In the first 10 years of the new millennium, per capita food grain availability has dropped from about 500 gm per day to about 450 gm per day. In India, small (<2ha) and marginal (<1ha) farms account for 82% of all the land holdings. Only 6% of all farms are larger than 6ha (Ministry of Agriculture, 2006). The per capita land availability too has declined from 0.89ha in 1951 to 0.37ha and it is projected to slide down to 0.20ha by 2035. We also need to take into account that not all land areas are equally productive given the current levels of technology use. Therefore, enhancing productivity of the land is going to be one of the major challenges agriculture policy makers will face in the coming years.

The experience of PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action) in rejuvenating natural resource based livelihood production systems for the local people in two undulating terrains of Agro-Climatic Zone VII (Eastern Plateau and Hills region) and Zone VIII (Central Plateau and Hills region) illustrate that sustainable livelihoods can be generated from the meagre resources owned by the majority of the smallholder farmers through integrated natural resource management practices.

In the Bundelkhand region of Central India which comprises 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP), the percentage of total irrigated land remains below the Uttar Pradesh state average, at around 42% of the total sown land and it is marginally above the percentage of total irrigated land in Madhya Pradesh at around 39.96%. Given that the geological and topographical conditions here are conspicuous with hard rock sub-stratum (often shallow and some exposed due to erosion over centuries), limited or inadequate ground water resources and erratic rainfall (768 to 1087 mm); this region remains prone to acute water shortages and droughts. Most of the water availability (irrigation & other uses) is largely dependent on ground water. A popular saying in the region is ‘Gagari na phoote, chahe balam mar jaye’ (let the water pot not break, even if the husband should die). The excessive dependence on groundwater has led to a trend of sinking bore-wells and depleting ground water levels.

In face of such extreme water shortage and drought conditions, there is a need to give emphasis on in-situ rainwater harvesting and management to bring a positive change in the local moisture regime and in farming practices. This has been the effort made by grass root NGOs involved in helping the very poor tribal communities of Bundelkhand with technical support from PRADAN. Till date a total 1730 hectares of land has been treated with field bunding and 166 farm ponds have been constructed. This has helped to harvest and conserve about 54.19 lakh cubic meters of rain water in Bundelkhand. The demonstration of soil and water conservation has benefitted farmers of 31 villages. They now have round the year food sufficiency and incremental income in the range of Rs 20,000-Rs 50,000/- as revealed by several case studies conducted by implementing agencies.

These demonstrations have been carried out in a decentralised manner in Bundelkhand (UP-Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Lalitpur; MP - Chatarpur, Tikamgarh), through the years 2008-2014 which experienced varied rainfall. The results have been encouraging irrespective of high, normal or low rainfall.

Such intensive in-situ rainwater harvesting and management practices can be adopted in most of the rain-fed areas of Bundelkhand to enhance food and income security of the rural communities. Civil society organisations based in Bundelkhand at the grass roots level with experience in such type of activities should come together and influence government and other stakeholders to scale-up the existing efforts to the entire region.   q