The Hindu - International

How can small-scale farmers benet from trees on farms?

The Ministry of Agricultur­e recognised water availabili­ty as a challenge when it drafted the National Agroforest­ry Policy in 2014. Yet the problem remains relevant and is especially acute for smallholde­rs, who need additional funding to secure water and/o

- Deepthi R. Shastry Milind Bunyan Ravikanth G.

Farmers are drawn to tree species that are fast-growing and repel herbivores, but such species are also generally non-native and threaten soil health and human well-being

Agricultur­e in India has historical­ly been a diversi”ed land-use practice, integratin­g crops, trees, and livestock. This technique, broadly called agroforest­ry, can enhance farmer livelihood­s and the environmen­t and is slowly gaining in popularity after decades of the modus operandus of monocroppi­ng inspired by the Green Revolution.

“The Gaja cyclone nearly razed all coconut trees and made the soils saline; we did not know what to plant after,” said Chitra, a medium-scale farmer in Pudukkotta­i district of Tamil Nadu, during one of our recent ”eld visits. “We pooled our money and started planting jackfruit and mangoes. It has been six years and we are seeing some good pro”ts.”

This change resulted from India’s pioneering eorts to promote agroforest­ry. These eorts received an impetus nearly 10 years ago with the establishm­ent of the National

Agroforest­ry Policy (2014) but which also built on signi”cant investment­s in research over a longer 40-year span. Yet the uptake of agroforest­ry remains restricted to farmers with medium or large landholdin­gs.

This pattern is unsurprisi­ng since smallholde­r farmers seldom grow trees because of their long gestation, a lack of incentive or investment-based capital, and weak market linkages. Then again, Chitra’s experience demonstrat­es agroforest­ry’s potential and presents a case for creating an enabling environmen­t to enhance trees on farms.

A recurrent water problem

The ”ve-year ‘Trees Outside of Forests India’ (TOFI) initiative is one such attempt to assess comprehens­ive ways to stimulate a change in the status quo. It’s a joint initiative of the U.S. Agency for Internatio­nal Developmen­t (USAID) and India’s Ministry of Environmen­t, Forest and Climate Change. TOFI seeks to enhance tree cover in seven Indian states by identifyin­g promising expansion opportunit­ies and engaging the right levers.

Through our research and stakeholde­r consultati­ons, we have identi”ed key impediment­s to enhancing trees-outside-forests (TOF) cover through agroforest­ry in seven states: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh.

In particular, we discovered that water availabili­ty and transition ”nance have been recurrent concerns for smallholde­rs across these states. Still, solutions to these barriers are within reasonable reach.

Finding the right native species

The Ministry of Agricultur­e recognised water availabili­ty as a challenge when it drafted the National Agroforest­ry Policy in 2014. Yet the problem remains relevant and is especially acute for smallholde­rs who need additional funding to secure water and/or who incur additional debt in doing so. Moreover, water availabili­ty is critical during the sapling stage but remains a constant concern if the trees compete with crops for water in water-constraine­d environmen­ts (e.g. hard rock aquifers and low-rainfall regions).

One way to overcome this constraint is to grow trees that don’t compete with the crops for water. We worked with Bengaluru-based WELL Labs to adapt an open-source water-accounting tool called ‘Jaltol’ to assess instances when these trade-os occur. The tool provided valuable insights. For example, mango plantation­s don’t compete with kharif crops in the central Karnataka plateau whereas coconut trees in Tamil Nadu’s uplands demand more water than crops throughout the year.

Such tools enable restoratio­n practition­ers and civil society organisati­ons to select appropriat­e tree-crop combinatio­ns for agroforest­ry in water-stressed regions.

In fact, choosing the right species for the right place and the right reason is elemental for agroforest­ry to enhance the sustainabi­lity of livelihood­s. Farmers, however, are drawn to tree species that are fast-growing and repel herbivores, but such species are also generally non-native and threaten soil health and human well-being.

For example, casuarina and eucalyptus trees — both non-native timber species — are known to tolerate saline soils and grow fast with very low labour inputs. But both species are also primarily grown as large mono-crop block plantation­s rather than as an intercrop or a tree-crop combinatio­n, which would be essential for small landholdin­gs.

Finding native species that ”t multiple criteria is admittedly challengin­g but necessary to arrest or reverse land degradatio­n while diversifyi­ng livelihood opportunit­ies. Decision support tools that leverage extensive plant functional trait databases for hundreds of tree species to identify appropriat­e species may be helpful in such cases.

‘Diversity for Restoratio­n’ is an example of such a tool. It provides a tailored list of climate-resilient species while aligning with the restoratio­n objectives. Its makers will soon launch it with recommenda­tions for the Western Ghats, followed by other geographie­s.

Payment for ecosystem services

Several other studies have assessed the impediment­s and solutions to agroforest­ry as a sustainabl­e land-use practice. However, its on-ground implementa­tion still suers from a lack of systemic support for ”nancing this transition and lucrative market linkages. Additional­ly, new and existing government policies and schemes that can facilitate this transition are standardis­ed, accounting neither for land-holding size nor, importantl­y, regional biophysica­l variabilit­ies. As a result, these schemes inherently exclude smallholde­rs.

For example, the Indian Forest and Wood Certi”cation Scheme 2023, which certi”es agroforest­ry and wood-based products as sustainabl­e, has an exhaustive list of eligibilit­y criteria for farmers and industries.

But it remains to be seen if its array of socio-economic and environmen­tal parameters will place certi”cation costs beyond the reach of smallholde­rs. Policymake­rs also need to consider the viability of existing Central and State policies and schemes as a transition ”nance pathway for agroforest­ry.

The emerging concept of ecosystem credits or existing approaches such as ‘payment for ecosystem services’ (PES) are potential incentive mechanisms. (In PES, an ecosystem service user, e.g. a food processing company, volunteers to pay a service provider, such as a small farmer, for trees promoting a service like pollinatio­n). These instrument­s strengthen the ideology of nature-centred economics.

However, identifyin­g buyers and sellers of ecosystem services must be preceded by a detailed assessment of the services unique to a prede”ned biophysica­l region, not an administra­tive boundary. In doing so, these instrument­s can incentivis­e farmers to embrace practices that improve soil and groundwate­r health and enhance biodiversi­ty. These are essential components of healthy agroecosys­tems.

A modus vivendi

The adoption of agroforest­ry at scale in India must include smallholde­rs, who hold most of India’s agricultur­al land. Yet this is currently stymied by both ecological and socio-economic factors. Although secure land tenure is a prerequisi­te for agroforest­ry uptake, ensuring economic viability through market linkages while meeting the criteria of sustainabl­e agroforest­ry is crucial to empower these farmers.

Agroforest­ry could be the modus vivendi among conservati­onists, agro-economists, and policymake­rs to foster healthy ecosystems and resilient livelihood­s, creating an enabling environmen­t for rapid uptake by smallholde­rs.

(Deepthi R. Shastry, Milind Bunyan, G. Ravikanth are using research to determine context-specic ways to increase tree cover on farms through the TOFI initiative at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environmen­t (ATREE), Bengaluru.)

 ?? THE HINDU ?? Teak and turmeric grown together in an agroforest­ry farm in Coimbatore.
THE HINDU Teak and turmeric grown together in an agroforest­ry farm in Coimbatore.

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