Inclusive growth – An answer to Challenges of Rural Transformation?

In the post-independence period a systematic understanding of the rural society, its structure, functions and changes have not only become necessary but also urgent as three-fourth of the population lives in rural areas.  The rural society is predominantly based on agriculture, which is sharply distinguished from urban industry by the fact it is based on direct extraction from nature by man.  This basic difference played a significant role in shaping the social institutions, human behaviour and orientation of the rural population.  As it forms the major sector of the Indian society, a specific programme for change and development is expected to play a decisive role in any scheme of transformation of rural society on a higher economic and cultural basis.

 Around 72% of Indian population, i.e. 741.66 Million people live in rural areas, yet, it contributes only 24% of the GDP. Agriculture is the main employment generator in rural India. Infact agriculture provides 55% employment which is reducing at a very slow rate. The increase in agricultural production has been brought about by bringing additional area under cultivation, extension of irrigation facilities,  use of improved high-yielding variety of seeds, better techniques evolved through agricultural research, water management, and plant protection through judicious use of fertilizers, pesticides and cropping practices. India currently invests only about 0.5 percent of its agricultural GDP in agricultural research, compared with 2–3 percent in the developed countries.The International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) research shows that investments in R&D in the sector have the highest impact on agricultural growth per million rupees invested.

It has definitely been a long journey from where we were when we got Independence. From a Nehruvian model that sought to create an integrated economic identity for the country, mixing both socialist and capitalist ideas, to one that was market-oriented and again to one that lays its bets on inclusive growth. While the Nehruvian model led to a situation where the State had unprecedented controls and there existed a ‘Licence Raj’ regime, especially when it came to economic matters, it also sought to promote the goals of social justice.

The revival of Panchayati Raj, the changing facets of co-operatives and recent developments in liberalized economy have further enhanced the vital importance of rural development. The spread of rural industries and village based co-operatives, formation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in rural and semi-urban areas are some of the recent developments in the field of rural development. More importantly, as many critics say, the reforms initiated in 1992 appeared to be targeted towards the urban region of the country. They did little to target the essential social sector problems in areas of health, education and employment that continue to dog the nation. Policy-makers, however, point to several country-wide social sector schemes being run by the government that are changing the face of the rural countryside.

The question that arises here is that is the government going to continue to aim at faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth through the existing plethora of social sectors schemes like the UID-Aadhaar to tackle distribution woes, the National Skill Development Fund (NSDF) to tackle industry’s problems in finding trained manpower or the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) to provide self-employment opportunities or the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to meet the health needs of the rural populace. Some of these schemes have been around, albeit under different names, even before the current Prime Minister initiated the new economic initiative in 1992 in his avatar as Finance Minister.

Infrastructure has been identified as the biggest roadblock and it affects everything in the chain. Access to education, lack of infrastructure, lack of teachers, and quality of education has resulted in children working in farms or taking care of siblings, paving the way for  high school dropout rate. Water requirements for agriculture are increasing and the similar trend is seen for rural drinking water requirement. Now both the quantity and quality of water is posing greatest challenge for the planners and policy makers at the national as well as regional and local levels. Most of the diseases in Rural India are water borne.

 The push factors like lack of income/inconsistent income are some of the major reasons for migration of labour force from rural areas to urban areas.  More than resources it is the lack of leadership, application of technology and desire for excellence that has still kept rural society in an under developed state. Perhaps, a more important way of looking at the government’s steps to promote inclusive growth would be to examine the way it has allocated budgets to the social sector—social services and rural development—over the years and the results that such allocations have achieved.

 

Carbon sequestration through Mangroves – A cost effective method

Carbon sequestration is the process through which plant life removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and stores it as biomass. Plants and oceans are, therefore, called carbon sinks. It is estimated that mangroves sequester large amounts of carbon, approximately 25.5 million tonnes of carbon every year (Ong, 1993) and also that mangroves provide more than 10% of essential dissolved organic carbon that is supplied to the global oceans from land (Dittmar et al., 2006). Their role as a carbon sink is a service of particular global importance — mangroves and their soils are the second largest repository of terrestrial sequestered carbon after tropical forests.

Mangroves and mangrove habitats contribute significantly to the global carbon cycle. Mangrove forest biomass may reach 700 t ha-1 (Clough, 1992, Table 2) and Twilley et al. (1992) estimate the total global mangrove biomass to be approximately 8.7 gigatons dry weight (i.e., 4.0 gigatons of carbon). Accurate biomass estimates require measuring volumes of individual trees. Da Silva et al. (1993) have developed equations for making such measurements on living mangroves. Changing climatic condition due to global warming has bring in awareness among people to save earth. Different ways of reducing Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be anthropogenic or natural ways are carried on. It has been noticed that loss of Rhizophora in the mangroves has happened in large scale. This is so because rhizophora trees are very sensitive to drastic change in climate. This clearly marks that increasing temperature which has affected the growth of these plants.

