Beneficiary Participation in Irrigation Water Management: The Kerala

all farmers in an area did this activity simultaneously. BFA has to take up the leadership to
fix the appropriate date and time for this work. This aspect of the cultivation is stressed in
group farming by the Agricultural Department in Kerala in recent years. Some BFAs have
done according to guidelines in the areas where BFAs were live and active. Seventy-nine
respondents (around 17 percent) claimed that they had discharged this activity according to
instructions; another 11 percent held that it was done only very rarely. The majority (71
percent) held that no such joint exercise had taken place. Almost all of them belonged to
the defunct BFAs.
In brief, CADA officials had succeeded in creating awareness about the significance of this
function; but the instructions were carried out only by the functioning BFAs. In the majority
of cases, beneficiary farmers did not get proper leadership and guidance to carry out this
activity. Some farmers, however, reported that joint pesticide application used to be practised
by them even before CADA was installed and BFAs were formed.
Deciding the appropriate crop pattern for a region is the function of the Canal Committee,
but implementation of the decision is the task of the BFAs. Since the BFAs under Malampuzha
project are associations basically of rice cultivators, crop patterns may mean only choice of
the different varieties of the crop to be cultivated in each season in a given year. In other
words, pattern change implies only change in the varieties of rice to be cultivated in the
irrigation areas. Only 6 percent of the total respondents claimed some activity in this regard
while 89 per cent reported no such activity. Selection of the appropriate seed varieties for
particular seasons might have happened only in areas in which BFAs were active.
Another argument runs like this: long before the setting up of BFAs, the farmers in some
rice areas used to have this practice of arriving for each season at a consensus on the variety
of rice to be cultivated. This cultivation practice is still in vogue in several areas. Of course,
the setting up of BFAs must have rendered added relevance to this function. It is, however,
non-performance observed that BFAs failed in performing this function. Minutes of the
Canal Committee and field enquiry amply prove non-performance(Table 4.8). Out of the 29
decisions which the CCs had taken during a span of 10 years, only three (one decision each
by three canal committees) were on crop pattern to be adopted.
The collective provision of seed, fertiliser, and agricultural implements intended to
secure the economies of scale and to promote group activity among farmers, is a function
reported to have been performed effectively in other States in India particularly in some
projects in Maharashtra. In our study area, around 90 percent of the respondents denied
having had any experience of joint supply of seed, fertiliser, and agricultural implements.
Office-bearers of the BFAs also concurred with the views of the ordinary members in this
respect.
Non-performance
A few functions, such as controlling the rich and the powerful, joint preparation of paddies,
preparation of action plans, setting up of common nurseries for rice seedlings and fixing
appropriate time for commencing agricultural operations were neglected by almost all BFAs,
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