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Organising farmer groups in Mahaweli Ganga
Agricultural
Administration
11 (1982) 30M08
ORGANISING FARMER GROUPS IN MAHAWELI
SHOAIB
PO Box
SULTAN
143, Colombo
(Received:
14 June,
GANGA
KHAN
3, Sri Lanka 1982)
INTRODUCTION
The Mahaweli Ganga Development Project in Sri Lanka represents a serious intention to benefit the rural poor through land settlement. Irrigable land measuring 1 ha and high land (unirrigated) measuring 0.2 ha is given to each settler, and no family, until recently, could qualify for more than three allotments. Services and facilities, apparently, were made available to one and all at the same level. By the beginning of 1979, three years after the first settlers were brought in, it was apparent that the Project’s objectives were getting a little awry. The egalitarian base was being tarnished. In System ‘H’, where nearly 10,146 families had already been settled and were cultivating over 10,000 ha of land (some since early 1976), it was clear that only some settlers had derived the full benefits of development; the large majority was lagging far behind. The provision of services, very often, is done without monitoring its accessibility to the target group. Mahaweli Project area ‘H’ was no exception in this; it was a common phenomenon. The reason for this state of affairs was not too difficult to discern. Attempts at providing services to individual settlers with an acute absence of productive and managerial human skills render government services ineffective. Effective servicing is only possible through group action, and UNICEF programmes of drinking water supply, environmental sanitation, community health, nutrition, day care centres and small school development also depend on effective and genuine community participation. But communities seldom stay organised around social and welfare provision. It was therefore imperative that social programmes should be closely linked up with productive programmes. In Mahaweli ‘H’ area irrigation water is most critical in the eyes of the settlers for their survival and offers an opportunity for fostering social cohesiveness around water management. Surprisingly, the planners of the Mahaweli irrigation infrastructure had catered for such an initiative by carving out the irrigable area into 303 Agricultural Administration 1982 Printed in Great Britain
0309-586X/82/001
l-0303/$02.75
0 Applied
Science
Publishers
Ltd, England,
304
SHOAIB
SULTAN
KHAN
units of farmland of 12-20 ha commanded by one measurable source of water called the Turnout Gate. However, the implementers failed to take advantage of the situation by assuming that 12-20 farmers in the turnout farm area would, on their own, manage equitable distribution of water among themselves and, further, that they would, on their own, maintain the irrigation works and the field channels within the turnout area. Since the human incentives and skills to co-operate and to manage do not come naturally but have to be imparted, the absence of these incentives and skills in the farmers in the ‘H’ area resulted in an inequitable distribution of water amongst the farmers (in some cases farmers never obtained any/water for the last three years) and in damage to irrigation works (a recent survey showed 70 % damage to irrigation works within the turnout area) because of nonmaintenance. Hence, the first step in achieving social cohesiveness for fostering community programmes in the fields of health, education, nutrition and child care was to organise the community in turnout groups. These groups were used for agricultural extension also, leading to the federation of five to six such groups into a hamlet organisation, where the farmers and their families reside. In order to assesstraining needs, discussions were held with field level officers to identify problems requiring specific management tools and skills. Of the Units represented in the project at different levels of the project administration, Water Management, Agricultural Extension, and Community Development were the most pronounced. The immediate problems faced by each of the Units were identified as described below.
WATER
MANAGEMENT
(a) Distribution of water amongst the farmers within a turnout area; (b) maintenance of field drains and ditches within a turnout area, (c) attendance to, and remedial action for, minor local problems in respect of land preparation, irrigation and transportation within a turnout area. In the absence of a satisfactory arrangement for the distribution of water within a turnout area, water was being used in excessive quantity but was not reaching all the farmers within a turnout area. The Water Unit’s responsibility for maintenance does not extend to the field-drains and ditches within a turnout area; but it could not maintain them anyway as the total mileage of these drains and ditches is over 1,500 miles within the project area. There was a great hue and cry amongst the farmers on account of minor problems pertaining to efficient water management within a turnout area due to lack of minor physical infrastructural works. There was general agreement that since each turnout (averaging 13 ha with twelve farmers each) had been designed as an independent unit, it was not possible to solve the three problems identified earlier without the involvement of the farmers of each
ORGANISING
FARMER
GROUPS
IN
MAHAWELI
GANGA
305
turnout on a group basis. These problems, spread over an area of nearly 28,000 ha and concerning 23,000 farmers, could not be tackled without the support of 1,734 turnout farmer groups.
