Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

Women in Pastoralist and Shifting Cultivation Communities 55
The preferred strategy for controlling grazing within existing forestry
policies is vividly illustrated in the revised Forest Policy for Andhra
Pradesh, which was announced by the Andhra Pradesh Forest Department
in April 2002 through G.O. MS 34. An entire section (3.1.2) is devoted to
the issue of grazing and states:
The present policy of free grazing in the forests is detrimental to regeneration
and establishment of vegetation. There is need for reasonable
restrictions on grazing. Further the burden of scrub cattle on the already
scarce fodder resources needs to be reduced by upgrading the cattle stock,
and encouraging stall feeding … there will be coordinated efforts with the
Animal Husbandry Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh to
improve the quality of livestock in the forest fringe areas so that the number
of cattle heads will be reduced. (Emphasis added)
Similarly, in the context of shifting cultivators, as we saw clearly, the
attempts through, for instance, the IFAD interventions have been to
introduce Green Revolution technologies—high yielding seeds, monocropping
and rehabilitating podu land through plantations of cashew
nut and coffee on the shifting cultivation fallows. Once again, this practice
is reflected in policy, with the 2002 Forest Policy of Andhra Pradesh devoting
a separate section (3.1.3) to ‘Encroachments and Podu’, wherein it
is stated:
[T]he traditional shifting cultivation practiced by Tribals, is transforming
into settled agriculture. Such type of cultivation is resulting in land degradation
and unsustainable agriculture leading to poverty and increasing
demand for land again for further cultivation … there is urgent need to
educate the tribal on sustainable farming … access to improved agriculture
practices for these tribals needs to be made available. (Emphasis added)
Replacing seeds and breeds, and forcing people to lose control over their
genetic resources are perhaps the ultimate forms/modes by which the
state takes control of natural resources, thus permanently alienating communities
from their means of production.
Ironically, in the context of both seeds and livestock breeds, it must be
noted that women play a crucial role in saving the primary germplasm
essential for subsequent production—seeds for sowing in the case of
shifting cultivators, and young stock of sheep and goat breeds in the case