Water Users Association and Irrigation Management - Institute for ...

grazing lands and the consequent reduction in availability of dung for manure. On the other
hand. the demand for FYM is increasing every year, to replenish nutrients in the soil.
Farmers are compelled to stall feed the cattle due to reduction in grazing lands. It is
estimated that animal s consume 40 to 55 percent of crop residues during the dry season 13 . It
is also used for bedding in cattle pens, so only 52 percent of farmers burned crop residue.
Some of the farmers used it as construction material or fuel. Even though green manuring
was done by 59 percent of the farmers, application of FYM was not always followed by it.
Some farmers either followed only !,'Teen manuring or application of FYM. It seems that
farmers are either unaware or unwilling to try it.
On-farm drainage has been provided by 96 percent of the sample farmers in Gundur, where
the WUA is present. while in Hagedal only 71 percent of the farmers had drainage. In
Gundur, the WUA is responsible for the maintenance of natural and collector drains and
farmers render their services in tenns of labor and money. In Hagedal, natural drains has
disappeared due to siltation and the negligcncc of farmers. Farmers in this village expect
that the agency should maintain the drains.
It can be seen lTom Table 6.4 that around 116 percent of farmers interviewed followed the
curative and preventive strategy in Gundur hut in Hagedal although soil-related problems
were found to he more (sec Figure 5.1) only 64 percent of farmers interviewed followed
these strategies. Although a large number of technological and management options are
available to manage waterlogged and saline soils, often the strategies are not been adopted
due to several socio-economic and institutional constraints (WOCAT, 1997).
Other methods to reduce salinity, of which some farmers are aware but do not practice, is
scraping and tlushing. Scraping involves physically removing the saline crust lTom the
surface of the field to create a favorablc environment for seed germination and plant
!,'Towth. Flushing involves running water over the surface of a field where impermeable salt
crust is formed. Both of these are desperation acts and show that fertility of the soil is in
extreme jeopardy (Abrol et al. 1988). As early as in 1914, Leather (reported by CABI,
" However. there is a considerable potential for recycling soil nutrients by feeding crop residues to cattle as it
. .' . (G t 1970) But often the feed given to cattle other than crop
produces manure that IS rIch In nutrIents ran .
reSidue is of poor quality.
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