Making Sugarcane Sustainable Demystifying The Linkages Between Sugarcane, Water And Politics In Maharashtra

Abstract

As a country that is home to 17 per cent of the world‘s population, India has just about four per cent of the total freshwater resources available globally. Of this, agriculture consumes about 85 per cent, putting immense pressure on this sector to judiciously allocate its resources. ‗Making Sugarcane Sustainable: Demystifying the linkages between Sugarcane, Water and Politics in Maharashtra’, focuses on the central subject of unsustainably cultivated water-guzzling crop sugarcane, and its future in a water scarce state like Maharashtra. This ethnographic study is aimed at identifying the core area of concern – the very practices that are involved in the cultivation that make it unsustainable. The findings present the state of water crisis that Maharashtra finds itself in today, highlighting the opportunity costs of growing sugarcane.. The data is grouped under categories of perspectives to present it in a structured manner: The organisational perspective details the experiences, opinions and work undertaken by authorities in the industry (government agencies, sugar factories, unions); the agro-tech perspective highlights the inputs provided by the research institutes and academia; the individual perspectives brings to the forefront the concerns raised by the farmers and labourers engaged in the sugar industry. The findings help highlight and fill essential data and research gaps, thus enabling the researcher to make recommendations for policymakers to take forth.