Challenges and Opportunities in Integrating Traditional and Modern Agricultural Systems
By Srikantha Herath, Binaya Mishra, Pearly Wong and S.B Weerakoon
- Traditional agricultural production systems in Asia have provided economic, environmental, and social benefits over thousands of years.
- Modern agriculture systems are replacing traditional systems, but there is a growing realization of the need to preserve indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage.
- UNESCO and FAO have initiatives to preserve representative sites, but they cannot cover the large populations engaged in traditional systems.
- The feasibility of integrating traditional and modern systems is investigated through building mosaics of both.
- The Deduru Oya reservoir in Sri Lanka aims to improve livelihoods by increasing land and water productivity through irrigation.
- The left bank canal supplements water for paddy cultivations from existing ancient rainfed small reservoir-based irrigation systems.
- The right bank canal conveys excess water from the reservoir to the adjacent Mee oya basin.
- The Deduru Oya irrigation project provides a research ground for integrating modern and ancient irrigation systems.
- Simulation results indicate that the project can meet water demand for paddy cultivation without failure, and the integration of small tanks provides resilience during extreme drought conditions.
- The integration allows for macro-micro scale integration and autonomy at the micro scale.
