This article was co-authored by Nupur P.
It’s another day like the last one, and the ones to come after. Pramod stands in a flock of laborers who look nearly identical to one another, legs aching in the sweltering heat and sweat bejeweling his neck. Like him, many are probably from rural Maharashtra– some from Palghar district who likely took the same bus down to Virar, and caught a connecting train after. It is not rewarding nor easy, construction labor in Thane. More consistent than steady work is the shorted pay, labor violations and abuses, and workplace injuries. People are not as kind in the city as they are in Palghar’s countryside, and at the age of 26 with several years of construction labor under his belt, Pramod is nearing his final straw.
We flash forward a few years. Pramod is in his early 30s. Belonging to the tribal Ka-Thakur scheduled tribe community, he’s been able to maintain ownership of his lands thanks to India’s Land Protection Act, which prohibits transfer of tribal land to non-tribal persons. And finally, he is able to reap the benefits of his land through floriculture. Floriculture refers to the growing, handling, maintaining and marketing of flowers and ornamental plants; Pramod and the local farming community have begun to grow jasmine and golden magnolia (locally known as mogra and sonsapa). Collectively, they used to organize transport to Dadar Market, where these flowers earn lucrative profits, relying on the Thane migration route (a bus to a train). But, a recent intervention by Mumbai-based Raah foundation has streamlined this access and adjusted farming practices to the impacts of climate change.
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) refers to technologies, approaches, and practices old and new that adapt agriculture and farmer livelihoods to the environmental impacts of climate change. Recognizing that farmers are marginalized by the stresses of climate change, such as water scarcity, unpredictable weather patterns, soil health degradation and induced migration, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization developed a framework for CSA. This draws from three pillars: increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to climate change via climate proofing options; and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Pramod’s return to his land and newfound success with floriculture might seem like a straightforward triumph, but the reality of farming in Jawhar is far from simple. Nestled in the rugged hills of Palghar, Jawhar taluka battles a paradox – despite receiving over 2,500 mm of annual rainfall, water scarcity plagues the region. Monsoon rains trigger violent surface runoff, stripping nutrient-rich soil from fragmented, rainfed plots. Farmers here have long relied on single-crop traditions, leaving fields fallow for months between growing seasons and battling declining yields. Even for Pramod, who once grew only paddy and millet, the shift to floriculture was unimaginable.
Raah Foundation’s climate-smart approach directly addressed the ecological and economic vulnerabilities faced by farmers in Jawhar. At the onset, Raah provided saplings of drought-resistant crops like mogra and sonsapa at subsidized rates, enabling farmers to diversify their cultivation with minimal upfront costs. These flowers require significantly less water, capitalizing on Jawhar’s water insecurity and undulating land. Beyond supplying saplings, Raah invested heavily in capacity building— training farmers not only in organic farming techniques such as the use of dashparni— a bio-fertilizer made from fermented plant leaves on-site that reduces reliance on chemical fertilizers, but also in efficient water management practices like drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting structures, which capture runoff to restore soil moisture and prevent erosion.
Raah equipped farmers with the skills to grade their flowers carefully, enabling them to command better prices in the market. Perhaps most crucially, Raah’s ‘eco-van’ bridged mobility gaps by routinely traveling into remote villages to collect blossoms and deliver them directly to Mumbai’s Dadar Market. This eliminated middlemen, thereby, reducing post-harvest losses during transit, ensuring farmers received fair compensation, and providing them reliable access to Mumbai. Up until 2024, they’ve supported over 500 farmers with market linkages.
Raah’s climate-smart floriculture intervention aligns with sustainable agriculture because it diversifies farmer practices, improving the resilience of their cultivation system. This not only enhances the biodiversity of the local ecosystem but also attracts pollinators, and extends the productive growing season for farmers, allowing them to tap into more lucrative markets for ornamental crops. In a region like Jawhar, where intense water scarcity is experienced due to underlying twisty basalt bedrock that prevents water from percolating into the land, climate change is amplifying irrigation difficulties farmers already face. Leveraging previously mentioned-technologies such as drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting, climate-smart floriculture has allowed farmers like Pramod to find stability and fulfillment in farming. With this new stability, Pramod begins to plan ahead. The additional income he now earns and hopes to grow with time will go toward funding his older son’s education. In the coming seasons, he hopes to gradually plant mango and cashew trees that promise even greater returns. One mango tree alone can yield nearly 200 kilograms of fruit, a number that stirs both hope and ambition.
On our way back from the field visit, we stopped for an evening chai at Dadar station, swept up in the usual rush of the Mumbai locals. Amid the crowd, we saw a woman selling fresh garlands of mogra– a sight we might have otherwise rushed past, but one that now holds newfound meaning for us.
The entire journey came full circle: from rainfed tribal lands once burdened by water scarcity and soil erosion, to the climate-resilient shifts sparked by Raah Foundation, and finally to this flower’s sale in one of Mumbai’s busiest stations. That mogra is more than just a fragrant accessory– for the farmers in Jawhar and for us alike, it symbolizes much more. It stands for climate-smart cultivation and restored relationships to ancestral land. It reflects the strength of knowledge shared, of markets made accessible, and the reclamation of livelihoods once threatened by migration and hardship, a resounding reminder that sustainable change in India is deeply interconnected to synergies of old and new practices and rural-urban harmony.
