In the recent past, the Bundelkhand region has faced different aspects of climate variability, including long drought periods, reduced rainfall, untimely precipitation, variation in the normal trend of summer/winter seasons, and so forth. The frequency of variation in precipitation patterns, which tends to be significant in regions with monsoon-based climate systems, has exceeded projections based on local climatic conditions. Agriculture is highly susceptible to these variations, given the sector’s dependence on water resources, and the strong link between rainfall and the availability of water in the region. The poor socio-economic status of local residents, along with the scarcity of other resources, makes agriculture even more vulnerable to climatic variations.

Thus, the approach of building social capital by fostering institutions and institutional mechanisms has been used to address the poor climate resilience of the farmers of Bundelkhand under an SDC-supported project called Sustainable Civil Society Initiatives to Address Global Environmental Challenges. The work has been taken up by Development Alternatives in about 20 villages of the Babina and Bada Gaon Blocks of the Jhansi District of Uttar Pradesh, Bundelkhand region.

In development approaches as a whole, intervening or development agencies are often considered as occupying a privileged position in terms of their access to knowledge and information. This tacit assumption ends to lead practitioners to discount experience collected through decades or centuries of local practice. Knowledge Dialogue is a process based on the axiom that knowledge resides in spaces and locations; thus, a dialogue amongst local knowledge points is required to better inform and enhance development practices and ensure more effective implementation of development efforts. To initiate the knowledge dialogue process in Bundelkhand, a series of meetings and discussions were held by Development Alternatives with farming communities at different locations in the project area to enable the understanding of concerns arising in different contexts, actual needs and the local knowledge base, along with existing adaptation strategies being implemented by the farmers.

Farmers’ Common Interest Groups (CIGs), whose members are characterised by their willingness to adopt new and promising practices have been formed in all of the intervention villages. The farmers have held group discussions on a range of relevant issues with the project team and subject experts. Discussion resulted in process-oriented decisions being made by the group, which were finally supported and facilitated by the project team. The following technical options were identified through a collaborative involvement of farmers and development practitioners.

• Enhancing production

• Increasing resource efficiency

• Improved practices

Adoption of the measures identified above had been facilitated, rather than pushed, by the Sustainable Civil Society Initiatives to Address Global Environmental Challenges project team. Thus, seeds of improved varieties had not been sold or provided free of charge to the farmers, but the technical specifications of seed and possible benefits have been shared with the farmers, and they were encouraged to procure these seeds from identified reliable agencies (such as the IARI in the case of wheat seeds, or BARC in the case of groundnut seeds). Further improvements have also been promoted through Farmers’ Clubs. Training and capacity building activities targeting farmers have been implemented with the assistance of both farmers’ and experts’ handholding throughout the process, wherein both farmers and experts were able to offer their guidance in person when farmers were putting new practices into effect in their fields.

The formation of Farmers’ Groups was among the first few activities undertaken as part of the interventions. The remaining activities progressed under the aegis of the Farmers’ Group, by means of meetings with farmers, discussions with experts, exposure visits, identifying members for participation in the visits, the sharing of experiences of visiting farmers with other group members. A three-tier institutional system has been set up with the local Farmers’ Group at the village level. Groups of nearby villages formed a cluster Farmers’ Group; at the apex level, an overarching Farmers’ Adaptation cluster was formed. Responsibilities have been shared accordingly. Farmers’Groups were linked with NABARDs’ Farmers’ Club Programme.

Initial activities have targeted 100 farmers in 11 villages; early acceptance encouraged programme coordinators to increase the number of villages participating in the Farmers’ Club programme to 20, and the number of participating farmers to 285. Improved practices have not only been adopted but also promoted for use by other farmers in participating villages. There have also been instances where Farmers’ Clubs have purchased resource-efficient equipment, renting it out for use in both members’ and non-members’ fields. This practice ensures the increased financial sustainability of the institution. Further, the level of organisational maturity demonstrated through such initiatives has helped to promote the benefits of the Farmers’ Club programme to other farmers, while creating economic value in the process of providing the rental services.

In fact, the capacity building and enhanced understanding of the farmers, along with the implementation of improved institutional mechanisms formed by and for the farmers, help the local residents not only to sustain agricultural growth, but also to replicate new practices on a wider scale. q