05 DECEMBER 2023

Topic 1 : Meghalaya’s Lakadong turmeric

Why in news: The Registrar of Geographical Indications (GI), Chennai declared and awarded the coveted Geographical Indication tag for Lakadong Turmeric.

Key details:

• Cultivated in the alluvial valleys of Lakadong in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya Lakadong turmeric is said to be 3 times more potent than the regular turmeric.
• Cultivated in the valley near the confluence of rivers Myntang and Mynriang, the land is flanked by dense evergreen growth.
• The entire farming is traditional and no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used.
• What makes turmeric so special?
  • Turmeric is native to India and has been an intrinsic part of Siddha, Unani, Ayurvedic and Chinese traditional medicines.
  • It has been used in South Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine for centuries.
  • It is considered sacred and has been part of rituals, traditions and even beauty regimens.
  • Turmeric contains curcumin, an active compound which has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
• Uniqueness of Lakadong turmeric:
  • As per reports, the Lakadong turmeric is said to have 7 to 12% of curcumin content while regular turmeric has 2 to 3% of curcumin content.
  • Given the high curcumin content, the health-aiding and culinary-enhancing attributes of Lakadong turmeric are believed to be more potent than regular turmeric.
  • This organically grown variety in Meghalaya is one of the most sought after spices of the state.
• Significance of the GI tag:
  • The popularity of Lakadong Turmeric in the national and global markets, has given rise to turmeric products from other places being mislabelled, marketed, and sold as Lakadong.
  • GI can benefit small farmers by providing them with a unique selling point, helping them to differentiate their products in the market.
    • This can lead to higher prices and increased demand, especially in niche markets or for high-quality products.
  • GI helps in protecting traditional methods and knowledge.
    • It ensures that only those within the designated geographical area, using the traditional methods, can use the GI label.
    • This helps in preserving local heritage and agricultural practices.
  • GI status can open new markets, both domestically and internationally.
  • It can increase the visibility and appeal of products, making them more attractive to retailers and consumers who are seeking authentic, region-specific items.
  • GI can significantly contribute to rural development.
  • By promoting local products and securing better prices, it can lead to increased incomes for farmers.
  • This, in turn, can stimulate local economies and encourage the sustainable use of local resources.
  • GI adds a strong element to a product’s brand identity by highlighting its unique origin and characteristics.What is a GI Tag?
  • Geographical Indication (GI) Tags act as a special identification ascribed to any region, town, or state.
  • These tags are assigned to certain products like agriculture or handicraft that symbolise the uniqueness of that particular region or place.
  • The Geographical Indication Registry, which grants the tag, is located in Chennai.
  • India, as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.
    • It came into force with effect from 2003.
  • GI has been defined as – Indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or a locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin.
  • GI tags mean that that product, name or sign thus assigned is unique, bears distinctive qualities, are made with traditional methods representing the reputation of the region.
  • One can also view this tag as a means of protection from any sort of copyright violation.
  • The Darjeeling Tea was the first product in India that was given a GI tag around 2004-2005.Topic 2 : Sindhudurg fort

Why in news: This year, to mark Navy Day, the Indian Navy is setting sail for the west coast for celebrations — to Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg Fort.
 

Key details:

• The annual celebration commemorates the Indian Navy’s attack on the Karachi harbour during Operation Trident carried out in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
• Why Sindhudurg?
  • This comes as a part of recent policy by the government of India to move army, navy and air force day celebrations out of New Delhi for larger engagement.
  • Last year, the Navy Day was carried out in Visakhapatnam.
  • It is also because the year 2023 marks the 350th year of King Shivaji’s coronation.

About Sindhudurg Fort

• The fort of Sindhudurg is an island fort in the Arabian Sea off the western coast in Maharashtra.
• It was built between AD 1664 and 1667 by the Maratha king Shivaji.
• The fort lies in the Sindhudurg district in the Konkan region of Maharashtra.
• The fort is constructed on a low island called Kurte, about 1.6 km offshore from Malvan. 
• A small ruined fort called Padamgad, opposite Sindhudurg, was built on a smaller island and served as a shipyard for the Maratha Navy.
• Sindhudurg was among the forts that allowed the Marathas to establish a stronghold on the coast of Konkan against great powers of that time, such as the Portuguese, the English and the Dutch.
• The main enemy that the fort was built to guard against were the Siddis of Janjira.
• According to various historical records, the fort stretches across 48 acres and has an underwater passage built in the 16th Century.

