Reservoir for Water Supply in Lewa

By Jufri Adi Papa.          

Living in Tanarara village, Lewa, East Sumba is a blessing because it has an area for food crops, especially rice. Geographically, most of the Lewa area is flat land and just a small part is hilly. I am Jufri Adi Papa, and as a young person who was born and raised in this village, I certainly know the characteristics of the area, which is known as the rice center in East Sumba. Currently, I am working as an entrepreneur by opening a stationery, photocopying, and printing kiosk.

It’s often that the rice production I worked on, faced challenges due to unpredictable weather which affected the planting season. Sometimes the land and the seeds are ready to plant, but the rain never comes. There are two options, continue planting with the risk of failure because there is no water, or delay planting seeds with the risk of damaged seeds and delaying the harvest schedule. Other communities also experienced a similar situation.

The situation above triggered me to think about how to answer the problem. From the knowledge and skills I learned in training of Agriculture, Social Analysis, and other topics at Stube HEMAT Sumba, as well as what I learned on campus, I learned to observe the area where I live. I noted that there was weather instability (lack of rainfall), uneven distribution of water from irrigation canals to all existing agricultural land, and leaving the land uncultivated after the harvesting time because rice production is only once a year.

From the thoughts above, the idea emerged to create a water reservoir or ‘embung’ as an alternative water reservation when water is needed during the planting season, apart from that, production can increase with two planting seasons in one year. This means that with a reservoir, water needs will always be available and a variety of potential crops can be developed, such as rice and horticulture, as well as maintaining land productivity both in the rainy and dry seasons, moreover, the reservoir can be used for fish farms.

Finally, I started to do by building a reservoir in my village, Tanarara. The position of the reservoir is at a point where water can flow smoothly due to gravity, so it saves electricity if you use a pump. I rented an excavator for one day, about eight hours of work, to dig a reservoir measuring 30 meters x 30 meters with a depth of one to two meters.

It turned out that many people support the construction of the embung besides my own family, so I am even more motivated to complete it. The initial stage is building a pond and hatching 100 tilapia broodstock. The next stage is the process of plumbing, pumping machines, and water distribution tanks for rice and horticultural crops. On the reservoir banks, eggplant and other vegetables are planted for various vegetable products.

Currently, I am still in the process of learning and working on the ‘embung’, but I am not discouraged. I hope that the existence of this reservoir will help the water distribution for my rice fields, support the development of vegetable production, and have a good impact on many people, such as being an inspiration to make productive use of existing agricultural land. Apart from that, it is hoped that the existence of the reservoir will attract the attention of the local government and support agricultural development efforts. Hopefully, Sumba will continue to develop! ***