About adaptation, mitigation, floods and the need for information

Climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture is more than merely “the need for better seeds”. It needs a way to exchange information so we can re-apply proven solutions rather than re-inventing the wheel every single time….

In a wide, slow gesture, Gurbachan Singh shows me a panorama of lush fields. It is as if he hand touches the abundant, young wheat sprouts from afar. They are bright green, showing a promise for a plentiful harvest. Wide fields are bordered with tall poplar trees whose leafs softly whisper in the light wind, chasing away the early morning mist.

“All of this”, says Gurbachan, “All of this was gone. Flooded. As far as you can see. All of it. People had fled to higher grounds, but the twenty-four hours notice we had before the flood, was not sufficient to evacuate all live stock. Most buffalo and cows drowned. The harvest was lost.”

We are standing near the village of Bhoda in Punjab, North West India. From a large dike, made of sandbags, probably five metres (15 ft) high, we see the river, flowing slowly beneath us. It is hard to imagine that in July last year, this small stream had swollen with a mighty force, digging a hole in the dike, half a mile long. (...)

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Teak trees or food crops: Will climate change force farmers to make a choice?

One or two generations ago, smallholder farmers might have grown food crops mainly to feed their own families. But those days are gone. Farmers are looking more and more for cash income.

Like in Bihar, North-Central India: farmers still value the “yield” of a crop, but the “revenue” becomes increasingly important. It is not just because of the “Modern Times”, where electricity bills and school fees are to be paid, and people want to buy a mobile phone, a television or a tractor.
No, there is more than that: climate change has chased up the expenses: boreholes, mechanical or electric pumps, hybrid seeds… Each of these has a price ticket attached to it. A price ticket, farmers are scrambling to pay, but a necessity for any land to bare any crop.


The droughts
A good crowd had gathered in Rambad, a small village in Bihar. Both young and old, from the better-off farmers to the day labourers, all were sitting around us. We were talking about the change in weather, the effects it had on this farmers’ community and ways these people have tried to adapt over time.

When we asked who of the farmers had experimented with new things in the past years, they pointed out a slim man, probably in his late thirties, standing in a bit of a distance. As we all looked at him, he came nearer, stood up straight and held his arms stiff along his body as he said his name, “Vidyabhushan Kumar”, in a loud voice. As if a teacher had just summoned him. We asked Vidyabhushan to sit with us and tell his story. (...)


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Climate change, smallholder farmers and the cycle of poverty

When discussing climate change, we often discuss about the technical part of “agriculture”: crop varieties, irrigation or farming methods. But climate change also has a profound social impact within the rural communities, which rely mostly on agriculture. Climate change will push many smallholder farmers over “the edge”, back into poverty.

Arti Devi from Rambad in Bihar, India, is one of them.

Arti is married and has three children, two girls and a boy. Up to some years ago, she owned a small plot of land where she cultivated wheat and some vegetables, and had two buffaloes. This was sufficient to provide food and an income to her family.

“As the weather changed, we had less rain in this region. The yearly floods which used to bring in new fertile soil to my fields, just stopped. So my field yielded less and less.”, Arti explains, “As the lands dried up, it also became more difficult to find fodder for the buffaloes”. (...)


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Musing on India - Part 5: Faces from Bihar

Here are some people we met in Bihar, North India



Ramiwash is a small farmer, but probably one of the most create ones we met. On his plot, he combined fruit trees and several vegetable crops. He also implemented convervation farming, planting crops in small holes rather than ploughing his entire field. That way, he could preserve more water, a very scarce resource.




Anil talked to us about the dire need for water, now that the rains have become more scarce and the water level decreased over the past years.




Indramani is a widow taking care of her grandson. Her son, daughter in law and another grandson moved away to the city. She had a small plot with wheat and one buffalo to barely make ends meet.




Susila had to rent out one of her plots, as she had no access to water. Her husband has a mobile temple which he drives around to bring in a bit of extra money. She could read and write, and stressed the importance of educating her children, so they could move to the city and "get proper jobs".




Vidyabhushan invested in a set of teak tree seedlings, which he wanted to plant along his land, so he could harvest the timber and sell it in the years to come.




Arti lived alone with her three children. Her husband worked in the city and came home only once a year. She worked as a day labourer on other people's farms. She told us how the opportunities to work have drastically decreased as people leave their land barren in the summer due to lack of access to water for irrigation.




Arjun is the village chief (or "president") from four villages. He is also the chairmain of PACS, a cooperative bank who gives micro-loans to its members, and allows the farmers to ensure their crops against calamities.

