INDIA FLOODS: FEARS GROW FOR FARMLAND DEVASTATED IN UTTARAKHAND

India floods: fears grow for farmland devastated in Uttarakhand

With the Indian government focusing on rescue and relief operations, the plight of farmers has been largely ignored


Malini Shankar in Uttarkashi for IPS, part of the Guardian development network
theguardian.com, Monday 5 August 2013 09.00 EDT

MDG: floods in Uttarakhand
India floods – experts say farms in Uttarakhand are in no shape to yield a winter harvest this year.

More than a month after flash floods in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in north India left 1,000 dead and 6,000 missing, the government has yet to release a full agricultural impact assessment, triggering fears about the extent of damage to farmland.

Questions remain as to how soon soil restoration efforts will bear fruit and when the farm economy, which accounted for just under 11% of the state's $160bn (£105bn) gross domestic product in 2012-13, will be restored.

Heavy flooding on 15 and 16 June, the result of torrential rains and glacial leaks in the Himalayas, wreaked havoc on Uttarakhand, as the head streams of the river Ganges swelled and swept away pilgrims, homes, roads, cattle and buildings.

With the government focusing its efforts almost entirely on an emergency rescue and relief operation co-ordinated by the armed forces (with more than 42,000 rescues), the plight of farmers has been largely ignored.

Experts from the region say the summer crops have been washed out and the farms are in no shape to yield a winter harvest this year; the sowing season for rice, which coincides with the height of the monsoon (June to September) has been delayed as a result of heavy inundation of paddy fields caused by downpours and landslides.

Though agricultural fields are routinely inundated with the clay that runs down surrounding mountains during summer glacial melts and the annual monsoon, this latest calamity has created a disaster zone in what is frequently referred to as the "land of the gods".

"It is possible that the top soil may have been altered for a considerably longer duration of time than expected," Ram Kishan, regional emergency manager of south Asia for Christian Aid, told IPS.

This Himalayan state, irrigated naturally by perennial glacier-fed rivers, boasts a high degree of agricultural diversity. Rajma, or kidney beans, and potatoes comprise the staple diet of the majority of Uttarakhand's native population of 10 million people, according to the 2011 census.

Crops of rice, wheat, barley, millet, lentils, pulses, potatoes, fruit, vegetables, flowers, spices, herbs and mushrooms have been drowned by the floods, and debris from landslides has compromised the grazing pastures of the state's roughly 11.9m head of livestock, including cows, bullocks, buffaloes, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, hens, chickens and geese.

"Initial estimates suggest that 25 to 30% of cultivation has been affected," Kishan said. This represents a huge chunk of the state's average annual production of 8.2m tonnes. NGOs fear the resulting price rise in essential commodities will adversely affect the average farming family.

In total, 753,711 hectares of cultivated farmland have been either deluged or washed away by the Mandakini and Alaknanda rivers, which spring from the Gomukh snout of the huge Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas.

More than 65% of Uttarakhand's residents, most of whom are subsistence farmers with small landholdings of less than a single hectare per family, are dependent on agriculture, according to Aide et Action.
Farmers and tourism

Farmers reliant on seasonal tourism to supplement their incomes during the monsoon months are particularly affected. Uttarakhand is a popular destination for foreign tourists and local pilgrims: "Forty seven million domestic tourists and [half a] million foreign tourists were expected in the current fiscal year," according to Shekhar Ambati at Aide et Action. But the flash floods, he said, eroded this economic base.

The tourism industry is one of the largest employers in the region, hiring locals as porters, guides, drivers, naturalists and translators. Others rent out their mules, offering tourists rides on rocky terrain.

The tourist economy supports local artisans and makers of traditional handicrafts, opens up jobs as caterers and cooks through the hospitality sector, and enables families to establish small businesses such as tea stalls, souvenir shops or grocery stores.

Ambati fears the destruction of the "lifeline of religious tourism" will snowball, affecting the number of tourists arriving in the region and further endangering farmers' incomes.

Quoting small business owners and vegetable sellers at the main market in the town of Rudraprayag, Eilia Jafar of Care India told IPS that farmers are starting to feel the effect of scant agricultural yields. "The number of daily wage labourers coming to the main market has reduced to a great extent," Jafar told IPS.

Road conditions have deteriorated significantly since the floods: some were washed away; others have been made impassable by debris, which is having a negative impact on the market and economy, Jafar said.

Farmers who relied on the tourist infrastructure to sell their produce are among the worst affected. "The state's chamber of commerce and industry estimates that Uttarakhand has lost revenue earnings of over $20bn (£13bn) from its tourism sector alone in the current fiscal year on account of torrential rains that devastated the state," Ambati said.
Government intervention

With tourism unlikely to recover for at least two to three years, the situation calls for intervention from the government to ensure farmers have food and livelihood security in the short term.

Experts have suggested that the government:

• Subsidise agriculturists' losses with higher minimum support prices or procurement prices;

• Begin soil restoration, watershed management and afforestation efforts and take steps to clear encroachments in order to begin long-term recovery;

• Start removing the debris in tourist circuits;

• Conduct a postmortem of the state government's reaction (or lack thereof) to precise forecasts made by the Indian meteorological department;

• Brainstorm and implement employment generation schemes, harness local resources optimally to mitigate outward migration and strengthen the local economy to safeguard against future disasters or natural calamities; and

• Ensure the reconstruction of tourist infrastructure conforms to the state's safety code.