Can millet farming offer coal workers in India an alternative income?

PATRATU, India — Shanti Munda looked over her farm and seemed satisfied. Her patch of land was small, but the crop was healthy. Like others in her village, Bicha of Patratu district in east India’s Jharkhand state, Shanti was mainly a rice farmer. In the last few years, however, she shifted her focus to millet as she foresaw difficult times ahead. To meet its net-zero target, India will have to make a giant leap from fossil fuels to greener energy sources. At the 26th United Nations Climate Conference, or COP26, in 2021, India committed itself to a net-zero carbon emissions target by 2070. Currently, India is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Coal alone accounts for 55% of the country's energy needs. With nearly 400 coal mines, India is the world’s second-largest producer and consumer of coal after China. To phase out this dependence, between 2014 and 2021, India scaled up its renewable energy capacity by 250%. It now ranks fourth in renewable energy capacity in the world. The country also plans to shut down 30 coal mines over the next three to four years. But this could spell doom for thousands of families, such as Shanti’s, that depend on the fossil fuel industry for their livelihood. Shanti’s husband Sandeep Munda works on a contractual basis at a thermal power plant in the neighboring state of Chhattisgarh. “In 19 years of marriage, my husband mostly lived away and I took care of the house, children, and the farm. Every alternate month, he would send Rs10,000-12,000 ($120). It was of some help but maybe not for long. When the time comes, contractual workers are released first. We are desperate to find another source of livelihood,” Shanti said. But this is easier said than done. A report from accounting firm Ernst & Young found that coal mines create 725,000 direct jobs in the country. It is estimated that a much larger number of people work in the informal sectors associated with coal and the transition to clean energy will put millions of families in a vulnerable position. Organizations in Jharkhand are searching for solutions. The millet solution Predicting severe adverse short-term impacts, Jharkhand became the first Indian state to set up a task force to enable a just energy transition. The task force, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme and Arya.ag, a grain commerce platform, is offering workshops on millet cultivation. “The idea is to supplement farmers’ income by training women. Our job is to provide training both in millet farming and making sweets and snacks from millets; infrastructure to make these products; and most importantly, provide linkages to the market and create an ecosystem and build internal capacity for women to be able to sell these to buyers,” said Prasanna Rao, co-founder and CEO of Arya.ag. “It is clearly proven that when women are involved, there is a sense of discipline. It’s just that their role is not seen in agriculture, and their labor is disguised. Thus, we are focusing on training women as part of the initiative,” he added. Millets or small-seeded cereals are ancient crops, traditionally grown in Asia and Africa. Today they are much sought after as super-grains due to their high nutritional value. They are resilient to climate change-driven high temperatures and require less water to grow. Since they were not part of the Green Revolution, their genetic makeup remains varied, making them resistant to pests and insects. As a result, growing them does not require the use of pesticides and insecticides. Because of millets’ numerous health, environmental, and economic benefits, the U.N. declared 2023 the International Year of Millets. This is pertinent to Jharkhand, a state reeling under high climate sensitivity and vulnerability, combined with low adaptive capacity. Sustainable millet farming can be a viable solution for the state’s nutritional requirements and the potential unemployment crisis. Shanti learned finger millet cultivation. She also prepared millet snacks and sweets, which she said were in high demand in posh hotels in the cities. She was recently invited to put up her stall at a five-star hotel, where her cakes baked on a brick stove and laddoos — millet-jaggery balls — became a huge hit. “It was exciting to step into that huge hotel and to be able to talk to customers there. It was the first time I had stepped out of my village alone. I had no idea that something as simple as madua [finger millet], which we thought was tribal food, is so much in demand among the rich and the elite. I see a bright future for me and my friends, as farmers and chefs of millet products,” Shanti said. Worker’s plight India’s just transition is mainly focused on those who rely on the fossil fuel industry, and is concentrated in five states. Though Jharkhand was the first to appoint a task force, similar transitions are being offered in Odisha and West Bengal, where workers are receiving training in solar and hydro energy. But Naresh Mandala, coal workers’ union leader at Ramgarh/Patratu, said the slow-paced learnings are "of no use" to workers. He explained that “project-affected people are not being trained,” and it is mainly their family members who are being trained. “One in four formally trained workers in Jharkhand is directly employed in solid fossil fuel mining. A low-carbon transition would require substantial reskilling of this workforce,” according to a report by think tank Climate Policy Initiative. It estimated that four times the recorded number of workers might actually be working in trades associated with coal mines and predicted a $8.7 billion per year cost for Jharkhand and its workforce when the state makes the low-carbon transition. In India, the just transition is a part of its 2022 Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy. Various ministries, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, and Arya.ag are involved in the project. Funding for the plan, as of now, comes from District Mineral Foundation Funds, introduced in 2015 as a benefit-sharing scheme with the mining-affected communities. Institutions such as the Asian Development Bank have also partnered with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to develop a Just Transition Worker Support Facility for coal-mining-reliant districts and states. Financing, however, remains a challenge. India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water estimated in 2021 that the country will need over $10 trillion from 2020–2070 for investment in net zero. The current estimate for the predicted investment gap is $3.5 trillion, of which $1.4 trillion has to come externally. “Coal is not going anywhere at least for the next couple of decades. Thus, those on the payroll or direct employees do not have much to worry about. In most cases, they would have retired or relocated to other states when coal is phased out. Therefore, as part of our Just Transition initiative, we are targeting young people,” said Ajay Kumar Rastogi, chairman of the Jharkhand just transition task force. But the issue is more pressing for contractual workers, such as Sandeep, as they would neither be relocated nor will receive any severance. They need skill development initiatives much more than formal workers. “We are happy with this new skill that we’ve earned, but at the end of the day, it’s the men [the actual workers] who need some transition skill training. As homemakers, we can only help as much, they are the main breadwinners and would need skills to feed their families,” said Shanti. Editor’s note: This story was produced with the help of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The content is the sole responsibility of the author and Devex maintains editorial independence.