DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Desertification and Land Degradation

• To rehabilitate degraded land and stop the spread of desert in India, the government intends to combine the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

Major Points:

Rising Degraded Land:

• At least 30% of India's total geographic area falls under the category of "degraded land," according to the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas 2021.

Data by State:

• More than 50% of the land in Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, and Goa is being degraded or turned into desert.
• States with less than 10% land degradation include Kerala, Assam, Mizoram, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Arunachal Pradesh.

Concerns:

• As a result of a promise made during the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the government increased its objective for restoring degraded land from 21 million hectares to 26 million hectares by 2030 in 2019. (COP14).
• The government is far from achieving this goal nearly three years later.
• The Ministry of Rural Development has been working to help fulfil the international pledge, but the pandemic's economic burdens have limited the objective to 4.95 million hectares by 2025–2026.

Convergence Suggestion: Using MGNREGS Funds

• Currently, the Ministry of Rural Development's Department of Land Resources is responsible for tasks such ridge area treatment, drainage line treatment, soil and moisture conservation, rainfall collection, nursery raising, afforestation, horticulture, and pasture development.
• The MGNREGS funds, which are allocated for both material and wage components, are currently being requested by the Union government from the States to be used for these operations.
• According to the Ministry's own calculations, convergence with the MGNREGS would enable the treatment of around 30% more land than is currently possible given the size of the system.

Degradation of the land

Defination:

• It is a short-term or long-term decline in the productivity of land brought on by physical, chemical, or biological processes.

Causes:

Numerous factors, such as :

• Harsh meteorological conditions, particularly drought, contribute to land degradation.
• Overgrazing of the land by the livestock also increases land degradation as the upper cover of the soil is consumed by the animals.
• Additionally, it is brought on by human activities that deteriorate or impair soil quality and land usability.

Desertification

• A type of land deterioration known as desertification occurs when rich land turns into a desert.
• Sand from the desert moves forward and into the nearby areas as a result.
• Fertile soil is covered by sand, which reduces its fertility.
• In Rajasthan, this issue is particularly severe in places close to the Thar desert.

Degradation Impact:

• Environmental Impact: Soil erosion, loss of natural nutrients, water logging, salinity, and contamination of ground and surface water are all issues brought on by land degradation.
• Fertility loss brought on by the application of numerous scientific inputs, such as irrigation, fertilizers, herbicides, etc. Additionally, damaging crop techniques are unscientific methods.
• The process of soil erosion is when the topsoil separates from the ground and is either swept away by water, ice, or sea waves, or it is blown away by the wind.
• Due to excessive irrigation or heavy rainfall, areas with a temporary water surplus and high temperatures experience salinity or alkalinity. Large swaths of productive land are rendered infertile by the salt layer, which has a negative impact on the fertility of topsoil.
• Waterlogging occurs when the water table becomes saturated for a variety of reasons, including excessive irrigation, canal seepage, insufficient drainage, etc.

Possibly Negative Effects on Human Health

• Production of food, livelihoods, as well as the creation and delivery of other ecosystem goods and services are all negatively impacted.
• Reduced food and water availability poses greater risks for malnutrition, while also increasing the likelihood of water- and food-borne illnesses due to poor sanitation and a lack of clean water, respiratory illnesses brought on by atmospheric dust from wind erosion and other air pollutants, and the spread of infectious diseases as populations move.

Global Initiatives to Fight Land Degradation

United Nations Convention to Combact Desertification (UNCCD)

• Established in 1994
• Goal: To safeguard a more secure, equitable, and sustainable future by preserving and restoring our land.
• The UNCCD is the only framework for addressing desertification and the effects of drought that is legally binding.
• The Convention has 197 Parties, including the European Union and 196 individual countries.
• The Participation, Partnership, and Decentralization (PPD) pillars form the foundation of the Convention.

Bonn Challenge:

• It is the ambition of the world to restore 150 million hectares of damaged and deforested landscapes by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030
• The Challenge, which was started by the German government and IUCN in 2011, saw commitments surpass the 150 million hectare mark in 2017.
• The African Union's 2007 Great Green Wall Initiative is being carried out in 22 African nations.
• Goal: To improve the Sahel region's millions of lives while restoring the continent's damaged landscapes.
• By 2030, the goal is to sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon, repair 100 million hectares of currently damaged land, and generate 10 million green employment.

