Poor Indian farmers are revolutionizing how they use water, soil, and crops to boost food production and empower communities. Allianz Knowledge editor James Tulloch visited the pioneering Adarsha Watershed, a model for dry land farmers worldwide.
 | The Golden PrizeClever water and soil management enable this Indian farmer to grow rice and then maize on the same piece of land in the same year (Photo: Allianz) |
The Kothapelly village dam is a dispiriting sight; three meters tall and 30 meters wide, but storing nothing but parched earth. It can hold two million liters of water, but in mid-March at the height of the dry season it looks like a stranded relic. It has not rained since December.
Yet the fields are not barren. In one, a turbaned farmer tears open freshly harvested maize, revealing the golden food within. In another, ripe tomatoes bask in the sun. They taste warm and sweet. Village leader P. Narasimha Reddy proudly explains this success.
“Before, there was scarcity of water. After, there was a 50 percent improvement,” he says as we stand in front of a field of growing maize. “Before, we grew only cotton. Now we also grow maize and other crops. Farmers’ income has doubled. Before, farmers didn’t educate their children. Now, 100 percent of children go to school. People were leaving to look for work, now we have inward migration.”
Lead by Example
Reddy is talking about the impacts of the Adarsha Watershed project, an innovative program of water, soil, and land management that enables Kothapelly farmers to get water not just in the rainy season but year round. Now they can harvest not just one crop a year but two or even three. One field can yield rice, then maize, and finally vegetables.
Adarsha means ‘an ideal example’, and the Watershed project is now a model for dry land farmers elsewhere in India, in Thailand, Vietnam, and even Africa.
Begun in 1999, Adarsha is the brainchild of scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), headquartered near the Indian city of Hyderabad, 40 kilometers from Kothapelly, and my guide to the new Indian agriculture.
Backed by the World Bank and United Nations, ICRISAT researches ways to help the majority of the world’s poor living on arid, non-irrigated lands. In India, their lives depend on what many people call the nation’s true finance minister: the monsoon.
Climate change means monsoons now behave more erratically. Furthermore, temperatures have risen in Kothapelly by a dramatic 3 to 4 degrees Celsius since 2000. Water is precious.
“By 2025, one third of the developing world will face physical scarcity of water. Yet between 55 and 65 percent of rainwater is not used productively,” explains Suhas Wani, ICRISAT’s principal scientist for watershed projects.
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Watershed management is his answer. A watershed is an area drained by a network of streams and watershed management is the organization of land and water use to sustain people and animals while preserving natural resources and the environment.
Water and Soil Conservation
The starting point is rainwater harvesting. Kothapelly receives annually about 780 mm of rainfall, mostly in the rainy season during July and August. This is when the dam shows its worth and the now empty reservoir fills up.
Along with dozens of other water storage and diversion structures, it traps enough rainwater to replenish groundwater and fill 28 local wells. Harvesting the rainfall also prevents soil being washed away by torrential downpours. They don’t look impressive, but the scattered check dams, gully dams, and percolation pits are potential lifesavers.
Pipes snake out from the wells, irrigating the fields and bringing drinking water to the village. Before Adarsha, 80 percent of the land was totally rainfed, and women walked several kilometers to get drinking water.
Crops cannot live on water alone. They need fertile soil too. That soil can be degraded by drought, eroded by runoff, or flooded by heavy rain.
To protect the soil and conserve water Adarsha’s “broad bed furrow” system plows wider-than-usual plant beds separated by shallow furrows. ICRISAT has developed a specially-designed plow, or “tropicultor”, for the Kothapelly farmers to make the broad beds.
The researchers also encouraged farmers to build raised “bunds” between the fields that not only prevent water and soil loss but also, when planted with nitrogen-rich Gliricidia bushes, provide natural fertilizer.
“Crop productivity in this system is almost doubled compared with a conventional system. Runoff and soil loss is reduced by 30 to 40 percent and soil erosion by 60 percent,” explains ICRISAT Lead Scientific Officer Sudi Rao as we walk along one field bund.
His point becomes clear when he accidentally steps off the bund into the field and sinks up to his ankles.
Better crop productivity also means more fodder for livestock. Before Adarsha, Kothapelly villagers got 200 to 300 liters of buffalo milk per day. Now they average 800 to 900 liters a day and villagers have begun a breeding program.
Community-Based Innovation
Adarsha is not just about water and soil conservation. What makes the project unique, and so successful, is the combination of technical solutions supplied by ICRISAT with community empowerment and socio-economic development.
Kothapelly villagers decide collectively what gets done in the watershed. In turn, they must take responsibility for interventions. “The biggest challenge,” says Sudi Rao, “is getting local people to adopt the new technology and practices.”
“Initially it was difficult,” agrees Adarsha’s pioneer Suhas Wani, “because farmers are always looking for subsidies, but we made it clear that farmers should contribute significantly. Self-help groups undertook all the watershed works. No outside contractor was involved. This approach brought transparency and quality”.
The Adarsha concept is, he stresses, a form of community development that uses water and soil conservation as an “entry point”. The women villagers can now take microloans from the Watershed Committee to raise buffaloes and grow vegetables, which also improves the villagers’ diet.
Another women’s self-help group collects waste crops and buffalo manure and feeds the mixture to earthworms, creating compost that they sell. The income has transformed the life of group-member Lakshmi. “Now I don’t have to work as a day laborer and I have money to spend on my children’s education and healthcare,” she says.
Adarsha’s broader vision emphasizes the fundamental importance of improved water management in a warming world.
The world’s farmers use three quarters of the world’s freshwater resources. To ensure water and food security, Adarsha suggests that we need another agricultural revolution: a revolution that measures not yield per hectare but yield per liter.
editor: James Tulloch
last updated: September 14, 2009
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