0160-A1

Sustainable Forest Management and Commercialisation of Non-Timber Forest Products in Orissa: Economic Deprivation and Benefits to Primary Gatherers

R. M. Mallik^[1]

Abstract

This paper:

(a) examines the critical role of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) in sustaining the livelihoods of millions of forest-dependent communities, highlighting some issues concerning commercialisation in the context of emerging trade liberalisation;

(b) addresses different types of socio-economic deprivation and exploitation at the different stages of disposal of NTFPs.

The paper argues that sustainable forests through scientific management of the precious resource is a pre-condition for providing sustainable livelihoods to millions of indigenous people. However, the growing denudation of forests, together with land degradation, the increasing dependence for food, fodder, fruits, fuelwood, fibres, housing, medicines, etc. over years has begun to pose serious threats to bio-diversity, the eco-system, environmental/ecological sustainability and food security. The overuse of the resource has also begun to endanger precious species due to lack of adequate resource development, management, conservation, etc.

The livelihoods of indigenous people have been threatened in a variety of ways, for example, through:

• wasteful and inappropriate harvesting practices,

• deforestation and land degradation,

• lack of market orientation,

• supply fluctuations and inadequate adherence to quality,

• lack of competition in the national/international markets,

• inadequate value addition,

• inadequate storage facilities,

• lack of capacity-building activities for the primary gatherers,

• inappropriate NTFP policies and strategies for development,

• lack of adequate intervention by the government,

• stringent forest acts, rules, regulations and laws.

The paper concludes that in the emerging trade liberalised era, since the primary gatherers are not exposed to the commercial reality due to their illiteracy, ignorance and poverty, a multi-pronged strategy in the market network is inevitable, and a great deal of competition among the government agencies, co-operatives and traders/businessmen is of paramount importance. Also, a significant reordering of policy space and institutional landscape is needed in the context of liberalised world economic order.

I. Introduction

The primary purpose of this research paper is two fold: (a) to examine the critical role of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) in sustaining livelihood of millions of indigenous people’ and also, other forest dependent communities, and to highlight a set of critical issues concerning commercialisation in the context of the emerging trade liberalisation (b) to identify different modes of socio-economic deprivations and exploitation at the hierarchical stages of disposal of NTFPs, and also the benefits that accrue to the primary gathers.

NTFPs contribute to local economies, household food security and dietary risk minimisation of forest dependent communities. (Mallik et al 1998). According to an estimate (Sekhar et al 1993), 50 per cent of the forest revenue and 70 per cent of forest export income are generated by Forest Products in India. However, gathering of NTFPs (sal and kendu leaves, grasses, medicinal herbs, honey, gums and resins, oil seeds, tans dyes etc) is a significant source of livelihood for many rural communities.

For nearly four and half decades or so, the fast depletion of precious forest resources both in terms of quantity and quality has begun to receive serious attention of the development planners, environmentalists, conservationists, foresters, policy makers and social scientists, as to how a sustainable livelihood from forest could be ensured to forest-dependant communities.

Sustainable livelihood and food security to forest-dependent communities have raised series of critical issues in the management of forest resources. Because, the continuing environmental degradation and deforestation seem to have severely curtailed the traditional occupations of the indigenous people based on gathering, hunting and agriculture.

Despite the importance to the subsistence of poor households and their significant contribution to national economies, until recently, NTFPs have been overlooked in forest management in many countries, including India. The traditional timber-orientation of forest management, often rooted in the colonial history, has been the main cause for recognising NTFPs as minor, residual, and therefore, of lower value. (Capistrano, 1998). However, NTFPs have attracted attention in recent years for their potential to generate income through added-value processing and innovative marketing.

II. Sustainability and NTFP Management

While there has been growing concern for forest conservation and bio-diversity issues, management of the NTFPs as a viable alternative to timber has begun to attract attention. A realisation has already emerged to shift focus on NTFPs, whose extraction could meet the objective of revenue generation without affecting forest conservation measures. But, the growing dependence of forest dwelling communities on forests for food, fodder, fuelwood, fruits, fibres, housing, medicines etc have increasingly caused over use of NTFPs.

Livelihood sustenance issue also relates to sustainable harvest of NTFPs that ensures negligible impact on the structure and dynamics of the plant population. Therefore, the present day thinking is concentrated more on ecological sustainability at the harvesting levels. In this, connection, nature no doubt provides the grist to meet those requirements, but, there are social organisations, individual decision-makers and markets, but not ‘nature’ that determines such ecological requirement (Chandrasekhar, 1998).

Sustainability depends upon political, socio-economic and a set of institutional factors. But, what appears to be crucial in the context of sustainability of forest resource is who these end-users are? . The users may be government, community groups or local forest users who use the resources differently owing to their varied perceptions, priorities, purposes and so on. Of all, however, the local users are the critical actors of both extraction and monitoring.

In this context, what is perhaps more crucial is a set of policy options in the forest management relevant to livelihood issues that could effectively sustain and widen the scope of capacity building of forest-dependent communities. This precisely relates to Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) that involves continuous provision of wood and non-wood benefits. The non-wood benefits indeed consist of the highly heterogeneous NTFPs, and the forest provides services such as: bio-diversity conservation, watershed protection and carbon sequestration.