Initiatives by India:

Land degradation mapping at the national level:

• Under the Natural Resources Census (NRC) mission of DOS/ISRO, it is undertaken by ISRO in collaboration with partner universities in order to produce information on land degradation at a scale of 1:50,000 using 23m resolution (multi-temporal & multi-spectral) IRS data.

Indian Atlas of Desertification and Land Degradation:

• Space Application Centre (SAC), ISRO, Ahmedabad, published.
• Content: Lists the total area of degraded lands per state for the years 2018–19.
• Gives the change analysis for a 15-year period, from 2003–2005 to 2018–19.

United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD)

• India has ratified the UNCCD.
• In September 2019, India served as the host country for the 14th Conference of Parties (COP 14) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
• India is working to meet its national objectives to achieve "Land Degradation Neutrality" (LDN) and restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, which place a strong emphasis on the sustainable and effective use of land resources.
• Environment, Forestry, and Climate Change Ministry is the Nodal Ministry for Implementation (MoEF&CC)

India’s Bonn Challenge pledge

• India vowed to restore 13 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020 and an additional 8 million hectares by 2030 as part of the voluntary Bonn Challenge at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) 2015 in Paris.

Flagship Designs:

• The Soil Health Card Program
• Pradhan Mantri Krishi Synchayee Yojana
• National Afforestation Program
• To move closer to fulfilling its national obligations regarding land restoration, the Indian government has taken a collective approach.

Way Forward

• People who live in drylands will reap long-term socioeconomic gains and have less vulnerability to climate change if desertification, land degradation, and drought are combated.
• The framework offered by Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), which has conservation, sustainable use, and restoration as its three pillars, is efficient.
• Policymakers and planners can navigate social, economic, and environmental trade-offs by fostering an environment that supports LDN so that issues like food security, energy demands, land tenure, gender equality, access to clean water, and biodiversity are taken into account and handled together.

Transforming Agrifood System with Forests

• A report on deforestation, livestock grazing, and farmer field schools was recently published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
• At the digital conference FAO-Global Landscapes Forum: Transforming agrifood systems with forests, FAO released the report.
• A group of farmers, livestock keepers, or fishermen attend a farmer field school to learn how to transition to more sustainable production methods by improving ecosystem services and understanding complicated agro-ecosystems.

What are the Report's Highlights?

• The amount of food needed to feed the world's population will increase by 50% by 2050 compared to 2012.
• Crop and animal production will require 165 to 600 million additional hectares of land, the majority of which is already covered by forests and other vital ecosystems.
• Nearly 90% of global deforestation between 2000 and 2018 was caused by increased agricultural production.
• This has a detrimental effect on related ecosystem services including biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
• According to the FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2022, 420 million hectares of forest have been destroyed worldwide over the past 20 years.
• To reduce deforestation, which reached at 11 million ha per year between 2000 and 2010, forests are essential.

What suggestions are made?

• Tree Positive Building sustainable global agrifood systems based on the interactions between agriculture and forestry, which benefit both industries, is urgently needed to produce enough food.
• In order to increase production while minimising the damage on forests and biodiversity, governments must establish the right conditions for farmers to adapt their methods.
• Smallholder farmers, who produce about 35% of the world's food but frequently live in poverty and cannot afford the costs or disruptions to their income imposed by changing the way they work, require special attention from governments.

Bringing Back Degraded Land:

• In order to stop desertification, restore damaged land with trees, and enhance dryland wildfire protection, properly integrated grazing might be extremely important.
• About 25% of the world's population lives in drylands, which also house 50% of the world's cattle, 27% of its forests, and 60% of the world's agricultural area.
• For halting land degradation, silvopastrolism—the practise of grazing animals among trees—can also improve the food security and economic well-being of nearby populations.
• In drylands, woody plants produce fruit, lumber, and food for animals. They also help to increase biodiversity and control the soil and water cycles.
• Grazing livestock also aids in regulating vegetation, lowering the danger of wildfires, accelerating nutrient cycles, and enhancing soil fertility.

