Why should farmers invest in wells when irrigation tanks underperform? the evidence from South Indian tank commands

Abstract

Irrigation tanks are perceived to contribute significantly to irrigation, agricultural production, and environmental sustainability. Realizing the significance of this perception, this paper analyses why farmers should invest in wells when irrigation tanks underperform. If the availability of water in tanks is poor, tanks perform poorly, and water becomes scarce. Farmers respond by increasing the number of private wells. If farmers do not invest, they stand to forgo an income of INR 12,430-12,775 per hectare per year. Therefore, farmers should be helped to construct wells.

Infrastructuring drip irrigation: The gendered assembly of farmers, laborers and state subsidy programs

“…The critical scholarship on drip irrigation detailed above has mostly examined it as a technology or as part of a system (Kumar and Palanisami, 2010), which is connected to a variety of actors (e.g. development donor agencies) (Venot et al, 2014(Venot et al, , 2017.…”

“…Research from agronomic engineering has shown reductions in male farmers’ labor inputs when switching from conventional (flood) to drip irrigation (Kumar and Palanisami, 2010, 2011; Woltering et al, 2011). Drip irrigation is often assumed to be a labor-saving technology for two reasons.…”

“…The diffusion of drip irrigation is also occurring at a time of significant change in agrarian India around agricultural labor and work opportunities. Inflation-adjusted agrarian incomes are in decline (Kumar and Palanisami, 2010; Manjunatha et al, 2013) and men are increasingly engaged in circular migration between their rural homes and cities for work (Gidwani and Ramamurthy, 2018; Rai, 2019). The stress of declining agrarian incomes is being partly met with a growth in off-farm income-generating activities by women as farm laborers resulting in a feminization of agrarian labor (Lyon et al, 2017; Pattnaik et al, 2018).…”

Transitioning to a Green Economy: A Narrative Overview of the Challenges and Opportunities in Indian Agriculture

“…water management practices (Jain et al, 2019). (Chand, 2019;Chandrakanth et al, 2013;Kumar and Palanisami, 2010) have further emphasised on the adoption of micro-irrigation on account of its more efficient water utilisation capacity, better yield and more net returns per unit volume of groundwater than the traditional irrigation practices. Increased plant water absorption capacity and availability, according to (Rockström and Barron, 2007), can maximise water usage particularly in rainfed conditions.…”

Performance Evaluation of Micro-Irrigation Systems in Coconut Plantations

“…Micro-irrigation is the most efficient irrigation technology successfully practiced in the world and it provides the ability to apply small quantities of water frequently on or below the soil surface under low pressure through a plastic tubing system (Maughan et al, 2017). According to Kumar and Palanisami (2010) drip irrigation systems have a big impact on saving resources, reducing cultivation costs, increasing crop yield, and improving on-farm profitability when there is a shortage of water and labour. However, many coconut farmers in Sri Lanka are reluctant to use Micro-Irrigation Systems (MIS), due to concerns about low performance and shorter lifespan of MIS.…”