Farms under stress

Even though Auroville farms largely use sprinklers and drip irrigation to reduce wastage of water, it goes without saying that our agricultural sector consumes the maximum amount of water. Water and food are our most basic needs, and one hopes that due to the drought, one will not have to give up food cultivation in order to conserve water. Tackling such competing needs is not easy. And compounding the problem is the fact that even after 50 years, Auroville does not have a community-supported vision about agriculture. The Farm Group and its sub-groups (grain group, horticulture, and poultry) try to coordinate the work of individual farmers, but by and large, the latter are left to their own devices to manage their farms.

Given this scenario, at a recent Farm Group meeting, a ‘water war’ of sorts broke out: Moorthy, a farmer, reported that the water level in one of his wells had gone down significantly. He feared that the well would not yield enough water to irrigate the sesame crop that he had planted. Sesame is largely a dry-land crop that requires watering only twice a month, for 3 months, but even so, Murthy was faced with a potential loss of this crop. To save the financial investment he had made in planting the field with sesame as well as to ensure the viability of future crops, Moorthy wanted to lower his pump further down in the well. Another farmer vehemently opposed this suggestion protesting that such an action would adversely impact the water level in his well. Heated arguments ensued. Someone pointed out that instead of the two farmers opposing each other, one should also consider the water footprint of the spirulina farm, which was also in the same locality. Given the lack of concrete data, it was hard to agree on a common course of action. Luckily, as it turned out Moorthy was able to keep his crop alive without having to lower the pump to extract more water.

To varying degrees, all farmers are experiencing similar problems. As with the rest of India, Auroville has increasingly moved to irrigated agriculture, for if one has a perennial source of water, one can conceivably produce food throughout the year. However, this season, as farmers witness a significant decrease in the yield from their wells, they are deterred from planting new crops. Priya of Buddha Garden farm reported: “We got some pretty shocking information about our well today. It dried up completely seven times in April and is now yielding 50% of its usual output. We may have to desert some of our vegetable gardens.”

Perhaps the hardest hit farm in terms of water scarcity is our largest rice farm, Annapurna. Rice is a water-intensive crop: paddy rice can consume eight times as much water than vegetables, but in normal monsoons most of this water is supplied by the rain. In fact, rice is one of the few crops that thrives in our heavy winter monsoon.

About two decades ago, Annapurna had invested in making a series of water catchment ponds and deepening existing ones. Annapurna has the capacity to catch and store approx. 25,000 cubic meters (25 million litres) of rain water in these ponds. However, 2016 was recorded as the driest year in the past 140 years, and due to the complete failure of the winter monsoon, the ponds did not get recharged. Warning signs about water scarcity dawned as early as January, when Annapurna’s steward, Tomas, reported that for the first time in 15 years, the water level in these ponds was at its lowest. The ponds are still being used to irrigate grass for fodder, but soon they will be totally dry.

Apart from these surface ponds, Annapurna has two deep bore wells, an old and a new one, and a shallow well. Many wells in Auroville and in the surrounding villages draw water at an average depth of 60 metres from the second aquifer, the Kaderperikuppam limestone aquifer, but Annapurna’s deep wells go down to 138 and 174 metres respectively and draw water from the third aquifer, the Vanur / Ramanathapuram sandstone aquifer.

In December, a new pump was installed at 130 metres, but in May, the pump started to suck air indicating water scarcity. Between December and May, the water level in this well dropped down by an unprecedented 12 metres. Currently, this new well yields water for a minute or so and then stops: a sure sign that the well is drying out. Measures have now been taken to reduce water extraction.

The stewards are closely monitoring the situation to see if the fall in the water levels will stabilize at a certain depth. If so, Annapurna may lower the pump in the new deep well to keep the farm alive through these hot summer months. Annapurna also has a dairy with an average herd size of 25 animals. However, water from the new borewell is not suitable for consumption, even for animals, because it has a high content of sulfur.

The saving grace at Annapurna is one functioning open shallow well, which gives about 10,000 liters of water per day. This well with a depth of about 12 metres is supplied by the first aquifer (the Cuddalore sandstone aquifer).

The recharge zone of the first aquifer is largely within the Auroville area, and Tomas suspects that this open well gets recharged because of over-irrigation in the neighboring village fields.

To cope with this dire situation, Annapurna managers are changing agricultural practices and prioritizing water needs. Instead of building a new cow house that they had planned, they will divert funds towards gearing up their water system to get through the summer. In the long run, Annapurna may consider making more water catchment ponds to increase surface-water irrigation.

The other farms

Besides Annapurna, our two other major rice farms, Ayarpaddi and Siddhartha, are also taking measures to deal with an acute water scarcity. Somewhat ironically, in a bid to be completely self-sufficient in rice, there was a plan to bring an additional 9 acres of land under paddy cultivation this year in these 3 farms. As a normal summer monsoon is predicted, the farmers want to go ahead with this plan. But they would now ideally like to try out other rice varieties that would have shorter duration for growth and are less water-needy than Ponni rice, our main rice variety. Such rice varieties, however, often have lower yields and are generally more labour intensive. Good quality seeds for these different varieties have to be sought for and sourced from outside of Auroville.

While for many in Auroville the drought has not yet made a difference to their lives, the Auroville farmers have been pushed into experimenting with agricultural practices. Some have started wondering about the continued viability of agriculture in Auroville. As Charlie from Aurogreen who has been farming and diligently monitoring rainfall for decades says, “the drought certainly makes everything much worse and difficult, but the important point to remember is that each year the situation is degenerating.

A good rain season next, or any single year is not going to reverse this trend. I hazard the guess that twenty years ago deep borewells such as those at Annapurna would not have been affected at all by a dry spell. Such trends are a sure sign of future water scarcity. Digging deeper, doing heavy irrigated agriculture and developing more irrigated farms, in my opinion, is a wrong direction. We need to grow what we can with super-efficient irrigation.” In this context one can add that Buddha Garden is just embarking on a new research project to determine optimal water usage for selected vegetable crops.

The Auroville community needs not only to decide on future directions for farming but also be prepared to change its dietary habits and start consuming only what can be sustainably grown. In other parts of south India, farmers are pioneering experiments growing only climate change resilient crops. Given the fact that in a period of six years we have experienced extreme weather events – a cyclone, a flood and now a drought – all of which adversely affected the farms, Auroville should be prepared to take bold, new steps to maximize resiliency in this uncertain era of climate change.