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As India marches towards conquering a center-stage in the global affairs and is being discussed in almost all global forums, it becomes increasingly important for the Indians - across the world - to undertake thoughtful study of issues of concern within and without. Thorough research, engaging analysis and careful debate, thus, become extremely crucial, especailly at this point of time. Initiatives such as The Great Indian Dream by the IIPM Think Tank create the much-needed platform in furthering such dialogues and carrying out the innovative exploration into socioeconomic spaces in India. Kudos to the team for such commendable work.

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(F)ACT SHEET
We have become a Garbage Nation with so much Wastage! Prasoon S. Majumdar........................................................................................ Cowboy or Spaceship Economy Siddhartha Mitra................................................................................................ Virtual Water Trade: Panacea for Water Scarcity M. Dinesh Kumar & O. P. Singh ...................................................................... Drylands and Desertication: Challenges & Opportunities Bhim Adhikari ..................................................................................................... Food Security and Life in Soils Gopikrishna SR............................................................................ ....................... Desertication and Food Crisis in India: What Media can Do? Mrinal Chatterjee .............................................................................................. Stranded on Dryland: Future of South Asia Sowmya Suryanarayanan................................................................................ Is there Political will to End these Dj Vu Drought Tragedies? Luc Gnacadja...................................................................................................... The G-20 Agriculture Talks Trap Mercin Menkes................................................................................................... Too Many Empty Bowls R.B. Bhagat ......................................................................................................... Axing the Forests Prabha Panth ......................................................................................................

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THE INDIA ECONOMY REVIEW

Editorial

The First Words and The Last Word

WE HAVE BECOME A GARBAGE NATION WITH SO MUCH WASTAGE!

Prasoon S. Majumdar, Executive Editor

s a child, whenever I used to nd excuses for not eating and waste thereby, my mom used to reprimand me by saying, if you dishonour food by wasting it then some day food would dishonour you. She used to keep reminding us that there are hundreds of families out there for whom even to manage a mere handful of rice is a daily struggle. This childhood learning had created such an impact that none in my family ever wasted even a grain of food served. But on the same aspect our nation presents a dichotomy when it comes to wastage. Be it food, electricity, water, or for anything which is termed in the dictionary of economics as a scarce resource is squandered to an extent that, if they are restored, it can by itself take care of all shortages and scarcities India is currently facing. Let us start with food, our most critical resource, for which almost 300 million Indians struggle for, day in and day out. According to a study undertaken at the behest of Ministry of Food Processing Industries, India wastes agricultural food items over a staggering $12 billion annually. To get the gure in the right perspective, this wasted produce is enough to feed Indias over 200 million people, without even calling for marginal or any production increase. Thats food, and now power. The abuse of electricity is so rampant that it has resulted in astronomical wastages. Way back in 2002, it was projected that our economy can conserve $12 billion by 2005 simply by improvising efciency in power generation and eliminating transmission and distribution bottlenecks. It goes without saying that nothing close to this benchmark has been achieved so far. Whats more, if we were to consider the energy efciency (in addition to electricity), the situation is even more dispiriting. For, D. H. Pai Panandiker of RPG Foundation bemoans the ridiculous excesses: to manufacture Rs.1 crore of GDP, India deploys four times as much energy resources as Japan or UK and 2.7 times as Brazil does. Moreover, massive power loss during transmission and distribution (which is pegged at 45 per cent) due to rampant power thefts which amount to a staggering 1.5 per cent of GDP. Cur-

rently, around 500 million people live with the regular problem of power-cuts. This boils down to a loss of $12.5 billion, all due to T&D inefciency. The same holds true for water too. Here too our scale of water wastage is frightening, and even more frightening is our ruthless ignorance towards it. The World Bank report of October 2005 stated that while developed countries have provisions for storage of nearly 5,000 cubic metres per capita and other developing countries like China, South Africa have made storage facility for at least 1,000 cubic metres per capita, India barely stores 30 days of rainfall. No doubt the public water system is the major cause of water shortages. Delhi government (supplies 220 liters of water per capita per day) is still clueless about stealing of its 50 per cent of total water supply! Thus, after the loss, the government is left with merely 110 litres of water per capita per day! Consider this: A random survey of 27,000 household connections in Ahmedabad revealed that 25 per cent of the water was wasted, owing to leakages in the system. Regardless of the results of this micro-study, one can safely presume that the case in other cities and towns would be no different. All in all, this wastage phenomenon is ubiquitous as far as India is concerned. But what is amazing is the irony this phenomenon depicts. How is it that the society known for its frugality can at the same time indulge in so much wastage and be silent about it? If my mom reprimands us for wasting even a grain of rice then so is the case with all such moms across the country. It is sad that we have miserably failed to translate our home grown lessons for our universal good!! Hopefully we would...someday.. Happy reading. Best,

Prasoon S. Majumdar
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

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COWBOY OR SPACESHIP
Certain trajectories of human development are inevitable and ultimately welfare enhancing and thus mankind will continue to prosper on this seemingly constrained planet

ECONOMY

THE IIPM THINK TANK

AMIDST ALTERNATIVES

SIDDHARTHA MITRA
Professor of Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata Formerly: Director (Research), CUTS International

e operate in a world of mostly scarce or exhaustible resources minerals, forests, sh, underground water, air quality etc. This scarcity is often said to be the reason for the expected trade-off between environmental conservation and income growth. Thus, according to the conventional argument, as growth brings a country to frontiers dened by resource availabilities or tolerable levels of pollution, it realises it is time to slow down. The current recognition of the mentioned trade-off has however not been associated with an adequate recall of what transpired in the developed world around two and a half centuries back when the frontiers seemed very far off, the prospects for economic advancement rosy, and the average levels of material afuence unsatisfactory. Exactly the opposite choices were made the resource base and the atmospheric and aquatic environment were plundered to race ahead and ll empty stomachs and willing purses. But this article is not be a critique of the developed world, nor a piece written in defence of the unprecedented pace of development in emerging India and China and in deance of Western attempts to curb that pace. Rather, it is an attempt to draw upon history to show that certain trajectories of human development are inevitable and ultimately welfare enhancing; and to synergise recent evidence and economic analysis to express optimism that mankind will continue to prosper on this seemingly constrained planet. The essence of my argument is based on the contention that while very many

resources on this planet are scarce and exhaustible and on the verge of dwindling to miniscule levels in the course of a few decades there are other such as solar and wind energy that are not only inexhaustible, but capable of becoming better substitutes for their scarce and exhaustible counterparts through the use of human capital which continues to appreciate through the processes of learning and doing and research and development; and yet others which are renewable but exhaustible if depleted rapidly (sheries, timber etc.) yet sustainable through an appropriate balance between consumption and production. In 1965 Adlai Stevenson, the US ambassador to the United Nations (UN) made a speech at the UN in which he said We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil. In 1966 Kenneth E. Boulding elaborated on this phrase in the title of an essay, The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth. Boulding criticized past characterizations of the world economy as a cowboy economy with unlimited resources and continued: The closed economy of the future might similarly be called the spaceman economy, in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution, and in which, therefore, man must nd his place in a cyclical ecological system. But while Boulding correctly drew attention to the scarcities and their constraining impacts, was the symbolic use of the space ship appropriate? Above, I have sketched out the foundations of my argument which stresses that Bould-

ing might have underestimated the multidimensionality of human progress: as civilization progresses and the scarcities mentioned by Boulding crop up, societies might switch to exploiting possible paths/dimensions of progress that have hitherto been unexploited. Below, I build on these foundations by drawing on the lessons which we can derive from history; recent trends in human behaviour that have just begun to emerge as the scarcities mentioned by Boulding become more imminent; rudimentary economic analysis; and of course, cheerful optimism! Let us start with history and the case study of the industrial revolution in Britain which began around the mid-eighteenth century and later spread through United States and the rest of Europe. Robert Lucas Jr. describes the transformation brought about by the industrial revolution in the following manner: For the rst time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have (had) begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has (had) happened before But as Charles Dickens remarks (though in a totally different vein) in his novel set in 19th century Europe, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This is because history tells us that economic growth was obtained through a shocking rape of air and water resources. Rivers became a burial ground for waste products from the growing manufacturing sector producing output through technologies that were much dirtier than those in use today, and those dumped by an ever growing

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number of households needed to service the industrial revolution. Quite obviously, the generation of incomes was of paramount importance and everything else took a backseat. The tale of worsening air quality was equally gruesome. London and Edinburgh became infamous for their smoke and fog, with the former nicknamed the Big Smoke. There was a massive increase in the emissions of hydrogen chloride and sulphur dioxide, one of the major contributors of acid rain. Human health and well being were often compromised during this industrial march. In the rst half of the 18th century, London and Paris, with respectively 1 and 2.4 million inhabitants in 1850, experienced recurring epidemics of cholera and typhoid because of water pollution. In 1832 over 20,000 Parisians died in a cholera outbreak; London experienced similar outbreaks. Returning to air pollution, an obvious effect was disruption of trafc. But respiratory difculties and sometimes deaths were also a consequence. For the uninitiated, a week of smog in 1873 accounted for 700 deaths in London while the Great London Smog of December 1952 accounted for 4,000 more. While economic models often credit their actors with perfect foresight, in the real world this is seldom the case. Moreover, under normal conditions,

when no immediate and common disasters confront the population, individual actors rms and households behave atomistically i.e. they fail to take into account the cumulative impact of their actions. The impressive economic growth seen in Britain during the 18th and the 19th century was a result of spectacular advances in industry originating from the mechanization of production and consequent increase in the productivity of labour as well as opportunities for its specialized application; and from changes in agriculture with the enclosure movement feeding industrys appetite for cheap labour, and productivity increasing due to inventions of sophisticated agricultural machines. While this was the transformation which took place at the level of the economy, one has to realize that each individual contributed his bit to the overall story by either responding to the entrepreneurial or employment opportunities provided by the industrial revolution or through individual innovations. Even the government contributed to economic growth through the controversial enclosure movement. But, though individuals at a low level of income strive for a betterment of their economic conditions, they are often unable to fully anticipate the adverse changes brought about by the accumulation of the adverse side effects of their

efforts. This is just as well because giant technological leaps, though ideal, are simply not possible. For example, it is too utopian to think of a change which is associated with a switch from operating with tools which are neither very productive nor produce much pollution to those that are very productive and at the same time do not dent the aquatic and atmospheric environment. In other words, technologies inevitably pass through a trajectory associated with low productivity and low pollution; then with high productivity and high pollution; and nally with productivity maintained at the mentioned high levels but much lower pollution. However, once economic improvements are accompanied by the rise of other evils (such as pollution or the rise of economic inequalities or exploitation) corrective measures gradually evolve, especially in democracies. Moreover, recent history suggests that countries operating under political systems that would not be classied as democratic (for example, single party rule) often encourage their citizens to voice their opinions about problems such as pollution which are generally not associated with a great deal of controversy. Such voicing of opinions is often a safety valve which prevents the stirring of unrest resulting from discontent in regard to other issues. Going back to the British experience of a positive association of water and air pollution with economic growth, this prompted reasonably swift remedial action. In the mid 19th century, London became one of the rst cities in the world to build a sewer system and improve drinking water supply through the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 which forced water companies to move their intakes upstream and regulate their ltration and storage. Similarly, following the Great London Smog, the rst Clean Air Act was passed which moved power stations and heavy industry from the densely populated large cities and made the use of smokeless coal mandatory. Between 1970 and 1994, the emissions of sulphur dioxide, one of the main contributors to acid rain, fell by around 60 percent.

