Tearfund Canada is supporting their partner EFICOR with a three-year agriculture and livelihoods project in Dumarchir and Pachuara Panchayat of Amrapara block, Pakur District, Jharkhand state, India.
Hilltop tribes in this area of India are dependent on agriculture and forest products. Farmers practice slash and burn farming and in recent years have started to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides which has increased the cost of production. The quality and amount of land available is becoming depleted and food security is a challenge for these communities.
The primary goal of the project is to build on the achievements of the initial three year phase of programming in the same area to strength community resilience by improving food and nutrition security by increasing access and food diversity through increasing knowledge on different kinds of food groups and improving kitchen gardening practices; supporting the communities to adopt sustainable agriculture farming practices by demonstrating and teaching different conservation agriculture (CA) techniques; increasing soil quality by adopting organic farming; preventing land degradation by reducing soil erosion and retaining micro-nutrient of soil; empowering women and youth through support for initiating small-scale enterprises for income generation, strengthening women’s and youth decision-making and leadership at both the households and community levels; and strengthening local governance through community based organizations and enhanced collaboration with local government departments.
The project will reach 1,710 unique participants from 750 households, comprising of 3,750 members.