access of small and marginal farmers to sri anil...

Groundwater Management: Quantity and Quality (Proceedings of the Benidorm Symposium, October 1989). IAHS Publ. no. 188,1989.

Access of small and marginal farmers to groundwater _ a field study

A. S. CHAWLA, G S. RAGHUVANSffl & SRI ANIL KUMAR Water Resources Development Training Centre, University ofRoorkee, Roorkee 247667, India

Abstract A large number of tubewells has been installed in alluvial areas to pump groundwater to supplement canal supplies in canal commanded areas and to provide irrigation water outside the canal command areas. A study was undertaken in western Uttar Pradesh, India, to examine the accessibility of small and marginal farmers to groundwater. The study also included an evaluation of the economics of various lifting devices, the water requirement of crops and the capacity of wells for different categories of farmers. An analysis of the data indicates that the small and marginal farmers constituting 62% of the sample farmers operate only 23.4% of cultivable land and own only 31% of private tubewells. Only 43% of these farmers have access to groundwater. Electrically operated tubewells are most economical. Small and marginal farmers should have pumping sets of 3.5-5.0 HP.

Accès des petits fermiers et des agriculteurs marginaux aux eaux souterraines — une étude de terrain

Résumé Un grande nombre de puits tubes ont été aménagés dans des régimes alluviales en vue de pomper les eaux souterraines pour ajouter un supplément aux fournitures des canaux d'irrigation dans les zones que desservent ces canaux et pour fournir de l'eau pour irrigation en dehors de ces zones. L'étude a été entreprise dans l'ouest de l'Uttar Pradesh dans l'Inde en vue d'examiner les possibilités des petits fermiers et des cultivateurs marginaux d'avoir accès aux eaux souterraines. L'étude comprenait également l'évaluation des problèmes économiques des divers dispositifs d'exhaure, les besoins en eau des diverses cultures et les différents catégories de fermiers. L'analyse des données indique que les petits fermiers et les agriculteurs marginaux constituent 62% de l'échantillon de fermiers objet de l'étude. Ils cultivent seulement 23.4% des terres cultivables et possèdent seulement 31% des puits tubes. Leurs accès à l'eau souterraine est seulement 43%. Les puits tubes avec moyens d'exhaure électriques sont les plus économiques. Les petits fermiers et les agriculteurs marginaux devraient avoir des installations de 3.5-5.0 CV.

29

A. S. Chawla et al. 30

INTRODUCTION

The importance of groundwater and its development has been greatly felt in India during the last few decades. At present groundwater alone accounts for about 40% of the total irrigated area in the country. However, hardly 30% development of groundwater has yet been attained and so a large potential of groundwater is still available for further utilization. Indian agriculture has also witnessed a shift in recent years from traditional to scientific farming. Introduction of high yielding varieties of seeds has increased the demand for irrigation water. Two consecutive droughts in 1965-1966 and 1966-1967 coupled with rural electrification programmes and sanctioning of loans and subsidies etc. have been other factors conducive to this awakening in favour of groundwater development. The various advantages of groundwater development, e.g. to provide an assured supply of water for irrigation, to control water-logging and to maximize agricultural production through conjunctive use of surface and groundwaters, are quite obvious and fully recognized in this developing country.

Today, in India, the most outstanding problem is that of raising the economic and social status of millions of marginal and small farmers (farmers are classified as MF or SF when their holdings are of size <1.0 ha or 1.0-2.5 ha respectively). They constitute about 73% of the operational holdings in the country. Although planners have tried to solve this problem of small and marginal farmers by launching various special programmes, most of these programmes have actually failed due to their faulty implementation. Despite best and sincere efforts, the benefits of all such schemes and programmes have not percolated down to reach these unlucky farmers who deserve the most and for whom they were launched. Those small and marginal farmers who have surplus bullock and family labour at low cost have no access to liberal capital finances and as such are still seen using traditional groundwater lifts instead of newly developed groundwater technologies. Their access to groundwater is very much limited. Therefore, a well-directed effort should be made to shift the balance in favour of these small and marginal farmers, especially in the sphere of adopting new lift technologies in relation to their holding sizes and using groundwater for their agricultural needs. An analysis is also called for to probe into the question of technology and holding size because the benefits that accrue to the individual farmers are all determined by the modes of lift technology adopted. The differentials in accessibility to groundwater and the adoption of lifting technologies by farmers across all holding sizes are due to several social, economic and institutional factors.

