Once a waste chunk in the dry land on a hilly terrain, the 1,325 hectares have transformed into a community-owned lush green orchard today.
The Thummachenupalle watershed in Chinnagottigallu mandal of Chittoor district is a classic case study on how adoption of novel farming practices and transformational strategies, coupled with collective will power, can work wonders.
It was in 2009 that NABARD took up 100 hectares of land on a trial basis to be developed under the Watershed Development Fund (WDF), with the Rashtriya Seva Samithi (RASS) as the facilitating agency.
Buoyed by the success in the learning phase, it was extended to a whopping 1,325 hectares of land a year later, thus benefiting 14 habitations with 419 families during 2009-15. Thummachenupalle was declared the ‘Best watershed’ in the State and won an award from NABARD in 2011 and 2014.
The intervention is simple. Identifying an individual’s requirements and providing him/her support in the form of technology, infrastructure and finance.
“After planting 30,000 mango saplings in 500 acres of land, we gave 8,000 fruit-bearing varieties like sapota, sweet lime, neem, jamun, gooseberry and custard apple for plantation along the bunds, apart from the regular teak, red sanders and silver oak. This, along with drip irrigation and inter-cropping, augmented the farmers’ income,” explains RASS project manager M. Mohan.
Simple measures
Small steps such as field bunding, delivery outlets, farm ponds, planting of grass seeds (to prevent soil erosion and feed cattle), ponds dug out along streams, mini percolation tanks, recharge borewells and block plantation along the inner rim of tank beds added up to make a powerful impact in water recharge.
“We were growing sugarcane and groundnut, but stopped nearly two decades back due to the vagaries of monsoon. Labour shortage due to NREGA hit us hard and we were drifting aimlessly. Thanks to the watershed programme, we are reaping the benefits today,” progressive farmer and Village Watershed Development Committee chairman K. Raja Reddy told The Hindu. He represented the watershed and received the NABARD award twice.
As a closely-knit group, the watershed members formed an MACS to rotate ₹20 lakh among themselves. Taking the cooperation further, they have recently formed a Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) and have achieved synergy in group activities like undertaking water heat treatment of fruits, direct sales in cities, bulk purchase of pesticides and hiring farm equipment.
