Mrs Almitra H Patel MS MIT, USA, 50 Kothnur, Bagalur Rd, Bangalore 560077

Tel +91-98443 02914. almitrapatel@rediffmail.com, www.almitrapatel.com

Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Mgt for Class 1 Cities
Technical Expert,Swachh Bharat Mission, Govt of India
Member, Solid Waste Management Expert Committee, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike

31.5.2016
Dr. P.K. Ghosh, Director, IGFRI, Jhansi
Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute
Gwalior Road, Near Pahuj Dam, Jhansi 284 003 (UP)
0510-2730666, 2730158
igfri.director@gmail.com, igfri_jhansi@yahoo.co.in

CC Rajendra Singh 94140 66765, Tarun Bharat Sangh jalpurushtbs@gmail.com

Y Yadav 98688 88986 swarajabhiyan@gmail.com, yogendra.yadav@gmail.com
Ramesh Kacholia 98927 73450 ramesh@caringfriends.in
Dear Dr Ghosh
FODDER BANKS BY ROTATIONAL GRAZING
Greetings. I have been deeply pained by the fodder scarcity in drought-affected
districts of the country. It can be effectively mitigated through decentralized micromanagement of grazing patterns by local communities. With the monsoons
beginning, this is the right time to begin.
I invite your attention to extremely important research done by the late Dr KTB Hodd
in the Gir Ecological Research Project from 1969-71, author of Grasses of Western
India which I hope you have in your library. Through Exclusion Plot studies, he
developed a simple, workable and highly productive management plan to cover
barren hillsides with harvestable fodder grasses. The outcomes of managed grazing
studies:
1, Total biomass increased seven-fold: 700%
2, Grass height was six feet vs only six inches normally.
3, Soil porosity increased six-fold: it could absorb and retain six times more soil
moisture compared to soil which is surface-compacted by the pressure of the many
passing hoofs.
4, Even after the first year, and much more so after three years, there was a big
increase in palatable grasses and a lower proportion of weeds. This was because
the good grasses were not at all eaten up before they had a chance to flower and
disperse their seeds.
5, In the moist porous soil, concealed by tall grass and protected from trampling by
grazing animals, many more tree seedlings germinated. Survival was also much
better than otherwise.

2
This led Hodd to propose a very useful, simple and practical system of rotational
grazing, especially for all arid lands in the monsoon belt. It is applicable also to
revegetation of eroded grazing lands, gomals, hillsides. The concept is very simple:
A, During the monsoon (4 months), allow No Grazing and No Lopping for fuel
collection. No human or animal disturbance at all.
B, In winter (4 months): No Grazing or Movement of animals, No Lopping of fuel,
but Unlimited Hand-Harvesting of Grass to stall-feed animals or store for summer.
C, In summer (4 months): Grazing allowed, unlimited human activity allowed, and
lopping of side branches for fuel allowed, but NOT TOPS of tree saplings or shrubs.
NO burning and NO digging up of tree stumps or roots for fuel.
Monsoon protection from grazing and all human activity allows full 90% growth,
does not trample and compact the soft surface layer when wet, and allows tree
seedlings to come up successfully. Meanwhile there is enough green grass
elsewhere for animals to graze without hardship.
Winter protection from grazing and trampling, by all animals, also helps both soil
and saplings. Palatable grasses will have shed their seeds, and there will be more
than enough grass for all. Grass can be cut for feeding to livestock, plus as much as
possible should be stored for a long dry summer. There is enough leisure to do this
after the monsoon crops are harvested.
Cutting should preferably be in fire lanes, to stop the spread of accidental fires.
Long grass should be left undisturbed around useful saplings that have come up. In
the first year, no sale of grass outside the village or to contractors in a village is
permitted, though there will be good surpluses in future years.
Summer, when no grass is available elsewhere, sees all the livestock allowed on
the land till the next rains. There is plenty of stubble to eat, even without burning.
Trampling of dry soil does not have the same compacting effect, and there is
enough ground cover to prevent wind erosion.
This works best on barren hillocks. Social Fencing is necessary, and one way of
doing it was described in 1989 in CAPART magazine, Attached.
After that article was published, one Karnataka NGO tried it with over-spectacular
results. The grass growth was so profuse that dominant villagers fought over who
should go harvest it first. By the time that dispute was settled, the first harvesters
sadly found that the grass had become too old and dry to be worth fighting over. But
that was not a drought year or an area where humans have to eat grass chapattis
for survival, as in 2015-16.
I strongly recommend that your IGFRI immediately take up demo barrens or
commons for rotational grazing experiments in every drought-affected taluk.
Villagers relate to the concept easily as almost every village will have a tiny shrine

