Happy new year! I’m just back from South Asia, where I looked at grassroots efforts to prepare for climate change in Bangladesh and avert a water crisis in India. These are for future stories in the “Food for 9 Billion” series. Here are a few snapshots:

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Above, villagers in Lapuria in the Dudu district of Rajasthan, India, have raised the water table about 200 feet using rainwater harvesting and water conservation techniques.

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Rajendra Singh (left) is known as “the Water Man” throughout India for his work restoring watersheds. In his home area, he has helped bring seven dead rivers back to life.

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Villagers in southern Bangladesh build an earthen dam to hold back tidal surges. When a recent surge destroyed a nearby dam, the community offered its labor to build another structure.


Protesters in Satkhira, Bangladesh, demand that the government clear waterways and help drain flooded fields. Waterlogging and salinity are expected to increase as the climate changes.

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Jon Miller

Jonathan Miller is executive director of Homelands Productions, a journalism cooperative specializing in public radio features and documentaries. As a freelance journalist, he has reported from Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe and the U.S. for NPR, BBC, CBC, American Public Media's Marketplace, Monitor Radio, VOA, Radio Netherlands and Radio Deutsche Welle. He also has written for The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, Parents, American Way, The Christian Science Monitor and many other publications. For 13 years, he lived and worked in the Philippines and Peru. 

Jon is currently serving as executive producer of "Food for 9 Billion," a collaborative project of Homelands Productions, the Center for Investigative Reporting, American Public Media's Marketplace, PRI's The World, and PBS NewsHour. He was executive producer of Homelands' award-winning "WORKING" project profiling workers in the global economy (2007-09) and the "Worlds of Difference" series about the responses of traditional societies to rapid cultural change (2002-05).