Even as there is a raging conflict between growth and the environment with its spill-over effects holding several multi-crore mega development projects in the country, the advanced countries have laid out a road map for ‘a green growth strategy for food and agriculture'.
In a just published study on Green Growth Strategy, released in Paris on Wednesday, the inter-governmental think tank of 34 rich countries, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) plumps for “a major shift in farm policy and practice if a growing world population is to be fed without over-exploiting scarce natural resources or further damaging the environment”.
With the world's population likely to rise by a third between now and 2050, analysts reckon that an additional one billion tonnes of cereals and 200 million tonnes of meat would need to be produced annually between now and then to feed everyone.
As part of its strategy seeking to define an economic development path that is consistent with enduring environmental protection using natural resources within their carrying capacity, the OECD's Green Growth Strategy has aptly cautioned that a “business as usual” path does not fully account for environmental limits and social concerns. Hence, it called for “a comprehensive and coherent strategy” on three important fronts.
Resource use efficiency
First, it said that as increasing resource use efficiency throughout the supply chain would not only ensure more production relative to inputs used but also conserve scarce natural resources and deal with waste, this automatically meant “according higher priority to research, development, innovation, education and information applied to the agriculture and food sectors”.
Second, it contends that prices that reflect the scarcity value of natural resources as well as the positive and negative environmental impacts of the food and agriculture system would contribute to resource use efficiency.
But this meant, it said, reducing economically and environmentally harmful subsidies while encourage eco-friendly measures and consumer information, improving the functioning of markets, taking account of social concerns and further integrating domestic and global markets.
This would also imply applying the polluter pays principle through charges and regulations and providing fillips for the supply of environmental goods and services and reducing waste and post-harvest losses. Thirdly, it proposed establishment and enforcement of well-defined property rights since over-exploitation could result when marine resources, land and forests lack clearly defined rights and ownership.
Alternative policy
Moving beyond these general guidelines to more concrete policy proposals that illustrate how alternative policy sets could contribute to a greener growth model for agriculture would call for further consideration, OECD said in this regard particular attention would need to be paid — in concert with the UN FAO — to the specific circumstances of developing countries.
Over time, this could become a tool to augment collective knowledge about how policies contribute to green growth, besides being a stepping-stone to “reframing growth to better account for natural assets and the environmental risks that could ultimately undermine economic growth and development”, OECD said.