Technology Development and Diffusion in Tree Growers Cooperatives in A Coastal Saline Region of Gujarat: A Learning Environmental Approach

This paper examines the nexus between new technology for an open access land resource and an institutional set-up for establishing and managing tree plantations as a common pool resource. The Vankars, a scheduled caste of a coastal saline region of Gujarat, combined their knowledge of local resources with the techno-managerial inputs of an external non-government organization to evolve a new technology for making these lands productive. Some land was acquired from on long lease from the Government on an individual basis and also on a group basis. In either case the Vankars soon realised that reclamation and management of such degraded lands called for pooling of the land as well as other resources. This in turn demanded simultaneous investment in human resource development and institution-building at the grass root level. The setting up of a chain of cooperatives in different villages in this region from 1979 onwards and their subsequent federation into a cooperative union in 1989 is the realisation of a dream shared by the leaders of an oppressed community and their counterparts in the external agency. This paper highlights the informal networking system between cooperatives which provided multiple points for experimentation, trial and validation of new techniques and ideas. It describes the methodology used by the BSC in promoting technological innovation of both types (a) local knowledge & initiative based (b) supply induced. The paper examines the evolution of rules for using usufruct, providing labour and protection, processing wood into charcoal and marketing, in three cooperatives selected on the basis of land productivity as a criterion. The mechanisms for sharing set-up costs and maintenance of plantations, the problems of fostering unity and the perceived stream of benefits realised by the members via-a-vis the NGO are summarised. Implications are drawn for building institutions around common pool resources.