Rural Management Systems Series

Paper prepared for presentation at the Symposium on Dry Zone Revitalisation and Development in Sri Lanka : April 23-30, 1995.

Mr.Seshadri Naidu, Project Officer, MYRADA Kadiri Integrated
Participatory Development of Watersheds, Andhra Pradesh.

Mr. A.K. Shivaraja, Project Officer, MYRADA Kamasamudram
Integrated Rural Development Project, Karnataka.

INTRODUCTION

This paper is not intended to focus on dry zone development technologies. It focuses on people-oriented issues and institutions in promoting and sustaining dryland development technologies and the problems of equitable access to the watersheds resources.

Around 1984, MYRADA began exploring the strategy of micro watershed management for the first time in collaboration with the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and the Karnataka Govt. The initiative to involve MYRADA in this three-way intervention strategy was taken by SDC. MYRADA's role was to foster a process and intervene where required in this process through which families in a micro-watershed could plan, implement and sustain a programme which supported the regeneration of the entire micro- watershed, increased agricultural productivity, and provided adequate bio-mass to meet the needs of all the people with priority to the poor. In terms of people's institutions required to manage the watershed what has emerged is that the basis is still the affinity group which is small, homogeneous and voluntary and which begins by managing credit; there could be several such groups in one micro-watershed. These in turn appoint or elect representatives to form the Watershed Implementation and Management Committee which emerges as the people's main institution with which all outside intervenors have to relate whether Government or NGO. What has also emerged is that people are capable of planning and budgetting the treatment of their watershed, using Participatory Rural Appraisal Methods; they can also control and manage the implementation of this plan provided the structures are designed by them and located by consent. They also need the freedom to decide which of the treatment activities should be given priority; in several cases they have borrowed funds from their credit groups to contribute towards the cost of gully plugs and silt traps on their lands which yield quick returns. (refer. Huthur case study)

Since the early eighties, MYRADA has been involved in reforestation of arid areas. Groups, communities, and individual farmers were encouraged to start small nurseries, large areas of revenue wastelands were reforested, programmes like insurance forestry on one-third of private agricultural drylands were supported to provide an income during periodic droughts. Towards the latter part of the eighties, MYRADA, shifted away from planting in arid areas to protection and regeneration; this is where groups had to take on the responsibility of protection, harvesting and distribution. Not only were revenue wastes regenerated, but also private fallows where people's groups entered into agreements with the owner which clarified mutual rights and responsibilities and ensured the sharing of benefits; as a result, fuel, fodder and other raw materials increased significantly.

After 1985, MYRADA moved away from supporting forestry as an isolated programme with the objectives of providing fruit, fuel and fodder, to integrating forestry in a watershed approach where trees, besides providing fuel, fruit and fodder also played an important part in controlling soil erosion and water run-off as well as in providing biomass, thus resulting in increased productivity of food and cash crops as well as in reducing their vulnerability to periods of drought during the agricultural season.

This shift in MYRADA's strategy demanded a far greater involvement of people not as individuals but as groups who could manage and sustain the resources which had regenerated as a result of interventions.

Early in the 1990s MYRADA entered into areas where forests existed, like the Western Ghats, but where degradation was evident in various degrees mainly around villages. The Western Ghats Environmental Project in collaboration with the Forest Department was launched in 1992. MYRADA's role was to expose Forest Department personnel to experiences and strategies of Joint Forestry Management, to help them and the people absorb and use participatory methods and strategies in planning, budgeting and implementing forestry programmes as well as the community organizational and management skills needed to sustain Joint Forestry Committees and to initiate and carry through micro planning at each village which interacted with the forest. The objective of these exercises was to develop a Joint Forestry Plan which would ensure people's livelihood, protect core areas of the forest from pressures, and rivers and streams from pollution. Overall the objective was to improve the tree cover while supporting the growth of appropriate people's institutions to plan, manage and sustain the joint forestry management plan which in turn contributed towards a sustainable livelihood support system.

The present paper draws from the experiences of only two of MYRADA's projects: Kamasamudram in Kolar District of Karnataka, and Kadiri in Ananthapur District of Andhra Pradesh, since the two Project Officers are present at this Seminar. Other major projects where watershed management strategies have developed and made significant progress are Gulbarga, Huthur, Holalkere, and Talavadi. A few illustrations from Gulbarga have been incorporated into this paper.

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

Both Projects are located in semi-arid areas. Kadiri receives an annual rainfall of around 500 mm. and Kamasamudram around 650 mm. The added problem is that most of the rainfall is received within a short period. The rainy season is also characterized by long dry spells that occur unpredictably and cause a sharp drop in yields. One of our major concerns in watershed management is to increase percolation so that the plants are able to cope with such dry spells.

Low returns from agriculture characterize both locations. Though most people are engaged in agriculture, land holdings are small and range from 0.2 ha to 1.2 ha on average. Inappropriate agricultural practices on the undulating lands have increased run off and reduced soil fertility. Finger millet and groundnut are the main crops. The few farmers that have access to irrigation grow paddy and mulberry. The Kamasamudram area has a number of small natural tanks but most have silted and water management systems are poor. Kadiri has several small seasonal streams that can be managed to the advantage of the people, but here again, there has been no initiative taken.

