Sustainable Agriculture Literacy Campaign (Awareness Campaign on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change)

Climate variability has global impact on people's livelihood and food security. Uttar Pradesh which holds a large population of farmers and contribute significant share in national agriculture production has diverse effect of climate change in different agro climatic zones. Flood and drought hazards are being aggravated by erratic climate pattern in different zones of the state and farming is one of the major sectors under the threat of such unpredictable events. At micro level (particularly in Uttar Pradesh where small and marginal farmers are in majority) the recurrency of rainfall erraticity, change in flood pattern, increase in water logged areas, land degradation, increase in drought events, dry spells during monsoon are some of the cardinal reasons of increasing vulnerability of farming.

In spite of such alarming situation within the regions and extent of vulnerability of community, it is seen that a large number of people from voluntary sector and farming community are still unaware with the issues due to which they are not yet ready to respond it effectively. In fact, local level response of community becomes quite effective if relevant informations are provided to them at regular interval.  Change in enterprise mechanisms and techniques according to the ecological conditions might be useful to respond uneven changes of climate and for the farmers it is a must now to know the situation and ways to respond it.

 For this purpose, GEAG with Laghu Simant Krishak Morcha (LSKM) and SAN UP (Sustainable Agriculture Network of UP) has launched an Awareness Campaign (through RATH YATRA) across the state to aware and inform the farming community about Climate Change and mitigation of impact through sustainable agriculture adoption and local level strategies. 5 zones (includes all agro zones) are being covered under this campaign.

The objectives of this campaign are as follows-

• To inform and aware farming community about climate change impact on agricultural livelihood and ecosystem.

• To inform people about existing government program (like NREGS, Crop Insurance) and possible linkage that can mitigate the climate change impact

• To aware farmers on sustainable agriculture practices, discuss and listing local level adaptive strategies

• To make voluntary organisation aware around the climate change and agriculture issues. 

Several IEC material like brochures, posters and flex sheets  have been developed and being used in the campaign .Local level NGOs (members of SAN UP) of each region have also  been involved  in the YATRA to organise nuked natak (street play) events and shared learning dialogues at village and nyay panchayat level. The team of the YATRA includes expert from agriculture sector, a small group of nukkad natak team and local NGO’s volunteers. At village level, wall writing and slogan are also being used simultaneously to disseminate the message. 23 districts of Bundelkhand and Ruhelkhand (central) regions have already been covered so far under this YATRA. This yatra will continue till the month of March 2009 and will cover entire 70 districts of the state..