Towards Green Villages

Supriya SinghCentre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India

So..

• Is Growth working? If yes for whom? Is it eradicating poverty?

• It depends on which side are you• It has been working for the minority, however, the

majority is poor• The modes of poverty alleviation have become most

expensive• Between 1990-2001, for every $ spent on poverty

reduction, $166 extra have been spent on production and consumption

• It has led to ecological problem: we need several earths to sustain now

The Challenge of the Balance

• Sustainability has become an ethical issue- are the rich and powerful willing to pay the ecological costs of their consumption?

• For India the environmental dimension brings into focus the problem of equity, the problem of livelihoods-not conservation but rational use of resources and rationality will depend on whether the use is sustainable, equitable and growth oriented-rural poverty has to be seen as biomass scarcity- increase productivity of land- Gross Nature Product

• We need to shun the notion of “path dependent equilibrium”- we will first grow rich and then take care of the environment.

State of poverty

• Economy grows at around 9%, agriculture at 2.3 %– Food grain available: 152 kg /person (rural). 23 kg less than in 90s– 30% households eat less than 1,700 kilo calories per day/person– Rural poor spend 70 percent of income on food. Starvation

• 57% of land facing degradation (increase of 53 percent since 1994)– Impact esp. on common lands & rain fed areas. About 68 percent of the

net sown area drought prone.

• 60% of cultivable areas are rainfed (no irrigation). Produce 42% of food– 2.5tons/ha productivity

• 80 % of India’s landholding is less than one hectare– The average annual land fragmentation is 2.7/land holding– 33% landless (22% in 1991-92)– Every second farmer today indebted. Suicides

State of poverty

Govt.’s anti-poverty schemes• 60 years of targeted anti-poverty programmes• More than 2000 rural development programmes• Rs. 314 billion for poverty alleviation/year• Rs. 260 billion for food subsidy/year• Rs. 71 billion for irrigation/year• Rs. 6 billion for afforestation/year• Rs. 2,270 Billion to sustain the bureaucracy/annual• It takes Rs. 3.65 to transfer Rs. 1 programme money to

poor• 58% subsidised food doesn’t reach poor• 1/3rd employment creation against target

State of poverty

Growth Vs Poverty• Highest rate of economic growth in history; Lowest rate of

agriculture growth in history• Employment per growth unit lowest ever, less than 1%• Rural unemployment at 9.1 percent, double in 2 decades• Poverty reduction slower during post-reform• Need 108 jobs a minute for the next five years• Can create 10 jobs from current growth• Ecology has huge potential: 110 jobs/minute• Need to redefine poverty• GNP is effective gross nature produce

State of poverty

Increasing demands on biomass

• Population is increasing by 2 per cent every year– 1 Ha sustains now four people, 1.5 people/Ha in 1980s

• Firewood production must increase from 100 million ton to 300 million tonnes• Green fodder production from about 230 million tonnes to 780 million tonnes.• India’s per capita forests decreasing: 0.08 Ha now, 0.20 in 1951• Number of people dependent on forests is growing: from 184 million in 1996 to 226 in 2006. • Timber demand (both housing and industrial): from 23 million cubic metres to 29 million cubic

metres in 2006.• Per capita consumption of paper rose from 3 kgs in 1995 to about 5 kgs in 2003 (in China it was

29.1 kg per person). In Asia, per capita paper consumption is five times higher than in India.• But overall biomass production in India seems to be declining rapidly• Around 240.62 million Ha of India’s 306.25 million Ha reported land are used for biomass

production. Out of this only on a very small fraction of agricultural lands productivity has improved due to irrigation. On the rest, productivity has gone down. And it is declining.

Ecological poverty explained

• India is biomass based thus dependent on ecology

• Poverty is caused by ecological degradation, by limited or no access to natural resources

• Thus India’s poverty is ecological poverty

An opportunity

• Ecological poverty is recognised now• This gives us an opportunity to redesign rural

programmes• Programmes like NREGA are instruments• Civil society has more roles to play

Solutions

• Get the property rights correct- if these rights are well established people have a stake/say in protecting their environment (costs are internalised by industry/state, the resource users

• Get the product prices correct- market based mechanisms

• Establish proper institutions legally empowered to devolve powers to community- reduce or re-structure bureaucracy.

• Local growth over national/international growth. • Resource accounting- from villages to national level• Spread the message through dialogues

Challenges for ecological poverty

•0.6 million villages, .23 million elected local governments, 3.8 million elected representatives

•2.3 villages per Panchayat (in Assam, as high as 29 villages/Panchayat)

•But a centralised approach: gradually the Federal government is in charge of resources

•Those who take decisions are not the ones who have to live with the consequences of those decisions

•Panchayats have all power over natural resources

•Panchayats are regarded as implementing agencies

•Only one state has devolved power

•In tribal areas, it is in more distress

•India has to make a fundamental shift to meet this challenge.

•A shift in state’s role from an often-corrupt regulator of the micro-environment to the provider of an enabling and more market-friendly environment

Rainfed agriculture in India extends over an area of 97 million ha and

constitute nearly 67 % of the net cultivated area

Rainfed areas, new crisis center

The ecology of rainfed areas

• One crop agriculture but 42% production• Degraded natural resource base, low soil fertility, soil erosion• 15-20% rainwater runs off from rainfed farms• But has 65% of unutilized irrigation • Most of backward districts in these areas• 60-70% poor of India are in these areas

Rainfed areas, new crisis center

Ecological opportunities

•Every village in India has the resources to self-sustain

•Water conservation emerges as the core of these models

•Community governance is key to sustainability

•Lays key principles of sustainable development

A roadmap for sustainable village

ECOLOGICAL POVERTY

CreateNATURAL WEALTH

 

CreateECONOMIC WEALTH