The Quest for Irrigation in a Semi Arid Area

Traditionally in semi-arid areas, farmers depended up on rain water, tanks and open wells for cultivation. Growing dry crops having different maturation periods under mixed cropping formed the mechanism for coping with the uncertain returns of dry cultivation. A shift towards commercial crops, which required more water made the fanners to go for individual bore-wells and jump sets Availability of institutional finance as pan of developmental programmers further added to this process. With the preference for private bore-wells, maintenance of tanks got neglected. Open wells got dried up due to the presence of powerful jet pumps in the vicinity which drew water from greater depths. With increasing use of ground water. water table is going down steadily, and the sustainability of cultivation is being threatened The study point out tie urgent need for evolving a water use and cropping policy or semi-arid areas.Key Words: Irrigated CultivationInstitutional FinanceCommercial CropsDepletion of Water Table

Agriculture · Agroforestry · Archaeology · Arid · Cropping · Geography · Geotechnical engineering · Groundwater · Irrigation · Sustainability · Threatened species · Water resource management · Water table · Agricultural Economics and Practices · Agricultural risk and resilience · Engineering · Environmental Science · Water resources management and optimization · Ecology · Geology