Preserving Traditional Agricultural Systems and Integrating Modern Irrigation: The Feasibility of Building Mosaics
Introduction:
- Highlight the significance of traditional agricultural systems in Asia, their benefits in terms of landscapes, biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and resilient ecosystems.
- Discuss the replacement of traditional systems with modern agriculture due to population growth and economic aspirations.
- Emphasize the need to preserve traditional systems for climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and cultural heritage.
Approaches for Preservation:
- Explain UNESCO's Cultural Heritage Systems and FAO's Globally Important Agriculture Heritage Systems as methods to preserve representative production sites.
- Discuss the limitations of these approaches in covering the vast populations engaged in traditional systems.
Feasibility of Fusing Traditional and Modern Systems:
- Introduce the Deduru Oya reservoir project in Sri Lanka and its aim to enhance farmer livelihoods by regulating and diverting water to irrigation systems.
- Describe the two main canals, the left bank canal and the right bank canal, and their roles in supplementing water needs for paddy cultivation and conveying excess water to the adjacent Mee oya basin.
- Highlight the Deduru Oya irrigation project as an ideal setting for integrating modern and ancient irrigation systems to improve cropping intensity and resilience.
Simulation Results and Findings:
- Present the simulation results from the past ten years, indicating that the Deduru Oya reservoir project incorporating existing small irrigation tanks can adequately supply water for paddy cultivation in the LB development area without failure.
- Discuss how the integration of existing distributed small tanks enhances resilience during extreme drought conditions and enables macro-micro scale integration with autonomy at the micro-scale.
Conclusion:
- Summarize the findings of the study, emphasizing the feasibility of building mosaics that integrate traditional and modern systems.
- Highlight the potential benefits of preserving traditional knowledge while incorporating modern irrigation practices.
- Conclude with the importance of further research and implementation of such integrated approaches to ensure sustainable agriculture and the preservation of valuable indigenous knowledge.