The future human needs for food, water, health, energy and settlements to a large extent depend on how the forests are managed. Accordingly, needs for concerted efforts arise not only for its conservation, but also for sustainable development. Thus, sustainability subsumes productivity (growth) and equity (World Bank 1992).

III. NTFPs Management vis-a-vis Market Mechanism

In the process of commercialisation of NTFPs, a number of agents, namely: middlemen, businessmen and traders, government agencies etc enter in to market network. Also, the very characteristics of NTFPs influence the market behaviour, mode of exchange and prices differently in different situations.

In Orissa, while non-traditional NTFPs such as; barks, lac, medicinal plants, resins, oilseeds are exchanged for salt, tobacco and dry fish in remote tribal regions NTFPs of greater exchange value are bartered for cloth, umbrella and other luxury goods. Lac, resin and honey are by and large bartered to peddlers. Oil seeds, barks, resin, gum, leaves, fibres, canes and other similar products are sold in large quantities to generate cash income to tribal households.

Nationalised and commercially significant NTFPs, such as; kendu leaves, sal seeds, bamboos restrict trade, and also limit number of legal buyers. It chokes free flow of goods, and delays payment to gatherers. Thus, it reduces the income that the forest dwellers might get and impoverishes them. It creates inherently exploitative alternative markets, such as: State monopolies, Private monopolies and illegal trade channels.

The structures of marketing channels vary depending upon number of agencies involved and nature of products.

__ Primary gatherer ® village merchant (either an agent or sub-agent) ® wholesaler ® processor consumer. Under such an arrangement, the primary gatherer ends up receiving a small share in what the final consumer pays.

Marketing of NTFPs exhibits a wide range of variations in terms of market structure, marketing channels, price and scope for processing. Most of the NTFPs markets are essentially local, and exhibit seasonal behavioural pattern - such as, honey market in autumn, kusum seed market in pre-monsoon season, tamarind market in summer, and broom stick market in early spring.

Better quality products attract higher demand, and better prices in any market. But, the quality of primary NTFPs is influenced by post-harvest handling, processing and storage conditions. Admittedly, consumer markets need sustainable and continuos product availability, reliable and predictable supply, and stable quality products.

A study (Mallik and Panigrahi 1998) suggests that. While many vendors sell NTFPs for making extra income, others are supported by a network of merchants and several levels of buyers and sellers. Local traders and merchants are the main intermediaries. They buy NTFPs cheaply from the primary gatherers, and sell them to exporters/processors or their agents at exorbitant prices.

Lack of timely dissemination of information about the support prices, market avenues, processing units for value addition etc indeed increase vulnerability of primary gatherers owing to “distress sales". In the absence of appropriate link between input sector and post-production sector, the gatherers, the cultivators and resource owners of NTFPs fail to secure a fair share of processing and value addition (Chandrasekaran, 1998).

NTFP trade and markets are highly disorganised. Government agencies, private middlemen stand between the primary collectors and the manufacturing units/whole sellers/outside dealers as intermediaries. But, the primary collectors in the disposal process are in close contact with the direct consumers in the local weekly markets as well as village ‘haats’. The major buyers of their collections are private businessmen, traders, government agencies and consumers. The trader very often does not pay in cash, and insist on barter,

Markets for NTFPs are by and large informal and unstructured. As a result, the primary gatherers and NTFPs dependent population suffer from various exploitative practices in the hierarchical structure of market network in the tribal areas. Their exploitation is manifested in low price, credit-liked trade and by way of cheating in the measurement.

The price variations in the bordering states as well as within the districts is a matter of grave concern. Evidently, the monopoly buyers within the state pay a lower price to NTFPs as compared to the alternative markets and also their counterparts in bordering states. This transaction is supposedly illegal, but operates in everybody’s knowledge.

IV. Terms of Trade and Modes of Exploitation

Various modes of exploitation and deprivation arise owing to situations, where exchange takes place between illiterate, poverty-stricken, ignorant, impoverished and unorganised tribal forest dwellers and a group of organised vested interests, traders/ business men. In the absence of an effective, vibrant and procurer-friendly institutions a number of non-tribal intermediaries namely; middlemen, businessmen, traders seem to have infiltrated in to tribal hinterland in guise of traders, shopkeepers and medicine men to take the advantage of the poverty, ignorance, spendthriftness of the tribal people.

The mode of NTFP trade exhibits great variation by type, region, season etc. Barter is a common mode. Traders also make advance payments to primary collectors, and later buy goods at very low rates and sell them in cities for huge profits. These modes have set up exploitative elements due to non-payment of prices fixed for NTFPs. Traders also function as money lenders, and buy NTFPs towards repayment of debt or interest. While private traders and middlemen buy NTFPs through agents and sub-agents at the primary level, the government agencies procure specified items; such as; Tamarind, Hill broom, Mahua flower, Sal seed, kendu leaves etc directly from the primary collectors at the local collection centres.

