It is satisfying to read about people improving their lives by personal effort or in other words picking themselves up by the boot straps. A story in the November issue of the National Geographic focuses on folk struggling, trying to survive on dry farmlands in northern India while in constant fear of drought. Productivity depends on the reliability of rains in the monsoon season. Poor farmers have to guess at sowing time since successful growth of crops depends on adequate ground moisture at the time seed germinates. Miscalculating the start of the monsoon season results in sowing too early, subjecting seed to blistering, dry earth while crops sown too late are faced with flooding and erosion of seed and soil. In either case the result is poverty due to loss of crops and the inability of farmers to repay money borrowed for purchase of seed and fertilizer.

A non-profit group, the Watershed Organization Trust, has been highly successful whenever farm communities have committed time and energy into changing their way of life. Digging terraces requires considerable hard labour and a complete change of farming operation from what people are used to. Terracing restricts run-off water which instead seeps into the earth over a period of years resulting in ground-water replenishment hence reduced occurrences of drought from failure of the monsoons.

Talk about re-inventing the wheel. Our experience in the Machakos area of Kenya many years ago showed the value of such an exercise on water retention and crop productivity. We have pictures of hillside rice farming in the Philippines with successive flooded 'plateaus' down the slope. I especially remember one large region of Mountain province where a stream supplied terraces with running water. The replenishment of ground water levels extends the growing season of crops.

Water is basic to agricultural productivity but is in short supply in many parts of the world. Many years ago I was told of a star's summer home in a dry region east of Hollywood. A sign warned guests "Don't use water as if it were only money". A research report detailed the accumulation of overnight dew in the Sahara Desert to support a tree nursery. When we lived in Thailand we were dependant on rainy season water from the eaves for household use through the year. I have often observed the use of hay bales in roadside drains to impede rate of down-hill run-off. Shortages point to the need for wise use of available moisture.

We as a society are expending large sums of money both transporting water for domestic use from the great lakes and disposing of run-off through storm sewers. The technology for underground irrigation is readily available and some farmers in arid areas are changing from overhead sprinklers to conserve limited supplies.

Canadians are very fortunate to live in a land well endowed with a high proportion of the world's fresh water. Nevertheless it behooves us to conserve the supplies we have. Like so many others we in rural Ontario often suffer from summer heat causing drought conditions hence the death of our front lawn. Our gardens appear constantly in need of watering.

There are over 30 million people in Canada living under roofs of homes or apartments. It is surprising that one obvious solution, the use of rain barrels catching water from these roofs to support the lawn and gardens, hasn't been a normal feature of gardening. Certainly septic systems deliver household waste water to at least some of the lawn above the tile beds. With added effort and a minimum of investment, perforated hose lines could be run from rain barrels below the front yard lawn reducing the requirement for pumping water from our lakes and rivers. Added effort of providing mulch from raking the lawn each fall increases the moisture level of the vegetable garden hence crop productivity.

It would be highly beneficial to expend personal energy utilizing rain water to recharge the ground water levels of Canadian properties. It would be of even greater benefit if we all invested muscle power and less money making better use of rooftop rain reducing our dependency on costly water pumped from the great lakes.