SIS India Practicum 2017

// The Crows of Karnataka // PC: J. Rodriguez, M. Greene I’ve seen an empire Taste the tempest of a gathering strong    But I found love at the end of the world                                                            -- John Mark McMillan  //  //     The birds don’t si ng in Karnataka. There are no songs. Empty of melody, the air is full of chirps and coos, wails and shrill  sirens—the  birds speaking over the  city.  Conversations had in the treetops. Stories weaved through generations. Rumors spreading in the air. Secrets s hared with the wind.      Most distinct of the birds are the crows. Incredibly numerous, the crows track the movements of the people—their villages, their cities, their state. They constantly watch, consta...

One theme we noted in our four field days in Ramanagara and Chattapatna was the strong sense of family and community in the farms we visited. Each farmer was informed of the visit and requested an interview prior to our arrival, and we believe he, in turn, had informed not only his family but also his fellow farmers in the vicinity. When we reached each farm, indeed not only would the farmer we were supposed to meet be present, but also some or all of his family members and his friends and neighbors as well. Within Karnataka, we observed an openness in the Indian communities we were fortunate enough to visit. Each farmer welcomed the other farmers and neighbors who were curious to watch the proceedings of the interview. He also seemed open to any passerby or bystander to even partake in the questions and answers. Often, we would ask our questions, and after ourtranslator would translate, we would hear answers or questions to clarify the words exchanged fr...

Team Pondzee Scheme’s (Cameron, Meagan, Wenesso, and Ayan) last week in the field was fruitful as it was chai-infused. Unsurprisingly, surveying farmers in the Kanakapura Taluk, the Indian equivalent to a county, was chock full of stimulating cultural experiences, stunning tropical landscapes, and comprehensive data collection with the aim of evidence-based policy recommendations. Our Taluk is further afield from Bangalore than most of the others, but its distance rewards you with some of the most beautiful landscape in Karnataka, which somehow manages to effortlessly resemble a tropical Tuscany. We are here to survey farmers to evaluate the effectiveness of the Krishi Baghya scheme, (KBS) a project to mitigate climate change’s impact on crop yields. However, the farmers we visited this last week shared with us more than just water storage data. We shared stories about family, laughs, freshly cut-flowers for the festival, and of course the ritualistic chai. The warmth of th...

Today, our team (Callie, Josh, Matt, and Vanessa) visited five farms in the Ramanagara District. The first three farmers were already beneficiaries of the Krishi Bhagya Scheme while the last two had not availed the scheme for their farms. All the farms were of comparable size at about two acres each with equitable incomes as well.           The day was filled with interesting and memorable experiences that we hadn’t anticipated prior to the start of our field days. Some experiences were a little unfortunate because of unforeseen circumstances, but in hindsight, they were hilariously comical. For example, we misconnected with our translator and research assistant, Deekshith, and he actually ended up following another group, so we were without a translator for our first farm visit. However, we were accompanied by Deepaja Madam, the Joint Director of Agriculture for Ramanagara District. She ended up translating the farmer’s responses for us, this lady...

NAMASTE Today we visited our last set of farms and just like that we are now entering our last phase of evaluation. Now that we have surveyed all of the farmers we are gathering, compiling and presenting farmer's recommendations to KSDA officials. In the past week we have had class with Professor Breeding where we decided on how we want to proceed with our next phase for methodology and evaluation. Al also created a logo for our entire project which will soon be turned into T-shirts and mugs. Pictures soon to come! As our week progressed, we met new farmers, ate more food from the Shark Food Court, and, yes, took more selfies. But this time we took them with goats! They too like their share of pictures.   We also saw biodiversity at its best, learning about unexpected uses for several plants such as Neem, which is used for brushing teeth. Or at least that's what they told Al: Additionally,  we have found that many of the farmers this week were non-...

  Greetings from Bangalore, India! The Pond-Zee Scheme Team completed an interesting week surveying farmers in the Kanakapur Taluk. This involved lots of driving, lots of hospitality by gracious farmers, and last but not least, lots of Chai breaks!  In this Photo (from left to right) Cameron, Ayan, Megan, and Wenesso enjoy Chai before surveying a farmer. The focus of our project has been to investigate the effectiveness of the Krishi Bhagya scheme, a government subsidised initiative to encourage farmers to utilize farm ponds. We spoke with beneficiary farmers of the scheme as well as non beneficiaries. We’ve found that across board, all the farmers whether they had the Krishi Bhagya scheme or not, were very receptive to this new initiative. An interesting trend we noticed early on was that many of our beneficiary farmers were higher-income. Key indicators of this wealth were the farmers comfortable residences and presence of polyhouses, which are expensive to i...