World Colleges Information

 Enforcing Green Revolution in Dry-lands of Tamil Nadu:

 The green revolution that happened in India especially in irrigated areas by mid 1960’s disproved the theory of Malthusian and made the India self sufficient in food production and food secured country. But this was not sustained at latter periods because of adoption of wrong approach and methods from the main concept of green revolution by the extension managers and farmers by themselves.  This led to import of food for the last two years. Should we continue to permit this type of import agriculture in India? The answer would be No and we must look for some alternative to sustain and enhance the food production and simultaneously looking for improving the productivity of irrigated agriculture, which was injured/damaged (plateau in irrigated crop’s productivity and also decline in productivity) during first green revolution by technically, socially and politically. 
Since, the growth rate of population is higher than the growth rate of food production presently, necessity now arises to review/sustain our food security once again. Renowned Policy makers, Senior Agricultural Scientists talk about second green revolution and ever green revolution concepts for India. At this context it is wise to take a decision to shower green revolution in dry lands in India, which is 93.13 m ha out of 136.18 m ha of net sown area and this amounts to 68.4 per cent. In this paper the author attempts to describe the scope, methodology and management techniques to bring green revolution from dry lands of Tamil Nadu, one among the promising States of India as a case study.


Dry land agriculture in Tamil Nadu:;
The geographical area of Tamil Nadu is 13 m ha, of which the cultivable area is 7 m ha and with in this area, dry land farming is practiced in 3.1 m ha. The total dry land area is distributed in the seven agro-climatic zones of Tamil Nadu and the per cent distribution is 26 per cent in North eastern zone, 24 per cent each in North western and Southern zone, 12 per cent in Western zone, seven per cent in both in High rain fall and High altitude and hilly zones and six per cent in Cauvery delta zone. Kannaiyan, (2001) did SWOT analysis for the dry lands of Tamil Nadu and are described below;

Strength;

1. wide spectrum of agro-ecological and edapho-climatic conditions supporting wide bio-diversity
2. Availability of large information on dry land technology
3. Required net work of TNAU for dry land research  Vast net work on agricultural extension Good  spread of co-operative financial net work Improved transportation facility
4. Policy maker’s willingness to improve dry land productivity

Weakness;

        1. Poor soil (thirsty and hungry) and uncertain rainfall in terms
           Of its distribution and amount
        2.  Poverty and illiteracy
        3.  Less than break even point income
        4   Lack of farmers participation
        5.  Poor financial resource of the farmers
        6.  Negligence attitude of the farmers on dry land farming
 
  Opportunity;

      1. Potential for enhancing the productivity
      2. Expected response for the inputs to be applied
      3. Political will   
      4. State plan on wasteland development
      5. Awareness on the scope of getting higher yield
      6.  Treasure of ITK’S

Threats;

        1. Climate change
        2. Unabated land degradation
        3. Non availability of required organic matter
        4. Social disharmony at village level
        5. More number of fragmented land holdings
        6. Lack of leadership to initiate the work
        7. Non availability dry land specific NGO’S

For ushering green revolution in dry lands the strength and opportunities listed above must be utilized efficiently and the issues related to weakness and threats must be studied in depth and solutions developed and organized for execution. The action plan is presented in the following sub heads;

• Infrastructure development
• Knowledge development
• Stitching technology bag
• Generating information and it’s integration
• Empowering the farmers by capacity building in dry land management
• Participatory research to solve location specific problems

1.Infrastructure Development:

         a. At every revenue village of different agro climatic zones of Tamil Nadu, where dry land area is more, a dry land society must be formed and all the farmers of dry land must be enrolled as members by voluntary participation after explaining the concept behind the formation. This society would be the house for procuring inputs for dry land forming and as well as the marketing channel for the produce harvested. Further a tie up may be  made by the socieety with insurance company for crop insurance.
The members of the society will meet and prepare the plan for their dry land agriculture with inputs from extension dept. officials/NGO’S.
The members decide the technology suitable for their domain and there must not be any external pressure. Scope must be given to farmers to mix their ITK with the scientific technologies already selected for their locality.
b. Steps may be taken to identify the existence of water shed at the revenue village level and build up management practices accordingly. If not, make a survey and develop water shed for effective resource managements All the streams with in the water shed must be interconnected effectively to conserve soil and water.
 On long term basis attempt may be made to link Perennial River with seasonal rivers with in Tamil Nadu.
 
2. Knowledge development:

Knowledge is the power and it triggers all activities to achieve the goal of dry land development. Village Knowledge centre must be established and there must be information flow including the weather forecast to take weather based farm decisions.

3. Stitching technology bag:

The members of the society by discussion select technologies from the option basket for their soil and climate condition. Similarly they must blend their ITK’S with the scientific technologies already identified for their domain and apply at the field level. It is also possible to tailor weather based technologies from the research information already available. Based on the learning’s from the past green revolution, the best bet technologies like Integrated Nutrient Management including balanced fertilization of NPK and organic manure application, Integrated Pest and Disease management including bio-pesticides, technologies for value addition of the dry land produce must be given top most priority among the technologies selected for application.

4. Generating information and its integration:

Local climatic information (Veeraputhiran et al., 2003) like mean weekly values of rainfall, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, onset and withdrawal dates of seasonal rainfall, weekly rain fall analysis for initial probability, conditional probability, computing effective growing period, weekly wet and dry spell analysis, computing water balance on weekly basis etc must be made at taluk level and given to the village society as a hand book.  Similarly thump rules may be given to predict pest and disease occurrence. In advance, information on the efficient cropping zone for dry land crops may be developed by employing the model of Kanwar (1972). All the dry land areas in Tamil Nadu must have net works of rain gauges and it must be monitored at a central place for coordination and for monitoring drought occurrence.

5. Empowering the farmers by capacity building in dry land management:
Farmers of the concerned society must be empowered through capacity building to manage their natural resources, to conserve soil and water and also to integrate the four capitals available at the village level like, social, institutional, human resource and natural resources. Farmers must be empowered with meeting the challenges from three weather codes ( Normal, drought and flood ) and they must prepare contingency plan for the three weather codes based on their past experience.

6. Participatory research to solve location specific problems:

In any development programme, local problem may shoot up at any point of time and this must be solved through participatory research between farmers and scientists. The suggestion is to go for farmers managed trials/ super imposed trials rather than going for researcher managed trials to solve the problem.

Conclusion:

This type of green revolution may be initiated on pilot basis at Souhern agro climatic zone considering the vast net area on dry farming available and low back ward  socio economic condition of the people living in that zone.