I thought of sharing following note with you. I am an Engineer who worked for Downstream area development for irrigated agriculture under Mahweli Program since 1977. Following note is a kind of confession. After this exposure in 2010, I have now been asked to design eco friendly alternative irrigation system. In this task I hope to adapt ancint irrigation technologies to synergise water and land. I hope your input would be very usefull in this challenge. If you are interested please call me. (0777-711377). Our Target area is Maduru Oya RB area which is still under forest thanks to LTTE.

An article Published in the Editorial Page of the Ceylon Daily News Paper dated 4th Feb 2010

Techno-wise, Eco-foolish water resource development

Water Resource Development Projects are intended to harness Land and Water resources to create well-being and wealth for people and nations. In approaches adapted during the last century in designing of those projects targeting irrigated agriculture specially, Water has been
treated as the limiting resource. As a result the primary emphasis was placed
on development of water resource to maximize the cultivable area and the
returns from irrigated agriculture. Benefits are measured purely on
conventional economic indicators. However, maximizing these returns may come at
the expense of long-term sustainability of the project itself. For example, Sri
Lankan Farmers, especially the paddy grower, including the pioneering colonists
who have been settled in the past century under various irrigation systems
which were either newly developed or rehabilitated, now lead a livelihood at
subsistence level. Recently implemented Fertilizer Subsidy can be reckoned as a
good indicator of the economic plight of these farmers. Without those subsidies
agriculture is not feasible. Fertilizer Subsidy for these farmers is in fact
identical to the “dole” for unemployed people in developed countries who are
striving to lay an economic footing.

Technology-wise but ecologically –foolish approach

Perhaps the approach adapted during the last century
would have been Technology-wise but ecologically – foolish way of dealing with the land resource and its assets to address poverty. The huge infrastructure costs incurred for storing and
diverting / conveying water from water-rich areas to dry areas, and the
relative abundance of “undeveloped” lands in dry areas, may explain this
distorted over emphasis over the water as the primary resource. Investment in
water for irrigated agriculture is usually so large especially in basin to basin
diversions projects such as Mahaweli Program. In order to justify the
investment, it is normally taken for granted that the newly acquired water
resource must be used mainly for irrigated agriculture by spreading it over a
maximum possible land area with the objective of distributing those irrigable lands
among people as a solution to population growth and unemployment.. According to this approach, if more water could be made available for development, it should be dedicated only to
irrigate more lands and other components of the natural environment, such as
forests, wetlands, flood plains, soils and riparian zones in the area are not
considered to be assets. As a result water is not allocated for their
protection and maintenance. As a consequence, the whole landscape within modern
irrigation projects becomes a “monotony” of irrigated agriculture, lacking
ecological diversity, and depending not only on imported water from water rich
areas, but also, on imported pesticides and fertilizers from overseas. These dependencies are not favorable conditions, especially in view of current global economic and environmental
crises, creating a situation to question the sustainability of the modern
irrigation projects for future generations. There could be alternative design
approach that seeks better ecologically and economically sustainable
synergizing methods of land with water derived from recognition of water’s
natural functions and appreciation for its ecological values. From this perspective, many alternative ways of synergizing water with other natural assets (Flora, Fauna, and Soil etc)
which would create better and sustainable benefits to the country might become
possible.

Lost Paradigm

Normally when we talk about our ancient hydraulic systems,
we think only about the glory of Big Dams built by our ancestors to store
water, but the underlying rationale and philosophy of how the stored water was
used below the Dam (Downstream Use) for sustainable agriculture practices are
rarely appreciated. The consequences of the newly created monotonous landscape
in modern design consisting only paddy are also well reflected on the present
day to day meal plate of the farmer families living in irrigation projects
developed during the last century. It consists nothing else but a heap of rice
and a curry of fish caught from the nearby tank. Heap of rice stands for the
monotony of paddy fields and the fish curry stands for the water that goes to
the paddy fields. The plate is lack of curd due to lack space for the cattle to
graze and to keep. The plate is lack of protein rich cereals such as kurakkan,
sesamum, meneri, tanahaal etc. It is lack of all type of local pod varieties
and hundreds of types of yams and vegetables and fruits as there are no lands
for them to grow. No Bee Honey is available because Bees do not colonize in the
neighborhood of chemically polluted lands. When one carefully study the
irrigated agriculture systems adapted in the ancient approach of land
development for irrigated agriculture, it is obvious that the Nutritious level
of the Day to Day meal plate of our ancient farmers would have been at the same
status as the typical meal plate of rich countries of the modern world. Rice
comprises only very small portion of the meal plate of people from rich
countries such as Japan. In contrast the Day to Day meal plate of our present day farmers living in so
called modern irrigation projects comprises mainly of a heap of rice. Ancient
systems used for landscape development produced not only rice under irrigated
conditions but various other nourishing food varieties generating from numerous
assets of the Landscapes such as Natural Forests, Livestock, and Wildlife.

Indigenous ways of handling nature is a lost paradigm.

For example the so called Notorious Chena Cultivation has now been identified
as a very sustainable way of dealing with nature provided that same cultivation
practices prevailed in ancient time is applied .The past can form the future. The
agro-ecologically intelligent and sustainable methods employed by Sri Lanka’s
ancient hydraulic technocrats to produce foods without imported Agrochemicals
might also offer important insights for alternatives for handling water
resource in its right spirit in synergizing it with Landscape.

