Under the HI-AWARE Project, the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) is going to establish its first Citizen-Driven Science Climate Adaptation Atelier (CISCA), and a Climate Smart Pilot Site on farmers’ fields in Saroba near Chakree, Rawalpindi. On the Saroba site, various climate smart interventions will be piloted to improve productivity and enhance resilience through farmers’ participation. It has been observed that the farmers along the rivers, nullas and other perennials are unable to capitalize on the flowing water to irrigate their lands due to the lack of cost effective technologies to pump the water to their fields situated relatively on higher altitudes compared to other streams.

In the CISCA, a range of different adaptation options will be monitored and assessed with the cooperation of local farmers in a participative and integrated way, depending on the locals’ needs. Cognizant of this fact, PARC has planned to develop and test a ‘Composite Energy Powered Irrigation System (CEPIS)’, which is expected to have a high level of acceptance both by farmers and policymakers, not to mention a high degree of potential for future up-scaling and out-scaling. CEPIS is a combination of both portable solar-powered irrigation systems and small hydel systems.

For compliance with the scope of CISCA and Pilot at Chakree site, an integrated team consisting of water management specialists, irrigation engineers, social scientists, economists, soil specialists, horticulture specialists, vegetable specialists, crop, fisheries and livestock scientists will work jointly with the farmers and communities.

The team will devise field interventions for climate-smart cropping calendar in consultation with the communities, which include the following set of activities:

• Agriculture, climate and irrigation pre-conditions;
• Identification of the issues in consultation with the community; and
• Identification of existing agricultural, livestock & irrigation practices and prevailing cropping calendar.

In order to implement the above set of activities, the Community Consultation and Engagement at Saroba Chakree has been scheduled for 7 March 2016 under under the HI-AWARE project.