A critical centrality to farmers and Farming and Lives and Livelihoods

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Private sector investments in water supply schemes, irrigation and power generation are reaching new heights Governments and the public sector have to focus increasingly on their responsibilities as wardens of the resource, as regulators and as the facilitators of favorable framework conditions so as to address the issue of water scarcity around the globe. However, it seems difficult to find a way out of the deepening crisis in the water sector. There is a tendency to look at privatization as a panacea to overcome the failure of the state in the past.  Foreign direct investment and international donors are believed to be the only source of funds to get over the resource crunch and solving problems of perceived water scarcity. There is also the issue of conflict management at various levels, starting with the village community and extending to the intra-watershed, within basin and sub-basin, as well as the inter-state disputes. A major problem is the lack of understanding of a rational basis for estimating water needs, evaluating the resource and creating a consensus for matching needs and availability. 

The advocates of privatization consider water as input for commodity production and hope to solve the problem through privatization. The alternative development strategy would be based on sustainable agriculture with low external inputs, regeneration of the eco system through the use of exogenous water and energy, and a restoration of degraded lands. Water would become a major factor along with labor, land and renewable energy to provide for the needs of the community.  In the alternative strategy, water sector reforms needs to be implemented simultaneously with the policy for entitlement to produce from land developed at public cost within the ambit of IWRM framework and by the application of The European Water Framework Directives

Reform of the water sector as a prelude to the operationalization of IWRM should be seen as a means to the wider restructuring of the agricultural and allied sectors, and energy reform that make a shift to a dispersed industrial production system based on biomass and renewable energy. There is a need to create socially regulated properties with non tradable rights to water and land. Privatization should be subject to prior allocations of land and water to create common property resources. A major objective of restructuring is to protect farms and farming and lives and livelihoods of people

 

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  1. Dear Sir,

    Your write up is extremely good with supportive facts towards the farming community and their livelihood. This is Murali.K, who has earlier worked with AFPRO at various locations as a Sr.Hydrogeologist. Having worked with rural development sector for many a years together, I clearly understand the oppressive approaches of every state government against the poor peasants.


    Sir every state or the other is diverting irrigation water to domestic and industrial purposes which naturally affects the livelihood farmers who are historically relying on this water for crop cultivation.

    Huge quantity of water originally allotted for irrigation has been increasingly diverted to non-irrigation purposes in every state without even consulting the farmers who are the first entitled to use water from dam per say. Rapid urbanization, along with changing lifestyle of the people in urban and semi urban areas puts enormous pressure on the almost all the government system to augment water supply for urban use. Because of various climatic changes, the rainfall also plays havoc with deficit rainfall in most of the catchment of the dams. Since the availability of water is limited, any re-allocation will have to come from the water earmarked as irrigation water. This reduces the overall availability of irrigation water, resulting in reduction in area irrigated. The worst sufferers are the tail-end farmers who are facing extra-marginal burden today in most of the command areas in every state for that matter. The situation is basically that in the absence of reliable water sources for non-irrigation purposes, states are trying to “ROB” the water from the dams and tanks which are originally constructed for the irrigation purposes to the elites living in the cities with all luxuries of life.

    As increased competition for irrigation water from non-agricultural sectors is in place, there is every possibility that farmers' agitations and their conflicts with the governments would aggravate in the future in every state of India.

    The existing water water policy, both at Central and State levels, does not provide any incentive for ‘voluntary transfer' or to put in right sense as “robbing of water” from irrigation to high-Value non irrigation uses. If such transfers of water take place the farmers should be adequately compensated with incentives-to create a congenial situation for both farmers and urban consumers.

    In many advanced and developed countries, it was learned that the water transfer from agriculture to other sectors takes place with the consent of the farmers who are adequately compensated for sharing their water. The farmers are provided with ‘user rights' which they can transfer to other sectors, if transfer benefits them adequately. The transfer takes place purely on voluntary basis; the government cannot transfer irrigation water without the permission of the farmers.

    But, in the Indian context, the property rights over water are still with the government; farmers, despite property rights over land, could gain such right for water.

    As urban elites and other industries are being placed well with rich economic terms, the water price needs to be increased substantially in many folds (baring the slum dwellers in cities) to compensate the farmers who have lost their livelihood opportunities because of diversion of irrigation water.

    There should be“in-built” mechanisms to compensate the farmers adequately for water diversion from agriculture to urban utilities. Policy level changes have to be in place with proper water acquisition policy similar to that of the land acquisition policy. Every basin and sub basin should have a through water balance so as to work out the diversion of water for non- agricultural usages.

    Murali.K

    1 Comment

    1. Dear Mr Murali, Nice to hear from you and I can only agree with all your concern and therefore, the better strategy is to move from a sectoral approach to an Integrated approach via IWRM and you may kindly refer to my previous post on IWRM