newsletter-june 2010 2 the arable land. bagru community never had ex‐ perience to work with any of...

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It was phenomenal endeavor and was known as a pride of Bagru villagers. The interven‐tion was not carried out in any of the villages at Konsh and adjoining Siran Valley. In both valleys none of the inhabitant community thought to implement intervention like Bagru “the Micro Hydal Power Station.”

Located on the northern side of union council Hilkot, Bagru is a poor village, deprived of all basic facilities like school, dispensary, drinking water and sanitation. The village is situ‐ated on a steep hill. The road and access track of the village are in poor condition and o3 kilometres of the road is always blocked due to heavy sliding. People especially women and children are facing problems during rainfall and snow. People of the village are illiter‐ate, unorganized and un‐skilled. Majority of the people are depending on agriculture but the produc‐tion of agriculture is low because of heavy erosion of the arable land. Bagru community never had ex‐perience to work with any of the government and nongovernmental agen‐cies. Traditional Jirga was passive and there was no organized community or‐ganization before earth‐quake.

Despite all problems, people of Bagru are innovative and very progressive. They installed a 5 Kilowatt hydal power electric station which was meeting needs of 69 households. 81 households were without any electricity, using torchwood and other material for light.

In 2005 earthquake, people of Bagru lost all assets and resources to support their lives and livelihoods. The biggest lost to them was a complete demolition of their hydal elec‐tricity power station. Some of the relief agencies provided initial support but no body went to rehabilitate their most critical need. Organizations' strategies and inflexibility of

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FAO-Pakistan Newsletter, June 2010

June 2010 FAO-Pakistan Newsletter, June 2010

Inside this Issue

• Case Study

• Case Study

• Success Story

• Success Story

Special Points of Interest

• Community managed income generation schemes

• Local capacity building

• House hold food security

• Economic empowerment of rural women

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With the partnership of Community Livelihood Rehabilitation Project (funded by SIDA), people shared their most pressing desire. For the team of CLRP (funded by SIDA) and HAASHAR (Implementing Partner) it was a new avenue of intervention. The build back better strategy enabled CLRP to start some thing challenging.

At Bagru, build back better was translated into reality. Team of HAASHAR by the facilita‐tion of CLRP, professionals of Kaccha Garhi together with the people of Bagru worked hard and rehabilitated micro hydal power station. The old machinery was removed, old channel was reconstructed and output of the micro hydal station was increased to dou‐

ble. The programme rehabilitated 300 feet of water channel and powerhouse. The capac‐ity of power station increased to 10 Kilowatt. Water collection dam was also recon‐structed. During rehabilitation of water channel, the engineering section also develop site for the installment of water mill. Since access paths and terraces of arable lands were also damaged, the project rehabilitated 1600 feet of access paths and 100 Acres of terraces.

Because of the project, the community organization was revived and people joined each other to rebuild their village assets and institutions. For the first time, the village commit‐tee levied 30 Rupees/bulb and on average Rs. 4000/ month was collected from the village. Committee identified three people to work as village hydal power station employee. The project fully trained them in electrician and micro hydal power station related interven‐tions. Electricity was supplied to 150 house holds of the village from this intervention. Be‐cause of this project, about 100 Kilogram of precious torch wood was conserved daily. Now the communication network of the villagers with in the whole country has been im‐proved due to the use of mobile phones. People are also planning to purchase radios and other electricity devices for entertainment. The reconstruction of access paths saved the traveling time . The rehabilitation of terraces will contribute for the improvement of agri‐culture production. The watermill still not installed but once active it will save over Ru‐pees 150,000 annually, amount spent on grain grinding besides saving time and energy of the people. Because of the project the joys and pride of Bagru village revived and the vil‐lage became influential example for entire valley. Bagru village is the new hallmark of success, prosperity and community unity.


