We Are Water Foundation Water is not enough in India The projects of the Foundation in India have helped to save and improve the crops of more than 90,000 farmers in the areas affected by droughts and the uncertainty of monsoons People living in India are the ones who are most af it is essential to increase the efficiency of the irrigationmost humid areas of the country depend on the fected by the climate crisis, social neglect and the systems and an adequate management of wells. summer monsoon for the recharge of aquifers, the yoke of monoculture. For this reason, they have re The development of horticulture through drip irriga northern regions are fully located in the so called ceived water from the We Are Water Foundation, but tion systems saves up to 75% of water, which can be subtropical belt (adjacent to the 30°N parallel), an most of all what they have received from it is the used to irrigate new farming areas. Nowadays, 61.6% area in which desertification is advancing. capacity for selfmanagement and efficiency. of the water for irrigated land in India comes from Climate change poses a real threat to recharging “Our family had 4.5 acres of land. We dug a well a underground according to the World Bank, the second India's aquifers Indian aquifers. The forecasts of the few years ago but it ran dry. Thanks to the new re most populated country in the world extracts more Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) servoir and rainfall, our well has filled with water. We water every year than the United States and China point to a decrease in rainfall and an increase in the want to finish planting peanuts on all the land we combined but its productivity is lower. number of days the summer monsoon is interrupted. have.” Radhamma is a farmer who lives in Andhra This situation needs to change. The Foundation’s They also predict an increase in the melting of the Pradesh, one of the regions in India most affected by projects have been in line with the roadmap recom Himalayan glaciers that bring water to the enormous the water and psychologic stress that comes with the mended by FAO and UN Water for semiarid regions basin of the River Ganges, where an estimated 8% dependence of monsoons. Just like her family and of the planet and they have developed solutions that of the world’s population lives. This same situation is the neighbouring farming families, Radhamma has are embraceable by the farmers with less resources. taking place in the river basins that depend on alpine spent decades fighting land fertility and the perman Around 85,000 farmers have benefitted from efficient ice, as is the case, for instance, in the Andes moun ent threat of water scarcity. irrigation systems and well management in seven tain chain, the Rocky Mountains and the Kilimanjaro Now, a small reservoir paves the way to a much safer projects in the most disadvantaged regions of the massif. future. The aquifer that fed it has filled again. The country. The evolution of Indian agriculture is a keystone for ghost of migration has disappeared. She can diver achieving food sustainability on our planet. The sify her crops now and not depend only on peanuts. A model to look up to challenges of safeguarding aquifers and efficient ir Water from monsoons, which is increasingly irregular, rigation imply intelligent crop management that fully fills the small reservoir built by the Vicente Ferrer In India, as happens in most overexploited aquifers eradicates the economic risk of monoculture and Foundation and the We Are Water Foundation near all around the world, the decrease in rainfall and de does not degrade the land. The empowerment of their farming land. This water has recharged the water forestation are determining factors that go hand in farmers is both cause and effect of their increased table and stopped the desertification of the gentle hand with the increase of water extraction. Food se resilience towards droughts: their selfmanagement slopes that surround the reservoir. curity and the preservation of natural capital repre capability is the base. We must promote it in India sented by farmed land requires solutions with a global and all around the world. This is the power of a small reservoir of 48,300 m,3 and integrating vision, and India is a reference to be such as the one in the project of D.K.Thanda4: it covers considered and a model to look up to. While the an area of influence of 21 wells, allowing the irrigation of 49.37 hectares. An essential transformation Small reservoirs have an enormous power of transfor mation; they allow farmers to water the herd and also enable aquiculture. In addition, they are an important factor of social cohesion for the community. The man agement of its construction by the farmers themselves is another benefit that proves to be transformative for the region in the long run. Rural communities have been traditionally excluded from decisionmaking pro cesses in the management of their entire territory and their empowerment in this regard is a crucial change for their sustainable future. The recovery of these infrastructures, which date back to India’s ancestral culture, and this sustainable management model led by the community have been the core idea of the collaboration of the We Are Water Foundation and the Vicente Ferrer Foundation. Start ing with the first reservoirs that were built in Ganjik unta in 2011 and Girigetla in 2014, and the recently finished projects in Settipalli and D.K.Thanda4, around 5,500 farmers have improved their standard of living and are more resilient to droughts and they are the seed of rural transformation in India. Efficient irrigation, a priority These dams have provided a capacity of 171,000 m3 of reservoir water that can irrigate 130 ha of farming land. However, in order to achieve sustainable farming, Families have improved the irrigation systems and use of wells 18