In view of the above, a field study has been carried out in two different areas of west Uttar Pradesh to work out a comparative benefit-cost picture of different modes of lift technology vis-à-vis holding size and to find the level of access of small and marginal farmers to groundwater together with the reasons of its under-utilization by them. The farmers' demand for irrigation water in relation to their holding sizes and cropping patterns has also been assessed. The relevant details of the study are presented here in this paper.

31 Access of small and marginal farmers to groundwater

WATER REQUIREMENTS

In order to estimate the water needs of a farmer for irrigating his crops, the water requirements (Field Irrigation Requirements) for the three principal crops, viz. sugarcane, wheat and paddy, were worked out and found to be 1687, 425 and 1943 mm respectively. To meet with this demand the following irrigation scheduling was worked out. Sugarcane a one year crop and as such the general schedule for the

entire crop period is meaningless. During rains there is no need for irrigation. Water requirement of the crop in May is at a peak and is 100 mm depth at an interval of two weeks. However, in February, the time interval increases to 7.5 weeks.

Wheat requires 75 mm depth of water at an interval of three weeks. Paddy when rains are delayed, 100 mm depth of water can be

applied, as required, such that the water in the field may remain standing. During September the irrigation frequency is one week.

The monthly water requirements for a known cropping pattern (sugarcane 75%, wheat 25%, paddy 25%) were calculated. It was found that the peak demand occurs in the month of June and is 3273 m3 and 8183 m3

of water in the cases of a marginal and a small farmer respectively. If the small/marginal farmer operates his water lifting device for only

150/100 h, he needs a device with a discharge capacity of 15/10 1 s_i

Further, the calculations also indicated that for lifting groundwater from depth to a water table ranging from three to four metres, a small farmer needs a 5 HP diesel engine or electric motor whereas a marginal farmer needs only a 3 HP diesel engine or a 3.5 HP electric motor.

WATER ITFTENG DEVICES

Devices used for lifting groundwater range from age-old indigenous water lifts to mechanically powered water lifts. Some new types of device which are powered by a renewable source of energy such as a windmill, solar pump or battery pump have also been developed. However, estimations of the cost of pumping are necessary to evaluate the economics of irrigation. Therefore, detailed analyses were carried out to determine the relative economics of different water lifting devices. Since some of the indigenous lifts have become quite obsolete, the analyses were confined only to the devices in vogue. While carrying out the analyses the costs of different components of lifts, materials and labour etc., as prevalent in the markets of western Uttar Pradesh in 1984, were considered. The results of the analyses are given in Table 1.

STUDY AREA

For the analyses field data were collected from two different areas, viz. Salawa area and Tansipur area, which are a part of the districts Meerut and


Table 1 Analyses of the relative economics of different water lifting devices

Water lifting device Cost per m of water lifted (Rupees): Ceiling of subsidy for small and marginal farmers (Rupees)

Without With subsidies of: subsidies 25% 33J% 5Q%

Self emptying type rope and bucket lift 0.64 Counterpoise bucket lift 0.50

Persian wheel 0.38

Diesel tubewell: , for small farmers (15 I s~ h 0.125 for marginal farmers (10 Is ) 0.12 Electric tubewell: , for small farmers (151 s) . 0.065 for marginal farmers (10 I s~) 0.075 Windmill (tool-OPR) 0.09

Solar PVpumpset 0.78

Battery pumpset 0.315

0.12 0.115

0.06 0.065

0.29

0.12 0.11

0.06 0.065

0.61

0.28

0.12 0.11

0.055 0.06 0.05

0.26

3000 3000

3000

3000 8000

8000

Saharanpur respectively. Both the Salawa area and Tansipur area were purposely selected for the study. However, households were selected randomly. The areas, covering 42 700 and 7250 ha of land respectively, are both located in the western part of Uttar Pradesh and fall in the Indo-Gangetic alluvial plains of the Quaternary period. The formations in the areas are made up of sand, silt, clay and occasional beds of Kankar. Sand layers are the main source of groundwater, the top aquifer being unconfined and the deeper ones confined or semiconfined in nature. The climate is monsoonal with temperatures ranging from 2°C in winter to 46°C in summer. The rainy season extends from the middle of June to the end of September.

The major occupation of the households in these areas is agriculture and the net area sown is about 85% of the geographical area under study. Sugarcane, paddy and wheat are the principal crops grown in these areas. The cropping intensity is about 157%.

