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Archive for August 2013
How Tiny Drops changed the life Gorisan , Kheralu
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| Cash Crop Grown by the Farmer |
Under the IWMP project, Gorisana village of Kheralu cluster (Mehsana) has achieved success in augmentation of agricultural and Micro enterprise development practices. The total geographical locale of this cluster is 5000 Ha, out of which 805.2 Ha is taken for treatment of Gorisana village. Soil of this village is of sandy texture yellowish in color and partially porous in nature which naturally is unable to sustain water for longer duration. The ground water table is very low it region comes in dark zone and due to scarcity of water availability for irrigation, farmers are unable to take more than one crops in a year. Thereby the people whose primary occupation is agriculture get engaged in causal labour work during lean seasons.
The primary reason to promote drip irrigation was to conserve water and use the available ground water judiciously. As most of the people in the area depend on agriculture as livelihood and production purposes, unless the watershed plus approach are undertaken the scope for agriculture development via conserving water seemed meager. In gram sabha, farmer beneficiaries understood the concept of drip irrigation from WDT. Understanding this fact of ground water conservation, 45 farmers of the Kheralu cluster had decided to go for drip irrigation as their source of irrigation.
Gujarat Green Revolution Company (GGRC), has played a major role in this revolution, making it possible for farmers to adopt drip irrigation methods by offering aggressive subsidies on capital cost. The convergence is like 50% GGRC, 20% RKVY and Rs. 24000 from IWMP per se is provided per farmer beneficiary. A village level meeting had been called in the village in which different irrigation companies like Jain irrigation, Netafim, John deere, and Paragon elicited the farmers about their schemes. Furthermore the farmers are taken for exposure visit to the drip irrigation units of all these irrigation companies. The farmers then decided to operationalise drip with the support of John deere. Human impact: Due to the implementation of drip the agricultural production has increased up to 30% -40 % i.e. also the farmers are able to take three crops per year with the help of drip irrigation. The weeding cost had also come down after implementing drip in the farms as per the farmers. Water saving expected with the adoption of micro irrigation motivated the beneficiary farmers in shifting to high value crops.
Environmental impacts: The fertility of the land is maintained via drip irrigation as the distribution of insecticides and fertilizers are equally mixed with water in the irrigation tank this saves time, money and energy of the farmers. The plant attains uniform height under drip in a better way. Importantly the crop receives only the required amount of water not exceeding that which in turn saves water and makes it use judiciously. Major impact of drip irrigation in Kheralu was for Crop diversification viz., from rainfed crops to cash crops and bringing cultivable wastelands to fertile agricultural lands.
Dhanji Vagha Bhai is an example of how poor farmers have benefited by adopting modern irrigation methods. Before he switched to drip irrigation in 2012, Dhanji Bhai could irrigate just half of his 1.18 Ha of land. His borewell used to yield water for one hour every seven hours due to low groundwater reserves. Now he only needs 60 per cent of the earlier quantity of water to irrigate the seven acres. A training stint given by John Deere company taught him ways to add new high-yielding varieties of crops. GGRC laid the drip irrigation network at his farm for Rs.62,997.25 . With subsidy, he had to pay only Rs.28,129 only after deducting the farmers contribution of Rs. 10,000 from the IWMP cost.
Today a total of 45 farmers in Kheralu have adopted drip irrigation and today their entire cultivation is done with the help of drip farming. Furthermore, total of Rs. 1089331 is allotted for drip in Gorisana village of Kheralu. Also the farmers here believe that drip irrigation will go a long way in improving the health of land in Kheralu.
Ensuring Drinking Water Security in Deserts
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| Rain Water Harvesting Structure |
Khatiya (IWMP-1) project is located in Lakhapar Taluka, Kutch District of Gujarat state. The nearest town is Dayapar which is about 12 Km from Lakhapar. The project area lies in the edges of salt deserts of Kutch also known as Rann of Kutch and falls under the Desert Prone area according to DoLR Classification. It is a very poor and desolate village on the border of India and Pakistan. The village population is 324. The literacy rate in the village is 65% per cent. The ground water table was 50 to 60 meter. The quality of ground water was also degraded. The village did not have any reliable source for drinking water. Government was supplying water by tankers before the intervention of the IWMP project. As per socially imposed construct the women in the villages have to spend a lot of time to fetch Drinking water for their households. They need to walk down 2km to the next village to fetch water for their drinking purpose.