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Musing on India - Part 4: Faces of Punjab

Here are some people we met in Punjab, each with their own story on how they were coping with the changing climate:



Gurbachan Singh is the village chief of Bhoda, a town which was flooded in the middle of last year. He told us the story of how they got 24 hours notice a flood was coming in, how they evacuated the villagers and constructed an emergency dam with sand bags.





Mohamed is a dairy farmer who migrated from the north. Last year, his house and that of his neighbours got flooded, and they moved to a new location. He told us of his difficulties to find feed for his animals.





Dilbar Singh (R) and his neighbour Paramjit Singh (L) explained how new hybrid seeds helped them to cope with the changing rainy season. Paramjit was planting poplar trees so he could harvest the timber as an extra income.





Dr. R.P.Singh works at the Punjab Agricultural University where they have an active breeding programme, selecting varieties of wheat which need less water, yield more and can grow over a shorter period.

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Musing on India - Part 3: Four sisters

I ended my previous post with the phrase "False beauty is only skin deep..."
Likewise, true beauty is endless...

For any country I travel thru,
no mountain view can take my breath away,
no river descent leaves me gasping,
no dew-dripping leaves can grab my heart,
as does the glister in a child's eyes,
the curl of a child's smile,
and endless echoing sound
of its laughter
and song.

Children are the true joy,
the true future.
The only purity we have left.

Here are four sisters, daughters of Mohammed, a dairy farmer in Punjab. He has forty buffaloes. But he would sell them all, he said, if that could give his daughters a good education, and a job in the city.

But luck was not with him. Nor with his girls. They did not get the opportunity to go to school, limiting their options in the future.

How the crib in which you were born, decides what you can become in life.

Maybe one of these girls could have been a doctor. Maybe one would have become a famous poet or a singer, or a politician, or a peacemaker. Maybe one would have invented a new drug that eradicated malaria. If only they'd have the chance to go to school.


(to be continued...)

PS: While I was publishing this post, Latika's theme played through my mind. (mp3 - 4 Mb)

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Musing on India - Part 2All that glitters is not gold

All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgement old
Your answer had not been inscroll'd
Fare you well, your suit is cold.

From "The Merchant of Venice"
by W.Shakespeare

90% of what is to know about a country, you will pick up within the first minute you leave the airport. You will understand 90% of what there is to know about a hotel, within the first minute after you walk through the entrance.

"Mmmmm", says Raj as she looks up the grey facade of the "Nagpal Regency". I agree with her, and we walk in together. Kinda of marble floor. Glitters for the evening's wedding. Staff in uniform. Apparently they don't have any booking for us, but have spare rooms. Which I'd like to see first.

Shady people walk out of the elevator as we're going up. Thin foam mattresses lay against a wall on the third floor, with spotted and torn covers. The floor is covered with a filthy sheet.

The room the receptionist shows us, has no window, the bathroom is as spotless as a Delhi dark alley way, and it looks like the bed covers were white in the 18th century. Which might also be the time they were last changed, according to the spots on it. It does not look like sheets are changed after guests check out.

"Excellent, thank you very much", I say with an acid smile, and walk out as fast as I can.

"And?", my travel companions ask. "Rented by the hour", I answer, as we drive to the next hotel. "Friends Regency" looks much better. And smells better too.

Two days later, we are editing the last videos, as the car is waiting to drive us back to Delhi, an eight hours nighttime ordeal. And as a true storm engulfs Ludhiana into a dark doomsday feeling...

Dust kicks up as high as the fourth floor, while we try to cut the last video scenes. Around us, it looks like heaven got invaded by hell. Lightning crashes around us. Pieces of corrugated metal, cardboard and other undefined flying objects are kicked up by the wind, and battered down by the thick screen of rain.

Inches above us, on the hotel's roof, the huge publicity billboards collapse under the high winds, and a dozen people run around, trying to keep the boards from flying off. All on the roof just above our head.

Those are the times where one has to switch into "Ommmmm"-mode, abstracting one's self from surrounding's reality and concentrate on the task at hand. You do your work step by step, and forget about the rest. There is not much you can do about the storm, the junk on the roof, and the nightly drive.

Even though, for a moment, curiosity got the better of me, and I sneak around the corner to see what's up on the roof. And discover that most of the hotel personnel seems to live on tiny shacks on the roof. Shacks which have all but collapsed in the wind. The empty wine bottles are still neatly stacked in the corner.

False beauty is only skin deep.


(to be continued...)

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Musing on India - Part 1

Most of the time, I feel inspired when I come back from my field trips. Especially the previous trips to Kenya, Mali, Ghana and Burkina Faso have been inspiring. I had the privilege to talk to dozens of farmers on practical techniques they adopted to cope with the changing environment.

