Synthesis Report: TEEBAgriFood Initiative in Uttar Pradesh

The aims of TEEBAgriFood are bold and ambitious: to contribute a framework approach for better understanding and managing the impacts and externalities of agriculture and food value chains, and to bring together a global network of scholars and decision-makers dedicated to disclosing and valuing those impacts. [...] As per the guidance of the PSC, the project focusses on evaluating the environmental and socioeconomic costs and benefits of scaling programmatic interventions of the Government of India on organic farming and agroforestry in three states, namely the Ganga basin states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and Assam in the Northeast Region of India. [...] Aim of the study The primary objective of the study was to assess the impacts of upscaling Organic Farming (OF) and AgroForestry (AgF) policy measures on natural, human, social, and produced capitals, specifically in terms of supporting ecosystem services and the flow of such services. [...] For Uttar Pradesh, the policy scenarios produced focus on scaling up organic farming and agroforestry interventions in the state in accordance with “The roadmap to promote chemical-free and sustainable OF in the state and other regions of the country (2016-17)” with the help of the policies; PVKY, RKVY, and the National Agroforestry Policy3 and Namami Gange. [...] - On the contrary, under the optimistic policy scenario involving a yearly scaling up of organic farming at a rate of 15% (compared to current 10%) and an expansion of agroforestry to up to 33% of the cropped area (compared to the current 10%), the districts of Meerut, Aligarh, and Bulandshahr demonstrate a positive change in carbon sequestration for the total land cover4, ranging from 0.39 to 0.6.