Thus, the availability the perennial availability of drinking water was an acute problem in the Khatiya village. With the inception of the IWMP project the Khatiya village of Kutch district was taken under IWMP 1 in Batch-I in year 2009-10 by DWDU-Kutch. As a part of the participative planning process the drinking water availability was identified as the major problem in the village. The Watershed Development Committees, PIA and Gramsabha decided to build Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structures to have permanent solution of this problem of drinking water. Under this model the rain water seeping from the roof is collected and transferred via PVC pipes to underground tanks for storage and for future use in non monsoon seasons.Initially 49 Roof Rain Water Harvesting structures were built at cost of 13.23 lacks INR under the project. The structures were built at individual house hold level with the contribution from people living in the households. If the water is not exposed to sunlight, it can remain potable for many years. So an underground tank was built in the house where sunlight could not reach. Minimum capacity of the tank was 8000 liters and minimum size of the tank was 9 ft in width by 9 ft in length and 8 ft in depth.
As an impact of the intervention in Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structure in the Khatiya village, the availability of drinking water increased by atleast 2 months, by saving time and energy for the women in the village. This structure also increased the quality of the water from “Salty” to “Potable”. With the successful implementation of the Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structure now it became a tradition in the village and now any new house comes up with the Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structure in it. Recently the Narmada supply also reached the village and thus the storage tank in also works to store the Narmada water supply.
"Water supply department provided water twice in a week due to last village but now could save water for a while"-- Kanubhai Harijan
Improve quality of water resulting decrease disease ratio-Dakubhai Harijan
"Before one person of family fully dedicated with only fetched water but now problem resolved and work handicrafts and other livelihood activity in spare time."-Harjaben Khajuriya
Contributors: Shri. A.C.Patel (Project Director, DWDU-Kutch), Mr. Imdad Bang (Technical Expert), Mr. Jayesh Patel (MDT Agi/Nodal Officer), Mrs. Heena Patel (WDT-CM)
Harvesting rain water for agriculture - A story of Eval
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| Earthen Bund, Eval, Patan |
Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) has changed the fate of few farmers in the Eval village situated at the north western part of Santalpur taluka of Patan district in Gujarat. Due to lack of irrigation sources they had been cultivating Jower and Bajra with the only dependence source of monsoon. Except the kharif crop there is no sowing during the Rabi season and the farmers used to engage them in labour work for the remaining period of the year. This region is characterized by sandy loam soil with dry summer and average rainfall of about 400 mm.
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| Cumin Crop |
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| Table 1 Details of area of the Crop cultivated |
This intervention has directly doubled the income potential of the farmer by increasing the irrigated area. There is a radical change in the life of the farmers and the community in that village. With the increase in income level and cropping intensity the farmers are planning to bring improve varities of seed and follow water efficient technology like drip and sprinkler system for better productivity.
Contributor:
Shri. M.K.Patel (Project Director- DWDU Patan), Abhinandan Das (TE-DWDU,Patan), Harshat Pandiya (WDT-Agri), Hamirbhai Ayer (WDT-Engg)
Conserving the Monsoon – Case of Sabarkatha
Gujarat, is a semi arid state of India, there is varying climatic condition. Dry arid in west; high rainfall in the southern region, medium rainfall in the eastern tribal belts and erratic rainfall in north. The Sabarkantha district lies in the northern region of the Gujarat.
Sabarkantha lies between 24°31”N to 23°34”N latitude and 72° 44” to73° 39” and Sabarkatha is bounded by Rajasthan in west and Meshana and Banaskantha in West, Gandhinagar in south west, Kheda in South and Panchalmahal in south-east. The western side of the district is bounded by the river Sabarmati, where as hills of Arvalli acts as natural boundary toward the northern and eastern region.
The topography of this district is also no equally same. Himmatnagar, Idar, Talod, Parantji are having the flat to gentle topography, Khedbrahama, Vijaynagar, Vadali, Bhiloda, Meghraj are having forest with hilly and undulating land. The yearly rainfall of Sabarkantha district is 700-800mm. The cultivation is also varied from Khedbrahama to Prantji and Bayad to Himmatnagar. Cropping pattern generally followed is Maize, cotton, wheat, castor, fennel and Vegetables in the different taluka. The major problem source of water, especially irrigation
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Various activity have been undertaken under Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP), in Sabarkantha District from year 2009-10 like Waste weir, Stagger Contour Trench (SCT), Check walls, stone bunding, New Pond & Pond Deepening etc. One of the activities undertaken was constructing new Pond/ deepening of the existing ponds. The new Ponds, Pond deepening and Farm pond acts as reservoirs constructed for purpose of storing water, essentially controls the surface run-off. The major objectives of the structure are:
• Provide the supplementary irrigation to crops.