THE IIPM THINK TANK

AMIDST ALTERNATIVES

WITH INDIA AND CHINA STILL BEING A DEVELOPING NATION, CAN THEY AFFORD TO ADOPT EXPENSIVE GREEN PRODUCTION METHODS?
While fast developing India and China have seen rapidly rising pollution levels, one has to realize that these countries are decades behind the Western World in terms of development for example, the per capita income in India is still at pre 20th century US levels. As development takes the population to higher levels of income, there is no reason why the natural demand for a cleaner environment will not lead to pro-environment measures. Evidence shows that China has responded faster to the need for cleaning up the environment than Western countries did after their industrial revolutions. Emphasis has been placed in China on meeting the countrys ever increasing power demand a natural consequence of economic growth through an increase in the share of hydroelectric power in total power production as well as massive increases in solar cell and wind turbine production. In regard to the constraints posed by the scarcity of exhaustible (non renewable, and renewable but exhaustible) resources, two important trends need to be pointed out. First, all over the world, experiments and pilot projects are being launched to replace scarce non renewable sources such as coal and oil with renewable and inexhaustible sources of energy (such as sunlight and wind). Let us take one example power consumption in the rural areas, power can be captured through the use of solar cells and then used later at night; for the urban areas, pilot models of near net zero energy homes, sometimes for entire communities, which create almost as much as energy as they consume over the year but smoothen out daily surpluses and shortages through interactions with the grid have been set up; and nally reputed engineering rms have come up with tractable models of thermal solar production which involve conversion of solar energy into steam and the use of the resultant heat energy for production and distribution of electricity through a centralized grid. Another reaction to scarcity is anticonsumerism recently, the Buy Nothing Day celebrated on the rst day of Thanks Giving (the ofcial start of the shopping season in the Anglo Saxon world) attracted over one million supporters spread over 40 countries. With the internet generating an exponential increase in the spread of ideas this movement and similar ones might spread rapidly. Related innovations could be government efforts to discourage consumption of items that are intensive in scarce materials through taxation, greater and more efcient use of recycling etc. But what will happen to the growth of national incomes? The rst thing to note here is that the annual decadal growth rate of national income per capita for the United States (annual average rate of growth of national income per capita taken over a decade) has hovered around the two percent mark over the last 120 years, with uctuations being dictated by recessions and booms. In other words, there has been no permanent dip in the growth rate of national income. In the future, if the anti-consumerism movement gains momentum as a reaction to the scarcity of raw materials and lifestyle diseases (brought about by overconsumption of food and gadget based sedentary living) and brings about a decrease in the purchases of new clothes, consumer durables and even food, while being accompanied by greater recycling of materials, the resulting decrease in consumption demand should drive in-

come down. But such changes which tend to depress income growth will be neutralised by others investments in new technologies to promote efcient use of renewable resources; and an exponential increase in the marketing of products that are extremely human capital intensive but not resource intensive for example, e-books and expensive software. Truth be told, comparison of the estimate of current national income with that generated a century from today might be rendered almost meaningless because of radical changes in the entire consumption basket from one primarily based on natural and depletable resources to that which attaches much greater importance to inexhaustible renewable resources and the use of human capital. But things dear to humanity such as the pursuit of knowledge and art would go on and become much easier; and life would probably become more comfortable as the combination of greater depth in information networks and meaningful governmental interventions would help people optimise their consumption patterns with greater foresight and lead longer, healthier and more fullling lives. Needless to say, I have abstracted from the ebb and ow of fortunes which often mark human progress over a much longer term. (SIDDHARTHA MITRA is currently Professor of Economics at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. In his earlier appointments he has been Director (Research), CUTS International and a Reader at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. Prof. Mitra has also taught economics at the University of Melbourne; and Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. He has served on consultative committees to the Ministry of Environment, Government of India and also as consultant to the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi and Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

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he argument that food import is a strong indicator of level of water decit that economies face; and that all economies around the world which face acute water scarcity problems can and should meet their water demand for food through cereal imports from water-rich countries has become dominant in the discussions on ways of facing global water challenges (Allan 1997: pp 4; Warner 2003: pp127). This has almost become a truism because some of the largest virtual water importing countries, the Middle East and North Africa, face serious water decits and some of the virtual water exporting countries are water-rich. It is true that when a crop which has high embedded water is grown in a humid, water-rich country and traded with a arid or semi-arid country in return for a crop which has high economic efciency (in Rs/m3), there would be a net water gain for the water scarce country as virtual water ows out of the waterrich country. With food imports, countries/regions achieve a net gain in water, which otherwise would have to be used from their own internally available resources (Chapagain and Hoekstra 2003: pp1). But the operational aspect of this concept needs to be looked into. Such an analysis would go far beyond mere agro-climatic variations and comparative water advantages, which scholars have already considered. There are factors other than mere climate and water surplus that would determine the success of converting this idea of virtual water trade into a practical problem-solving tool for water stressed countries, just as according to Earle and Turton (2003), there are factors that cause reliance on virtual water. While the virtual water trade concept is closely related to notion of comparative economic advantage, farm level decisions regarding crop production and marketing would be inuenced by public policy regarding the economy, international trade and the prices of inputs and outputs (Wichelns, 2003). Even in water scarce countries, there are major political economic considerations in allocating water resources across sec-

M. DINESH KUMAR
Executive Director, Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy, Hyderabad

O. P SINGH .
Assistant Professor, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University

VIRTUAL
WATER TRADE
PANACEA FOR WATER SCARCITY
Are food import and water trade related to each other and is virtual water trade a viable solution?

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THE IIPM THINK TANK

BLUE GOLD

tors and within sectors (Parveen and Faisal undated; Warner, 2003). Virtual water trade would also depend on the geopolitics of the region. But, the purpose of this contribution is to examine whether the much talked about water management goals such as global water use efciency and distribution of scarcity, as argued by many scholars, are really achievable through virtual water trade.

RENEWABLE WATER AVAILABILITY AND VIRTUAL WATER TRADE

There are many water-rich countries that are still resorting to food imports in an extensive way. There are a total of 65 countries belong to water-rich category that have trade decit in virtual water. The amount of water imported in the virtual form is more than exported. The trade decit ranges from a lowest of 4.9m3/capita/annum to 838m3/capita/ annum. For instance, Japan, which has a renewable water availability of 3390 m3/capita, is heavily dependent on cereal imports for its domestic consumption and the water equivalent of this amount to 645m3/capita annually. Many

extremely water-rich countries record high virtual water imports. On the contrary, there are several countries which are not really water-rich, but are on the verge of approaching the water stress mark. Examples are Afghanistan, Malawi, India, Thailand and Denmark. Their renewable water availability is below 3000 m3/capita mark, but export food grains, livestock, poultry and livestock products. The food grain export from India during 2000-01 stood at 2.39 million ton. It is a known fact that countries like India are already facing acute water stress in many pockets. For the depletion of groundwater resources and degradation of land through their intensive use, the all time record achieved in cereal production in India would not have been possible. The very fact that virtual water ows out of a relatively water scarce semi-arid country to a cold and humid country itself indicates that the goals of improved global water use efciency and distribution of scarcity does not get realized through virtual water trade as it happens today in the global context. This does not mean that water availability does not act as a variable in the food production function in a country context. It only means that total water sufciency does not necessarily mean food self-sufciency in a practical sense. Following explanations would help a better appreciation of the argument. A country can be water-rich through two ways. In the rst case, the magnitude of rainfall, runoff and groundwater recharge a unit land area receives becomes very high (examples are Finland, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia). In the second case, the rainfall, runoff and groundwater recharge rates are very low, but the amount of land which receives it (catchment area) is high owing to low population densities.

creases the ability to utilize the renewable water resources available in man-made and natural water resource systems. The increased agricultural water withdrawal thus made leads to more virtual water trade, these are the main assumptions we started with. The linear regression performed for analyzing the effect of agricultural land on the gures of water withdrawal for agriculture showed no effect. But as we have already discussed, these gures only show the blue water withdrawal. It does not take into account the green water usage by these countries. For many water scarce countries, which are rich in arable land, soil moisture use is a signicant component of the total water use for agriculture. Therefore, we ran the regression between gross cultivated land and effective agricultural water use.

VIRTUAL WATER TRADE VS REGIONAL WATER TRANSFERS

Now let us examine the implications of these two arguments for a water scarce country, characterized by regional variations in water endowments, for making policy choices between regional virtual water trade and water transfer. For this, we consider a food importing country. China, SADC countries and Spain are some of the countries/regions in the world that are characterized by major variations in water endowments, and rely on food imports. In Haihe watershed of northern China, the per capita renewable water availability is 358m3/annum against 3327m3/annum in Zhujiang watershed of South China, whereas the country average is 2195m3/ capita/annum (Yang 2002: pp1). We have to start with a reasonable assumption that water-rich regions have lesser amount of arable land as compared to water scarce regions in per capita terms, based on the evidences provided in the earlier section, and that arable land in such regions is already put to maximum use. From food selfsufciency point of view, it might make sense for the country to transfer water from the water-rich region to the water scarce region even if it may be at the cost of bringing down the net renewable water of the water-rich reTHE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

ARABLE LAND CONTROL AND VIRTUAL WATER TRADE DYNAMIC

The reason for this strong correlation between cultivated land and virtual water trade is increased ability to tap the water in the soil prole with increase in per capita agricultural land. Also increased per capita agricultural land in-

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gion below the acceptable levels dened by total water sufciency. This is because of two reasons: water in the soil pro le, which is not considered in assessing renewable water availability, would still be available; and water sufciency for food production directly relates to availability of arable land. Water transfer would increase utilization of water resources for crop production at country level. With increased water availability for irrigation, the area under cultivation might also go up signicantly resulting from increased land use intensity. As regards India, southern peninsula has vast amount of arable land that could be brought to intensive cultivation, if water is provided (GOI 1999). Northern Chinese provinces that are now facing severe water shortage, have been practicing intensive irrigated agriculture (Yang 2002). By embarking on major water transfer projects, the water management goal being achieved is improving the productivity of land in water scarce regions apart from equalizing water richness. It has been established that irrigation water use efciencies in arid and semi-arid, water scarce regions are much higher than that in humid, water-rich regions. All these arguments build a strong case for physical water transfer. While transfer of surplus water from water-rich regions to water scarce regions does not need a better economic rationale than increasing the productive use of the un-utilized water, the notable fact is that such transfers for agriculture lead to realization of greater economic value. The increase in land productivity achieved through bringing rain-fed crops under irrigation will have to justify the investments for transfer of surplus water from water-rich regions to water decit regions. The incremental

value realization might demand reallocation of more than the real volumetric surplus available within the water surplus region to a water-scarce region. But such additional transfers have to satisfy two conditions. First: the incremental value realized exceeds the cost of such transfer. Second: mechanisms exist for compensating for the economic and livelihood losses suffered by the water-rich region (Kumar et al., 2008a). This does not mean that water transfer is the only option for water decit countries/regions. Wherever possibilities exist virtual water trade should be encouraged. But for a region, which is well-endowed with good arable land, it would be the natural choice to bring in water from a water-rich region to improve the efciency of use of land, and thereby also efciency of use of water from the natural environment which remains under-utilized in surplus regions. But, physical efciency of irrigation water use is extremely low in third world countries resulting from absence of proper pricing leading to reduced water productivity. It has been found that when confronted with the scarcity value of water, farmers make efforts to improve the efciency with which water is used (Kumar 2005: pp39-51).

MAJOR FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

1. Cross country analyses of virtual water trade involving 131 countries show that renewable water availability does not have any bearing on virtual water trade volume. Further analyses show that virtual water ow dynamic is controlled more by the access to arable land than access to renewable freshwater. Gross cropped area explains virtual water trade to an extent of 40% with one per cent level of signicance.

INTERNATIONAL WATER TRANSFER WOULD INCREASE UTILIZATION OF WATER RESOURCES FOR CROP PRODUCTION AT COUNTRY LEVEL
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2. Increase in access to arable land leads to increase in effective water withdrawal in agriculture, irrespective of the strong mismatch between water richness and land richness. Many countries that are rich in arable land are water-poor, which in turn increases the irrigation water requirement; and water drawn from the soil pro le increases with cultivated land. 3. Since virtual water often ows out of water-poor, but land-rich countries to water-rich and land-poor countries, global water use efciency and distribution of scarcity are difcult goals to be achieved through virtual water trade. When virtual water ows into a water-rich country, what is being achieved is improved land use efciency. 4. Assessing the future food security challenges posed to nations purely from a water resource perspective provide a distorted view of the food security scenario. It may bring in

BLUE GOLD

complacency for water-rich nations; while unwanted pessimism for water scarce nations. Access to arable land equally or even more concerns countrys food security and therefore should be integrated with other considerations in national food and water policy making. 5. Assessing the water management challenges posed by nations purely from the point of view of renewable water availability and aggregate demands will be dangerous. Access to water in the soil prole would be an important determinant of effective water availability for food production, from which a major portion of the aggregate demand comes. 6. The dominant water management paradigm suggested for water scarce countries that are characterized by major regional variations in the resource endowment and still relying on food imports is virtual water transfer. But, this could spell doom if arable land is limited in the well

endowed area. Under such circumstances, inter-regional water transfer options could be explored thereby enabling productive use of both land and water for crop production at the country level. Transfer of water in addition to the volumetric surplus available in the water-rich region also might be desirable as it helps improve the economic outputs from the use of water. 7. Policy Inferences: The regional debates in South Asia, China and some of the SADC states on setting policy priorities to deal with water shortages for food production are heavily inuenced by virtual water trade argument. Our analyses show that while global water use efciency and availability of blue water for food production could be important concerns that inuence country water policies of water-poor nations, they could not be the decisive factors. Availability of arable land that effectively increases the potential for tapping water in the soil pro le therefore effective water availability, and degree of dependence of a country on water for economic growth and its population for livelihood are important considerations. Regional food trade has limited relevance from a global water use efciency perspective. But, there could be a new window of opportunity, if we change the rationale for virtual water trade from water use efciency and distribution of scarcity to land use efciency; adopt productivity potential of water as the water management goal; and we consider regional water transport as a technically feasible option. The idea is to physically transfer the water to naturally water scarce regions; put it to use; and then transfer food grains produced to the waterrich and land-poor regions. The volume of virtual water embedded in food export can be treated as an exchange for taking water out of surplus areas. This will help avert any inter-state conicts that could arise from decisions to take water out of water-rich states. Another important benet of such transfer arrangements is that the water

scarce regions that intensively use their endogenous water for livelihood will continue to have their irrigation-based livelihoods. Massive transfer of water to these water starved regions and its subsequent use for irrigation would also result induced groundwater recharge (Kumar et al., 2010). The impact will be double: rst, water transfer will reduce groundwater pumping, and the return ows from irrigation would increase recharge thereby reducing the stress on groundwater. The increase in land productivity achieved through bringing rain-fed crops under irrigation will have to justify the investments for transfer of surplus water from waterrich regions to water decit regions. But, as Kumar et al. (2008a) notes, the amount of water to be transferred could be more than the real volumetric surplus available within the water-rich region, if the incremental value realized in the water-scarce region exceeds the cost of such additional water transfer, and mechanisms exist for compensating for the economic and livelihood losses suffered by the water-rich region through such transfers. (M. DINESH KUMAR is currently the Executive Director of Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy (IRAP). He had worked very closely with many reputed international and national agencies like UNICEF. He has nearly 120 publications to his credit, including three books; many book chapters; and several papers in international peer-reviewed journals. O. P. SINGH joined the International Water Management Institute India Project Ofce as Consultant in February 2002. He has more than thirteen years of rich experience of working with academic, research institution and NGOs in the area of natural resource economics and management. He has more than 60 publications to his credit including articles in national and international journals, book chapters, monographs etc. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
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DRYLANDS AND D
BHIM ADHIKARI
Programme Officer (Dryland Ecosystems), UNU-INWEH

CHALLENGES &

Diversication of of livelihood strategies is a must in drylan

rylands cover 40% of global land area and support almost one third of the worlds population (Adeel et al., 2008). Further, they feature some of the worlds fastest growing populations which have placed increasing pressures on these fragile ecosystems (Boone et al., 2007). Land degradation has become one of the pressing issues in drylands that has a greater drag on economies that are heavily dependent on the agricultural sector (Alfsen et al., 1997). Poor management of land is one of the major causes of land degradation. Up to 71 percent of the worlds grasslands are reported to be degraded to some extent as a result of overgrazing, salinization, alkalinization, acidication and other processes (FAO/LEAD, 2006). Grasslands and rangelands in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas are particularly affected (Safriel, et al., 2005). The impact of land degradation has direct implications on foregone income and decreased food security (Barbier and Bishop, 1995). For example, it has been noted that the annual cost of degradation in the Sub-Saharan African countries is more or less equivalent to their mean agricultural growth thereby limiting the scope of rural development (Requier-Desjardins, 2006). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment highlighted the fact that degradation of dryland ecosystems will have negative impacts on biodiversity hotspots as well as human well-being through the loss of ecosystem services (MA, 2005). In many areas, farmers

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ISOLATING INCOMES

D DESERTIFICATION
have been forced to place an emphasis on crops that are only economically viable which has reduced the resilience of these ecosystems to drought and other external factors (Safriel and Adeel, 2005). The population dynamics of the drylands combined with the limited supply of resources and unsuitable agricultural techniques has lead to severe poverty, desertication and ultimately reduced the welfare in these regions.