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Topic 3 : GIAN initiative

Why in news: Eight years after its inception, past its brief discontinuation during the COVID period, the Education Ministry is gearing up to restart the fourth phase of the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN).
 

Key details:

• It is a project to rope in eminent scholars from across the world to teach at Indian universities.
• Each foreign faculty member is paid a sum of $8000 (₹7 lakh) for a week of teaching and $12,000 (₹12 lakh) for conducting a two-week course.
• As many as 39% of the 1,772 courses were delivered on Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses, while the second largest number of lectures, 24.6%, took place at the National Institute of Technology (NITs).
• Compared with those in Central institutes, fewer courses took place in State universities — 10.8% of all courses.
• The restwas conducted at:
  • the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs),
  • Indian Institute of Sciences (IISC),
  • Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs),
  • management institutes,
  • Central universities and
  • All India Council of Technical Education’s engineering colleges.
• Up to 41.4% (668) of academics who visited India belonged to the U.S.
• The rest consisted of experts from:
  • the U.K. (143),
  • Germany (93),
  • Canada (89),
  • France (56),
  • Italy (58),
  • Nordic countries (47),
  • China,
  • Japan and
  • Taiwan (63),
  • ASEAN countries (42) and
  • other countries (259).

About GIAN

• GIAN stands for Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) in Higher Education.
• Aim:
  • Tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs, internationally to encourage their engagement with the institutes of Higher Education in India
  • To augment the country’s existing academic resources,
  • Accelerate the pace of quality reform, and
  • Elevate India’s scientific and technological capacity to global excellence.
• GIAN is envisaged to catalyse higher education institutions in the country and that it will initially include all IITs, IIMs, Central Universities, IISc.
• GIAN Objectives

• To increase the footfalls of reputed international faculty in the Indian academic institutes
• To provide opportunity to our faculty to learn and share knowledge and teaching skills in cutting edge areas
• To provide opportunity to our students to seek knowledge and experience from reputed international Faculty
• To create Avenue for possible collaborative research with the international faculty
• To increase participation and presence of international Students in the academic institutes
• To motivate the best international experts in the world to work on problems related to India
• To develop high quality course material in niche areas both through video and print that can be used by larger body of students and teachers
• To document and develop new pedagogic methods in emerging topics of national and international interestTopic 4 : NCRB 2022 report

Why in news: The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its annual report on crime in India for the year 2022 recently.
 

Key details:

• The report is a compilation of data on reported crime from across the country, and provides the big picture of broad trends in crime registration.
• Reports by the NCRB, which functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, include statistics on offences ranging from crimes against women to economic and financial crimes.

About NCRB:

• National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), is the agency responsible for collecting and analyzing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws.
• Headquarters: New Delhi.
• Nodal Ministry: Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
• NCRB brings out the annual comprehensive statistics of crime across the country – ‘Crime in India’ report.

Who publishes the NCRB report?

• The NCRB was established in January 1986 with the aim of establishing a body to compile and keep records of data on crime.
• It functions under the Union Home Ministry.
• Apart from publishing annual reports, its functions include:
• collection, coordination and exchange of information on inter-state and international criminals to the respective states.
• NCRB also acts as a “national warehouse” for the fingerprint records of Indian and foreign criminals, and assists in locating interstate criminals through fingerprint search.

Collection of information

• The NCRB report contains data received from the 36 states and Union Territories across the country.
• Similar data is furnished for 53 metropolitan cities, or those having a population of more than 10 lakh as per the 2011 census, by respective state-level crime records bureaus.
• This information is entered by state/UT police at the police station/ district level, and is then validated further at the district level, then the state level, and finally by the NCRB.

How are the data for NCRB reports compiled?

