Areca nut farming drains 'land of rain'

Nirmala Somashekhar walks three kilometres every day from her home in Heggekoppa village in Karnataka's Shimoga district to fetch water. "Two wells near my house dried up in February. I am forced to go to a deeper well far away, where water level is fast dropping, too. What will we do in the summer months?" she wonders.

Her worries echo in all of Malënadu region, which is facing an acute water crisis despite being among the wettest regions in India. Ironically, it's name translates to 'land of rain' in Kannada - 'malë' meaning 'rain' and 'n?du' for 'land'.

Experts pin the blame for the water crisis in this once water-plenty region on cash-rich areca nut plantations. Though it's changing economic profiles, it's drained the water table.

Climatologist Dr Timappa Rao says the water crisis - largely a man-made problem — has been in the making for three decades. "Areca palm is a perennial plant with a pre-bearing age of six-eight years and economic bearing period of more than 30 years. Once the trees grow a certain height, annual returns are assured. Also, the nuts can be stored for long, making it possible to sell when prices are the highest," explains Rao. Pointing to the palatial mansions and expensive cars in the region, he adds. "It's led to many giving up traditional paddy cultivation."

On the face of it, the growth of Karnataka's share in areca nut production from 41 per cent in 1980 to 52 percent in 2012 may not seem such a bad thing, but Rao laments the toll this has taken on the region's water table.

"Paddy needs to be kept water logged for nearly three months. This helps recharge ground aquifers and replenish water tables," Rao explains. "But areca nut plantations need to be drained of excess water. The sloping terrain of plantations ensure rain water is washed out in the monsoon. Post monsoon, plantation owners depend on wells to water their plantations. The plantations have led to lesser ground water recharge while it guzzles precious groundwater by the gallons."

More on areca nut

Areca nut or betel nut (Areca catechu) is an important cash crop in the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats, East and North Eastern regions of India. There are mainly two types of processing of areca nut - chali (ripe sun dried nuts) and red boiled type (tender or mature nuts). Chali is mainly produced in Dakshina Kannada and parts of Uttara Kannada. Used to make scented supari, chali is in great demand in northern India.

According to Dr Prabhakar Bhatt, former researcher, Indian Institute of Science, who is now attached to Earth Watch Institute, the traditional areca growing country lost half its area to the India-Pakistan Partition. "In the early 50s, areca had to be imported to meet internal demand. To encourage large scale areca nut cultivation, the government provided institutional finance hoping to plug the foreign exchange drain among other things."

Production steadily increased and import stopped, "Rise of products like paan masala and gutka gave further fillip to demand for areca nut and brought a windfall in remunerative prices for farmers. Now everyone wants to cultivate it," Bhatt says.

"Changing weather and rainfall patterns have worsensed the situation. If an intervention strategy is not put in place quickly, we are staring at a disaster," Rao warns. Will we wake up before it is too late?