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Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN)
What We Do
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What We Do
Thematic Areas
Diversity is key to managing natural resources in rainfed ecologies. We see the integral nature of natural resources management, diverse and multiple production and livelihoods; each reinforcing the health of others. Prosperity and security in rainfeds depend on strengthening multiple portfolios of livelihoods; we therefore, work on multiple production systems and associated livelihoods.
Watershed Management
WASSAN has initiated a partnership with Rural Development, Department of Jharkhand Government to support it as a Project Management Unit (PMU) in implementing a collaborative program supported by BRLF. The program envisages developing participatory watershed development plans for 695 watersheds (over 3.0 lakh ha area) under MGNREGS to make its investments effective. 12 CSOs are involved each taking up two Blocks. WASSAN will also implement this program in Anandpur and Gudri Blocks of West Singhbhum district – an interior tribal area in the Saranda forest. The program has just started and initial capacity-building programs are ongoing.
Water Resources
Partnering with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and National Rainfed Areas Authority, a learning course is initiated for participants from government and NGOs working on water resources in three states – Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka on the subject. The course is for two years and involves online modules and practical experiments led by a group of scientists from Australia and India.
Participatory Groundwater Management
In partnership with a national network group led by ACWADAM, WASSAN has supported several partners of BRLF and Arghyam in the training on participatory groundwater management – in Odisha and Jharkhand states. The program covering nearly 2000 acres in 4 pilot villages, envisages building capacities of the community to measure, monitor groundwater and develop participatory aquifer mapping to arrive at decisions on water management at community level.
Natural Farming
The National Coalition for Natural Farming emerged during the year 2020-21 with several civil society players and Rythu Sadhikara Samstha and researchers wanting to engage with and support the process of spread/ promotion of Natural Farming across the country. With eminent people providing guidance from the Steering Committee, the NCNF team started providing capacity building inputs to various partner organisations (300 organisations & individuals are now members) and supporting promotion of natural farming in different states.”
Seed Systems
This initiative started over 6 years back in Anantapur has gained ground. Producing seed required for public subsidised seed distribution within a Block, and building a local seed value chain to replace the centralised procurement and distribution of groundnut seed by the Department of Agriculture is attempted. WASSAN coordinated with over 60 FPOs in Anantapur and Chittoor districts supported by CSO Facilitating Agencies for production of certified groundnut seed and linked them to seed distribution system. The seed procurement reached 40,000 quintals last year generating over Rs.40 crores turnover for all these FPOs together.
Livestock
The last mile gap in vaccine administration – particularly for small ruminants and backyard poultry has been a major issue resulting in high morbidity and mortality of animals. In all our programs, the introduction of service-based vaccination i.e. vaccine administration done by a trained vaccinator supporting the Animal Husbandry department and sourcing vaccines from them has been institutionalised. A large number of birds and small ruminants are regularly vaccinated in the program villages.”
Revival Millets
Comprehensive Revival of Millets program
This program was initiated in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh in tribal and dryland areas. The program is taken up in 7 districts in AP with civil society partners on ground and WASSAN providing overall design and capacity-building support. Millets area in the program Blocks has revived to cover more than 5000 acres and several enterprises have come up.
Odisha Millets Mission
The program was taken up by the Government of Odisha with WASSAN playing critical support in developing the policy, design of the program and facilitating successful implementation on ground. The program has expanded to 81 Blocks in 14 districts with some Districts joining by converging District Mineral Fund. It has an outreach of over 100,000 millet farmers supported by 35 partner CSOs in the state.
Niti Aayog supported Pilot Initiative in 3 districts on Inclusion of Millets in iCDS
Niti Aayog came forward to take up a pilot program in Telangana state in 3 Aspirational districts (Asifabad, Mulugu and Bhadradri Kothagudem) to introduce millets into ICDS with FCI directed to procure millets and supply. WASSAN facilitates the program. The program has just started and is envisaged to promote millet production in those districts, processing and supply to the ICDS in due course.
Millets Processing
Millets processing was been a major stumbling block in increasing their consumption. Under the Sustain+ project WASSAN team adapted and standardised the technique of using household mixies for dehulling of
minor millets. This is gaining acceptance as a micro-enterprise among a group of households to get their millets processed locally and in small quantities. Over 30 enterprises are now set up and modules on training the
local skilled person in assembling these modified mixies and attend to any repairs that have been completed. The mixies are removing a critical processing bottleneck in the tribal areas.
Backyard Poultry
Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN) has demonstrated viable model on Backyard Poultry with Desi poultry under Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture (RRA) programme to increase income potential and improved nutrition intake among tribal communities. In order to improve back yard poultry production, Department of Animal Husbandry has taken up a project on Scaling up Rural Backyard Poultry Project entitled ‘Strengthening of Backyard Poultry for Livelihood & Nutritional Security to Women in Tribal Areas’.
Biodiversity
WASSAN partnered with RySS, ICAR-NBPGR’s regional station in Hyderabad and ANGR Agriculture University to initiate its work identifying, conserving, and bringing landraces into use. This is much required for natural farming.”
Indigenous Cattle Breed
WASSAN team worked with the Telangana Biodiversity Board, ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources and the livestock Breeders Associations in the Nallamala region to generate data required for formally registering Poda Thrupu Cattle breed. This has been declared as the first indigenous cattle breed registered in the Telangana State. Since its registration, orders were issued to stop cross-breeding in the area and the demand (and price) for these cattle has increased.
Renewable Energy
Farm ponds are promoted in all the programs that WASSAN is engaged with for harvesting rainwater and providing critical irrigation. Mobile solar energy carts drawn by bullocks with 2 hp capacity solar panels were developed for mobile pumping using solar energy under the Sustain+ program.