3
on a hillock where grazing and cutting is customarily forbidden, and that tiny plot is
always more visibly fertile and productive than its denuded surroundings.
With best wishes and always with pleasure at your service,
Almitra
*******

From Peoples Action (CAPART) Nov 1989 page 26:

DEVARABETTASInsurance against drought
MS. ALMITRA H. PATEL,
50, Kothnur, Bagalur Road,
Bangalore 500077

Dense forests on denuded land,

Abundant fuel and fodder,
No government grants, interference
Or trenching, wire or fence.
No expense for getting plants
Nor planting, weeding, watering.
Produce for all villagers
And surpluses left over.
A dream? No. Nature does it all, for free. If only let alone.
Voluntary organizations, Government and forest officials all know that natural
regeneration of denuded lands is a thousand times more effective than artificial
afforestation, where protection and nurturing is almost impossible, survival is low,
and pits or trenches for planted saplings often cause more soil disturbance and
erosion than they are meant to avoid.
Everyone knows that natural regeneration is impossible without peoples
cooperation. And that villagers depend so much on even the most denuded lands
that it is a pipe-dream to exclude them from it permanently till a forest has grown.
But there is an answer. And the secret is this:
In monsoon-belt countries like India, 90% of all plant growth occurs in just four
monsoon months, and only 10% in the remaining months of the year.
So protection is needed for only four months every year:
This was proved during botanical studies in the Gir Forest, where in 1969, there
was intense grazing pressure on the vegetation from cattle in the shifting Maldhari
settlements or nesses, as well as from immigrant cattle from other parts of

4
Saurashtra. Scientists feared the forest would not last 20 years, nor the lions that
lived in it.
To study the effect of grazing on the vegetation, K T B Hodd constructed small
enclosures (well-fenced study plots that kept out all hoofed animals) and
compared, over a three-year period, conditions both inside and outside the
exclosures for equal area.
To his surprise, he found that inside the exclosure, at the end of the first monsoon:

Total biomass increased seven-fold: 700%

Grass height was six feet inside vs only six inches outside.

Soil porosity increased six-fold: it could absorb and retain six times more soil
moisture compared to the soil outside which was surface-compacted by the
pressure of the many passing hoofs.

Even after the first year, and much more so after three years, there was a big
increase in palatable grasses and a lower proportion of weeds. This was
because the good grasses were not at all eaten up before they had a chance
to flower and disperse their seeds.

In the moist porous soil, concealed by tall grass and protected from trampling
by grazing animals, many more tree seedlings germinated. Survival was also
much better than outside the exclosures.

This happens not only in a forest like the Gir, but in all arid lands in the
monsoon belt. And it led Hodd to propose a very useful and practical system
of rotational grazing, applicable also to revegetation of eroded grazing lands,
gomals and hillsides. The concept is very simple:

During the monsoon (4 months), allow No grazing and No lopping for fuel
collection. No human or animal disturbance at all.

In winter (4 months): No grazing or movement of animals, No lopping of fuel,

but unlimited harvesting of grass by hand to stall-feed the animals or to store
for the summer.

In summer (4 months): Grazing allowed, unlimited human activity allowed,

and lopping of side branches for fuel allowed, but NOT TOPS of tree saplings
or shrubs. NO burning and NO digging up of tree stumps or roots for fuel.