• The NCRB was established in January 1986 as a body mandated to compile and keep records of data on crime.
• It also acts as a “national warehouse” for the fingerprint records of Indian and foreign criminals, and assists in locating interstate criminals through fingerprint search.
• For the NCRB’s flagship annual Crime in India reports, information is obtained from the police forces of 36 states and Union Territories.
• Similar data are furnished for 53 cities with populations exceeding 10 lakh each as per the 2011 Census, by respective state-level crime records bureaus.
• The information is entered by state/UT police at the level of the local police station, and is validated at the levels of the district and state, and finally, by the NCRB.

Key takeaways from the 2022 NCRB report:

• Total crimes:
  • In 2022, a total of 58,24,946 cognizable crimes were registered comprising:
    • 35,61,379 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and
    • 22,63,567 Special & Local Laws (SLL) crimes.
  • This was a decline of 4.5% in the registration of cases over the second pandemic year, 2021.
• Crime rate:
  • The crime rate, or crimes registered per lakh population, has declined from 445.9 in 2021 to 422.2 in 2022.
  • This is seen as a better indicator, since absolute numbers on crime increase as the population increases.
• Crime against women:
  • 4,45,256 cases of crime against women were registered in 2022.
  • This was an increase of 4% over the 2021 numbers.
  • The shareof crimes against women under IPC sections was registered under:
    • Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives (31.4%),
    • Kidnapping & Abduction of Women (19.2%), and
    • Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty (18.7%).
• Cyber crime:
  • Reporting of cyber crime increased significantly by 24.4 percentage points compared to 2021.
  • Around 64.8% of registered cases were of fraud, followed by extortion (5.5%), and sexual exploitation (5.2%).
• Suicides:
  • An increase of 4.2% was observed in suicides reported during 2022  as compared to 2021.
  • Causes:
    • Family Problems (other than marriage-related problems) (31.7%),
    • Marriage Related Problems’ (4.8%) and
    • Illness (18.4%).
  • The overall male-to-female ratio of suicide victims was 71.8:28.2.

Headline trends in state-wise data in the report:

• The states/ UTs reporting the highest chargesheeting rate under IPC crimes are:
  • Kerala (96.0%),
  • Puducherry (91.3%), and
  • West Bengal (90.6%).
• This is the percentage of cases in which the police reached the stage of framing charges against the accused, out of the total true cases.
  • where a charge sheet was not laid but a final report submitted as true, plus the total cases chargesheeted.

Limitations of NCRB report

• The Principal Offence Rule:
  • Since the publication caters to the ‘Principal Offence Rule’ for classification of crime, the actual count of each crime head may be under reported.
  • The Principal Offence Rule states that in a case where multiple offences are registered, only the “most heinous crime”, carrying the most stringent punishment, will be considered when counting.
  • For example, ‘Murder with Rape’ is accounted as ‘Murder’, leading to undercounting of the crime of rape.
• Data submission at local level:
  • Since the report only compiles data that are submitted at the local level, inefficiencies or gaps in data at that level have an impact.
• Shortage of officers:
  • Vacancies or a shortage of police officers at the local level may hinder the collection of data.
• Actual crime not recorded:
  • The data record the incidence of registered crime rather than of actual crime.
  • When reported crimes against women in Delhi rose significantly in the aftermath of the 2012 bus gangrape case, it may have been a reflection of increased awareness about the need for registering crimes, both among those affected and the police, rather than an actual increase in the incidence of crime against women.
• Actual numbers vs registered numbers:
  • ‘Rise in crime’ and ‘increase in registration of crime by police’ are clearly two different things.
  • Since actual numbers will be mostly higher for the bigger states, a “crime rate” is calculated per unit of population.
  • But again, the data used at present for determining the total population is old — from the 2011 Census.
• Fear of police:
  • Because of a range of reasons, including the fear of an uncooperative or a hostile response from the police, certain groups may not be willing to come forward and register cases.Topic 5 : Climate finance

Why in news: Climate finance is a key topic of discussion at COP28 as it has been a bone of contention between low income countries and developed nations. Here is a look at the issue.
 

What is climate finance?