AGRICULTURAL
EXTENSION
The main function of the Agriculture Extension Unit is the dissemination of agriculture knowledge. The existing system of extension education was through the Training and Visit system whereby the lowest level extension worker was supposed to disseminate extension education to 250 farmers, but very often the farmer was not present when the field worker approached. Besides, according to this approach, the field worker is obligated to individual farmers as there was no farmers’ organisation at the grassroots level. The dilution of instruction from the second tier extension worker to the farmer through the lowest field worker was also unsatisfactory and it was felt that the second tier worker should be made responsible for instructing at least the farmer leaders or contact farmers directly and not through the lowest field worker. The field workers of all the three Units agreed that agricultural extension could be co-ordinated with the Water Management Unit so that the turnout should also be used for agricultural extension. The method accepted for trial was that the lowest field level officer should continue to visit turnouts, instead of individual farmers, and teach farmers in groups. In addition, each turnout group should be asked to select a contact farmer from among the turnout group and the contact farmer would be asked to pay fortnightly visits to the second tier worker at the village level Community Training and Development Centre.
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
The distinction between community development work and the work of the Community Development Unit in the project area was clear. All work (be it in the fields of irrigation, agriculture, education or health) which affects the community is community development work, but the work of the Community Development Unit could obviously not embrace all these functions. A consensus was reached that the functions of the Community Development Unit should include the following: (a)
(b)
Fostering community action; that is to say, forming the 23,000 farmers in the project area into viable community groups. This was considered to be the main function of the Community Development Unit. Fostering leadership in the community groups identified under (a) above. This meant that the determination of the size of the cohesive group was important to the objective of fostering leadership.
306 (c)
(d)
SHOAIB
SULTAN
KHAN
Fostering an input delivery system for the farmers as the functions of the Agriculture Extension Unit were limited only to extension education but, in order to put newly acquired knowledge to use, the farmer needed the support of inputs. The Community Development Unit was charged with the organisation of an input delivery system. Fostering village programmes, such as environmental sanitation, drinking water community wells, day care centres, etc.
It was noted that the Community Development Unit should identify communities in the project area on the basis of each turnout. Communities live in hamlets and this is ultimately where communities will be organised for the activities indicated in (d) above, but for a beginning and in the interest of coordination with the Water Management Unit, the Community Development Unit was to start organising farmers at the turnout level. It was hoped that the turnout farmer groups would be federated at the hamlet (village) level.
UPGRADING
OF HUMAN
SKILLS
The long-term strategy of the project is to upgrade the managerial and productive skills of the farmers so that, progressively, they take over responsibilities for the administrative functions of the field level staff; namely, the JPS (turnout gate regulator) and the KVS (agriculture field worker). In ‘H’ area alone these number around 300. Their duties will be performed by 3,400 rural cadres of farmer managers and contact farmers. With this background, proposals for the training of project staff and farmer leaders were begun with the commencement of the first foundation course for the Units of the project in 1979, and the farmer leaders training programme in August, 1979. Farmers were asked to select two leaders per turnout group: one as farmer manager to deal with water management amd community development matters, and the second as a contact farmer to exclusively concentrate on agriculture extension. By and large, the selection of turnout leaders was representative, and no more than 5 o/0 of the leaders were subsequently replaced at the request of the groups. Over 500 farm leaders completed a questionnaire in late March/early April, 1980, during the normal training sessions. These 502 respondents represented 55 % of the total number of farmer leaders (906) in the blocks where the questionnaire was administered, and 44 o/0of the total number of farmer leaders in all the blocks where training commenced in August, 1979. In terms of the objectives of the training programme, water management problems continued to plague the farmers and they indicated that remedial action was urgently needed. The community development effort in fostering village programmes was regarded as weak. It was a clear case
ORGANISING
FARMER
GROUPS
IN MAHAWELI
GANGA
307
308
SHOAIB
SULTAN
where hopes had been aroused without extension work seemed to be proceeding obtain maximum results. On the whole, effective and a large majority of the farmer further two years.