Irrigation

Ever since the construction of the Upper Ganga Canal in the middle of the nineteenth century, the channels of its distribution system have been the chief source of irrigation in the study area. As regards the availability of canal water, it is somewhat insufficient to meet the demands of the farmers in the Salawa area. This is the reason why the farmers of this area have started depending on groundwater as a supplemental source. However, in the Tansipur area, canal supplies are quite adequate even for


the increasing demand of the farmers for irrigating high yielding varieties of crops. In both these areas, the groundwater is drawn mostly through private tubewells and there are only a few state tubewells in the Salawa area and only one in the Tansipur area. The traditional water lifting devices such as Persian wheels are still in use in the Salawa area, though to a limited extent. However, the Persian wheels, dhenklis and charas etc. are nowhere seen in the Tansipur area. The percentage distribution of the area under canal irrigation and groundwater irrigation is: 44% of the Salawa area is irrigated by canals and 56% is irrigated by groundwater (including conjunctive use); the figures for Tansipur area are respectively 48% and 52%.

Selection of villages and farmers

Although both the study areas comprise about 30 villages each, nine villages from the Salawa area and ten from the Tansipur area were selected keeping in view their location in relation to the channel. Then from these selected villages two different lots of 57 and 85 farmers belonging to different categories were selected using random numbers (Table 2).

Table 2 Farmers selected for the analyses

Area

Salawa

Tansipur

Marginal farmer (<lha)

19 (33%)

37 (44%)

Small farmer (1-2.5 ha)

16 (28%)

16 (19%)

Medium farmer (2.5-4 ha)

12 (21%)

13 (15%)

Large farmer (>4ha)

10 (8%)

19 (22%)

Total

57 (100%)

85 (100%)

Field data

Secondary data were collected from the official records and primary data through personal interviews in respect of the above 142 sample farmers from the 19 selected villages. These data were analysed to study the access of small and marginal farmers to groundwater. The socio-economic considerations were linked with the adoption of groundwater lifting technology to find out reasons for their non-accessibility.

ANALYSIS OF FIELD DATA

Land

The distribution of land-holding amongst the small and marginal farmers


vis-à-vis medium and large farmers is shown in Table 3. This means that small and marginal farmers constituting 62% of the sample farmers operate only 23.4% of land, whereas the medium and large farmers constituting only 38% of the sample have 76.6% of operational holding.

Table 3 Distribution of land-holding amongst the farmers

Category Families Area operated Average size per family (ha) (ha)

Small and marginal farmers 88(62%) 88.50(23.4%) LOO

Medium and large farmers 54 (38%) 289.03 (76.6%) 5.35

142 377.53 2.66

Tubewells

The distribution of tubewells owned by different categories of farmers is: 88(62%) small and marginal farmers have 25 tubewells, Whereas 54(38%) medium and large farmers have 56 tubewells. Therefore only 31% of the tubewells are with the small and marginal farmers, whereas the remaining 69% are owned by farmers of the medium and large category. Whereas ten farmers of the medium and large category even have two sets each, there is only one small farmer who has two borings which he operates with a single pumping set. The low percentage of tubewells with the small and marginal farmers speaks of their illiteracy, lack of knowledge and their poor economic condition.

The category-wise distribution of tubewells is given below:

Category

Small and marginal farmers

Medium and large farmers

Diesel

20

40

sets Electric sets

5

16

Total

25

56

This shows that most of the farmers prefer to install diesel pumping sets, although they are conscious of the high cost of owning, operating and maintaining a diesel set. The choice in favour of a diesel set is mainly because of the unreliability of the electric supply and in some cases even its non-availability.

The various reasons in the case of small and marginal farmers for not owning tubewells were found to be: (a) availability of canal water sufficient for their small holdings; (b) difficulties in getting loans and subsidies; (c)


non-viable proposition for them in view of the unreliability of the electric supply to rural areas.

Access to groundwater

The availability of irrigation facilities to various categories is given in Table 4. It is seen from this table that all the 142 sample farmers have an access to irrigation water from one source or the other. In the Salawa area 13 out of 35 (i.e. 37%) farmers of small and marginal category use groundwater as a primary source together with only six others (17%) who use groundwater as a secondary source. This means that only 54% of the small and marginal farmers have access to groundwater and others have to depend solely on canal supplies. However, in the Tansipur area the conditions are a bit different. Here, 51 out of 53 (96%) small and marginal farmers use canals as a primary source and only the remaining 4% use groundwater. Groundwater as a secondary source is being used by only 17 (i.e. 32%) of these farmers. Actually, in the Tansipur area canal water is more than sufficient and those who are maintaining rubewells or using purchased water are doing so only to supplement canal supplies when most needed. Even the farmers of medium and large category are mainly dependent on canals and own rubewells only for use as a secondary source. In all, 36% of the small and marginal farmers of the Tansipur area have access to groundwater.

