Transcript Grassroots lessons and voices

Grassroots lessons and voices Inputs from the participants
NPDCCA - Chennai Consultation - Day
1, 8 November 2010
Reflections of Day 1 deliberations on
NPDCCA - on 8th November 2010
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We had four technical sessions, on, food, water, energy and DRR, each starting with a short video
clip prepared by TVE documenting the grassroots voices, and articulating the tensions between
making a market-driven choice versus what could be the right strategy, how they were making the
difficult choices.
Lead partners of each of these tracks were MSSRF, WOTR, DA, and UNDP
The discussants and panelists brought in their expertise to focus on the institutional mechanism,
the need to recognize and validate the traditional knowledge and experience of the grassroots
community to cope with vulnerable situations.
The opportunity provided by the current focus on Climate Change dialogue helped to sharpen the
focus on need to re-emphasise the sound people-centric development approach
Recommendations that came from the floor of the house included those that asked policy makers
to focus on more research to validate traditional practices. Policy should be focused to invest more
in supporting multiple community based interventions at local level, and support small and
marginal farmers.
The recommendations must be communicated at the highest level.
The CCA should not become a subject in silo, but approaches have to be integrated understanding
the linkages between food, water, energy security and disaster risk reduction.
Participants brought forth the linkage between energy-water-food again and again, emphasizing the
inter-linkages .
Food Security Suggestions
• Will climate change become a new silo be a trigger to more
integrated approaches (given higher interdependencies, inter
connections of these issues)
• Crop insurance policy should take care impacts of climate changedevelop region based insurance scheme
• Generate favourable policies to support small and marginal
farming systems especially millet farming systems, organic
agriculture systems followed by people living in hilly and semi-arid
tracts of the country
• Necessary to take note of negative practices becoming popular
especially in fishing practices
• Food safety is equally important in food security. Safe food must
be reflected in the document visibly
Food Security
• Identify and promote microbial strains to improve nutrient use
efficiency.
• Using biological systems to minimize methane and N0 x emissions
from agro-ecosystems
• Bringing eco-friendly agro-technologies into carbon trading
platforms to provide financial incentives to farmers to the ecoservices provided
• We are facing detrimental effects of multiple stressors; it may be
climatic or non-climatic in the context of food security inter-alia
economic stress.
• Increasing agricultural commodities and input cost put farmers in a
precarious situation
• Promotion of increasing soil carbon will be better mitigation
strategy
Food Security
• Risk aversion strategy – Country-based insurance to be
decentralised at lower scales
• Increasingly irrigated agriculture is being adopted as
agriculture with less risk. This lead to enormous use of
underground water
• Need to promote responsive water harvesting and
conservation strategy
• Apart form agro-ecosystems , small and marginal farmers
are more vulnerable to climate change
• Look at ways to enhance the available
measures/mechanisms to work effectively
• Issues related to veterinary science need to be intergrated
analysed and planned with agriculture
Food Security
• Sustainable agriculture poses potential for mitigation, adaptation
and development
• Diversification of agri- based livelihoods – there should be more
opportunities for rural youth for livelihood diversification needed
• Assessment of traditional knowledge and coping strategies at the
local level to be integrated with scientific knowledge
• Ecosystem based approach to also address biodiversity,
conservation, water and sustainable livelihoods.
• Farmers are responding to climate change and temperature change
and not just weather variations (eg, in Sikkim and Darjeeling hills
farmers say that due to temp increase they are now cultivating
ginger, ( a major cash crop) in higher elevations, similar practices
might be happening in other areas as well. Are these ‘coping
strategies’ to be considered viable in the long term?
Food Security
• This affects food security as other crops/vegetables grown are neglected
in the place of cash crops and also has implication on gender, as cash crop
is men’s domain /control
• Market links and demand for the marginalised traditional crop. Due to lack
of this these crops are extinct form the food basket, and varieties are
dying as farmers do not grow these and more of irrigated rice is being
cultivated.
• In climate change adaptation research and development of technology is
crucial for tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses like drought, heat,
salinity, and submergence, as the intra seasonal variability in weather and
extreme weather events are on a increasing trend.
• Should look into how to ensure convergence of services at the field level –
irrigation, agriculture, credit etc.
• Innovative mechanism to ensure labour and machine availability at grass
root level through labour banks in convergence with NREGS
Food Security
• There is a need to listen to the voices of those on whom we depend
on food security when we are talking about policies on technology.
• Climate change necessitates rapid response and involvement of
communities
• Fusion of high level laboratory science with people’s science
needed in “research investment”
• Climate change, climate variability and extreme weather events
need adaptation strategies at different levels in the society.
• Adaptation policies at micro and macro levels need to be addressed
to short term climate variability towards reducing vulnerability to
long term change.
