BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to assist farming communities in proper management of water resources and selection of crops basing on availability of water, the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare department has asked all Collectors to form district-level committees for implementation of crop water budgeting (CWB).
CWB is a farmer-centric tool developed by Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) to assist communities in proper management of water resources where water consumption does not exceed the limits of recharge through rainfall, stream and surface flow.
In June 2018, the state government had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with FES to provide technical training on assessing land capability and CWB across districts in the State.
“The CWB tool will enable farming communities to collect rainfall data and availability of water for crops after meeting the requirement for domestic purpose. In case of deficit water for a cropping plan, community members have to discuss possible crop changes to avert crop damage,” said Principal Secretary Agriculture Saurabh Garg.
The key activities of the community is to collect data on rainfall, census on bore-wells, water harvesting structures, groundwater level, changes across seasons and its impact on crops grown during kharif and rabi seasons and area treatment measures undertaken within their village boundary.
The next step is to evaluate the data against scientific norms set by various agencies to estimate the water availability and use for a particular cropping season based on the recharge potential of the area, taking into consideration rainfall in the locality and water storage in surface structures, he said.
On the demand side management of water, the community members will be informed of various programmes to be undertaken by the Government to augment their water resources.
The benefits of adopting CWB include increase in awareness level among farmers on water resources and water saving devices for improved irrigation system.
“The farming community, being at the centre of the planning and monitoring process, becomes an effective regulatory body in terms of identifying deviation and taking appropriate action for self-regulation,” Garg said.The FES will act as a facilitator for promoting ecologically sound agriculture practices by providing Composite Landscape Assessment and Restoration Tool, a geographical information system, to assist farmers in preparing CWB.