RE-ORGANISATION
KHAN
commensurate satisfaction. Agricultural well but needed further reinforcement to the training programme had been fairly leaders wanted it to continue for at least a
PROPOSALS
The main criticism levelled against the original project’s administrative structure was that it was a vertical organisation and that there was no coordination between the Agriculture, Water Management and Community Development Units below the project level. This was not wholly correct as the Project Area Manager, as a coordinator, did influence the working of the various Units at different levels. Nonetheless, the role of the coordinators at different levels was to be perceived in terms of the problems. At the training sessions, attended by around 4,500 farmers, the problems most frequently identified for action by field level officers were: defective construction work; boundary disputes; lack of tractors for contract ploughing; lack of bulldozers; access to credit; non-issue of timely irrigation water; non-availability of inputs, fertilisers and weedicides in the government-run cooperatives; lack of health and education facilities; lack of village and turnout channel roads and the non-payment of crop insurance. These problems showed weaknesses in the administrative structure as well as resource deficiencies. In particular, lack of organisation amongst the farmers, and lack.of delegation of authority at different levels of the project-as well as weak coordination-were evident. Figure 1 shows the reformed administration which was designed to meet these problems. The salient features of this structure are that the Unit Manager (who has an agriculture background) combines the functions of extension and community involvement. The number of farmers in his charge has been increased to 250. It is too early to assessthe effectiveness and suitability of this structure (which has now been extended to the entire Mahaweli project area) as its linkage to the sectoral Ministries remains to be forged. It is also not clear what shape the structure may take once the project areas are integrated in the normal administrative organisation. The new organisation is also being tried in two other areas which extend over 12,000 and 8,000 ha with equivalent numbers of farmers.
Administration
11 (1982) 30M08
ORGANISING FARMER GROUPS IN MAHAWELI
SHOAIB
PO Box
SULTAN
143, Colombo
(Received:
14 June,
GANGA
KHAN
3, Sri Lanka 1982)
INTRODUCTION
The Mahaweli Ganga Development Project in Sri Lanka represents a serious intention to benefit the rural poor through land settlement. Irrigable land measuring 1 ha and high land (unirrigated) measuring 0.2 ha is given to each settler, and no family, until recently, could qualify for more than three allotments. Services and facilities, apparently, were made available to one and all at the same level. By the beginning of 1979, three years after the first settlers were brought in, it was apparent that the Project’s objectives were getting a little awry. The egalitarian base was being tarnished. In System ‘H’, where nearly 10,146 families had already been settled and were cultivating over 10,000 ha of land (some since early 1976), it was clear that only some settlers had derived the full benefits of development; the large majority was lagging far behind. The provision of services, very often, is done without monitoring its accessibility to the target group. Mahaweli Project area ‘H’ was no exception in this; it was a common phenomenon. The reason for this state of affairs was not too difficult to discern. Attempts at providing services to individual settlers with an acute absence of productive and managerial human skills render government services ineffective. Effective servicing is only possible through group action, and UNICEF programmes of drinking water supply, environmental sanitation, community health, nutrition, day care centres and small school development also depend on effective and genuine community participation. But communities seldom stay organised around social and welfare provision. It was therefore imperative that social programmes should be closely linked up with productive programmes. In Mahaweli ‘H’ area irrigation water is most critical in the eyes of the settlers for their survival and offers an opportunity for fostering social cohesiveness around water management. Surprisingly, the planners of the Mahaweli irrigation infrastructure had catered for such an initiative by carving out the irrigable area into 303 Agricultural Administration 1982 Printed in Great Britain
0309-586X/82/001
l-0303/$02.75
0 Applied
Science
Publishers
Ltd, England,
304
SHOAIB
SULTAN
KHAN
