Foundation for Ecological Security (FES)
60 percent of funds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are allocated towards Soil and Water Conservation works. Village level plans are developed and implemented by Gram Panchayat through the scheme. Success of water conservation initiatives depends considerably on the capacity of village communities to plan and implement solutions appropriate for their context.
HUF’s engagement with FES aims at developing scalable tools to help communities plan their soil and water conservation activities. Composite Land Assessment and Restoration Tool (CLART) is a participatory decision-making tool that helps identify locations for water recharge and storage structures. Crop water budgeting is a farmer-centric tool that assists village communities to measure and balance water use, to avoid exceeding recharge through rainfall, streams and surface water storage. The programme also piloted experimental games – a behaviour simulation tool to help farmers recognise the collective impact of their individual crop choices over multiple crop seasons. Water Budgeting implemented together with Experimental Games strengthened collective action for groundwater management.
This programme covers 585 villages across 8 districts and 5 states. An estimated 41,253 farmers have benefited through the adoption of practices on 16,763 hectares of land.
