We have launched the Change The Climate campaign in India. The aim is to tackle the effects of climate change, and help farmers restore biodiversity in farms while earning extra income.
Climate change is having an adverse effect on the people of India and its economy. A 2019 study by Stanford University showed that India’s economy is 31 percent smaller than it would have been in the absence of global warming. At the forefront of these risks are farmers, in north Indian states such as Haryana and Punjab, crop yields will decline by 15 to 17 percent for every 2 degrees centigrade increase in temperature.
To combat some of these risks, the Indian Government aims to have around 33 percent of tree cover by 2030. At the end of 2019, tree cover stood at about 24 percent. Out of this, about 22 percent was from government-controlled forests, while around 2 percent came from agro-forestry - farming practices that incorporate trees among crops.
Our Change The Climate campaign aims to work towards making up for the remaining 9 percent of target forest cover and help farmers restore biodiversity in farms.
After detailed farm surveys, soil sampling and water testing, farmers are chosen and farms are readied for tree-planting. Tree species are chosen by scientists and progressive local farmers, while sowing and nurturing techniques follow scientific principles to ensure survival.
These trees will provide farmers with extra income, as well as restore biodiversity in their farms through a variety of trees -- timber, fruits, flower, herbs and shrubs. This extra income makes farmers resilient and more open to chemical-free farming, which is especially key to our work in Bhatinda, Punjab, which has been dubbed the cancer belt of India because of excessive chemical use.
Donors will have transparency through a QR code for each lot of 10,000 saplings. This QR includes GPS locations of farms, the plantation journey, quarterly monitoring reports and impact statistics on soil and carbon. For more information, follow our QR code links here and here. Or watch our video below.
