Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
Harendra Kashyap and HK Patra

Abstract:
In India, 85 million hectares of the area are rainfed due to the number of biophysical and socio-economic constraints which affect the soil productivity as well as the productivity of crops and livestock. These include uneven distribution of rainfall, land degradation, low level of input use, and technology adoption. This leads to poverty, water scarcity and rapid depletion of the groundwater table, soil erosion. It has an adverse effect on the livelihood of the farming community residing in the rainfed area. The present study was carried out in an integrated watershed management programme during 2021-22 in the periphery Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state because lots of programmes related to watersheds are going on in these two blocks and have a maximum number of tribal populations in the Bastar districts. This study was conducted in randomly selected 8 villages identified from 2 blocks namely Bakawand and Tokapal of Bastar district. The sample comprised 120 tribal beneficiaries’ farmers were taken as respondents. It was observed that the important problems reported by the majority of the respondents reported poor economic condition of the beneficiaries farmers. Followed by insufficient Water in ponds/well for irrigation purposes, timely not available of fertilizers and seeds, etc. The suggestions given by the respondents were Fertilizers and improved seeds should be provided timely by the Govt. agencies emerged as the main suggestion. The other suggestion was needed more water harvesting structures, more interventions should be incorporated in the watershed area to develop irrigation facilities.