Tripura taps the rubber economy
A persistent push to develop large-scale rubber plantations as a livelihood alternative to slash-and-burn cultivation by tribals has resulted in a major economic upswing in Tripura. With market prices for rubber well above sustenance levels, the future looks bright too. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.
A heavy monsoon shower had given a group of ten tribal women a long break from their work in the rubber plantation at Rangmala Block of Tripura. A bamboo shed not only protected them from being soaked in the heavy downpour it also provided them a space to share their moments. The smiles on their faces and gold ornaments on their earlobes showed how far they have come - from penniless shifting cultivators to moneyed rubber growers.
These women, belonging to Tripuri tribe, form part of 72 tribal families in the block, which abandoned jhum, the traditional slash and burn cultivation, and took up rubber cultivation for a livelihood way back in 1992. The Rubber Board in the state, and the Department of Tribal Welfare had initiated rubber plantation on 140 hectares in the local block, and these women were among the first to sign up. They were initially apprehensive, and restless during the seven years it took for the plants to grow into mature trees, but when the day for tapping the latex finally arrived, they were overjoyed, and satisfied about the wisdom of their choice. Birendra Debbarma, former president of the Rubber Producers Society (RPS) of the block, was standing nearby as I watched the women at work, and was happy to share with India Together how rubber cultivation has brought changes they could once never imagine.
“Think of the days when we had to starve half of the year as our traditional jhum cultivation could not meet our demands. Earning little as daily-wage workers during the lean periods was the only alternative. Then, these people [the officials] brought the concept of rubber cultivation. The crop has entirely changed our life. We are not only economically sufficient, but we can also plan for luxury and savings now. We have a TV set under our tin-roofed, concrete structure house. We are sending our grandson to Don Bosco, a private English medium school for education. We have a savings account in the bank. All these, just we could not dream of while we were practicing jhum,” Debbarma says.
The women were in whole agreement with him, happily showing me their gold ornaments and gesturing to indicate - they speak only Kok-Borok, which I do not understand - that rubber has brought the luxury of wearing jewellery. These families now earn between Rs.7000 and 10,000 each month, almost triple what they used to earn from their traditional cultivation. A Rubber Board presentation before the Third Sectoral Summit and Special Meeting of North Eastern Council in Guwahati in March this year claimed that monthly incomes were even higher, between Rs.13,000 and 25,000.
Jitendra Choudhury, the state’s Minister for Tribal Welfare, says that of all the schemes thought up by the government to draw people away from slash-and-burn practices, rubber cultivation has been by far the most successful. Tripura is now the second largest producer of Natural Rubber (NR) after Kerela, with 33,000 hectares of plantations, and about 1500 hectares are added to this each year. About half the acreage - 16,000 hectares - contains mature trees that are already being tapped, producing 17,000 million tonnes of latex annually. Even this, says Choudhury, is only about 30 per cent of the state’s total potential, as according to Rubber Board and as per the estimates of National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, 100,000 hectares of land in the state are suitable for rubber plantations.
Rubber plantation in the state
The history of rubber plantation in Tripura dates back to 1963, when the state forest department initiated rubber plantation as a soil conservation method. The agro-climatic suitability of the plantations and their potential for producing high volumes of quality latex made the government further extend the effort all over the state.
Being the single largest rubber plantation unit in the country, the TFDPC also took up rubber plantation in 3784 hectares of degraded forest lands along the Indo-Bangladesh international border, for ‘national security reasons’, in 2005.
Considering the potential of rubber in degraded forests, the scope for permanently settling the semi-nomadic tribal jhum cultivators, as well as generation of employment for rural poor, the state government set up the Tripura Forest Department and Plantation Corporation (TFDPC) in 1976 with equity participation from the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The Tripura Rehabilitation Plantation Corporation (TRPC) Limited was also formed in 1983, to rehabilitate tribal families.
By 2004, the TFDPC had raised rubber in 7550 hectares of land. Additionally, 2762 hectares of rubber plantation have been raised for rehabilitation of tribal shifting cultivators, scheduled castes and other socially backward people. It has also provided permanent employment for around 6500 families. According to the annual report of TFDPC, prepared in 2005-06, the company has rehabilitated 2700 tribal families, and these families earn between Rs.10,000 to 20,000 each month from one hectare of rubber plantation. For its part, the TRPC has raised 5094 hectares of rubber plantation rehabilitating an additional 3977 tribal families permanently. The Rubber Board also set up its regional office in Agartala in 1979, and introduced cash subsidies for new plantations in 1980. Originally set at Rs.10,000 for the gestation period earlier, this has been increased to Rs.50,000 per family by now.
In January 2006, the Tripura Rubber Mission was formed at the initiative of the state government, following the recommendations made by V K Bahuguna, Managing Director, TFDPC. The primary objective of the Mission is to build the capacity of various stakeholders to achieve the targeted expansion of rubber in the state. Up to 85,000 hectares of land have been identified for rubber plantation, as the state pursues its target of 100,000 acres for the crop. The project aims at generation of 41,200 permanent jobs through TFDPC and TRPC and another 35,000 jobs in private sectors. It also aims at permanent settlement of 30,000 tribal families on rubber.