S & OPPORTUNITIES

drylands in order to reduce the risk of income failure from any single source

SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHALLENGES IN DRYLANDS

Dryland ecosystems are dened as terrestrial areas where climate is classied as dry sub-humid, semi-arid, arid and hyper arid. They are characterized by high temperatures and solar radiation and low levels of precipitation which leads to high rates of evapotranspiration. The arid zones are characterized by low and unpredictable rainfall which allows pastoralism to be the dominant source of livelihood strategy (Nassef et al., 2009). Traditional livelihood strategies in the drylands are largely related to livestock and agriculture related activities. Pastoralists have adapted to the arid zones by creating a mobile yet large and diverse livestock herd that reduce risk created by a scarce resource base. The mobility of the livestock allows pastoralists to optimize the use of rangelands according to the uctuating availability of water, while the diversity and size of the herds provide insurance against stock loss during extreme weather shocks (Brooks, 2006). On the other hand, the semi-arid zone receives
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a higher level of rainfall which allows the inhabitants of these regions to depend on crop-production as a source of subsistence livelihood. However, the seasonal nature of agriculture forces dryland populations to rely on a variety of livelihood strategies including hunting, gathering, shing and non-farm activities (Ellis, 1998). This diversication of livelihood strategies allows the dryland population to reduce the risk of income failure from any single source and negate the volatility that is typically associated with the agricultural sector (Ellis, 1998). Also, synergies are found within a community where different livelihood strategies such as crop and livestock production are practiced. For instance, cultivation of fodder can decrease the pressure of livestock on rangelands while the production of manure reduces the dependence on fertilizer while enhancing crop production (Safriel and Adeel, 2005). However, the rapidly increasing population of the drylands places increased demands on the traditional forms of livelihoods, such as crop and livestock production. In response to the increased pressure, land users place the long-term viability of their livelihoods in jeopardy by adopting technologies that lead to further degradation of an already fragile resource base (Darkoh, 1998). Also, migration of inhabitants of less arid environments (high population density) to marginal arid lands (low population density) leads to conict and instability in the drylands since the local indigenous populations and migrants often compete for the same land-based resources (Darkoh, 1998). In many areas, there is a lack of clearly de ned property rights that has reduced the efciency of existing livelihood strategies. Land tenure policy in the last few decades has been driven by privatization and nationalization agendas in an attempt to reduce the stock of livestock by limiting the mobility of pastoralists (Leach and Mearns, 1996). Also, the privatization of lands was designed to provide an economic incentive for land users to invest in maintaining or improving
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land productivity. However, these policies failed to yield the desired results because the resources were not truly open-access but were subject to communal obligations that ensured the sustainability of these resources (Scoones et al., 1993). The failure to acknowledge the true nature of these communal resources lead to further degradation as the drylands became available to non-traditional users who lacked awareness of the established rules (Fratkins and Mearns, 2003). Agricultural activities in the drylands is severely constrained due to the lack of technology and nancial market availability that allow the transfer of credit from savers to borrowers, resulting in an efcient allocation of resources while maximizing the investment potential for all farmers (Esguerra, 1996). Poverty alleviation in dryland communities is often contingent on the success of small-scale farming which

has been shown to be the primary force behind economic growth in these regions (Kydd and Dorward, 2001). This is primarily due to the nature of smallscale farming that tends to be labourintensive and the money generated by these operations tend to be spent on locally produced goods (Mayrand and Paquin, 2006). On the other hand, large-scale operations tend to be capital-intensive and rely on external inputs. Inadequate systems for assessing rural entities, high transaction costs and a lack of an appropriate mechanism for credit enforcement have constrained the effectiveness of nancial markets in the drylands (Llanto, 2004). Despite an increase in international agricultural trade in the last decade, rural dryland communities have not experienced the benets that are typically associated with market liberalization (Mayrand and Paquin, 2006). This can be primarily attributed to a shift

ISOLATING INCOMES

from the traditional domestic market to the new global market. Increased transaction costs, higher levels of risk and capital investments are typical characteristics of the global markets (Kydd and Dorward, 2001). Large-scale farmers are capable of absorbing high levels of risk and invest in expensive capital inputs and therefore capture the majority of the new market share created via trade liberalization (Mayrand and Paquin, 2006). This results in a further increase in inequity and reduces the impact of trade liberalization on poverty alleviation since small-scale farmers are further marginalized. In order to achieve an equitable distribution of benets from trade liberalization it is imperative to implement domestic policies that aid small-scale farmers to fully participate in global markets. Agricultural subsidies in developed countries can also be considered to be barriers in the sustainable development of the drylands. Domestic subsidies create distortions by providing incentives for overproduction of certain crops which lead to prices that are lower than those found in an undistorted market (Diao et al., 2003). This downward trend in prices has a pronounced impact on the environmental and economic conditions of the drylands. For instance, cotton subsidies in the developed countries have supposedly resulted in a yearly loss of US$250 million in West and Central African countries (Pfeifer et al., 2004). This loss of income has severe environmental consequences as farmers tend to increase agricultural production by expanding into marginal lands or forests to compensate for the lower prices which further decrease the primary productivity of the drylands. In Mexico for example, farmers increased corn production by expanding into forest reserves due to the adverse new market conditions created by NAFTA (Nadal, 2000). It should be noted that the removal of these subsidies does not guarantee economic and environmental sustainability for the drylands. Finally, many African drylands are considered to be vulnerable to extreme weather events such as ooding and drought brought on by climate change which

poses a signicant constraint for dryland farmers (Cooper et al., 2008). Increasing temperatures will lead to higher rates of evotranspiration exaggerating the problems caused due to water scarcity. Since the majority of the dryland populations depend on landbased resources, climate change threatens the food security of the region by adding another layer of risk to the traditional livelihood strategies. Although desertication is thought to occur by overexploitation of resources, it has also been argued that the inherent nature of a traditional livelihood such as pastoralism can contribute to the process (Safriel, 2004). All these socio-economic, institutional and environmental constraints strongly justify the need for promoting alternative livelihoods in marginal drylands.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Drylands offer a number of oppertunities to conserve local environment through creation of alternative livelihood systems (Reynolds et al, 2007). Some crucial interventions in drylands would be sustainable land management and integration of range management, wildlife management, and soil and water conservation. Further, rehabilitation of drylands such as forest management and desertication control will make great impact on the livelihoods of marginalized pastoral communities in many dryland countries. Dryland ecosystems in these areas produce many important Ecosystem Services (ES), including regulation of water quantity and quality, biodiversity, erosion control and carbon sequestration (Thomas, 2008). However, the failure of markets to internalize ecological externalities associated with dryland ecosystem services is the main obstacle for appreciating their values. Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs have been highlighted as one way of sustaining these valuable services as well as promoting alternative livelihood strategies in these areas (Thomas, 2008). For instance, PES schemes that focus on reducing land degradation and desertication through forest management and conservation, ecotourism, and sustainable land use in

agriculture hold great promise for offsetting the growing environmental problems in drylands and improving the well-being of the local people. Furthermore, sandstorm control and wind erosion reduction, conservation of biodiversity, improved water productivity and ood erosion control are a few notable ES provided by rangelands in marginal drylands. Ecotourism continues to be a major source of household income in key rangeland regions, however, there is an urgent need for government policy to recognize the important role of communities in wildlife conservation and natural resource management within protected and community owned lands (Mortimore, 2009). Dryland conservation agriculture has been highlighted as one specic practice that could be actively supported by a PES scheme for carbon sequestration (Lal, 2001). It involves growing crops that are resilient to drought and promotes the biological functioning of the soils (moisture retention, fertility, erosion prevention, etc.). The biggest challenge in setting up conservation agriculture-related PES schemes is the time lag and resources required for farmers to convert to a different form of cultivation. More research is needed to understand what kinds of reward mechanisms would ensure that the capital goods required are provided to farmers. Finally, the development of PES schemes in drylands requires tenure reforms, enabling policy, institutional and legal environment as well as involvement of a diverse array of actors. (BHIM ADHIKARI is an environmental social scientist with expertise on environmental economics, institutional analysis, climate change adaptation and community-based natural resource management. He is working with United Nations University- the Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), the United Nations think tank on water. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
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FOOD SECURITY
AND LIFE IN SOILS
Government policies to combat soil degradation has failed miserably as they never adopted a holistic approach

GOPIKRISHNA SR
Specialist in Agricultural Communications and Policy, Greenpeace India

ven with increasing awareness about natural resources degradation and its impact on livelihoods, we often take our soils for granted. We refer to it as a nonliving entity and a medium for plant growth, and tend to forget that its a living ecosystem that supports millions of life forms. Moreover, our food security is highly dependent on life in soils. Soil is a major reserve of planets genetic biodiversity. However, only a fraction of life forms in soils can be seen through naked eyes and most of it can only be seen through microscopes. Studies show that a gram of soil can contain as many as 10,000 different species. These life forms play a critical role in helping soils to function prop-

erly. Functions of soil include sustaining biological productivity, regulating water ow, storing and cycling nutrients, ltering, buffering, and transforming organic and inorganic materials. Health of soil is dependent on its chemical, physical, and biological components and their interactions. Most of the living organisms in the soil are agriculturally benecial. All have important roles in maintaining soil health and sustaining agricultural production. But interestingly, while much attention and investments in agricultural research has been made on harmful ones and controlling them with agro-chemicals there is hardly any focus on conserving the benecial living organisms in the soil. Moreover, indiscriminate use of

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POLICY PERSPECTIVE

chemical fertilizers (catalyzed by the Central Governments liberal subsidy policy over several decades) and pesticides along with intensive monocropping has led to degradation of the soil. Indicators of good soil quality like microbial biomass, enzymatic activity and water holding capacity are all drastically reduced under chemical intensive agricultural practices.

