During the Cochin Workshop someone (was it DV Sridharan?) told me how vetiver hedgerows were improving ground water to the extent that his farm pond was now being recharged by groundwater aquifer. I would appreciate confirmation of this, together with details. I recall back in the late 1980s of hearing of farmers in Karnataka who after planting vetiver benefited from similar recharge to their ponds. Also I remember in the 90's after leaving India that a World Bank Public health water mission observed ethemeral streams that were running two or three months longer into the dry season because of vetiver hedgerows. In Gundalpet, Mysore, vetiver using farmers told us that the level of water in their wells was much higher than those of neighboring villages who did not use vetiver. As an aside it was quite extraordinary that farmers from nearby villages who did not use vetiver had no idea why vetiver was being used, although they had walked past vetiver protected fields on many occasions over many year!
It would seem to me that India should look very carefully as to how the vetiver system could be widely used to deal with some really difficult and serious natural resource issues facing the country, particularly agriculture) today. Vetiver gives us an all-in-one solution for (1) soil and moisture conservation - improved crop yields (2) groundwater recharge (3) removal of excess nutrients and pollutants (agricultural chemicals) flowing off farm lands (imagine what it could do in the major cotton growing areas of India (4) treatment of major point source erosion areas that are serious sediment sources that impact on lakes and reservoirs and (5) a number of useful biproducts including forage, mulch and sources for handicrafts
It would be possible for the Panchayati Raj to organize a program that would be operated at the gram panchayat level. State agricultural extension and other services, if concentrating mainly on VS for a few
years, could probably do more to improve agriculture and natural resource protection and regeneration (soil and water) than probably any other intervention. All at a very low cost requiring minimal technical input.
In addition if the Indian research institutions (possibly the aromatic research stations that are already working with vetiver) could country- wide assess the carbon uptake of vetiver under different soil and
climatic conditions (India has them all) it might then be possible to "bundle" gram panchayat vetiver (see MP Singh's workshop paper - "The importance of methodologies required for evaluating and quantifying
Carbon Sequestering, GHG Emission Reduction, Fossil Fuel Replacement Capacity, Carbon Credits..."
programs that would meet the World Bank carbon credit financing.
I remember in 1986 when John Greenfield and I held a press conferencein Delhi on the use of Vetiver Grass, Bim Bissell introduced vetiver as a "new green revolution" for rainfed areas of India. We have been waiting a long time for that revolution, but perhaps the time is now ripe to do something about it.
Dick Grimshaw
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteAt last we are starting to realise the absolute importance of MOISTURE CONSERVATION (MC). Subsistence farming usually and increasingly takes place in a fragile marginal environment exacerbated by low unpredictable rainfall. No amount of seed bed preparation, planting of high yielding crops,applying the right nutrients and weeding is going to have any impact if there is insufficient moisture to take the crop through to fruition.
I am glad that the debate on the vetiver system has come back to its most important impact "of perpetuating sustainable crop production" for subsistence farmers in rainfed areas of the tropics, in other words, the greater part of the worlds population. This far out-weighs its "bonus" attributes of phytosanitation; sequestering carbon for the Global warming Geeks, who can't predict the weather 10 days ahead let alone the world's temperature in 100 years time!
When I contoured the forestry block in Rangareddy District, Maheshwaram Watershed Project, Andhra Pradesh, and planted vetiver grass hedges in the 'V' ditches covering 2,600 ha the resulting moisture conservation noticed by the villagers was that the previous 'drainage net work was now flowing perennially for the first time in their living. But the most important affect to me was that they had been planting Eucalyptus spp "because they were drought tolerant" and nothing else would grow in the area which had been abandoned for cropping.
After the first season of moisture conservation, Teak (Tectnona grandis) germinated throughout the contoured block, nobody, including our forestry officers knew that it was once a teak forest area. This was purely the effects of moisture conservation (MC) resulting from the in-situ conservation of the contouring stabilised by the vetiver hedges.