Among the modes of exploitation in trading activities, differential prices, grading of the products, limited processing, creation of situations towards more indebtedness, means of distress sales, metric system of weight and measure etc are very important. In situations, where weaker sections are prone to sell as much they can to meet their pressing consumption needs, the exploitative elements become more active, to exploit the situation.

Though market is the most powerful channel of communication particularly in the tribal region, the NTFPs indeed face “buyers’ market”. In such a situation, the middlemen indeed largely benefit from the commercialisation process in terms of appropriating a greater share of value. Thus, relationship between primary collectors and middlemen (in a sense) is symbolic.

Much of the miseries of tribal and other forest-dependent communities are primarily due to lack of access to forests to collect NTFPs. Even if collection is not prohibited from the revenue and protected forests, the right to process some NTFPs and sell the products freely in the markets has not been granted. Market intermediaries including private traders form a dominant link between the primary gatherer and the final consumer (table-1).

Table-1 Trade of a Few Selected NTFPs

Source: Mallik and Panigrahi (1998).

The intermediaries are capable of maintaining a stronghold in the marketing network due to their ability to meet immediate needs of the primary gatherers. They offer quick and timely credit, make quick payment and also have a good network of procurement at the door step of the producers.

Poor communication and transportation facilities, highly segregated markets and unequal bargaining powers between buyers and sellers make the field more profitable for middlemen (FAO 1995). Thus, middlemen can and often get involved in unfair activities and exploit the producers’ weak bargaining power due to latter’s ignorance of the market factors, and thereby retain a disproportionate share of producers’ earnings.

V. Issues and Options

In view of the low level of NTFP business and very little value addition activity at the local level, the twin-issues that are crucial in organising the marketing of NTFPs are:

(a) Evolving appropriate institutional framework and

(b) Accessing the appropriate markets.

(a) An institutional structure should ensure organised and scientific collection of NTFPs, efficient marketing resulting in a fair price to primary gatherers.

(b) Reaching out to the appropriate market is another challenging task, since forest products vary over form, time and space factors. Potential interventions are:

- Interventions could be initiated from the level of collection itself to processing and then marketing of NTFPs. Community level enterprises are the most ideal ventures for promoting local level collection, processing and marketing.

- Community user-groups could immensely benefit through:

• Greater enterprise success through strong and broad-based organisation, greater

• economies of scale, stronger base for negotiating with intermediaries.

• sustainable use of the scarce raw materials. i equitable sharing of benefits.

- The marketing strategy needs multi-pronged measurers could ensure: (a) benefits to primary gatherers; (b) bridging gap between prices realised by the primary gatherers and market prices.

• number of marketing agencies be reduced and a select mix of private agencies as well as state agencies need to be given area-wise and product- wise responsibilities

• present form of contractor system be replaced by controlled markets with protection to tribal co- operatives/peoples’ institutions/government agencies.

• role of emerging institution ’gram sabha’ be sensitised for creating better awareness, greater transparency and dissemination of information on prices and markets.

• healthy competition amongst the peoples’ institutions, association of primary gatherers, co- operatives and state agencies be allowed through suitable Peoples’ - friendly forest policies.

• private trading as well as manufacturing may be facilitated by the Government with close scrutiny and monitoring the trading business.

• Promotional Marketing Boards be set up at the district level to disseminate market information.

• Suitable changes in the existing Policy provisions, Forest Acts, Rules for empowering Panchayats be made to benefit the poor primary gatherers (besides, provision of working capital, market infrastructure, market Information, etc).

• an interface between traditional knowledge and modern concepts needs to be forged for NTFPs production, marketing and processing with some amount of value addition.

• right to collection, marketing and processing of NTFPs may be bestowed on the forest dwellers to strengthen their household economy.

• Provision of adequate infrastructure for storage, processing, sale, transportation and skill development programmes may be undertaken to ensure use of sustainable as well as scientific methods of extraction of NTFPs.

Conclusion

In the emerging trade liberalisation all over the world, commercialisation of NTFPs in Orissa assumes significance in the context of the huge availability of such precious products in the forests and very meagre exploitation. It is distinctly clear that the forest dwellers on their part are not very much exposed to the commercial reality, due to their illiteracy, poverty, unawareness and impoverishment. On the one hand, the state agencies are ineffective as well as inefficient, while the intermediaries succeed to enjoy all bargaining power they need and exploit the situation leaving the primary gatherers in the state of abject poverty. Thus, the need for a multi-pronged strategy for marketing of NTFPs and free competition among the government agencies, co-operatives, registered traders/businessmen and people's institution is of paramount importance. Besides, strong, self-regulating institutions and community organisations with effective and transparent market mechanisms for ensuring equitable share are also essential. Also, important are suitable policies that could encourage and reward active participation of communities and local institutions in procurement, processing and marketing. Admittedly, restrictions and stipulations depress returns to gatherers and cultivators. In any case, NTFP-based forest management in Orissa needs a significant reordering of policy space and the institutional landscape, in the emerging liberalised world economic order.

Bibliography

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