A warning from WWII Nilgiris on the paradoxical relationship between forests and food

In the years after World War II broke out in 1939, the British military in the subcontinent began to fall short of food.

Early 1943, the military demand for vegetables peaked for troops stationed in the Madras province and erstwhile Ceylon. In January that year, the director of agriculture for Madras, wrote to the government noting that troops in the province required about 1,4500 kg of “fresh English vegetables per day” and predicted that the demand would rise sharply.

As a consequence, about 250 acres of land in the Nilgiris would be needed to meet this demand, he estimated. However, in just two months, the area needed to feed the troops surged to 3,200 acres.

In March 1943, the government issued five-year land leases to farmers. These included leases on shola forests and grasslands. The government even issued interest free loans for clearing sholas.

As the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation marks International Day of Forests on March 21 with the theme “Forests and Foods”, that wartime episode is worth recalling. The liberal lease of sholas and grasslands on the upper Nilgiris Plateau resulted in farmers clearing sholas, digging up grasslands and sowing across the slopes.

This caused so much soil erosion, the local administration was ordered to enforce...

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