ORGANIC MATTER LIFELINE OF SOILS

The organic matter in soil comes from biological sources. In a natural ecosystem, leaf litter, woody materials, dead bodies of living organisms etc accumulates in the soil, which in turn gets acted upon by microbes in the soils and gets decayed to a point at which it is no longer recognizable. Then it is called soil organic matter. Organic materials act as food and shelter for microbes in the soil. Soil organic matter plays a key role in soil-function, determining soilquality, water-holding capacity and susceptibility of soil to degradation. In addition, soil organic matter also serve as a source or sink to atmospheric CO2 and also acts as a source of nutrients for plant growth. Hence, organic matter is considered as lifeline of soils. In traditional agriculture, farmers used to adopt lot of agro-ecological practices which helped in supplying the much needed organic matter. However with the advent of chemical intensive agriculture, policy makers, extension systems and farmers neglected ecological/organic fertilization. This has led to drastic reduction on soil organic matter content, which in turn added to the decline of life forms and degradation of soil ecosystem.

lenges are scattered and are miniscule. The policies never adopted a holistic approach and hence they failed in addressing the crisis effectively. On the other hand, the mindless support for chemical fertilizers continued jeopardising the soil ecosystem. In this context, it is to be understood that the quality of soil is rather dynamic and is controlled by chemical, physical, and biological components of soil and their interactions. Physical and chemical properties are shaped by biological activity which in turn is enhanced or limited by chemical and physical condition. Hence, management strategies that optimize multiple soil functions have a greater potential

in improving cultural practices, and in devising appropriate implements for growing and harnessing plant bio-mass. Even though there were no coordinated strategies developed to generate biomass, there were studies by scientists which showed that sufcient biomass can be generated through a combination of practices at the farm level itself. Livestock being a critical source of manure needs to be promoted as an integral component of the farm. It is true that many practices associated with ecological fertilization are currently labour-intensive. But little thought has gone into developing this labour intensive nature of ecological fertilization as an opportunity to gener-

GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO COME UP WITH A COMPREHENSIVE BIOMASS STRATEGY IN ORDER TO RESTORE LIFE IN SOILS AND PREVENT DEGRADATION
for improving soil-health than management strategies that focus on a single function. Soil organic matter, the lifeline of soil, can be built up in soil through ecological fertilization practices only. Ecological fertilization practices that bring in holistic improvement in soil health include reduced tillage, crop residue recycling, green manuring, farm yard manure application, compost application, biofertiliser and liquid manure application, soil surface mulching, poly cropping with inclusion of legumes in cropping sequence and integration of trees (modied alley cropping) on cropped lands etc. All these agro-ecological practices and several others on their own or in combinations have been reported to improve soil quality, restore life in soils and increase crop yield. Ecological fertilization is neglected citing reasons such as non-availability of biomass and high labour costs associated with such practices. A limiting factor is that few resources have been invested thus far in evaluating species, ate rural employment opportunities. Conicting use of whatever little biomass available in farms is another concern. Biomass such as dried cowdung cakes, pressed leaf litter etc are used as cooking fuels. It is also used in energy production. Hence the Government needs to consider all these various factors and come up with a comprehensive biomass strategy if it has to restore life in soils and sustain agricultural production. This is vital for ensuring food security of the country. There is also need for policies that will restrict indiscriminate use of chemicals in Agriculture. The time to act is now. (GOPIKRISHNA SR is a specialist in Agricultural Communications and policy. He campaigns for a sustainable future in Agriculture. He is currently associated with Greenpeace India The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
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PRESENT CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD

After recognizing the threat posed by the degradation of soils, the Government has come out with several policies in the past with an intention to tackle the crisis. However the crisis still persists and is getting even worse. This is mainly because the Government support systems for addressing these chal-

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DESERTIFICATION AND FOOD CRISIS IN INDIA

WHAT MEDIA CAN D

How media can mitigate the threat of desertication as an enabler, public sphere, informer or as a platform for debate and discussions and above all as a watchdog
and nature made: Atacama in Chile, the Sonora in Mexico, the Sahara in Africa, the Thar in India. Desertication on the other hand, is the rapid, human-induced creation of deserts the sudden, accelerated conversion of arid or semi-arid land, usually by overgrazing, deforestation, over-extraction of groundwater, drought, over-planting, or some nasty combination of the ve. The worlds great deserts were formed by natural processes interacting over long intervals of time. During most of these times, deserts have grown and shrunk independent of human activities. Desertication has played a signicant role in human history, contributing to the collapse of several large empires, such as Carthage, Greece, and the Roman Empire, as well as causing displacement of local populations. However, with time desertication has assumed more importance because of two factors: a. with increase in population demand for food has increased, and b. human activities impacting land degradation have increased. Land degradation will add to the adverse impact of each of these problems. Land degradation, in fact, in several parts of the world is triggering the crisis, especially in countries with vast drylands. Drylands occupy approximately 4041% of Earths land area and are home to more than two billion people. It has been estimated that some 10-20% of drylands are already degraded, the total area affected by desertication being between 6-12 million square kilometers. It is also estimated that about 1-6% of the inhabitants of drylands live in desertied areas, and a billion people are under threat from further desertication that is roughly 20 per cent more than the total population of European continent.

MRINAL CHATTERJEE
Teacher, Author and Media Trainer in India

t is no longer news in Nigeria that the Sahara Desert is moving southwards at a rate of 0.6 km per year. What is news is that about 35 million people in northern Nigeria are suffering from the effects of desertication. And the menace is posing a serious threat to the nations economy, food security and employment. Desertication is a global problem which is one of the prime factors of food crisis in many developing and poor countries.

DESERTIFICATION IN INDIA
India occupies only 2.4% of the worlds geographical area, yet supports about 16.7% of the worlds human population; it has only 0.5% of the worlds grazing land but supports 18% of the worlds cattle population. Thus there is tremendous pressure on our landbased natural resources. India is endowed with a variety of soils, climate, biodiversity and ecological regions. About 50.8 mha land area (15.8% of the countrys geographical area) is arid, 123.4 mha (37.6%) is semi-arid and 54.1 mha (16.5%) area

HOW DOES IT AFFECT?

Willem Van Cotthem, Honorary Professor of Botany, University of Ghent (Belgium) writes in his blog, The world is seeing a food, energy, climate and credit crisis, each having repercussions on every sphere of human activity.

It is important to keep in the mind the distinction between deserts as a specic ecosystem and desertication as a specic process. Deserts are beguiling
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PHOTO: MUKUNDA DE

DESERTIFICATION

MEDIA MATTERS

N DO?

falls in the dry subhumid region. All put together, about 228 mha area, i.e. 69% of the geographic area of the country is dry land (arid, semiarid and dry subhumid). In India, the total area under desertication is 81.45 mha. Water erosion (26.21 mha), wind erosion (17.77 mha), vegetal degradation (17.63 mha) and frost shattering (9.47 mha) are the major processes of desertication. Nearly one third of the countrys land area (32.07%) is undergoing processes of land degradation. There are about eight major processes of land degradation active in the country. Water erosion is the most pronounced process, followed by vegetal degradation and eolian processes. Total area under land degradation is 105.48 mha. Area-wise Rajasthan, J&K, Gujarat and Maharashtra have high proportions of land undergoing degradation. 81.45 mha land area of the country is undergoing the process of desertication.

WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE CAUSES?

The causes of desertication could be both natural and/or man made. Major causes for desertication are: change in frequency and amount of rainfall, reduction in vegetal cover, wrong agricultural management practices, cultivation on marginal lands, over-exploitation of the natural resources, excessive grazing, etc. Often it falls into the trap of the vicious circle: reduction of vegetal cover triggers desertication, it forces people inhabiting the area to exploit vegetal cover of a larger area thus aggravating desertication.

ITS IMPACT ON FOOD PRODUCTION AND FOOD INSECURITY

Desertication reduces the natural potential of the ecosystems and has a direct impact on people in terms of vulnerability to food shortages and natural disasters, depletion of natural resources and deterioration of the environment. Continuing desertication could have a far-reaching environmental, social and economic impact, which could trigger
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and/or add food insecurity.

WHAT COULD BE DONE?

Combating desertication is key to tackling global food crisis. There are several ways to combat and contain desertication. Vegetation plays an essential role in protecting the soil, especially trees and shrubs, because their long life and capacity to develop powerful root systems assure protection against soil erosion. Their disappearance can considerably increase the vulnerability of the land to turn into a wasteland. However, the silver lining is: a number of diversied farming systems have been evolved for low-rainfall areas, which include agro-forestry, agri-horticulture and agri-silvi-pasture, to sustain livelihood during crop failure and to maintain livestock during drought. Desertication gives rise to socioeconomic problems. Therefore policy interventions and socio-economic
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measures also need to be taken. A strategy to combat desertication could be like: Develop the Natural Resource Conservation of land, water and perennial biomass Treatment of problem lands Expand horticulture, forestry and agroforestry Develop need-based NRM related infrastructure Management of Developed NR Formal allocation of user rights System of management of assets created (e.g. user charges) Sustainable use of developed NR (e.g. social regulation) Non-farm Livelihoods Diversication and link to markets Upscaling of successes Focus on productivity enhancement Support to Self-Help Groups

WHAT IS BEING DONE?

Government of India has framed several policies and started a number

of programmes to counter desertication and its fall outs. Some of them include: National Environmental Policy 2006, which said . while conservation of environmental resources is necessary to secure livelihoods and well-being of all, the most secure basis for conservation is to ensure that people dependent on particular resources obtain better livelihoods from the fact of conservation, than from degradation of the resource. It also emphasized on undertaking measures that wereconsistent with the local sociocultural practices and combines traditional and modern science based knowledge. National Policy for Farmers 2007, which attempted to address declining agricultural growth and protability and increase off-farm employment opportunities to create demand for farm products and to increase farmers resilience

MEDIA MATTERS

National Rainfed Area Authority (2007) attempted convergence of programmes and institutions National Policy on Voluntary Sector 2007 envisaged Joint Consultation, Collaboration and Capacity Building of voluntary organizations. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, which aimed to enhance livelihood security by providing 100 days of unskilled wage employment per year for one member of willing household. It came into effect, on a pilot basis, in February 2006 in 200 economically disadvantaged districts of the country. In the second phase of implementation, it was extended to 130 additional districts and the remaining districts were covered in the third phase on April 1, 2008. About one third of the persons days of work created was earmarked for work related to combating desertication National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy 2007 attempted to minimize displacement, promote alternatives and undertake time bound and adequate rehabilitation Bharat Nirman Yojana (2005-2009), a time bound plan for rural infrastructure (electricity, all weather roads, telephone and additional irrigation capacity) National Food Security Mission

2007 aimed to Increase productivity of rice, wheat and pulse through area expansion (except rice) and productivity enhancement in sustainable manner. It also aimed to restore soil fertility and productivity at individual farmlevel and Enhance farm prots to restore condence of farmers of targeted districts. National Agriculture Development Scheme 2007 provided incentives to States for increasing investments in agriculture sector. It provided local exibility and autonomy in planning for development of agriculture and allied sectors As can be seen there has been no death of plans and schemes. The challenge; however is to take those systems to elds and actually operationalising them. Media can help here.

gestions for solutions of problems can be aired and discussed. For example, media can help discuss the suggestions M S Swaminathan offered to mitigate hunger and ensuring food security in the Food Security Atlas. Socially responsible journalism is a struggle to gain public space within the private sphere. Media as an Informer: Media can inform people about various problems of society, and what causes them, and what is being done or not done about them. This helps x accountability. It can also inform people about opportunities and how to avail them. Media as a Platform: Media can provide a platform, where people can air their grievances, put forth their views, and participate in schemes to mitigate their problems. Media as a Watchdog: It is said that sunshine is the best disinfectant. That somebody is watching me is the best deterrent to lot of social maladies like corruption. Media can play the watch dog role to ensure that the government schemes function properly and corruption is contained. Desertication is too big and urgent a problem to be taken lightly. As the executive secretary of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), better known as the Rio Conference. Luc Gnacadja, had said If we cannot nd a solution to this problem ... in 2025, close to 70 percent [of the planets soil] could be affected, Gnacadja said. There will not be global security without food security. Now with a billion people under threat from further desertication- the threat is staring at our face. We better act fast. (DR. MRINAL CHATTERJEE is a distinguished teacher, author and media trainer in India. He has worked in almost all media with lan. He is a very popular columnist in Orissa. His columns appear in several newspapers and periodicals in Orissa. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
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HOW CAN MEDIA HELP?

Media can play ve roles in mitigating the situation. There can be considerable overlapping in the roles. Media as an Enabler: Media increases peoples access to information. Information makes them appreciate the problem. It gives people power to face the challenges. Media as a Public Sphere: People can air and share their ideas through mass media. Issues can be discussed. Sug-

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SOWMYA SURYANARAYANAN
Research Analyst, Strategic Foresight Group

he growing threat of desertication and land degradation in South Asia will have long-term impacts on the enormous population that calls the region home. Desertication received global attention after severe droughts in the Sahel region in Africa between 1968 and 1973 that caused famine and dislocation on a massive scale. Since then, several international efforts have tackled desertication, leading to the adoption of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertication (UNCCD) in 1994. Under the Convention, desertication is dened as, land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from multiple factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Changing weather patterns, in addition to unsustainable development practices, are accelerating and intensifying the desertication process and could result in forced migration and conicts.

STATUS OF DESERTIFICATION
The spread of land degradation and desertication is no longer limited to the arid regions of a country. Increasingly, more cultivable land is being affected or is at risk of land degradation and desertication, causing severe distress to the agrarian population. Between 25 percent and 32 percent of Indias total geographical area is affected by some form of desertication and land degradation respectively. Additionally, degradation of drylands, which accounts for roughly 69 percent of the countrys land area, could have severe implications on the livelihood and food
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ASIAN ARMAGEDDON

security of millions, especially the poor. States such as Rajasthan, Kashmir, Gujarat and Maharashtra are prone to desertication at present. Similarly, Bangladesh and Nepal are threatened by desertication, though both countries have abundant water resources. Around 43 percent of Bangladeshs total geographical area is subjected to various forms of land degradation. Land degradation is more pronounced in the North Western region of the country, which includes densely populated areas such as Rajshahi, Pabna, Bogra and other adjoining areas. In Nepal, around a third of the total area in the Himalayan region has little to no vegetation, making it a threatened ecosystem, which demonstrates the characteristics of cold desert. It has been estimated that approximately 10,000 hectares of highland areas in the Western part of Nepal are slowly showing signs of desertication.

