Farmers urged to pay active role in participatory irrigation system

CADA administrative officer of Malaprabha and Ghataprabha Projects M. Satish Kumar has emphasised the need for the farmers in the command area to form Water Users’ Cooperative Societies and actively participate in the participatory irrigation system.

Inaugurating the three-day training programme on “Integrated water resources conservation and management”  for farmers of the Malaprabha and Ghataprabha command areas at the Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI) in Dharwad on Saturday, he said that the required training on efficient water use and soil fertility management was being jointly provided by CADA and WALMI and called upon the farmers to make full use of the training programme.

He said WALMI offered comprehensive training on modern agricultural technologies, participatory irrigation management, formation and functioning of Water Users’ Cooperative Societies, water rate assessment and collection, irrigation laws, and more, supported by demonstrations and field visits. And during the training the trainees would also be visiting demonstration plots, micro-irrigation units, hydraulic, soil and water testing laboratories, a livestock unit, a vermin compost unit and a rainwater harvesting unit on the WALMI campus, he said.

Presiding over the inaugural session, B.Y. Bandivaddar said that in an agriculture-dependent country like India water drawn from reservoirs was invaluable and good yields could be achieved through quality seeds, proper soil management and judicious use of water. He emphasised the need for farmers to cultivate crops that suited to their local soil and environmental conditions instead of depending one or two commercial crops.

Land Development Officer (Cooperation) S.S. Poojari said proper water distribution required close cooperation between farmers and engineers under the participatory irrigation system in which Water Users’ Cooperative Societies played a key role. He said that societies should independently handle water rate collection, create awareness on water assessment and ensure that all the farmers benefited.

President of Water Users’ Cooperative Society Kumar Timmapur stressed the need for the farmers to equip themselves with knowledge on soil and water management, silt management, formation and functioning of societies, CADA schemes and others so as to make farming more viable.