• Pond are also used for storing rain water in area of rain-fed agriculture
• They are also used as percolation and recharging of the ground water.
Design and Technical Specification of the Pond
The design of the pond /reservoirs required estimation of asset of parameter related to watershed and hydro-meteorological condition
• From the economic point of site of a pond should be located where there is a scope og largest storages volume with the least earth work.
• The command area occurs at the valley in narrow and side slope are steep.
• The command area should be close as possible to the pond and suitable for agriculture.
• The downstream should permit natural passage for safe disposal of surplus water.
For the padlock the rain water for irrigation purpose there is various structures. In them one is pond/pond deepening and farm pond.
Through an approach of IWMP, the padlocking of the rain water for the future use especially for agriculture, fisheries, crop production along with saving the natural resource for the future generation. The selection of the all structure has been done through the discussion with watershed committee, forest department of Sabarkantha (North and South) and DWDU staff with a detailed technical survey which is undertaken by WDT and cross verified by the MDT of district team and them finalized the structure.
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Table
No.1- Details of structure constructed under IWMP in Sabarkatha (IWMP 2009-10)
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Benefit of Structure
The tables below shows the details of ponds constructed under IWMP and names of the beneficiaries. It also highlights the details of land brought under lifesaving irrigation.
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Table
No.2 Village-wise Details
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Table No.3Cropping
Details
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Direct and Indirect benefit
In the district one can observe a great variation of cropping pattern, in Idar major crop is cotton, in Talod cotton and castor; in Meghraj Maize and pulses. In Kharif season cotton is major crop in Idar and Talod but in meghraj maize will be the major crops. But in general it is observed that the farmers only cultivate crop in Kharif season but generally cannot cultivate crop during Rabi in the project villages. But after the construction of the of these structures there is a visible direct and indirect benefit which are engrossed by the farmers of these project villages.2. The ground water has also improved which was visible reflected through the water availability in various wells and hand pump throughout the year.
3. Earlier, it was observed that farmers usually did not cultivate during rabi season in any of the project villages but these structures has resulted in availability of the water.
The monsoon harvested was now utilized in fields paying smiles, health, income with better hydro-ecological benefit to the environment, it’s just the beginning.
Contributor :
Siddhart Singh Bisen , Technical Expert Sabarkatha and DWDU, Sabarkatha
Community Participation key to Natural Resource Management
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"Participating community contribute towards development of a self empowered society. Resultant of this development creates a informed, highly responsible and active denizens leadership."
This post highlights such an experience of a village in the Tribal belt of Gujarat state.
The Achhala village is located 15 km away from district head quarters Godhra. The village is located inside forest area since the settlements in Achhala are done under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). The powerful sections of the FRA concern the community right to manage, protect and conserve forests which is evident when we observe the village. The dense and big teak trees and the greenery of the place say it all.
For their livelihood and income generation the people in Achhala solely depend on Agriculture and Animal husbandry based activities. Majority of families (about 79 %) is under Below Poverty Line (BPL). There is no other alternatives available within the village hence in non cropping season they had to migrate to urban areas to make their ends meet. But the major issue in the village is scarcity of water for drinking as well as for life saving irrigation of their valuable crops; especially in the hamlets which are comparatively new settlement which don’t have these established facilities.
Gujarat State Watershed Management Agency (GSWMA) under Integrated Watershed Management Program (IWMP) took up watershed development initiatives in the village in year 2009-10. The village is covered under IWMP-5 project of Batch-1, Panchmahals Districts. The project is purely community oriented and local people have a clear say in their resource management, utilization and its conservation. The project is Planned, managed, executed and operated through community based institution (Village Watershed Committee).
Community and Participation.
