Cultivating a new idea

Ranjan K Panda/Sambalpur

Climate change has started taking a toll on agriculture. It's high time that the
government initiated climate change adaptation efforts to help farmers

Orissa's vulnerability to climate change is a major concern, so much so that the Government of the state is all preparing to be the first state of India to formulate a Climate Change Action Plan that will spend at least seventeen thousand crores in five years. Agriculture is failing for more new reasons than ever and people are clueless as to what to do. Regular coping mechanisms do not work in effective ways anymore. Padampur sub division in Orissa's Bargarh district is one of the worst affected by climate change. Drought here has become a regular phenomenon forcing people to migrate out for most of the year. The region's vulnerability has become so grave that the Government has included it under one of the only three regions under its just promulgated "Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme". In this gloomy scenario however, there are a few bright spots. Kharamal village in the Paikmal block is one such spot where the people have succeeded in fighting against the vagaries of climate changed induced drought and water scarcity through successful integration of ecological interventions such as water harvesting, forest conservation and eco-agriculture.
Kharamal is a forested village at the foothills of Gandhamardan hills in Paikmal block of Bargarh district in Orissa. The village houses 410 people of whom majority are tribals. Drought is nothing new for the villagers since the area is now facing it in regular succession. The impacts are however coming in new and newer forms with increased heat and distorted monsoon caused by climate change. So, the traditional coping mechanisms of the villagers are failing in fighting drought now a days. Migrating out in search of job at Brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh and other such hazardous and low paying occupations had been the most popular coping mechanism for the villagers till recent years. Things have however started to change ever since a local NGO intervened and organized the villagers to understand drought better and recall their traditional coping mechanisms which were earlier successfully helping them in fighting drought and in which the people have lost faith in the recent years. In just five to six years, with large scale awareness and concerted community action, the village is emerging as a green spot in a brown belt. Things have started to look positive and people have resumed hope in their traditional wisdoms in water conservation and management. Meeting Kurmila Bhoi would show how.
From Migrating Out to Settling In
In September 2009, when senior correspondent of NDTV 24x7, one of India's leading TV news channels, visited Kurmila in her village, she got overwhelmed. She realized the real potential of her transformation from a migrant labour to a land owner. By village standards she possessed a good amount of land and qualified to be called a rich woman. In fact her 8 acre land yielded her family well a decade and half ago. "Things changed in the last about 15 years when weather became more erratic and forests denuded fast. We started to migrate to brick kilns and suffer", rues Kurmila. Out of her eight acres, only two acres were low land which yielded more compared to the six acres of upland. Still her family managed with what they got from the rain fed crops and forest produces. Drought became a regular feature in the last 15 to 20 years and forest degradation added to their woes. Erratic rainfall made agriculture almost difficult as she suffered heavy crop loss almost each year. The land also got severely eroded, sand cast and infertile. "Even with that much of land; we were living in penury and subsisted with high interest loans by pledging domestic utensils and valuables. Agriculture failed as cultivability of the land eroded with high intensity runoff causing sand cast, creating gullies. Further, no sooner rain stopped, our lands were facing soil water (moisture) scarcity", informed Kurmila. This resulted in creating difficult conditions to cultivate the land. "We found a succor in migrating out. We went to Ayodhya and many places in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh to work as brick kiln labourers where we were exploited", recalls a pained Kurmila.
Things changed in 2004-05 when MASS, a local NGO, helped her think about her survival strategy afresh. "We found sense in the points raised by people from this organization and organized village meetings to understand drought situation; its history and impacts; and finally too plan out strategies to fight this", says Dhanu Bhoi, Kurmila's husband. That year, with help of MASS, she constructed a 'chahala' ( a small water harvesting structure) to save her crop in one acre. "After many years, that was the first year when we were not required to borrow loans or advances from elsewhere; we got direct employment in land treatment and chahala works in our village. We stayed back and a new era began", informs she. "MASS gave me a direct cash assistance of two thousand and seven hundred rupees. In fact that year MASS started several other activities in the village that will restore our traditional water bodies and local ecology. I received training on eco-agriculture, preparation of organic manure and pesticides on my own in a cost effective manner", says she. To stop migrating and starting agriculture afresh in the village several other measures like formation of a 'seed bank' was taken up with support of MASS and Kurmila received one bag of paddy seed as loan from this bank to be able to start her agriculture. The chahala that stored rain water for her started showing good results very soon and Kurmila used it for vegetable cultivation. She earned a good profit and bought two goats. "Our strategy here has been to promote eco-agriculture in an aggressive way with help of the water harvested so that an overall ecological renaissance will take place" informs Adikanda Biswal, Programme Officer with MASS.
She has stopped migrating. She has got money and she has brought back all her land into agriculture again. Not only that, she has constructed a new house and lives a dignified life. From a migrant labour to a dignified settler, Kurmila is now reaping the benefit of water harvesting. Many other families of Kharamal, this tribal dominated nondescript village, have also fought drought successfully and have proved that reviving traditional system of water harvesting with new inputs in technical skill building and organic agriculture could be real beneficial. Kharamal has not looked back ever since then and the movement is spreading to other villages. Civil society groups of Orissa have alleged that the Govt. of Orissa's Draft Climate Change Action Plan has not taken into account people's concerns, knowledge and experiences. Rather it has only listened to the World Bank and Corporate Houses who are looking forward to climate change mitigation as a business/profit avenue. Time the government learns from climate change adaptation efforts of people like Kurmila and incorporate those in the Plan.