units of farmland of 12-20 ha commanded by one measurable source of water called the Turnout Gate. However, the implementers failed to take advantage of the situation by assuming that 12-20 farmers in the turnout farm area would, on their own, manage equitable distribution of water among themselves and, further, that they would, on their own, maintain the irrigation works and the field channels within the turnout area. Since the human incentives and skills to co-operate and to manage do not come naturally but have to be imparted, the absence of these incentives and skills in the farmers in the ‘H’ area resulted in an inequitable distribution of water amongst the farmers (in some cases farmers never obtained any/water for the last three years) and in damage to irrigation works (a recent survey showed 70 % damage to irrigation works within the turnout area) because of nonmaintenance. Hence, the first step in achieving social cohesiveness for fostering community programmes in the fields of health, education, nutrition and child care was to organise the community in turnout groups. These groups were used for agricultural extension also, leading to the federation of five to six such groups into a hamlet organisation, where the farmers and their families reside. In order to assesstraining needs, discussions were held with field level officers to identify problems requiring specific management tools and skills. Of the Units represented in the project at different levels of the project administration, Water Management, Agricultural Extension, and Community Development were the most pronounced. The immediate problems faced by each of the Units were identified as described below.
WATER
MANAGEMENT
(a) Distribution of water amongst the farmers within a turnout area; (b) maintenance of field drains and ditches within a turnout area, (c) attendance to, and remedial action for, minor local problems in respect of land preparation, irrigation and transportation within a turnout area. In the absence of a satisfactory arrangement for the distribution of water within a turnout area, water was being used in excessive quantity but was not reaching all the farmers within a turnout area. The Water Unit’s responsibility for maintenance does not extend to the field-drains and ditches within a turnout area; but it could not maintain them anyway as the total mileage of these drains and ditches is over 1,500 miles within the project area. There was a great hue and cry amongst the farmers on account of minor problems pertaining to efficient water management within a turnout area due to lack of minor physical infrastructural works. There was general agreement that since each turnout (averaging 13 ha with twelve farmers each) had been designed as an independent unit, it was not possible to solve the three problems identified earlier without the involvement of the farmers of each
ORGANISING
FARMER
GROUPS
IN
MAHAWELI
GANGA
305
turnout on a group basis. These problems, spread over an area of nearly 28,000 ha and concerning 23,000 farmers, could not be tackled without the support of 1,734 turnout farmer groups.
AGRICULTURAL
EXTENSION
The main function of the Agriculture Extension Unit is the dissemination of agriculture knowledge. The existing system of extension education was through the Training and Visit system whereby the lowest level extension worker was supposed to disseminate extension education to 250 farmers, but very often the farmer was not present when the field worker approached. Besides, according to this approach, the field worker is obligated to individual farmers as there was no farmers’ organisation at the grassroots level. The dilution of instruction from the second tier extension worker to the farmer through the lowest field worker was also unsatisfactory and it was felt that the second tier worker should be made responsible for instructing at least the farmer leaders or contact farmers directly and not through the lowest field worker. The field workers of all the three Units agreed that agricultural extension could be co-ordinated with the Water Management Unit so that the turnout should also be used for agricultural extension. The method accepted for trial was that the lowest field level officer should continue to visit turnouts, instead of individual farmers, and teach farmers in groups. In addition, each turnout group should be asked to select a contact farmer from among the turnout group and the contact farmer would be asked to pay fortnightly visits to the second tier worker at the village level Community Training and Development Centre.
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
The distinction between community development work and the work of the Community Development Unit in the project area was clear. All work (be it in the fields of irrigation, agriculture, education or health) which affects the community is community development work, but the work of the Community Development Unit could obviously not embrace all these functions. A consensus was reached that the functions of the Community Development Unit should include the following: (a)
(b)
Fostering community action; that is to say, forming the 23,000 farmers in the project area into viable community groups. This was considered to be the main function of the Community Development Unit. Fostering leadership in the community groups identified under (a) above. This meant that the determination of the size of the cohesive group was important to the objective of fostering leadership.
