Our food basket is increasingly being confined to a few select crops and cereals. Yet, our nation is endowed with a huge variety – a rich biodiversity, which provides of a complex stock of animals, plant and micro-organisms at genetic, species and eco-system levels. India needs to look beyond performance and diversify with biodiversity as the as a key functionary of the agro-ecosystem. Policies are thus urgently needed to promote a robust and sustainable agro-process through the biodiversity route.
Biodiversity is critical to the sustainability, resilience and adaptability of agricultural production system. Of the 250,000 globally identified plant species, about 7,000 have historically been used in human diets. At present, however, only about 30 crops form the basis of world’s agriculture and just three species of maize, rice and wheat supply more than half the world’s daily calories (CBD, 2008). Agriculture continues to be the mainstay to India’s large and growing population. Due to prominence of agriculture in the national food security, its performance is central to India’s policy and planning.
The biodiversity mainstreaming is the process of embedding biodiversity consideration into policies, strategies and practices of key public and private actors that impact or rely on biodiversity. It is important to strengthen the linkages between biodiversity and agriculture to enlarge the food, nutrition and health security of India.
Integrating biodiversity concerns into the agricultural sector will increase the agricultural productivity, environmental quality, reduce externalities, improve the ecosystem services and most importantly reduce the negative impacts on biodiversity. Therefore, it is important to mainstream biodiversity concerns into national plans and strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity towards minimizing the negative impacts on biodiversity through policy interventions.
Centre for Biodiversity Policy and Law (CEBPOL), under National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) recently initiated a study on mainstreaming Biodiversity into the Agriculture Sector. The policy analyzed various schemes and missions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and has come out with few recommendations for integrating biodiversity concerns into the agricultural sector involving local, regional and national government.
The discussion titled-‘Policy Dialogue on Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Agricultural Sector’ was held at National Agricultural Science Complex (NASC) of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa on January 20, 2017
The proposed policy intervention document could help in achieving the twin goal of enhancing agriculture productivity as well as contributing to sustained agro biodiversity wealth of India.
Under the CEBPOL Programme, the NBA has recently suggested strategies as follows:
- Conserve in-situ
Agro-climatic zone wise planning and on-farm conservation need to be promoted across the agro biodiversity rich areas. Incentives can be provided to local communities for promoting diversified agro-ecological systems and designation of agricultural biodiversity conservation sites/agro biodiversity hotspots. - Conserve traditional seed varieties
An integrated approach is required to increase the agricultural productivity to eradicate hunger, strengthen farmer’s resilience to environmental changes and restore crop diversity. A national database/mapping of traditional seed varieties need to be developed and documented. To ensure adequate availability of traditional seeds, seed banks can be set up in each agro-climatic zone/village/block level, so that these valuable resources can be saved and utilized by the new generations of farmers. - Identify economically potential crops and facilitate cultivation
Bio-economy encompasses the sustainable production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, bio-based products and bio-energy. To identify the economically potential agro biodiversity crops/resources, the marketable traditional crops/breeds should be identified. This knowledge based frontier has the potential to generate new solutions for the planet’s most important challenges regarding energy, health, food, water and climate change delivering social, environmental and economic benefits. - Manage and conserve pollinators
Bee keeping is vital for agro-biodiversity for cross pollination of horticultural and many agricultural crops. In order to maximize agricultural production, along with honey-bees, other native agriculturally important insects also can be promoted viz moths, wasps, beetles, birds, bats and other vertebrates. - Encourage use of bio pesticides
Increasing the usage of bio-pesticides/insecticides at the local level, also the agriculturally important insect population can be increased in the agricultural landscape by planting native varieties of trees/providing bio infrastructural facilities towards controlling pests and diseases. - Conserve livestock
Incentives/free insurance should be given for communities who preserve those indigenous/local varieties/breeds. Relevant indigenous knowledge of management strategies used by communities to utilize the genetic diversity in their livestock should be documented; Indigenous knowledge of pastoral communities about animal maintenance and breed should be documented with the active involvement of the communities, breeders association, gaushalas and NGOs. - Below ground biodiversity and agro biodiversity index
The agro biodiversity index can be used to monitor the loss of agro biodiversity in the agro biodiversity hotspots. Also the below ground level biodiversity index can be included in the soil health card scheme for assessing the wealth of soil biodiversity. - Land use planning
The agricultural land utilisation area need to be classified considering the importance of conserving the varietal genetic diversity. It is suggested to classify the agricultural landscape through a land use policy and the agricultural landscape can be classified as: a)Agro-biodiversity hotspots; b) Prime agricultural/farm lands (fertile); c) Watershed area; d) Double cropped land; and, e) Pasture land for livestock rearing. - Identify Problematic Invasive Alien Species
The spread of alien species is considered one of the greatest global threat to biodiversity. The spread and establishment of have resulted in significant negative economic consequences around the world along with posing threats to human health and agricultural species. A criteria need to be developed for identifying the problematic species and strategies need to be developed towards prioritizing, managing and controlling the spread of invasive alien species. - Integrate horticultural mission with the Green Highways Policy
A green highway is a new concept that includes a roadway design integrating the functionalities of transport and ecological sustainability. The aim for this concept is that growth and development should go hand in hand with sustainability of the eco system and public health. It is recommended that, horticultural crops, fruit bearing trees, medicinal plants , high value timber trees can be promoted in the national and state highways. - Compliance with the Biological Diversity (BD) Act
The agriculture related research institutions need to report to NBA, if any new taxon, breed(s), culture(s), strain(s) or line(s) discovered or developed. All the State Biodiversity Boards(SBBs) should notify the list of plant and animal genetic resources which are in the verge of extinction and necessary rehabilitative measures need to be taken. Also, the list of Normally Traded Commodities for domestic stock and breed of animal, insect and fish genetic resources need to be notified by the central Government. It is also suggested to activate Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) in the agro-biodiversity hotspots towards conserving and sustainable utilization of agro biodiversity resources. - Awareness and capacity building
Some of the existing programmes like Farmers Field School (FFS) can be used for creating awareness among farmers about the importance of agro biodiversity. Considering the importance of agro-biodiversity in the emerging global scenario, awareness/literacy campaign for conservation and sustainable management of agro-biodiversity need to be initiated at the gross root level, starting right from school, colleges, gram sabha/ panchayat level. - Finance mobilization and incentive mechanism
To conserve the agro-biodiversity, the financial mechanism can be mobilized through monetary and non-monetary sources. Economic incentives can be provided to the farmers switching over to ecological intensified farming practices (organic farming, integrated pest managementpractices, farming using native varieties) and polluter pay principle can be used to reclaim the agricultural lands affected due to industrial pollution and to reverse the ecology. - Include biodiversity experts in the national/state and district level committees for implementing various missions
The NBA, SBB, BMC representatives/ biodiversity experts may be included as a members in the national/state/district level committees of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare schemes viz a) National Food Security Mission; b) National Mission on Oliseeds and Oilpalm; c) Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture; and, e) National Livestock Mission.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.