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The Watershed Management Directorate (WMD) has been established in Uttarakhand as a nodal agency for coordination, monitoring and implementation of integrated watershed development programmes in the state. On 2-4 May 2018, the WMD organised a summit on Climate Resilient Mountain Agriculture in the state headquarters of Dehradun which was inaugurated by the Honourable Chief Minister of the state, Mr. Trivendra Singh Rawat. The objective of the summit was to capture various adaptation and mitigation practices that are economically viable for the mountain hill agriculture in the changing climate scenario, explore various alternate livelihoods options, and assess how these could be upscaled and marketed. During his inaugural address on 2^nd May, the Honourable Chief Minister stressed the need to further work on the concept of water corpus and encouraging value addition to agricultural produce in order to increase farmer income and promote sustainainable agriculture. He also said "One of the ways to tackle the problem of crop raiding is to cultivate aromatic plants, spices and tubular produce which are less likely to be damaged by wild animals."

On May 3^rd, during the technical session on "Understanding economic imperative of Climate Resilient Agriculture Practices", Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ Programme Officer, Ms. Anushree Bhattacharjee presented the key findings from the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ study assessing restoration opportunities in the state of Uttarakhand. This study was implemented over the last year using the ROAM framework developed by Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ and partners. Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ has been implementing this study in coordination with scientists from the G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development, Almora, Uttarakhand. The presentation was well received and a portion of the important feedback from the audience was noted for possible incorporation into the final report that Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ will soon be submitting to the Uttarakhand government.

The summit successfully wrapped up with a valedictory session on May 4^th, where the Honourable Governor, Dr. Krishan Kant Paul was the Chief Guest. In his address, Dr. Paul said that scientific information related to agriculture will have to be provided to farmers. Additionally, Dr. Paul advised that "the concept of integrated farming will have to be adopted in order to double the income of farmers in mountainous regions".

To read more about the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ project in Uttarakhand, please click here.