Pragya works with some of India’s poorest communities living in challenging
environments on the margins of society. Rural, agrarian communities are often
beset by chronic insecurity and the severe anxiety that comes with subsistence
agriculture in volatile climates where climate change is spurring ever-more
unpredictable threats to lives and livelihoods. They face multiple layers of
socioeconomic disadvantage, with low educational attainment and lack of skills
coupled with a scarcity of job opportunities resulting in job insecurity and high
unemployment. Meagre land holdings are subject to further division by generation,
with some labourers entirely landless, and what land is available is often
characterised by poor quality soils on challenging terrain with inadequate irrigation –
leaving farmers unable to produce enough to feed their families. The poor nutritional
health that follows may impact farmers’ ability to work, compounding the problems.
Even where smallholding communities are able to generate sufficient agricultural
produce, they commonly lack access to the marketplace and have little capacity to
generate market linkages. Often being from minority ethnic backgrounds,