Water Resource Management — The First Step Towards Regenerative Agriculture
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Healthy soil, the foundation of regenerative agriculture, is characterized by plenty of organic matter (OM) on it such as dry leaves, plant exudates and animal waste and remains that turn into rich hummus, creating a healthy top soil. This acts like a sponge for capturing water from surface run off, maintains moisture in the soil, teems with soil organisms, and aids the decomposition of OM, thus following a closed-loop cycle. This is the Living Soil, crucial for capturing water, moisture and nutrients back into the soil.
The Tropical Permaculture Guidebook, Chapter 9 says, “With healthy living soil plants are more drought resistant. The soil can store much more water, and the plants can send roots much deeper into the ground to find water and nutrients. Plants are more disease and pest resistant because they have more water and all the nutrients they need for strong and healthy growth. An unhealthy person becomes sick more often, and it is the same for plants.”
Conversely, chemical farming results in unhealthy soil and does not close the loop, resulting in an unsustainable farming system. Erode and Tiruppur districts in Tamil Nadu, India are prime examples of this. And that is why we are setting up 3 demonstration farms to showcase how farmers can change this vicious cycle and convert to profitable regenerative agriculture.
Water Situation in Tamil Nadu
The Erode-Tirupur districts are a part of the main agricultural belt of Tamil Nadu. According to several news reports, such as Soil Fertility in Tamil Nadu Reduced by half in 30 years, says govt paper, indiscriminate fertilizer and pesticide usage, monocultures, and non-application of manure like cow dung that is rich in microorganisms and nutrients, green manuring and mulching, has taken a toll on the organic content in the soil. All this has severely affected soil fertility across the state along with water shortages, crop failures and farmer distress.
According to another news report, Karnataka sees drastic dip in ground water levels, shows that among all the southern states of India, Tamil Nadu saw the most decline in ground water levels between 2007 and 2017.
In another news report, Tamil Nadu a forerunner in organic farming yet lacking in policy, feel experts, Selvam, a managing committee member of the Organic Farming Association of India, along with other organic farming activists emphasize the importance of organic farming being less water intensive with strategies that in fact step up the ground water reserves. He says, “being a water-starved state, Tamil Nadu has to choose organic farming as it consumes less water. In the long-term, this would be vital as the water crisis is going to aggravate in one or other form in the coming years.”
What We Did
As a part of our design implementation on the 3 demo farms, we started with preparing for accelerated soil rejuvenation strategies and techniques I learnt from Clea Chandmal, an experienced permaculture practitioner based in Goa. Soil rejuvenation is a part of water resource management because a soil full of OM and hummus acts as a sponge to soak up as much water runoff. We collected locally available biomass over summer, such as dry leaves, twigs, crop residues that were easily available being a farming belt, and sugarcane bagasse from local juice vendors as it was in season. These were piled up in corners on each demo farms to be used in June-July to get started on soil rejuvenation.
In the meantime, we got started on water resource management using earthworks i.e. with an earthmoving JCB machine. These machines are best used before we start the soil rejuvenation as any overuse of machinery will compact the soil, inhibiting its porosity and capacity to catch and store water.
We designed water resource management strategies and techniques with some variations in design for each of the 3 demo farms, taking into consideration the existing soil type, climatic conditions and availability of water from existing irrigation canals and water bodies as well as rainfall patterns. The overall objective for all three demo farms is to step-up the ground water levels by capturing as much run off as possible during the rains and while irrigating and to rejuvenate the soil with lots of biomass and farmyard manure.
Demo Farm: Dry & Arid
At the Anicham demo farm, at Ponnapuram, Tiruppur district which is a predominantly arid with less rainfall, the soil is hard and except weeds no crops have been cultivated here for the last couple of years, we undertook extensive water resource management. We dug a small pond on the low-lying area of the farm. We also dug trenches along the borders. We will be making swales along the contour soon. We planted lemon grass and vetiver on the borders of the trenches along with some mixed tree saplings, to prevent both water and soil erosion.
After this we started soil rejuvenation with all the biomass we collected over summer. We first did some green manuring with sun hemp seeds when there was some initial rainfall and drizzle, to save on the efforts of irrigation and when it grew to about 2–3 feet high, we turned it in with ‘rotovator’, a type of blade attached to a tractor that turns the soil over gently. We then used Clea’s accelerated soil rejuvenation method with lots of diluted cow dung and urine, easily available from the cows at this farm along with dry smaller sized biomass, and some good topsoil from under a large peepul tree close by. All this was finally covered with large dry coconut leaves to keep the soil supple, cool and moist for microorganisms to thrive. This is periodically lightly watered when there is no rain and before we start sowing.
Demo Farm: Semi-Irrigated
The Vengai and Kurinji demo farms, at Kangayam, Tiruppur district are an existing coconut grove interspaced with some banana plantation. We are using the spaces in between for showcasing regenerative agriculture with the coconuts and banana trees as a part of it. This is again an arid region but with the availability of irrigated water facility as it is near the banks of the Amaravathi river. We made trenches on the lower end borders and will be making swales through the land on contour. Soil rejuvenation was done as we did for Anicham.
Demo Farm: Well-Irrigated
The Payini and Vadavanam demo farms, at Kurumandur, Erode district had crops cultivated year on year, though using chemical farming and monocultures. The soil is darker, suppler and water is available in plenty, both via the existing water bodies in the vicinity and rainfall. We decided not to do any earthworks here because of the way the demo farm is located between other monoculture crops and agroforestry will be minimum. Soil rejuvenation was done as we did for Anicham and we also planted some lemon grass on the lower end borders to prevent soil and water erosion.
We will soon be making swales on contour lines across the demo farms 1 and 2 to slow, spread and soak water before it leaves the land to step up groundwater levels on the land. The best place to store water is in fact in the soil itself, as plants need moisture and a healthy soil that go hand in hand, with a multitude of benefits.
Water Management Systems: Traditional to Current Times
There were several traditional farming practices in India that were sustainable before the advent of the green revolution that brought with it chemicals, hybrid and later GMO seeds. Tamil Nadu was in fact one of the areas where manmade water management was very resourcefully done, as rainfall was generally never enough to subsist through the year.
The article, Modern India Can Learn a Lot from These 20 Traditional Water Conservation Systems, elaborates on the Eri (ஏரி) or manmade tank system of Tamil Nadu which is one of the oldest water management systems of India. The Eris (ஏரி) not only recharged ground water, they also acted as flood-control systems, prevented soil erosion, captured runoff during heavy rainfall. This traditional Eri system was the reason paddy cultivation in Tamil Nadu was possible.
In the precolonial times in Tamil Nadu, there were man-made, rain fed water systems that consisted of an elaborate network of inter-connected reservoirs called Eris (ஏரி), tanks, lakes and ponds. This marvellous indigenous system was managed as common property resources at an autonomous village level and represented an extended habitat in the region that served as a repository of economic, political and cultural capital.
Also, mega projects and dams are not sustainable solutions to the problem of water scarcity and only end up shifting the issue from one region to another, often leading to water wars and bloodshed. On the other hand, more decentralised solutions are both sustainable and a low cost solution to the problem.
In today’s scenario, one needs to take the best out of the traditional practices and also creatively problem solve to find sustainable solutions and practices suited to our current circumstances.
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