Drip Irrigation Helps Farmers No Longer do Heavy Work
It has been more than nine years for Mariana (38) to be a horticultural farmer. She used to hard to do this job. However, after getting to know the drip irrigation technique taught by Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) through the Moringa project funded by Australian Aid (Ausaid), Mariana feels that her burden has been reduced.
Mariana usually does watering manually using a hose and a pipe. According to her, this work is one of the hardest things to do.
“Besides weeding and fertilizing. But I still do all that because the only source of income for my family is horticulture farming,” said Mariana.
Mariana and her brother, Okto, are one of the farmers whose land was offered by WVI to be used as a demonstration plot using drip irrigation. At that time, both of them immediately agreed because they thought the heavy work that had been done so far would be solved by the drip irrigation technique.
“Drip irrigation is a completely new thing for me and many horticultural farmers in my village. It costs a lot if you want to have drip irrigation in horticultural fields, but with this drip irrigation demonstration plot, I can have an idea of the need for drip irrigation to be applied to every farmer's land,” explained the mother of three.
After exploring drip irrigation, Mariana realized that the cost of having drip irrigation equipment was not as expensive as she imagined. In addition, after working on drip irrigation, Mariana admitted that she had plenty of time to work on other lands, as well as to do household chores.
She added that the drip irrigation technique taught by the WVI Moringa project did not require a lot of manpower. Farmers can also use fertilizers more sparingly, weeding grass is easier and plant growth is better.
“My family and I thank the Moringa Project for giving us new knowledge and skills. I hope that in the future I will use this drip irrigation in some of my other horticultural locations. I will also convey this good thing to other farmers so that they can also use drip irrigation," she concluded.
Written by: Matheus Dima, External Consultant for the Moringa Project of Wahana Visi Indonesia