One element of the remedy:

• Landscape planners and decision-makers should take livestock into account as part of the solution and carefully restore open tree cover (when tree cover is between 30 and 70%) as part of an integrated landscape approach utilising agroforestry.

About FAO.

• The FAO is a specialised agency of the UN that directs global initiatives to end hunger.
• Every year on October 16th, World Food Day is observed to commemorate the FAO's foundation in 1945.
• It is one of the UN food aid organisations based in Rome (Italy).
• Its sister bodies are the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Initiatives Taken:

• Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS).
• Monitors the Desert Locust situation throughout the world.
• The Codex Alimentarius Commission or CAC is the body responsible for all matters regarding the implementation of the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme.
• The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

Flagship Publications:

• The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA)
• The State of the World's Forests (SOFO)
• The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI)
• The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA)
• The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO)
• World Food Price Index

Read Also: Food Processing Sector

Listing of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) on Stock Exchanges

• The Finance Ministry has released the draught rules for Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) listing on stock exchanges.
• In the distribution of credit in rural places, RRBs are essential.

Details about the news:

• Regional rural banks (RRBs) would be permitted to list on stock exchanges and raise money, according to the Finance Ministry's proposed regulations.

The RRBs should meet the following requirements:

• Over the previous three years, RRBs should have had a net worth of at least Rs 300 crore.
• Additionally, these banks must have an operating profit of at least Rs 15 crore for at least three out of the five years prior and capital adequacy of 9 percent over the previous three years.
• According to the rules, there shouldn't be any accumulated losses and the RRB should have provided at least a 10% return on equity in three of the previous five years.
• According to the proposed regulations, it is up to the individual sponsor banks to choose qualified lenders for initial public offerings (IPOs).
• While selecting RRBs for IPO, the sponsor bank will take into consideration the pertinent Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms and regulations regarding capital raising and disclosure requirements.
• In order to modernise RRBs, the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) was recently urged to take the lead in ensuring technical developments at those institutions.

Regarding Regional Rural Banks (RRBs)

• Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976: The Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976 established Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) as government-sponsored, regionally based rural lending organisations.
• According to the Narasimham Committee's recommendations, the RRBs were founded to meet the rural credit needs of farming communities and other rural populations.
• On October 2, 1975, the Prathama Grameen Bank became the first bank to exist.
• The Prathama Grameen Bank RRB was first sponsored by The Syndicate Bank, a commercial bank.
• Act amendment from 2015: As a result of the Act's revision, such banks are now allowed to raise capital from sources other than the Center, the States, and Sponsor Banks.
• Operation: Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) are scheduled commercial banks in India that are controlled by the government and do regional business in several Indian states.
• The scope of operation is restricted to the region that the Indian government has declared to include, which may include one or more State districts.
• Ownership: The stakeholders hold a set percentage of the stock in the Regional Rural Banks. The distribution of this ratio is 50:35:15 as follows:
• Sponsor Bank: 35% State Government: 15% Central Government: 50%
• They were established with the purpose of providing basic banking and financial services to rural communities.
• RRBs do have urban branches though.
• RRBs carry out a variety of tasks, including offering banking services to rural and semi-urban areas, managing government projects like paying MGNREGA workers' wages and distributing pensions, and offering para-banking services like lockers, debit and credit cards, mobile banking, internet banking, and UPI services.

RRBs' objectives:

• To offer affordable and generous lending options to small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, craftsmen, small business owners, and other disadvantaged groups.
• To protect the rural poor from loan sharks.
• To serve as a catalytic component and so quicken the region's economic expansion.
• To promote banking among rural residents and mobilise savings for rural areas' economic development.
• By promoting trade and commerce in rural regions, to enhance employment prospects. to promote business creation in rural areas.
• To provide for the requirements of the underserved regions that are not met by the government's other initiatives.
• To eradicate economic imbalance across regions by developing impoverished areas.
• Determine the need for money, especially in rural communities.

