Courses - Climate Change
Introduction to organic, natural, sustainable agriculture - Presentations from the South Asia Conference on "Outstanding Organic Agriculture Techniques", Bangalore organised by OFAI (2009)
This set of presentations from the conference on Outstanding Organic Agriculture Techniques held during September 2009 at Bangalore provides an introduction to organic farming, and bringing together various issues related to organic farming.
Organic farming can feed the world
This presentation by Claude Alvares, deals with the work of India’s organic farming community and the Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI). It states that the best organic farmers look to the forest for their learning. It details out how one raises plants (or trees) without – (a) NPK (b) Dams and canal irrigation (c) Tractors (d) Pesticides, weedicides, fungicides, homicides (e) Bank credit or bank extension officers (f) Agricultural scientists or universities (g) Negative environmental effects like climate change and (h) Water pollution.
Groundwater management under the climate change scenario in India – A presentation by ACWADAM
This presentation by ACWADAM deals with the issue of groundwater management under the climate change scenario in India. Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. The causes are -variations in solar radiations, plate tectonics, volcanism and change in earths orbit & axis.
Earth System: Interactions Part II – A presentation by ACWADAM
This presentation by ACWADAM on earth system deals with the interactions between the four elements that make up this system. The complexity of the earth system, in which spatial and temporal variability exists on a range of scales, requires that an organized scientific approach be developed for addressing the complex, interdisciplinary problems that exist.
Providing a plan to save civilization - Books from the Earth Policy Institute
Earth Policy Institute, is a non-profit environmental research organization dedicated to providing a vision of an eco-economy and a roadmap on how to get there. The Institute was founded in 2001 with the following goals:
- to provide a global plan (Plan B) for moving the world onto an environmentally and economically sustainable path
- to provide examples demonstrating how the plan would work, and
- to keep the media, policymakers, academics, environmentalists, and other decision-makers focused on the process of building a Plan B economy.
The basic research of the Institute has been published in the form of seven books:
Capacity Building for Integrated Water Resources Management (Cap-Net) - United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Cap-Net is an international network for capacity building in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). It includes a partnership of autonomous international, regional and national institutions and networks committed to capacity building in the water sector.
The Cap-Net website has a number of resources on water management issues and includes: Read More
Manual on Drought Management by the National Institute Disaster Management and the Ministry of Agriculture (2009)
This manual developed by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) presents a comprehensive approach to drought management and recommends measures that can be implemented for effective drought relief and mitigation. It brings together conceptual issues, institutional framework & operational details, and replaces the colonial famine codes written largely for dealing with hunger and starvation.
It has been prepared with the objective of creating synergy between the various programmes being implemented to provide drought relief and mitigation by several levels of government.
The key issues covered in the manual are: Read More
Measuring Water Percolation Rate
To measure how fast water percolates into the soil, you need to measure the time it takes for a specific amount of water to soak into a specific area of soil. The easiest way to do this is to get a length of cylindrical pipe that is sharp enough to push (or hammer) into the soil at one end. Mark it with two lines – one is the line to which you insert it into the soil, and the other is the line to which you fill the water.
Read MoreControlling Gullies
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Using Bunds in Cultivated Land
Bunds have many benefits, including marking the boundaries of farm-holdings, slowing the movement of soil and water, and providing a place for integrating trees into agricultural systems. Here are some tips for using bunds within farmland:
- Cattle should be kept away from the area while establishing saplings, by using livehedge fencing. Cactus, Euphorbia spp, and Agave are useful for a livehedge fence.
- Larger trees can be planted on boundary bunds, and smaller trees which will be harvested more frequently can be planted on internal bunds, which divide one holding into separate sections.
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Techniques for Steeply Sloping Land
These techniques are useful to slow runoff and erosion from sloping land, and also to revegetate degraded areas. Areas with high rainfall, steep slopes, and thin soils should use slightly graded bunds / terraces / trenches to allow some drainage.