In Africa, most of these stories were encouraging, positive, with a "rolling up our sleeves"-attitude. Not so for my India trip. Not much of that "rolling up our sleeves", and me not feeling invigorated.

I realize I only saw a small part of India, and my views are just snapshots, fragmented and highly subjective. Even though it was my third or fourth trip, the time I spent there was nothing but a mini-flash of the whole picture which India represents.

We flew into Hyderabad, where I gave training sessions about social media on the ICRISAT campus, an oasis of calm and peace in a hectic Hyderabad. I loved that part of the trip. Truly inspiring to see the other side of the "food chain": the nonprofit agricultural research.

Then we flew to Delhi, drove to Punjab for interviews with farmers, drove back to Delhi, flew to Bihar for more farmer interviews, and flew back to Delhi.


Much of my impressions are the same as those I retained after my visits ten years ago: hectically busy on the streets, people wherever you look, cars honking endlessly and purposely, smoking chimneys wherever you look, smog, dirt almost everywhere.
I don't think I saw a single river which was not filled with crap. I don't think I stood at any point where I could say "this is rural". High-tension electricity poles, mobile phone towers and factories about everywhere.


Luckily, it was winter, and the temperatures were low to moderate. In Delhi and Punjab, a mist-slash-smog hung over the cities. While we did the interviews with farmers in Punjab, against the bright green wheat fields, topped with a white misty sky, I thought I could be standing in a field back home in Belgium, during spring. Not much of a difference at first glance. At least not on the surface.

But there are things on the surface and then there are things below the surface.

(to be continued...)

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More precious than gold:Preserving biodiversity at the genebank

“Germplasm collection”, “allele diversity”, “Crop registers”, might sound like mystic academic terms to you. Likewise for me, I could hardly link them into the discussion about climate change and food security…. Until I visited the genebank on the ICRISAT campus near Hyderabad in India.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT is part of a consortium of similar agricultural research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
…and they have a bank. Not to store money or gold, but to safeguard something much more precious: the genetic material – or “germplasm”- of 119,000 “accessions” -or varieties- of sorghum, pearl millet and six other types of small millets, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut, collected from 144 countries.

“Genetic diversity is key to the future”
Over thousands of years, different food crops have evolved into zillions of different varieties, either grown as a cultivated crop, or flourishing in the wild. Each variety differs from the next in the way it naturally adapted its genetic code to the environment it grows in: how it deals with drought or a high soil salinity, how it built up resistance to certain pests. Many differ in their yield, size, leaves or roots.

But, as Bob Dylan sung: “Times are a-changing”. Farmers now often concentrate on monocultures, or grow only a selection of high yielding crops. Commercial companies have been “successful” in promoting certain varieties, which farmers adopted quickly, and –thanks to globalization- were spread widely. Understandably so, as “the world needs to produce more food”. However, all of this became nefast for the bio-diversity: Today, the rate in which traditional seed varieties disappear, is higher than ever.
This stands in stark contrast with the demand for more and specialized seed varieties, adapted to the ever changing weather patterns. If the genetic biodiversity disappears, where will we find the seed varieties helping farmers to cope with future environmental changes?

Unless if we safeguard our existing seed varieties for the wide range of crops the world grows, we will no longer have the genetic material to re-generate seeds adapted to the future climate changes.

And that is where genebanks come in. Genebanks like the one I was standing in this morning, at ICRISAT.


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About Super Chickpeas and Silent Heroes

During my past visits to Kenya, Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso, one common streak always came up when talking to farmers about climate adaptation techniques: they were all actively using new seed varieties for their different crops.

I had not really questioned where those seed varieties came from. I saw them in the shops of commercial seed traders, so I asked no more. A bit like a child does not ask where Santa comes from. A long and complex process of seed selection and breeding remained hidden for me.

A visit to ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics near Hyderabad in India, changed all of that. I discovered the world’s headquarter for the agriculture research on five crops: sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut. And I discovered the link between chickpeas, chickpea heroes and the war against hunger.

Food diets, malnutrition and chickpeas
Sufficient food, but also a balanced food intake are key to battle malnutrition. Often the world’s attention goes to staple foods like rice, maize or wheat. We often forget it takes other crops too, to make a balanced diet, in a global fight against hunger.

