Even AS monsoon plays truant, farmers in Ghodial village of Banaskantha district in north Gujarat are not feeling the pain of delayed rains like their counterparts in Saurasthra, thanks to the water management techniques that they have adopted.

The farmers, who have been practising drip and sprinkler irrigation techniques since 2005, have sown their kharif crops — groundnut and cotton — on time, while farmers in several other parts of the state are still dependent on monsoon.

According to Bhikhabhai Godad, one of the farmers, all the 220 farmers of the village have switched over to drip and sprinkler irrigation, so they don’t have to wait for monsoon to begin sowing.

Even if monsoon is late and irregular in future, farmers here say it will have no effect on productivity. “The new technique not only ensures timely sowing, but also ensures more yield,” claims 60-year-old Godad, engaged in cultivation of groundnut and cotton over his 44 hectares of land.

According to Godad and other farmers like Dahyabhai Joshi, drip and sprinkler systems consume less power because they require less water for irrigation and there is no wastage of water at all.

According to them, 30 per cent more farm area can be irrigated by drip system in a given time as against the conventional irrigation system, resulting in power saving, reduced cost of input and increased profit.

Use of fertilisers is also reported to have gone down by 50 per cent, thus further increasing the profit.

Villagers claim their incomes have gone up many fold since the introduction of modern farm techniques. Godad earned between Rs 6 lakh and 7 lakh annually when he used traditional method of irrigation and his income has now gone up to Rs 40 lakh annually in the last four years.

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