Water Lessons of Adarsha. Education began with what scientists didn´t know

Education began with what scientists didn´t know

To India, and then to learn? I´ve never been out of the Philippines, and here I am, looking into mirrors. Which images are real, which ones are my prejudices? Samuel Martin is a friend of mine; I like Mahatma Gandhi; I like Bugong chicken (not Indian); I never liked curry, Indian or not. Now, I´m in Andhra Pradesh. I understand that in Telugu ´Andhra´ means ´Leader in Battle´ and ´pradesh´ means ´region´ (maharashtraweb.com). Ruled by different dynasties and empires over the centuries, Andhra Pradesh became for cultures a melting pot – and the Rice Bowl of India. Sometimes, I like to mix my metaphors.

Visited by modern peoples and modern technologies, empires of the realm and empires of the mind, India has become 2 hugely real and virtual kingdoms herself. India is now mammoth in size, in success, in science too. I like what I see, including home-grown Informatics and creative-capitalist Microsoft in India. (Have you read my latest on science and creative capitalism yet? Click here: ´Bill Gates, Nobel Prize for Economics 2008!´) If we don´t make a paradigm shift, history makes the shift for us – or a genius does it, like Bill Gates.

And the performing arts of India. I´ve just watched 2 performances of the Andhra Pradesh state dance, the Kuchipudi. The young dancers, all girls, are a rapture to watch, if in full clothes. I understand the dance originated in 300 BC circa, an ancient artifact; I like it, as I´m an antique myself at 68, September 17 exactly. Life likes like.

Kuchipudi is rich; it tells of the nomadic life and has a religious theme (IP, indiaparenting.com) – the life and theme of this writer. It is not merely a dance form; it is dance combined with gestures, speech and song. NRI assures me Kuchipudi ´showcases immense talent and creativity´ (nriol.com). Meaning, I ain´t seen nothing yet. I really have to go to India.

There was a time when the Kuchipudi was a bastion of Indian male imperialism, biased for the stronger sex, no girls allowed, but Maestro Vedanta Lakshmi Narayana Sastry shoved in delighted and delightful female dancers onstage, I am told. Mix the girls with the boys and what do you expect? You get life. So the world of Kuchipudi has never been the same again. The new learns from the old; the old gains from the new. I say this is change we can all believe in.

Trying to imbibe some of the art and science of India, I find I must apologize. Even as I write and listen and think, I perceive India with the partiality of a foreigner, even as I perceive my country the Philippines with the partiality of a native (my grandfather in my father´s side came from Rosario in La Union in Northern Philippines). Of course I have a bias, and not only about India – those who tell you they don´t have any have not looked into the mirror lately – and my bias is extension. I was trained to be an educator, BS in Agriculture, major in Ag Education, University of the Philippines´ College of Agriculture, 1966, and I passed the very first national Teacher´s Exam in the Philippines, 80.6%, 1965. I learned some is what the digits mean. Using my teacher´s glasses, I see extension as education for adults, out-of school or not, literate or not, informed or misinformed, computer literate or idiot, dummy. And yes, I have learned to look with rose-colored extension glasses, the better to see.

And so, to extension in India, to the highly successful Adarsha Watershed Project of Team ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, which is based in Patancheru in the state of Andhra Pradesh. (Now you know why I´m in Andhra Pradesh – I like success stories.) In this context, I must make mention of the ICRISAT partners in this winner of a project: CRIDA (Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture) in Hyderabad, DWMA (District Water Management Agency) in Ranga Reddy District, Government of Andhra Pradesh in Hyderabad, Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP), Farmers´ Watershed Association, MVF (M Venkatarangiaya Foundation) in Secunderabad, and NRSA (National Remote Sensing Agency). Credit must be given to whom credit is due.

Now, what exactly are we giving them credit for? Or, to put it another way, how do you explain the extension success called Adarsha? I like to ask questions, then look for the answers myself.

But in fact, Adarsha the place is an invention of those Indian villagers. Adarsha wasn´t there in 1999 when the watershed team went looking for a place to do their science on, looking for people to motivate to do what they think they ought to do, among other things, bring back water to their homes and farms, when all they could see was the lack of water, a dryland of 465 ha in that village of 1,500 comprised of 270 farm families and 4 others. This is South India, remember? You are in the semi-arid tropics. Average landholding of Adarsha farmers is 1.4 ha – they are land-richer than many Filipino farmers, but equally disadvantaged by their own historic profligate water habits at home and on the farm. Like, they over-irrigate. Like, they do not maintain a vegetative cover for their soils throughout the year. Like, they over-cultivate so that the soil runs off with the rainwater, eloping with the nutrients. Farmer bias for clean culture, cultivator bias for modern agriculture.

When the Adarsha project started, it was the farmers who decided to name the place Adarsha, their watershed, in the village of Kothapally in Ranga Reddy, a district in Andhra Pradesh. The village is about 40 km from the campus of ICRISAT. Adarsha is a baby name for a girl; the name refers to an ideal, a model, something to aim for. The first goal of the Adarsha project was to have water for the farms and homes in that village, to avoid the drought. More water in more months of the year. And they were rewarded with success.

Success was followed by imitation, the sincerest form of flattery. So, as of last report, the Adarsha model was being tried in other water-challenged parts of India as well as in Vietnam and Thailand. The Department for International Development of UK and the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Programme had provided funds to scale up the methodology in Kurnool, Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar Districts of Andhra Pradesh. The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust of Mumbai and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had also funded the Adarsha stratagem in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat in India, and in Thailand and Vietnam.

