Orissa village turns tide against drought

By Ranjan K. Panda Mar 27, 2007, 6:56 GMT

Sambalpur (Orissa), March 27 (IANS) By the early 1980s, Padiabadmal, a remote tribal village in Orissa's Sambalpur district had lost its forests. Lost with it were the village's age-old mechanisms to cope with drought till a farmer pioneered a movement to bring back its lost glory.

'Since 1982, our village has become testimony to a new phenomenon - large scale migration in search of jobs outside,' says Mahadev Bhoi, a 65-year-old farmer who has seen his village through both phases - prosperity and penury. 'Before the '80s, although we had years of drought and migration, we were not too distressed,' he says.

The village had a good forest cover and traditional water harvesting structures, which helped in coping through drought years.

But, Mahadev, an ordinary farmer with four acres of land, is also witness to another phase of development, which he has led in his village.

He has successfully experimented with traditional knowledge and wisdom of harvesting rainwater and conserving ecology. The youngsters have followed his example and the village has turned its grey topography to green once again. Migration has stopped since 2004, reports Grassroots Features.

'We have four acres of land, and paddy was the principal crop even when I was a child. However, we had indigenous seeds at home and had other crops to sustain the farming. We had paddy at crop fields and millet at the uplands and field bonds,' says Mahadev.

As a young farmer, he convinced his father to start vegetable farming and they succeeded to some extent. 'We had a particular type of water harvesting structure near our crop fields and that sustained our vegetable farming besides helping the paddy fields,' says Mahadev. 'As time passed, however, for some reasons I can't recall, the villagers started facing difficulties.'

Things changed so drastically that the villagers migrated en masse in search of jobs and the village wore a deserted look each drought year.

'It continued almost for two decades when Manav Adhikar Seva Samiti (MASS), a voluntary organisation, came to us and discussed our plight in 2001,' says Nrushingha Charan Naik, president of Brajeswari Krushak Club, which was formed after MASS motivated and organised the villagers.

The village plan that we made with help of MASS helped us revisit all those areas and indigenous technology, informs Puspashree Nayak, a senior programme officer with the organisation. But, when it came to reviving some of the structures, the difficult task was to decide who would start first? No farmer wanted to take a risk because MASS didn't offer an easy grant. 'People had to contribute a major portion of the work through labour and we only offered meagre grants,' says Nayak.

Mahadev decided to experiment yet again. He constructed a huge 200 sq ft 'paenghara' (small tank), which cost Rs.7,000. MASS provided him with 80 percent of the cost and he had to contribute the rest in the form of labour.

The first revival by Mahadev brought him instant benefits. Besides saving his crops, he could also start growing multiple crops. In a year's time, about 11 farmers constructed such paengharas.

With the water scarcity situation easing, migration also stemmed to a large extent. The challenge then was to look beyond paddy and practice sustainable farming, which required crop diversification. But breaking the shackles of current agriculture practices in their village was not easy for the villagers and Mahadev.

During his younger days, deviations in rainfall patterns were not too extreme. The villagers, therefore, were happy with their paddy production and never thought of supplementary cultivation or diversification of their cropping patterns. However, repeated failures of the kharif crop have forced the villagers to think beyond paddy.

Here too Mahadev took the lead. He began diversification of crops with kulthi and berseem crops. The villagers succeeded in their initiatives as those crops require little rainfall. Mahadev then thought of vegetables and other crops.

The villagers now have two types of collectives - a farmer's club and all-women self-help groups (SHG) - and have taken several initiatives to drought-proof their village. The villagers have studied traditional drought resistant seeds of paddy that had earlier helped them to cope with drought years. 'We have also started collecting other types traditional seeds,' informs Nayak.

Currently, there are as many as five women SHGs in the village. It is a matter of pride for the SHG members that all the public representatives to the local grassroots-level body are members of their federation. 'With these kinds of initiatives, we feel empowered as our vulnerability has decreased considerably,' says Premshila Bhoi, president of one of the SHGs.

Not only has availability of water increased but food production is also on the rise. The village institutions are taking up social issues too. Most importantly, the village has decided to take up forest protection to sustain all these efforts.

'Unless the forests are conserved, no water conservation efforts will succeed,' says Mahadev, a hero at 65.

Will other villages get champions like him?

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service