SHIFTS IN CLIMATE
The South Asian region is extremely susceptible to drought, variability in monsoons, oods and other extreme weather events. Thus, cultivation of land and water availability, are extremely vulnerable to climatic shifts, especially in the densely populated areas of the region. Soil erosion due to water and wind erosion has resulted in large tracts of land being classied as semi-arid to arid in the region. In India, soil erosion contributes to over 71 percent of the land degradation. Wind erosion, which is more dominant in the Western region of India, has led to loss of topsoil, resulting in degradation of over 5 percent of total geographical area of the country. The most prevalent form of degradation in South Asia is caused by water and occurs widely in all agro climatic zones of the region. According to Nepals National Action Programme on Land Degradation and Desertication, erosion due to water was responsible for 50 percent of desertication across the country in 2004. During the monsoon season, large areas along river banks erode, creating acute socioeconomic problems. Between 1973 and 1996, approximately 70,000 hectares of land along the banks of the BrahmaputraJamuna were lost to erosion in BanglaTHE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

STRANDED ON

DRYLAND
FUTURE OF SOUTH ASIA
Changing weather patterns are accelerating and i t if i the deserti ti intensifying th d tication process which hi h could result in forced migration and conicts

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desh. The process of soil erosion due to water is likely to intensify over the next few decades, as the impacts of climate change become increasingly intense and visible. Conversely, scarce water resources triggered by scanty rainfall and high evaporation in dryland areas of the region increase stress on land due to the rising demand for agriculture and fodder production for livestock. In addition, the problem of salinity has also resulted in degradation of fertile land. Roughly 6.73 million hectares of land area is affected by salinity in India. Around 3080 percent of groundwater in North Western states of the country is either saline or brackish and is unt for irrigation. Large scale cultivation of prawns using sea water in the coastal belts of India and Bangladesh has also degraded water and land resources. In Bangladesh, the groundwater table uctuates between 8.95m to 18.56m during the dry season due to over-extraction of water, resulting in acute water shortages.

Between 1990 and 2000, Nepal has lost an average of 917 sq. km of forest per year. This constitutes a vicious cycle linking deteriorating natural resources to deteriorating livelihoods as people need to encroach further on fragile soils, sparse vegetation and limited water resources to meet their basic needs.

FOOD SECURITY
As harmful climatic processes such as erratic monsoons and droughts occur more often in the future, the South Asian region is likely to face considerable food security challenges. Recurring droughts and continued desertication will hamper agricultural production in the region as fertile tracts of land become unproductive. Loss of cultivable land will result in reduction of the vegetation cover and could eventually alter the livestock population of the region. The 1999 drought in India distressed the lives of nearly 100 million people and 60 million livestock mostly in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The overall loss in food grain production in the country was 15 percent, while states such as

ANTHROPOGENIC FACTORS
Anthropogenic causes include expansion of agricultural activities and unsustainable agricultural practices such as intensive cultivation, use of pesticides, poor irrigation practices, and overgrazing. Given that the regions primary occupations include agriculture and animal husbandry, intense pressure on the land has caused land degradation and desertication. India has livestock population of about 485 million, burdening the limited land resources for fodder. More importantly, the growing population pressure on land, expanding urban areas and poor resource management have resulted in land degradation. In Bangladesh, mining of sand from several agricultural lands for construction purposes, such as from the Northern Piedmont areas and greater Dinajpur and Rangpur districts, has increased the area of fallow lands. Land degradation in India, Bangladesh and Nepal has been exacerbated by the expansion of rain-fed cultivation onto marginal lands, deforestation, overgrazing, groundwater extraction and uncontrolled harvesting of biomass. Moreover, deforestation in the Terai region in Nepal, in an effort to bring more land under cultivation, has increased the rate of erosion.
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Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh incurred a loss of 10-30 percent in food grain production. Continuous desertication and land degradation in the region could result in loss of livelihood and exacerbate poverty levels in the future. Approximately, 75 percent of Nepals total workforce and over 50 percent of India and Bangladeshs workforce are engaged in the farm sector. Estimates suggest that the ratio of cultivable land to the population i.e. amount of acre held by a person, is decreasing at a rapid pace in the region. The land-man ratio in the North Western parts of Bangladesh has decreased signicantly to 23.2 percent as compared to the ratio of 17.2 percent in the whole country, primarily due to desertication. Moreover, it has been calculated that the loss of crops due to reduced production in drought prone lands and the cost incurred as a result of additional agricultural input to maintain soil nutrients exceeds two billion USD every year in Bangladesh. The process of land degradation and desertication further adds to the social costs through displacement of human settlements and causing famine-like

ASIAN ARMAGEDDON

conditions. Meanwhile, droughts across Nepal, arising from the long dry spells during winter, are likely to aggravate desertication in the next two decades. The land degradation, especially in the at lands of the country, is worsening due to sand deposition as large rivers in Nepal change their course. The Koshi River has destroyed approximately 1300 square kilometres of land through sand deposition. In addition, many watersheds in the country are threatened by desertication as a result of physical and biological factors, with reports suggesting that 0.4 percent, 1.5 percent and 11.7 percent of the watersheds are in very poor, poor and fair condition respectively. All these factors will threaten the food security of the country in the coming years.

MIGRATION
Desertication coupled with water and food scarcity will lead to forced displacement and migration of millions of people in the region. Nepal, India and Bangladesh are not only geographically connected but also share important rivers such as the Ganges and Brahmaputra;

therefore, the impacts of desertication in one country are likely to spill over to other countries in the future. As a result, there could be a rise in conicts in the region, especially over resources. While it is difcult to quantify the precise impact of desertication in these countries, it is apparent that desertication will lead to loss of food grain production and livelihood opportunities. Degradation of the land, as in the Terai region in Nepal, will reduce economic opportunities for people a trend which could become increasingly prevalent in the future, forcing people to migrate. Research studies reveal that seasonal migration is an important livelihood strategy, especially among the poor in the region. In the North Western region of Bangladesh, while around 19 percent of households across all wealth groups migrate during the lean agricultural season, about 25 percent of chronically poor households migrate during the same period. This region of Bangladesh will further witness an increasing propensity for droughts and as rainfall becomes more unpredictable and groundwater levels decline, people will be forced to migrate in order to secure their livelihoods. Given that more than half of Indias cropped area is still dependent on the monsoon rains and agriculture supports half of Indias working population, the resultant impact of variable precipitation and droughts could see rural farmers from the Northern agricultural areas moving away to other parts of the country. Western Rajasthan, which is highly prone to droughts and land degradation, has witnessed large scale migration of people towards other states such as Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh in search of food, livelihood and water. Regular occurrences of such scenarios are likely to lead to the rise in permanent displacement of environmental migrants, as they seek greater economic and social security. In the next decade or two, desertication-induced migration not only will lead to large inux of rural population to urban areas but will also lead to an increased and sustained movement of people across borders. This will prompt a wide range of security issues for the South Asia region.

THE WAY FORWARD

Thus far the approach to deal with problems resulting from droughts and desertication has been to provide relief measures to the affected people and nance for livestock. The governments in the South Asian region have largely invested in improving the situation through the development of irrigation facilities, which has further depleted the water resources in the region. As climate change increases the frequency of droughts and erratic rainfall, the impact on the land will continue to be felt, thus offsetting the governments intervention. In order to combat desertication in the South Asian region, the focus should be to implement long-term measures for soil conservation, afforestation and reforestation, protection and sustainable use of ecological areas. In addition, preservation of grasslands and development of sustainable agricultural practices will denitely help in combating desertication in the region. Implementation of long-term measures in an integrated manner, aimed at preventing degradation of land and improving productivity of land through rehabilitation, conservation and sustainable management of land and water resources should seek participation at the community level. This, in concert with inter-regional cooperation between the countries in the South Asian region, will help tackle the problem resulting from recurrent droughts and continued desertication in the region. (SOWMYA SURYANARAYANAN is the Research Analyst and Project Coordinator of the Horizons Scanning Unit (Asia) at Strategic Foresight Group. She works on development issues and analyses the longterm impacts of emerging trends on poor communities in the South Asian region. Sowmya was also a key researcher of SFGs publications on water security The Himalayan Challenge: Water Security in Emerging Asia and Himalayan Solutions: Co-operation and Security in River Basins. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
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IS THERE POLITICAL WILL TO END THESE

DJ VU
LUC GNACADJA
Executive Secretary, UNCCD

DROUGHT TRAGEDIES?
UNCCD is trying to bring concensus between the developed and developing nations on conicting drought prevention strategies

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GLOBAL CONSENSUS

of food and any other humanitarian assistance to put a feeble band-aid on a structural problem. The situation harks back to earlier droughts in the Sahel in the 1970s and in Ethiopia in the 1980s. But these most recent droughts are even more disturbing for at least three reasons. Firstly, as in the past, the victims are not the primary cause of the situation. They just happen to be both poor and on the frontline of climate change. Traditional coping mechanisms simply cannot respond. Secondly, droughts do not happen overnight. They are predictable, and for a decade, scientists have warned we need to act now to avert further disaster in drought prone communities. Thirdly, it was in response to the past drought tragedies that the international community, in 1994, established the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertication and Mitigate the Effects of Drought in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertication, Particularly in Africa (UNCCD). This Treaty was a guarantee to the governments and communities living in the drought-prone areas of the world that never again would they have to suffer the horric effects of such droughts on a tragic scale.

sources. For instance, only one country in East Africa has a monitoring system in place. Three others are planned. Not surprisingly then, the debate on early warning systems and enhancing access to practical technology to strengthen the adaptation and resilience of the countries and populations most vulnerable to droughts, exacerbated by climate-change, has resurfaced. Fortunately, the General Assembly of the United Nations has agreed to convene a one-day meeting at the level of heads of state and government on September 20, 2011 in New York to address desertication, land degradation and drought in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development. East Africa needs critical and urgent humanitarian assistance now, but we would all benet from ensuring the cycle of drought and famine disaster are mitigated once and for all. Recent droughts in Australia, Russia, the United States, Southern Europe and Mexico show this is not an issue con ned to the so-called developing world and there are global benets to be accrued from common, decisive and concerted action. Will politicians meeting in New York recognize that and show the necessary solidarity and political will to take decisive action? (MR. LUC GNACADJA is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertication, the UNs top advisor on drought and desertication. Before taking up his position as UNCCD Executive Secretary, Mr. Gnacadja served as Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Development of Benin from 1999 to 2005. He gained rsthand knowledge of the UNCCD process over a number of years in his capacity as Head of Delegation to the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD. In March 2003 Mr. Gnacadja was honoured with the 2002 Green Award in Washington by the World Bank. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

BUT HERE WE ARE AGAIN; WHY?

The impacts of drought are known and include food insecurity and hunger, loss of livelihoods, conict, mass migration and wild res. If large-scale loss of life is to be avoided, adaptation strategies must be implemented. For this, effective early warning systems and mechanisms to support the vulnerable communities with practical help and appropriate technology are indispensable. A stable government is a prerequisite for successful implementation of policies and strategies, especially in seeking long-term solutions. To aid planning, the Conventions negotiators through the regional implementation annexes mandated the UNCCD, 16 years ago, to support the establishment of early warning systems tied to food security. Countries have made slow progress citing a lack of re-

he crisis that hit eastern Africa has affected at least 12 million people. This is about the entire population of Senegal of Cambodia or Cuba. It is the worst drought in this region since 1950-51, according to the Famine Early Warning System Network, an initiative funded by the US Agency for International Development. Last year, Niger suffered a similar fate. Now, as then, the upshot is malnutrition, food insecurity and forced mass migration. So the United Nations and other aid agencies nd themselves going cup in hand in search

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THE G-20 AGRICULTURE T

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CHANGING TRACKS

E TALKS TRAP
MERCIN MENKES
Analyst, Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), Poland

Whenever any radical modication in the international foods trading system contradicts the interest of theEU Five they derail negotiations by moving the focus of the talks
he G-7 founding states currently struggle to preserve their inuence in international economic affairs as well as the very legitimacy of the G-system. Accordingly, the G-20 needs to address issues important to the rising economic powers. Recently, they even admitted this to the forum, yet was neglected elsewhere. Notably, agriculture ought to be tackled more fairly than what has been the case thus far at the WTO. Otherwise, the Euro-American voice will be marginalised, at best only in agriculture. The inclusion of agriculture in the G-20 agenda seemed logical and desirable, but the joy may well have been premature. The fact that the G-20 agriculture ministers discuss the necessity of striking down food-export restrictions, rather than import agriculture subsidies and biofuels is a diplomatic success of states interested in preserving the current system. At the same time, agriculture thus became part of a broader debate. Even though the G-20s agenda does not constitute a single package, to some extent similarly to the WTO formula of nothing is agreed until all is agreed, states obtain concessions in areas important to them for the price of similar contributions in other matters. What seems particular to those talks, however, is that the nancial agenda, which is discussed the most, is very technical in nature and so expert negotiations prevail over political considerations. As there is general consent at the expert level as to the goals and means of ghting nancial instability a consensus is relatively easy to forge. That is not the case as regards to agriculture

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however. The risks of putting agriculture on the table are two-fold: the fate of agriculture talks themselves, but also the prospects of greater nancial stability.

