Critique of irrigation

Dr. G.N.S. Reddy of BAIF Institute of Rural Development, Karnataka (BIRD-K), makes a strong statement against irrigation from large dams, in the context of Karnataka. The points he makes includes:
-- black soils degrade quickly due to waterlogging from irrigation and we are seeing this happen to large tracts of irrigated land
-- the huge subsidies in the form of irrigation infrastructure that are not counted when calculating cost/benefit of irrigation at the farmer level
-- degradation of land due to monoculture, lack of security for the farmer in monoculture
-- bad quality of rehabilitation for the project displaced

In contrast he lays out the benefits of BAIF's approach of tree-based sustainable farming

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Dr.
• G.N.S.
• Reddy
• tree-based
• sustainable
• farming
• irrigation
• waterlogging
• salinisation
• Karnataka
• Upper
• Krishna
• Narayanaguda
• dam

[indiawaterportal]

Hi Vijay,

I had a quick look at the first part, where his comments about the ill effects of Upper Krishna and irrigation from that project are the highlights. It may be a good idea if you / Arghyam can ask him to write on this. I think it would be a great public service.

Himanshu