take the family as a unit and build on the resources that the family possesses. The approach would ultimately lead to increased agricultural production, augmenting food supply, fodder, fuel, timber and medicines. It would, as well ensure improvement of local environment through better water resource development and biomass production.

The third component gives emphasis on women through creating awareness around community health and broader well being of the community; on landless through creating employment opportunities in the farm and non-farm sector.

The approach for undertaking these components has been:

• Participatory: working directly with the communities

• Inclusive: working with communities at large without bias or discrimination to any particular community group

• Gender sensitive: the technologies and practices have been gender sensitive, considering women farmers being in large numbers in the selected geographical spread

The nucleolus of whole model is WADI and other development interventions are built around the "WADI". The WADI means a small orchard covering one acre of land comprising two fruit crops to minimise the biological and marketing risk suitable to climatic conditions. In the Bundelkhand region, Guava and Aonla with forestry species on the periphery of the land, have been selected as per technical recommendations. While the fruit plants generate income after 4-5 years, the forestry species provide a fence and shelter belt to the land.

One acre of WADI covers 110 fruit plants (55 of each one) and 200 more forestry species. The plant can be managed according to the interest of participant families and the local choice. In initial years inter-cropping was also introduced to supplement the family livelihood and food requirements. Generally, first fruiting from the WADI is received after the 4th year and creates a source of sustainable livelihoods for the participant family.

To develop the strong participatory approach in the model, WADI Participants Groups (WPG) are formed and their involvement in planning and execution is ensured. Initially, these groups act as motivators and local trainers for new participants. In further interventions, they can graduate to upper tier of the institution and manage the all development process pertaining to WADI Programme.

Initially, these groups have been motivated to start their own corpus with small savings and contribute to the WADI activities based on the available resources. The programme provides for building capacities of local youth to organise themselves for all round development. These youth now act as volunteers and are supporting promotion of the programme.

The provision of revolving fund was also introduced in the model to provide employment opportunities to landless families through farm/ Non-farm based micro enterprises.

Soil and water conservation activities are considered to be the core activities in the WADI Programme. Most of the planning and organisation is based on the ground condition and requirements from of the field condition.

To ensure the critical requirements of water for irrigation, construction of water tanks, wells, small check dams are undertaken depending on the situation. Besides these, for optimum utilisation of available irrigation water, low cost irrigation methods like pot/drum irrigation is preferred in the initial years. For soil conservation, bunding, trenching and formation of plate-form for plants have been included.

The WADI model considers being a source of various opportunities for a wealthy and healthy environment. The interventions are concentrated at a family level, having with other developmental value added actions. Gender equity at all the levels of the project is strongly built in to the systems. The education, health, energy, income generation activities, access to information and capacity building is an integral part of all action covered in the WADI programme.

The major plan envisaged within the project is as follow.

A. Entitlement of Assets,

B. Institutional Building and

C. Capacity Building

A. Entitlement of Assets,

• Involvement of both husband and wife as co-owners of the WADI

• Ensure participation as a member of WSHG, being formed under the model

• Ensure participation in motivational, leadership and entrepreneurship development trainings

B. Strengthening and leveraging

• Physical strength through health and hygiene facilities viz; Toilets, Smokeless Chulahs, heath check ups, awareness and diagnosis, enhanced sources of balanced diet and minimum nutritive value food with safe and easy access to drinking water

• Linkages with different financial institutions and Government rural/tribal welfare schemes

• Skill development as per need assessment

C. Ownership through entrepreneur - ship

• Establishment of Women Centred Business models,

• Ensure equal participation and share ownership

The poor socio-economic status among the selected community also indicates poor access to health care facilities. The basic problems related to health are malnutrition, illness, alcoholism, lack of awareness and sanitation facilities. Provisions of health educational programmes and health camps have also been incorporated in the programme. To supplement the day to day healthy nutrition, kitchen gardens are being adopted by the women of the model area. People of the area are also advised for safe and healthy sanitation facilities.

The WADI model has a significant socio-economic and ecological impact. This model facilitates all the three corners of sustainable livelihood viz. social, economical and environmental. The past success stories of the model show that it is replicable to the context of Bundelkhand and will prove a tool for large scale sustainable agriculture, livelihood and checks migration. q