Policy interventions should be reviewed for India to realise agroforestry potential – Opinion News

By Sanjeev Sanyal & Naveen Bali

India, with its tropical climate and sprawling agricultural lands, has the potential for an agroforestry revolution. Growing trees along with crops and livestock can enrich biodiversity, rejuvenate soil health, and increase agrarian yields. Despite this potential, India’s agroforestry landscape is disappointing. A study in Environment, Development and Sustainability found that as of 2021, only 17% of India’s agricultural land is covered by agroforestry, far below the global average of 43%.

Why this disparity? First, stringent, conservation-centric policies have disallowed legal tree felling, often equating it with environmental degradation. The second factor is the labyrinthine process of securing permits for lumber transport. Ironically, India has become the world’s largest importer of teak — accounting for 75% of global imports — despite being home to 44% of the planet’s teak forests.

In 2023, India spent over $2.7 billion on imports, mostly on timber that should have been grown in India. The International Tropical Timber Organization forecasts a further 70% surge in demand from wood-based industries by 2030, exacerbating the country’s dependence on wood imports. Moreover, the World Bank estimates that 42% of India’s imported timber, and 80% of imported teak hail from unstable or conflict-ridden regions. This dependency not only jeopardises the supply chain but also places the entire wood-based industry at risk.
India has a substantial opportunity to transform its timber industry through agroforestry, particularly with teak. Although it is a native species, India currently spends around $350 million annually on teak imports alone. By encouraging agroforestry, India could not only reduce its dependency on imported teak but also position itself as a leading exporter. This shift would create significant economic opportunities for farmers, artisans, and wood-based industries, stimulating growth across ancillary sectors and boosting livelihoods.

Agroforestry is also important for augmenting soil organic content (SOC). Enhanced SOC means improved groundwater retention, reduced reliance on irrigation and fertilisers, and increased nutritional value. According to the National Rainfed Area Authority, SOC levels have plummeted from 1% to a dismal 0.3% over the past 70 years. The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education champions agroforestry as a cost-effective remedy for reclaiming India’s 97 million hectares of degraded land.

Yet, purely conservation-driven forest policies have fixated on protecting existing forest cover, inadvertently hampering tree cultivation beyond these boundaries. The National Forest Policy of 1988 sought to bolster tree cover but imposed stringent restrictions on tree felling. The landmark Godavarman case of 1996 further entrenched these restrictions, stymieing tree felling nationwide. These policies have discouraged private stakeholders, notably farmers, from engaging in timber cultivation. As a result, imports have gone up fourfold since 1996.

Adding to the complexity is a bewildering regulatory maze across states, each with its own set of laws governing tree cultivation, harvesting, and transportation. Madhya Pradesh, for instance, is governed by the MP Lok Vaniki Act 2001, the MP Land Revenue Code, 1959, the MP Adim Jan Jatiyon Ka Sanrakshan (Vrakshon Me Hit) Adhiniyam, 1999, and the MP (Forest Produce) Transit Rules, 2000. Maharashtra, similarly, operates under the Maharashtra Felling of Trees Act, 1964, the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966, and the Bombay Forest Rules, 1942. Farmers must navigate this bureaucratic labyrinth, securing permits from a multitude of departments. Further complicating the process are arbitrary species exemptions.

Moreover, to transport timber, farmers must obtain permits from the origin state and comply with the destination state’s regulations, often necessitating the hiring of intermediaries. To streamline this, the government of India launched the National Transit Pass System (NTPS) in 2020, an online platform designed to simplify timber transportation. However, adoption has been lacklustre, with only 15 states and three Union Territories on board and a mere 86,000 applications processed to date. Around 86% of the applications have been filed only from three states — West Bengal, Telangana, and Jammu and Kashmir.

To surmount these obstacles, we propose three interventions. First, deregulate high-value native timber species such as teak, gurjan, and meranti. This would reduce forest department restrictions and empower farmers to negotiate directly with buyers. Second, leverage blockchain, microchips, and digital tagging technologies to create a transparent, online system for monitoring tree stock and transit; this would prevent illegal felling of forest lumber (the main factor behind all the restrictions). Finally, mandate all states to integrate with the NTPS portal and expand its remit to include felling permits, thereby establishing a single-window clearance system.

These proposed reforms are not without precedent. India has previously liberalised regulations for bamboo and sandalwood to encourage their cultivation and curb illegal felling. The 2017 amendment to the Forest Act, 1927, reclassified bamboo as grass rather than a tree, and Karnataka’s Sandalwood Policy of 2022 incentivised sandalwood cultivation on private land by removing restrictions and permitting open market sales. Although sandalwood regeneration is a slow process, these regulatory simplifications are anticipated to increase private sector participation in high-value wood cultivation, reduce illegal felling, and decrease dependence on imported Australian sandalwood, ultimately boosting farmers’ incomes.

The above issue with agroforestry is yet another example of seemingly well-intentioned policy interventions leading to negative unintended consequences. This is why all such interventions should be periodically reviewed and adjusted.

Sanjeev Sanyal & Naveen Bali, Respectively, member, EAC-PM, and senior manager, Koan Advisory Group. Views are personal

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