The state tubewell water was not available to the small farmers and none of them used a Persian wheel.

Table 4 Availability of irrigation facilities

Category

SALAWA



TANSIPUR



No.

35

22

53

32

of farmers First source: Groundwater

13

19

2

1

Canal

22

3

51

31

Second source: Groundwater

6

3

17

19

Canal

7

16

_

-

Area under different sources of irrigation

Details of land owned (operated), land sown and area irrigated by private tubewells and canal water are shown in Table 5.


Table 5 Land owned, land sown and area irrigated

Category Land owned Land sown Area irrigated Area irrigated Area sown (operated) and (by canal) by tubewells but

irrigated unirrigated (ha) (ha) (ha) (ha) (lia)

Small and marginal farmers 88.50 85.10 47.77

Medium and large farmers 289.03 265.83 121.44

It is seen from the above that the percentage of area irrigated by groundwater (including conjunctive use area) to the total irrigated area is 51.8%. This percentage in the case of small and marginal farmers comes to only 43.9%, whereas for medium and large category farmers it comes to 54.3%. Also, the small and marginal farmers use groundwater to irrigate only 21% of the total area irrigated by tubewells.

Area sown

The above table also indicates that the area sown by the two categories is 93% of the total operational area. The category percentages are:

small farmers and marginal farmers: 96.2%; medium farmers and large farmers: 92.0%.

This means that most of the farmers utilize their holdings to the maximum.

Level of satisfaction

Out of the 88 farmers of the small and marginal category, 57 farmers were satisfied (45 from Tansipur and 12 from Salawa) with the existing irrigation facilities and the 31 remaining (8 from Tansipur and 23 from Salawa) were dissatisfied. The higher level of satisfaction (84.9%) in the Tansipur area as compared to that in the Salawa area (34.3%) is due to more adequate canal supplies in the former area than in the latter one. Some of the reasons for the dissatisfaction were found to be: (a) insufficient water supply; (b) supply not in time due to faulty canal operation, electric failure, or mechanical breakdown; (c) dependence on others; and (d) the high cost of irrigation etc.

Groundwater market

As already indicated, there were only 24 sample farmers of the small and marginal category who owned 25 tubewells. Out of these 24, only 14 farmers sold groundwater against cash payment (rates varying for diesel and electric

37.33 0.20 (21%)

144.39 (79%)


tubewells from Rs 8 to 14 and from Rs 4 to 6 respectively). In addition, only six farmers of the medium and large category also sold well water to other farmers of the area. The area-wise distribution is shown in Table 6.

Table 6 indicates that the practice of selling groundwater is more prevalent in the Salawa area than in the Tansipur area. During the survey no large farmers of the Tansipur area and only one of the Salawa area was found to be selling groundwater to his neighbours in need. Thus the development of a groundwater market in the study areas is still very unsatisfactory and efforts need be made to publicize the benefits of such markets amongst the farmers of the area.

Table 6 Distribution of farmers selling water

Category

SALAWA



TANSIPUR



Tubewell owning farmers

13

22

11

22

68

Farmers water

10

5

4

1

20

selling Percentage

76.9%

22.7%

36.4%

4.5%

29.4%

Different crops grown

Table 7 gives details of the principal crops grown in the study areas and the number of farmers who grow these crops. This shows that sugarcane, wheat and paddy are the principal crops grown in the area by farmers of all categories.

Table 7 Principal crops

Crop No. of farmers (142) Percentage

Sugarcane Paddy Wheat Fodder Berseem

136 112 139 106 96

95.8% 78.9% 97.9% 74.6% 67.6%


Cropping pattern

The seasonal cropping patterns for the two study areas are shown in Table 8.

Table 8 Seasonal cropping patterns

KHARIF

Sugarcane Paddy Fodder Others

RABI

Wheat Berseem Others

Salawa area

73.9% 8.9% 16.8%

0.4%

86.5% 12.3% 1.2%

Tansipur area

58.8% 25.4% 15.6%

0.2%

87.7% 11.3%

1.0%

Cropping intensity

The areal cropping intensity in respect of different categories of farmers is shown in Table 9.

It is seen from the above that the cropping intensity in the case of small and marginal farmers of the Tansipur area is more than their counterparts in the Salawa area. Also, the cropping intensity in the Salawa area is seen to increase with the size of holding, whereas it decreases in the Tansipur area.

