Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

70 Ethics and Systems Thinking

irrigation intensity of 55 per cent as against 131 per cent proposed by the Govern-
ment of Gujarat (WTC, 1983, p356). A Command Area Development Authority
(CADA) programme was launched in 1974, and was concerned with on-farm devel-
opment (OFD) and later with farmers’ organization for the distribution of water, all
of this below the outlet. The main crops were paddy in kharif and wheat in rabi, with
also a large area under eight-month tobacco. The period during which the three
studies were conducted was also that of the first five years of flows from the Kadana
reservoir, when rapid changes were taking place in the MRB as the extra water was
available, including extensive OFD work under the CADA programme.
The three studies had different purposes and were conducted by researchers
from different disciplines, as shown in Table 5.1.
The first and earliest study, Command Area Development in Mahi-Kadana (Asopa
and Tripathi, 1978) was carried out by two staff members of the Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad – an agricultural economist with a background in

Table 5.1 Three studies of Mahi-Kadana Right Bank command area

Institution Stated purpose Title of publication Disciplines involved in

study

Indian

Institute of

Management,

Ahmedabad

An in-depth

understanding of the

integrated area

development approach in

the command area

Command Area

Development in

Mahi-Kadana

(Asopa and Tripathi,

1978)

Agricultural

economics

Agriculture

Sociology

Water

Technology

Centre, Delhi

Broad objectives

included ‘the resource

analysis of the project

area and development of

guidelines for efficient

land use and water

management in the

MRBC command area’

Resource Analysis

and Plan for Efficient

Water Management:

A Case Study of

Mahi Right Bank

Canal Command

Area, Gujarat, (WTC,

1983)

Agricultural

engineering

Hydrology

Agronomy

Biometrics

Statistics

Soil physics

Water conservation

engineering

Soil science

Climatology

Agricultural

economics

Water

Management

Synthesis

Project,

Colorado

State

University

Training, and also ‘to

describe the actual

operation on an irrigation

system in relation to

design specifications,

and to identify the

positive and negative

aspects of the system

through an

interdisciplinary analysis’

Diagnostic Analysis

of Farm Irrigation

Systems in the

Mahi-Kadana

Irrigation Project,

Gujarat, India

(WMSP, 1983)

Agronomy

Economics Irrigation

engineering

Agricultural

engineering

Extension/sociology