Water and agriculture: A criticalapproach to study india's irrigation pattern and practices

Water and Agriculture: An Approach Towards Lowering Water Foot Print India, with a population of about 1.3 billion, constituting 17.8% of world population on 2.4% of world's land area, contains only 4% of world's fresh water resources. Moreover, agriculture consumes almost 80% of the total water consumed in all the sectors. These figures depict the importance of water and its conservation for sustainable development of India's growth for times to come. There is a huge scope for reduction of water consumption in agriculture sector, which can possibly save India from entering critically into water-scarce condition. There are wide ranging solutions, which can be suggested for an agriculturally diverse country like India, some of which include increasing the efficiency of water delivery system through appropriate technology, switching over to integrated farming, adopting, cropping pattern keeping climate of a region in view and growing crops requiring less water and creating awareness for decreasing water footprint through IEC and BCC (Behavioural change communication). The recent initiatives of the Government in PMKSY (Har khet ko pani and more crop per drop) can be achieved to a large extent through micro-irrigation. An often ignored area which tends to skip the attention of policy-makers is the virtual water trade, which shows that India exports much more virtual water than it imports, which is in sharp contrast to China, which is the only comparable country to India in terms of the population size. It is to be further noted that areas in India like Haryana and Rajasthan which are deficient in water resources have been cultivating water intensive crops. This may be partially attributed to the fact that Green revolution penetrated first in these regions, while areas which are comparatively rich in water resources, like Eastern and North-eastern states of India, have not been substantially touched by Green revolution. Case studies relating to projects in these States have been undertaken to verify the cultivation of water intensive crops, which has further corroborated the facts. Excessive use of water in Green revolution adopted states where irrigation networks are well established have resulted in cultivation of water intensive crops with use of HYV seeds and excessive application of fertilizers and chemical pesticides. This has led to water logging as well as underground water pollution. The excessive Ground water use has led to further propagation of soil salinity and as well as depletion of precious groundwater resulting in increase in dark zones. In the view of looming shortage of water, India may adopt the strategy of importing water intensive crops like rice and exporting crops which require less water but are in high demand abroad, as is being done by some countries. Further, collaboration may be done with agriculturally advanced countries like Israel, to make this sector more economically viable. Further, Biotechnology holds great promise to reduce the water requirement of crops and to increase the yield and nutritional quality of crops substantially at the same time. Indian farmers are practicing agriculture since time immemorial and therefore traditional farming knowledge in combination with modern practices can give a holistic solution towards food and nutritional security of “New India”.