RRBs' function:

• accepting a deposit
• Providing advances
• to offer supplemental financial services
• to offer farmers with materials and equipment, as well as support for marketing their produce
• upkeep of godowns

Way Forward

• RRBs experience losses mostly as a result of the fact that many of these branches do not generate enough revenue due to their primary concentration on providing government programmes like direct benefit transfer in rural areas of the nation.
• It is important to promote local residents' participation in the RRB's equity share capital.
• The development of RRB should also be of great significance to the State Government.

Read Also: RRB and COVID-19

Lassa Fever

• According to a recently released study, the spread of Lassa fever to the central and eastern regions of the continent over the next 50 years would be aided by climate change.

About Lassa fever:

• Parts of West Africa are endemic to this zoonotic illness.
• Causes: The Lassa virus, a member of the Arenaviridae family, is to blame.
• The majority of the tropical and subtropical nations in Africa have multimammate rats, which are responsible for the disease's transmission through their urine and droppings.
• Anything they come into contact with can become contaminated by them.
• Human-to-human contact with tissue, blood, bodily fluids, secretions, or excretions can transfer the Lassa virus.
• This includes breastfeeding, kissing, snoring, and sexual activity. In hospitals, infected equipment spreads the illness.
• Hospitalized patients typically have a high death rate, which occasionally reaches 80%.
• There is no vaccination that has been authorised to prevent the illness at this time.
• Although it is not a recognised medical treatment, the antiviral medication Ribavirin is frequently used to treat Lassa fever.
• Supportive care, such as hydration and oxygenation, as well as the management of particular disease-related problems, are additional operations. Research and development are now being done on preventative vaccinations.

Read Also: Desertification and Land Degradation

Sapta Kosi High Dam Project

• India and Nepal recently decided to move the Sapta Kosi high dam project forward with additional research.
• Senior officials from the two countries met and discussed their collaboration in the water sector, especially the Mahakali Treaty's implementation.

What are the Mahakali Treaty and the Sapta Kosi High Dam Project?

• On Nepal's Saptakoshi River, a multifunctional project called the Sapta Kosi High Dam is being considered (Known as Kosi River in India).
• The project's main goals are to produce hydropower and regulate floods in northern Bihar and the southeast of Nepal.
• The project will produce 3,000 MW of energy, provide irrigation, and prevent flooding.

Mahakali Agreement:

• The Pancheshwar Project, Sarada Barrage, and Tanakpur Barrage are all included in the 1996 Mahakali Treaty, which governs the coordinated development of the Mahakali River.
• Before joining the Ganges near Kursela in the Katihar district, the river enters northern Bihar, India, where it divides into distributaries.
• After the Brahmaputra in India, the Kosi transports the most sand and silt.
• It is also known as the "Sorrow of Bihar" because the yearly floods disrupt the rural economy by affecting around 21,000 sq. km. of fertile agricultural regions.
• In Uttarakhand, the Mahakali River is also referred to as Sharda River or Kali Ganga.
• It merges with the Ganga tributary Ghagra river in Uttar Pradesh.

What are the Kosi River System's known facts?

• A transnational river called the Kosi traverses Tibet, Nepal, and India.
• Its source, which contains the highest upland in the world, is Tibet. From there, it drains a sizable portion of Nepal before emerging onto the Gangetic plains.
• The Sun Kosi, Arun, and Tamur, its three main tributaries, come together slightly upstream of a 10-kilometer gorge carved by the Himalayan foothills.???????

What other recent changes have there been in relations between India and Nepal?

BOOT: Build Own Operate and Transfer

• The Government of Nepal and Sutlej Jal Vikas Nigam (SJVN) Limited signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2008 for the project's execution on a Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis for a period of 30 years, including five years of the construction period.

Hydropower Initiatives:

• Additionally, Nepal asked Indian businesses to contribute to its West Seti hydropower project.

Border-crossing Rail Link:

• The 35-kilometer cross-border train link between Jayanagar, Bihar, and Kurtha, Nepal, would be operationalized before being expanded to Bijalpura and Bardibas (Nepal).

Read Also: Transforming Agri-food System with Forests