Agricultural intensification and risk in water-constrained hard-rock regions: a social-ecological systems study of horticulture cultivation in western India

Abstract

Developing countries frequently find their poverty reduction initiatives to be at odds with promotion of sustainable practices. In India too, agricultural intensification through horticulture cultivation is an important government strategy to raise farm incomes but its mechanisms and implications have not been critically analyzed. Our objective is to characterize this intensification and explore conditions under which its goals may be achieved while ensuring equity in access to ecological services and resilience of the social-ecological system (SES). Our focal SES is the water-constrained farm system of western India that overlays shallow hard-rock aquifers common to the Indian peninsula. We document farm decisions and coping strategies of 121 farmers over two consecutive years: a drought year and a good rainfall year. We find that farmers are driven to high-value horticulture to remain economically viable in the face of increasing social-ecological vulnerability due to factors such as monsoon variability, high groundwater development, and uncertainty in irrigation access. Through systems modeling, we uncover the feedback loops that propagate risk. Risk in access to water, in part due to monsoon dry spells, starts a cycle of expensive investments often requiring large loans to assure access and a simultaneous move to horticulture in response to the elevated cost of water. This mitigates risk for the farmer in the short run but, in the absence of regulation and complete information about the common groundwater pool, leads to competitive investments, driving the regime to greater uncertainty levels for the entire community. This vicious cycle of investment and intensification escalates risk, leading to frequent crop failure, farmer indebtedness, and the tragedy of the commons. Government interventions further catalyze this. We propose alternate leverage points to enhance social comprehension of risk and facilitate collective action so as to negotiate room for human needs while remaining within biophysical boundaries.

What is the evidence linking financial assistance for drought-affected agriculture and resilience in tropical Asia? A systematic review

“…Many schemes had not accounted for non-economic losses that might include health impacts, damage to wildlife or loss of biodiversity (Bahinipati, 2020). As an example, a government scheme to expand access to groundwater irrigation may make farms more productive in the short term (and sustain incomes) but may not foster longer-term resilience as overutilisation of the water source or intensification of production ultimately causes negative environmental impacts (Prasad and Sohoni, 2020). Similar paradoxes can include disinvestment in education in favour of immediate employment in low-skill jobs or encouraging adaptation towards income diversification where specialisation in livestock activities may be a more drought resilient strategy in some circumstances (Gerber and Mirzabaev, 2017).…”

Obliqueness as a feminist mode of analysing waterscapes: Learning to think with overflows

“…The irrigation scheme forms part of wider and long-standing efforts by the Government of Maharashtra to solve problems of water scarcity in drought-prone rural areas (Government of Maharashtra (GoM), 2018; see also Joy et al, 2014;Shah et al, 2021). Thanks to it, it is possible for farmers like Vidya and Renie to irrigate their farms throughout the year and to cultivate both traditional crops, such as millets and pulses, as well as commercial cash crops like flowers, vegetables, fruits and spices (see also Joy et al, 2014;Prasad and Sohoni, 2020). For the farmers of Pravah, the possibility to access irrigation water from the new system marks a significant transition: from an earlier period characterized by subsistence rain-fed farming, scarce groundwater resources and labour migration to a comparatively prosperous present where they can irrigate market crops with plenty of wastewater.…”