Mangroves supports a wealth of life

It is now understood that conserving mangroves would help us in sequestering carbon (which is a natural process). It would help us in reducing the effect on global warming. There is a scope for gaining credits in carbon market for this sector. There are CDM projects for industries which are trying out ways to avoid carbon emissions, Afforestration and reforestration projects are also recognized as under projects for gaining Carbon Credits under Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). So when there is carbon market booming why not benefit from it? The question now arises is that if we commercialize this issue shall we be doing justice to nature? To whom are we benefiting and for what? This particularly comes in Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) in the activities of Kyoto protocol. The Kyoto gives full consideration to the requirements and methodologies for measuring, estimating and reporting of activities under Article 3.3, and under Article 3.4. Compared to other land forest, mangrove ecosystem accumulates sequestered carbon in the sediment, which is far more then as compared to the above ground biomass.

Image courtesy :planethopia

source: this post is from my award winning blogging competition at thinkaboutit

Need for second “ Green Revolution” or “Evergreen Revolution” in India

In India, the seeds of green revolution were first field tested in the drought years of 1964-65. They were introduced to the Indian scientists by Dr Norman Earnest Borlaug in 1963. India received 100kg seeds each of four dwarf and semi dwarf varieties. These seeds were planted in different soils in Delhi, Ludhiana. Pusa and Kanpur. The yield was over 4000kg per hectare which was about four times the yield of local varieties. These varieties were released for general cultivation after experimentation, multiplication and demonstration by Indian scientists in about 100 different farmer’s fields. In the words of Dr Hassar, The Green Revolution is the phrase generally used to describe the spectacular increase that took place during 1968 and is continuing in the production of food grains in India.

The components of the Green Revolution were:

High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of seeds: The main characteristics of the HYV seeds are – increased resposnse to chemical fertilisers, their period of maturing is short, it helps double cropping, their short stems can easily carry fertiliser load, resist wind damage, and their large leaf surface helps the process of photosynthesis.

Irrigation: Irrigation is the second most important component of Green Revolution technology after HYV seeds. The full potential of the HYV seeds cannot be developed without the requisite supply of water. Assured and regular supply of sufficient water to crops not only adds to production, it also assures stability in production. Indian rainfall being unreliable, irregular and seasonal, there is urgent need to expand irrigation potential to meet the requirements of the Green Revolution strategy.

Use of chemical fertilisers: The use of chemical fertilizers has been the third most important input of Green Revolution after HYV seeds and irrigation; rather the three are tied together. In fact use of HYV seeds needs heavy dose of irrigation and fertilizers to give high yields. Since the entire cultivable land has already been brought under plough and there is practically no scope for bringing any new areas under cultivation, further increase in foodgrains production can be achieved only by multiple cropping which heavily leans on the trio of basic inputs i.e.  HYV seeds, irrigation and chemical fertilizers.

Use of Insecticides and Pesticides: Though intensive use of irrigation and fertilizers under the Green Revolution technology has increased the farm production, it has also given birth to the problem of pests, insects, weeds, rodents etc. The monoculture promoted by the Green Revolution technology is more vulnerable to the insects and pests. These pests, weeds and diseases are to be checked by proper doses of pesticides and insecticides.

Farm mechanisation: The shorter maturing period of the HYV seeds enables the farmers to obtain more than one crop in a year from the same piece of land. This would require hastening of the harvesting operations so that land is quickly prepared for the second crop. This will require mechanization of farming. So, much success of Green Revolution depends upon farm mechanization.

Agricultural credit: A large percentage of Indian farming community consists of small and marginal farmers who do not have their own resources to invest in agriculture. Green Revolution technology i.e. HYV seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation water and machinery- all depend on the availability of credit. Cooperatives, Commercial Banks and Regional Rural Banks started extending loans to farmers at easy terms. The cooperatives extended loan of Rs 400 crore in 11967-68 which rose to Rs.695 crore in 1968-69, Rs 3,500 crore in 1985-86 and Rs 4000 crore in 1990-91. Commercial Banks were rationalized in 1969 which made the task of extending loans to farmers very easy. Loans upto Rs. 10000 to small and marginal farmers were exempted in 1990.

Organic agriculture is the need of the hour

Need for Second Green Revolution

Green Revolution in India created a huge impact in terms of crop production but it had several negative impacts like gradual loss of soil fertility, increasing alkalinity and salinity, water-logging, depletion of ground-water resources, decreasing bio diversity, chemical poisoning of soils, surface water and food. But it had several positive impacts which improved the overall quality and life of the farmers in India. Just like the Green Revolution, too address the climate change effects especially on the agriculture, there is a need for a second green revolution which could potentially address the negative impacts of the climate change may be through some of the kinds of farming like :

• Organic Agriculture: cultivation without any use of chemical inputs like mineral fertilizers and chemical pesticides.
• Green Agriculture: cultivation with the help of integrated pest management, integrated nutrient supply and integrated natural resource management systems.
• Eco-agriculture: Based on conservation of soil, water and biodiversity and the application of traditional knowledge and ecological prudence.
• EM Agriculture: system of farming using effective microorganisms (EM).
• White agriculture: system of agriculture based on substantial use of microorganisms, particularly fungi.
• One-straw Revolution: system of natural farming without ploughing, chemical fertilizers, weeding and chemical pesticides and herbicides.

This could help address the issues of climate change and agriculture and would further increase productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm.

Image courtesy : mack2happy

source: this post is from my award winning blogging competition at thinkaboutit