After having been to the lush upper part of the river, I was not sure what to expect when traveling further down. After picking up the CADA officer (Command Area Development Authority) we went off the road and onto a very invisible stretch of dirt... (a road is to exaggerate) After an hour in the car we reached our small village - and we gathered about 20 farmers in a classroom in the local school. This meeting become more tempered and two of the bigger farmers spoke most of the time. They had a lot on their chest. Not enough water, salinity problems, migration problems, labor shortages (people moved into the bigger villages rather than staying in the village) There was many of the farmers in this area that bought water from each other and they have reached a mutual payment agreement - either in cash or with a part of their crop. there had been several diseases affecting the crop outcome in the last ten years - so the safe option is to grow paddy (Rice). The first crop is not a problem but the crop they grow now is at risk due to lack of water. There are two seasons in most of Karnataka. (Kharif and Rabi season) I would like to share with you a fact: In the head reach they have water availability 7 days a week more or less in both season. (Unless there is a drought) In mid reach there is water for some hours each day. It is not constant and varies a lot. Tail enders however, reported that some days there might be only 10 minutes of water, and there could be many days without... The scenario was further confirmed in the next village we visited.
The village Koppal Camp, was the toughest one to see on this trip. As a tail end village , they hardly receive any water. The road scenery shifted quickly as we came closer to the camp. There was wast brown patches of unfruitful soils everywhere and lots of different crops. Rice, sugarcane, and Jowar (cereals) are very water intense crops found in the upper parts of the river. As there is little water here, they grow less water intensive crops. Chili fields, some cotton patches in between, sunflower and other more colorful crops were gazing back at me. I was fascinated but there was also the big untouched areas that had visible salt lines all over, not so cheerful. The farmers we met were sad and was so eager to get us to understand what their situation was like. The president of the Water User Association got up and drew on the chalkboard - to make sure we got it. There frustration was heard, and I could tell that we were all a bit unsure of what to do. We were shown their source of drinking water after the meeting... I was feeling ill just by looking at it - this is not drinking water. I became angry and could feel my own frustration raise... I took pictures, but it was hard to met the eyes of the kids and people of the village after this. They all wanted to be taken a picture of and as you can see there were tribal people who had settled down together with the other farmers in this village. Not so common... I was quiet for a long while...
We had one more village to go - we had not booked this meeting, but the CADA officer thought it would be a good idea so three hours late we sat down and had a FGD. This village was mainly farmers who had migrated from the neighboring state Andhra Pradesh. They were so frustrated and had been on several strikes without any luck..There were many who hoped we could help out.. STRIVER is research to come up with a better understanding of the local situation in the TB River basin, it is not directly going to result in a policy change or some other kind of change. That is though.. Another day was over and the bed was inviting. I was exhausted and went straight to bed. The many trains in the distance kept waking me up... Not getting much sleep at this trip....
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