India View: Testing Climate-Resilient Agriculture in Eastern India Through the Case of Odisha
Didarul Islam
Odisha, lying alongside the Bay of Bengal, is significantly vulnerable to climate change, often experiencing cyclones, heatwaves and heavy rainfall. About 210 cyclones have hit the state between 1891 and 2018. Due to its apparent vulnerability, Odisha has emerged as the forerunner in millet production and agriculture reform in order to move away from water-intensive rice cultivation, thus promoting climate resilience. However, inequality translated itself into these seemingly well-intentioned practices as well, revealing deeper tensions around food security and livelihoods.
Rice, along with wheat, forms the backbone of Indian agriculture and was key in solving the food scarcity crisis of the 1960s. With the Green Revolution and subsidies, emphasis was placed on rice production in Eastern India; however, looking at it now, it exacerbates the vulnerabilities of the region. It is a water-intensive crop which heavily contributes to the depletion of groundwater. Moreover, its prioritisation prevents crop diversification.
Thus, there came the Odisha Millets Mission (OMM) in 2017 to address the issues, starting with one state at a time. Not only does it aim to ensure climate resilience, but also it attempts to bring back millets, a key food item for Odisha’s tribes. OMM recommended the increased production of millets in agriculture, citing their high nutritional value and their tendency to fight diseases such as diabetes and heart-related issues. In order to achieve its mission, the programme provided rationed millets under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and recommended the certification of the crop to secure a minimum support price (MSP) for farmers’ benefit. Moreover, the programme included the exhibition of millet-based recipes in local workshops to promote its consumption, and in villages, farmers attended training to increase millet production.
OMM received policy support in the political landscape of greater emphasis on increased millet production such that 2023 was declared the International Year of Millets. The grain was included in midday meal programmes in school, and the programme itself is now being structured for incorporation in other states. OMM helped the farmers of Koraput region in now producing a surplus of millet, which ensures their stable income.
In terms of climate resilience, the Indian Institute of Water Management Bhubaneswar carried out capacity-building programmes to demonstrate sustainable irrigation and water management practices among farmers in Odisha. Furthermore, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) also implemented micro irrigation systems in the state to prevent wastage of water.
In collaboration with the World Bank, the state also introduced the Odisha Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture (OIIPCRA) which aims at reducing dependence on water-intensive crops and increasing access to water management and irrigation services. This included rehabilitating water tanks and increasing aquaculture practices like fishing.
While these initiatives are aimed at food security and climate resilience, they reveal the stark realities and inequalities on the ground. OMM shows goodwill, but the procurement of millets is still not on the same level as that of wheat and rice. Therefore, this hinders the farmers from taking up millet production instead of rice. Moreover, the quality of the seeds is still not up to par to support farmers’ shift to millet. On top of that, millet production is a labour-intensive process post-harvest, and the tasks are usually carried out by women. This points out the gendered division of labour wherein women’s work is more strenuous, especially due to the lack of mechanisation of the process. Since women usually work within families, their labour often goes unpaid and unseen.
The farmers are also in opposition to new irrigation projects like the one on the Samakoi river which aims to build a dam to provide more water for crops. They argue that it threatens to submerge various villages. This points out the top-down approach wherein the lived realities of people are overlooked under state-led decisions. Issues also emerged with the OIIPCRA, with the spending being much lower than the budget and constant project delays.
When taken together, these cases point out the gap between policy and lived realities through the lens of climate resilience in Odisha. When the social issues and inequalities are not addressed, provisions for climate resilience remain agricultural objectives and not social projects that include the complicated realities in their mission. Odisha’s experience also demonstrates that agricultural reform can’t be separated from political economy. India still places emphasis on rice cultivation, which doesn’t give as much priority to diversification, thus leaving limited space for millet. Moreover, agricultural reforms too follow a top-down approach wherein infrastructural expansion is given more importance than community acceptance.
As OMM is gaining national recognition and there are talks of replication in other states, it is important to address the structural limitations of the programme, such as gendered labour, uneven uptake and rice dependency, in order to not reflect the same problems, especially among tribals and marginalised farmers.
