A farm pond brings year-round farming to Goghar

Like most smallholders in Goghar, Ms. Shreemati Guru farmed entirely on rainfall. With no irrigation, an irregular monsoon or a long dry spell left her with one crop a year and a family income that could not absorb a bad season.

Building it with the village, not for it

Under the Integrated Village Development Programme, supported by the LTIMindtree Foundation, AJKA facilitated the construction of a scientifically designed farm pond as part of its climate-resilient agriculture work.

It was built through a participatory model — beneficiary farmers, Gram Panchayat representatives and the Agriculture Department working together, with the Department providing technical guidance. AJKA handled community mobilisation, technical supervision and continuous field monitoring, which is what keeps construction quality honest and leaves ownership where it belongs.

The pond captures and stores monsoon rainwater. It provides protective irrigation at the stages of crop growth where a dry fortnight does the most damage, and it recharges groundwater around it.

What it made possible

Seven to eight acres are now irrigated. Where there was one cropping season there are two, with a rabi crop added, and Ms. Guru is preparing to grow commercial vegetables alongside it — a second income from land that was already hers.

Twelve neighbouring farmers have since begun rethinking their own water conservation and cropping. That ripple is the part that changes a village rather than a household.

Earlier, we waited helplessly for the rains and worried about our crops every season. Today, this pond has given us the confidence to grow more — and to believe in a secure future.

— Ms. Shreemati Guru, Goghar Village

A pond is a modest piece of infrastructure. What it buys is the ability to plan, which is the thing rain-fed farming never allows.