Watershed Management and Dry Land Agriculture a Case Study from Western Odisha

Abstract

The concept of dry land agriculture refers to a condition of growing of crops entirely under rain fed situation. Further, the dry land agriculture can be divided into three categories, depending on the amount of rainfall received by agricultural region. In India, nearly 108 million hectares of land is rain fed area and out of it, an estimated dry land area is 47 million hectares. 42 percent of the total food grains of the country come from dry land areas; these areas produce 75 percent of pulses and more than 90 percent of sorghum, millet, groundnut and pulses come from arid and semi-arid regions. But farmers depending on dry land agriculture face many challenges like; poverty, unawareness of government subsidies on agricultural equipments, exploitative local credit facilities, poor market price, low production, no or limited sources of irrigation etc. Government of India has taken initiation to improve dry land areas through watershed development programmes (WSDP) in many parts of the country. The key components of WSDP are optimum utilisation of rain water, soil conservation, run off reduction, improving livelihoods of people etc. and to make this programme more viable, participatory approaches have been introduced in watershed in 1990s. The present study is carried out at Jagabalia Watershed, present in Patnagarh block of Bolangir district in western Odisha. It was implemented by the Government PIA (DAO) in the period from March 2002 and July 2006. The watershed is a pert of the ACA (RLTAP) scheme. Methodology includes structured interview and FGDs with the beneficiaries and key informants. Secondary information consists of reports by PIA, DRDA, DDA and available literature. Findings of study support the idea that alternative source of livelihoods can be helpful to reduce the chances of poverty. Apart from this promotion of SHGs, good mechanism for credit facilities, community mobilisation, community participation, awareness and managing available natural resources can be a basis to improve livelihoods in these areas.