While the economic sustenance efforts are impressive, N R Sarkar, Deputy Project Adviser of the World Bank-aided rubber project in the Tribal Welfare department, says these are not the biggest catalysts. Instead, the empowerment of growers, in particular by forming societies of their own, has been the most important step. These societies hold regular meetings at certain intervals to discuss decisions regarding plantations, nurturing of the estates, tapping, processing and other challenges. This has minimised the role of government officials to merely act as facilitators - to provide technical know-how through training and workshops, and to assist in marketing. Even the cash subsidies are given directly to the societies, without any intermediaries. The entire process has resulted in tremendous confidence building among the beneficiaries.
A number of rubber based industries have come up in the state, including a latex processing unit in Takmacherra, a rubber timber processing unit in Anandanagar, a number of rubber products manufacturing units in Agartala, and a large rubber-wood factory in Dharmanagar.
Agencies implementing these programmes have had to face many challenges, points out Sarkar. Tripura is a small state, and a large part is forest covered; there are also other areas that are wooded but not officially declared forests. This leaves only a limited amount of land for plantation programmes. Therefore the main thrust of the rubber plantation plans so far has been on planting in degraded forest lands, in lands on either side of National Highway 44 and the state highways, replanting of older plantations, replacement of teak monoculture in reserve forests, and plantation of unclassified government land for further rubber plantation and increasing the productivity.
The yield per hectare in the state, 981 kilograms, is also far below than the national average of 1796 kilograms. The state’s climate is highly variable, and the number of days available for tapping is lower than elsewhere in India, as the winters are longer. The rainy season too is longer here.
Still, the missionary attitude adopted by the leading agencies to expand the plantation network will boost the rubber sector, says Indraneel Bhowmik, Research Adviser of Tripura Rubber Mission. Efforts are on to increase productivity as well as quality, plantations are being insured to cover risks, and growers and tappers are receiving more training. The rubber market is especially strong; a status report on rubber plantations in the state estimates that the industry would be viable even at Rs.60 per kilogram, and the prevailing market prices are much higher, around Rs.90 per kilogram. With the overall scenario remaining bright, there is every reason to believe that what began as a state-aided, deliberate effort will transform into a vibrant and independent industry in the coming years.
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Ratna Bharali Talukdar (2007) ‘Tripura taps the rubber economy’, India Together, 22 October 2007. https://indiatogether.org/rubber-economy/
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Gargi Iyengar · 25 October 2007
Jhum cultivation has long been known as the chief form of agricultural practice in tribal areas. Introduction of rubber plantations on a sustainable basis and the benefits as is evident by the figures in the article, are very encouraging and I think more of the land needs to be brought under cash crop cultivation if it can increase the value of the degraded land. If measures could be taken to introduce mixed cropping system increasing the intensity and hence productivity, per capita incomes could be improved and so would the quality of life and access to better health and education.
Dr. P.K. Viswanathan · 2 November 2007
The North Eastern Region has become the second largest producer of rubber in India, after Kerala. As a matter of fact, the rationale for expansion of rubber cultivation in the NER has been justified on two major counts. First, the ever growing domestic demand for natural rubber makes it imperative to make investments for expansion of rubber area in the NER, as the traditional rubber regions, especially, Kerala, have already reached the extensive margin. Second and most important, from a socio-economic development angle, promotion of rubber development programme in the NER has been perceived as an effective measure of economic rehabilitation of the dominant tribal communities from the subsistence oriented shifting cultivation. Based on the research on the emerging rubber economies of NER, I feel that the future rubber development scenario in the NER has to be viewed against the potential strengths and weaknesses or the development constraints confronted by the region in the process of further scaling up sustainable rubber systems. In this regard, it is important to consider a host of factors which will have both positive and negative outcomes in the future status of rubber development in the region. Obviously, the positive aspects having significant bearing on the future rubber area expansion process in the region are: a) the agro-climatic suitability with vast potential of land area yet to be brought under rubber cultivation; b) the socio-economic factors, like availability of family labour, especially, female labour as well as availability of abundant cheap labour even for hired labour activities in rubber holdings; c) the social objective of economic rehabilitation (sedentarisation) of tribal communities from shifting cultivation practices; and d) the economic development policies pursued by the national and regional governments aimed at infrastructure development as well as integration of the NER with rest of India and the bordering countries, viz., Tibetan region of China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar. At the same time, it is also important to note that the perspective for development of rubber based integrated farming systems in the NER should not be driven by the colonial mode of monoculture plantation production systems as developed in the traditional rubber growing regions. On the contrary, it may be suggested that the pre-rubber as well as co-rubber existing land use and livelihood options should be well protected along with the rubber expansion process. This necessarily calls for long term planning and policy making so as to scale up the future rubber development programmes in agroforestry perspective. Though trading in rubber and rubber products between NER and the bordering countries like Bangladesh, Tibetan region of China, Myanmar and Bhutan offers to be a source of economic dynamism for