https://reasonstobecheerful.world/flood-recession-farming-india/
"Every year, when the monsoons arrive on the North India Gangetic plain, the
river spreads its girth across miles on either bank. When the floodwaters
recede, they leave behind organic material, which Siyaram Bhind, a farmer in
Mirzapur, a town in eastern Uttar Pradesh, calls “black gold.” Downstream, in
the neighboring district of Bhadohi, another farmer, 29-year-old Rohit
Bhardwaj, looks at his bumper crop of painted gourds on the Ganges floodplain,
and calls it a “blessing from mother Ganges.”
For centuries, farmers like Bhind and Bhardwaj have engaged in complex
trade-offs between coping with the challenges of floods and capitalizing on the
benefits that floods bring: fertile alluvial soil and a natural irrigation
mechanism. “This rudimentary form of agriculture has been practiced since
history,” says Rinku Singh, PhD, who has researched the impact of what’s known
as flood recession agriculture along the Gangetic plain. But today, as climate
change is causing rainfall and flooding to become more erratic and intense,
flood recession farming is more important than ever before: Singh has found
that it boosts the livelihood and food security of marginal farmers living near
riverbanks, making them more resilient to the economic consequences of floods.
Moreover, it incentivizes them to not construct buildings or roads or mine sand
from the floodplain, which, in turn, keeps the river in good health.
“Almost every year, the river water enters our village and makes our lives
miserable, but it also leaves behind fertile soil that gives us a good
harvest,” Bhind says, pointing out varieties of gourds that thrive in the
well-drained floodplain with its topsoil of silt. He plants peas, chickpeas and
mustard in addition to other vegetables when the floodwaters recede in October.
And after harvesting the pea crop in February, he says that from late March
until the floods return in mid-July, he is able to harvest vegetables every
four to five days.
This is harder than it sounds, however: The floodplain is more exposed than
inland farms in winter, which leaves the crop vulnerable to night temperatures
that fall below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Regular depredations by herds of stray
cattle, wild pigs and blue bulls compel farmers to wake up every two hours to
check on their crops. And in summer, once the crop bears fruit on the windswept
floodplain, it is easily scorched by the hot winds from the west. Yet Bhind —
perhaps because he spends very little on irrigation (even in summer, he waters
his crop just once or twice a month, while fields further inland need watering
twice a week) and fertilizer — chooses to till the floodplains, as do thousands
of others.
Floodplain farming has ancient origins; records suggest it was practiced by the
Indus Valley civilization, which existed between 2500 and 1700 B.C.E. and is
the earliest known urban culture of the Indian subcontinent, as well as in
ancient Egypt. Today, farmers in some of the poorest and least climate
resilient regions in sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Asia continue to
practice flood recession farming on river floodplains, lake margins and other
wetlands where water levels rise and fall predictably, to cope with floods,
droughts and climate change. In Western Mali, farmers use the seasonal
overspill of the Senegal River in August and September to cultivate sorghum,
beans and melons. In the Mekong Delta, Cambodian farmers use the flood in
different ways to grow the region’s staple food, rice. Some directly plant
saplings in the floodwater during the wet season, some trap floodwater in bunds
(embankments) to use for irrigation in the dry season, and others grow rice in
the dry season when the floods recede, and store floodwater in bunds."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
