IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SARD INITIATIVE IN INDIA-Moderator's Report

Organization of the meeting

The meeting was convened by FAO in its capacity as UN system Task Manager for Agenda 21, Chapter 14 (SARD) and facilitator of the SARD Initiative. The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) organised and moderated the meeting, under contract to FAO.

Global SARD focal ponts for each of the Major Groups associated with the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) nominated individuals in India to act as national spokespersons for the Major Groups at this initial brainstorming session. In addition, representatives of the GTZ Sustainet project and the UN Solution Exchange also participated. A list of participants, with contact information is given in Annex I.

The agenda envisioned opening with background informatiion on the SARD Initiative, Solution Exchange and Sustainnet, followed by a sequence of brainstorming activities about SARDrelated problems in India and the possible role of the SARD Initiative. Due to an unavoidable traffic block which delayed the arrival of several participants, the organisation of the agenda was modified slightly, as shown in Annex II.

Conduct of the meeting

The collection of views on SARD-related problems in India was carried out by asking each participant to fill out a card for each problem or issue they wished to report, indicating which priority theme of the SARD Initiative it was related to, and which Major Group was reporting it. Following this exercise, brief presentations were made on SARD, the SARD Initiative, Sustainet and Solution Exchange, and participants were given a first opportunity to express their views on the possible role and focus of the SARD Initiative in India. During the lunch hour, the SEI team created an excel database listing the problems reported on the cards, by theme, and this was reviewed and confirmed by the participants in the early afternoon. Four matrix tables consolidating the information and views expressed regarding priority SARDrelated problems in India are shown in Annex III.

Issues raised and conclusions reached during the meeting

A. Mainstreaming SARD in the 11th National Development Plan

The afternoon discussion opened with an SEI presentation on mainstreaming SARD in national planning processes. The presentation revealed clear differences between the positive language and official commitments on SARD contained in the government report for the WSSD in 2002 and the relative lack of references to SARD in the 10th National Development Plan. It was noted that, if the group considered it important to try to get SARD mainstreamed in the 11th National Development Plan, there was only a small window of opportunity which would have to be seized now.

The group found the analysis quite interesting, but expressed reservations about the value of spending much effort trying to influence the 11th Plan. It was noted that:

• The orientation of each 5-year Plan is very much influenced by the interests and views of high-ranking persons involved in the planning process;

• Influencing the Plan is effected mainly through direct contacts with these persons;

• Numerous policy briefs are prepared and presented to working groups, but thier impact is usually limited;

• Even if it were possible to influence the Plan, this itself would not be sufficient to bring about needed changes.

B. Core policy issues for SARD at national level

The members of the group were unanimous in the view that the real obstacle to achieving SARD in India is not lack of knowledge about good practices, but rather the lack of political will and an enabling environment. Points highlighted by various speakers to reenforce this view included:

• SARD is important, but integration is needed at policy level to make it happen;

• Most new public/private sector collaboration initiatives do not address SARD, or at least not in an integrated way;

• Food, agriculture and rural poverty are downplayed in public discourse;

• Political economy tends to say that small-scale agriculture is not viable-policy orientation needs to change;

• Institutional infrastructure that would allow local initiatives promoting good practices to feed their experiences into programmes and policies at regional or national level is lacking;

• National programmes that rely on state governments for disbursement of funds are often implemented badly or not implemented at all due to siphoning off of the funds;

• Solid institutional setup that would allow farmers to tackle governance issues is lacking;

• Twenty years ago NGOs had a stronger voice in agriculture but privatisation has changed this.

A speaker from Sustainet summed up these points in the following words:

“Initiatives like Sustainet or SARD tried to promote these practices and feed the experiences made with them back into levels of policy-making. However, the institutional requirements to do so are often not in place. Implementing organisations often have no opportunity to voice their views and experiences on a regional or national level.”

C. Potential value-added of the SARD Initiative in drawing national attention to sustainability issues in rural development

In light of the above, the group felt that a central objective of the SARD Initiative in India, if it goes forward, should be to undertake a set of activities that could build national awareness of what it would mean and what it would take to implement SARD in India. In this regard, the following were identified as areas where the SARD Initiative could add value to ongoing efforts:

• A public education/awareness-building campaign built around case studies from the perspective of the poor and the marginalised from all over the country and success stories from farmers in rainfed areas;

• An institution-building effort aimed at reducing the number of overlapping interventions by SARD-Initiative stakeholders, bringing together those that work on similar things, and promoting more public/private sector collaboration;

• An institution-building effort aimed at establishing environmental governance mechanisms at policy level within state governments, which already hold the mandate for agricultural policy;

• A policy reorientation campaign focused on making sustainability the central focus of agricultural policy at both national and state levels.