the region, serious doubts are cast as regards the capability of the region to capitalise the potential advantages in cross border trade in the context of liberalised policy environment. In this regard, the most commonly cited reasons include: a) the landlocked status of the region leading to locational disadvantages and high transaction costs in cross-border trade; c) infrastructural bottlenecks; and c) the institutionalisation of insurgency deteriorating the law and order situation in the region. This invariably calls for reorienting the current development policy for the entire region, which is less likely driven by the sufferings and economic hardships of the tribal communities. It is a matter of serious concern that in the absence of a policy perspective for development of integrated farming systems or agro-based industrialisation, the entire region stands to lose in terms of drain of resources and industrial raw materials (rubber in this context) to outside this area even by means of illegal trafficking. For instance, as per the latest estimates, the entire NE region produced about 21000 tonnes of rubber during 2003-04 (Rubber Board, 2004) worth Rs. 1028 million, which have been traded outside the region, either legally or illegally. Though there has been a considerable increase in the number of licensed rubber dealers in the region from mere 17 in 1990-91 to 161 in 2003-04, a considerable share of the rubber is reportedly being traded through the non-licensed dealers. Moreover, there have also been instances of exploitative trade practices by which, even the licensed dealers do not pay the market prices to the otherwise illiterate tribal growers. In the process, both the tribal communities as well as the entire region are deprived of the benefits of value addition taking place at the manufacturing stage. This calls for creating an efficient and transparent rubber marketing/ trading system in the region so as to take the fuller advantage of the benefits arising from rubber production and manufacturing activities. Future rubber development process in the NER also call for creating favourable institutional environments encompassing a broad array of activities ranging from secure property rights/ land entitlement regime to value added manufacturing activities. As discussed in the above chapters, the insecure property rights regime poses an important institutional bottleneck in the process of scaling up of rubber integrated systems among the tribal communities. Reportedly, in the current context, the communal lands are allocated by the Nokma (village head) for establishing rubber plantations. There are widespread ambiguities as regards the period for which lands are being allotted for cultivation of rubber. It has been reported that communal lands are distributed to the prospective rubber growers for a period of 15 years, while the entire cycle of a rubber plantation involves a total period of about 30 years, ie., 7-8 years of unproductive lag and 20-22 years of productive cycle. Understandably, there no formal institutional arrangements are in place to facilitate transfer of land for establishing rubber plantations in the regions where CPR regimes exist. As revealed by the rubber development experience in the region, the sustainability of the smallholder communities largely depends on their access to secure property rights. Efficiency in rubber marketing/ trading is yet another important concern needing appropriate policy and institutional interventions. It emerges from the empirical understanding of the rubber development process in the region that the institutional interventions by the Rubber Board in the NE states are yet to receive a wholehearted support from the respective states, except Tripura and Manipur. This may likely affect the pace of rubber development programmes in those states. In this regard, it is important to note that the interventions by the Rubber Board need to be apprised for their advantages and beneficial outcomes to the region and should be scaled up in a co-ordinated manner. Given the specific socio-economic, ethnic and institutional settings of the non-traditional rubber growing regions of NE India which are already diverse in terms of integrated farm livelihood systems combined with swidden agriculture practices, it is important that the process of rubber expansion in the region calls for region-specific interventions rather than replicating the institutional mechanisms evolved immediately after independence for facilitating rubber area expansion in the traditional rubber growing tracks of Kerala, Tamilnadu and Karnataka. The new institutional perspectives also need to be corroborated with specific R&D interventions so as to evolve sustainable rubber integrated farm livelihood systems for the region without compromising on the socio-economic, ethnic, ecological diversities and concerns on biodiversity of these regions. While the feasibility analysis as brought out in the present study amply demonstrate the potential impacts of rubber development programmes in the NER initiated by the Rubber Board, more needs to be thought of and done especially in terms of: a) empowerment of tribal communities and mobilisation of social capital through promotion of rubber integrated farming systems; b) micro-level planning for effecting linkages through rubber-based industrialisation and value added processing and manufacturing activities; and d) sustaining the livelihoods of the tribal rubber growers through multiple options of rubber agroforestry systems along with intercrops and commercial exploitation of secondary products, like honey, rubber wood and medicinal plants. To sum up, the future perspectives for scaling up of sustainable rubber integrated farm livelihood systems in the NE states in India essentially call for policy and institutional interventions covering a broad array of activities, viz., a) secure property rights regime; b) financial support for rubber planting and development of integrated systems; c) R&D support for quality rubber planting materials, plant protection, yield enhancement, crop processing and product development; d) efficient marketing and price control; e) value addition with due share of the smallholders in the value chain; f) development of ancillary and by-product segments, etc. The above activities also need to be integrated by way of crafting and/ or strengthening the institutional linkages so as to empower and capacity building among the local communities and thereby achieve better outcomes of mobilisation and collective action and the sustenance of livelihoods of the rubber smallholders in the NER.