Presentation to the Parliamentary Forum for Water on 24 February 2009

FAO is invited to present before the  Parliamentary Forum for Water on the methodology and achievements  of APFAMGS project on 24 Feb 2009 from 15.30 - 17.30hrs.  The opportunity to make the presentation  came about after the success of the APFAMGS concept of Demand Side Groundwater Management with the participation of the community came to be acknowledged by the State Government as well as International Agencies. The presentation will be for >20mins and the discussion will be for more than an hour. The parliamentary forum on water has distinguished parliamentarians who have handled water issues for the last few decades.

List of Members

World Food Day 2008 Celebration
Achievement of local Food Security and nutritional health has been a target that APFAMGS project has been focusing while improving water use efficiency. As part of this objective all the Hydrological Unit Networks (HUN’s) have been observing World food Day on 16th October year after year. This year also the World Food Day was observed by all the project partners of APFAMGS with great enthusiasm.

Food and nutrition survey undertaken by the project over 2 years was used as an indicator to stimulate discussions amongst the community to take up appropriate crop plans that ensures food crops being part of crop plan and also those crops that provide the nutrition and energy.  The farmers have been taking of the need for production of more food locally using limited resources. The farmers have been encouraged to conserve and make sustainable use of important wild species for meeting the nutritional demands. The need to buffer against income fluctuations due to climate variability have also become for discussions in the HUN’s and GMC’s.

The World Food day event drew a mix of participants drawn from the farmers, school children, intellectuals, government officials, NGO’s and elected representatives. Various events were conducted across the project in the form of assembling in central places, followed by march with WRD messages, followed by competitions and speeches by scientists, farmers and politicians.

The World Food Day Observation has received very good press coverage commending the project’s initiative in raising critical issues of food and nutrition vulnerability which is a matter of great concern of the poor.

Crop Water Budgeting Borwshop (2008-2009)

Annual Crop Water Budgeting (CWB) is scheduled for November 2008. The time table for the workshop is as follows.
date wise :

Mission for drafting a Medium-Sized Project Proposal for funding under the GEF Trust Fund
FAO-India as part of  its effort to sustain the APFAMGS project has been  interacting with the Global Environment Fund (GEF) for a follow-up project. Ministry of Environment and Forests which is the GEF operational focal point for India have endorsed the proposal entitled “Reversing Environmental Degradation and Rural Poverty through Adapatation to Climate Change in Drought Stricken areas in Southern India: a Hydrological Unit Pilot Project Approach”  as a one of the sub projects  under Sustainable Land and Ecosystem Management Program (SLEM) programme.

A Project Preparation Grant (PPG) has been provided for putting together the content of PIF in the form of Medium Sized Project (MSP), suiting the norms of GEF. It is envisaged in the PPG that a multi-disciplinary team of experts will be hired to put together the MSP.

The proposal is looking at broadening the scope of the APFAMGS  institutions established under the on-going programme for handling groundwater management at Hydrological Unit (HU) level to extend its role for managing the broader issues of soil, land, water, crops as part of the effort to adapat to the impact of climate change. 

The evaluation team will combine among its members the following fields of expertise:

• Environment and Climate change
• Integrated Water Resources Management
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Institutional development and gender mainstreaming
• Farmers’ Field Schools, Non Formal education and capacity building
• Project Document Preparation
• GEF/FAO Financial and management procedures and formats

The team will be composed by six team members, who together will cover all the fields of expertise listed above.

The mission is fully responsible for building the proposal in the desired format before 15 November 2008.

• APFAMGS should try to work with CROPWAT for planning irrigation practices and assessment of production under varying irrigations.
• He wanted details of the discussions with Tunisian government for further follow-up. (He wanted to be reminded on this after he is back in office).
• Learn more of SPHERE-MIS software functional in Tunisia for implementing in India.
• Work towards the multi donor supported Uni Lateral Trust fund Programme for supporting APFAMGS programme in the coming years.
• Pursue with GEF proposal, promised to follow it up.
• Create a Farmer Movement to act as a pressure group to take the learning’s of APFAMGS to policy level.
• Move into new areas of work especially in area of Climate Change ( Management of rainfall in Dry Land Areas, Managing Soaring food Prices through appropriate farm level interventions, Strategic management of timely availability of Seeds through Community Seed banks).
• Market  the Concept Farmer Water School as Consultancy to other countries
• Prepare a scientific paper for the International Journal of Sustainable Agriculture.
• Develop 10 mins Video for FAO Video Library
• Invite Information Officer of FAO for developing a story material on APFAMGS

At an interaction on 13th August at the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, UN Agencies led by Michael Saint-Lot (State Representative, UNICEF)made a presentation to the Legislative Committee for the Welfare of Women and Children and Disabled Welfare. The presentation  gave the committee an overview of the status of Andhra Pradesh in the areas of education, health, malnutrition, infant & maternal mortality, human trafficking, sex selection and participation of women in agriculture. While highlighting the achievements of the State, the presentation also discussed the challenges and compared the status of Andhra to that of the other Southern States - Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. 

