Shah, et al. 2021. Water Alternatives, 2021, Vol 14, Issue 2, p573
Soil moisture conservation ('green water') and runoff capture ('blue water') can reduce agricultural risks to rainfall variation. However, little is known about how such conjoined initiatives articulate with social inequity when up-scaled into formal government programmes. In 2014, the Government of Maharashtra institutionalised an integrative green-blue water conservation campaign to make 5000 new villages drought-free each year (2015-2019). This paper analyses the extent to which the campaign, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, enhanced the capture, equity, and sustainability of water for agricultural risk reduction. We find government interests to demonstrate villages as 'drought-free' affected the character and implementation of this integrative campaign. First, drainage-line and waterbody initiatives were disproportionately implemented over land-based adaptations to redress water scarcity. Second, initiatives were concentrated on public land – and less so on agricultural plots – to achieve drought-free targets. Third, the campaign conflated raising overall village water availability with improvements in water access. These dynamics: 1) limited the potential impact of water conservation; 2) excluded residents, including members of historically disadvantaged groups, who did not possess the key endowments and entitlements needed to acquire the benefits associated with drought-relief initiatives; and 3) fuelled additional groundwater extraction, undermining water conservation efforts. Villages will not be drought-free unless water conservation benefits are widespread, accessible, and long-term.
KEYWORDS: Agriculture, drought, water conservation, inequity, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, India
Shah, et al. 2021. Water Alternatives, 2021, Vol 14, Issue 2, p573
Soil moisture conservation ('green water') and runoff capture ('blue water') can reduce agricultural risks to rainfall variation. However, little is known about how such conjoined initiatives articulate with social inequity when up-scaled into formal government programmes. In 2014, the Government of Maharashtra institutionalised an integrative green-blue water conservation campaign to make 5000 new villages drought-free each year (2015-2019). This paper analyses the extent to which the campaign, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, enhanced the capture, equity, and sustainability of water for agricultural risk reduction. We find government interests to demonstrate villages as 'drought-free' affected the character and implementation of this integrative campaign. First, drainage-line and waterbody initiatives were disproportionately implemented over land-based adaptations to redress water scarcity. Second, initiatives were concentrated on public land – and less so on agricultural plots – to achieve drought-free targets. Third, the campaign conflated raising overall village water availability with improvements in water access. These dynamics: 1) limited the potential impact of water conservation; 2) excluded residents, including members of historically disadvantaged groups, who did not possess the key endowments and entitlements needed to acquire the benefits associated with drought-relief initiatives; and 3) fuelled additional groundwater extraction, undermining water conservation efforts. Villages will not be drought-free unless water conservation benefits are widespread, accessible, and long-term.
KEYWORDS: Agriculture, drought, water conservation, inequity, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, India
Highlights Explores the relationship between farmer autonomy and environmental outcomes. Compares... more Highlights Explores the relationship between farmer autonomy and environmental outcomes. Compares agricultural cooperatives and cooperation in UK, New Zealand, Switzerland and Brazil. For autonomy to remain a tool to negotiate alternatives then we must continue to prevent the monopolization of its meaning. Actual autonomy can create dialogue to bridge concerns about farmers, livelihood, and environmental outcomes. Abstract The struggle over autonomy in farming is emblematic of the philosophical and practical tensions inherent in solving multi-scalar environmental issues. We explore the multiplicities of autonomy through comparative case studies of agricultural cooperation in England, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Brazil, which allow consideration of the implications of a range of approaches to managing farmed environments under different variations of neoliberalism. The original data emerge from separate projects examining aspects of cooperative autonomy in relation to the effects of the neoliberalisation of nature in agriculture. The comparative examination of autonomy and cooperation across distinct agri-food contexts highlights diversity in the social, ecological and economic outcomes of alternative forms of agri-environmental governance. This analysis provides a sobering corrective to both the over-romanticization of cooperation across global peasant movements and the over-romanticization of the individual entrepreneur in agro-industrial and family farming sectors. Our examination highlights the need for greater attention to the relationships between actors at and across different scales (the farm level, organizations and communities, the state, and industry) to understand how, in contrasting contexts of neoliberalisation, alternative conceptions of autonomy serve to mediate particular interventions and their material environmental consequences. A focus on actual autonomy, via the peasant principle and territorial cooperatives, creates an opening in theoretical and political dialogue to bridge concerns about farmers, livelihoods, and environmental outcomes.