D. Content of SARD policy reorientation campaign

The following observations were made about the need to reorient Indian agricultural policy toward sustainability:

• In India, agricultural policy is forcing agriculture into unsustainable production patterns. The Government is pushing only the sustainability of the cropping system, not the sustainability of the natural resource base or of farm livelihoods;

• Water-demanding crops (rice) are being growing in arid and semi-arid zones of the west where water scarcity is a serious problem;

• Contract farming for fruit and vegetables for export is leading to long-term leasing or selling of land by small farmers who have no viable alternative source of livelihood.

The group agreed that land use, water use and eating habits all need to change in order to achieve SARD in India. Examples of needed changes include:

• Encouragement of rice-growing in the water-rich east, not in the west;

• Encouragement of small farming households to eat what they grow;

• Promotion of finger millets and satariya for porridges [taking account of higher labor and possibly fuel demands for processing and cooking of these crops].

It was noted that economies of scale and balance between agricultural and non-agricultural sources of livelihood should be considered in rural development planning. Greater attention also needed to be paid to the relevance of holistic technologies for achieving SARD.

The group felt that the SARD Initiative could come into play in several ways:

• Mapping

  • Mapping areas of deprivation and marginalization for chronic as well as seasonal hunger as a basis for targeting actions aimed at promoting more sustinable livelihoods for the rural poor

  • Mapping agricultural production potentials of different agro-ecological zones as a basis for reorienting national agricultural policy

• Measurement

  • Developing indicators on SARD that measure more than just yields and farm productivity [TERI is working on this]

• Demonstration

  • SARD-I can take up the case in Indian civil society and SHOW alternatives.

E. Potential action areas at local level

Besides actions aimed at creating a more enabling policy environment, the SARD Initiative could also promote and support a range of activites at local level, with the goal of helping people gain immediate control over their own household economies. Two of the most promising possibilities would involve actions to accompany and ensure SARD outcomes for newly-launched government programmes to guarantee employment in some 200 districts in the ”poor belt”, and to supply nutritious cooked lunches to all primary school children in the country.

• Employment Guarantee Scheme

The environmental guarantee scheme holds great promise, as it represents a policy initiative that is beginning to move toward legitimising small farmers and tribals. In the 200 districts where it will be piloted this year, it will provide work opportunities that can enable indigenous people to invest in infrastructure for NRM (water harvesting, check dams, biofencing, roadbuilding). SARD Initiative stakeholders could exerise leadership for implementation of the employment guarantee schemes in ways that contribute to the achievement of more adequate and sustainable livelihoods for the target groups in the pilot districts.

• Midday Meals Programme

The universal midday meals programme in primary schools which entered into force at the beginning of 2006 offers a valuable opportunity for linking nutritional requirements and agricultural production patterns. At present, the concentration of effort is likely to be on implementing model programmes in large urban centers, with commercial farmers in the urban periphery being contracted to supply the food. SARD Initiative stakeholders could exercise leadership in bringing midday meals to rural schools in poor districts, where supply of local produce for the meals could provide a market outlet for small farmers.

Other areas highlighted as possible priorities for the SARD Initiative in India are listed below. In considering which of these action areas, if any, to take on, it was noted that account must be taken of the reality that changing farming practices is very difficult - farmers tend to be conservative about change, especially if previous advocacy campaigns have led them to believe that their current practices, e.g. using a lot of water to irrigate their fields, are the ones that will give the best yields and the highest incomes.

• Sustainable farming systems

  • Promoting organic agriculture through consumer advocacy and local market development for chemical-free organic agricultural produce and through certification schemes and processing facilities targeted at poor small farmers, especially women;

  • Promoting market-oriented, high-value low-volume agriculture to increase small farmer incomes and counter new Green Revolution;

  • Promoting planting of appropriate crops and use of improved technologies for dryland agriculture;

  • Promoting seed diversity, access to quality seeds, regenerative farming;

  • Promoting water use efficiency and safe drinking water;

  • Promoting crop insurance and other measures to free small farmers from money-lenders.

