(Farm) Land Management in Urban Scenarios

"Land is a limited resource. Considering the rapidly increasing population, it is going to be even scarce if not managed properly."

This statement holds true in a number of contexts. Here, what 'limited' specifically meant is, limited cultivable land, land which gives us food is depleting fast. There are different reasons for that, few among them are; lack of sufficient irrigation facilities, change of land use from farm lands to other uses, and shift of rural population towards urban areas for new opportunities as farming being a low income job.

In spite of all those valid or invalid reasons, farming has to be done. With increasing population, demand of food grains is increasing day by day. Processed Food market being one of the biggest markets in India, is going to require more and more supply of farm products. Question is, how that supply is to be sustained.

Currently, approximately 60% of population of India carries out agriculture as their primary livelihood activity, and if we take a realistic approach, this would further decrease, considering the depleting water levels all around the country and increasing size of urban areas. So, what about the demand of farming output required?

This problem requires a multi-tiered approach for a holistic solution, that would involve efficient water management, efficient land management, efficient management of human resource involved in farming and efficient utilization of technological advancements in aid. All these are big enough issues, requiring extensive strategic work. This post seeks to discuss specifically about the issue of land management of farm-able lands and some new approach therein.

As mentioned earlier, change of land use from farm lands to other uses is happening extensively in our country. One of the prime beneficiaries of this change is Real Estate Industry. Extensive amount of land is being changed from farmland to cater for real estate industry requirements, to build housing societies, to build office complexes, to build retail hubs. Most of this is happening around already existing mega cities or new cities where development potential is high leading to huge influx of working population. There are no issues in land being used for development of real estate, in fact it is necessary, off course it has to be properly regulated. But if we see closely, there are some issues in this usage of land as 'real estate asset', which could be better managed.

Farmlands, cultivating buildings

Utilization of land for building new projects, typically involves huge chunks of land acquired at one go, to avoid any later issues in land acquisition. Actual construction, though, takes years to happen on a particular tract of real estate acquired land. Till the time construction happens, the land effectively remains as a non-utilized farmland (though land use map shows the land use as residential/retails etc). This is a common situation everywhere new real estate development is happening.

Cultivable land in an Urban Jungle

Here comes the intent of this post, why not utilize these chunk of urban lands for cultivating until their actual purpose is achieved, and the building is built. 

Some might argue that these lands form part of infrastructure development in the surroundings of the said real estate development and hence can't be used. But infrastructure development normally happens surroundings the building zone and hence, despite roads and other services there is still huge portion of utilizable land remaining. 

Another important argument could be about irrigation requirements. Construction itself is a water intensive process, and this alternative usage of land (cultivation) might actually be beneficial for the surroundings, by minimizing the erosion, minimizing dust and reducing the surface runoff. And, in water scarce areas this approach could involve rainwater irrigated cultivation, which is very common is large portion of water scarce areas of Haryana and Rajasthan.

Regarding the actual management aspects of this approach, of using 'Urban lands as Farms', following could be considered:

1. The Real-Estate owner/organisation could act as facilitator, by leasing out the said land to interested individual/parties to carry out cultivation until the stated use is achieved. Though, this lease has to be on a nominal (or nil) fee for better chances of utilization. The owner organization may try and incorporate this facilitation as its CSR initiative.
2. On administration's part, policy should be formulated/updated, so as to allow for such usage of land, for greater benefits. This could include seeds and fertilizers at subsidized rate for such cultivation purposes.
3. Actual cultivators/farmers should utilize this opportunity for better yields through organic farming approaches.

The peculiarities and oddities of this approach may be further explored. But, any such use is better than an unused barren-like land laying for years.