Evaluating Agricultural Sustainability in Rainfed regions in India

Abstract

Watershed development project is a popular NRM and agriculture development strategy in rainfed agriculture. The program has attracted huge investments since its initiation in 1980s in the country. Till date several phases of watershed projects have been implemented under guidelines that have been modified at regular intervals to adapt to changing situations. However use of tools of Geomatics makes the task manageable and provides the facility to measure the immeasurable, namely sustainable development. This paper presents a methodology developed to measure sustainable agriculture in rainfed regions. The paper discusses how the methodology was used to monitor changes in treated watersheds in two districts – Nalgonda and Rangareddy in AP, India. Temporal study since 2006 helped in indicating which aspects of watershed development projects were critical and contributed to sustainability. This information could be vital for the PIA of the projects who can use the information for mid-term correction or for overhauling the whole projects based on actual requirements in the field. Study indicated that although full sustainability has not been achieved, watershed development program was found to be useful and had contributed positively to agricultural development in rainfed regions. Assessment of sustainability of watershed projects using GIS and remote sensing tools was carried out in eight micro-watersheds in four villages in Rangareddy (RR) and Nalgonda districts since 2006. Area under four villages encompassing over 6000 ha of agricultural land located in various blocks in Nalgonda and Rangareddy in southern Telengana region encompassing AESR 7.2 were studied to measure agricultural sustainability. Over 450 farm households were surveyed annually using two structured questionnaire developed for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of watershed projects at household and field/watershed levels. Fifty- one indicators were initially constructed with a score card and by 2009 it was possible to identify 13 critical indicators that were found to be critical for sustainable agriculture. Out of these, six indicators were found to contribute over 68% towards sustainable development in rainfed agriculture in AESR 7.2. During 2012 it was possible to segregate the monitoring indicators from the evaluation indicators. Each of the four villages selected for the study, could be divided into 7 to 19 micro-watersheds, out of which one treated and one untreated micro-watersheds covering an area of 100 - 150 ha each, were selected for the study. All watershed projects were implemented under DPAP and NWDPRA guidelines during 1998-2004. Since April, 2008 watershed development guidelines have been changed, however, the information generated from this study is valuable as it shows how tools of Geomatics can be used to carry out spatial evaluation of watershed projects and measure agricultural sustainability that is considered ‘immeasurable’. This is indeed a notable progress and as Geomatics provides a valuable tool to measure ‘sustainable development’, progress can be ensured as it now becomes an entity that can be monitored and evaluated. Based on temporal analysis of the watershed projects in Telengana region in AP, it was seen that the project had contributed positively albeit marginally to sustainable development. Twelve indicators were identified as critical for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) procedure. Two evaluation methods one empirical employing PCA analysis and traditional method and another using Geomatics - Raster CalculatorTool in Spatial Analyst ModuleofArcGIS software, were developed. The results corroborated well with the field level study. A DSS for evaluation of watershed projects is being developed.