The solution for water problem came across as an outcome of PRA Exercise (Participatory Rural Appraisal) conducted by the Watershed Development Team (WDT) during the initial stage of project planning. The people proposed to construct a Community well which can be useful for both drinking and irrigation. The WDT finalized the activity under Entry point Activity and works were started after the approval of Gram Sabha constructed and completed within months at a cost of RS. 3 Lakhs.That construction activity directly generated benefits through employment for local people. In total 1146 Mandays were generated and in which the BPL households got benefits directly.Currently, the community well is main drinking source and water in the well is sufficiently available round the year for household usage. Above all these the villagers were able to do the second crop (Rabi) in that year where they cropped Wheat and Maize. 15 farmers took benefit of irrigation that covered an area of 10 ha. They were able to produce total 100Qtl. Maize and 50Qtl. Wheat out of that season. The monetary benefits counted round about 1.59 Lakhs. With the availability of water in summer the farmers able to do vegetable farming, which is more profitable. Ladyfinger and Beans are major crops cultivated. The details about farmers and their Rabi season crop production is given below.
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The way ahead….
Furthermore the IWMP project has incorporated a plan of providing more assistance to the farmers in its Net Planning through convergence strategy of amount worth Rs.5 Lakhs with Bac ward Region Grant Fund (BRGF), through which facility for lift irrigation will be provided.
This entire episode shows that the necessity of community participation and unity in addressing the issues related to them and solving it with the resources available around them for better tomorrow.
Contributors : Kiran KP, Technical Expert Panchmahals and DWDU, Panchmahals
Small Changes, Large Benefits
“Can small things make huge difference? It is often told to learn from creatures as small as an ant. A small atom of hydrogen hold the immense power to collapse a huge area, although small they make major change.”Here is the story of small things which made a huge difference in life of rural farmer. Integrated Watershed Management Program is the catalyst behind the story. When did the project start?
The project was started in year 2012-13 and this particular village Chilarvant is part of IWMP-12 project cluster with other fifteen villages of taluka Chottaudepur district Vadodara.
The Need to Execute Watershed Activities in the Villages
The primary reason to promote watershed activities was to improve the agriculture and related activities with the help of conserved water. As most of the people in the area depend on agriculture as livelihood both for consumption and production purposes, unless the watershed activities are under taken the scope for agricultural development seemed meagre. Although dairying is one of the important occupations of the area, the primary source of income is agriculture hence, unless agriculture is developed, per capita income, nutritional status, quality of produce; productivity, economic growth itself is not possible. Cropping pattern also had to be changed to take advantage of both the seasons. Agriculture being the central and connecting link, this project will bring equal opportunities for the poor and marginalized population which is not privileged enough to have enough basic amenities. Also, due to depletion of fertility of soil, water drain and its frequent exposure to drought makes it an area of concern.
It was needed to ensure that poor household has a sustainable livelihood that will increase the economic status of the people and over a period of time increase the asset ownership, self esteem and social participation of down trodden people. The reason for the promotion of watershed was to bring economic growth in the area, where the bottom of the pyramid comprises of BPL households.
Table-1 : Interventions carried out:
Impacts of the Interventions
1. Status of water table and recharging of water
Water table of the ground water is considerable raised this was directly seen from the well of the beneficiary farmer. Previously the water level of that particular well was 35-40 ft from ground level during last kharif. However during current kharif season 10-15 ft from ground level which is huge difference.
2. Increase in irrigation potential
A Farmer named Ratwa karsanbhai holds 2.5 Acres of land, from past few years he is regularly sowing maize in his field. However when watershed programme started in his village and two check walls were constructed in adjacent to his farm and this made a huge difference in his decision for sowing submergence paddy rather than maize.What made him to change his decision?One of checkwall were constructed near his farm in year 2013-14 and right from the first year it gave good results, it stored huge amount of water which is sufficient to irrigate his paddy crop rather than maize. As you can see from picture-1 huge amount of water is being stored and from picture-2 we can see that the farmer is irrigating water in his paddy field with help of just gravity.
3. Social changes: (Community rapport and farmers view point
This little changes which drew good benefits has created a good rapport with community of and has earned the trust of the villagers and now more and more farmer are willing to adopt watershed measures in their farms and their view point towards development has changed.
Farmer Quotes
This is just amazing, water level in my well has risen upto 3mts and it is almost full and I have saw that much water in the well. We could have never know the benefit of check walls more than now.......... more check dams and check walls should be constructed to improve our farming”............
Ratwa karsanbhai (Farmer)
Name of the Village : Chilarvant
Name of the project : IWMP-12
Name of Taluka : Chottaudepur
Name of the District : Vadodara
Contributor : Nitya Pasala, Technical Expert Vadodara and DWDU, Vadodara