Assam's Border Farmers fenced In By Changing Climate Conditions

Dhubri, Assam: Golok Das, a farmer in Assam, is happy with the harvest produced by his main six-hectare farm. But he'd love to sell another four-hectare plot, just half a kilometre away, even though it's equally fertile.

Why? It sits on the other side of a barbed-wire fence marking the Bangladesh border, and that means he can't irrigate it.

The fence was built in 1987 to prevent illegal migration from Bangladesh. It traces a line about 150 yards inside the actual border, since no treaty agreement allowed a fence to be built on the border itself.

Large tracts of land, including some villages, were left on the far side of the fence into Bangladesh. In the Golokganj sector of Dhubri district, more than 8,000 farmers struggle with a fence between their homes and their land. They are allowed to cross though the fence each day to work their holdings, but only at set hours.

Now changing climatic conditions in the region for the first time require farmers to irrigate their land frequently to get a good crop, but legal and bureaucratic obstacles make it hard to invest in irrigation on the far side of the fence, meaning harvests there are two-thirds lower on the Bangladesh side.

"With climate change, there has been a change in the rainfall pattern and also the flood intensity, which is making agriculture difficult in many areas in the state," said Girin Chetia of the non-profit North East Affected Areas Development Society.

Those changes mean farmer Safikul Islam now wants to get rid of his five hectares of land on the wrong side of the fence, and next to Mr Das' plot.

Both farmers say their land on this side of the fence yields nearly 1,500 kilogram (kg) of rice a year, while an equivalent area on the Bangladesh side produces no more than 500 kg.

"The land on both sides is equally fertile however we suffer as we don't have any irrigation facilities there. This takes a major toll on our land on the other side of the border," said Mr Das.

"We have been traditionally dependent on the rainwater for our cultivation (for) generations, but now as the rainfall has become unpredictable, it is not possible," said Munin Das, a 52-year-old farmer who owes 4 hectares of land on the Bangladeshi side of the fence.

"We need irrigation facilities to be able to cultivate our land and get good yields," he said.

By law, construction of any concrete or permanent structure is forbidden near the fence, local people say.

"Even the idea of building any small irrigation project or building any project for water harvesting does not arise," said Dinesh Kumar Sarkar, a former legislator from Dhubri who also owes agricultural land on the other side of the fence.

Mr Sarkar said that even taking tractors onto the land requires a lengthy bureaucratic process.

Local people worry they will have to give up farming on the Bangladeshi side of the fence as a result of the weather changes, and complain that neither the district administration nor the Border Security Force (BSF) have been sympathetic to their problems.

Gates to cross the border are open from 8 am to 4 pm, Mr Sarkar said, and outside these times no citizen is allowed to work land on the Bangladesh side.

The problem is that "farming cannot be done within a fixed time frame," Mr Sarkar said. In particular, the fixed crossing hours "create a lot of problems for the farmers, as the farmer needs to reach his field very early in the morning", he said.

In addition, he said, people living on the Bangladeshi side of the border sometimes damage their owned crops or harvest them, leaving the growers with no produce to show for their labour.

Farmers and civil society groups have long urged India's government to purchase their land on the other side of the fence.

Members of Nagarik Unnayan Mancha, a civil society group, say they plan to file a petition on the issue at the Gauhati high court. "Our demands have been ignored for years, and now we are planning to send a delegation to (explain) our situation before the Assam chief minister and the country's prime minister," said Mr Sarkar.

The state government, however, says that it cannot act alone on a matter affecting the country's border.

"This is an international issue and Bangladesh must also be involved, and this could be done only through the Ministry of External Affairs," said Bhumidhar Barman, state revenue minister.

He said he would take up the issue with the central government.