Book of Extended summaries ISDA

International Conference on Reimagining Rainfed Agro-ecosystems: Challenges &
Opportunities during 22-24, December 2022 at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad
Rajanna, G.A., Pathanjali, N., Singh, A., Manna, S., Dass, A. and Singh, V.K. 2021. Seed
treatment and slurry application of hydrogels enhances wheat yields under soybeanwheat
system. (In) Extended Summaries: 5 th International Agronomy Congress,
November 23-27, 2021, India, pp 1042-1043.
Farm Ponds in Semi-Arid Region of Maharashtra
Sarita Chemburkar, Taufique Warsi, Ankita Yadav
WOTR’s Centre of Resilience Studies (W-CReS), Pune
T1-03O-1133
Groundwater is an important natural resource used across the globe for various purposes, including
household activities, agriculture, industries, and urbanization. Agriculture productivity has always
been largely influenced by water, which directly affects farmer's income and livelihood. Farmers
also face challenges with water scarcity around the world, such as reduced crop production due to
a lack of water, and decreased income due to unpredictable rainfall. Due to climate changes, rainfall
distribution is uncertain, which results in lower income due to erratic amounts of rain, and farmers
can only grow crops during the rainy season. Farm ponds are becoming an increasingly popular as
a water storage tanks or reservoirs, designed for rainwater harvesting on agricultural land for
irrigation purposes, cattle feed, and fish farming. The Maharashtra State Government, as well as
Central Government, has been promoting Farm Pond through various schemes with the provision
of subsidy. Farm ponds are traditional water harvesting structures to capture surface runoff and to
utilize this stored rainwater during lean periods for agriculture. Benefits of the farm ponds include
improvement in land productivity, supplemental irrigation to crops, reduced water logging in high
rainfall events, and fish culture when sufficient water is available. Observations indicate that
multiple sources of water are used to fill the farm ponds, with bore wells and dug wells accounting
for the majority of the supply. Thus, for filling the farm ponds, farmers exploit groundwater which
eventually affects the water level of the neighboring farmers (non-Farm pond owners). The problem
of using farm ponds as a storage tank has imposed a negative impact on surrounding farmers that
leads to inequality among the different sizes of landholding of farmers. The marginal and small
farmers are suffering the most because they have less capability to invest a large amount of money
for individual facilities. The negative externalities mostly impact poor farmers and fail ineffective
agriculture activities. It is important to relook and regularize the policy for proper use and to ensure
groundwater sustainability as epitomized in the current study.
Resilience through land and water management interventions, water management and governance
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