When I took that block over from the forestry guys who had been unsuccessful in producing a viable plantation, I asked them what they thought the problem was, why their forest plantings failed? Their answer The original forest had gone, therefore the rainfall was depleted (rubbish). I asked them, "what about runoff?" No this was not a problem. I pointed out that this was their major problem, they were probably losing 60% of the effective rainfall through runoff. At the time, they had a Cat D6 bulldozing all the voluntary vegetation between the rows of Eucalyptus to conserve moisture for the trees' Not realising that in so doing, they were increasing their runoff by 50%. No wonder they only had less than survival on their forest blocks
Through your contacts in India, Dickji, you could perhaps, get in touch with the young forestry officer in charge of that scheme M.M.A Mash-Hady, (Divisional Forestry Officer) and ask him what the results of that first effort in to MC in that block look like now years later. (We planted it from 30th May till the 3rd of June 1988). At the time, he was just blown away by what the contouring and MC had produced and they were going to change the way the planted forests in the future.
I see you mention working through Panchayats - It would be possible for the Panchayati Raj to organize a program that would be operated at the gram panchayat level. I don't believe (unles their attitudes and thinking have changed) these guys can do it. Jack Kampen, whom you remember I took over from, wasted years organising Panchayati in the Himalayas to no useful purpose. Panchayati have little if any connection with the land, have set ideas, are risk averse and comfortable with what their group has done. Trying to get them to accept new technologies is like trying to wrestle with smoke! You have to get the message across to the actual farmers in the field. What we have to get across to the Governments of the countries we work. in is acceptance of the importance and effectiveness of MC, using the vetiver system for their rainfed farmers and for the benefit of their
Nation.
As Dale Rachmeler, refering to Ghana's Lake Volta, points out "indiscriminate land use at the macro as well as the micro level leaves the land barren at times and sets the stage for high erosion, loss of soil fertility, not to mention huge amounts of silt flowing into this gigantic lake. On micro scales irrigated perimeters up to 5000 ha built 30-40 years ago have long been abandoned due to dam failures, canal and drainage failure and overall mismanagement. Now the World Bank vis the Min Agric are trying to rehabilitate them once again. Such a drain on valuable development dollars. How long will they last this time around. Issues surrounding macro-level land use planning thus planning, on the other hand, are only spoken about in conferences and never seems to matter when it comes to investment determination". So right, just like the Panchayati!
"Both Dick and John spent time in their careers in Ghana in the 60s at a time when hope was high and potential equally abundant. Today Ghana still is moving forward and is indeed moving relatively fast compared with other West African nations".
When I worked in Ghana in 1969 it was no different from the other countries in the developing world. I was clearing jungle to develop a poultry industry in Ejura, North of Kumasi. Unless you had strict control of the labour, nothing got accomplished. You need good foremen or in the Indian context "Sirdars", who are trained in the new technology and are responsible for the out put of their gangs.
A perfect example of this system of field management is the achievement of Alain Ndona in the Congo and the excellent vetiver plantings he has achieved there. If he can do it in the Congo, why can't his efforts be replicated in other African countries?? He has done it for road stabilisation, lets do the same thing for farms.
Further, in India. On the Black Cotton Soils of Maharashtra the approach they had, after years of Foreign Aid, was to fallow the fields in the hope of increasing moisture conservation for future crops. This was a total waste of time as they used the 'contour' absorption bank as their method of holding rainfall. When the rain fell, the banks burst and erosion was the result. The banks that held runoff caused local flooding and made it impossible, given the nature of the soils, to walk over the fields let alone cultivate them until they had totally dried out. I introduced vetiver hedges to these soils, they held the runoff spread it out over the whole area and the resulting cotton crops were
excellent, not only that but the farmers found that they could double crop (instead of wasting time fallowing) for the first time as these difficult soils with controlled runoff behind vetiver hedges had
reached field capacity without bogging the areas.
We have to get the moisture conservation message out to the Government planners who can accept them for the rainfed areas and issue instructions to their field people that they need training in the new technology of vetiver hedges. Allow the trainers to come in to the country, set up gangs for planting vetiver nurseries, field gangs for planting vetiver hedges as initially demonstration areas, and ultimately change the traditional ways of rainfed farming to moisture conservation using VS.
That's all I have got time for right now, got to go fishing.
John Greenfield.
March 21, 08.