Like I warned you, scientists have their own predispositions about extension. 2 members of Team ICRISAT looked at their Adarsha success and came up with 2 subtly different versions on how to explain the accomplishment, or what mainly to ascribe it to, and it´s easy to agree with both of them. It happens even in science. With our individual biases, each of us is any of the 6 blind men of India groping in the dark trying to find out how the elephant really looks like. It takes all eyes.

I want to more than just grope for details here. You see, I´m interested in the process, in the how it happened that this watershed project succeeded where others elsewhere failed. But since there is yet no process documentation of the Adarsha phenomenon that it is, I´ll just have to content myself with 2 ICRISAT reports: by SP Wani, HP Singh, TK Sreedevi, P Pathak, TJ Rego, B Shiferaw & SR Iyer, ´Farmer-Participatory Integrated Watershed Management: Adarsha Watershed, Kothapally, India – An Innovative and Upscalable Approach´ (2003), and by TK Sreedevi, B Shiferaw & SP Wani, ´Adarsha Watershed in Kothapally: Understanding the Drivers of Higher Impact´ (2004), as well as a news item on the project by Sushmita Malaviya (´Worms of change,´ 2003, Sunday Tribune, India). 2003, 2004: These are old news, you protest. So they are. So now I borrow from the Reader´s Digest and do declare that these are ´articles of lasting interest and enduring significance.´ The good news of science can last a lifetime. That´s why the Reader´s Digest has lasted a lifetime.

9 years and Adarsha has been an unqualified success. If you need audiovisual proof, ask BBC World for the documentary they made of it. (I don´t doubt it. Blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed.)

MVF was there for the youth, for education. Eventually, the Adarsha villagers learned their lessons. As a teacher, I specially note the part of Hadley Nelles´ report that says, ´Now, when a child is born, there is no question of whether or not it will attend school, it will; if not by the parents´ own decision then by the pressure of a community well aware that a child´s place is the classroom´ (ideas.repec.org) and not in a dangerous situation. Now I see that in Adarsha, if education does not begin at home, the parents have a lot of explaining to do!

The rest of the Adarsha project partners were there minding the technical details. Are we reducing runoff and soil loss? Check. Are the ladies contributing organic fertilizer with their worms? Check. (They´re into vermicomposting.) Are the Gliricidia loppings enriching the soil with N? Check. Have we improved the groundwater level? Check. Have we improved the land cover and vegetation? Check. Have we increased productivity? Check. Have we increased family incomes yet? Check. Do we have water while the other villages don´t? Check!

Great. So, how now do you explain the Adarsha success?

On one side, main author ICRISAT Scientist (Watershed Development) TK Sreedevi ascribes the Adarsha success to the use of a ´farmer-centric integrated watershed management model´ – this is an extension view where the science of the watershed meets the needs of the farmers who supply the needs of the wasteland: water conservation measures and structures. Education begins with the first drop of rain. When the farmers did it on the wasteland, they did it on themselves – building gully control structures, mini-percolation pits, diversion bund, field bunds, check dams, gabions. All these watering holes conserved water that replenished the groundwater that fed the wells and water holes the farmers used for their homes and farms. What goes down must come up.

On the other side, main author ICRISAT Principal Scientist (Watersheds) SP Wani ascribes the Adarsha success to a ´farmer-participatory consortium model´ – this is an extension view where the emphasis is ´on capacity-building and empowerment of the NGOs, extension workers, farmers, and SHGs´ (self-help groups). Hopes soared, incomes rose, attendance to schools increased, more women contributed income to more households, there was more water for the homes and farms, farmers planted better crop varieties, spent less on farming (fertilizers and pesticides) and earned more, and the countryside became literally greener. The project helped the Adarsha villagers help themselves.

Ah, but did you know? The Adarsha project did not start right. ICRISAT Soil Scientist Pyara Singh tells us how it was at the beginning of Adarsha, ´that earlier, the approach to work in these villages had been very top-down, with an emphasis on soil and water conservation and little people´s participation´ (Sushmita Malaviya, 2003, tribuneindia.com). That is to say, the scientists went to Adarsha armed with their knowledge on waters and watersheds, where with went to work. They had answers to all their questions; they forgot to ask more. ´If you don´t watch out,´ says American comic Bill Cosby, ´you might learn something.´ And so they did. And so in time, the Adarsha scientists learned from their Adarsha experience. Better late than never! Must be bottom-up. When working for people working with the soil, you begin with soiled hands, but not those of the scientists.

I do believe the views of Sreedevi & Co and SP Wani & Co all boil down to only one and the same word, empowerment, to borrow from SP Wani.

I appreciate that. But then I ask: How? Remember, my bias is in the process, not the product of extension. How did it happen that the Adarsha villagers were empowered? The way I see it, empowerment is not given – rather, it is exercised. The Adarsha scientists and sponsors provided TIME (temporal attention, information, materials, methods, money, experience, energy, efficiency etc) to the Adarsha villagers who then went on to empower themselves. The new learned from the old; the old gained from the new.

Like love, power is not a noun – it´s a verb. Like a right, you have to take power upon yourself; you have to exercise it. It was not the TIME that empowered them; the people empowered themselves. At one point they just went ahead and did it, took it upon themselves. It does not always happen that when you give people TIME, they empower themselves.

Team ICRISAT must have done something right. But how exactly do you initiate the process of empowerment? As an extension scholar, I´d like to know who, with whom, what, where, when, how and why. So, to India, and then to learn.