Agriculture has become climate resilient

Sangita Jha/ New Delhi

The agriculture ministry is buoyed over reports of the success of the second Green Revolution unfolding in eastern parts of India. Chhattisgarh is also doing well.

Indian agriculture appears to have become climate resilient. This is good news for the Central government which is gearing up to unveil National Food Security Act this year. Indian agriculture appears to have put its monsoon tag behind and very soon India could well become the net exporter of foodgrains.

“The track record of agricultural production for the past six years clearly shows that it has become climate resilient. In 2009-10 the country had witnessed severe drought, which had affected over 340 districts. Still we had achieved a 218 million tonnes of foodgrain production. We cannot go below that figure, which is more than enough to meet the demands. This year we are going to clock 241 to 250 million tonnes of foodgrain production,” said PK Basu, secretary in Ministry of Agriculture.

“The agriculture ministry is buoyed over reports of the success of the second Green Revolution unfolding in eastern parts of India. The reports suggest that the drought prone areas in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal are doing well in spreading the green revolution. The ministry is particularly impressed with the performance of agriculture in Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Assam. “Green revolution has taken deep roots in these states due to better water table, which is being seen in healthy paddy cultivation,” said Basu. Agricultural growth rate, which was about 3.5 per cent in the 11th five year plan, is being expected to go to four per cent in the 12th five year plan. The ministry of agriculture is of the view that India has recorded record productions in sugarcane and cotton and dependency on import to meet the demands for pulses too has come down substantially. “With increasing focus on minor irrigation, water conservation, mechanization in farming, Indian agriculture is going to stay on the growth trajectory,” said a senior official.

In fact India would now require importing only about two million tonnes of pulses in a sign of dependency on import going down. India is expected to register 20 million tonnes of pulses production this year.

The same also holds true in the case of oil seeds. However, the agricultural sector in the recent years has been facing shortage of farm labourers and higher wages. Union minister of agriculture Sharad Pawar in a letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had put the blame on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MG-NREGA) for shortage of farm labourers and higher wages. But the complaint appears to have been addressed by the Ministry of rural development, which administers MG-NREGA. The Planning Commission member Mihir Shah headed committee has submitted its report on reforms for MG-NREGA, which has been accepted by the ministry of rural development and would be implemented from April 1 this year.

The report recommended 28 out of 30 new categories of works related to the agricultural sector. “The new avatar of MG-NREGA will help in improving agricultural productions. Eighty per cent of job demands under the MG-NREGA come during the agricultural off season,” said Ramesh in an attempt to dispel the notion that the MG-NREGA was the culprit behind shortage of farm labourers.

“The report seeks to exploit the synergy between MG-NREGA and agriculture. Among the new works categories, which we seek to include in the flagship scheme, are paddy cultivation, fisheries, spring shed developments, fish dry land yards,” said Shah.

The report named MG-NREGA 2.0 suggests the strengthening of the synergy between the job scheme and rural livelihoods especially agriculture and allied sectors. To stress the point that the MG-NREGA seeks to compliment the agricultural productions, Ramesh claimed that around 70 per cent expenditure in the flagship scheme has been in the field of water conservation and land development. He also claimed that there are reports which indicate that water table, which is essential for better agricultural production, has gone up in a number of areas due to projects undertaken through the MG-NREGA funds. Reclaiming the barren land for agricultural use is being seen as one of the major contribution of the MG-NREGA for healthy agricultural growth.

Bose is of the opinion that India could emerge as a strong player in the export of foodgrains. India this year has already allowed the export of over 30 million tonnes of non-basmati rice. The government is also gradually allowing export of sugar. In fact record foodgrain production has helped India in unveiling its “rice diplomacy” by which the country is exporting rice to a host of countries, including Bangladesh, African nations and other Latin American countries. It’s in this context that the government is gearing up to unveil the National Food Security Bill, which would require 61 million tonnes of foodgrains to meet the legal obligation to fulfil the entitlement of the people for wheat, rice and millets currently.

However, the food inflation remains a concern and the agriculture ministry appears to be of the view that the food basket of the people has expanded, with more demands for pulses, eggs, poultry, etc. This requires more focus on agricultural allied areas. The new avatar of MG-NREGA which seeks to encourage building of cattle sheds, fisheries, poultry are being seen as an answer to the question on how to keep the price rise in check.

The government is also seeking investment in cold storages and developing the vegetables and fruits market and supply chain to ensure that the demand is met at reasonable prices. The ministry of agriculture has drafted a legislation, which is soon likely to be introduced in the Parliament, to facilitate hassle free movements of foodgrains and related articles across the states, which are currently hindered due to each state having its own taxes. By uniform registration and single tax, the legislation seeks to break the barriers in states to allow the movement of the consumable goods to places where there is demand. The move is likely to benefit both the producers and the consumers. The ministry is also looking forward for the passage of the Pesticides and Seeds Bill, Bio-diversity security Bill to essentially address the demands of the sector.

Though the cliché of Indian agriculture being dependent of vagaries of Monsoon may be on the way out, the government still needs to keep its sustained focus on the sector, which is facing crisis in the form of water table going much deeper in northern states and land becoming infertile due to excessive use of fertilizers.