• Climate finance refers to large-scale investments required for actions aiming to mitigate or adapt to the consequences of climate change.
• What is adaptation?
  • Adaptation involves anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause.
  • One example of adaptation measures includes building infrastructure to protect coastal communities against sea-level rise.
• What is mitigation?
  • Mitigation involves reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere so that impacts of climate change are less severe.
  • Mitigation is done by increasing the share of renewable energy sources, expanding forest cover, etc.

Why are developing nations demanding climate finance?

• Developing countries have argued that developed nations should provide financial assistance to them to tackle climate change because it was due to the (now) rich world’s emissions over the last 150 years that caused the climate problem in the first place.
• The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (the mother agreement under which COP summits have been taking place) required high-income countries to provide climate finance to the developing world.
• In 2009 developed countries finally agreed to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries by 2020.
• In 2010, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established as a key delivery mechanism.
• The 2015 Paris Agreement reinforced this target, and extended it to 2025.
• However, the high income countries are yet to fulfil their pledge.

How much climate finance is needed?

• The actual amount:
  • According to a 2021 analysis by the UNFCCC standing committee, developing countries require at least $5.8 trillion by 2030 to meet their needs mentioned in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
  • NDCs are an outline for their efforts to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
  • This means they require around $600 billion every year, which is much lower than the amount promised by developed countries.
  • It is estimated that about $2 trillion will be needed each year by 2030 to help developing countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the effects of climate breakdown.
• Various deficiencies:
  • A lack of available data, tools and capacity for determining and costing such needs in several countries imply that these figures are likely an underestimate.
• Loss and damage:
  • The UNFCCC estimate also doesn’t include the huge expenses that governments incur to tackle the impacts of extreme weather events like floods, droughts, and wildfires caused by climate change.
  • This particular type of expense is being considered separately under the funding mechanism for loss and damage which was announced by countries at COP27 in 2022.
  • The fund was finally launched recently in COP28, but its scale or replenishment cycle remains unclear.

How much climate finance is being provided?

• Estimates by OECD:
  • The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that the developed world provided $83.3 billion in 2020 to the low income countries as climate finance.
    • OECD is largely a group of rich countries including the US, the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, Canada.
  • Oxfam contested the figure, accusing the developed countries of using dishonest and misleading accounting to inflate their climate finance contributions to developing countries by as much as 225%.
  • Oxfam estimates between just $21-24.5 billion as the ‘true value’ of climate finance provided in 2020, against a reported figure of $68.3 billion in public finance that rich countries said was provided.
    • This was alongside mobilised private finance bringing the total to $83.3 billion.
• Finance as loans:
  • The higher income countries have also been criticised for giving most of the money as non-concessional loans.
  • This has added to debt pressures across regions and income groups.
  • A recent study revealed that 52% of climate finance provided by 23 rich countries from 2011 to 2020 was money that previously went to development budgets, including programs focused on health, education, and women’s rights.

Way forward:

