Sand mining affecting agriculture

Illegal sand mining in the Palar basin has drastically affected the fertility of the soil in the village of Parmeshavaramandalam. The village that traditionally grows vegetables and groundnuts had one failed crop last year and is experiencing low yields. Since the village is located on the coast, even half a foot of sand mining allows the sea water into the farms thereby leading to the salination of the soil. The sea water that enters the soil affects the crop permanently.

“More than 150 hectares of our land have become too saline for farming and the remaining 350 hectares will also become useless if the sand mining doesn’t stop,” said a farmer from Parmeshavaramandalam, Niyan Sundaram. A farmer in the village, K. Arjun said, “Earlier we used to get 25 bags of ground nuts from one acre but last year we got only 10 bags.” He said, “Each bag sells for close to Rs.1000. With losses of Rs.15, 000 each harvest how long will we survive?”

Two years back the farmers and the village councillor, Sumatra took the issue to the high court where the court ordered a stay on the illegal activity..Despite stay orders the mining continued and the land kept getting saline. According to the councillor more than 10,000 lorries reach the Palar basin a day and mine sand illegally.
One of the village elders, J. Shekar said, “What does a farmer do when the soil goes salty? The farmer abandons it but even manual labour does not put food in his belly.” According to the Sumatra, it was only a matter of time till the entire 500 hectares of the village farming area became too saline to be cultivated.

The village councillor, explained, “Agriculture is not enough to support the family so the men have started to move to the towns. They work for Rs.100 a day but they spend more than Rs 20 reaching the town and there is no guarantee that they find work every time they go.”.
Suggesting a solution, Sumatra said that they needed check dams at every 25 kms of the river basin to ensure that the river did not join the sea. She added that a check dam would cost Rs.250 crore, but the District Collector when asked about it explained that there weren’t enough funds to build the check dams.

In absence of options the men of the village went to towns and worked on construction sites where sand from Palar was used. Ironically, the villagers are employed by the same illegal companies that had driven them out of their fields.

 

Tags: agriculture, ecology, India, pollution, sand mining