The Sanjeevani for harmonious economic growth

We have many problems plaguing our economic model of growth. Our current model depends a lot on industrial growth. The economic growth from industrialization is constrained by three factors: namely Capital available especially risk capital/ equity, land available for industrialization and employable population with skills relevant to industry. All of these three factors are in short supply: risk capital is not available easily, land for industrialization displaces people from their land and has become a contentious issue. The fraction of the people who are employable by industry as compared to those who seek a livelihood is very small.

The industry creates employees and very few entrepreneurs. This creates its own  tensions and repercussions in the long run  as employees appreciate the economic constraints much less than entrepreneurs creating a difficult industrial relations environment. Additionally industry invariably creates pollution and changes the ecology of the  area where it comes up.  Given this situation, it is clear that while industry can produce economic growth we need another engine of economic growth for many pockets of the country which are not getting developed or cannot be developed by industrialization.

I recently read this saying in Sanskrit. I have been thinking about this saying and it may have the secret to creating a new engine of growth which will strengthen our economy, our society and our environment.

A pond equals ten wells, a reservoir equals ten ponds.

A son equals ten reservoirs, and a tree equals ten sons!

दशकूपसमा वापी दशवापीसमो ह्रदः ।

दशह्रदसमः पुत्रो दशपुत्रसमो द्रुमः ॥

dasha-kūpa-samā vāpī, dasha-vāpī-samo hradaḥ |

dasha-hrada-samaḥ putro, dasha-putra-samo drumaḥ ||

Matsya-purāṇa 154:512

Why is the tree so revered ? One reason could be that it can grow and propagate itself without any effort and produce so much of value to humans and the environment. Factories don't have the intelligence to multiply on their own by simply creating a seed of the next factory. 

The economics of nature are simply fabulous. Comparing  a tree with a factory, we see that factories require substantial resources to be built and managed. They do not expand of their own accord. The next factory requires as much or even more investment. They could become obsolete quickly.  They upset the ecological equilibrium of the area where they are established. The tree is a factory that can grow pretty much by itself if it finds itself in the right place. Its products have great established use over many millennia as food, medicine, construction materials and importantly raw materials for the industrial economy (tyres, paper, construction, food, nutraceuticals to name a few). It plays a restoring a role in the environment.

This is not to say that we should forsake the economic growth through factories and machines. Let that go on and  and play its role. We should accept the limitations of industrial growth and adopt other models also  and place adequate importance to use the power of nature inherent in trees to power for economic growth.

What can be done ?

This approach seems theoretical. The immediate question is how can this be applied across the country.

We need to identify raw material products that can be created from trees and value added products that could be created from them. We then identify areas which are the best to grow these trees and create business around communities. We should let families grow the trees and collect the products and process them through co-operatives like Amul. This will require very little capital - only for collecting and processing the produce.

The planting and growing of trees should be linked to milestones in the family such as birth of children, marriage so that they are equivalent of opening a fixed deposit account or insurance policy for the family which will pay itself in time for the development of the person or family concerned. We need to rebuild the rituals for planting and maintaining these trees so that the tradition is maintained. 

There are few immediate areas where this can applied

1. Growing sandalwood in Karnataka: We have the crazy policy of effectively banning private growing of sandal wood trees. We need to instead encourage growing of trees in each household in areas where it is conducive. This can increase the production of sandalwood manifold and help increase market share of sandal wood in the perfumery business. The price of good sandal wood is at least Rs 2500 /kg. If we increase production, it may lower the price and at a much lower price there would be a very big market and income would also be spread among many more people.

2. Neem: Neem based products are growing in a big manner for humans and as insecticides. The cost of neem seeds has gone up from almost (cost of picking and transport)  to about Rs 23/kg. 

3. Amla: Amla produces many products which help in curing  many of the modern day diseases.

4. Alternatives for Forest produce: Massive deforestation has reduced the forest cover and reduced the source of raw materials for nutraceutical industry. While the world population has increase manifold since 1947, the forest cover has reduced substantially. This  tragedy is paradoxically a very good opportunity to create forestry product markets around trees such as Arjun, Ashwagandha etc. ( This is also an opportunity to reduce cost of medicare using traditional medicine such as Ayurveda but we shall reserve that discussion for another blog).

Conclusion:

This experiment has been conducted in Maharashtra and many other states by BAIF Foundation for many decades now. It is called the Wadi program. Deforested areas have been afforested with diverse trees such as mango, cashew nut among others. These produce are collected and processed by co-operatives owned by the growers and sold as value- added produce.  These have seen more as poverty alleviation schemes to bring tribals out of property and rehabilitate them.  At some level the Amul experience is one such using cattle instead of trees.

These solutions are much more than and need to be seen in a newer light of a new Engine of national economic growth with minimal sops and minimal outlays, which produces many entrepreneurs and livelihoods and work around the constraints posed by industrial economic growth. This should be a part of a new national policy for economic growth than a mere poverty alleviation exercise.

Nature is very kind. It has great power inherent in it if we only bothered to listen. This solution proposed uses the power of Biological networks, Economic networks and Social networks.  If properly thought through and implemented, it can create sustainable harmonious development of society using very low investment.