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April 2009 Edition

 

 

Rina Mukherji
Poompuhar (Tamil Nadu)

WHEN the tsunami struck the coast of Tamil Nadu four years ago, the village of Poompuhar in Sirkali taluk of Nagapattinam district as one of the worst affected. As the first wave swamped this fishing village, built on the remains of the ancient Chola capital of Poompuhar, 128 bodies were washed ashore. Houses collapsed in the face of the ocean's mad wrath. Hapless villagers ran inland to save their lives. The lashing waves swept over miles of farmland, turning these fields saline.

When the waves withdrew, more than death stalked the coastline. With livelihoods and homes gone, Nagapattinam was a land of the living dead. But thanks to the efforts of two women, after four years, the farms are beginning to be productive once again. Canals of a traditional irrigation system have been de-silted and farmers who had been shattered by the tsunami now have hope for their landholdings.

Manimekhalai, 52, then the president of Poompuhar panchayat and Bhuvaneshwari Kannan, 39, an agricultural expert, stepped in promptly. Manimekhalai was a dynamic and much admired local leader. Bhuvana, as Bhuvaneshwari is popularly called, is a post-graduate in agriculture with specialisation in plant genetics. She had shifted to Maiyaladuthurai after her marriage. After a short stint as research associate, Bhuvana was keen to work with the community and pass on her expertise to farmers in the Kaveripoompatinam- Poompuhar area.

With Manimekhalai's help, Bhuvana began to familiarize herself with villages under Poompuhar panchayat's purview. Just a day after she had arrived, while she was moving around getting to know the topography of the area, the tsunami happened. "There was utter chaos as people ran helter skelter from villages along the Cauvery towards the town," recalls Bhuvana.

Manimekhalai did not get fazed by the utter destruction of her panchayat area. She got down to work straight away, inviting NGOs and charities to come and rebuild the homes and lives of the tsunami-affected people in villages falling under her purview. The Covenant Centre for Development (CCD) in Madurai was one such NGO which stepped in. Bhuvana had joined CCD as a coordinator. In the devastating days after the tsunami, Bhuvana began to skillfully use her knowledge of agriculture to help farmers overcome the disaster and restore their lands and farms.

The sea water had so ravaged agricultural land that farmers had given up all hope. They were reluctant to even try and make an effort to redeem their fields. "We found that weeds and grasses which used to proliferate had withered away after the sea water doused our lands. Instead, we could see a blackish grey residue spread itself out on our fields, " says Soundarrajan, a local farmer who now grows paddy, green lentils and peanuts on his two acres in Poompuhar.

CCD first got the farmers organised into self-help groups (SHGs). The SHGs were then structured into two farmer federations, the Kazhi Kadaimadai Farmers' Federation and the Poompuhar Cauvery Delta Farmer Federation. A revolving fund was given to each federation. The Kazhi Kadaimadai Farmers' Federation received Rs 45 lakhs and the Poompuhar Cauvery Delta Farmer Federation got Rs 60 lakhs. The two federations could now extend credit to member-farmers, as and when the need arose.

Soil testing revealed that the damage was not that serious. "We found that the pH level was more or less intact, so the lands could easily overcome the salinity," explains Bhuvana. "On the basis of what the farmers told us, we decided to try and restore farmlands to make them suitable for farming." Poompuhar lies in the Cauvery delta. Since the Chola era, this region has been served by an intricate network of canals created 2000 years ago by the Chola kings.

The centrepiece of this irrigation infrastructure is the Grand Anicut or the Kallanai, a massive dam of unhewn stone. Built across the Cauvery river, it is one of the oldest water diversion structures in the world. It dates back to the 1st Century AD and it was built by the Chola king, Karikalan. The purpose of the Kallanai dam was to divert the waters of the Cauvery across the fertile delta for irrigation via canals. It used to irrigate 69,000 acres. By the early 20th century this ancient dam was irrigating an area of about one million acres.

The request that came from farmers immediately after the tsunami was to desilt the irrigation and drainage channels of this ancient irrigation network. Since rain had been scarce in the preceding years and there was very little water in the Cauvery, maintenance of canals had stopped. For over five years, there had been no investment in drainage. The irrigation infrastructure here is complex – in some places drainage and irrigation canals are separate while in others, the drainage of one village is the irrigation channel of the next. In some villages the maintenance of canals was taken care of by the community using traditional practices.

