IndiaUS Knowledge INITIATIVE On Agriculture And Drought Proofing

1
India-US Knowledge INITIATIVE On Agriculture And
Drought Proofing
2

• Drought proofing in the context of climate change
  and degradation of soil and water resources
  demands different strategies but not what is
  proposed under Indo-US collaboration on KIA.
  Climate change will worsen the agricultural
  situation not only in the arid and semi-arid
  zones of India, but also coastal zones. Under
  global/bilateral partnerships climate change and
  water management should be tackled in tandem.

3

• USA is yet to commit itself to arrest climate
  change where as our country endorsed Kyoto
  protocol . Such being the situation, we should
  not have entered into an agreement with USA for
  drought proofing through KIA. Also KIA negates
  three important Dublin Rio principles.

4

• Water development and management should be based
  on a participatory approach, involving users,
  planners and policy makers at all levels (KIA
  assigns no role for the users).
• Women play a central part in the provision,
  management and safeguarding of water (Knowledge
  of rural women and men has no place in the scheme
  of KIA).
• Contd

5

• Unsustainable mining of ground water leads to
  food bubble economy.
• Fresh water being a natural resource is a social
  and economic good (not commercial) (Rio-Agenda
  21, Section 18.8).

6

• Collaboration with European Union for drought
  proofing would have made positive sense as their
  Water Framework Directive States, Water is not a
  commercial product like any other but, rather, a
  heritage which must be protected, defended and
  treated as such. How to look at water as a
  resource is thus no straightforward matter.

7

• Agricultural Scientists and students who will be
  participating in KIA have nothing to do with the
  rural communities under any of the four
  identified themes. Mutual learning opportunities
  for the researchers/students and the farming
  communities, essential for drought proofing, are
  not built into KIA.

8

• Biotechnology
• Drought tolerant transgenic crops, if any, would
  add to the cost of cultivation. Farmers having
  spent quite a sum on GM seeds tend to use more
  agro-chemicals and even water. Water saving on
  account of GM crops is only a theoretical claim.
  Farmers in drought prone areas cant afford GM
  crops
• Food-processing and Marketing talks about
  agri-business opportunities for Indian Corporates
  and US multi-nationals but not any off-farm and
  non-farm livelihood opportunities for farmers in
  drought prone areas.

9

• Bio-fuels
• Non-edible oil seed production in arid and
  semi-arid zones would only reduce fodder
  availability affecting the livestock economy of
  the drought hit farmers and also alienate the
  common property resource lands from the
  villagers. The effect of contract farming would
  exactly be the same as mentioned above.

10

• Water scarcity crosses national boundaries via
  the international grain trade
• Lester Brown

11

• Water Management
• There is no participatory element in the
  development of water technologies and management
  practices that improve water quality and water
  use efficiency. It is not clear how and who will
  be assessing the needs of the multiple
  stakeholders from lab to farm for developing
  technologies through research.
• Contd.

12

• Water quality management and remediation Mining
  and other industries and agro-chemicals and
  pesticides have been polluting our soil and water
  resources including rivers, reservoirs, tanks and
  ground water
• Situation analysis in KIA proposal does not deal
  with the status of implementation of
  environmental laws. There is no recognition of
  the interdisciplinary nature of water quality
  management and remediation.
• Contd

13

• iii. Soil-water-plant interactions.
• A study of innovations like SRI under
  soil-water-plant interactions would contribute a
  lot to improving the water use efficiency.
• iv. Water policy decision support system
• Information technology, remote sensing and GIS
  technologies will be used for water resources
  assessment and monitoring to eliminate time
  consuming, inefficient and costly manual
  techniques for data generation for information to
  the policy makers.
• Contd

14

• Community based organisations and their role in
  generating data on the following vital aspects of
  droughts and water resources are not recognised /
  given space in the scheme of things.
• Early warning systems
• Quantification of drought impacts
• Strategies for minimizing impacts
• Timely information services
• Accurate spatial data on actual water use
• Water demand
• Allocation and distribution of water
• Crop yields
• Contd

15

• SRI is a water saving technique and also
  efficient irrigation system which would enhance
  yields but not reduce yields. Only modern
  pressurized irrigation systems but not SRI are
  considered under KIA.
• V. Ground water quantity and quality management.
• - The situation analysis in the proposal does
  not deal with the existing legal framework in
  various states and status of implementation and
  does not analyse the positive and negative
  elements of the existing regulations governing
  ground water. It is as if the Agricultural
  Scientists need not bother about social
  regulations of Water Resource Management (WRM) as
  part of their research.
• - Research on institutional innovations and
  participatory aspects of water management is not
  considered under KIA.

16

• KIA does not deal with ongoing efforts at
  integrated water resources management and river
  basin management.
• KIA orients the Agricultural Graduates and
  researchers towards Indian corporates and MNCs
  engaged in GM technologies and marketing of
  processed agro-produce and orients them away from
  the farmers.
• Drought proofing under KIA does not benefit the
  drought hit farmers. On the contrary, Corporates
  interested in bio-fuel plantations and SEZs are
  likely to be given CPR lands.
• Contd.

17

• Alternative
• Research on Integrated Water Resources
  Management, a process that promotes the
  coordinated development and management of water,
  land and related resources, in order to maximize
  the resultant economic and social welfare in an
  equitable manner without compromising the
  sustainability of vital ecosystems (Global Water
  Partnership 2000) is essential for arriving at
  possible solutions.

18

• What India needs? . by doing a total rethink on
  appropriate river basin management, Indian can
  trade drought-proofing over vast areas by
  sacrificing irrigation of small areas.
• Anil Agarwal