The farm pond idea showcased in Tiptur, Karnataka is a great option for farms on hilly slopes.
While check-dams have been the heroes of watershed development programmes everywhere, allocating a small area in each farm for a storage pond is truer to the spirit of rain water harvesting, namely 'catch the rain where it falls'. Check-dams are invariably down-river, down-in-the-valley structures where land is already quite productive and comparatively well served with water. Check-dams located there, trap the water which in fact fell on the higher catchment areas where the poor are. It is always the upper reaches in undulating terrains that are harder to farm and therefore left to the marginal people. In an effort to reverse and correct this inequity, BAIF Institute for Rural Development, Karnataka [BIRD-K] persuaded over 300 slope farmers to build small ponds. And that changed the water economy of a 700 hectare area in Hassan district in Karnataka. Don't be surprised, though. Wherever the long arm of Mr. Manibhai Desai reaches, efficiency, thoroughness and success invariably follow.
