The Hindu : Conservation of ponds saves paddy crops

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Conservation of ponds saves paddy crops

By G. Prabhakaran

PALAKKAD, MARCH 6 . Providing a silver lining to the severe drought conditions, farmers of the Parithikkavu Nellulpadhaka Padasekhara Samithy have saved their paddy cultivation in 75 hectares by conserving four ponds used for irrigating the crop.

The 102-member Samithy is jubilant over its efforts to save the crop with the help of water from four ponds (1 to 4 acres extent) even as the second crop of paddy cultivation was lost in most parts of the district for want of irrigation water.

The Samithy had taken special care to conserve the traditional water bodies that helped farmers convert the single crop areas into double crop paddy fields.

The Padasekhara Samithy was founded in 1982 with the aim of organising farmers as a self-help group to successfully carry out agriculture as a profitable and sustainable model for the State. The Samithy's activities met with success and soon its membership increased from 25 to 102 farmers spread over 75 hectares of paddy fields. Now another 700 acres of the nearby paddy fields have come under its fold.

In recognition of its pioneering work in group farming, the Samithy won the first `Nel Kathir' award presented by the Government to the best rice group farming society in the State. The award carries Rs.1 lakh, a gold medal and citation.

Recently, the Samithy was selected as one of the eight farmer organisations in the country by the Union Ministry of Agriculture as part of its `Integrating Front Line Extension System in the country' for meaningful transfer of technology to farmers. It was given a grant of Rs. 4 lakhs by the Central Government for the purpose.

Farmers belonging to the Samithy had successfully adopted the group farming approach to cut down cultivation costs at a time when paddy cultivation was becoming a losing proposition in the State. Group farming cultivation was later adopted by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Kerala, as a model to be extended throughout the State.

The implementation of the community nursery in Padasekharam reduced the loss to farmers, who were motivated to practise group approach in other agricultural operations too. Under the intensive agriculture practised by the members, soil-testing was done at regular intervals and the soil map prepared by the Samithy was updated. In the traditional method, the farmers were using local varieties such as Thavalakkannan, Chenkazhama, Anakkomban, etc., which yielded around 1,750 kg. per hectare. Under group farming, they use high-yielding varieties such as Kairali and Kanchana in the first crop season and Mahsuri in the second crop season, with an average yield of 5,000 kg. per hectare.

Group farming has considerably helped improve the socio-economic and educational status of farm families and improved their standard of living. Earlier, farmers used to earn a profit of Rs. 2,800 per acre of paddy cultivation, while now they earn Rs.7,800 per acre through group farming, the Samithy secretary, T.A. Viswanathan, said.

The Samithy has also successfully ventured into mechanisation without affecting the job opportunities of agricultural labourers. Its products are marketed through the Thathamangalam Service Co-operative Bank.

Mr. Viswanathan said the Samithi had strong intra and inter-personal relationships with various Government agencies working in the area. Apart from increasing agriculture production and improving the standard of living of farmers, the Samithy had been successful in extending its reach to nearby villages and more group farming Samithies had been formed. Already, 700 hectares of paddy fields in the nearby panchayat had been brought under the Samithy's area of operation. The Samithi also acts as a coordinator for 16 farmers' organisations in the area for developing and implementing farming activities.

The Samithy had also taken up many social programmes for its members. It had started an agricultural club in the local school, giving emphasis on vegetable cultivation. It had also established a library on agriculture for the benefit of farmers.

The Samithy secretary said that "our experience and observations indicated that there was a clear relationship between credit and corruption. To avoid this social menace, the Samithy developed a single window system for its members for receiving subsidies, free gifts, loans and credits made available to the villages by development agencies.

This helped them in easier identification of credit requirements of individual, groups, further prevention of misuse and wilful default, thereby putting a check on farmers falling into debt trap," the secretary said.

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