Monsoon protection from grazing and all human activity allows full 90% growth,
does not trample and compact the soft surface layer when wet, and allows tree

5
seedlings to come up successfully. Meanwhile there is enough green grass
elsewhere for animals to graze without hardship.
Winter protection from grazing and trampling, by all animals, also helps both soil
and saplings. Palatable grasses will have shed their seeds, and there will be
more than enough grass for all. Grass can be cut for feeding to livestock, plus as
much as possible should be stored for a long dry summer. There is enough
leisure to do this after the monsoon crops are harvested.
Cutting should preferably be in fire lanes, to stop the spread of accidental fires.
Long grass should be left undisturbed around useful saplings that have come
up. In the first year, no sale of grass outside the village or to contractors in
village is permitted, though there will be good surpluses in future years.
Summer, when no grass is available elsewhere, sees all the livestock allowed on
the land till the next rains. There is plenty of stubble to eat, even without burning.
Trampling of dry soil does not have the same compacting effect, and there is
enough ground cover to prevent wind erosion.
How to implement this? It needs cooperation. And religious sanction helps. Here
is an imagined scenario:
One village, after four years of drought, agreed to try this as an act of
thanksgiving when the rains finally came. There was an isolated hillock where
the animals of four surrounding villages went grazing. They decided to offer this
as a Devarabetta, a divine hill, and promised to leave it undisturbed every
monsoon.
At a meeting with the other three villages, they listened to the advantages and
discussed and sorted out many problems:
The increased biomass meant enough for all. Both rich farmers and landless
shepherds could harvest in winter as much as they wanted. The rich farmers
and those with many cattle could hire labour to cut and store all the fodder they
needed. But none could sell or lease the surplus, for the first year at least. In
later years, before summer grazing began, the uncut surplus would be auctioned
and the profits shared. That is how the grassy hillocks or veedis near Gir
served as fodder-banks for all Saurashtra.
The increased soil porosity meant that streams would flow longer, and well
levels slowly rise.
Protecting the tops of all shrubs and trees from lopping (and using only the side
growth) would allow trees to come up faster. There would be more bees and
birds, and better pollination and less pests. They were amazed to learn that the
bayas or weaver-birds, feeding their young on insect pests for a month, more
than made up for the grain they ate as adults for the rest of the year. They were
surprised; too, that old dead trees were more useful than fuel if they were left

6
standing as nest-sites for owls and kites, which fed on rats that destroyed their
grain.
The increased vegetation and resulting coolness would not increase the average
annual rainfall of the area around the hillock. But it would increase the frequency
of showers, which would be much better for the crops.
Who was to protect and patrol the hill and enforce the plan?
They would have to do it themselves, to avoid scoldings from forest guards or
outsiders.
It was agreed that there should be no cost to any village, and no paid watchmen
from among them. So all the young shepherd-boys and girls were involved in the
debate, and agreed to follow the rules. And the elders of each village agreed to
act against their own offenders, to prevent disputes between villages. ( the
village of Gopalapura in Alwar district did this in 1987 with the support of the
Tarun Bharat Sangh, imposing a fine of Rs. 11 for anyone cutting branches,
plucking leaves or taking animals for grazing in the protected area, and a fine of
Rs. 21 for anyone who witnessed this but did not report it to the gram sabha!)
But all wanted to know the limits of the protected area.
How to define and demarcate the boundaries?
A fence of thorn-brush was not possible. There were not enough bushes
anyway, and the dry ones might get taken away. Some suggested whitewashing
what boulders there were, or marking them with vermillion sindoor. Others
thought of tying rags to the shrubs, but there were not enough of these either.
Trenching the hard soil was too difficult before the rains, and would damage the
slopes anyway.
The women folk provided the answer. They would draw a Lakshman-rekha
around the hillock. They would walk around the base of the hill, four groups for
four sections of the path, with coconuts and camphor, flowers and agarbattis,
and the utsavamoorti of the local deity, while unraveling behind them strands of
thread from the balls they used for making flower-garlands. The thread markers
would not keep animals out, but the shepherd-boys would then know clearly
what to avoid for two seasons out of the three. And the next year they would go
around again, as an annual dedication of thanksgiving and a prayer for rain.
The gods would surely reward their restraint, and help them prosper.