Farmers Scarred by Mining Recover Lost Ground as Green Crops Smile on Rocky Land | Bharat Dogra

Farmers of Makanpurswami village, located in Mandrayal block of Karauli district (Rajasthan) were experiencing a lot of difficulties about a decade back. This is a rocky area known for its stone mining, and cultivation had been adversely affected (although not to the same extent as seen in the context of very large-scale mining). Increasing water scarcity had combined with this to create conditions in which most farmers were unable to cultivate a significant part of their land, while the yield on the cultivated land was also not commensurate with the high and increasing expenses of farming.

In this increasingly difficult situation farmers of this and some neighboring villages took an important initiative based on self-help with unity. They collected small donations from within the community to conserve rainwater at a suitable location so that water availability for crops could improve. This helped to improve the situation to some extent, but keeping in view the resource constraints the one-time small effort was just not adequate to make a significant and lasting improvement.

In this situation a voluntary organization SRIJAN (Self-Reliant Initiatives for Joint Action) came in contact with this village and recognizing its potential for taking up development work with unity and cooperation, mobilized community members further for more achievements.

SRIJAN helped to improve and deepen water sources. With de-silting taken up properly, the depth of water sources improved and in addition highly fertile silt became available for farms. With its technical skills, SRIJAN facilitated creating bunds on farms in improved ways and helped in the levelling of uneven land.

In the course of this work it became clear that the farmers here certainly have the capability of taking up a lot of improvements on their farms and in the wider village environs, using their rich understanding of local conditions, but they lack the resource base to sustain such efforts. SRIJAN on the other hand had the ability not to just provide more resources and additional technical expertise, but in addition its activists had the ability to establish close bonding with and within the community so that inspirational conditions to take forward a lot of work in less time could be created. Even during the relatively short time of my visit to this village I could see the affection villagers have for SRIJAN members. As the team leader of SRIJAN here Bhavani Singh had to be away for some time for developing another such initiative in a different part of Rajasthan, they repeatedly told him—now please don’t go away again.

A working model has been created in which farmers share some of the costs of improvement work while SRIJAN provides a bigger share of the resources.
SRIJAN also helped to introduce natural farming practices which improved sustainability and reduced expenses of farmers.

In addition SRIJAN also helped villagers to have better access to various development schemes of the government, while government officials were also happy to get SRIJAN’s help to ensure that their schemes, such as the one for providing solar pumps, would be better implemented and show more encouraging results.

Ballabh and Vimla are farmers who have been in the forefront of these initiatives. As Vimla says pointing to a lush green farm of diverse vegetables—Look at how these green plants are smiling but this was rocky abandoned land earlier. Ballabh adds—A lot of fertile silt had to be deposited on such land before such a wonderful transformation was possible. This we would not have been able to do without the help of SRIJAN, he adds.

They have also increasingly adopted natural farming and together set up a bio-resource center where they prepare bio-fertilizers and pest repellants. Thanks to natural farming, buyers have come to their farm to purchase wheat, offering much higher rate for their healthier produce, close to one and a half times the normal rate.

Maan Singh is another farmer who has been a very enthusiastic participant in these efforts. He says initially yield may decline for some time in natural farming but after some time it recovers. In addition there is the definite advantage of avoiding the expenditure on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. He has also been helped with the subsidized availability of a solar pump which has also reduced the expenditure on diesel for lifting water, he adds.
Farmers here mention many-sided gains, but the biggest source of their happiness remains the ability now to not only cultivate that land which they had almost given up as infertile and uncultivable, but even to get good yields and healthier food on this land.

Teen Pokhar village located in this same block is known for its many problems including not just difficult land conditions and water scarcity but in addition also excessive threat to crops from wild animals.

Keeping in view the extremely difficult conditions some voluntary organizations have come forward to create and repair water structures in this village. In recent times these efforts have been led by SRIJAN which has created 8 new ponds while helping to improve, strengthen, deepen and de-silt about 18 other existing ponds.

This work is taken up with close community involvement so that proper sites with adequacy of catchment are selected and digging, bund work, outlet and related work are taken up properly, the effort being to ensure that any excess water finds its way to another water source. Natural farming has also been promoted here, as also bund creation, land levelling and deposition of fertile silt on farmland. While SRIJAN helped some farmers with solar pumping sets, it has been able to help even more farmers in getting linked to government schemes from where they could get solar pumps.

As I was walking back from a new pond or a pokhar near which we had a group discussion, I saw how some farmers had worked very hard on fencing to protect their crops from wild animals. A farmer was in the early stage of cultivating land which had not been cultivated earlier. The fact that even in such difficult conditions farmers here are thinking of increasing cultivation, not of withdrawing from it, is evidence of the hope that SRIJAN has been able to create in the middle of very difficult situations.

The development initiatives in these two villages, which are being supported financially by the Standard Chartered Bank, are also in tune with the increasingly important need for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

(Author: Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food)