Climate Witness: Dilip Hazra, India

My name is Dilip Hazra. I earn my livelihood through agriculture and inland fishery. I have lived on this island for the last 15 years. I was born and brought up on the mainland which is almost 100 kilometres away. I came here initially to cultivate land owned by someone else.

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Later, I managed to purchase almost three hectares of agricultural land from that same person. Over time, I have developed some ponds for fishery and I have also have planted almost 109 coconut trees. Coconuts fetch me 15,000 rupees every year. Initially I had one cow but now I have nine cows and ten goats.

Rising water levels eroding land
Unfortunately, almost one hectare of my land had been washed away by sea. It seems this island is undergoing some geophysical changes and it’s being eroded everyday. In the year 2005 I witnessed a breach of a 900 metre stretch of embankment on the western part of this island which extensively damaged my house. I was forced to take refuge in Baliara Kishore High School for a couple of days. When the situation normalised, I built a temporary shelter over the embankment until I finished repairing my old house. The size of this island has also reduced significantly.

Changing weather patterns affecting agriculture
According to my observation there are some obvious changes in climate and it has implications over agriculture and the dependent agrarian population.

When I came here 15 years back, storms were not so frequent during the months of April and May as they are today. Due to this, our agricultural productivity is suffering a lot. We never had to use chemical fertilizers in the past but now we are heavily dependent on extensive use of chemical fertilizers. Usage of chemical fertilizer has become essential to ensure good crop productivity.

Incidences of pest attack have also increased. For instance, last year I harvested 480 kilograms of potatoes after sowing 42 kilograms of seed potatoes, but this year I am able to harvest only 240 kilograms of potatoes after showing 50 kilograms of seed potatoes. Similarly, I harvested 150 kilograms of onions after sowing 3000 pieces of seed onions previously, but this year I harvested only 100 kilograms of onions even after sowing 5000 pieces of seed onions. Many farmers are compelled to change their agricultural practices in accordance with the changing weather.

These days I cultivate oil seeds, sunflower, mustard, chilly, potato, onion and other vegetables. Due to periodic changes in weather, we used to get six seasons a year, but now we only witness three seasons; summer, winter and the rainy season.

Safeguarding lives and livelihoods
Apart from strengthening embankments, planting mangroves along the coast is very important for safeguarding our lives and livelihoods.

This island had a very good network of canals for drainage and irrigation but most of them are now either silted or encroached. This results in salt water intrusion whenever there is flooding as well as lack of fresh water for irrigation.

Re-excavation, cleaning and making the stretches of canals encroachment free is very important for storage of valuable fresh water in this island. Furthermore, farmers’ cooperative formation, improvement of access roads, training and capacity building for improved agriculture and inland fishery as well as enhancing public awareness is also equally important.