Indigenous Practices for Soil and Water Conservation - Agropedia

sources. Programs of technology development for soil and water conservation
suffer from the isolation of the "outsiders" (researchers and planners) from the
realities confronting the rural poor. The outsiders and the villagers differ
widely in their perceptions, time horizons, priorities, and norms of perception.
The only way these limitations can be overcome is to create a common understanding
among the participants about the needs, and the ways in which these
needs are to be met.
This paper considers the important goals and performance norms of agricultural
and rural community development programs (including natural resource
management programs), and outlines the process of interaction
between outsiders and the rural community, illustrated by these case studies.
This interaction should lead to participatory appraisal of constraints, developmental
alternatives, and relevant technologies introduced in natural resource
management programs. Unfortunately, however, the established mode
of functioning l i m i t s phased, participatory development.
The major shared goals of development include creating sustainable livelihoods
and setting up self-reliant and participatory local institutions that empower
the r u r a l poor. Development programs should strive to create
permanent productive assets to attain a biomass surplus after meeting subsistence
needs of food, fodder, and fuelwood. Once such goals are agreed upon, it
should not be difficult to arrive at a common understanding on norms of
performance.
T h e process of i n t e r a c t i o n should involve, in a phased manner, programs to
create awareness among both villagers and program officials, participatory
appraisal to assess the needs of all the villagers and develop a strategy for
conflict management, and to scale up accepted techniques. The importance of
local skills and traditional knowledge should be recognized, while applying
judicious external inputs of energy and materials, and taking advantage of
modern technology.
Baliraja Water Distribution Society
In this Program, irrigation technology was introduced after being screened by
farmers. A local water user's group was created to manage irrigation. The
farmers used water extensively rather than intensively, and adopted water
conservation practices, thus minimizing water use per farm and distributing
the benefits of irrigation as widely as possible. Processing industries were
developed for the surplus agricultural production, multiplying the employment
created by the Program.
Organization of R u r a l Poor in Solapur District
This agricultural development program for persons of scheduled castes arose
following the failure of efforts to replicate a model employed in advanced
farming communities. The Program's focus is on women, who were found to be
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