Chickpeas is one of those crops, and an important one, as they make up for more than 20 percent of the world pulse production. Chickpeas contain 22-25% proteins, and 2-3 times more iron and zinc than wheat. Chickpea protein quality is better than other pulses. …

So understandably, agricultural researchers, like Dr. Pooran M.Gaur, a principal scientist and chickpea breeder at ICRISAT, make continuous efforts to develop new chickpea varieties, adapted to fast changing environmental conditions. “Super Chickpeas”, as it were. Bred by –what I would not hesitate to call - “super scientists”, in the quiet isolation of agricultural research centers. (...)

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Back from India

Thirteen interviews with farmers in Punjab and Bihar, and two training sessions on social media in Hyderabad later, I am back in Belgium. Now the sprint starts to edit about 18 videos - the rest from West Africa, and the one from the India trip - in three weeks time. About 500 pictures need to be sorted, selected and edited, and several stories need to be written.

And my car broke down again, this morning.

Life can be challenging sometimes, but that's what we like about it, no?

Can't wait to share some of my findings from the India trip. Stay tuned.

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Off to India

2000: On the Gujurat airport strip, waiting for a truck

I'm off to India tomorrow. A couple of days in Hyderabad to give training on social media, followed by a week of Punjab and Bihar interviewing farmers about their climate change adapation techniques.

I have not been back to India since the 2000 Gujurat earthquake, when we flew in from Islamabad with a plane load of relief goods. Was that before or after the Orissa floods? I can't remember. Might be after that. Hmmm. I do remember I celebrated my birthday in Orissa.

Anyways, will be an interesting and hectic two weeks coming up. Wish us luck!

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Floods in Pakistan? Google's advice...

When searching for "Pakistan Floods" on Humanitarian News, the Google ad at the bottom of the page displayed the appropriate advice. Kind of.

Google could also have displayed an ad for one of the aid agencies or something, but maybe they were thinking of more longer term solutions....

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The real slums of Slumdog millionaire

Saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire today. I had overheard some of the gossip around the two child actors Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail. Little did I realize they actually lived in the slums of Garib Nagar near Mumbai's Bandra station. (Full)



Bottom picture courtesy Lee Thompson

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News: Monsoon in Asia, Floods in West-Africa and Hurricanes in Central America.

The emergency season has started again.

Floods in India May Displace Millions.
Millions of destitute farmers and their families may be displaced for months after severe floods in northern India wiped out crops and homes, leaving hundreds of villages under several feet of water. (Full)

WFP to feed feed 50,000 flood victims in Nepal
The emergency operation is in response to a Government of Nepal request after monsoon rains caused an embankment of the Saptakoshi River to collapse, flooding thousands of hectares of land and forcing an estimated 50,000 people to flee their homes. (Full)

U.N. fears health crisis from West Africa floods
WHO, the U.N. health agency says severe flooding in West Africa is increasing the risk of deadly cholera and malaria outbreaks in the region. Flooding since July has displaced at least 200,000 people and damaged roads and railway lines across a large area of West Africa, with Benin the hardest-hit. (Full)

Hurricane Gustav floods Haiti, kills 11 and heads toward Cuba
Gustav also dumped torrential rains on southern Haiti, which is prone to devastating floods because its mountainous terrain has been stripped of trees for farming and charcoal. (Full)

Picture courtesy James Giambrone/WFP

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Picture of the day: Child malnutrition - old news in new India

Deep Kumar and Vishal are fed eggs by caretaker Nirmala Devi at the UNICEF-sponsored nutrition rehabilitation center in Saraiya in the impoverished eastern Indian state of Bihar. Half of young Indians are malnourished. In a nation seen as a rising power, combating the problem 'has not been a policy priority . . . for the last 40 years,' a U.N. expert says. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Anita Khemka (LA Times)

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News: Watch Pakistan

Warning. This piece is opinionated and reflects my personal views.

Pakistan has kept up a fragile balancing act between democracy and despotism, between the US and its Muslim roots, between being the Taliban's friend or foe. I lived in Pakistan for a number of years before and during the 9/11 crisis and always found it quite an inflammable country, which could ignite with the slightest spark.

The country's leader after the 1999 coup d'etat, Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces a few months ago, just stepped down as the country's president amidst an increased campaign of terrorist attacks and worsening civil unrest.
Musharraf might not have been the school example for democracy but it seems that he was able to keep the fragile balance the country needed in a turbulent region, and neighbouring its arch-rival India.

With the Taliban's power yet again on the raise in Afghanistan and in Pakistan's -almost self ruling- tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, one should worry if this country, a nuclear power, can continue to please the West, its population, and the extremists.

The more a worry because while Pakistan was -officially- an US ally in the war against terror, it is now said its intelligence service, the ISI, always 'tolerated', if not supported and even trained, the Taliban in the recent years.

