Thoughts 50 Years After

After a visit for on site management of the Bio Sand Water Filter Project in Kolar, Mike told me that the well behind the cottage where we lived as volunteers had gone dry. He said Kolar’s residents were queuing to fill their water jugs and containers from tank trucks or a communal tap that was only open intermittently.

Shortly after, I read an account in a Swedish newspaper depicting critical water shortages in Bangalore and the surrounding regions. I then found a surfeit of articles and reports describing acute problems in other areas of South India. The widespread water shortages were getting worse due to the demands of an increased population and intensive agriculture.

It was simple math. The aquifer was being depleted faster than it could be recharged by rainfall. To compound the problem, rivers and reservoirs were contaminated by untreated sewage, and residue from pesticides and fertilizers. 

When the traditional gives way for the modern, it is called progress, and often progress doesn’t come without hidden costs. The agronomy of the Green Revolution quadrupled yields and shaped the future of Indian agriculture. Even if the new high yielding crops alleviated the grain and rice shortages of the 1960s, there were ecological and social effects that were unforeseen.

The goal of the Green Revolution was to establish a secure food supply for India and stop the dependency on imported grains, but in order to create good for the many others would pay the price. Huge agro companies would eventually crack genetic codes and patent the seeds and the pesticides needed to protect them, and the idea of plentiful food would be transformed into food for profit. 

In six years rice and grain production doubled, but the loyalties of the corporations that hijacked the green revolution weren’t as concerned about the people that they were going to feed, as they were about their own profits.

Small farmers have become indebted to moneylenders and wealthy landowners in order to purchase seed and chemicals. Intense cultivation and a population that is still increasing by a million people every twenty days have further increased the strain on the limited water resources.

Kolar, like most of Central India, is reliant on its ground water for household and agricultural use, but lacks a viable plan for its sustainability. In this ongoing cycle of increased exploitation, the surface wells that we worked to deepen, have dried up and have been replaced by deep bore wells that have lowered the water table even more.

References:

* Articles on the South Indian water crisis from - Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, NY Times, Washington Post, Times of India, Deccan Herald, New Yorker, BBC, The Guardian, Scientific American etc.

* South India Pure Water Initiative, SAPWI, Mike Lipman´s and his wife Cathy Forsberg’s Bio Sand Water Filter Project in Kolar.

* Mysore State was renamed Karnataka in1973, Bangalore was renamed Bengaluru in 2006. Kolar District was divided in 2007 into Chickballapur and Kolar Districts.

* Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman: "All you need is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960's"

 * Joe Blatchford: "The Peace Corps in the 1970's-Outlining New Directions"