Tallal Hassan, an agricultural engineer specializing in water resources for the Government of Pakistan, currentlya Humphrey Fellow at Cornell University, carried out our first volunteer assignment on water conseration in Meta. The participating farmer organizations identified these issues, that Tallal helped them to address:
-
High
seasonality in the supply of water and the susceptibility of soils to
degradation by erosion, compaction, desertification, acidification, and the
high level of endemism in the area.
- Low
levels of implementation of technologies for the storage and distribution of
water in production systems
- There is
not a sustainable strategy for catchment, storage and efficient use of rain
water in the area of work, which could may huge impact on productivity during
the dry season.
Working with farmers, Tallal made the following recommendations for the Altillanura region:
1.
Farmers were recommended to use Land Based
Rainfall Water Harvesting Systems for collecting water during rainy season.
These systems include following:
a)
*Construction
of storage ponds accordance to watershed area of the field. Simple and complete
designing was taught to the farmers to design, construct and maintain the
storage reservoirs countering the problems of infiltration and evaporation.
Farmers are encouraged to construct water reservoirs and if possible make big
reservoirs by joint collaboration of 2 or more farmers to overcome water
shortage problem during dry period.
b)
Methods of improving water delivery systems from
reservoirs to field and house were taught using natural gravitational flow and
cost and operational efficient way to deliver water.
1.
*Farmers
are recommended to upgrade the ground water exploration system from tradition
water wells to modernize tube well systems. Operation and benefit of tube well
operation was described to the farmers and cost benefit ratio was estimated to
show the benefits of tube well over simple well in long term perspective and
irrigation to crops in summer season.
2.
*Farmers
are encouraged to make micro catchments around plants especially fruit plants
because it makes easy to irrigate plant during dry season as well with less
water application they can meet the crop water requirement.
3.
For rainy season they can make eyebrow type
micro catchments in direction of water flow which will not only help in
stopping water near plant root zone for water requirements as well will help in
preventing soil erosion.
4.
*Farmers
are encouraged to do plotting of their farms and plant trees on edges of those
plots which will help in retaining water in soil root zone and will provide
natural barrier against high speed wind, a major cause of soil erosion and
evaporation.
Please see this Facebook Page for photos!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Farmer-to-Farmer-Colombia/1466506503609150