Table 9 Cropping intensity

Category

SALAWA

Marginal Small Medium Large

TOTAL

TANSIPUR

Marginal Small Medium Large

TOTAL

Area sown

(ha)

U.38 22.05 36.30 54.67

124.4

23.00 28.86 39.07 135.80

226.73

Area under Kharif (ha)

11.38 22.05 36.30 54.67

124.4

23.00 28.86 39.07 135.80

226.73

Area under Rabi (ha)

5.83 11.50 20.78 32.89

71.00

14.40 15.40 20.70 60.87

111.37

Total

(ha)

17.21 33.55 57.08 87.56

195.40

37.40 44.26 59.77 196.67

338.10

Cropping intensity

151.2% 152.1% 157.2% 160.2%

157.1%

162.6% 153.4% 153.0% 144.8%

149.1%

39 Access crf small and marginal farmers to groundwater

Source of borrowing

Out of 88 small and marginal farmers only 20 farmers were reported to have borrowed money from banks, cooperatives and societies for the purpose noted against each. Ten farmers borrowed to finance tubewells, four for implements and six for fertilizers. All of the 20 farmers were reported to have repaid the loan. The remaining 68 farmers were found not to have taken loans. The reasons for not taking loans have been found to be: (a) canal water is sufficient for their needs; (b) not interested because of difficulties; and (c) tried but could not get because of procedural difficulties, constraints and

corruption involved with the sanction of loan.

Subsidy

Out of 88 small and marginal farmers, only 13 farmers were reported to have had the benefit of a subsidy. These subsidies ranging from 25 to 50% were allowed for owning pumpsets, buffaloes and carts etc. The remaining 75 farmers could not avail themselves of this facility for various reasons: (a) not interested, canal water sufficient; (b) ignorant at the time of installing tubewells; (c) interested but could not succeed due to lack of resources to gratify the

government officials and middle man; and (d) were interested but did not even try because of difficulties, corrupt

practices and constraints involved.

learning process

During the field survey and personal interviews with the sample farmers the following facts were noted: (a) Farmers of the study areas have started feeling the need of adequate

and timely supplies of irrigation water for their crops. They now think of using groundwater also either exclusively or in conjunction with surface water, as and when needed.

(b) There is a definite change in the attitude of the farmers regarding the age-old traditional irrigation practices and they are quite aware of the newly developed lift technologies.

(c) The farmers have a satisfactory technical knowledge of tubewells, size of pipes, type and horse power of prime mover. However, their selection is still based on the advice of the influential farmers, the experiences of other tubewell owners and in some cases even the advice of the mechanic himself.

(d) The farmers are better informed about the sanction of loans and subsidies etc. However, they are unhappy about the high cost of materials and the difficulties and corruption prevailing at almost all


levels in the government offices, banks and societies.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results obtained from the present study the following conclusions may be drawn: (a) In view of the existing energy crisis and high oil prices, there is a need

to use low horse power pumping sets and to draw just sufficient groundwater to meet the irrigation requirements of the farmer. Traditional irrigation devices such as the Persian wheel, dhenklis, charas etc. which require a lot of human and animal power should be abandoned in favour of the newly developed water lifting technologies. Pumpsets run on a renewable source of energy such as solar pumps and windmills should be given a fair trial and all efforts should be made to bring down their cost of installation to within the reach of small and marginal farmers. A regular and full-time supply of electricity to rural areas should be ensured to make electrically driven pumpsets more popular. These measures are necessary to reduce irrigation cost.

(b) A small/marginal farmer requires a pumping device of capacity 15/10 1 s"1 to irrigate his smallholding. He should, therefore, be advised to go in for either a 5 HP/3 HP diesel engine or a 5 HP/3.5 HP electric motor, as the case may be. Use of a 5-10 HP prime mover results in a waste of both money and energy.

(c) The small and marginal farmers of the study areas are, in general, economically backward and illiterate and their average monthly income is quite low.

(d) The small and marginal farmers, constituting 62% of the sample farmers, operate only 23.4% of the culturable land and own only 31% of private tubewells. Although all these farmers have access to irrigation water, their access to groundwater works out to be only 38/88 i.e. 43%. All these percentages are quite low and not commensurate with their number in the whole lot of farmers.

(e) The prospects of developing a groundwater market in the area appear to be bleak because the farmers are quite ignorant of the benefits of such markets. The prospects can, of course, be increased by sanctioning loans and subsidies liberally to these small and marginal farmers without strings attached to them. Administrative reforms to eradicate corruption and gratification at various levels are needed most. At present there are only a few small and marginal farmers who are able to make use of these institutional supports.

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