• Boosting private investment
  • Climate finance can involve businesses in developed countries investing in climate-related projects – such as solar farms or wind turbines – in developing countries.
  • Wealthy nations and multilateral development banks can encourage private entities to invest in these kinds of projects by providing grants, low-interest loans or loan guarantees to derisk investments and get projects off the ground.
  • There is broad recognition that private money has a significant role to play in scaling up overall climate finance.
  • It is estimated that $3tn of the $4.2tn needed in global investment by 2030 to achieve the 1.5C target would come from the private sector
  • Concerns:
    • Private climate finance tends to favour investment in wealthier nations that are viewed as more stable over some of the low-income nations that are most in need of help.
    • The latter often come with higher risk premiums and costs associated with borrowing when investing in them.
    • The higher cost of capital in developing and emerging economies is a reflection of real and perceived risks in these nations.
    • Concerns about returns on investment also skew funding towards mitigation rather than adaptation.
    • While clean-energy infrastructure can be highly profitable, adaptation measures often do not provide obvious financial gains, unless they protect a company’s assets.
    • According to the Climate Policy Initiative, 98% of adaptation finance in 2019 and 2020 came from the public sector.
• Reforming international financial institutions
  • Public climate finance can either be provided by one country to another, or it can be channelled through large international financial institutions.
  • There have been growing calls for reform of these entities to help bring the money they distribute more in line with climate ambitions, particularly in developing countries.
  • Over the past few years, roughly 40% of the climate finance provided by developed countries has flowed through multilateral institutions.
    • They are large organisations with a wealth of expertise and resources, which are funded by their developed country members.
  • As public institutions, they can support early-stage technologies and projects that the private sector is likely to avoid.
• Special drawing rights
  • The use of special drawing rights (SDRs) to provide climate finance is a novel proposal that has risen to prominence over the last year.
  • What are SDRs?
    • SDRs are a “global reserve asset” maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
    • They are not money, but they can be swapped for money at a willing central bank in a country that has plenty of spare foreign currency – such as dollars.
  • Any redistribution of SDRs should be in addition to meeting the climate finance goals that rich countries are currently missing.
• Just energy-transition partnerships
  • At COP26, a new model for climate finance was revealed in the form of an agreement between the governments of South Africa, France, Germany, the UK and the US, as well as the EU.
  • Dubbed a “just energy-transition partnership” (JETP), the $8.5bn scheme involves developed nations financially supporting South Africa’s shift away from coal.
  • South Africa is a major emitter due largely to its reliance on coal, which still provides nearly 90% of its electricity.
  • Ending this reliance therefore has global implications for addressing climate change.
• Expanding the pool of contributors
  • One option to increase the amount of international climate finance is to simply expand the list of contributors.
  • Only the nations of western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, plus the EU, are obliged to provide climate finance under the UN system.
  • It omits large emerging economies, notably China and Russia, wealthy non-western nations, such as South Korea and Chile, and major oil producers including Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
  • Many of these nations do provide climate-related finance to developing countries.
    • However, it is not considered official climate finance and does not, for example, count towards the $100bn target.
• Dealing with debt
  • Many of the nations that are most in need of finance also face a heavy debt burden, which makes funding climate-related projects difficult.
  • According to the World Bank, 58% of the world’s poorest countries are in debt distress or at high risk of it.
  • Meanwhile, analyses have shown that low-income countries spend five times more on debt than climate adaptation, while small-island developing states spend 18 times more paying back debts than they get from climate finance.
  • Most climate finance is in the form of loans and so contributes to the problem of debt.
  • More grant-based finance could help to remedy this.
  • Debt-for-climate swaps have also been suggested as a way to address the debt crisis and boost climate spending.
    • These swaps involve a partial forgiveness of debt by the creditor nation, with the money being used domestically to fund climate-related projects.

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Topic 6 : The need to transform agri-food systems

Why in news: A report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has laid bare the staggering hidden costs of our global agri-food systems, surpassing an astonishing $10 trillion.

Key details:

• In middle-income countries like India, these costs constitute nearly 11% of the GDP, which manifests as higher poverty, environmental harm, and health-related impacts, including undernourishment and unhealthy dietary patterns.
• The report blames unsustainable business-as-usual activities and practices for these escalating costs, pointing to a need to transform agri-food systems.
• One way to do so is to shift to multi-cropping systems that have the potential to:
  • protect farmers’ well-being,
  • improve nutritional outcomes for our communities, and
  • positively impact ecological health.

Impacts of intensive agriculture:

• Impressive improvements in agricultural productivity have been achieved in India over the last five decades by mainstreaming mono-cropping systems and chemical-intensive farming practices.
• The Green Revolution focused on the marketing of high-yielding varieties of paddy and wheat on agricultural lands, which now constitute more than 70% of India’s agricultural production.
• The infusion of seeds purchased from multinational corporations and fertilizers undermined:
  • seed sovereignty,
  • dismantled Indigenous knowledge systems, and
  • fuelled a shift from diverse crop varieties and staples such as pulses and millets to monoculture plantations.
• This trend also compromised the nutritional needs of households and resulted in adverse ecological consequences including excessive extraction of groundwater.
• This privatisation and deregulation of agricultural inputs also increased indebtedness among agrarian households.
  • In 2013, the debt to asset ratio of a farmer’s household in India was 630% higher than in 1992.
  • Agriculture in India has increasingly become unviable as the average monthly household income of a farming household sits at ₹10,816.

