Food security?so intimately dependent upon water security?remains the central developmental goal in a multi-climatic agrarian developing economy, with vast stretches of drylands. Not a thought is given to the essentiality of drought-proofing Indian agriculture. It is common knowledge that the rainfed stretch (the drylands, covering an estimated 56% of the total area) also houses the poorest and most vulnerable communities.
Unlike the piecemeal spatial approaches, like the Drought-Prone Areas Programme, as the CH Hanumantha Rao committee had underscored, drought-proofing embodies the potential to address the balance between ecology and economy. Of course, watershed development in its most holistic sense (recognising the triad of land-water-livelihood) forms the vital instrument in such an approach.
But, in order to ensure at least 4% farm growth, the government has reiterated its confidence in large irrigation-driven agriculture, maybe holding high the Green Revolution gains of preventing a 1960s-like food crisis. According to the National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development Plan (1999) of the ministry of water resources, irrigation efficiency needs to be raised to a staggering 60% by 2050, if the systems are to cater to the demand by then.
While serious reservations of the kind projected by the ministry have been expressed regarding the reliability of these estimates of water availability in the long run, at least micro-level experiences in participatory irrigation management indicate a pathetic 7% transfer to water users? associations. In fact, apart from the inequitable and often unpredictable monsoons (despite a higher level of precipitation), per capita water availability has steadily dwindled and the scenario appears bleak for the future.
The main advantages of drought proofing are twofold. First, even compared to the amazing success of drought-proofing in arid Israel, due to the widely diverse agro-climatic zones, this approach in India would be adequately responsive to such shocks as failure in the monsoons. It holds out the possibility of multiple approaches to different zones that would compensate for productivity in a given locality. Secondly, by adopting a region-specific water-use strategy that distinguishes between primacy attributed to food crops, livestock/fodder and high-value market-driven farming (as biofuels, dryland horticulture and plantation crops), opportunities for local income and employment generation are eminently feasible.
This could, inter alia, prevent large-scale distress migration, especially, from the tribal belts. However, to reap these advantages, the ticklish issues of effecting cropping diversification as well as changes in land use pattern crop up. Moreover, the uncertainty of rains in drylands and the absence of a technological breakthrough in dryland agronomy, for instance, continue to be a challenge.
At another plane, in times of growing linkages between Indian agriculture and global trade, some thought has gone into whether the so-called low-productive lands, or ?wastelands?, could be used to cultivate completely new types of crops that have a growing international market. Such drop diversification has often been justified on grounds of greater water efficiency and much higher returns on investment, which could transform the scene of ubiquitous deprivation in these dry regions. The case for contract farming and linking with retail chains (especially those belonging to multinational and large domestic enterprises) has come up in this context.
In any case, the food security issue will remain, despite shifting to a high-value crop. Arguments favouring ties with nations from where foodgrain and other water-intensive produces like sugar can be imported or exchanged for labour and capital from here have to be crosschecked with their merits vis-?-vis relative pricing.
The real challenge would lie in making available institutional support (in the spheres of technology, management, market linkage and finance) to these local communities, often living in fragile environments. Respected experts like Hanumantha Rao and A Vaidyanathan have provided enough arguments for investment in basic physical infrastructure that would boost farm productivity and would use less water, so precious in these delicate ecosystems. The state will have a strong role to play. Despite reasonable apprehensions, drought-proofing can and must succeed.
The writer is a professor at Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad Email: keshabdas@gmail.com