G-20 NET FORCE

As the G-20 statements are not legally binding, any declaration, for it to be implemented, requires the consent of all. A failure would undermine the existence of the forum. The process may appear as a trade-off between a leader in each particular case and others, who remain supportively-neutral. Also the EU ve (the European Union and its four G-20 member states) may be a driving power behind the negotiations. In that case, the political situation becomes even more complicated, given that a considerable part of the G-20 negotiation agenda falls under the EUs powers. Where G-20 talks precede the EU law-making procedure, actors may be tempted to thus indirectly inuence its outcomes. In that case, the number of parties potentially interested in the subject-matter rises dramatically. It may occur that with numerous conicting interests a relatively small interest group may have a decisive inuence on the nal position. If four remaining EU actors go along, a small lobby may obtain leverage at the international level, which may entail considerable risks to others. The functioning of such a mechanism may be observed regarding nancial supervisory and regulatory harmonisation reform. Starting from the very bottom, in many EU states nancial supervision institutions, although not directly, contested the establishment of the EU-micronancial supervision, as it would restrain their powers. This was especially the case, in smaller states (the so-called host states to nancial institutions registered abroad), which were afraid of losing grounds to home state supervisors and regulators. On the contrary, central banks supported another leg of the nancial reform the establishment of an European institution for systematic risk monitoring. Not only the body per se was deemed necessary, but also the majority of states had not established an institutional framework to carry out such tasks
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domestically. Given that the European institution would build upon country reports, the creation of respective national bodies seemed a matter of time, whereas their placement within central banks appeared most natural. Therefore central banks potentially faced an extension of powers and adequate raising of funds. With the nancial supervisor sceptical about the reform programme, central banks supportive and ministries of nance rather indifferent (as in a majority of states they do not directly supervise nancial institutions), the net force at the domestic level was neutral. Whereas from the perspective of the parties concerned the reform is of utter importance, heads of governments, without clear signal from the administration, were inclined to adopt a supportive-neutral position, this way strengthening their own EU statesman image. The EU only

beneted from the establishment of new agencies, while France and Germany (the major nancial supervision home states) were generally supportive of the idea. Accordingly, at the G-20 plane ve votes opted for enhancement of nancial supervision; back at the EU level this translated into creation of an extensive European nancial supervision framework, despite opposition by the majority of domestic supervisors.

THE AGRICULTURE BARGAIN

Socially equitable results may be reached through negotiations, as they require concessions of all the major interest groups. The most imminent risk of such system is its degeneration into a tyranny of the majority, where claims of minor groups remain unanswered. The case of agriculture reects the opposite risk however.

CHANGING TRACKS

G-20 CONCLUSIONS ENTAIL THE RISK OF CEMENTING THE POLICY, WHICH PRESERVES THE BENEFITS OF A RELATIVELY SMALL, PRIVILEGED GROUP
In deconstructing political discourse again down to the electorate level, agrarian lobbies can be easily spotted. Paradoxically, even though Europe witnesses a continuous urbanization, the political muscle of these groups, heavily subsidised and increasingly consolidated, remains strong. Yet, since their political agenda focuses on technical issues, agrarian parties are capable of making alliances with both left and right groupings (for instance in Poland agrarian parties have belonged to 11 out of the 15 cabinets since 1989, both with post-communists and the former democratic opposition alike, and they even held the Prime Minister post twice). In turn there is no obvious opposite interest that would unite anti-agrarian voters. Accordingly, although some disapprove certain agrarian claims, no political party is willing to ght against a possible ally, whose political goals are not competitive. Even though the EU agricultural import barriers increase food prices considerably, while the value of subsidies is questionable both on humanitarian and scal-consolidation grounds, there is no sufcient grounds to challenge this policy. The outcomes of an EU agriculture debate, for instance on the resignation from canola oil currently an obligatory component of liquid fuels in Poland appear foregone. Agrarian interests in France are even stronger than the EU average. Together it is more than sufcient to set the tone for the EU ve.

jor interests in the EU ve (and the US). As the developing states claims cannot be simply ignored any longer, the most natural solution would be to derail negotiations by moving the focus of the talks, which appears to have just happened at the rst G-20 agriculture ministers summit. Such prospects of the G-20 agricultural agenda bother victims of the current food crisis primarily. For the consumers from states subsidising agriculture,the G-20 conclusions entail the risk of cementing the policy, which preserves the benets of a relatively small, privileged group. All that may well be an optimistic scenario. As the non-binding character of the G-20s conclusions requires a wholehearted support of all participants regulations are adopted by consensus. This is relatively easy in the nancial eld, where all the parties share a conviction that nancial innovations must be curtailed, supervision should be enhanced and greater international cooperation is necessary. In agriculture, however, divisions relate to the very foundations of the international system, so similar negotiation results are unlikely. The failure to reach an agreement may imperil the continuation of the G-20. A self-contained change in Western politics is unlikely. However, victims of yet another food crisis cannot wait. Developing economies, who already succeeded in the formal recognition of their international status, should prove their vision of and capacity to shape international economy, by reachingout directly to dispersed European consumers, possibly acquiring this way a powerful leverage on the nal G-20 talks. (DR. MERCIN MENKES is an Analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM). He is also a Lecturer of Economic Analysis of Environmental Law at the Warsaw School of Economics. He has written several articles on various international magazines and journals. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

THE IMPACT ZONE

The existing international foods trade system is unjust, inefcient and possibly unsustainable in the long run. Its radical modication contradicts, however, ma-

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R. B. BHAGAT
Professor and Head, Department of Migration and Urban Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences

TOO MANY EMPTY BOWLS

The curses of hunger is prevalent in India not only because of its vast population but also due to rampant wastage of food coupled with feeble government policies such as inefcient PDS system
he historical World Food Summit held in Rome in 1996 reafrmed the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food. As a result, the right to food and freedom from hunger emerged as an important concern during the 1990s. Again, the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the world leaders in 2000 reiterated this commitment by pledging to halve the proportion of the population who suffer from hunger from 1990 to 2015 (United Nations 2008). Food security is the important means to realize the right to food. It means the access to the adequate food to all members of the household throughout the year. Access to food is determined by food entitlement. The Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen has provided a framework of food entitlement in order to understand the access to food and genesis of hunger. According to him, own production, stored wealth, employment, kinship and government transfers are all

possible sources of food entitlement (Sen 1981). Population and food are two closely related issues prominently found in the study of demography since its inception. The First Essay on Population written by Robert Thomas Malthus in 1798 emphasized the inevitable imbalance between population growth and food supply which shaped much of the debate in the area of population and development relationship. The history of Indias demographic and agricultural growth shows that the thesis of Malthus is not true. The availability of food matched quite well with the requirement of growing population. However, in spite of sufcient availability of food, India is a country of the largest number of food insecure population. The paper shows that population growth of the country cannot be held accountable for the food insecurity in the country. In fact a paradox of food stock with the government coexists with hunger and price rise.

LEVEL OF HUNGER AND FOOD INSECURITY

About one-fth of Indias population is hungry (Radhakrishna 2005). However the level of hunger estimated by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) by a direct question whether the household getting enough food everyday throughout the year was only 2.4 per cent in rural area and 0.5 per cent in urban areas as per 61st round conducted in 2004-05 (NSSO 2007). At combined level of rural and urban areas only two per cent of the household reported the incidence of hunger which works out to be 22 million suffering from hunger in 2004-05. This is highly an underestimate compared to the level of poverty and malnutrition in the country. 20 per cent of Indias population is undernourished with a per capita access to 1632 kcal only (Menon, Deolalikar and Bhaskar 2008). When seen against the norm of 2400 kcal in rural and 2100 kcal in urban areas, the proportion of population below the norm

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

goes as high as 79.8 per cent in rural and 63.9 per cent in urban areas (total 75.8 per cent) in 2004-05 (Deaton and Dreze 2009). Poverty is the greatest barrier in the access to food. The population below poverty line indirectly is a true measure of the level of hunger. However, the poverty estimates are widely debated now. For example, the ofcial estimate provided by the Planning Commission mentions that the population below poverty line is 27.5 per cent in 2004-05, whereas Tendulkar Committee estimates Indias poverty level 37 per cent and the N.C. Saxena committee appointed by Ministry of Rural Development estimated 50 per cent of Indias population living below poverty line (Planning Commission 2008 and 2009; Saxena 2009). Although ofcial poverty has declined from 54.9 per cent in 197374 to 27.5 per cent in 2004-05, the number of poor has barely declined. The number of poor was 321 million in 1973-04 against 301 million in 2004-05 (Planning Commission 2008). According to some leading researchers, there are about 800 million hungry people in the world out of which 225 million are in India (Swaminathan 2003; Radhakrishna 2005). This estimate is very close to the number of poor of 300 million estimated by the Planning Commission which has huge implication for Indias food security programmes at the household level. Hunger is the most acute form of food insecurity also manifested in the malnourishment of population that affects the growth of children severely. The period from birth to two years of age is important for optimal growth, health and development. At this stage, children are not only vulnerable to growth retardation but also prone to child illness such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infections. As a result malnutrition emerged as a signicant cause of child mortality in India (74 deaths of children under age 5 per 1000 in 2005-06). The level of malnutrition was 45.9 per cent among children below three years of age and 56 per cent of women aged 15-49 were found anaemic according to NFHS-3 in 2005-06 (International Institute for Population
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Sciences and Macro International 2007). At state level malnutrition continues to be high even in the most food secure states like Punjab and Haryana where one-fourth and two- fth children are malnourished respectively and 52 children die before age 5. The level of anaemia among women aged 15-49 was 38 and 56 percent in the state of Punjab and Haryana respectively (International Institute for Population Sciences and Macro International 2007). India has not only a very high level of hunger and malnutrition, but the recent studies also show declining calorie consumption among the poor both from cereal and non-cereal sources (Deaton and Dreze 2009). The cereal consumption among the poor is also declining constantly during the last two decades. It has been made clear by the Saxena Committee that the declining cereal consumption and consequently the declining calorie intake among the poor is not the result of poor switching over to non-cereal food but due to cut in their food budget in the event of rising essential expenditure on fuel, transport, and education of children, medicine and transport. It is clearly a distress phenomenon which shows the increasing food insecurity among Indias poor (Saxena 2009).

(AAY) since 2001. All three groups were treated differently in terms of the quantities of food provided and the prices at which food was supplied. There are many problems with Targeted PDS like inclusions and exclusions, but most importantly targeting has affected the functioning and economic viability of the PDS (Swaminathan 2004). Indias food security programme is basically a producer cum consumer subsidy programme. At producer level the Govt. of India ensures that producers get the Minimum Support Price (MSP) which protects them from the vagaries of the market. Farmers have now opportunity to sell their surplus food grains to the government owned Food Corporation of India (FCI) in case of lack of opportunity to sell in the open market and protects them selling in the open market at lower price than the MSP. The minimum support price has seen a big jump from 2007-08. While during 2000-01 to 2006-07, the rise in MSP (excluding bonus) had been gradual, in 2008-09, the MSP in almost every crop had witnessed increases of about 30 per cent or more. Studies also show a close relationship between the MSP and the market prices of the food

grain (Deshpande and Naika 2002). This has clearly fueled the price rise of the food grains in recent years (Ministry of Finance 2009). The Central Government has emerged as the biggest buyer of food grains under the obligation of PDS. As a result there is enough piling of stock with FCI. In 2008-09, there was a record procurement of 54.2 million tones i.e. about one-fourth of the total production (233.8 million tonnes). On the other hand, total disbursement of food grain under PDS was 34.7 million tonnes i.e. 60 per cent the procurement in 2008-9 (Ministry of Finance 2010). Even during the year 2009-10 which was severely affected by drought reducing the kharif production drastically, there was a record procurement of paddy (Ministry of Finance 2010:69). It would not be untrue to say that the FCIs godowns were bursting with food grains, getting rotten while the poor were dying of hunger (Swaminathan 2004; The Asian Age, National Daily, 14th August, p. 10). The net effect was articial shortage of food grain in the market, price rise and encouragement of hoardings by the private traders.As such, even the Supreme

PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM AND FOOD SECURITY

Indias food security programme is heavily dependent on PDS which started way back in 1939 during colonial rule rst introduced in Bombay. The drought and food shortage after independence led to the strengthening of the PDS and was expanded as a universal scheme in the 1970s. The main objective of the PDS was to maintain price stability and to eradicate hunger (Swaminathan 2003). The universal PDS was abolished in 1997 and a Targeted PDS was introduced in its place. The targeted PDS differed from earlier PDS requiring the entire population to be divided into BPL 2 (below poverty line) and APL (above poverty line) categories. A third group of the poorest of the poor under BPL category was also identied and covered under Antyodya Anna Yojana
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Court directed the Central Government not to let the food grains rot but distribute the food freely to the millions of hungry. Further, under PDS, the states and union territories are allocated food grains by the Central Government, but for many states like Bihar and Jharkhand the offtake is as low as 50 per cent. As a result, there is a large inter-regional variation in the access of food grain from PDS. In rural areas the per capita monthly purchases of cereals from PDS was lower than 0.5 kg in poor states of Bihar, MP, UP and Rajasthan compared to 5 kg in Kerala, 3.3 kg in Tamil Nadu and 2.3 Kg in AP (Radhakrishna 2005). Thus, the basic purpose of PDS to provide access to food to the poor and price control is defeated by the food procurement and disbursement policy of the Central Government. While procurement and disbursement of food grain is undertaken by the central government, the public distribution of food is under the control of the state governments. There is a need to decentralize the procurement, storage and disbursement of food grain in country with a greater involvement of state governments. This will help removing the regional imbalances in food grain supply and provide opportunity to many farmers who are left out to take the benets of procurement policy which is mainly con ned to the states of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. Decentralization of food grain procurement and disbursement would also contain wastage in storage and reduce transportation costs. This requires partnership between the central and state government at each stage of food security right from availability of food grain through increased productivity, encouraging procurement at the state level so that farmers of each state has the chance of getting benet from MSP, promoting state specic storage, disbursement and management of food. A decentralized approach should also promote the involvement of Panchayati Raj institutions in the food security programmes. However, the framework of

the proposed National Food Security Act drafted by the National Advisory Council did mention in passing about the decentralized approach to food security policy, but not as a fundamental strategy of achieving food security.

