Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In Bihar, along the gandak silt cultivation offers landless farmers a scanty sustenance -Nidhi Jamwal

In Bihar, along the gandak silt cultivation offers landless farmers a scanty sustenance -Nidhi Jamwal

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Dec 19, 2018   modified Modified on Dec 19, 2018
-Firstpost.com

Landless labourers in Bihar benefit from the silt that comes down from the Himalayas by growing vegetables, but it is an extremely tough life, with very little profit for the farmer

Every year after the festival of Diwali, Pramod Prasad, a landless farmer from the Surajpur village in the Bairia block of West Champaran in Bihar, packs a set of clothes and some utensils to set out for the Gandak River. He leaves behind his wife and four children, whom he will now meet only after five to six months. Using a dengi (local word for boat), he crosses the Gandak to reach diara, an island inside the vast expanse of the river-spread. On the other side of the river is the neighbouring Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

On this diara (a piece of land inside a river created due to deposition of sand), Prasad constructs a small, makeshift hut to spend the next five to six months. He is joined by other landless farmers, some from the adjoining district of East Champaran, who also construct their own temporary huts. Thus begins the annual process of silt farming by the landless farmers of Champaran, who mark boundaries on the diara to grow various fruits and vegetables.

“I have been practising silt farming for the last 15-20 years now. My father used to do the same. Growing fruits and vegetables on sandy soil requires hard labour. Risks are also high. But the returns are good,” said Prasad, who earned a profit of Rs 450,000 ($6,200) last year from the watermelon crop on four bigha (one bigha is equal to 0.16 hectare/1,600 square metres) land of the island.

Farmers like Prasad have a unique relationship with the Gandak river, locally known as Gangaji. Every year, during the monsoon, the Gandak swells and spreads sandy silt far and wide. As the monsoon withdraws, the water in the river recedes, thereby exposing its banks covered with fresh silt.

Bihar is India’s most flood-prone state. North Bihar has a number of perennial and non-perennial rivers that originate in the Himalayas in Nepal and carry high sediment load, which they deposit on the plains of Bihar, making them one of the most fertile lands in the country. These rivers – Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Kosi, Kamala, Balan, Bagmati, etc – are tributaries of the Ganga. Most of the rainfall (990-1,700 millimetres) in the region is concentrated in three months (July to September) of the monsoon season, when the flow in these rivers increases by 50 percent, often leading to floods.

As per official records of the state government, 73.63 percent geographical area of North Bihar is prone to floods. Of the 38 districts of the state, 28 get flooded regularly (of which 15 districts are the worst affected) causing huge losses of property, lives, farmlands and infrastructure. During the infamous 2008 Kosi floods, over 350,000 acres of paddy, 18,000 acres of maize and 240,000 acres of other crops were destroyed, impacting close to 500,000 farmers.

Please click here to read more.

Firstpost.com, 2018, https://www.firstpost.com/long-reads/in-bihar-along-the-gandak-silt-cultivation-offers-landless-farmers-a-scanty-sustenance-5592101.html?fbclid=IwAR3VxRP4CzJ3e6s-gq1kilq8H_Az_vQbC


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close