by Walter Aramkumar
Only recently I came across an interview with the Minister for Irrigation and Mahaweli Development, Dr. Sarath Amunugama published some time ago. Though belatedly, I am giving my observation on the interview.

It is heartening to note that the minister, like his former colleagues Mr. C. P. de Silva and Mr. Maithripala Senanayake, seems to have a thorough and correct understanding of the issues related to irrigation and water management. Some ministers do not have the full understanding of the subjects they handle and tend to rely on their secretaries for guidance and implementation of their programs. Unfortunately, all secretaries do not have the necessary knowledge and background to give accurate guidance to their ministers. Moreover, the secretaries tend to keep the professionals away from the ministers lest their importance be reduced.

It was also evident from the questions posed that the interviews, too, was quite knowledgeable on the subject. It is true that objectives, problems and the required solutions identified by the minister are correct and very relevant to irrigation and water management. But these issues have already been identified during the planning stages of the Mahaveli Program in the sixties and seventies. Remedial measures were incorporated in the designs of the irrigation systems. Unfortunately, the implementation of the correct procedures for water issues and water management at the field level was a complete failure due to the lethargy and indifference of the field staff to supervise and interact with the farmers. In the typical bureaucratic fashion, instructions went down the line of authority to the "jalapalakaya" (similar to American ditch riders) without anybody monitoring whether implementation at the field level actually happened. So after thirty years, we are back to square one.

Unlike early irrigation projects where all lands under the irrigation channel went for paddy cultivation, in the Mahaveli Program, and were allocated to crops according to their suitability for the soils and landform. Systematic soil surveys and other relevant investigations were carried out by the Land Use Division of the Irrigation Department according to modern scientific standards. The Land Use Devision had the necessary trained staff and expertise in soil science, irrigation agronomy and on-farm water management. Based on the findings, it was decided with the concurrence of the Agriculture Department, that the more permeable well drained red soils of the upper slopes of the undulations landscape of the dry zone be allocated to irrigated upland crops (chillies, soyabean, vegetables and other cash crops). Lower parts of the landscape having soils with lower drainage and high water table was allocated to flooded rice cultivation in the traditional way. In this way optimum use of water is to be achieved for crop production with waste of water to a minimum.

Even with careful planning, during the initial stages of the Mahaweli Project some problems were encountered at the farm level. One uses water issue to each farm at a time was found to be unmanageable and highly erosive of the soil. Moreover, farmers were unfamiliar with upland crop irrigation and tended to opt for flooded rice cultivation on the red soils, wasting large quantities of water through deep percolation losses. Even the farmers who opted for irrigated upland crops were wasting water through over irrigation resulting from inadequate land levelling for the irrigation method practice by the farmers.

Mahaveli authorities soon realized that systematic research and investigation were necessary to develop a package of practices from land levelling to irrigation method to achieve good on-farm water management. With these objectives in view, an "On-farm Water Management Project" was started at Kalankuttiya in the Galnewa area in Area H of the Mahaveli Project. This project was funded by USAID with the Soil Physicist of the Land Use Division of the Irrigation Department as the project director. USAID was willing to allow the Land Use Division staff to be in charge of planning and directing the program as they had confidence in the ability of this division to implement the program as they had the necessary expertise.

During the initial stages of the research program it became clear that two important requirements for good water management that were lacking were a good irrigation method for upland crops that could be easily adopted by the farmers and a proper land levelling appropriate for the chosen irrigation method. Many conventional irrigation methods used in western countries and well documented were tried out and were found not suitable for local conditions. Consequently, a new irrigation method named "Furrowed Basin System of Irrigation" for upland crops was developed to suit local conditions and farmer adoptability. This irrigation method was similar to the "liyadde" in paddy cultivation with furrows within the basin. Proper land levelling procedures necessary for "furrowed basin system" was also developed. Both the land levelling procedures and the irrigation method could be readily carried out under local conditions with easily available equipment. Irrigation application and distribution efficiencies of 85% were reportedly achieved with this system under experimental conditions and were claimed by the researchers as excellent by international standards.

Subsequently, the land levelling and irrigation method were introduced in adjoining farmers’ fields to be practiced by farmers themselves. This was done in order to identify any difficulties the farmers may encounter in practising this irrigation method. The farmers easily adopted the irrigation method and were able to achieve high irrigation efficiency with little waste of water according to the reports by the researchers. What was crucial for good irrigation and water management by this method were good land levelling and good construction of the furrowed basins. This irrigation method can be considered somewhat as a combination of ’liyadde irrigation’ of paddy in South Sri Lanka and the basin system of the Jaffna farmer.

The outcome from the "Irrigation and Water Management Project" were two manuals describing in detail the procedures for land levelling and the new irrigation method. They are:

1. Levelling small farms for bench terraces

2. Furrowed basin system for upland crops

Agronomists of aid donor agencies and visiting irrigation scientists commended the package of practices as the most appropriate and very essential for local conditions. However, the implementation of the land levelling and water management never took off the ground. The additional land levelling that is required for the irrigation method involves additional cost, but this will only be a small fraction of the total cost that is presently spent by the state for land clearing and land levelling. Any little additional cost spent on the extra land levelling will be recovered many times over from the water saved through better water management. The probable reason for not implementing a proper water management in the irrigation schemes may be that precision land levelling needs trained units consisting of a technical officer and a tractor operator. Although two such units were trained and established under the water management research project, unfortunately, the will and initiative needed to form such units was lacking by the Mahaveli Authorities. Further, the irrigation engineers in Sri Lanka being civil engineers may not have appreciated the need for precision land levelling for water management.

It is strange that International Irrigation Management Institute which has its headquarters in Sri Lanka did not pick up the research findings from the water management research project and implement in the irrigation schemes in the island. As the Land Use Division is in the Irrigation Department, officials at the ministerial level and higher authorities are not aware of the potential and the expertise available in the Land Use Division and tend to direct funds from donor agencies for water management and visiting scientists to the Agriculture Department which has hardly any personnel trained in on-farm water management.

There is no point in paying lip service to water management. All necessary information to implement and practice good water management has already been developed and available. If the authorities really want to have good water management, they should use the two publications mentioned earlier which give tried and tested procedures under local conditions. These publications must be available with USAID at the American Embassy and with Land Use Division.

(Most of the information given in this note were obtained from various publications of the Mahaveli Board, Agriculture Research Committee of the Agriculture Department and the Land Use Division of the Irrigation Department. Dr. K. A. de Alwis, Dr. W. D. Joshua or Mr. S. Dimantha who were former Heads of the Land Use Division probably will have more information on the subject).