The Hindu Business Line : Of land that once turned dreams to dust

Chennai March 16 On the World Bank's site (http://web.worldbank.org), `data of the week' is that in Uttar Pradesh 1.25 million hectares of land, or `almost 10 per cent of the State's total cultivable area', are `completely barren due to sodification'.

Sodification is a process by which the exchangeable sodium content of the soil is increased, as Wikipedia explains. "Sodic lands are those lands with a high content of salts like sodium carbonate and bicarbonate. In areas with a high water table or where drainage is inadequate, the alkali salts in the earth's crust get dissolved. These salts then rise through capillary action to the surface, where the water evaporates, leaving behind a salt crust that makes the land unsuitable for crop cultivation," explains the Bank.

As a result of high build-up of toxic salts, the soil productivity falls. "It is a land that turns dreams to dust. Nothing grows in these sodic lands. Generations of farmers have failed to coax a living from this powder-fine topsoil."

Heartening though is that the "data of the week" relates to 1998, when a World Bank project began to address the issue, along with the Uttar Pradesh Bhumi Sudhar Nigam.

Reclamation process began with scraping the topsoil, levelling the fields, building contour bunds, drilling tubewells, and digging drainage channels. "The reclamation itself was a simple process that the farmers soon mastered - gypsum was mixed with the soil and the fields kept flooded for 15 days. When the water was drained, it washed away the harmful salts," describes the report.

"This left the land ready to be transplanted with its first crop of kharif (summer) paddy, followed a winter crop of wheat, and an intermediate crop of dhaincha, a nitrogen-fixing green manure that replenishes the soil before a second paddy crop can be planted. Two or three cycles of these crops, along with efficient drainage, leaves the once-barren sodic soils ready to yield any crop, from oilseeds to vegetables to flowers."

What are the results, in places where the project has helped farmers in reclaiming the lands? Rise in cropping intensity from 37 per cent to 200 per cent; doubling of wheat and rice yields; and a 60 per cent increase in yields and incomes, over five years.

"In some areas, land values have quadrupled. Says Mr Sundar Singh of Bilar village in Hathras district: "This land used to be worth only Rs 500 per bigha; now I won't give it up if someone offers me eight times that amount."

Here is another snatch: "Wage rates have doubled. As a result, the seasonal migration of labour out of the project villages has substantially reduced. Says a farmer in Shobapur village: "When my usar (sodic) fields were barren, I used to go to Bhopal, Mumbai, and Kolkata looking for work. Now, where is the time?"

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