• Knowledge development and knowledge sharing

  • Expanding the reach of the Solution Exchange;

  • Promoting effective use of ICT in village knowledge centres (Swaminathan Foundation), especially in view of the danger that village people will treat everything the box says as ”true” ;

  • Promoting rural connectivity nationwide;

  • Integrating knowledge-development and knowledge-sharing activities across research institutions, teaching universities, extension services, and farmers’ groups;

  • Examining the IFSA/GLO inventory of 30 best practice cases that could be considered ready for upscaling to determine whether any would be advantageous for introduction/widespread replication in India.

• Empowerment of small farmers, tribals and other marginalized people

  • Linking sustainable agriculture to sustainable livelihoods;

  • Building up sustainable livelihoods around existing products of indigenous people;

  • Reviving farmers’ organizations and cooperatives, which have been destroyed;

  • Capturing and translating voices of poor women and marginalized people in general;

  • Promoting rights of women as small farmers and agricultural labourers;

  • Supporting and promoting women’s land groups;

  • Supporting and promoting joint forest management schemes;

  • Developing credit mechanisms that reach the rural poor(banking system, cooperative banks, input supply cooperatives);

  • Promoting corporate responsibility.

Decisions taken regarding follow-up

A. Expanding the stakeholder network

The group agreed that a larger network of SARD stakeholders would need to be consulted before deciding on whether to launch the SARD Initiative in India. It was noted that Sustainet planned to hold a workshop on upscaling good practices for sustainable agriculture in India at end April/early May. The group agreed that it would be desirable to hold a second brainstorming session for a larger group of stakeholders concurrent with the Sustainet workshop. A possible location could be Raipur, which would enable participants to visit one or more good practice sites in Chattisgarh, which is also the location of a large Tribal Development Programme, jointly funded by IFAD and DFID.

FAO indicated that, although it did not intend to continue playing a facilitative role for any length of time, in the belief that there was plenty of national capacity to carry the Initiative forward if it was deemed important, a small amount of seed money could be made available to prepare for and convene a follow-up meeting in three months’ time. The funds would be provided in the form of a field disbursement to the FAOR in Delhi.

B. Institutionalising the SARD Initiative in India

The group was unanimous in the view that the SARD Initiative in India, if launched, should not try to create a new institutional mechanism, but should rely on existing institutions and networks to achieve its objectives. In this connection it was noted that LEAD India, whose Executive Director was present as the Major Group Focal Point for Women, was a national stakeholder organisation that already included in its membership representatives of many civil society organisations and governmental agencies from different sectors that would likely have an interest in the SARD Initiative. As such, LEAD India (Leadership for Environment and Development) could consider hosting the SARD Initiative. For more background on LEAD see the websites for the UK-based global organisation (http://www.lead.org/page/1) and for the country programme in India (http://www.leadindia.org/ ).

In subsequent consultations held by the Moderator, it was suggested that a small Delhi-based group comprised of Jill Carr-Harris (LEAD), Pal Singh (ICRAF), Sarala Gopalan (NIA) and Ashok Ummat (ICC) might constitue an informal planning group to work with the FAOR on identifying a larger group of SARD stakeholders who might be invited to join the initial reflection process through, for example, preparatory Major Group network meetings or electronic exchanges. If constituted, this planning group could also advise on objectives, invitees and organisational arrangements for the May meeting.

The issues of placing the SARD Initiative in India within the framework of the government’s overall policy for follow-up to WSSD and of resource mobilisation were noted but not discussed.

The SEI team emphasised the importance of establishing a strategic plan of action with clearly defined goals, timeframe and impact evaluation indicators, including procedure for reporting to CSD in 2008 and 2009. Having such a plan and related monitoring system in place would enable the SARD Initiative in India to demonstrate concrete contributions to global objectives of supporting the transition to people-centred sustainable agriculture and rural development and strengthening participation in programme and policy development in the local context.

C. Immediate next steps

The group decided that it could initiate some immediate activities aimed at laying the foundations for a public education/awareness-building campaign . These are shown in the table below, with an indication of contributions each participant felt they could make from existing resources. Follow-up on implementation of these steps will be undertaken by the Office of the FAOR, on the basis of recommendations made by members of the informal planning group.