<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/thar-desert-pastoralism-hydroponics-fodder/>
"On a morning in late July, Palu sits in the sandy yard of her brown house.
Nearby, in the shade of a sheesham tree, lies Kali, one of her cows. A monsoon
rain has just passed through, but now sunlight blazes down from the clear
desert sky once again. Here in the Thar Desert, the monsoon season lasts only
two months, and summer temperatures sometimes soar to over 120 degrees.
These challenging conditions make Palu’s small, solar-powered oasis, where she
can grow fresh greens for her cattle right next to her house, all the more
miraculous. In the barn-like structure, multi-level frames are constructed of
PVC pipes with tiny sprinklers. What looks like makeshift scaffolding is, in
fact, a wellspring of homegrown innovation. Nearby, plastic trays will soon be
spread with soaked seeds. In eight days, these seeds will grow roots, stems and
leaves to become animal food — the bedrock of her way of life.
Palu, 36 and her husband Hemaram, 40, are pastoralists, Indian farmers who
subsist on the crops they grow and the animals they raise. They go by single
names, a common practice among their marginalized Dalit caste. Their family of
seven lives in Ghantiyali, a rural village in the western Indian state of
Rajasthan. The communities in this region, nestled deep in the Thar Desert,
largely practiced pastoralism for centuries.
That changed after the partition of India in 1947 and the construction of a
canal in the 1950s, built by the government to assimilate pastoralists into a
system of agricultural land ownership. Families that, until a few generations
ago, moved around with their herds seasonally, gradually began reducing herd
sizes and farming more. “Eighteen years ago, we had 60 sheep, ten cows, five
camels and an ox,” says Hemaram. “The animals gradually reduced. Our kids began
to go to school, so who would graze them? Also, there’s not enough land for
grazing. And there was a lack of green fodder.”
For pastoralist families like theirs, preserving their traditional practices is
an uphill battle. Water shortages and erratic rainfall, exacerbated by climate
change, have made growing animal food, or fodder, increasingly difficult. But
hydroponics –– a method of growing fodder with just a fraction of the water
normally required –– is changing that. New hydroponic farms like the one next
to Palu’s house are appearing in the remotest regions of Rajasthan, allowing
desert-dwelling pastoralists to grow fodder for their animals nearly year
round. In doing so, these new farms not only nourish cows and goats, they
sustain a culture that might otherwise fade into the past."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
