Food Security and Livelihood through rain water harvesting structures implemented in five villages: Rampur, Jamchua, Huruwa, Rurungkocha and Pated of Namkum block, Ranchi district, Jharkhand state, India.

The ideation of the project concept was based to equip the stakeholders (community leaders/staff/government officials) through awareness, trainings, wasteland development and rainwater harvesting structures, organic farming, etc. and help to focus and make use of best practices on sustainable agriculture and alternative livelihood.

The long term project goal focused on Ensure sustainable food security and livelihoods through rainwater harvesting structures in 5 villages of Namkum block along with the following three major outcomes:-

• Outcome 1: Leadership is developed among 40 CBOs on food security & livelihood.
• Outcome 2: Increased income of target 200 households by agro based farming and livestock management initiatives.
• Outcome 3: Increased production of 2nd crops (Rabi) on participating farms through water use efficiency, that was observed in 100 acres of Land

The above mentioned project outcome has been achieved by  emphasized on to equip the stakeholders (community leaders/staff/government officials) through awareness and community mobilization, capacity building through various training programs, wasteland development and rainwater harvesting structures, organic farming to ensure the food security make use of best practices on sustainable agriculture and alternative livelihood.

The project beneficiaries confirmed the relevance of project activities in relation to the implemented effectively through community organisation and good practices to increased productivity by use of vermi compost, SRI, mixed cropping, vegetable cultivation, animal husbandry as well as access to credit through the self-help groups, farmers clubs, water user groups, Village development committee etc. The project activities supported to improve sustainable food and nutrition security as part of its major impact to secure food and poverty alleviation.

• The most developmental challenges to stabilizing agriculture and livelihood options are: To increasing the productivity of agriculture and allied activities, strengthening and generating farm-based livelihoods, Promoting animal husbandry, dairy, poultry, piggery and integrated farming, Strengthening and generating forest-based livelihoods and inking micro-finance to new livelihood efforts.
• The multi-pronged strategies are adopted to implement the project such as awareness on food security, livelihood, water structures, gender and climate change. The capacity-building of the famers, women, youth and communities in order to Improve agricultural practices, Spread the use of organic farming, vermicomposting, treatment of traditional seeds, Spread the practice of Rabi crops, mixed  vegetable cropping, with the emphasis on cash crops and Increase accessibility to income generation facilities, Livestock management are emphasized by the projects
• Drip irrigation practices was encouraged and made accessible to farmers through the project. The Birsa Agricultural University suggested that Practices should be replicated widely for more years, could be 2 or 3 years for food security.
• Integrated Farming System was introduced through this project and De-worming in piggery, poultry and Goatry was widely popularized through the project that supported in Livestock keeping.
• To popularize SRI technique audio- visual aid was utilized along with Indigenous Technical Knowledge dissemination in Local/Tribal Language to get the best results.This method was teaching has received a lot of appreciation from the Birsa Ariculture University, Jharkhand during its assessment.