Erosion of the natural resource base is also characteristic of both locations. As already mentioned above the soils are depleted, much of the limited water is lost in run-off and biomass cover, even on forest lands, is negligible.

MYRADA, which entered the Kadiri area at the behest of the Government to do a rehabilitation project for landless people and released bonded labourers, and the Kamasamudram area to initiate anti-poverty programmes, soon realized that the focus had to broaden to include watershed development for sustainable increases in productivity.

The Target Population : Resource-poor farmers are MYRADA's chief focus. However in an area (watershed) development programme where land, water, and vegetation are being targeted in an integrated basis, the larger farmers cannot be excluded, just as the landless people who draw other forms of sustenance from the watershed (e.g. fodder, fuelwood) also cannot be excluded. Therefore, for purposes of watershed development, all persons owning and /or using any or all of the resources of the watershed have to be involved. MYRADA, however, does not invest significantly on the lands of large farmers.

In this context, MYRADA started with just two major objectives, both of which had to be achieved on a sustainable basis and, therefore, required the full participation of the people:

Objective 1 : Make water walk, from ridge to valley. This would result in controlling erosion and enabling greater percolation.

Objective 2 : Bring soil back to life. This would result in biomass production and increase in soil productivity.

Problem Statement : The problems we encountered were many. Determined to seek and obtain the participation of the people in all aspects of the programme (the benefits of which were so obvious to us but perhaps not equally so to the people concerned) we were faced with a complicated set of circumstances. Very briefly stated, they were as follows:

1. Lack of Organisation	: There were no ready membership organisations in the villages, working on common programmes. So where to begin? Whom to address? How to get everyone involved?
2. Lack of Finance	: All development measures require financial inputs. People either did not have the resources or did not see the need to make investments where gains were not immediately perceived.
3. Low adoption of dryland technologies	: The farmers know best how their lands have to be nurtured. Nevertheless, we discovered that the majority had made remarkably little effort to nurture their lands. Farming agricultural lands seemed to be more of a habit than an enterprise. Lack of adequate means may have been a major problem. However, our own experiences later showed us that another major reason why land and water manage-ment technologies had not been adopted was because people had never been consulted or involved in planning, budgetting and implementing these measures.
4. Low motivation	: Perhaps because the rains cheated them so often, perhaps because they lacked the means and the know how to initiate regenerative action against a progressive decline of agricultural income, our initial discussions were received with little enthusiasm. Even where discussions were lively and informative, they did not result inmuch voluntary action. On the other hand, we discovered that many small and marginal farmers actually found it more worthwhile to either let their lands lie fallow or even sell it and hire themselves out as casual labourers.
5. Dependency, and high expectation from others	: People were used to believing that their problems must be addressed and dealt with fully by others, mainly the Government. They did not see that they could work either collectively or individually for their own betterment.
6. Insufficient technological knowledge	: Practices handed down from generations continued to be followed but not improved upon in the wake of new knowledge (e.g. composting and compost use). With the exception of new seed varieties sold by private companies, other advancements in agricultural knowledge did not often reach the farmers.
7. The problem of common resource management and equitable sharing benefits	: Common lands were used by all to graze livestock, gather firewood, etc. The question of sharing benefits would arise if these properties were being managed to begin with. But upto now, there were no systems of management and no measures toreplenish the depleting resources. Later in the programme we discovered that this was always going to be a difficult issue to tackle. Everybody wanted access to use common resources but who would take the responsibility to develop and manage common resources?
8. Lack of Departmental (i.e. Governmental) involvement where required	: In some of the watersheds, significant tracts of land are owned by the Government (e.g. the Forest Department, the Revenue Department, etc.) Securing Departmental cooperation ¾ which was particularly important if such land were in the upper reaches ¾ was, an continues to be, very difficult.
9. Securing the cooperation of all farmers	: This again was difficult. In our analysis of watershed populations we discovered that there were farmers who lived within the watershed but owned land outside it; there were those who lived outside but owned land within the watershed area; there were those whose lands fell in two separate micro watersheds (requiring their presence in two watershed associations); there were landless people who used the common resources of the area, etc. Absentee landlords had to be tracked down and involved; big farmers who had other business interests and were not particularly dependent on agricultural income had to be persuaded to cooperate; seasonal migrants had to be motivated to take interest in the programme; farmers who were unwilling to be a part of any credit/ watershed association had to be separately convinced. And occasionally, a farmer would refuse to get involved for no particular reason other than that he or she did not feel like getting involved.
10. Inadequate efforts to involve women in planning & management	: Not deliberately but by default, women were left out of discussions and meetings and their absence had to be pointed out before it began to be noticed.
11. The question of landless people and their livelihoods	: In a land-based programme such as water-shed development it is often forgotten that the landless poor are also dependent on the area’s resources and need to be involved in the programme and benefit from it. This fact was often overlooked or ignored.