A small farmer Eranna S/o Sannadoddiah resident of Bangarihatti, owns 5 acre of land. Among which, in survey No.14/8, he has a borewell to irrigate his coconut plantation of 1 acre and which can irrigate another one acre. He was using this borewell water for irrigating horticulture crops and for growing food crops in kharif season. It was yielding 1 to 1.5 inches of water.
Challenges encountered before project
Because of continuous dry spells, the borewell was drying in every summer season, which could run only 30 minutes with less output.
Monsoon vagaries challenged and pulled him from cultivating entire 4 acre available land. Thus, he was growing Ragi, sunflower and a little quantity of vegetables.
He was not willing to drill one more borewell to test his fortune. From all of these reasons his financial crisis emerged.
Brief description of activity implemented/undertaken (describe process involved in implementation of activity)
When the project initiated in the village, he was selected as a beneficiary under NABARD-KFW assisted soil project, which was aimed to reduce vulnerability to climate change of small scale farmers through conservation, stabilization and improvement of natural resources in Salugatte Nala Watershed.
Under NABARD soil project, MOTHER’s technical team advised Eranna to adopt Borewell reacharge pit (BRCP) to his borewell as the catchment was good. Initially he disagreed, but after several advices and motivational programs he adopted BRCP technology in the month of June 2017.
He immediately grown Ridge gourd using the borewell water. After borewell recharge pit it started yielding 2.5 inches of water.
PFA can highlight the interventions, responsible for increase in yield, income and productivity.
Management of water resources is very important in irrigation. The disproportionate utilization of ground water against requirement has made the situation tough. Now the ground water has gone down, wells are dried; one has to drill 1000-1200 ft for getting ground water; which should not be done.
The Borewell Recharge Pit replenish ground tables and aquifers with naturally filtered rainwater. It helps in water yield from the borewells in dry season also. Availability of water round the year will increase the yield and income for sure.
Key lessons learnt
Now he knows –
- Water conservation is more important to lift water through borewell.
- Run off rain water can be easily harvested into BRCP to have round the year water.
- How effectively one can use available resources without additional high investment.
III Impact analysis
Now whole family involved in agriculture. They are earning regular income almost round the year.
- Doubling of income : After adaptation of BRCP, his income was doubled. He earned Rs.58000/- more than his previous year income Rs.52000/-.
In addition, he tried a new crop Hybrid Ridge gourd in 20 cents of his land with the help of Borewell water. He earned Rs.60000/- within 4 months. Now again he cultivated the same crop in one acre and expecting good income.
Thus total earnings for the year was Rs.170000/-.
- Giving back to earth : Percolation of water is also as important as lifting of water. He did it effectively. His BRCP activity, is functioning well, during 2017 monsoon, it filled more than 2 times and his borewell did not dry this summer. Thus water is saved and his income also sustained.
He happily expressed - “this project is a god gift for small and marginal farmers. It reduced my burden of drilling one more borewell. It runs continuously four hours with the same output now. Thanks to the project team”.