CONCLUSIONS
Although food availability at the national level is a necessary condition to eradicate hunger, it does not guarantee

ger. However, states alone cannot do this, but the Central Government should enable the state governments by decentralizing the food security programmes through budgetary provisions and nancial packages. The proposed framework of National Security Act is highly decient on this count which proposes nothing new but a differential coverage and targeting, a differential provision of food grains and a differ-

FOOD SECURITY PROGRAMMES MUST BE DECENTRALIZED BOTH IN PROCUREMENT, DISBURSEMENT AND STORAGE LEVELS TO MAKE IT WORK
the food security at the household level. This is the paradox that India is facing. At the moment Indias food security policy is too centralized, heavily dependent on subsidies given to the farmers as well as consumers. It is also based on target oriented public distribution system for BPL and destitute households. The food security programmes need to be decentralized both in procurement, disbursement and storage levels. At the moment, food grain is procured by the Central Government from few states mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (from Western Uttar Pradesh mainly) which are allocated to the various state governments. There is a need that the farmers of other states are given equal opportunity of getting betted through the procurement policy. This will also promote state specic storage of food grain and reduce wastage, save huge transportation cost and deliver food grains on time during the time of food crisis. The autonomy to the state governments and involvement of Panchayati Raj institutions in the procurement, disbursement and management of food with central assistance is crucial for the future food security of the country. This is justied on the ground that the states show very diverse patterns in population, food grain production and in levels of hunential pricing for the vulnerable groups. It continues to assume that food security is the sole responsibility of the Central Government which can be achieved through a centralized way targeting the needy. This has been the notion of the central government over the years ignoring the fundamental character of centre and state relations of the Indian Union. In fact governance is the serious issue which failed the PDS and other centrally sponsored programmes in many states. This is high time that we must address the centrestate relation in food security programmes and promote decentralization over centralization in view of the overriding importance of states in implementing the most of the development programmes including employment generation, poverty eradication and food security. (DR R. B. BHAGAT is working as Professor and Head, Department of Migration and Urban Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences. His research areas include migration, urbanization and environment; Demography, ethnicity and politics. The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

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DESERTED

AXING
PRABHA PANTH
Professor of Economics, O.U. P College, Secunderabad .G.

THE FORESTS
More vigilance and greater conservation efforts on the part of government are needed to counter the growing threat of deforestation

ncreasing commercial use of forests has affected their ecological role, and deterioration of the ecological system will affect both the economy and the environment in the long run. It is therefore necessary to achieve long-term conservation of forests to ensure their sustained availability for both ecological and economic requirements. Sustainable development of forests formed part of the discussions in the Forum for Forest Principles, UNCED at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Sustainable forest management and ecosystem approach aim at promoting conservation and management practices which are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, and which generate and maintain benets for both present and future generations. Forest conservation, preservation, sustainability and management are terms that are generally used interchangeably as they are very closely connected to each other. Preservation is regarded as an activity of protecting something from loss or danger, while Conservation is dened as the preservation and careful manage-

ment of the environment and of natural resources . Hence conservation refers to protection plus improvement in the resource base. Sustainability is the capacity of the system to endure or continue. It is the ability of a unit or a system to continue in existence under opposing or critical conditions. In Resource Economics it is achieved by equating growth of the renewable resource with its rate of exploitation, so as to keep total stock constant.

CONSERVATION OF FORESTS
Forest conservation can be interpreted as either increase, or at least maintaining the total area under forests, and under forest cover. The term sustainability has a different connotation in Natural Resource Economics. Here sustainability entails that the rate of exploitation of forests should equal the rate of its regeneration (Tietenberg, 2004). However, it is difcult, if not impossible to measure both these variables. For sustainable development, the rate of exploitation of forests or rate of tree felling should be

38

THE IIPM THINK TANK

STATE OF A STATE

equated with tree growth. Data on tree felling is not accurate as there is a large amount of illegal felling of trees, which is not recorded (State of Forest Report, 2005). Forest area and cover may shrink due to developmental activities such as construction of roads, railways, dams, mining, etc., or forest land may be converted legally or illegally into agriculture land, settlements, and for other non forest purposes. Studies have shown that these diversions are rarely recorded by the Forest Dept in its reports (Gulati and Sharma). As for forest regeneration, estimation of the success of reforestation programmes is difcult and complex. It is not a simple case of equating the area reforested with the area degraded. This is because reforestation programmes may end up as plantations or monoculture or with invasive species, as happened in the 80s with the ill fated eucalyptus plantations. Again, although reforestation efforts replace trees, the replenishment of biodiversity loss from forests is rarely taken into account. It may not be possible to replenish the rich biodiversity of ora and fauna that had characterised the deforested area. Also, the area degraded may not be the area reforested, so that ecological degradation may be going on in one area, while forest cover increases in another. Ecologically speaking, they cannot cancel out each other. Another problem is with regard to the growth of seedlings not all will grow up to be fully developed trees, as they may wither away, or be looped and cut for rewood, or eaten by cattle. Even if they survived, it will take them a decade or more to achieve adult status. Yet another aspect to be kept in mind is that harvesting timber is a continuous process, and so should be matched with an equal number of seedlings planted every year. Plantations on degraded forest land do not increase the net forest area, but only increase the tree density. Other problems include fake reporting of plantation to meet targets, and inability of satellite pictures to discern young plantations. Therefore we use the more non controversial term conservation, which
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

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DESERTED

refers to both maintenance and growth of forests.

REASONS FOR LOSS OF FOREST COVER

In spite of the various motivations for forest conservation, the AP forest dept has not been able to achieve its goals. The following reasons have been put forth for the fall in forest cover in AP. Population: Forests are under tremendous pressure due to about 20 million people being directly or indirectly dependent upon it for livelihood. Development Projects: Besides demands of development like irrigation projects, laying or improvement of the existing roads and power supply lines, mining of coal and minerals etc. puts additional pressure on the forests. Encroachments: It was reported that fresh attempts on encroachments had contributed to nearly 65% of the negative changes. Plantations: Rest of the negative changes are attributed to preparation of forest lands for raising semi mechanical plantations and rotational felling of eucalyptus and other plantations. Diversion to other uses: Diversion of forests to other legal and illegal activities is yet another reason for decrease in forest cover, though data for this is not available. Rotational Felling of timber: The main reasons for decrease in forest cover are due to rotational/clear felling of matured plantations and diversion of forest lands under FCA (AP SOFR 2010). In spite of ban on tree felling, timber, bamboo, and industrial wood are being regularly harvested in AP forests. The total timber harvest grew by about 66% from 2002-03 to 2005-06. The maximum timber harvested was in Adilabad in 2002 it was more than 50%, followed by Rajamundry. In the next ve years, the share of Adilabad has fallen, though it still constitutes the largest share of timber cutting by the Dept. It should be noted, that Adilabad has more than 52% of the States Dense Forests, and more than 20% of Moderately Dense forests. Over the years, the dept has spread its net to include other forest circles, such as Khammam, Ananthapur, etc. However
40
THE IIPM THINK TANK

Hyderabad, Tirupathi and Srisailam have not been exploited for timber by the Dept, though obviously tree cutting has been carried on due to other reasons, mainly in Hyderabad, such as road widening, construction, and extension of other utilities such as water pipelines, power cables, drains, etc. Industrial Wood: Industrial cutting of wood reached a high level during 200405, but has fallen subsequently. Khammam provided the bulk of industrial wood (86%) initially, but this has fallen over the years. However even in 2008-09, it provided the maximum of 35%. Rajamundry got a burst in 2003-04, providing more than 50%, but this has subsequently fallen. Other forests in Vishakapatnam, and Srisailam are now being exploited for industrial wood. Fuel Wood: Surprisingly, the demand for fuel wood which was zero for three years seems to have increased tremendously in 2008-09, while that of timber seems to be falling. One of the objectives of forest conservation was to reduce fuel wood use, by promoting alternative energy such as natural gas, biogas, and solar energy in village and forest communities (AP forest Dept). However the increase in fuel wood felling seems to show that this scheme has not succeeded, as can be seen by its mas-

forest growing stock has decreased from 291.394 million cubic meters to 232 million cubic meters in 2009 (AP Forestry Inventory Report 2009). This does not augur well for forest conservation and sustainable development. The JFM programme is supposed to have raised 3535.62sq kms of plantations in AP till 2009, comprising of teak, nonteak, tamarind, red sanders, etc (AP Forests at a glance 2010). However the same website shows that by 2009, the forest cover under JFM programmes had fallen by-3315.91 sq kms. If we look into forest land under different legal classications, we nd that the Government of AP seems to have been converting more of its forest lands from Protected and Unclassied, into Reserved Forests. The share of Reserved Forests increased from 67.5% in 1956-57, to 79% in 1991-92, while that of other two have fallen (26% to 19%, and 8% to 1.5% respectively, and have remained constant for the past 18 years). Reserved forests are not supposed to permit any type of economic activity, and so by notifying the maximum area under this category, the government of AP may have hoped to show conservation. Forest area may remain constant, because it is based on Governments clas-

CONSTANTLY DIMINISHING FOREST COVER IS A TESTIMONY TO THE FACT THAT THE RESERVED AND PROTECTED FORESTS ARE NOT BEING CONSERVED
sive growth of over 400% from 2008-09. sication. However, forest cover has not remained so. Forest Cover has fallen from about 44.6 thousand sq km in 2001 to 42.2 thousand sq km in 2008, a fall of 5.35%. Ofcial data shows that economic activity is permitted on only Unclassed Forests, which constitute only 1.5%. But the fact that so much of forest cover is decreasing shows that the Reserved and Protected Forests are not being conserved, and that economic activity and tree felling are going on in these areas. Not only is forest cover falling, but

REFORESTATION
According to the Vision 2020, AP is supposed to have taken up a massive reforestation drive to restore the degraded forests, and to bring more land under forests. However, the ndings depicted above do not seem to support this claim. Total Growing Stock in the 63,814 sq km of recorded forest area was estimated to be 232 million cubic meters and the average growing stock of the state was 36.37 cubic meters per Ha. But the State

STATE OF A STATE

dense forests are increasingly getting converted to open forests and scrub land, showing that tree cover is thinning out. If we look at forest density, then Dense Forests registered a negative growth of 24% over the eight years from 2000 2008, while Open Forests and Scrub land grew by 20.4% and 36.3% respectively. Also the share of Dense Forests has fallen from 47.4% in 2000, to 35% in 2008, while that of Open Forests have increased from 34.5% to 40.6%. Similarly Scrub land has increased from 18% of forest area to 24% in 2008. Joint Forest Management was set up to encourage local communities to take up forest conservation. However the last two years data shows that the forest cover under VSS has fallen by around 23%, while that under notied or government forest has fallen by 76%. This seems to indicate that VSS has also not been successful in conserving forest cover. Data on district wise distribution of forests and conservation shows that the net change in forest cover in 2008 as

compared to 2007 was negative for all the 12 forest divisions of AP. The maximum loss of forest cover has been in Khammam 58.52 sq km, more than half of the total deforestation in AP. This is followed by Rajamundry with nearly 23 sq km loss. In spite of the Forest departments claims, tree felling is continuing. Thus total timber harvest grew by about 66% from 2002-03 to 2005-06. The maximum timber harvested is in Adilabad, followed by Rajamundry. Wood for industrial uses has also been growing by 14.27%. Although the Forest Department claims that the JFM programme was supposed to have raised 3535.62sq kms of plantations in AP till 2009, the forest cover under JFM programmes had actually fallen by 3315.91 sq kms. Therefore forest conservation in AP does not seem to have yielded results, as forest cover has been falling. Rising tree harvesting for fuel, timber, and industrial cuts, plus diversion of forest land to nonforest uses are nibbling away forest cover

in the state, though forest land is nominally constant. Some highly forested circles in AP have shown deterioration of their forest cover, or conversion of dense forests to open and scrub land. Hence more vigilance and greater conservation efforts are needed to ensure that the remaining forests of AP are sustained for the future. (DR. PANTH is a professor at Osmania University, Hyderabad. Her area of speacialisation is Environmental Economics and have published about 22 articles in various academic journals and presented them at different seminars. She have also completed a UGC major research project entitled: The Economic Signicance of Wastewater Management: A case study of Bolaram Industrial Estate. This article is based on one of the chapters . The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reect the ofcial policy or position of the organisation.)
THE GRE AT INDIAN DRE AM

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IIPM: THE FUTURE IS HERE

Since its incorporation (1973), IIPM has been an institution with privileged traditions, in the diversity of its fraternity, its global outlook, its world class research and its commitment to alternative national economic planning process. It can be said, without much oversimplication that there are no underdeveloped economies. There are only under managed countries. Japan 140 years was ago was an underdeveloped country by every material measurement. But it very quickly produced management of great competence, indeed of excellence. The policy inference is that management is the prime mover and development is the consequence. At IIPM, every one considers that development is a matter of human energies rather than economic wealth. And the generation and direction of these human energies is the task of management. Accordingly, we formed The Great Indian Dream. Unlike any other dream, this is one dream which each one of us are determined to realise and that too in our own lifetimes. Each bit of cynicism and condemnation from pessimists makes us evolve even stronger and determined. All our endeavours and initiative is towards realisation of this dream, where in we produce committed bare foot managers and entrepreneurs who are needed by nation, on an insistent basis. As an educational institute, we aim at initializing a three dimensional personality in IIPMites, viz. Pursuit of knowledge in economics and management Commitment to economic, social, political and technological upliftment of masses and Cultivation of taste for literature, ne arts and etc. Economists often have limited access to the practical problems facing senior managers, while senior managers often lack the time and motivation to look beyond their own industry to the larger issues of the global economy. It has set before it the twin tasks: to reorient education and research towards the needs of both the private and public sectors and to establish the link between the National Economic Planning and the development of private enterprises in Indian economy. IIPM dares to look beyond, and understands that what we teach today, other adopt tomorrow. IIPMs service output (education, research and consulting,) is a unique combination of two distinct disciplines: economics and management. Through this integration, IIPM helps guide business and policy leaders in shaping the Indian and global economy, bringing together the practical insights of industry with broader national and global perspectives. A hall mark of IIPM is that it is armed with the comparative advantage of engaging the committed, passionate and brightest management post graduates and undergraduates, who pursued the education at IIPM and subsequently joined it, to realise the dream. IIPM alumni, spread across the globe, holding crucial decision-making positions in the corporate sector, are bonded by the one ideology of making a positive difference, turning that ideology into a movement itself. The Great Indian Dream is another humble initiative towards the realisation of the same and more distinctly, engaging the broader publics and pertinent stakeholders.

