2021 Seed Grant Award Problem Statements 

WASH / Water Management / Irrigation

Problem #16: Technology that would empower farmers to make decisions for irrigating their land

Country/Region of execution:  India
Collaborating Organization: Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) founded by Smt. Elaben Bhatt is a member-based organization of 1.6 million poor women workers from Informal Economy across 18 States of India. SEWA also has its presence in neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. SEWA’s strategy involves working around the achievement of twin goals of (a) Full employment - employment that provides work, income and food security and Social Security and (b) Self-reliance – economical & decision-making.
By organizing these women workers to attain full employment, SEWA helps them to become autonomous and economically self-reliant both individually and collectively, including in terms of decision-making ability. To achieve its goals SEWA follows an integrated approach: (a) Organizing for collective strength, (b) Capacity building to stand firm in competitive market, (c) Capital formation for risk mitigation & fight poverty and (d) Social security to enhance well-being & productivity
Problem Statement Description:  In the absence of such technology the farmers tend to incur cost of water, more usage of water and heavy losses as the land is not irrigated considering various factors such as type of soil of the given farm, weather conditions / weather forecast, water content / moisture level in the land, etc. The lack of such decision-making system to allow the farmers to determine appropriate irrigation needs, is directly related to the twin goals of SEWA i.e. (a) Full employment - employment that provides work, income and food security and Social Security; and (b) Self-reliance – economical & decision-making. In the absence of solutions, farmers cannot optimize their farm yields and incomes, leading to them being trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. Given that SEWA is a members-based organization of poor women workers from informal economy, all its initiatives need to be supported by following:  Cost effectiveness and affordability by the poor women workers from informal economy; Technology that is easily adaptable and replicable across the members of SEWA; Environment friendly and preserving the natural resources.  The solution needs co-creating support and designing the effective technology keeping in mind the end users who are poor women members / small and marginal farmers from the informal economy.