Agriculture is always impacted by war. However, Russia's war in Ukraine – between two big agricultural production players in the setting of globalized agricultural markets – incurs never-before-considered implications for global agriculture and food security. Russia and Ukraine are significant exporters of maize, wheat, fertilizers, edible oils and crude oil: trade that is compromised by the war, with the greatest impact being on the poor and low-income countries that rely most on food imports. Partly because of the Ukraine–Russia conflict and partly due to the decline in agricultural production caused by the climate emergency, food prices have increased between 9.5 and 10.5 percent over the past ten years. 

According to a World Bank report, Nepal is one such low-income country, where one in every four families is impoverished. Although wheat, maize and rice are staples, vegetables are also important for nutrition and income, and Nepal imports fuel and fertilizer for their domestic production. Uncertainty in global supply chains, combined with the Nepali rupee’s significant depreciation against the U.S. dollar, has resulted in a 500 percent increase in the cost of diesel since 2012. ­­

Irrigation to Boost Homegrown Production

Land irrigation is crucial to crop growth and to the capacity of famers to withstand the effects of the climate emergency and economic shock. Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) advises farmers (particularly women), governments and donors on the targeted support available to enable them to access existing low-cost and fuel-efficient engineering solutions, which can contribute to the immediate goals of increasing agricultural productivity, intensifying groundwater irrigation and improving rural livelihoods. It informs small producers about potential ways of gaining access to irrigation and how to develop water entrepreneurship, and empowers farmers, especially women, to improve service provisions and to gain access to services and irrigation pumps, including through access to finance.

However, the majority of Nepal's groundwater resources are underutilized, indicating ample room for increasing climate-resilient agricultural production capable of withstanding an increasing number of drought events. This means that with the right kind of management of its groundwater, Nepal can increase its domestic output, and bolster smallholder resilience and food security in times of economic and climate crisis. At the same time, any burgeoning investments in irrigation need to be carefully designed and guided by adequate monitoring of any resulting impact on groundwater resources. CSISA has responded to these needs with a double-pronged approach: building capacity for adaptive and sustainable groundwater management while promoting water entrepreneurship and high-quality investments in irrigation infrastructure, their use, and the relevant value chains.

In the working area, policymakers, businesses, farmers and researchers (and especially women, youth and marginalized groups) will collaborate to co-create business models for sustainable and inclusive irrigation with partners. While there are more than one million wells and pumps in Nepal, many of these are not used efficiently, and social barriers often preclude farmers from accessing services, such as pump rentals, when they need them. To address these constraints and support private investment in irrigation and water entrepreneurship models, over the course of the next year, CSISA will work with existing infrastructure investment programs and local stakeholders to build a dynamic and more inclusive irrigation sector, positively impacting a projected 20,000 small farming households.

In addition to these efforts, at the macro-level, these models will respond to prioritized irrigation scaling opportunities, while at the farm level they will respond to irrigation application scheduling advisories. The Activity will also create policy brief documents in the form of an improved farm management advisory to be distributed widely among partners and disseminated among farmers to support increases in production and resilience. A sustainable and inclusive irrigation framework which was developed guides the activities of CSISA’s crisis response. 

Scaling Digital Groundwater Monitoring to Support Adaptive Water Management 

To tackle the need to develop low-cost, context-specific data systems that improve groundwater data collection, as well as mechanisms for rapid data translation into actionable information, and in response to farmer, cooperative and government agency stakeholder demands, the Government of Nepal Groundwater Resources Development Board (GWRDB) and USAID-funded CSISA have co-developed and piloted a digital groundwater monitoring system for Nepal.

A pilot study conducted jointly by the two organizations in 2021 identified several options for upgrading groundwater monitoring systems. Three approaches were piloted, and a phone-based monitoring system with a dashboard was evaluated and endorsed as the best fit for Nepal. To ensure the sustainability of the national response to the production crisis, the USAID-funded CSISA Crisis Response Activity will extend government monitoring to cover at least five Tarai districts within the Feed the Future Zone of Influence, collecting data on a total of 100 wells and conducting an assessment of potential network expansion in Nepal’s broad, inner-Tarai valleys and Mid-Hills regions. The goal is to use these data to strengthen the Feed the Future Zone of Resilience in Nepal by increasing GWRDB’s capability to monitor groundwater in five districts. 

Ensuring Food Security

The Activity will continue for the next two years. During that time, CSISA will increase GWRDB's capacity to monitor groundwater and apply this to five districts in Nepal's Feed the Future Zone of Resilience using an enhanced monitoring system that will assist planners and decision makers in developing groundwater management plans. As a result, CSISA expects to support at least 20,000 farming households in gaining better irrigation access to achieve high yields and climate-resilient production, with 40 percent of them being women, youth and/or marginalized groups. This access will be made possible through the involvement of the private sector, as CSISA will develop at least two promising business models for sustainable and inclusive irrigation. Finally, through this Activity, government and private sector stakeholders in Western Nepal will have increased their capacity for inclusive irrigation and agricultural value chain development.