Matthew Cole wrote an interesting article "Killing ourselves in Afghanistan" which gives a must-read insight in the balancing act Pakistan's military have performed before, during and after the 9/11 crisis. The article features the intriguing story of a defunct Taliban officer.

My prediction: the current ruling frail coalition might find it difficult to fill the power vacuum of the post-Musharraf era. Either extremists will go for the throne or will plunge the country in chaos. If Pakistan tumbles, the whole region might go up in flames again. OR, of course, the country rulers might go for the classical political solution: deviate the public's attention from the real problems, and start a "whag the dog"-war. India? Either way, it makes the events in Pakistan a worrying spot in the spectrum of world politics.

Update (less than a day after writing this post):
Pakistan's ruling coalition split after former premier Nawaz Sharif withdrew over differences on the restoration of judges sacked by ex-president Pervez Musharraf. (Full)
2nd Update (a few hours later):
An estimated 200,000 people from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have been displaced since the Pakistani army launched the Bajaur operation early this month in response to growing U.S. pressure to take action against the Taliban in the region, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.(Full)
3rd Update (16-Sept-2008):
Pakistan's military has ordered its forces to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border, an army spokesman said. Pakistani officials warn that stepped-up cross-border raids will accomplish little while fueling violent religious extremism in nuclear-armed Pakistan.(Full)
4th Update (20-Sept-2008):
Suicide bomber blows up a truck full of explosives outside of the Islamabad Marriott hotel, killing at least 40 people (Full)
5th Update (2-Oct-2008):
UN orders staff families to evacuate Islamabad (Full)
6th Update (03-Oct-2008):
War has come to Pakistan, not just as terrorist bombings, but as full-scale battles, leaving Pakistanis angry and dismayed as the dead, wounded and displaced turn up right on their doorstep. (Full)
7th Update (09-Oct-2008):
Bombings killed 10 people and wounded at least four, including an attack on a heavily guarded Islamabad police complex. (Full)
8th Update (Nov-2009):
We are now one year later. Looking at the frequency of suicide bombings, attacks on civilians, the international community and the aid organisations, it seems my prediction was pretty spot on so far... Sadly...

Picture courtesy Khalid Tanveer/AP

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News: Drinking and driving... I mean flying (hic).

Civil aviation rules specify that pilots and cabin crew cannot consume alcohol 12 hours before taking a flight.

A flight operated by private airline Jetlite to the central Indian city of Patna was grounded after the pilot was found to be drunk.
Around 50 pilots are grounded each year because they had consumed alcohol before taking a flight, according to India's civil aviation authorities.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), a body controlling airline operations in India, said dozens of pilots are found to have consumed alcohol during routine pre-medical tests every year. (Full)


More posts on The Road about flying

Picture courtesy hot-screensaver.com

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News: Pilots fell asleep on Air India

An Air India flight headed for Mumbai from Dubai overshot its destination and was halfway to Goa before its dozing pilots were woken out of a deep slumber by air traffic control.

The high altitude nap took place approximately two weeks ago. Some 100 passengers were on board the state-run flight that originated from Dubai and flew to the western Indian city of Jaipur before heading south to Mumbai when both pilots fell asleep, a source told the paper.

The plane flew to Mumbai on autopilot, but when air traffic there tried to help the aircraft land, the plane ignored their instructions and carried on at full speed towards Goa. (Full)


More posts on The Road about flying

Picture courtesy airline-news.blogspot.com

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News: Indians want "more water, less Coca Cola!"

For several years, Indians have been protesting against the presence of Coca Cola plants in their community. Yesterday 1500 villagers marched to the Coca-Cola company's bottling plant in Mehdiganj in Varanasi demanding that the bottling plant shut down immediately. They accuse the Coke Company of creating severe water shortages in the area and polluting the water and land.

During a two-day conference on Right to Water a representative of the Uttar Pradesh State Pollution Control Board admitted the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj did not have a current hazardous waste authorization required to operate.

Worse is that data collected by the Ground Water Board confirms ground water levels have dropped up to 8 meters (26 feet) in the first seven years of Coca-Cola's operations, from 1999 to 2006, leaving wells and hand water pumps dried up.

As local farmers rely on the ground water to meet their needs, and over 80% of the community in Mehdiganj engage in agriculture, "Do we need to satisfy Coca-Cola's thirst for water when even the farmers don't have enough water to make a living?" said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning organization. He added: "All of Coca-Cola's claims of being a socially responsible corporation ring hollow when weighed against its track record in India." (Full)

Picture courtesy Sharad Haksar and Degree Copy

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