The Deepening Crisis: Women farmers reflect on the unsustainable agricultural and water trajectories. Initial insights from the village Rawangaon, India

Figure 2: Securing water in a farm pond

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The 90-year-old Rakhmabai Pomane reminisces how water was a scarce resource then but was used wisely. Absence of extractive technology also meant that there was a limit to how much water could be drawn. The traditional systems drew water through a pulley or moat method or through animal labour called as the rahat. These are manual irrigation methods by which water is drawn out of wells with the help of a pulley and is used to irrigate fields. A Rahat is a method by which, water is drawn out of wells by bullocks. The bullocks move and rotate the wheel which pulls out the water from the wells. Rakhmabai says that it would take a full day to irrigate a few cents of land[5]. The electric pumps of modern day do that in a matter of few hours. She was only 8 years old when she got married and came into this village. Ever since she has diligently worked on the farm and grown with the changes in agriculture and irrigation practices. Farming was enjoyable then, she says as much of it was not mechanised so there were a number of labourers on the field to interact with. She explains that in those times she “… could decide on which crops to take. Crops were diverse and we did not use any pesticides’’. Rakhmabai said they did cultivate sugarcane 50 years back too, but that did not dominate her entire farm. She grew cereals and pulses that were also necessary for consumption. Rakhmabai blames the water crisis mainly on increasing pest infestations, changes in agricultural practices and decline in rainfall.

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Suvarna Pomane her daughter-in-law in her 50’s shares her stories since she came into this village after marriage. She says that “thirty years back when I came into this village the crops were diverse but that has changed over the last decade or so and now only sugarcane and pomegranate is grown”. Moreover, she shares how the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers has grown manifold and how women too, do the spraying of the pesticides now, something that was never done a few years ago. These pesticides affect her health, but if she does not apply that she knows that her produce would be affected. Unlike Rakhmabai, Suvarna says that “despite my hard labour I have little say in decision making in the farm’’. Her work burden has increased after irrigation and pesticide use and her health has deteriorated.

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Chhayatai (42 years old) speaks with great pride about her farm. She explains: “My husband has been ill for the last 15 years and I have to entirely manage my farm by myself. I was born in Rawangaon and was also married into this village so I know how farming has changed with availability of water”. Chhayatai is able to narrate the water and agricultural trajectories in this village very well. There was no canal in the village till 30 years ago and irrigation was done through dug wells alone. Her family cultivated only half an acre of sugarcane which was sold to the cane crushing units in the village itself. There were six such units in the village in the 80’s. Seeds were mostly traditional varieties of jowar and other pulses. Agricultural scenario changed rapidly when a sugar factory was started in the 1990’s close to our village. Sugarcane became the dominant crop as it got a priority market and guaranteed price.

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Irrigating the field is not easy she says, because it is no longer just by gravity that water flows into your farm and you prepare the furrows for irrigating. Irrigation now includes activities around the water infrastructure such as the electric pump, pipelines, maintenance of drip system etc. She narrates how much she has to depend on male mediation for ensuring that all these systems operate well: “Once in the middle of night the electric pump stopped working and that was the time when my sugarcane needed water. I had to run from pillar to post to get it repaired just so that the crop would be saved”. Often these are relations that she has to maintain outside of the services that are provided by the men.

 

Over the years Rawangaon has seen a number of shifts in the agrarian landscape and water reallocations are a significant part of it. Macro policies that promote certain crops over others, chemicals and pesticide use over organic manure, mechanisation over human labour have contributed significantly to the changes that we witness today. Economic liberalisation and changing climate add a few additional layers to this process of change. Presently sugarcane is the dominant crop along with a few other horticultural crops such as pomegranate, custard apple etc. Watering practices largely include micro irrigation even for sugarcane which is a water intensive crop. Farm ponds or the buffer storages are also thus seen as important to the water storage infrastructure. Boreholes, drip and sprinkler systems and farm ponds are the new symbols of success in the increasingly water insecure village. The prosperous successful man is thus the one who has access to all of this.

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All of the women we spoke to cannot imagine agriculture without the water that is available today, but their stories are important to follow to understand the unsustainable path that water and agriculture has traversed through in the last 30 years in this village and how that has changed the lives of diverse groups of people and especially women. It also tells us a story of how people are rapidly adapting themselves to be able to respond to the macro policy shifts often not leading to very sustainable use of groundwater.