Need for an alternative approach

Ancient approach would have focused to convert the Dry Zone into ecologically sustainable Wet Zone by replenishing the Ground Water in addition to well known surface irrigation practicing today. Ultimate objective of an irrigation project should be to produce diverse and healthy food varieties in
an economically sustainable mode while the beneficiaries are enjoying a
livelihood in a pleasing natural environment without depending on heavy and
uncertain government subsidies. The first step toward in finding alternative and sustainable design
approaches is to investigate and understand in a holistic manner, the true current
performance of irrigation systems developed during the last century, especially
in terms of their productivity in sustainable mode and dependability on
imported inputs to maintain the sustainability. This kind of assessment is
essential so that the inadequacies inherent in “modern” design methodologies
are revealed and adjustments can be made to meet the shortcomings. Otherwise, the mistakes of the past century will be perpetuated in development of remaining suitable lands and the
opportunities will be lost to achieve truly integrated, sustainable projects.
Perhaps commonly practiced ways of exploiting landscape as adapted in recently
developed Mahaweli Project with the main objective of settling people for irrigated agriculture may become questionable because as explained because it would be only a matter of time for those
settlers eventually to become depend on a Subsidy of imported fertilizer. These
kinds of dependencies are not favorable conditions, especially in view of
current global economic and environmental crises.

Conclusion

The intent of this article is to create awareness to spark a dialogue concerning the value of deep and honest performance assessments of irrigation projects built during the last century. Hopefully this would lead to more insightful, ecologically sensitive design approaches and, ultimately a sustainable land use model which could be applied in exploiting the remaining land resource especially in the North and East of Sri Lanka. For example Lands in Maduru Oya Basin could be used to
implement Pilot Area to be designed in ecologically sustainable mode
incorporating lessons learnt from past experience gathered during the last
century as well as from our ancient knowledges which is still available. Challenge
for the Engineers / Decision makers in this exercise would be to deliver a
Design which could guarantees subsidies free and sustainable irrigated
agriculture system.

Engr. MahindaPanapitiya

Irrigation Engineer, B.Sc (University of Sri Lanka) 1974

M.S (IDept of Agri & Biological Engineering), Utah State University, USA, 1988

Dear Georgethebushpig,

I am glad that the question of ‘feeding the planet’ has been raised. Even today there is enough food to feed ourselves the problem lies in the structure of the marketplace. Consider the lesson of Ireland, during the ‘Potato Famine’ when hundreds of thousands dies of starvation, while food was being EXPORTED’ from Ireland. This is because the parliament of England decreed that trade must not be affected.

Next there is the question of remote supply. When food to feed people in Africa or Asia is being grown in the US, Brazil etc for export to these countries, it does not bear well for continued delivery if transport and distribution (and the market) fails.

The myth of ‘higher yielding varieties’ as developed during the so called ‘Green Revolution’. Depends on ever increasing quantities of external inputs to achieve the increases promised. In the US today to gain one kilocalorie of food energy from potatoes they have to invest 1.8 or more kilocalories of fossil energy. The trend is increasing so this means that without fossil fuel to drive the ‘Green Revolution’. We will run into a blank wall.

In Sri Lanka we have swallowed the myth of ‘increase production never mind the environment’ hook line and sinker. It is so bad here that we need over 50 billion rupees annually just to maintain our rice production. The horror of this is that; should there be no fertilizer for application there will be no crop as the natural productivity of the field has been destroyed.

While it has been demonstrated time and again that a contentiously managed system is sustainable and can produce crops equal to a broadacre field, this information does not receive much publicity as is against the interests of big agribusiness.

Organic agriculture cannot return to feed us until the unequal pressure of the vested interests are blunted, but organic agriculture today cannot be developed in many areas, especially where the soil productivity has been destroyed without small, targeted inputs of fertilizer. Thus, agriculture of the future should use all of the technological tools we have at our disposal. But these tools have to be used as scalpels not clubs!
What is needed to confront the challenging future before us is a well thought out synthesis between traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge.

A note in passing, actually the best agricultural lands are now under cities, much of the rest is in the hands of multinationals and agribusiness. The current development syndrome tends to depopulate the rural areas. We need to reverse the trend and give back the farmer his dignity as the provider of food for his or her people

kind regards

Great! what would be a good way to contact you?

Thrish

Thank you very much for this highly enlightening interview. Dr. Senanayake begins to outline the linkages between the various components of the ecosystem and the need for caution in not disrupting the linkages. I will have to get around to buying some of his books to learn more on this topic.

One of the arguments currently being put forward by agencies like the FAO goes like this: global human population will increase to about 9 billion by 2050; to meet the food security needs of the extra mouths to feed agricultural production will need to increase by about 60%; given that the extent of arable land is limited (since we have basically captured most of it for agriculture already) agriculture will need to be intensified for increasing supply.

Although not explicitly stated the underlying assumption is that we need to dig ourselves out of this hole with technocratic responses. In other words we need to come up with more genetically modified seed varieties (higher yielding, and drought, heat and salt tolerant varieties) and increase the application of external chemical inputs. It is argued by conventional agriculturalists that “organic” or ecoagriculture systems cannot produce the required volume of food needed. I would very much appreciate hearing his views on this issue.

Best regards

Dear Thrishantha,

I will be happy to assist. The theme is too important for us to ever loose vigilance !

Regards
Ranil

@Rukmankan,
Thanks for your kind words.
When you say “could do some editing” did you mean in terms of reducing length, or in terms of copy editing?
I’ve tried to keep this as verbatim as possible with only light-handed tidying up. As for length, I agree: it’s a long read, about large issues that don’t easily fit into a fleeting compact piece…And there is a Part 2 to follow! 🙂