MoabiMatsepe1

One of the practices that caught my attention during my time in India was multilayer farming.

Beyond producing different crops within the same space, it offers an interesting way of thinking about climate-smart agriculture: making better use of available land, sunlight, water and other resources while diversifying farm production.

For smallholder farmers, practices that improve resource-use efficiency and diversify production can contribute to more resilient livelihoods, particularly where land and other resources are limited.

What interested me most as an Agricultural Extension Education student was not only the practice itself, but the extension process behind it. How do we take an idea from research or from one farming context, demonstrate it, and help farmers determine whether and how it can work in their own environment?

This picture from Uttar Pradesh, India, therefore represents more than a farming technique for me. It is a reminder that climate-smart agriculture is also about learning across contexts, adapting knowledge and finding practical solutions that make sense to farmers.

A lesson from India that I continue to reflect on as I return to Lesotho.