Levels and determinants of economic viability of rainwater harvesting farm ponds

Abstract

Improving the productivity, profitability and stability in rainfed agriculture is critical to achieving the goals of inclusive growth and enhancing farmers’ incomes given the demographic and geographic importance of rainfed agriculture. Rainwater management through dug out farm ponds is an important part of strategy for enhancing productivity of rainfed agriculture. Therefore, considerable emphasis was given to support rainwater harvesting farm ponds in programmes such as MGNREGA, watershed development, etc. This paper attempts to analyse the impact of farm ponds in three districts: Anantapur and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh and Adilabad in Telangana. The profitability of farm ponds was found to vary across districts and across farm ponds within each district. Profitability was found to be high in Adilabad receiving higher annual rainfall with 69 per cent of ponds generating an additional income of more than Rs. 20000 per year as compared to 8 per cent in Anantapur with less annual rainfall. The factors associated with varying profitability of farm ponds were identified for policy implications.