• Building adaptation capacity to cope with current climate change is
one way of preparing society to better cope with future climate
Food Security
• Increase per acre productivity through technological interventions
such as System of Rice Intensification
• Creating awareness among farmers on the nutrient use efficiency,
water use efficiency, in the context of climate change
• Take into account the contradictory policies (eg. Free electricity, 100
days of rural employment guarantee) need to redefined
• Including farmers, policy makers and scientists from the planning
stage fro implementing any projects
• Government should support in all stages, market linkage etc
• Development of effective bio-fertilisation tech using thermo-philic
microbes
• Knowledge transfer on climate change and its effects to the local
community level should be more informative and should be done in
local languages
Water Security
• Dr. V Geetha Lakshmi, TNAU, Coimbatore:
– Water must be nationalized to avoid states’ conflicts and improve the
livelihood of people’s share of water.
• JD Sophia, MSSRF:
– Regular maintenance of the physical structures with economic incentives is
needed to augment and conserve water.
– Technological solutions and the institutional mechanism to be matched for
enhancing water use efficiency.
• Vinod, Maithreyee, Kerala:
– Need norms regarding crops, irrigation technologies, and water sources for
each agro-climatic zones
– Arrangements of irrigation schemes to appropriate levels of LSUS
– Some water budgetary exercise at farm/ micro-watershed (Panchayat level)
– Renovating/ extending CADA with traditional water bodies up to the field level
– Norms for minimum flows to be ensured for rivers and streams.
Water Security
• Mustafa, DA:
– Mechanism to track use of groundwater and penalize/incentivize inefficiency/efficiency.
– Encourage use of water efficiency technologies like Sprinklers and Drip Irrigation
• Anon:
– Irresponsible water use in urban areas cannot be a justification for populist approaches
in rural areas (ala free electricity…) will become a race to the bottom (of the well!)
• Col CP Muthanna, KMFT, EHF, India
– Need to protect principal catchment areas
– Compensation to upland communities by low land beneficiaries.
– Kudagu district of Karnataka could be taken up as a model – it provides 40% water to
canals.
• Dr. Oliver King, MSSRF, Namakkal, [email protected]
– With regard to use or abuse of underground water levels, effective implementation of
rules pertaining to Bore Wells companies is vital. Thiruchengodu in Namakkal District in
Tamil Nadu operates more than a lakh machines across India. Sensitive borewell
operator is a timely need to safe guard the water table.
– Free electricity to farmers is a fundamental right, may be, but they need to be sensitized
on water related issues.
Water Security
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M Maheshwari, CRIDA, Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (ICAR),
Hyderbad-59
– ‘National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture’ is a new programme being launched soon
by ICAR and has the objectives of
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Enhancing the resilience of Indian agriculture covering crops, livestock and fisheries to climate change
through development and application of improved production and risk management technology.
Site Specific Technology demonstration on farmers’ fields in 100 most vulnerable districts of the
country
Capacity building of various stakeholders on climate resilient agricultural research and application
– The Scheme would be implemented by 21 institutes of ICAR under the overall coordination of
CRIDA.
– The technology demonstration would be through KVKs and research centres of AICRPDA and
Extension Divisions.
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Nambi (CC)
– Oxfam are working in this area. DRR community, Adaptation community – there is a huge
knowledge sharing gap
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Athreya:
– Systems approach and ecosystems , for caution, communities need a response to the naturally
evolving ecosystems, that may actually getting desertified.
Energy Security
• Dr. A Lakshmanan, TNAU, Coimbatore:
– Energy plantations and food crops should not be competitive. Crops with dual purpose
(both for food grains and source for bio fuel) should be promoted more. Eg. Sweet
Sorghum is a good dual purpose crop for grain sorghum and bio ethanol production.
– Similarly India being a tropical country with abundant sunlight, hydrogen production
from algae is a good technology to solve energy crisis.
• Rukmani, MSSRF:
– Role of Government in domestic energy is absolutely necessary
• Dr Sushil Bajpai:
– Peak Energy is a phenomenon when the production of the oil is at its highest. Post peak
oil, the oil production steadily drops.
– It appers that the world peak oil would appear anytime between 2010-2020.
– Should this happen, the oil prices could go out of hand.
– The implications are not just stark for transport, but also for agriculture by way of
fertilizers and insecticides, cloth, etc.
– Panel should do a quick search of Peak Oil phenomenon, WOTR is undertaking a desk
study and its initial findings are a cause for deep concern
DRR and Ecosystem Based Approaches
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Ahana Lakshmi, MSSRF ([email protected])
– The EbA approach definition has to be a lot more rigorous wrt DRR and CC
– Emphasis on linking environmental issues and DRR must be there
– Understanding how any interventions in a sector of agriculture is linked to environment,
CC and DRR is important
– Local to global and understanding that environment management is managing our
interactions with environment is important
– Considering greater percentage of urbanization, it is necessary to look at the EbA
approach with city as an ecosystem
RP Samui, IMD, Pune
– Develop appropriate management practices and contingency planning to cope with
extreme weather events
– Develop weather based index for crop insurance and forewarning system for pest and
diseases outbreak
– To combat climate change, national policy needs to address seamless weather
prediction for
• Extreme weather events
• Shifting climate regime
– Agromet advisories on cultivar selection and selection of sowing window need to be
strengthen using state-of art ICT technology such as SMS and IVRS