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There are many examples of farmers' creativity and PTD mostly done in the wake of a necessity or deriving inspiration by a farmer-friendly media. If we analyse the utility and acceptability of such technologies innovated by the farmers, they have a few messages for our scientific community to re-orient their future line of action.
Since the last six years, our unique farm magazine, Adike Patrike is regularly dissemination information on rainwater harvesting (RWH) . Success stories of RWH are being serialised. This is a pioneering effort in this field in Karnataka State.
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Anand made a few furrows in his cement footpath to divert the fallen roofwater to open area of his house. That augmented the water level in his well.
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Today, with whatever feedback we have received, thousands of farmers and non-farmers in 7-8 districts have started harvesting rain on individual level sans government subsidy. Those who have understood the principle and importance of 'Catching rain where it falls' have made several innovations and experimentations, using their common sense.
Rain harvesting warrants site-specific or location specific selection, prioritization and alterations of the methods. It is in this important area that our farmers have shown good understanding of issue and application.
A.S. Anand is a resident of Shimoga. Due to digging of bore-wells in neighborhood, level of water in his dug-well came down from 12 feet to one foot last year. The cement pathway leading to the house from his gate was carrying all the roof water to the road. He had to check the flow and divert the water to the garden area to facilitate percolation. After many trial and errors, he asked the mason to make 3-4 furrows done in the cement pathway. This small attempt was suffice to lead all the roof water to the garden. Now his well has again registered 12 ft water level. Total expenditure - Rs. 250.
Manjunath Hebbar is a farmer in Bhatkal, Utthara Kannada District. He has a dug-well inside the house that was overflowing 5-6 times a year one and half decades ago. The stopping of overflow, Hebbar realized is an indication of lowered water table. He tried to analyse the reason. He has about five acres of vegetation in the backside hill. These trees were lopped every year to ensure supply of green leaves to the cattle shed, a main input of farmyard manure. Hebbar read a feature in our magazine written by another farmer as to how he is directly feeding the slurry, urine and cattle washing to the gardens from his paved cattle shed. This reduces the necessity of green leaves and saves a lot on labour. Hebbar followed this method. That saved his trees from sickle. Now, after 4-5 years, his well has again started overflowing as in yester years.
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Dr Ramachandra Rao simply made some arrangements to ensure that his roofwater gets percolated in his compound itself. Earlier it was flowing out. Water level of his well came up from 1 foot to 10 feet in summer end.
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Dr. A.G. Ramachandra Rao lives in Mangalore. His dug-well had 15 ft of water at summer end a decade ago. Bore wells in the surroundings depleted the water table. When the level lowered to one foot in summer, Rao almost decided to go for a bore-well. It was at this juncture he read a book and saw slide show in RWH. His house is on a slightly sloping land; lower half doesn't have open area - it's fully tarred. The well is on upper side where there is open area. A cement bund made for the garden draws a line between the tarred and open areas. After a lot of thinking, Rao made all his roof water to fall on the upper side of the land by plugging the outlets at lower end. All the water that gathered on the land below used to infiltrate in an hour or two. He didn't even have to go for digging pits. Present level of water in his well at summer end is 10 feet.
Dr. Shantaraja Gowda of NR Pura in Chickmagalur District has a small seasonal stream flowing down the nearby forest. It used to go waste after joining to another big stream outside his fence. Shantaraj has made the small stream to enter his land and to put one round to his farm before merging with the bigger stream. All along this diverted route, he has made checks, percolation tanks etc. This single intelligent step will facilitate lakhs of litres of water to percolate in his farm.
Suranga or man-made horizontal caves for water is a traditional water harvesting system unique to Kasaragod and Dakshina Kannada districts. A farmer in Kasaragod district, Shivaprakash Paleppady is simply diverting all the Suranga water into his dug-well. Advantage is that Suranga is on a higher elevation and the clear water doesn't require filtering. His well that generally goes dry by February has water till April now. A number of farmers have made arrangements to fill their dug-wells with roof water to ensure that there is no crisis for water in summer.
Using the laterite quarries for harvesting rain is another simple and easy method adopted by a number of farmers. Shrikrishna Bhat Mundya in Puttur Taluk is so convinced about RWH that he has declared that borewells aren't permanent solution for water crisis. As such, in future he won't dig a bore-well; instead initiate many more in-situ RWH measures like digging infiltration pits, planting trees etc.
Winny D'Souza, a woman farmer in Udupi District had water shortage. She has dug four madakas (these are traditional community RWH structures of this area that are situated on rigde-line; like johads of Rajasthan, these too are almost vanishing) on three sides of her land. These percolation ponds collect run-off from the neighbors' lands and have ensured enough water for Winny.
Constructing check-dams is another practice that is being re-introduced. Several innovations like sand bag check-dams, ferro cement structures, plastic lining instead of a layer of compacted mud in between are being experimented .A farmer at Kanhangad has successfully gone for a GI sheet dam that eliminates the requirement of soil lining. Getting fresh soil at the dam-site year after year is a big headache for many.
Exploiting abandoned termite-hills for harvesting water is another farmer practice that isn't seen in any textbooks. The speciality is these mounds can intake a huge quantity of water in a very short time and can percolate it to a very large area.
Artificial recharge of bore-wells is another segment in which a lot of experimentation is taking place. Many of the farmers have dug a mini-well around the casing pipe and the run-off is made to percolate through filter media. A few people who get good clear water from forest or roof are directly feeding it. Yet another section has taken small holes in the casing pipes to enhance percolation. A concern here is whether the run-off can get properly filtered before it enters through the casing pipe holes. And also whether any pathogens or bacteria can get a free entry into groundwater this way and will create health-hazards in the long run. This aspect needs to be studied properly.
