Drought and Drain.... A global warming impact....

My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ... 

Vanakkam, Namaste and good day!.

In this blog, I will share my real world experiencing both drought and drain as a farmer...This blog is about drought and drains that we experienced last year.... 

Global warming is alarming, and it is time to act on, rather than being reactive always...

Background: 

Last year we had severe drought in our area. It was really worst, i.e. around 4 to 6 months: i.e. from June till October, it was really worse. People had to search for drinking water and preserve for few days till they got again.

In farm, we had very little water only. Existing 100+ feet well drained out completely, and all the bore-wells or boreholes ran out of water.

Hence, it was very tough to maintain the farm. You could see a dying mango tree in below picture ...

 

During this drought period, we lost many big mango trees.  They were planted by my father.

These trees were growing along with us. When we were kids, my dad planted those in between banana and tapioca farming. It was very hard to see those trees dying.. We had no control, no ways of bringing water from outside.

When there is a very little water available, one could always argue: whether water should be used for farming or drinking.

 

We have few borewells, and they are more than 600 ft depth. These borewells ran out of water completely. Few farmers arranged new borewell which was going all the way up to 900+ feet, but still could not get water.

I heard in few places that they got water after 1000+ feet. It is too alarming!.

 

Apart from the big mango trees, we also lost many young mango trees and guava trees.  These trees were around 3+ years old.  We planted around 250 mango trees and 300 guava trees 3 years back.  Unfortunately we lost most of them due to the drought.. :(

When I walked around these, it was very hard feeling. Your 3+ years hard work is gone due to climate changes.  But, farming is a learning for everyone. 

Whenever we have a mango, guava, papaya or any fruit, please think about a farm, a farmer behind that. Food is important than money.

However after the drought, we had a surprise, with heavy heavy rain fall and excessive rainfall during November and December months, which was higher than normal.

So, what was happening?

Severe drought followed by excessive rainfall....

During excessive rainfall, in many places people had to find a way to drain the water... Many rural places were disconnected without roads as bridges were running full of water... 

Few places were stumbled with water and it took few days for draining the water. It affected people life, and government deployed  national forces to help.

In our farm, it is red soil and it absorbed lots of water and water level came up very fast in few days.

Below picture shows the survived trees....

I would have got farm full of below such lush green trees, if weather was normal and well predictive.

We saw two different extremes last year. It is clearly due to "global warming"!. 

After all these, when I walked around the farm this time, I saw few trees with guava fruits, and the fruits were pecked by birds!  So happy to see the fruits, lush green with remaining trees, and birds pecking those.

Nature always wins...

In summary, global warming is impacting the globe.. In a year, we started seeing extreme drought and excessive rainfall...  During drought we search for water, and during excessive rainfall we had to drain the water...

OK, everyone. Hope everyone takes global warming serious and contribute however possible to protect.

We will catch up in the next blog and take care!

Bye, Nandri.