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Zinkapalem is one tiny village located at the end of an island
without transport facilities and other amenities. People used to
depend for their livelihood completely on fishing in the sea and
on aqua culture farms before Tsunami occurred on 26th December
2004. 10 years before Tsunami disaster, villagers used to
cultivate paddy in their fields besides going for fishing.
Meanwhile after observing some land lords achieving more income
by converting agricultural holdings into aquaculture of ponds,
fishermen also started converting their tiny agricultural
holdings into aqua ponds. But for the last 3 years, they have
been incurring heavy losses in prawn culture due to white spot
and other viral diseases in prawn culture ponds resulting in
drastic reduction of yields. Due to a collapse in prawn culture,
they became indebted in the society and after Tsunami their life
became miserable. The tidal waves swept away all their prawn
crops including their belongings like boats and nets. Due to
tidal waves ponds were heavily silted and bunds were
disaffirmed. As the ponds became unfit for prawn cultivation,
most of the farmers from these villages started migrating to
other areas in search of livelihood sources. After some time,
however, they decided to come back to live in their own villages
by doing cultivation of agricultural crops besides continuing
their age old traditional occupation of fishing in the sea to
set right their living standards.
With
the support of ASSIST and of Rotary International Districts 9680
and 9700 of New South Wales, Australia, a range of activities
have been undertaken with the participation of the villagers who
were made responsible for all the necessary arrangements. Land
clearing, buns removal, leveling, plugging and soil testing were
conducted and now 250 acres of aqua ponds destroyed by Tsunami
are converted into agricultural land and are cultivated. |