Improvement of local productive Infrastructure is the key to rural development

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Village Dabrai in UC Paimal Sharif of district Battagram was selected for the project in‐terventions on the basis of its agriculture base and prevailing poverty level. The village is economically very poor and needs a lot of support. When the project staff approached local farmers, they showed keen interest in upgrading their standard of living and ex‐tended maximum support to the staff. They were found assiduous and hardworking. The village is one example where change in the lives of farmers can be measured with the external support provided under the EU Food Facility Project Akhtarin Khan is one of the local farm‐ers of village Dabrai. He is around 30 years of age supporting a family of 11 members including 5 male and 6 fe‐male. He is a government employee working at lower level however; his main source of income is farming. He received a package of wheat seeds (50 kg), Urea and DAP (50 kg each) from the EU Food Facility Project, which he cultivated on 7 kanals of land. He also attended one day training in improved agriculture Practices organized by the project for its input beneficiaries. He told that this training was very informa‐tive for him to cultivate his crop on the methods taught to them in the training. Looking at the present crop conditions, he plans to continue with the newly learned techniques in future as well. Discussing his input cost and crop outputs, he shared with the project team that he spends an average of Rs. 6000‐8000 on the purchase of seeds and fertilizers for his land. His salary is not enough to meet these costs while he didn’t save much from his crop production of the last season to support input cost. So he was facing difficulties in culti‐vating his land this season and was about to lose hope. However, FAO supported just in right time and he was able to cultivate his land this season as well. Akhtarian further shared that his average production from local seeds on the same land used to be around 350 kgs. However, looking at the current crop condition, he expected an increase upto 500 kgs (30 percent increase). He told that with this production, he will be able to store seed for the next season and thus he will have no worry regarding seed cost for the next season. Since the seed is of good quality therefore next year the wheat production will be hopefully better. He also benefited from the food package distrib‐uted by WFP which provided additional benefit to the family food intake and minimiza‐tion of home expenditures.

Enhance agriculture productivity ensure food security at household level

A Step towards Household Food Security

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Economic Empowerment of Rural Women through Seed Production Enterprise

Sakina bibi is a Forty five year old courageous woman. She is one of the right holders of EU Food Facility Project in union council Raja Raam in district Multan. She entered into wedlock at the age of thirteen to a fifty years old man. She has six daughters and two sons, three daughters are married while three are school going. Farming is the prime Source of livelihood of this family. She and her husband doesn’t own any land, but they are Kashtkaar (farmer) and have been sharecropper. Sakina bibi received an improved variety of wheat Seed (Sahar) under Rabi 2009 distribution of E UFF. She cultivated the received seed in half (1/2) of an acre. According to her she produced 1440 kg of the cultivated area. Before harvesting, a post harvest management training was planned and she participated in that training and according to her she was able to re‐cover an extra 160 kg through post harvest losses reduction practices. To initiate seed enterprise she has kept 1000kg of wheat as seed and the remaining as grain to fulfill her family food needs. According to her “ The Jhats (Big farmers) are asking me to sell over them as grain but I will not and have stored in the Silo which I got from the project and will sell it as seed to earn more”. When she was asked where she will invest the earned money, her answer was “I will invest some of the money to rent more land to cultivate wheat on two Acres next sea‐son and will spent the remaining money on arranging dowry for my daughters”.

Entrepreneurship development with rural women results in additional income to the small and poor farmers

Fig 1.1 Use of Neem plant leaves to avoid pest in Wheat storage

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Appropriate livestock management practices play a significant role in improving animals’ health increasing the milk production. IFAD sponsored AJK Community Development Program (AJKCDP), being executed in the entire State of AJK, provided 57 heifers of Sahiwal breed to different community members in Kaladeba Local Support Organization, Union Council Brohi, Tehsil Charhoi in District Kotli, whereas the livestock management training was imparted by FAO project titled “Community Learning and Action for Demand Driven Extension and Rural Services (UTF/PAK/096/PAK)”. Heifers were supplied on 50 percent cost sharing basis and their price at the time of supply ranged between Rs. 25,000 and 30,000. A recent study has established that all the animals have been looked after really well and currently the price of each animal is Rs.70, 000 on an average. Out of 57 cows, 32 calved are giving milk about 7‐12 liters per day as against 2‐4 liters by lo‐cal breed. Cow milk sells at Rs. 35 per liter in the local market as compared to buffalo milk selling at Rs. 40. Community members have observed that the health condition of a few of the timid and weaker children has improved significantly since they started using cow milk. The other important aspect of this intervention is significant increase in the family income. Replacement of a local cow or buffalo with Sahiwal cow increased the family income by at least Rs. 140 per day RS ( (Rs.4, 200 per month) from milk only, whereas rearing off‐spring (calf) for 2 ½ years will fetch an additional income to a house‐hold by about Rs.30, 000.

Improved livestock breed helps in the livelihood improvement of the vulnerable house holds

Increased Milk Production Impacting Income and Children’s Health

Fig 1.2 Heifers of Sahiwal Breed distributed under IFAD

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newsletter-june 2010 2 the arable land. bagru community never had ex‐ perience to work with any of...

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