306 (c)
(d)
SHOAIB
SULTAN
KHAN
Fostering an input delivery system for the farmers as the functions of the Agriculture Extension Unit were limited only to extension education but, in order to put newly acquired knowledge to use, the farmer needed the support of inputs. The Community Development Unit was charged with the organisation of an input delivery system. Fostering village programmes, such as environmental sanitation, drinking water community wells, day care centres, etc.
It was noted that the Community Development Unit should identify communities in the project area on the basis of each turnout. Communities live in hamlets and this is ultimately where communities will be organised for the activities indicated in (d) above, but for a beginning and in the interest of coordination with the Water Management Unit, the Community Development Unit was to start organising farmers at the turnout level. It was hoped that the turnout farmer groups would be federated at the hamlet (village) level.
UPGRADING
OF HUMAN
SKILLS
The long-term strategy of the project is to upgrade the managerial and productive skills of the farmers so that, progressively, they take over responsibilities for the administrative functions of the field level staff; namely, the JPS (turnout gate regulator) and the KVS (agriculture field worker). In ‘H’ area alone these number around 300. Their duties will be performed by 3,400 rural cadres of farmer managers and contact farmers. With this background, proposals for the training of project staff and farmer leaders were begun with the commencement of the first foundation course for the Units of the project in 1979, and the farmer leaders training programme in August, 1979. Farmers were asked to select two leaders per turnout group: one as farmer manager to deal with water management amd community development matters, and the second as a contact farmer to exclusively concentrate on agriculture extension. By and large, the selection of turnout leaders was representative, and no more than 5 o/0 of the leaders were subsequently replaced at the request of the groups. Over 500 farm leaders completed a questionnaire in late March/early April, 1980, during the normal training sessions. These 502 respondents represented 55 % of the total number of farmer leaders (906) in the blocks where the questionnaire was administered, and 44 o/0of the total number of farmer leaders in all the blocks where training commenced in August, 1979. In terms of the objectives of the training programme, water management problems continued to plague the farmers and they indicated that remedial action was urgently needed. The community development effort in fostering village programmes was regarded as weak. It was a clear case
ORGANISING
FARMER
GROUPS
IN MAHAWELI
GANGA
307
308
SHOAIB
SULTAN
where hopes had been aroused without extension work seemed to be proceeding obtain maximum results. On the whole, effective and a large majority of the farmer further two years.
RE-ORGANISATION
KHAN
commensurate satisfaction. Agricultural well but needed further reinforcement to the training programme had been fairly leaders wanted it to continue for at least a
PROPOSALS
The main criticism levelled against the original project’s administrative structure was that it was a vertical organisation and that there was no coordination between the Agriculture, Water Management and Community Development Units below the project level. This was not wholly correct as the Project Area Manager, as a coordinator, did influence the working of the various Units at different levels. Nonetheless, the role of the coordinators at different levels was to be perceived in terms of the problems. At the training sessions, attended by around 4,500 farmers, the problems most frequently identified for action by field level officers were: defective construction work; boundary disputes; lack of tractors for contract ploughing; lack of bulldozers; access to credit; non-issue of timely irrigation water; non-availability of inputs, fertilisers and weedicides in the government-run cooperatives; lack of health and education facilities; lack of village and turnout channel roads and the non-payment of crop insurance. These problems showed weaknesses in the administrative structure as well as resource deficiencies. In particular, lack of organisation amongst the farmers, and lack.of delegation of authority at different levels of the project-as well as weak coordination-were evident. Figure 1 shows the reformed administration which was designed to meet these problems. The salient features of this structure are that the Unit Manager (who has an agriculture background) combines the functions of extension and community involvement. The number of farmers in his charge has been increased to 250. It is too early to assessthe effectiveness and suitability of this structure (which has now been extended to the entire Mahaweli project area) as its linkage to the sectoral Ministries remains to be forged. It is also not clear what shape the structure may take once the project areas are integrated in the normal administrative organisation. The new organisation is also being tried in two other areas which extend over 12,000 and 8,000 ha with equivalent numbers of farmers.