POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY TN

Water is an important input for agriculture also. Agriculture is key sector for
poor. Hussain et. al. (2004) argue that there are five interrelated dimensions of
agricultural water and poverty reduction: production, income/consumption, employment,
vulnerability/food security and overall welfare. Adequate irrigation will allow poor people
to increase their production, income and enhance income diversification opportunities,
reducing vulnerability caused by seasonality and other factors.
In the poverty-water interrelationship, water for agriculture has a special place.
Irrigation is a powerful tool for providing food security, protection against adverse
drought conditions, increased employment and stable income and greater opportunity for
multiple cropping and crop diversification. Access to reliable irrigation can enable farmers
to adopt new technologies, and intensify cultivation leading to increased productivity and
greater return from farming. This in turn opens up new employment opportunities both
on-farm and off-farm, which can increase farm income, livelihood and quality of life in
rural areas. Overall like land, irrigation can have a wealth generating effect in agriculture
specifically and in rural settings in general.
Like water, land is also an important productive resource and asset for both rural
and urban poor. For the poor, land is the primary means for generating a livelihood and
the main vehicle for investing, accumulating wealth and transferring it between
generations. Land ownership makes people less reliant on wage labour thereby reducing
their vulnerability to shocks. Access to even small plots of lands to grow crops can greatly
improve food security. Land holding size also matters. Small holdings prevent subsistence
farms in adopting new technologies and modern inputs. Degradation of soils affect both
productivity and overall production, thereby farm income and consumption. Forest
degradation and deforestation severely affects not only the environment but also the
livelihood of many poor who dependent on forest resources.
Thus, water, land and agriculture have strong linkages with poverty reduction.
Meeting MDGs will depend in large part on how Tamil Nadu manages its scarce water
resources and how it develops effective water governance and improved service delivery
mechanisms. Appropriate land policy and registration, redistribution or transfers are also
important for realizing the MDGs.
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