Pond Based Farming System Technology in Waterlogged Sodic Soils

About 0.35 million ha sodic lands suffer from shallow water table conditions in Sharda Sahayak Canal Command and are not suitable for cultivation even after conventional method of gypsum based reclamation. This has led to diminishing land and water productivity and loss of livelihood for the farm families in this command. Seepage from the canal is one of the main reasons for development of waterlogged sodic soils on a large scale in the canal command. To tackle such a situation, and to harness the productivity potential of the seepage water in the canal command area, a land reclamation model for 1 ha based on the concept of physical land reclamation and pond based integrated farming system has been developed at village Kashrawan, Raebareily district. The basic concept of utilizing the bottom soil whose pH was less than 9.0 for crop cultivation was adopted and therefore while digging the pond the top soil was sent to bottom and bottom soil to top. The model comprised of 0.40 ha fish pond up to 1.75 m depth, 0.2 ha cereal crop, 0.15 ha fruit crop, 0.10 ha for vegetable and 0.10 ha for forage crops. The excavated soil was spread over the 0.6 ha land so that field can be raised at least 2 m from the water table. Through intervention of above l land modification technique the productivity of the land and water increased many folds. On seeing the success of the 2 farmers, 10 more farmers have expressed their readiness to take up the technology with help of bank finance. The government of Uttar Pradesh has also requested the scientists to take up large scale demonstration of this technology for which it would provide financial support.