Which are the crops being favoured?

• Under the National Food Security Act 2013, 65% of households (around 800 million people) in India are legally assured a right to food at subsidised rates through the Public Distribution System and welfare programmes such as the Integrated Child Development Services and the Mid-Day Meal Scheme.
• To meet this requirement, the procurement of food crops is coordinated by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), which is required to maintain a central pool of buffer stock and to procure, transport, and store foodgrain stocks in the country.
• Dominance of rice and wheat:
  • This procurement policy heavily favours rice and wheat.
  • In 2019-2020, the FCI procured 341.32 lakh million tonnes (MT) of wheat and 514.27 lakh MT of rice.
  • In contrast, the Indian government approved the procurement of a total of only 3.49 lakh MT of coarse grains such as jowar, bajra, ragi, maize, and barley by State governments for the central pool and local distribution, which is less than 1% of total foodgrain procurement.
  • The area under cultivation of coarse grains dropped by 20% between 1966-1967 and 2017-2018, whereas the area under rice and wheat increased by nearly 20% and 56% respectively.
• Other crops:
  • At the same time, other water-intensive cash crops like sugarcane and areca nut have also flourished under policies favouring investments in dams and canal irrigation (favourable for sugarcane) and free electricity for borewells (favourable for areca nut).
  • This trend threatens food security and the production of nutritional crops.
  • The expansion of sugarcane cultivation:
    • affects biodiversity,
    • increases the pressure on groundwater resources, and
    • contributes to air and water pollution.
• Ironically, small and marginal farmers in India are among the most food and nutrition insecure.

How can crop diversification help?

• Shift in value chain:
  • A systemic shift in food regimes, from local to global value chains, is essential.
  • The starting point for addressing these complex systemic issues could arise from local efforts, such as the diversification of farms.
• Revitalisation of land and soil:
  • Diversified multi-cropping systems, rooted in agroecology principles, could be a viable solution to revitalise degraded land and soil.
  • Practices known by various names locally, like ‘akkadi saalu’ in Karnataka, involve intercropping with a combination of legumes, pulses, oilseeds, trees, shrubs, and livestock.
  • This approach enables cash provision from commercial crops, food and fodder production, and offers ecosystem services such as nitrogen fixation and pest traps, and supports the local biodiversity.
  • They also collectively contribute to improving soil health.
• Benefits of millets:
  • Millets, whose yield per hectare is comparable to those of rice and wheat, are:
    • more nutritious,
    • grow in semi-arid conditions without burdening groundwater tables,
    • require minimal input, and
    • provide a diversified food basket.
• Benefit to farmers:
  • While crop diversification will involve some loss of productivity using a narrow metric of kg/Ha, it would preserve natural capital and allow farmers to become nutritionally secure.
  • By redirecting subsidies, currently accruing to corporations, we can pay farmers for their contribution to sustaining natural capital, instead of incentivising them to deplete it.

How can farmers transition?

• Lowering ratio of commercial crops:
  • Among the various transition pathways, a visual representation of a diversified farm involves:
    • allocating 70% for commercial crops,
    • 20% for food and fodder, and
    • 10% for environmental services like oilseeds (acting as trap crops).
  • Over time, the fraction of commercial crops could be lowered to 50% and border crops could be replaced with locally-suitable tree species for fruits and fodder.
• Integration of livestock rearing:
  • Integrating livestock rearing could further improve incomes.
  • Some preliminary economic modelling of these pathways indicates the potential to improve ecological outcomes for the landscape and sustain farm incomes in the short run (up to three years) and the long run (up to 25 years).

Conclusion:

• Addressing challenges related to local seeds, institutional arrangements for market access, drudgery, and the need for farm labour is crucial when envisioning such a transition.
• Scaling up these practices requires collaboration among institutions, policymakers, and social groups to articulate economic incentives for farmers to shift from high-input monoculture to diversified cropping.