The Hindu Business Line : ‘Food security is in dryland water harvesting’

Conserving for the future: The Tamil Nadu Rural Industries and Animal Husbandry Minister, Mr Pongalur N. Palanisamy (left), taking a look at a stall after inaugurating the exhibition on "Water harvesting" at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore on Monday.

G. Gurumurthy

Coimbatore, June 23 Water conservation management should focus on dryland agriculture to ensure food and nutritional security of India as 60 per cent of the country’s 143 million hectares of cultivable lands come under rain-fed areas, an international symposium on water harvesting held here on Monday was told.

Poor resource base of farmers combined with labour and water scarcity, inadequate use of inputs like balanced fertiliser, and non adoption of high-yielding varieties make dryland agriculture a non-profitable venture, forcing the farmers to abandon farming itself, the Tamil Nadu Rural Industries Minister, Mr Pongalur N. Palanisamy, who inaugurated the symposium at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) here, has said.

While canal irrigated tracts largely remained unchanged, tank-irrigated areas have shrunk from one-third to one-fifth, with the result that well-irrigated areas increased from 30 per cent to 45 per cent.

This scenario, according to the minister, underlined the need to conserve rain water harvesting in rainfed areas through scientific development of dryland agro technologies on the lines of intensive agricultural packages during the first green revolution in 1960s-70s.

3-day symposium

The three-day international symposium is jointly organised by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), NABARD and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in association with TNAU.

Speaking on the occasion, the Unesco representative, Dr B.R. Neupane, said that 40 per cent of the world’s population suffered from water shortage and a majority of them relied heavily on agriculture, practising subsistence farming.

Development of irrigation in arid and semi-arid regions is found difficult due to climatic constraints and expansion of irrigation is seen as not cost effective or environmentally friendly. Hence the focus on development of rainfed agriculture which is important to improve food security.

Rain water harvesting

Rain water harvesting in rain-fed areas in India assumed importance because 40 per cent of its food production, 75 per cent of oil seeds and 85 per cent of cereals/pulses produced come from dryland/rain-fed tracts which also account for 60 per cent of livestock population, according to Dr A.K. Singh, Deputy Director General, ICAR.

Though the country’s average annual rainfall at 117 cm is above the global average fall of 110 cm, it lacked water harvest management, leading to heavy soil erosion and soil nutrition losses, he said, adding that climatic changes and changing weather patterns point to India facing more intensive but short spells of rains and flash flooding and would call for strengthening the water storage mechanism in future.

The symposium is being attended by water management experts from UK, Iran, Japan, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Canada.

More Stories on : Water | Cultivation | Tamil Nadu

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