For Jambusar, farming land the sea has been slowly salting for a generation.
Land that is slowly failing
Jambusar farms a coastal belt in Bharuch district where salinity has been advancing for decades. Fields that grew cotton well within living memory now grow it poorly, and some no longer grow it at all.
This is not a sudden loss. It is a slow one, measured in slightly worse decades.
A decline too gradual to act on
Gradual loss is peculiarly hard to respond to. Each year is only slightly worse than the last, never bad enough to force a decision, and the comparison point keeps quietly resetting.
Clients describe knowing the land is going and continuing to farm it, because there was never a specific year in which it became obvious enough to stop. Twenty of those years pass easily.
What the work addresses
Making a decision the circumstances refuse to force. That means looking honestly at the trajectory rather than the current season, and deciding what you are doing about it while there are still options - reclamation, a different crop, a different livelihood, a planned exit.
All of those are viable now and progressively less so each year they are deferred.
Sessions
Online, in Gujarati.
Frequently asked questions
- Can anything be done about the salinity?
- That is a technical question for agricultural specialists. What I work on is the decision you keep postponing about it.
- Is it too late to change?
- Later than it was, and earlier than it will be. That is precisely why the decision is worth making now.
