a study on sustainability of recommended water management technologies and practices for major farming systems of tamil nadu

Abstract

The present global water crisis scenario demands scientific management of newlineavailable water thereby improving the water productivity and potential. Several newlineschemes have been implemented by Government of India to promote water newlinemanagement for its judicious use. In this context, it is important to study the various newlineaspects of recommended water management technologies and practices such as newlinesustainability through knowledge, adoption, impact, attitude of farmers towards water newlinemanagement, interventions of stakeholders and to find out constraints involved in the newlineadoption to further accelerate the adoption of water management technologies and newlinepractices. newlineThe present study was conducted during the year 2017-2018 in major farming newlinesystems of Tamil Nadu. Based on the irrigation sources, the farming systems of Tamil newlineNadu were classified as wetland, gardenland and dryland. In Tamil Nadu the wetland newlinefarming system is mainly irrigated by canal and tank sources, while gardenland system newlineuses lift irrigation through open and bore wells and dryland system relying on monsoon newlinerains. Thus Thiruvarur, Sivagangai, Villupuram and Thoothukudi districts of Tamil newlineNadu were purposively selected based on highest area coverage under the mentioned newlineirrigation sources. Paddy crop was selected in Thiruvarur and Sivagangai districts, irrigated newlinesugarcane from Villupuram district and rainfed pulses was selected in Thoothukudi based on newlinetheir highest cropped area of the respective crops selected. Therefore, 240 farmers were newlineselected at the rate of 60 per district, thus 120 wetland-paddy farmers, 60 gardenland newlinesugarcane and 60 rainfed pulses farmers were selected. newlineIn order to study the stakeholder interventions 38 stakeholders were also selected newlineusing snow ball sampling, as the study aimed to elicit responses on interventions of newlinestakeholders. Altogether, 240 farmers (120 wetland, 60 gardenland and 60 dryland) and 38 newlinestakeholders constituted the sample respondents for the study. The data were collected by newlineusing a well-structured and pre-tested interview