Micro-irrigation:
A
Revolution Chartered by Plastics
Micro-irrigation,
which almost doubles the crop yields with half the amount of water
as compared to conventional irrigation methods, will play a pivotal
role in increased production through higher productivity of resources
employed.
Conventional
irrigation methods use excessive water and are very inefficient because
of the inherent problems such as enormous loss of water, low productivities,
soil salinity, water logging, etc., says Anil Jain Managing Director
of Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., Jalgaon in dialogue with ET POLYMERS.
Q. What is the importance of microirrigation
in context with the Indian agriculture sector? How has its evolution
been in the last decade?
Micro-irrigation is very important for Indian Agriculture,
because the productivity levels of various crops in India are dismally
poor compared to the world averages. For example, the average yield
of cotton in India is 922 kg/ha whereas the highest in the world is
4527 kg/ha. Similar is the situation in most of other food and non-food
crops. It has been estimated that the food grain production in the
country has to be enhanced to 450 million tonnes by 2050, from the
present levels of 200 million tonnes. This has to be produced from
the available net cultivable area of 143 million ha as of now. The
limit of availability of land for cultivation has been estimated as
145 million ha which implies that the additional production has to
come from almost the same cultivable area. Similarly, the available
water resources are also limited and there is no possibility of increased
availability to meet the growing requirements. Thus, we are in a situation
where the additional production has to necessarily come from drastic
increase in productivity of available land and water resources.
Thus, micro-irrigation, which almost doubles the crop yields with
half the amount of water as compared to conventional irrigation methods,
will play a pivotal role in increased production through higher productivity
of resources employed. The crop yields per unit of resources employed
such as water, electricity for pumping irrigation water, fertilizers,
human effort, etc., improve drastically with the adoption of microirrigation.
The benefits of micro-irrigation as observed from the experience of
farmers in about 40 crops in India are summarized below:
| Benefit |
Percentage
|
Water
Saving
Yield Increase
Fertilizer Saving
Electricity Saving
Weed, Pest & Disease
|
40%
to 80%
40% to 150%
25% to 30%
30% to 35%
Control 15% to 20%
|
Also, the conventional irrigation methods use excessive
water and are very inefficient because of the inherent problems such
as enormous loss of water, low productivity, soil salinity, water
logging, etc.
The concept of micro-irrigation was very much in existence in India
since times immemorial in the form of techniques such as Pitcher or
Pot irrigation in arid parts of the country and in the form of irrigation
through bamboo sections in the North East. The modern form of micro-irrigation
with a welldesigned network of pipes and suitable emitters evolved
during mid 1970s with the advent of plastic pipes. In India, the micro-irrigation
sector got a big boost since the inception of our company in 1988
with innovative and pioneering Total System Approach. The present
size of the industry is about Rs. 250 crores. The total area brought
under micro-irrigation is around 600,000 ha under Drip Irrigation
and similar extent under Sprinkler Irrigation.
Q. Can you specifically highlight
the role of micro-irrigation and the optimization of water resources?
Micro-irrigation is a modern method of irrigation in which
regulated amount ...
....contd.
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