|
Communicating Resource
Efficiency in Agriculture Resource efficiency means using the earth’s limited resources in a sustainable manner which is not only restricted to minimising the resource use and reducing the effect on the environment but also includes addressing the societal burdens related to inefficiency and fostering ‘circular economy’. It aims at securing the resources to build a smart, inclusive and sustainable economy (European commission, NITI Aayog, 2017). Agriculture systems being heavily resource-intensive, interact with natural resources and the environment at a large scale. Around 50 per cent of India’s total land area is under agriculture, using around 90 per cent of the total water withdrawals in the country (FAO, 2015). It is one of the sectors that faces one of the worst impacts from climate change due to the variability in weather conditions that can disrupt crop cycles. Natural resources are witnessing resource degradation due to various anthropogenic factors that affect the quality of resources available for practicing agriculture. Environmental consequences are often ignored at the cost of resource intensity. Introspection on results from the multiple long-term fertiliser trials in rice and wheat systems have revealed gradual deterioration of soil health and thus long-term productivity due to overuse and imbalanced use of synthetic fertilisers (Roy , Chattopadhyay, & Tirado, 2009). All these corroborates the evidence of resource degradation or ignored resource health due to production driven agriculture. |
|
Plant clinics communicating and promoting resource efficiency in agriculture
Reducing crop losses from
pest and disease attacks plays a significant role in increasing food
security and contributing to livelihoods of small holder farmers who
lack information and have limited access to advisory services. ‘Plant
clinics’ is an initiative of the global programme called ‘Plantwise’ of
the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International where a network
of local plant clinics are run by trained plant doctors where farmers
can get practical plant health advise. In addition to that farmers can
get online and offline plant related information on diagnostic, pest
management advise and frontline pest data through an online and offline
portal, ‘Plant-Wise Knowledge Bank’. The plant clinics advises farmers
to improve their productivity and incomes without using additional
inputs thus promoting the concept of resource efficiency among farmers.
It conducts training sessions for farmers which helps to improve
farmers’ resilience to climate shocks. Plant clinics have reached to
over 4.5 million farmers in 34 countries. Several government
institutions from around the world have embedded the Plantwise programme
into their national plant health frameworks. |
|
Experiences have shown that human resource development is essential for food security and market integration and achieving sustainable agricultural development is based more on the people involved in the use of the resources rather than the material inputs such as fertilisers, seeds, pesticides etc. (FAO, GTZ, 2006). However, factors such as poor linkage between research-advisory service, farmers and technologies, poor information system and ineffective communication system with proper information packaging have hindered the process of integration and knowledge transfer among people and institutions. While the environment and agriculture economy were seen to have conflicting relationships in the past with great paradox between environmental sustainability versus food security, the resource efficiency approach to sustainable development in agriculture has delivered various innovate climate smart farming technologies. Disseminating this information to the farming communities would thus need development of an integrated media strategy that considers the issues of context, illustrates the technologies for increased impact and taking into account the capacity dimensions of farmers. |
|
The Chopan block of Sonebhadra district in Uttar Pradesh comprises of 56.1% of the total population belonging to the Scheduled Tribe population. These groups are often very small farmers, possessing limited resources and are highly vulnerable to climate risks. In order to improve the livelihoods of these farmers, the agroforestry programme known as WADI was initiated with these farmers supported under the Tribal Development Fund of NABARD. Under the WADI programme, activities have been piloted with 1000 tribal households to enhance their income while preserving the ecological and social integrity of the region.
This agroforestry system has a multilayered vegetation structure where a small holder farmer can maximise his income from a small piece of 1 acre land. This model not only maximises the use of land but provides a large variety of food round the year and has significant environmental benefits due to the high quantity of biomass that it produces and its contribution to the organic matter on farms. Agroforestry systems also contribute substantially to carbon storage.
A locally suitable fruit crop is interspersed with cereal crops and bio fenced with fast growing, non-palatable crops like Subabul and Karonda. Some farmers have started cultivating Sagun (Tectona grandis) for additional revenue. Apart from that various techniques and technologies have been disseminated focusing on resource efficiency such as the establishment of solar based irrigation system, introduction of climate resilient varieties, vermicomposting and organic cultivation. Farmers are provided trainings on sustainable land management. In addition, the Wadi farmers have been formed into producer groups to facilitate communication and spread of information about better markets, price, inputs etc. The producer group is expected to facilitate and disseminate sustainable agriculture practices among large number of farmers in and around the surrounding regions. |
|
To address the challenges of climate change, agriculture and food systems have evolved to more resource efficient systems which are more resilient, but scaling up these systems requires communicating with the farmers. This calls for an effective communication strategy which is not too prescriptive about practices or technologies but senstitises them on the ill effects of inefficacy and misuse of resources. Communicating resource efficiency to farmers requires knowledge sharing activities and demonstrations in farmers’ fields. However, extension experiences show that face to face communication especially from farmer to farmer is the best way of communicating resource efficiency to farmers and helps them become resilient to climate change. ■
Satabdi Mohapatra
References: |
The
resource use efficiency in agriculture includes the concept of technical
efficiency, allocative efficiency and environmental efficiency (Haque,
2006). It aims to maximise farm income sustainably at the least cost.
This requires a fundamental transition in agriculture from the linear
production and consumption process to a ‘circular economy’ concept where
resources are put back into the loop while the livelihood of producers
are secured with appropriate market models that incentivises resource
efficiency.