Sheetal Patil

Participatory impact assessment of agricultural practices using the land use functions framework: case study from India

What do different stakeholders think of the changing trends in agricultural practices and related policies? We answer this and related questions with respect to Karnataka, an Indian state showing signs of agrarian distress. Using the participatory impact assessment (PIA) method involving farmers, researchers and voluntary workers, we assess the impact of recent policy-driven farming practices. The land use functions (LUFs) framework, which resembles the ecosystem services framework, was adapted in the PIA to address multidimensional sustainability in agricultural landscapes. During the PIAs, participants ranked LUFs in the order of their perceived importance and projected the impact of different practice–policy scenarios on chosen indicators corresponding to each LUF. Three farming scenarios, namely organic, conventional (chemically intensive) and mixed input practices were assessed for their projected impacts on selected indicators of each LUF. The LUF ranking reveals that while stakeholder priorities vary, they remain contrasting to the common policy focus of profit and productivity maximisation. Farmers value familys health and water access the most and financial services the least as functions of their land. Indicator scoring in the PIA revealed that participants rated organic practices as the most beneficial, conventional scenario as detrimental and the now prevailing mixed inputs scenario as having little impact.

Assessing the impact of policy-driven agricultural practices in Karnataka, India

The classical approach of assessing sustainability with respect to its three underlying pillars, ecological, economic, and social, is adopted in this paper, with an added emphasis on estimating the simultaneous effects of each pillar on the other two. The paper assesses the impact of policy-driven changes in cultivation practices in five districts in the south-western Indian state of Karnataka. A comparative statics analysis using a simultaneous equations model is developed to capture the stability of each pillar into the future and their concurrent interactive impacts and trade-offs. Ecological and economic impacts of policies favoring organic farming are estimated to be uniformly significant and positive in the study districts. However, the impact on socio-cultural criteria is subjective to the eco-regional context. Cost savings, through producing organic inputs on-farm, maximizes synchrony among the three pillars vis-à-vis sourcing these inputs from the market. With more reliance on organic inputs, better prospects are estimated for small and rain-fed farms compared to large and irrigated farms.

Methods for Integrated Sustainability Assessment: The Case of Small Holder Farming in Karnataka, South India

Small farm holders in India face multifold challenges to sustain their livelihoods. Rapid urbanization, increasing cost of cultivation, degraded natural resources, low productivity, and price uncertainties are major challenges that Indian farmers in general and small and marginal ones, in particular, face today. Based on a policy change in the state of Karnataka, in south-western India, the chapter examines potential integrated methods and tools for assessing sustainability of small holder farmers. An integration of potential qualitative and quantitative tools gives a different perspective towards strategies for supporting sustainable farming practices by small holders. The results also suggest that effective policy design, efficient governance structure, and vibrant local institutions are essential for small farmers’ sustainable future.

Rural Collectives for Livelihoods and Conservation: Lessons from Malè Mahadeswara Hills, Karnataka

While an array of livelihood options are available to the marginalised communities in forest peripheries, they face several challenges in harnessing these, as the previous chapters revealed. The loss of traditional community-based institutions and the failure of alternative social capital to emerge are among the foremost. In this context, self-help groups (SHGs) have recently evolved to fill this vacuum with the primary objective of poverty reduction. However, if sustainable rural well-being is the objective, SHGs need to synergise the interlinked assets of natural, social, human and physical capital in a rural environment. SHGs have been mostly associated with the last, providing credit access to rural communities, supporting them in liquidity crises and helping them embark on profit-oriented enterprises. Though perceived as major change agents, without an integrated perspective of their social-ecological-economic system (SEES), poverty reduction and rural well-being through self-organisation will remain unrealised goals. Taking the case of selected SHGs functioning among forest-dependent communities near the Male Mahadeswara Hills (MM Hills) in Karnataka, this chapter explores their multiple objectives from a SEES perspective and assesses their potential in synergising a dynamic equilibrium within the rural SEES. The authors further argue that regular monitoring of the impact of SHGs on the natural, social and human capital of SEES is as important as monitoring their success in alternative livelihood.

Land-Use Practices and Regulations to Reduce Poverty: Lessons from Anaikatty, Tamil Nadu

Though village commons can be an important livelihood support for forest fringe communities as discussed in the previous chapter, even households with their own small farms face severe constraints in the revenue-generating capacity of their lands, as this chapter will reveal. Asymmetries in access to resources like water and fertile land hinder financial and ecological sustainability of small farms. Inequitable land use and conservation measures reduce the impact and longevity of poverty reduction measures in these landscapes. It is argued that regulation of commercial extractive use of land and water resources and incentives for sustainable use are essential components of an effective antipoverty package in these areas. Fertile land resources and safe practices are crucial for sustaining millet-based rain-fed agroforestry systems which are fast disappearing from the forest peripheries along with increasing dependence for food and livelihoods. Improved traditional systems of land use can ensure nutritional security and food sovereignty among these marginalised communities. This chapter illustrates how land-use regulations can be instrumental in encouraging locally appropriate land uses in the dry forest peripheries of Western Ghats.

Economic Instruments to Reconcile Conservation and Livelihoods: Analysing the Potential for Bamboo in Karnataka

The over-exploitation of forest produce, the undermining of traditional institutions and the consequent institutional lacunae, as described in the previous chapters and the poverty of forest-dependent communities, raise challenges for policies towards reducing rural poverty. In Karnataka, nationalised NTFPs like bamboo generate considerable revenue to the state. Channelising part of this revenue for inclusive conservation efforts, though relatively straightforward, has been limited to a few high-value end products. This chapter examines fiscal measures on bamboo products, as an example of the potential of such mechanisms to supplement regulatory measures in augmenting the dwindling livelihood base of forest-dependent communities. A biodiversity and livelihood cess on bamboo products in the state of Karnataka is examined for equity and distributional impacts. We find that such a cess need not be anti-poor, especially so if the revenue is earmarked for livelihood enhancement of NTFP gatherers through decentralised and inclusive conservation measures.