SYDNEY, Apr 04 (IPS) – Rising up in a khazan ecosystem, the standard agricultural apply adopted within the south-western Indian state of Goa, Elsa Fernandes would love sitting in a koddo, a woven bamboo construction for storing paddy. Her members of the family would pour paddy round her and with the rising pile, she would rise to the highest after which leap down with pleasure.
“Rice crop for us meant play, work and earnings. No matter I’m as we speak is due to the khazans,” says Fernandes, an environmental architect and president of the Goa Khazan Society, a corporation of involved residents and specialists devoted to preserving the khazan ecosystem, which has performed an intrinsic function in assuaging the consequences of soil salinization, conserving biodiversity, and guaranteeing meals safety for over 3500 years.
However this sustainable agriculture apply is dealing with rising strain from neglect, mismanagement, environmental degradation, and commercialization of land and fishing rights, at the same time as threats posed by local weather change loom massive.
Consultants say it’s crucial to preserve the khazan ecosystem, which contains low-lying floodplains reclaimed by constructing bunds (dykes), embankments, and sluice gates to stop the ingress of saline tidal waters, thereby creating nutrient-rich fertile soil for agriculture, pisciculture, and salt making.
Symbiotic relationship
“It epitomizes a symbiotic relationship between the folks and the land, offering a sustainable supply of livelihood all year long,” says Fernandes, whose dad and mom have been paddy and salt farmers in Santa Cruz village close to the state capital, Panjim.
She recollects rising up in a home the place meals was ample and day by day actions revolved across the annual crop cycle. A very powerful room in the home can be the paddy room. The khazans can be used for cultivating and harvesting rice throughout monsoons and greens throughout winters. From October on, the standard strategy of stacking, boiling, drying, eradicating the husk and storing rice would start.
“Throughout summer season, we might play ‘hop, skip, and leap’ as lengthy bamboo sticks have been rolled to flatten the soil within the salt pans. Our household produced about 600 to 700 sacks of salt and we might queue with different salt farmers to load them on boats anchored on the riverbank. Data present that a few of this salt was exported so far as Burma (Myanmar), however now salt harvesting is in full decline and that’s impacting the livelihood of communities reliant on it,” Fernandes provides.
Her reminiscences depict a vivid picture of every season, heralding a rhythm of actions revolving across the khazans. From repairing the souem or bamboo mats used for drying rice, to getting ready the soil for salt harvest, she enumerates the communal efforts to keep up the khazan infrastructure that have been rooted in conventional ecological information handed down by generations.
Ecosystem resilience
Khazans signify a holistic strategy to local weather resilience, integrating ecological features with agricultural practices important for guaranteeing long-term meals safety.
Shilpa Bhonsle, an skilled in rice analysis, explains that as a result of Khazan agriculture apply encourages the cultivation of a various vary of crops, together with rice, pulses and greens, in addition to aquaculture, it enhances ecosystem resilience by lowering the vulnerability of crops to pests, ailments, and climate-related stresses.
Underscoring the significance of cultivating indigenous rice varieties, Muno, Shied, Korgut, and Damgo, which possess higher genetic range that equips them with a variety of adaptive traits equivalent to tolerance to salinity, drought, and water logging, she says, “This makes them probably extra resilient to local weather variability and excessive climate occasions in comparison with high-yielding varieties.”
“Conventional farming practices, equivalent to mudflat ploughing, shellfish cultivation, and natural manure utility, assist keep soil well being and fertility,” says Bhonsle, Assistant Professor within the Division of Botany at Dhempe Faculty of Arts and Science in Panaji.
“Moreover, conventional irrigation methods optimize water use and cut back dependence on freshwater sources in a khazan. These sustainable practices, mixed with trendy adaptation methods, contribute to mitigating the impacts of drought and water shortage exacerbated by local weather change,” she provides.
At the moment, the khazan ecosystem spreads throughout roughly 17,200 hectares in Goa, which has a posh interconnected system of water channels whereby the Arabian Sea on its western boundary connects to the inland by rivers and estuaries.
Local weather-smart infrastructure
“The okhazans incorporate a number of features related to climate-smart infrastructure, thus defending these fragile coastal agriculture ecosystems from local weather change impacts to a big extent,” says Sangeeta Sonak, a marine microbiologist who’s engaged on the khazan ecosystem and molluscs of Goa.
“In a khazan, the interior smaller dykes assist retain water contained in the fields; the thick outer dykes act as a protect in opposition to riverine water incursion; and sluice gates regulate water move by robotically responding to tidal pressures to flush fields and hold soil and water salinity in verify, thereby serving to with water purification and waste therapy in fields,” explains Sonak.
“Throughout monsoons, when the salinity is low or absent, riverine water enters fields by sluice gates. Extra water is saved in a shallow pit referred to as the poiem for irrigation throughout dry monsoon spells, thereby providing flood and drought safety. In summer season, the marginally saline brackish water that enters the fields helps management pests and bugs, that are dangerous to crops,” she provides.
“However the trendy age has scant respect for earlier engineering knowledge,” says Claude Alvares, an eminent environmentalist and director of the Goa Foundation, an environmental monitoring motion group. “The khazans are low-lying areas and Goa is threatened with world warming pushed sea stage rise. If the embankments should not safeguarded and strengthened now, the state won’t ever be capable of defend itself from the pains of local weather change.”
“The khazan ecosystem survival is threatened by individuals who break the embankments to permit salt water and fish, which is extra profitable than grain, into these lands. After the salt water is available in, and stays there, it results in a proliferation of mangroves, that are stupendous colonizers,” he says.
Moreover, the standard mud dykes are being changed with concrete buildings. “This isn’t solely damaging our water our bodies, however adversely impacting biodiversity, the setting, well being, and heritage,” says Fernandes. She means that contracts for repairs and upkeep of dykes must be given to the locals, which might not solely present them with livelihoods but additionally foster native engagement and a round financial system based mostly on sustainable strategies.
Civil society advocates are in search of worldwide recognition and help for preserving this cultural and ecological heritage; and advocating for itemizing khazans below the United Nations Meals and Agricultural Group’s Globally Vital Agricultural Heritage Techniques.
For Fernandes and numerous others, khazans are greater than only a livelihood; it’s a means of being.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
