Farm Pond Makes Barren Land Productive

Ram Kripal is a Scheduled Caste farmer at Salarpur village, about 20 km from Mahoba district headquarters on Madhya Pradesh border. He has 2 acre uneven land full of red gravel. No crop was ever raised on this land and people used to say no crop could ever be raised on this. He also used to think so and used to earn his livelihood by working as a share cropper and labour. In all 18 farmers in Salarpur village had similar fields.

This patch was selected for inclusion in INRM project. A pond of 15x15x3 metres was dug in the field of Ram Kripal and the dug soil was used to do bunding by dividing in three parts. Even as two-third work was completed, rains started and filled the pond to the brim. Ram Kripal sowed til and urad in Kharif in a part of the field and prepared the remaining part for rabi crop. He used ghanamrit as manure.

With the availability of water he sowed gram, wheat and mustard. Since he had excess water available he gave excess water to the neighbouring farmer, Kalka, for use on 3 acre land. Ram Kripal said once the pond was filled, 8 horse power pumping set ran for 13 hours.

During farm digging the farmer worked on his field along with his family and thus he got work on his own field. At present he has fairly good crop of gram, mustard and wheat on his field. He feels that he will raise crop worth Rs 50,000. With irrigation his barren land has turned into agriculture land. Its value was hardly Rs 40,000 per acre; now it is nearly Rs 2 lakh per acre.

MNREGA nodal officer praised the effort during inspection and gave assurance to level the field.