Workers were engaged on a ‘cash for work’ basis to desilt and make the canals workable. The fields, steeped in salt, were leached with fresh water many times over and then treated with gypsum and green manure. From January to February, immediately after the tsunami, fields in three villages were washed over and then this method was extended to fields in another 22 villages. Since indigenous saline-resistant varieties of seeds were lost due to the Green Revolution in the Cauvery delta, saline resistant varieties developed by agricultural universities were planted on the ravaged farmlands. The Trichy-I and Co-43 strains of rice, and the MCU-7 and SVPR-3 of cotton were tried out. However, the inadequate availability of water forced farmers to abandon cotton cultivation.

Regular leaching with fresh water was continued at intervals to restore the lands. Experiments continued with better and more appropriate strains. Ultimately, Trichy- I and Co- 43 varieties of rice proved to be the most suitable. Peanuts and lentils did well too. These methods have helped restore 3000 acres in 15 villages of Nagapattinam district.

Although post-tsunami cultivation started within a few months, Bhuvana and her team from CCD realized that the Poompuhar area was susceptible to a cycle of disasters. Drought was the most common. Rains were erratic. Out of four monsoon months, the region received rain for just two months.

Farmers like Paramasivam, Muthukumaraswamy and Soundarrajan describe farming here as a ' lottery'. The crop yield depended on an erratic supply of irrigated water sourced from the nearby Mettur Dam. As enlightened farmers they felt the need to spread awareness of better methods of cultivating paddy. The single seedling system of rice intensification (SRI) method, which requires paddy to be watered only once a week, was opted for. Once the yield got consolidated, the federation contributed to setting up a seed bank. Under Manimekhalai's leadership, the panchayat handed over an acre on which the farmers' federations set up an office. The seed bank was located here. The Poompuhar Cauvery Delta Farmers' Federation today has some 90 tonnes of seeds stored in its bank which brings in a neat profit. The farmers were also linked to crop insurance schemes by the CCD, and now every farmer has the advantage of crop insurance in these villages.

Building up farmers' federations has benefited the work of the Irrigation Department. Maintaining the A class (main) canals arising out of the Cauvery and other rivers in this delta region was always a stupendous task for the department. In ancient times, villagers and local self-governing bodies would maintain these canals. After Independence, the canals were taken over by the Irrigation Department which was given the responsibility of looking after them through the Public Works Department. Each major river channel has more than 150 A Class or main canals arising out of it. Each canal irrigates some 300 to 3000 ha. The main canals branch out into numerous B Class canals. There were frequent fights over the erratic quantity of water. "The farmers would blame the Agricultural, Irrigation and the Public Works departments for not de-silting canals and failing to keep them in good condition," says R Sridhar, Assistant Engineer of the Agriculture Engineering Department.

In 1992-93, a management subsidy was introduced for the maintenance of these canals. Farmers, at that time, were not interested in cooperating with the Irrigation Department in any way. But once the farmer federations were set up, all farmers were willing to share the responsibility of maintenance. "Now each farmer, rich or poor, contributes Rs 60 per hectare as against the government's Rs 540 per ha. Without a controlling stake and personal involvement, most farmers did not want to contribute towards the task, leave aside help with the drainage and sewage," says Sridhar. With the recent rise in management subsidy from Rs 400 to Rs 300 per hectare, and the willingness of farmers to cooperate, the district is now witnessing a sea change in canal maintenance. Canals are being desilted under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The farmer federations are monitoring the scheme.

The farmer federations have managed to restore the Poompuhar region from the destruction wrought by the tsunami. Now they are successfully looking into various tasks involved in cultivation. There are four committees, each handling infrastructure, marketing, credit and technology. Since 2006, the federations are managing the committees on their own with the CCD only handling the administration. According to CCD Executive Director Parthasarathi, plans are afoot to withdraw totally next year. After that "the CCD will only help with linkages needed to interact with outside organizations."

Fields still need to be leached several times with fresh water which, given the erratic rainfall, is a tough task. "Our farms are yet to get back to their original shape," admit Soundarrajan and Paramasivam. However, the worst is over, with farms having begun to yield crops again. The manner in which the disaster was overcome earned appreciation for Bhuvana Kannan who was awarded the Ramesh Bhat Fellowship by the Disaster Mitigation Institute, Ahmedabad.

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