There has been growing policy interest in social justice issues related to both health and food. ... more There has been growing policy interest in social justice issues related to both health and food. We sought to understand the state of knowledge on relationships between health equity—i.e. health inequalities that are socially produced—and food systems, where the concepts of ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ are prominent. We undertook exploratory scoping and mapping stages of a ‘meta-narrative synthesis’ on pathways from global food systems to health equity outcomes. The review was oriented by a conceptual framework delineating eight pathways to health (in)equity through the food system: 1—Multi-Scalar Environmental, Social Context; 2—Occupational Exposures; 3—Environmental Change; 4—Traditional Livelihoods, Cultural Continuity; 5—Intake of Contaminants; 6—Nutrition; 7—Social Determinants of Health and 8—Political, Economic and Regulatory context. The terms ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ were, respectively, paired with a series of health equity-related terms. Combinations of health equity and food security (1414 citations) greatly outnumbered pairings with food sovereignty (18 citations). Prominent crosscutting themes that were observed included climate change, biotechnology, gender, racialization, indigeneity, poverty, citizenship and HIV as well as institutional barriers to reducing health inequities in the food system. The literature indicates that food sovereignty-based approaches to health in specific contexts, such as advancing healthy school food systems, promoting soil fertility, gender equity and nutrition, and addressing structural racism, can complement the longer-term socio-political restructuring processes that health equity requires. Our conceptual model offers a useful starting point for identifying interventions with strong potential to promote health equity. A research agenda to explore project-based interventions in the food system along these pathways can support the identification of ways to strengthen both food sovereignty and health equity.
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Shah, et al. 2021. Water Alternatives, 2021, Vol 14, Issue 2, p573
Soil moisture conservation ('green water') and runoff capture ('blue water') can reduce agricultural risks to rainfall variation. However, little is known about how such conjoined initiatives articulate with social inequity when up-scaled into formal government programmes. In 2014, the Government of Maharashtra institutionalised an integrative green-blue water conservation campaign to make 5000 new villages drought-free each year (2015-2019). This paper analyses the extent to which the campaign, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, enhanced the capture, equity, and sustainability of water for agricultural risk reduction. We find government interests to demonstrate villages as 'drought-free' affected the character and implementation of this integrative campaign. First, drainage-line and waterbody initiatives were disproportionately implemented over land-based adaptations to redress water scarcity. Second, initiatives were concentrated on public land – and less so on agricultural plots – to achieve drought-free targets. Third, the campaign conflated raising overall village water availability with improvements in water access. These dynamics: 1) limited the potential impact of water conservation; 2) excluded residents, including members of historically disadvantaged groups, who did not possess the key endowments and entitlements needed to acquire the benefits associated with drought-relief initiatives; and 3) fuelled additional groundwater extraction, undermining water conservation efforts. Villages will not be drought-free unless water conservation benefits are widespread, accessible, and long-term.
KEYWORDS: Agriculture, drought, water conservation, inequity, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, India
Shah, et al. 2021. Water Alternatives, 2021, Vol 14, Issue 2, p573
Soil moisture conservation ('green water') and runoff capture ('blue water') can reduce agricultural risks to rainfall variation. However, little is known about how such conjoined initiatives articulate with social inequity when up-scaled into formal government programmes. In 2014, the Government of Maharashtra institutionalised an integrative green-blue water conservation campaign to make 5000 new villages drought-free each year (2015-2019). This paper analyses the extent to which the campaign, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, enhanced the capture, equity, and sustainability of water for agricultural risk reduction. We find government interests to demonstrate villages as 'drought-free' affected the character and implementation of this integrative campaign. First, drainage-line and waterbody initiatives were disproportionately implemented over land-based adaptations to redress water scarcity. Second, initiatives were concentrated on public land – and less so on agricultural plots – to achieve drought-free targets. Third, the campaign conflated raising overall village water availability with improvements in water access. These dynamics: 1) limited the potential impact of water conservation; 2) excluded residents, including members of historically disadvantaged groups, who did not possess the key endowments and entitlements needed to acquire the benefits associated with drought-relief initiatives; and 3) fuelled additional groundwater extraction, undermining water conservation efforts. Villages will not be drought-free unless water conservation benefits are widespread, accessible, and long-term.
KEYWORDS: Agriculture, drought, water conservation, inequity, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, India