Surinder Sud: Productive wastelands

FARM VIEW

Regeneration of such areas has long-lasting benefits.

Wastelands and degraded rain-fed lands need not be viewed as worthless. These can, indeed, be made to contribute to poverty alleviation through endurable self-employment and income generation. And the way to do so is through community-based agro-forestry, fancifuly called social forestry.

This has actually been demonstrated through a co-operative sector agro-forestry initiative on nearly 27,000 hectares spread over three states "" Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh "" in the past two decades. Primary employment of over 5.1 million workdays could be generated under this venture during two phases of its execution. What is even more significant is that employment opportunities have continued though the project concluded in 2002. Besides, the productivity of these wastelands has been enhanced several-folds on a sustained basis. The participating communities are leading a far better life now.

The details of this project, including its investment and returns data, have now been compiled in a document authored by a team of scientists led by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Deputy Director-General J S Samra. The others include K Kareemulla, P S Marwaha and H C Gena.

Indeed, the rationale behind this agro-forestry-based employment and income generation model is quite simple. The incidence of poverty is maximum among landless resource-poor labourers; socially disadvantaged castes and tribes; and small and marginal farmers. These people generally lack technical skills and cannot take up jobs in industry either. The concentration of such people is the largest around wastelands and marginal lands with low productivity. So, land-based activities aimed at improving the productivity of these lands could open up avenues of livelihood and income-generation for them.

Moreover, there is no dearth of waste and degraded lands. The agriculture ministry reckons the total such area at a whopping 107 million hectares. Besides, over half of rain-fed lands are also degraded in varying degrees. In fact, large proportions of forest land, community pastures and common dumping and threshing areas are among the worst degraded tracts. Much of these lands are amenable to productivity improvement through relevant technology intervention with partly monetary and partly social investment by local communities.

The co-operative sector agro-forestry-based livelihood enhancement project was initiated by fertiliser co-operative IFFCO through its subsidiary called the Indian Farm Forestry Development Co-operative (IFFDC). It leased in wasteland from revenue departments, panchayats and private individuals for 25 to 30 years to implement this project in two phases between 1986 and 2002, in 13 districts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Local communities were involved in the project by organising them into co-operatives and self-help groups (SHGs). Regeneration of the wastelands was done by taking up soil and water conservation measures and planting trees, grasses and other plant species that would generate fuel, fodder and income for the stakeholders. The SHGs took up activities such as micro-financing and running enterprises for supplying and handling inputs and products of the main agro-forestry venture. They also disbursed loans for occupations such as dairying, goat rearing, poultry and making cups and plates from tree leaves. Among over 28,000 participants, about 85 per cent belonged to the socially disadvantaged groups.

The total financial investment in capacity-building of participants, establishment of training infrastructure, raising of plantations and soil and water conservation measures came to, on an average, about Rs 15,461 a hectare and Rs 16,835 a hectare in phase one and two of the project, respectively.

The economic analysis of this project reveals that it generated an annual income ranging from Rs 3,603 to Rs 8,409 a hectare across the states through sale of grass, fuel wood, timber and other forestry produce. This works out to a handsome internal rate of return (IRR) of 30.09 to 38.88. The average income generation in these areas prior to the project was only Rs 1,860 per hectare.

This aside, it provided long-term environmental benefits such as amelioration and reclamation of soil and water resources, salinity control and bio-diversity protection. Significantly, the trees and other greenery that sprang up as a result of this project will contribute to carbon sequestration that can be traded off for money. Each tonne of carbon sequestered is equal to $4.4 (Rs 198) at the minimum of the existing rates in the global carbon trading market. What is most significant is that all these benefits are long-lasting.