1. INTEGRATED FARMING
- a climate change adaptation strategy for
small and marginal farmers in low lands
near sundarban
Anshuman Das
Development Research Communication and Services Centre
West Bengal
India
2. Situated in the southern coastal areas of the West Bengal,
District South 24 Parganas includes the coastal mangrove
areas of the Sundarbans, a 20,000 km² area that stretches
across the Ganges Delta with 60% falling in Bangladesh and
40% in West Bengal, is one of the most vulnerable regions due
to climatic changes.
3. Some problems, intensified in last 2~3 year
- increased rainfall/occurrence of lightning, storm intensity and
frequency
- rains in the monsoon season tend to be more intense and persist for
6-7 days before they break rather than the 1-2 days that
characterised past seasons
- winters and summers have become warmer in the last 3-4 years
- intermediary seasons have changed – spring/autumn has now
disappeared
- summer rainfall that had the benefit of reducing temperatures,
supplying moisture to the soil, has declined
- freshwater flooding from the adjacent Hugli River
- gradual infiltration of saline water into the soil.
- water logging, water does not flow quickly out of the cultivation area.
Resulting into
reduced rice yields
crop growth delayed, increasing susceptibility to pests and diseases
erratic flowering of fruit trees
loss of cash crops e.g. chillies
4. Let’s take specific case of 3 farmers
Banamali Das Sukomal Mandal Gobardhan Patra
Total Land 0.6 acre 1.1 acre 0.4 acre
Cropping pattern Vegetables Rice in Kharif, some Rice in kharif, some
during winter vegetable during vegetable during
and rainy winter winter, Vegetable
season, Rice in during rainy season
winter
Other Assets Home + Pond + home=0.2 0.05 acre pond
Homestead acre
Garden + pond
= 0.25 acre.
Family Member 7 Adult + 4 2 Adult + 2 Children 10 Adult + 10
Children Children
* all of them having low lands, during rains/flood takes 3~4 months to recede –
making the land uncultivable
5. Common Problem
-Very small amount of land
- Low land, which becomes uncultivable due to long and unpredictable
water logging condition
- Unpredictability of climate (rainfall/temperature/fog/storm) effecting
germination and yield
- Pest attack increased
- Can’t manage to feed their family
6. Basic Intervention Principle
1. Ditch/pond/canal in the low land to drain the logged water
to make the low land cultivable
2. Raised bed and bund
3. Change the mono-cropping system to mixed cropping –
reducing dependency on single crop
4. Integrating other subsystem with crop subsystem to
increase resilience against loss of a crop due to climatic
vagaries and create linkages between various subsystems
to bring the cost of cultivation down
5. Using each and every vertical & horizontal space for
production
6. Extending farming season, creating on-farm, off farm
mandays, reduce market dependency
8. 3 MPT in bund 8 Biogas
4 Vegetable over canal
6 Cowshed
9 raised bed
Water logged
7 Hen coupe over
2 Small pond
1 Canal around the area 5 Net over pond
Farmer1: After intervention
9.
10. 2 net over the canal
4 Rain water hvst
1Canal
6 Small Pond
5 Raised Bed
3 MPT
Farmer 2
11. 10 water
logging
tolerant aurum
9 Pond
1 Net over the canal
6 Canal 8 raised bed
7 Hen
2 Paddy (SRI)
5 Vermi
3 MTP
4 Cow
Farmer 3
17. Impact: Clean Energy
Before Biogas plant:
Fuel consumption: 25 dung cakes (300 g per dung cake) & 10 kg
of firewood per day.
After Constructing Biogas plant:
Fuel consumption: Biogas at the rate of 1.5 hours per day and
10 Kg of firewood per week.
+ biogas slurry for making vermicompost
No fossil fuel dependency, no mechanized tillage – no
irrigation/chemical fertiliser/pesticide
Impact: Faming season extended, more days of work,
more cash in hand, no migration
Impact: More resilient shock proof system, can manage
water logging, longer summer
18. Summary
• Integration of animal, bird, micro organism etc.
reduces need for weeding & pesticide application,
improves shock absorption capacity, extends
number of working days, reduces dependency over
single livelihood
• Mulch farming, low/no tillage systems and using
surface water reduces consumption of
petrochemicals.
• Mixed cropping of plants with different root depth &
structure, resulting in optimal utilization of
water/nutrient and higher resilience against
environmental stress.
19. • Use of locally adapted plants, animals etc.
reduce the need for high external inputs
• Biological soil inputs, which enhance capacity
of soil to store water, carbon & nutrients
reducing need for synthetic chemicals / soil
nutrients.
• Use of bioreactors such as biogas, anaerobic
composting reduces methane emission to air
and generates cleaner energy – reduces fire
emission and firewood burning.
• Regeneration capacity in very high after
disasters
