Mennonite Central Committee Canada is supporting Social Education and Basic Awareness with a five-year agriculture nutrition and livelihoods project in 18 villages of Darbha, Chhattisgarh state in India.
Changing agricultural patterns of production have resulted in increased dependence on money to ensure ongoing planting and harvesting. With decreased cash flows, farmers are struggling to produce enough food to be food secure and what they do produce is less diverse. These issues were further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Community and household-level gender dynamics as well as climate change are also contributing to current challenges of food security.
The project will seek to improve food security by enabling targeted communities to practice sustainable methods to utilize their paddy lands, wastelands, and homesteads for year-round food production. Better utilizing local and natural resources will help minimize seed and manure expenses and will allow these communities to improve food production. The project will also help create farmer and producer organizations to create a sustainable foundation for continued food security improvement. Over five years, the project aims to work with 1,175 households (approximately 5,358 individuals) in 18 indigenous tribal communities.