Sprinklers help harvest a better income and a better life
Sajjan Singh, a farmer in Nangal Khurd village in Haryana’s Sonipat district, takes great pride in saying that his crop yield is one of the highest in the village. As compared to earlier times, his earnings have risen while the expenditures on farming have dropped. “It was not always so,” he said, “Earlier, when I used the tubewell to irrigate my field, it was unproductive in all sense. But after the sprinklers were installed, my life changed.”
Sajjan Singh, 40, is the only earning member in his family of four, which includes his two children, aged eight and 10. “Farming, for as long as we knew, has always been our source of livelihood,” he said. But it came with a lot of challenges.
For one, irrigating the fields was a time-consuming, expensive—and essential—task. “I used the tubewell to irrigate my field. But it was not a very effective way. First, water would not reach the crops evenly. Second, it was very time-consuming,” Singh said. It also required the use of a lot of electricity for pumping the water, which, he said, meant higher electricity bills and more expenditure. A lot of water was also wasted in the process.
“Despite it all, I would not get good returns when it came to the harvest,” he said. Then, WaterAid India and AB InBev intervened and installed sprinklers in his field to help irrigate his crops. This, Singh said, solved a lot of problems. “There was even spread of water on all crops and no wastage of water. And unlike earlier, when I needed seven to eight hours of electricity for this purpose, now I need just 30 minutes,” he said, “So I saved money, time, and effort. And as I saw after some time, the crop yield improved a lot too! In fact, after the sprinklers were installed I got one of the best yields in my village.”
Singh now wants to install more sprinklers in his field, “as soon as the opportunity arises”. He also hopes that all other farmers in his village try sprinklers on their fields too. “This will change the game of farming.”