SEARCH, SIEVE, SCHEME...

After 8 years of bringing out The India Economy Review as a quarterly journal, weve decided to rechristen it as The Great Indian Dream and make it monthly with an idea to have a more regular impact on the Indian economy and realise the Great Indian Dream of an educated, healthy and employed India. In economics, like in everyday existence, it is imperative to hear, perceive and consider what others have to say. Each issue of The Great Indian Dream brings together a selection of important contributions on a particular theme, authored by some of the brightest minds in different areas of Indian economics. The provocation for publishing these issues arises from the fact that over the years economic journals have become copious, exclusive and expensive. Most of the journals and a good many of the books have gone beyond the cerebral and nancial reach of general students and other scholars. It is for them that these issues are primarily being raised and debated here. Much about India is transparent enough. One does not require detailed criteria, cunning calibration or probing analysis to pinpoint Indias problems and recognise its antecedents. There is in fact much that is perceptible about India. But not everything about India is even if simplistic is so simple. The learned reader would appreciate the fact that India is like an elephant that looms too large to be grasped within a distinct structure and paradigm the constituent parts of which would fail to reveal the entirety. Obviously and observably, no suggested solution to any protracted and complex socio-economic problem will satisfy all sides and stake-holders evenly. Consequently, there exists an enormous diversity in economic thinking and perspectives, as is also reected in the viewpoints of different expert contributors in this issue. The intended outcome of this exercise is to facilitate the invention, improvement, deliberation and dissemination of innovation in economic thinking and national economic planning, insisting merely on well-grounded, open and unbiased debates, without predetermined outcomes. It is impossible to do justice to the entire eld of Indian economics in a single issue. The topics selected for this issue are those which are of critical and immediate importance to India. Majority of them were freshly and exclusively written. Encapsulated, it is a constructive attempt aimed at helping India actualise its promises and potential. The editors hope that this issue of the GID proffer the reader a avour of dynamism and excitement and persuade her/him to participate in the journey towards realising The Great Indian Dream. At the same time, it illuminates the terrible, practical problems of India and Bharat.

A C Neilson ABB ABN Amro Accenture Acer India ADAG Adani Group Adlabs Radio Aegon Religare Al Reyami Group Al Shirawi Group American Express AMRUTANJAN Anand Rathi Angel Broking Angel Capital & Debt Market Ltd Apollo Munich Arcadia Broking Audi Delhi Avaya Global Avery Dennison Aviva Life Insurance Axis Bank Bajaj Allianz Bajaj Capital Bank of NewYork Mellon Barclays Bank Barclays Finance- Rank Investments and Credits Barnies Coffee Bharti Airtel Bharti Axa Big FM Birla Global Finance Birla Insurance Advisory Services Ltd. Birla Power Solutions Birla Sun Life Insurance Bisleri Blue Dart Business Octane Business standard Caf Coffee Day Capital BMW India BNP PARIBAS Bombay Paints Ltd. BP Ergo er Ellis Centurian Bank of Punjab Chambal Cent IQ - Standard & Poors Career Launcher CB Richard Fertilizers Chase Manhattan Bank k Cholamandalam DBS Citi Bank
CITI Financial CITIBANK Shelters Claude Neon Clea Public Relations Coats India Pvt. Ltd. Cogent

molive l Partners Fil Telecom & Infrastructure Ltd. Colgate Palmolive Colliers International Colwell & Salmon Communications Copal Partners Cosmo Films Country Club Creons Advertising Cushman
& Wakefield D.E.Shaw Da Milano Italia Daimler Chrysler DALMIA CEMENTS Dawnay Day AV DCM Sriram DELL Deloitte Consulting Deloitte KM Deutsche AMC Deutsche Bank Dexter Diageo DLF DLF Marketing DLF Pramerica Life Insurance DLF Universal Dun & Bradstreet E & Y Ebrahim Abdul Aal Edleweiss Eicher Elite Stock Management Emaar

MGF Emirates Neon Encompass Events E-Serve International Euro RSCG Evalueserve Eveready Industries Everest Industries Executive Access Exhibitions India Expeditors FCBULKA Featherlite Ferco Singapore PTE Fever 104 Financial Technolgogies India-MCX First Gulf Bank FORD Fortis Securities Ltd. Fortune India Frost & Sulliven Fuji Bond Future Generali Ge Money Genesis Burson Marsteller Genesis Luxury GENPACT Analytics GM Overseas Godrej & Boyce Godrej Hi Care Gold Souk (AGS Group) Goldman Sachs Goldstar International Google Grail Research Grand Ashok GRANT THRONTON Grasim Industries Ltd. . Group M Haier Appliances Havells India Hawk Media LL HCL HCL NSURANCE Comnet HCL Infinet HCL Infosystem HCL Infosystems HCL Technologies BPO Service Ltd. HDFC HDFC Asset Management Company Ltd. HDFC LIFE INSURANCE HDFC Mutual Fund HDFC Standard Life Hero Mindmine Hewlett Packard Hill & Associates Hindustan Times Hindustan n More tha Unilever Limited Hindware Hitachi Honda Seil India Honeywell HP Invent HSBC HSBC Invest D For class of 11 Di Hughes Net Fusion Hutch I.D.E.A IBM Daksh IBN ICICI Bank ICICI Direct ICICI Lombad Direct NT RECOR PLACEME 5 YEARS! a General Insurance ICICI Prudential ICICI Securities ICPAR IDBI Fortis IFFCO TOKYO I-gate IL & FS India PLACED! Bulls India Infoline India King IndiaMart Info Edge (Shiksha) Infosys ING Investment ING Vysya FOR LAST a Bank B ING Vysya Life Insurance ISRDO ITC Wills Lifestyle ITW signode J Walter Thompson n J. P. Infrastructure J.K. J PI f t t JK Industries Jindal Steel JK Risk Managers and Insurance Co. JK Tyre & Industries Johnson & Nicholson Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj Jumbo Electronics Karvy Stockbroking Kelly Services Keslec Schreder Khemka Group Khimji Ramdas LLC Kingfisher Kirloskar Oils Ltd. Knight Frank Kohler India Kotak Bank Kotak Commodities Kotak Life Insurance Kotak Securities Kotak wealth Koutons Retail India Ltd. KPMG Krome Kuehne + Nagel Lafarge Group LG Electronics Liberty Retail Revolutions Ltd. Lintas Media Group Ma Foi Madison Media Group Maersk Magma Shrachi Finance Mahindra and Mahindra Mahindra Finance Mahindra Group - Club Mahindra Majid Alfuttaim M Group PLC. Manpower p Man Consulting Max Bupa pa Health Insurance Max Health k Life Mearsk Line Metlife Care Max New York p Moolchand Healthcare Insurance MGF Group al Financial Services Motivate Group MURUGAPPA Mother Dairy Motilal Oswal Motilal Oswal O l Naukri.com NDTV Imagine NIIT O&M Office Tiger Ok Play Omam Consultants Omaxe Onicra OOH Media Oracle Oralce Direct OSIM OSRAM Pantaloon Retail Parryware Patni Co Computers Pepsi (Tropicana) PepsiCo International Perot Systems TSI (India) Ltd. Phoenix Piaggio Vehicles Pipal Research Planman C Consulting Planman Media Planman Motion Pictures POLARIS Punj Loyld Q2AMedia QAI R K Swamy BBDO R. R. Oomerbhoy Pvt. Ltd. Radico ic Khaitan Radio City Radio Mirchi Radio Today Broadcasting Ltd. RAK BANK Rcube International Realistic RS! INTERNATIONAL S IN 5 YEA e Realtors Recerche Red Bull RED FM Rediffusion DYR Redington India Reebok Reliance COMPANIE C Capital Ltd. - Consumer Finance Reliance Communication Reliance Consumer Finance Reliance Digital PLACEMENTS IN LAST 4 YEARS l ce Reliance Entertainment-Big Flicks Reliance General Insurance Company Reliance Infocomm Reliance Life Insurance Reliance Lifestyle Reliance Money Reliance Mutual Fund Reliance Retail Reliance Securities RELIGARE Religare Finvest Religare Macquarie Religare Securities Limited Relio Quick Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance. RPG Cellucom RR DONNELLEY RUBECON. Sab Miller Sahara Saint Gobin Sakshi Advertising & Publicity Sampark Business Strategy Pvt. Ltd. SAMSUNG Satyam Computer Saud Bahwan Group Saudi Archirodon Ltd. Searce Sharaf Group Share Khan Sharp Business Solutions Shoppers Stop Siemens Power Engineering Group SIFY Swedish Trade Council Synovate Sys Standard Chartered Bank Standard Chartered Finance Ltd. Star Cruise Sun Networks Sundaram Finance Suzuki Motorcycles India Ltd. Tech Mahindra TERI The Grand Mind LLC Taj Group Taj Mahal Hotel Taj Tristar Targus Technologies Tata AIG Tata Motors TATA Technologies Tata Teleservices Ltd. TCS Tommy Hilfiger Trident UB The Oberoi The Park Thomas Reuters Thomson Digital Times Job.Com Times Of India Titan Industries TNS

2850+

99%+

1500+

350+

Group UBS Cognizant UTI BANK UTI Securities Vishal Megamart Vodafone Wacorp Hyundai India
Technologien Walsons Securitas Way2Wealth Welspun West End Club Whirlpool

Ltd. Walldrof Weich

WIPRO Wipro KPO WNS Global Services XEROX Yamaha Motors Yes Bank Yes Bank Retail Banking ZEE Network Zydus Cadila * This is just a shortlist of the companies where our students got PLACED in the last five years!! We are thankful to them and to all others too!!

N L EDUC ATIO REA TS REAL PL ACEMEN

www.iipm.edu

RANKED No.1 A o IN INDIA IN GLOBAL EXPOSURE DA N B X O

INDIAS GLOBAL B-SCHOOL
100% of students who undergo IIPMs flagship Programme in Planning and Entrepreneurship go for a Global Orientation Programme to USA/EUROPE etc. They further spend a week in one of the Top B-Schools of the world like DARDEN, NYU STERN etc.

leading to CERTIFICATION IN GLOBAL MANAGEMENT from WORLDS TOP RANKED B-SCHOOLS

IIPM GOTA* programmes are held in the following institutions abroad, leading to Certification in Global Management from them
Participating B-School: Affiliate B-School: International Residency Participating School for GOTA:

Participating B-Schools in India

Strategic Marketing Programme Wealth Management Programme:

20000+STUDENTS SENT ABROAD FOR GLOBAL EXPOSURE 20 TOP MOST B-SCHOOL/ UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS HAVE COME TO TEACH!! 1800+ Students, as part of IIPM programme, did GLOBAL CERTIFICATION PROGRAMMES from Darden School of Business, Haas School of Business - UC Berkeley, Judge Business School- Cambridge, Mc Combs School Of Business- UT Austin, ILR- Cornell University and NTU Singapore 350+ Students did CERTIFICATION PROGRAMMES in India with HAAS School of Business and NUS !! 250+ INTERNATIONAL PLACEMENTS IN LAST 3 YEARS & Winner of Dewang Mehta Best B-School Award 2008 & 2009 for HIGHEST INTERNATIONAL PLACEMENTS IN INDIA for 08(165) & 09(55)!! 200+ EDPs WITH INTERNATION PROFESSORS organised for INDIA INC. jointly with IIPM faculty! 150+ ORGANISATIONS visited globally! INTERNATIONAL 100+ INTERNA INTERNATIONAL STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMME participants on campus from 10 different Universities! 15+ VISI COUNTRIES VISITED by IIPM students including Australia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Turkey, Italy, Japan, UK, Norway Finland, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and United States! 12+ Norway, GLOBAL MAN MANAGEMENT GURUS like Philip Kotler, Stephen R. Covey etc. came to teach! 6 6+ GLOBAL MANAGEMENT events with International student
participation!!

Constantly Ranked at the Top

IIPM has been Ranked the No.1 B-School in India, ahead of all the IIMs in Global Exposure as well as Intellectual Impact by Zee Business Best B-Schools Survey 2011 and ranked the 5th Best B-School Overall as well as 5th Best in Placements. IIPM has been Ranked No.1 in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs) and the 9th Best B-School in India by DNA Best B-Schools Survey 2010 IIPM has been ranked the No.1 Private B-School of North India by the Hindustan Times Best B-Schools of India Survey 2010. IIPM was also ranked the 8th Best B-School in the country that students aspire for and the 9th Best Private B-School in India in the same survey. IIPM has been ranked the No.1 B-School in Delhi NCR by Mail Today Best B-Schools Survey 2010. The same survey also ranked IIPM No.1 in 25 Top of the Mind Institutes, No.1 in International Exposure, No.2 in Placements and Potential to Network and No.3 in Faculty.

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