Browse categories
Accelerated Crop Improvement Agribusiness and Innovation Platform Asia Cell Molecular Biology And Genetic Engineering Climate Action Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Crop Breeding Crop Improvement Crop Physiology And Modeling Crop protection and Seed Health Digital Agriculture Eastern and Southern Africa Enabling Systems Transformation Environmental Conservation Ethiopia Food and Nutrition Security Food and Value Chains Gender and Youth Genebank Genetic Research Genomics, Pre-breeding and Bioinformatics Geo Spatial and Big Data Sciences ICRISAT Development Center India Institutional News International Year of Millets 2023 Kenya Knowledge and capacity development Landscapes, Soil Fertility and Water Management Malawi Mali Markets, Institutions & Policies Mozambique Niger Nigeria Nutrition, dietary behaviour and Smart Food Partnerships Pest and Disease Control Poverty Alleviation Resilient Farm and Food Systems Seed Systems Skills Transfer Technology adoption and impact analysis West & Central Africa Zimbabwe

ICRISAT Development Center (IDC) awarded with the Bhagirath Samman Award for Soil and water conservation work

Dr Ramesh Singh, principal scientist – soil and water conservation at the ICRISAT Development Center (IDC) bagged the Bhagirath Samman Award by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government in India. He received this award for his outstanding contribution to doubling of farmers income through natural resource management in eight locations across seven districts of UP, Bundelkhand region between 2018 and 2022. The award was presented to him on May 15, 2022.

Minister of water resources, government of Uttar Pradesh Swatantra Dev Singh visited the DFI project site in Jhansi district on April, 23, 2022 and appreciated the efforts made by the ICRISAT team to transform drought-prone villages into drought-resilient
Minister of water resources, government of Uttar Pradesh Swatantra Dev Singh visited the DFI project site in Jhansi district on April, 23, 2022 and appreciated the efforts made by the ICRISAT team to transform drought-prone villages into drought-resilient

He worked on an ICRISAT-led and executed project consortium supported by RKVY, the government of UP eight locations. The Bundelkhand region was chosen for this project as it is one of the very intense water-scarce regions, a hot spot of poverty, malnutrition, land degradation and out-migration. To address these issues, the government of UP had assigned an ambitious initiative to be implemented by an ICRISAT-led consortium across all seven districts of the Bundelkhand region.

Minister presenting award to Dr Ramesh Singh from ICRISAT
Minister presenting award to Dr Ramesh Singh from ICRISAT

A baseline survey covering 1,403 households from 20 villages was carried out across seven districts to capture demographic characteristics, land use, cropping system, water resources availability, livestock status, income sources and food consumption pattern along with soil and rainfall characterization. Between May 2017 and June 2018, ICRISAT worked towards rapport building with the community.

A large-scale rainwater harvesting (RWH) plan was developed and implemented in a phased manner in pilot sites from May 2019 onwards. This effort created about 2.5 million cubic meters (MCM) storage capacity. Besides, large-scale field bunding was developed on about 6,000 acres to enhance soil moisture availability and control land degradation.

This enhanced storage capacity and benefited more than 10,000 farming families across the project. All the pilot sites have been developed as benchmark sites for long term monitoring of a range of impact parameters (biophysical, hydrological, socio-economic) for realizing the potential of combining landscape and field-scale interventions in the dryland ecosystem. For ensuring the sustainability of impacts created under this initiative, local institutions were created, nurtured and empowered with the help of the department of agriculture.

In addition, the convergence of departmental schemes such as khet-talab, solar pump, SCSP, and mini kit of seeds of improved varieties have benefited more than 1,000 farming families.

Feature image: Farmers showcasing their farms to the minister, Swatantra Dev Singh

 

Environmental Conservation Markets, Institutions & Policies Skills Transfer Asia ICRISAT Development Center
About The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a pioneering International Organization committed to developing and improving dryland farming and agri-food systems to address the challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and environmental degradation affecting the 2.1 billion people residing in the drylands of Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond.

ICRISAT was established under a Memorandum of Agreement between the Government of India and the CGIAR on the 28 March 1972. In accordance with the Headquarters Agreement, the Government of India has extended the status of a specified “International Organisation” to ICRISAT under section 3 of the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947 of the Republic of India through Extraordinary Gazette Notification No. UI/222(66)/71, dated 28 October 1972, issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

Our offices:

Asia: India (Headquarters - Hyderabad)

East and Southern Africa:  Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe

West and Central Africa: Mali, Niger, Nigeria

For all media inquiries, please email: [email protected]

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
Hyderabad, Telangana, India