Indian farmers cultivate their flooded farmland in Mukalmowa, in India's northeastern state of Assam, in 2003.
By Amarjyoti Borah
Guwahati, Mar 24 : Over half a million people living near the Brahmaputra River in the northeastern Indian state of Assam are gradually migrating to other areas as worsening floods, drought and sand intrusion into agricultural land force them from their jobs and homes, research and advocacy groups in the area say.
"I have always been dependent on water from the river for my agriculture field, but over the last five years the behavior of the river has become unpredictable. Sometimes there is a flash flood that destroys the crops and sometimes there is too little water in the river to use (to irrigate) my field," said Bhuwan Borah, a farmer, a farmer in the Sonitpur district of Assam.
Sonaram Pegu, another farmer in the Dhemaji district, says sand washed in by floodwaters has made it impossible to cultivate more than half of his land.
"I had five hectares of cultivable land (but) now less then two hectares is cultivable," he said.
Borah and Pegu have so far remained on their land but many other farmers are giving up.
Hari Das, 27, three years ago traded work on his family farm for a job at a wholesale grocery shop in Guwahati, the region's capital, where he earns $65 a month.
"We have been a farming family for the last three generations but I suffered huge losses over the last four years and so decided to shift to some other work which will give me a regular income," Das said. "Though my present income is only half of my earlier earning from farming, I am happy at having at having a secure monthly earning."
GIVING UP FARMING
Bulu Payeng, 25, similarly gave up farming recently. Even though he is still searching for a job, he believes he has made the right decision in leaving his land.
"Now I am struggling but I am not having to suffer (more financial) losses," he said. "The last three years completely shattered me financially and I had to sell off a portion of my land to pay off my debt," he said.
Assam's farmers and fishermen are facing hard times in part because more intense rainfall in the region, believed associated with climate change, has increased the frequency of landslides in the Brahmaputra's watershed, leading it to carry more silt and sand, according to Partha Jyoti Das, a senior researcher with Aaranyak.
That Assam-based environmental organization, working in conjunction with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in neighboring Nepal, has carried out a detailed study of the Brahmaputra's floodplains in eastern Assam.
More intense and prolonged flooding and flash floods, and widespread depositing of sand washed down the river "has left many areas unfit for agriculture," Das said.
"Normal natural disasters have become intense and more damaging," agreed Mawam Hazarika, a government agricultural official posted in Assam. "Spells of heavy rainfall are increasing in the summer leading to more frequent floods and flash floods while rains have been much less than normal in winters which is drastically affecting agriculture."
FISHERMEN ALSO IN TROUBLE
Fishermen have also been hard hit by erratic floods and flash floods, and are among the more than half a million people being forced out of riverside livelihoods, according to officials of the North East Affected Area Development Society, an activist group that works on behalf of the region's poorest.
The combination of new stresses has left many people unable to earn a living and has resulted in widespread migration to cities, and to once prosperous families becoming poverty stricken, advocacy groups said.
Bejia Das, a farmer in Dhemaji, in 2004 borrowed money from a money lender to pay for his son's higher education expenses. He hoped to pay the money back by 2010 with earnings from his harvests.
But "during the last five years, my earning has been almost nil, so since the end of last year I left farming and became a daily wage laborer," he said.
With interest mounting, "the loan has increased several times," Das said. "My only income source was from farming and now I am not able to earn from farming. Becoming a daily wage laborer was the only option left for me."
According to researchers at ICIMOD, the Himalaya region has seen temperatures rise by about one degree Celsius between 1971 and 2007. That may be driving the changes seen recently in Assam and eventually "could cause considerable changes to the Brahmaputra river basin," said Partha Jyoti Das of Aaranyak.
FINDING WAYS TO ADAPT
Some living along the river have found ways to adapt to changing conditions. The Mishing ethnic group have for generations lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle along the river, adjusting to the changing river course and the devastation brought by regular flooding.
To cope with the problems, many Mishing build homes on raised platforms on poles, a measure more people living in the flood-affected area are now adopting.
"They build the houses on wood and bamboo stilts, at an average height of 2 to 2.5 meters (6 to 8 feet) above ground - in line with the highest flood level experienced in the area in recent times. The design provides ideal protection from flood waters and allows for a variety of activities, such as livestock rearing and food storage," said Luit Goswami, who works with the Rural Volunteer Centre, an NGO that deals with disaster issues in Assam.
In other cases, people are building two-level structures where the upper part is used to store grain and the lower part as a barn.
"Such structures are used to save food grain and hay and even shelter people at times of severe floods," Goswami said.
In Salmara, a village of 500 families in the Jorhat district of Assam, every family now lives on a raised platform to escape flooding.
"Our village is always the least affected by floods in Majuli (sub-district)," said Paniram Chintae, one Salmara resident. "The result would have been far better if we could have constructed our houses on raised platforms built with concrete but unfortunately we are not so financially strong."
The problem with wooden poles is that sometimes "during severe floods the raised platform - the poles as well as the house - get washed away causing severe losses to property and life. This could be brought down by constructing the poles, platform and houses with concrete," he said.
Farmers in increasingly flood-prone areas also have developed innovations to cope. Many now plant deep-water rice that is resistant to flooding.
"Farmers now mix indigenous varieties of summer rice and deep-water rice, to provide options in case the crop of one variety fails and to optimize the use of land. When the floods are not so prolonged and virulent, both rice varieties are able to survive," said Manoj Tamuly, a representative of an Assam-based farmer's organization called Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti.
**Amarjyoti Borah is a freelance journalist based in Guwahati, India.
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