Krishi Jagran Organized a Webinar On “Challenges of Water Scarcity in Farming”

On the occasion of Kisan Diwas, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research celebrates ‘Jai Kisan Jai Vigyan’ Week from 23 December to 29 December every year to commemorate the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Late Chaudhary Charan Singh. The celebration is being held in honor of their significant contribution in promoting the use of science for the benefit of farmers.

ICAR Institutes and KVKs across the country are hosting a variety of farmer awareness programs aimed at showcasing and demonstrating new technological advances for increasing agricultural productivity and profitability. Farmers who have successfully adopted new technologies and contributed to the widespread adoption of new technologies by farmers are recognized during the event.

This year, Krishi Jagran is also organizing various webinars and events during the Jai Kisan Jai Vigyan Week from 23-29 December 2021. Today, on 26^th December, Krishi Jagran organized a webinar on “Challenges of water scarcity in farming”.

Water scarcity is a burning issue especially in states such as Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The ground water table has been reducing in these areas at alarming rate. Given that water scarcity has a direct impact on food production, Krishi Jagran understands how important is it for the farmers to understand how they can overcome this challenge in an efficient way and so this webinar was organized.

Many eminent personalities like Dr N.K. Gonita, Vice Chancellor of Junagadh Agriculture University shared their wisdom on the same. In his address Dr Gonita emphasised that “Rain water harvesting & efficient use of that water is the key to fight the water scarcity challenges”. He gave the example of Saurashtra & Kutchh region of Gujarat who have become self sufficient in accomplishing their water requirements through rain water harvesting. Not just that mulching has a very important role in conserving soil moisture, he added.

Dr Ranjan Aggarwal was another esteemed guest speaker in the webinar. He is a scientist at a Regional Research Centre, Punjab Agriculture University. He highlighted the importance water in agriculture. He said, “Over 90% of the total water usage in India accounts only for agriculture purposes”. He also suggested some ways to reduce water wastage in the agriculture fields. He urged the farmers to get their fields levelled as undulated fields require more water for irrigation and can also cause water logging in some parts of the field.

Arun Deshmukh, Head Agronomist, Central & North India, Netafim Irrigation Pvt Ltd emphasised that “the farmers of India need to try out new and more efficient techniques when it comes to agriculture as India has one of the fastest growing populations. It is estimated that we will reach 1.7 billion population mark by 2050. We will need more food to feed such a huge population but the resources will remain the same. The most important of these resources is water, therefore it is important that we use water efficiently & judiciously which is precision farming.”

He further told “Netafim provides various precision irrigation solutions which helps farmers supply the right quantities of water and nutrients to the crop root zone, thereby controlling the yield, ensuring comparatively higher quantities of yield and also enhance its quality through measured dosages of fertilizers and water."

Netafim’s precision irrigation techniques foster water-use efficiency and also help the Indian farmers make considerable savings on the labour, resource and operational costs.