4-Agricultural Drought Management in Rainfed Areas of Semi-Arid Regions of South India.

Abstract

In the semi-arid regions of South India, droughts are more common and occur either due to failure of South-West or North-East monsoon. Drought impacts on agriculture are managed by taking appropriate preventive measures through massive resource conservation like watershed programme. The effects of droughts are mitigated through conservation of rainwater both at terrace and inter-terrace level through different soil and moisture conservation measures by improving crop yields as well as water use efficiency. Adoption of different agronomic measures like selection of suitable crops, crop varieties, sowing time including mid-seasonal corrections and use of microbes that benefit the crop to combat drought can improve the crop yields and water use efficiency on sustainable basis. The runoff can be harvested in situ through farm ponds and used for crop irrigation to increase the crop productivity besides recharging groundwater as well. Site specific drought analysis to help the farmers is not being attempted at research and development level. There is a need for integrated intervention in a participatory mode to combat the drought situation by stabilizing production.