Agriculture performance in Saurashtra over two decades and responses by the stakeholders
Student name: Ms Richa Sharma and Ms Ruchi Sehrawat
Guide: Mr M V Shiju
Year of completion: 2012
Host Organisation: Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), Gujarat
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Pramod K. Singh
Abstract: Saurashtra has witnessed many droughts in 1980s, 1990s and in 2000. This has
deteriorated the condition of the entire region especially of farmers who left with
nothing to lose, their land’s productivity was minimized; they faced the problems
of salinity ingress and there was scarcity of fresh water everywhere. Everybody
cried for solutions and gradually they reached to a consensus that they have to
save rain water and minimize the runoff. Then people like Shamjibhai Antala
came up with some innovative solutions like diverting rainwater into wells, and
thus he became the rainmaker of Gujarat. He worked against the odds and
helped lakhs of farmers. And then gradually many organizations jumped into the
battlefield of saving water and this resulted in the increasing trend of crop
production from 1990 (5002000 tons) to in 2009 (7395000 tons), shift in
cropping pattern towards water intensive crop i.e. cotton, decreased salinity
ingress especially after 2000, crop intensity has increased due to the increase in
irrigated area and ground water is the main source which is feeding agriculture.
This entire win-win situation in Saurashtra would have remained a dream if well
established as well as local organizations, NGOs and government would have
not taken appropriate initiatives. The water harvesting techniques have proved
to be a boon in Saurashtra by overturning the entire situation, now this region
can be called as a drought tolerant region.
Keywords: Drought, Salinity Ingress, Groundwater, Watershed, Recharge
movement
