"In my village, cotton farming is hard work and families often struggle to make a living, particularly now that the rains are increasingly unpredictable," says Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) farmer Balubhai Parmar.

One of our earliest learnings at Ambuja Foundation, was that to tackle poverty in rural India, we needed to build the livelihood capabilities of rural people.

The 2019/20 Annual Report was launched in September, highlighting the achievements of the Foundation over the last 12months, and once again an e-version of the report was distributed online to all key stakeholders.

Did you know that 72.4% of India's workforce lives in rural areas? And that agriculture supports nearly 70% of this rural workforce? But with small land holdings and an over dependence on the monsoon, these livelihoods are often unsustainable. Couple that with outdated farming methods, lack of irrigation, and difficulty in accessing markets, and agriculture-dependent households quickly spiral down into a kind of poverty which is hard to break out of.

Ambuja Foundation's lift irrigation work in Farraka, West Bengal, has been featured in Village Square - a public interest communications initiative, focusing on rural India. The story outlines how Ambuja Foundation helped farmers expand from growing just 1 crop a year, to growing 2-3 crops per year.

Anagha Mahajani - GM, Program Research & Monitoring at Ambuja Foundation has over 25 years' experience in the development sector and is a qualified management and research practitioner with publications to her credit.

For many developing countries increasing agricultural productivity is a key to poverty reduction. The over-dependence on monsoons is not a sustainable one & irrigated agriculture remains a resource that many poor producers want, and still ask for.

Farmers remain a vulnerable section of the community and with the nation-wide Corona Virus lockdown taking place during the peak of rabi season in India, when crops like paddy, wheat, gram, lentil, and mustard are at harvestable stage or almost reaching maturity, farmers have had to face increased vulnerability.

Ambuja Foundation has been working in the hills of Himachal Pradesh for the last 2 decades, tackling social issues and community needs one by one.

'New projects' are an integral part of life at Ambuja Foundation

Working on the ground in remote areas of Himachal Pradesh presents a variety of unique challenges for on-ground implementation teams.

When Ambuja Foundation commenced work in Darlaghat they soon realized that water was the most pressing issue impacting the community.