Fisheries
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
A WASH project was executed in 11 villages of Anandapuram Mandal of Vizag District in Andhra Pradesh. As a part of this initiative, required infrastructure was strengthened in rural areas for improving quality of life, in terms of providing access to drinking water, sanitation, irrigation, energy appliances, etc. Several efforts were made for water conservation and improving productivity in agriculture. Access to groundwater was improved by renovating and desilting open wells. Horticulture and solar-based energy-efficient water distribution systems were promoted. More than 280 families benefitted from these interventions. 70 acres of the additional area was brought into cultivation in Rabi season. As a part of plantation and horticulture, cashew and mango orchards were promoted in 87 acres that provided additional income to the farmers.
Ongoing Programs
Odisha Millets Mission (OMM)
WASSAN is partners with the Government of Odisha for the Special Programme for Promotion of Millets in Tribal Areas. This is being implemented in 76 blocks of 14 districts of Odisha. The project aims to improve millet production through organic/sustainable agriculture practices, set up processing units, provide market linkages throughs farmer collectives and include millets in state nutrition programmes.
Jiwi Daah Hasa
The program attempts to build the capacities of Gram Panchayats in planning and implementation of MGNREGA for a comprehensive eco-system revival based on watershed development principles. Such revival is envisaged to make use of MGNREGA/ wage entitlements of communities in the Gram Panchayat along with effective plan based convergence of other schemes to double their income, diversify, intensify and improve production, and regenerate the ecosystem.
Community Managed Seed Systems
CMSS program is in partnership of 62 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) with the Department of Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh and AP State Seed Development Corporation (APSSDC). This program is taken up in Anantapur and Chittoor districts to facilitate production, certification and supply of quality seeds for subsidized distribution of the Government.
Andhra Pradesh Community Management Natural Farming Program (APCNF)
WASSAN is one of the lead Resource Support Organization for this program of the Government of Andhra Pradesh implemented by Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS). WASSAN works in 25 clusters with an outreach of 4000 families in the Tribal areas and drylands to expand the scope of Natural Farming to landscape level and bringing in innovations.
Giri Kodi: Strenthening Desi backyard poultry in Tribal Areas
The program was taken up in collaboration with the Tribal Welfare Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh in reviving backyard poultry with native breeds in 15000 households in the Tribal Areas of the North Coastal Andhra Pradesh. WASSAN provides program design, technical and capacity-building support to the Tribal communities and monitoring support to the Department
Integrated Farming Systems Program
Evolved from the RRA Network’s comprehensive pilots, this program taken up by the Government of Odisha brings in a comprehensive revival of the rainfed production systems in an integrated way; it is implemented by CSOs in the district and targets thousands of families in the most interior Malkangiri district of Odisha. WASSAN supports this initiative as its Program Secretariat.
Research Collaborators
Public procurement of Finger Millet (Ragi/Mandia) in Odisha
This study is a collaboration of WASSAN and TIGR2ESS, University of Cambridge. Ragi (Finger Millet) Procurement has been introduced in Odisha in 2018-19, and from the beginning of the Procurement programme of Ragi and till now there are a lot of changes being happened in production and consumption pattern for Ragi, and also selling pattern of Ragi has been affected after implementation of Public Procurement of Ragi, for e.g. The MSP (Minimum Support Price) in 2018-19 for Ragi was ₹2987 per quintal and in 2021-22 it is ₹3377 per quintal, and if we are focusing on the changes in the market due to the introduction of Ragi procurement then we can also think of competition in prices of Ragi by local market, haats and other selling points. Before the introduction of procurement of Ragi, the price of Ragi in these selling points were ranging between ₹10 – ₹15 per Kg, and after introducing the MSP for Ragi the price went up in 2020-21 and was ranging between ₹20 – ₹25 per Kg for these selling points. In this project “Public procurement of Finger Millet (Ragi/Mandia) in Odisha”, Our project team tried to analyze the impact of MSP Procurement of Ragi on its open market sales, out of 14 districts in Odisha, we have selected 3 districts (i.e. Koraput, Malkangiri and Rayagada) for this study. To get the conclusive result from the study, they are doing farmers’ interview with Ragi farmers, and conducting Focused Grouped Discussion (FGDs), with one on one interaction with some Millets Traders.
Economic and Empowerment Impacts of Millets Processing and Value Addition Enterprise by Women SHGs in Tribal Areas of Odisha
Engaging the poor in livelihood programs through women self-help groups (SHGs) is a widely used strategy by state governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India. However, these projects have typically not been implemented in such a way as to facilitate a rigorous evaluation of their impacts. Given the societal and developmental importance of these livelihood initiatives, and given the significant public investments to support them, this knowledge gap is of great importance. It is important to fill this gap and provide some of the first rigorous evidence on the impact of a specific livelihood intervention. The project team, in cooperation with the Odisha Livelihoods Mission, is proposing a randomized evaluation of collective-based millet processing and value addition enterprises under Odisha Millets Mission (OMM).
About Learning Water Resources Management (LWRM)
Water management in rainfed areas for improving livelihood security of smallholder farmers: Out- scaling Australian- supported R4D in Odisha, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (or the Learning Water Resource Management or LWRM project in shorthand) is a collaborative project between the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO); Western Sydney University (WSU); South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI); Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN), National Rain-fed Areas Authority (NRAA), Government of India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Revitalization of Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRAN). The project is funded by the Australian Water Partnership (AWP), the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR) and CSIRO.
Head Office
Plot No. 685 & 686, Street No. 12, Narasimha Swamy Colony,
Nagole, Hyderabad – 500 068, Telangana, India
Contact Us
Tel No: +91 (40) 29555295
Mail: mail@wassan.org
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