Idkidu in DK District has shown a unique community spirit in RWH. Though there is no much water shortage; this arecanut-growing village is heavily dependant on bore-wells. These farmers have now realized that they aren't on a sustainable path. Local youth, under their organization, 'Amrutha Sinchana' has done an extensive water status survey in the village. Based on this they have brought out a people's report titled "People's planning towards Water Sustainability." According to the survey, the 2100-acre village has 303 bore-wells and 364 wells. 230 families have bore-wells and consume 1345 horsepower electricity. Only 10 per cent wells have water throughout the year. 33 per cent of the land is under irrigated cropping. There is only 17 per cent forest left. They have started different water conservation steps among which RWH was given topmost priority. Forty farmers have started catching rain on a small way. In the first phase, these villagers intend to catch all the rain that falls on their roofs, drying yard and cattle-shed which together constitutes about 10 per cent of the total extent of the village. They have drawn up plans like spreading Water literacy to students, checking the drainage channels of gardens in summer etc.
In invention, innovation and value addition of farm machinery as well as in farming practices and labour saving devices, farmers' creativity has many examples. R & D in case of smokeless driers by name 'Astra' is a classic example.
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| Manjunatha Hebbar, a Bhatkala farmer could augment the water level in his well and rivulet by facilitating natural regeneration to in his hillock. |
Eight years ago Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore constructed an Astra drier in a Utthara Kannada (UK) farmer's house. Though the principle and economy of fuel were good, for regular operation and maintenance, it required small but important alterations. Two local youngsters started working on this. They designed outlets in many places to take out the carbon periodically. Earlier there was the problem of choking. Instead of ordinary bricks that don't last longer, factory bricks were introduced in the fire chamber. An iron frame to keep these bricks gave the system better life despite rough use by farm labourers. Later these youngsters made a portable, Assemble- at- the -spot model that made it very popular among farmers. These two fabricators, Arunkumar Joshi and Enson Techno Crafts have in the last 5-6 years made anything above 400 driers each of different capacities in many parts of Karnataka. The drier works on a least amount of agricultural waste. They have made custom built driers for pappad industry, for herbal medicine manufacturers, Arecanut value addition, for drying fruits like banana and Jackfruit etc. Similarly they have done R & D in Astra smokeless chulhas and bathroom boilers. The former is now made in a mould and can be dismantled and shifted from one place to other if need be. Many hotels in and thousands of houses in UK are using this sort of Astra ovens now. In UK District, there are nearly a dozen farmers who dry banana and sell it to retail outlets. Sukeli, the dehydrated banana fruit is now available in the market round the year. These driers and ovens wouldn't have had this vast reach among the households but for the intervention of these young bare-foot technicians.
Adike Pathrike has been throwing encouraging media light to farmer inventions and innovations. This has catalysed the farmers' creativity to an extent .In the last five year there were at least five models of arecanut spraying devices (Tekkadka Narayana Bhat of Panja, Joseph D.Souza of Kabaka, Annu Sapalya of Puttur, Jose of Pulimgome, KVG Polytechnic students of Sullia), weeding machine (Padaru Ramakrishna Shastry), arecanut peeling machines (Neernalli Ishanna, Vittal Narasimha Bhat, Sridhar of Kerala) areca peeling device (Sudarshana), manual choppers to cut green manure leaves (Kachikadu Gopalakrishna Bhat), tender-coconut punchers (Sreenivasa Achar), single wheel carts to carry loads (Kinya Sameera Rao) etc., to mention a few .
Direct feeding of slurry and cattle shed washings to arecanut garden is a method standardized by a young farmer, Padaru Ramakrishna Shastry of Bantwal Taluk. This has many benefits for the farmer though he has to put a separate pipeline to carry this liquid manure to garden. Necessity of chopping the trees for green leaves is avoided. Labour for cutting the leaf branches, taking to cattle-shed as well for the head load transport of farmyard manure is done away with. Dependence on the external input in the form of manure can be stopped. Manurial value of cattle urine isn't lost. This practice highlighted at a time when most of the farmers were on the lookout for viable alternatives for chemicals has had an overwhelming acceptance. Most of the farmers are able to make do with this manure - the purchase of fertilisers is totally stopped. In many farms, areca gardens are below the level of cattle-shed. As such they don't need to pump the liquid manure. At least 100 farmers in Dakshina Kannada and Utthara Kannada districts are following this method today.
Like the ones mentioned above there are many more examples of farmers' creativity and PTD mostly done in the wake of a necessity or deriving inspiration by a farmer-friendly media. If we analyse the utility and acceptability of the above technologies innovated by the farmers, they have a few messages for our scientific community to re-orient their future line of action.
First and foremost lesson is to understand the research needs and priorities of the farming community instead of drawing one-way conclusions. Acquiring a clear idea of the circumstances and challenges their technology has to face in the field, and understanding the education/knowledge level of end-users of the technology is another necessity. Third, and most important restraint is not to rush to press and mass application before getting sufficient amount of field-level feedback from end-users for a considerable amount of time and making corrective action or alteration if necessary. It goes without saying that these valuable inputs for the scientist doesn't come to the scientist easily; working in close association of the farming community is the basic foundation for all these creative steps to succeed. In this process, scientist will realize that the farming community can be a quite a resourceful partner in the process of technology development. But such collaboration will materialize only in a conducive atmosphere of mutual trust and respect where the farmer and scientist treat mutually as equals.
Shree Padre can be contacted at shreepadre@sancharnet.in
This paper was presented at Agriculture College, Padanakkad, Kasaragod District, Kerala (Kerala Agricultural University - KAU) on 18th September 2002, during the Winter School on Participatory Technology Development organised by KAU in which teachers of agricultural universities and scientists from various ICAR institutions of the country took part.
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