Hyderabad: Is blaming IPL matches and the government for the ongoing water crisis and barring water usage for cricket pitches a solution for the huge drinking and irrigation water crisis in Maharasthra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and other parts of the country?
Agricultural experts and farmer’s federations say there is much more to be done in the battle against drought and the water crisis – caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon and excessive exploitation.
Helping farmers to produce more with less water and conservation of water at individual household level hold key to the solution. Neither the government nor the farming community acted on it.
Water-consuming paddy and sugarcane are being cultivated despite being discouraged as there is no penalisation or enforcement by the government. The water-use efficiency in high-value crops such as flowers, vegetables and chickpea, is high compared to paddy and sugarcane.
Farmers also dig borewells indiscriminately and the government has control over neither crop pattern nor water resources. While in Maharasthra, sugarcane is cultivated in a large area, in Andhra and Telangana paddy is cultivated on large scale. Free power is fuelling excessive exploitation of water.
Mr P Chengal Reddy of Consortium of Indian Farmers Association says, “Majority of farmers have no knowledge on alternate crops and their markets. Paddy needs 13 to 15 wettings. But groundnut, cotton and other crops need four to five wettings.”
Majority of water is consumed for high water intensity crops. Even if 20 per cent of high water consuming paddy crop is brought down in whole country there will still be no problem for grains as high yielding varieties — like it is happening in China — will help offset the loss.
For sugarcane, drip irrigation is a good solution. He added that there should be a state level agriculture advisory committee comprising of scientists and experts to ensure that there is cohesive crop patterning.
The World Resources Institute in its report said, “Farmers in arid areas, or areas with irregular rainfall, depend heavily on groundwater for irrigation. The Indian government subsidises the farmers’ electric pumps and places no limit on the volume of groundwater they extract, creating a widespread pattern of excessive water use and strained electrical grids.”
ICRISAT, in one of its reports, mentioned that evidence from field surveys in some selected districts of Andhra Pradesh showed that water requirement is growing at an alarming pace.
“Agriculture in the state is confronting three main water-related problems. A declining water table due to increasing number of wells, waterlogging and soil salinity due to mismanagement of surface irrigation and land degradation due to aquaculture,” a report said. The water table in the state has been consistently falling due to expansion of area irrigated through groundwater.
“Though the irrigated area marginally increased from 35 per cent in the early 1980s to 42 per cent in 2000, the increase largely came from groundwater irrigation (bore-wells). The shift to groundwater has led to over-exploitation of water resources and depletion of water table in several areas. As production from dry lands has become highly uncertain, farmers seek to manage the risk of drought by digging new wells/bore-wells at an exorbitant cost and at a considerable risk of failure,” the ICRISAT report said.
AP and TS governments’ agriculture plans also speak about several measures on promoting low water consuming crops but it is not followed on the ground. The ground reality is very different. The TS Agriculture Department action plan 2015-16 has efficient water management as one of its focus areas.
Mr. N Eswara Reddy, Hydro Geologist, said, “Rainfall pattern has been changing due to climate change both in terms of space and time but quantum of rainfall hasn’t changed much.
There is more utilisation of water than recharge annually and majority of water is used for irrigation purpose. The attitude of farmers will be that if they have water they want to go for assured crop in view of their own food security and fodder for cattle.”
