Increased resilience of people and agro-ecosystems in Karnali, Nepal through adoption of climate smart agriculture practices

ANSAB (Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bio-resources) is implementing climate-resilient agriculture (CRA) – rollout activities as part of the Green Resilient Agricultural Productive Ecosystem (GRAPE) project, with support from GIZ. The project is jointly financed by European Union (EU), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Economic Affairs of the Government of Finland, and German Federal Ministry for Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Led by GIZ, the GRAPE project involves multiple organizations in Nepal. ANSAB Nepal is particularly responsible for rollout climate resilient agriculture (CRA) technologies and practices in nine municipalities across Surkhet, Dailekh, and Humla districts in the Karnali region of Nepal. The main objective of the CRA rollout is to demonstrate improved productivity and resilience of the agro-ecosystem against climate risk and vulnerabilities while reducing emissions from the agriculture sector. This project is officially begun in October, 2022 following the signing of the project agreement between GIZ and ANSAB.

The project aims to reaching out to 1500 households (HH) as direct beneficiaries and impact on additional 1500 HH as indirect beneficiaries within this project. The beneficiaries are distributed among three clusters: 300 in Humla, 600 in Dailekh, and 600 in Surkhet which are organized into 64 groups, with 14 in Humla and 25 in Dailekh and Surkhet each.

The project will adopt the following methodological approaches

1. Empowering communities through training, technical backstopping and connecting to relevant information;
2. Provision of appropriate CRA technologies and practices with strengthened supply chains
3. Strengthening market for GRAPE selected commodities (vegetable, potato, apples, maps and ginger)
4. Consideration of Gender and Social Inclusions (GESI) aspects

According to the identified local needs and potential to scale up in the location, our intervention will be concentrated around

1. Water productivity and management that include ensuring water availability for critical irrigation needs by tapping available water resources with provision of affordable storage structure for water and improved use efficiency with applications of proven measures;
2. Application of organic approach of disease/pest, soil and plant nutrient management
3. Improving efficiency of tunnel farming; and
4. Improving access and availability of quality potato seed tubers encouraging local production and storage management.