Presented by IWMI's Fraser Sugden at a seminar held at IWMI Headquarters in Sri Lanka, on March 3, 2016.

1. TENANT COLLECTIVES IN THE GANGETIC
PLAINS – A NEW MODEL FOR GENDER
EQUITABLE GRASSROOTS IRRIGATION AND
LAND MANAGEMENT
Fraser Sugden (IWMI Nepal)
Dipika Das (IWMI Nepal)
Anoj Kumar (IWMI India)
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

2. Rethinking the collective – a new
model for land and water
management in South Asia?
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

3. Landlord-tenant relations in the
Eastern Gangetic Plains
• Severe inequality in land – particularly in Bihar,
Nepal Tarai and NW Bangladesh
• Insecure tenancy (frequent change of tenants)
• Poor economies of scale for irrigation due to
fragmentation
• High rent (sharecropping predominant) make
investments unfeasible
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

4. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Madhubani Purnea Sunsari Morang Dhanusha
landless labourer tenant part tenant
landowner <0.5ha landowner 0.5-1ha landowner 1-2ha
Agrarian structure in 14 village study (2013-
15)
INDIA (Bihar) NEPAL Tarai (ADIVASI)
NEPAL Tarai
(MADHESHI)

5. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Madhubani Purnea Sunsari Morang Dhanusha
% area under tenancy
% area under tenancy in 14 village study
(2013-15)

6. Feminisation of agriculture
• Out-migration essential for tenant households
to meet their subsistence needs
• Women who stay behind to manage the land
face further constraints in accessing irrigation
– Gendered barriers in groundwater markets
– Sporadic remittances and loss of daily wage labour
income.
– High work burden and challenges of labour
management
• Highly vulnerable to climate stress

7. Solution through agricultural
collectives
• Emergence from 2012-14 CCAFS Gender work, early
engagement with grassroots organisations in Bihar
• Collective leasing of land
• Pooling of labour, costs and profits
• Joint ownership and management of equipment
(borewells, pump sets, threshers, zero till machinery
etc)
• Feasible so long as collectives remain (i)
participatory, (ii) small in size and (iii) homogeneous
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

8. Operation of a contiguous plot
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

9. Labour management
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

10. Potential for shared investments and
management of equipment
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

11. Knowledge pooling
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

12. Innovation from the grassroots up
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

13. Improved bargaining power with
landlords
Photo: Fraser Sugden

14. Utilisation of fallow land
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

15. Research questions to be addressed
for upscaling
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

16. 1. Option to pool only land and capital and not
labour
• Two collectives in Bihar, and two in Nepal utilize
this model
• Ensures households retain individual responsibility
for performance
• Allows existing tenants or even smallholders to be
mobilized, so is logistically feasible – allowing rapid
upscaling.
• However, this model is not new, and it does not
solve the problem of labour management,
particularly for women headed hhs.
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

17. 2. How to ensure landlords do not take back the land
• Landlords frequently change tenants due to fear
that farmers may claim ownership.
• Critical challenge is to ensure that the benefits of
for landlords outweigh risks
– Cash rent must be equivalent to what was received in
kind by individual farmers,
– However, it still must be profitable to collective (can be
achieved through productivity increases)
• Developing ties of trust with landlords is important
• Technologies must be mobile, so they can be
transferred to a new leased plot
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

18. 3. Energy questions and appropriate technology
• While it is preferable to pilot new technologies
such as solar, costs and forward/backward
linkages are a constraint
• Pragmatism is necessary – e.g. use of diesel
pumps more efficiently due to better
maintenance or use of micro-irrigation.
• Not all technologies are appropriate – e.g. laser
levelling and zero tillage piloted in Bihar (via
SRFSI), but may not be sustainable without
development of service provider model.
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI

19. Questions for further discussion
• Are collective forms of production really
redundant in 21st century? How do we avoid the
pitfalls of Soviet era collectives – in particular
addressing free rider problems?
• What does the collective farmer group approach
mean for the dominant ‘leader farmer’ model of
extension in the region.
• How do we coordinate the multiple micro level
efforts at collective production being carried out
across the region. The concept is not new in
South Asia, it has just not yet been up-scaled.

20. Thank you
Nayabazaar, Morang
Photo: Fraser Sugden / IWMI