Overcoming Poverty and Climate Change in Pakistan - from the ground up
Location: PAKISTAN
The Combating Poverty and Climate Change Foundation (CPCCF) is spearheading the movement to equip small farmers with regenerative techniques that can lift them out of poverty.
Pakistan’s drylands are the site of widespread poverty, but they also hold the potential for addressing climate change and bringing new abundance to their inhabitants. CPCCF is teaching small farmers how regenerative agriculture can take excess carbon from the atmosphere and return it to the soil.
PARTNERS
The Savory Institute has been a key partner of CPCCF since its foundation, providing knowledge, contacts and funding. CPCCF’s pilot project was hosted by the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore. The Foundation has received grant funding from UNDP.
AIMS
Mirroring the challenges Pakistan is facing, CPCCF’s aims are twofold: ecological and economic. By enabling widespread uptake of regenerative farming methods, their work will create the conditions for increasing soil carbon levels of the drylands. This will both assist in extracting excess carbon from the atmosphere and restore the capacity of regional water cycles, which cool the local climate and help prevent extreme climate events like droughts.
More carbon-rich soil is also more productive, enabling small farmers to produce more crops in a season and better bolster their livelihoods. CPCCF’s services are primarily targeted towards smallholder farmers, with the aim of doubling their income over a few years to provide a strong motivation for the uptake of regenerative methods elsewhere. This undertaking will require considerable educational infrastructure, so one of the Foundation’s key short-term aims is to establish teaching institutions and programs that smallholder farmers can access.
CONTEXT
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, Pakistan is living through a unique time, both economically and ecologically. Around 75% of the South Asian nation’s land area is classified as ‘drylands’, where the amount of water coming in from precipitation is equal to or less than the amount lost to evaporation and transpiration. These areas are particularly vulnerable to droughts, which are becoming increasingly frequent and extreme as a result of climate change. Pakistan also has one of the highest levels of mass poverty in the world, with around 40 million people living below the poverty line, many of them working as small-scale farmers in the drylands.
Direct intervention from other nations has historically been ineffective at overcoming these challenges. The people of Pakistan are keen to improve their own conditions, and CPCCF recognizes that regenerative techniques can equip them to do this. The Foundation began its work with a pilot project at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Lahore, where they demonstrated the potential of holistic planned grazing techniques to raise land productivity. Following the success of this pilot an Accredited Hub of the Savory Global Network was established in Pakistan, providing a nexus for knowledge of regenerative development to flow into the country.
METHOD
Following the establishment of Pakistan’s Accredited Savory Institute Hub, CPCCF is now working on two key projects. Their primary focus is on working to create an educational institution to deliver programs on regenerative farming techniques. Questions of location and accessibility figure significantly into this project, which aims to reach small farmers of limited education. Through short internships, CPCCF will demonstrate and share regenerative farming methods including:
Biochar making
Mulching and composting
Remineralization, inoculation and bio-stimulation of lands
Seed-saving, for growing nutrient-dense foods
Systematic crop intensification
This program is already being delivered at a small demonstration farm that was set up recently with UNDP grant funding. CPCCF plans to build on this successful prototype to reach smallholder farmers across the country in the coming months and years.
Alongside developing this new educational institution, CPCCF is working within the existing high school system to share the insights of regenerative practice with new generations. In April 2018, the Foundation started work on a curriculum and a teacher training program to introduce regenerative ideas into schools that educate the children of smallholder farmers. With this twofold approach, CPCCF is equipping both those who currently work Pakistan’s land and those who will follow after them with the tools to increase climate resiliency and address poverty.