APFAMGS provided the inputs to the UN team in the area of  Food security, nutrition and Agriculture. Paul Raja Rao Nodal Chief and Ram Babu NGO chief GVS, represented APFAMGS made the presentation.

The presentation was followed by a detailed discussion on the issues presented. The Members of the Legislative Committee asked a number of questions and offered their suggestions. The UN Agencies present at the discussion responded to the questions posed by the Legislators.

The UN team proposed that, as a follow up to the meeting, we could facilitate detailed interactions on each of the issues presented. It was agreed that the first would be a field trip of the Legislative Committee to Medak (a UNICEF integrated district) on 30th August. This would be followed by other interactions/field visits. It was clarified by the Assembly that expenses for field visits within the State would be borne by them.

 Following colleagues from the UN were present at the interaction:
1. UNICEF - Michel Saint - Lot, Sudha Murali, Vikas Verma
2. ILO -  K. Krishnamoorthy
3. UNODC - R. Gunashekar, Swasti Rana 
4. FAO - V. Paul Raja Rao, Ch Ram Babu (APFAMGS Project)
5. UNRC Office - Radhika Kaul Batra

 In addition to the above, following are the other activities scheduled with the Legislators of Andhra Pradesh:

* An interaction on Water and Sanitation during the Monsoon Session. Tentative dates are 27th or 28th August.
* A field visit by the Legislators to Maharashra to see examples of district based planning. Facilitated by UNICEF.

Government of Andhra Pradesh invites APFAMGS to establish the pilot model for artificial recharge of groundwater through dug wells
Ministry of Rural Development Government of Andhra Pradesh which is responsible for the implementation of Government of India funded programme of Artificial Recharge of Groundwater through 7.37lakhs Dug wells has invited APFAMGS to establish the pilot model for recharging abandoned open wells initially for 100 wells in Kurnool district, followed by another 900 in the 7 districts where APFAMGS operates. The pilot will focus on testing the appropriate design, methodology of identification of farmers, required hardware, awareness generation and methodology of execution. APFAMGS shall initiate the work in June 2008 and complete in two months.

Schools, Crop Water Budgeting, improved water us efficiency,  Crop Diversification, Food & Nutrition, computerized data base, GIS and Information kiosk.

Two days were devoted to field visits to Deguvalambamvaripalli, Talaripeddapalli habitation in Diguvaetigadda Hydrological Unit and MC Thanda in Kothakunta HU. The farmers conducted the field tour by showing Groundwater Monitoring Committee (GMC) role, minutes, and establishment and monitoring of rainfall, water levels, discharge, and data display boards, Crop Water Budgeting (CWB), implementation of crop plans matching the water available.  Artificial Groundwater Recharge (AGR) structure (Injection well) in the tanks were shown. In Talaripeddapalli village the officers saw steps to improve Water Use Efficiency (WUE), improving soil moisture holding capacity and intercrops. Water saving method, through drip, sprinkler were also shown.  In M.C.Thanda village the officers saw Sub surface dam and recharge through Dug wells.

The participants clarified all their doubts by interaction with farmers.  The last day the participants shared and consolidated their learning’s. The participants saw the video film developed by the local NGO GVS on the on going programme. The Information Kiosk and Habitation Resource Information System (HRIS) data base were demonstrated by the farmer facilitators

Farmer Water Schools Field Day Celebrations     (May -June 2008 )                                                         Top

APFAMGS has successfully completed another year round Farmer Water School (June 2007-May 2008). As part of the graduation ceremony Field Day celebrations are planned, when the farmers will demonstrate their learning’s through exhibits (models, charts, documents, arts).

The significant part of this Field day will be the total ownership of the responsibility by the Hydrological Unit Network (HUN). A major in initiative has been taken by the NGO’s in handing over responsibilities (Financial, Managerial, and Technical) to the registered people’s Institutions HUN’s from January 2008. It will be these HUN’s that will be fully responsible for the conduct of the field days.

The calendar for field days is

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