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| 2006 — Year of Agricultural
Renewal |
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| - M. S. Swaminathan |
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| During this year, an integrated
package of measures should be introduced in every part
of the country to increase farm productivity and profitability
in perpetuity without associated ecological harm. |
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 THE
YEAR 2005 has been difficult both for the nation and
for farm and fisher families. Beginning with the tsunami
of December 26, 2004, and ending with the disastrous
earthquake in Kashmir and floods in Tamil Nadu, our
farm and fisher families have been subjected to the
fury of nature in the form of drought, unseasonal and
heavy rain (like what caused damage to the onion crop
in Maharashtra) and floods. Institutional support to
small farmers is weak. The same is true of post-harvest
infrastructure. For example, even now paddy is being
spread on the roads for drying in many places. The spoilage
losses can be as high as 30 per cent in the case of
vegetables and fruits. Both risk mitigation and price
stabilisation are receiving inadequate policy and investment
support. Hardly 10 per cent of farmers are covered by
crop insurance. Farm families are also not covered by
health insurance. Women have, by and large, been bypassed
by the Kisan Credit Card System. |
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| The cost of production is invariably
higher than the minimum support price, due to ever-increasing
prices of diesel and other inputs. Investment in agriculture
has suffered a decline over the past two decades. Capital
formation in agriculture and allied sectors in relation
to Gross Domestic Product started declining in the 1980s
and is only now being reversed. This has adversely affected
irrigation and rural infrastructure development. An
unfortunate consequence of the hardships faced by small
farm families is the growing number of suicides. The
situation is particularly alarming in parts of Maharashtra's
Vidharba region. To our shame, the suicide hotspots
include Wardha district, where Mahatma Gandhi spent
a significant part of his life fighting for freedom
from colonial rule so that the country can be rid of
hunger, poverty, and gender injustice. |
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| The cost-risk-return structure of
farming is becoming adverse. Consequently, indebtedness
is growing in rural areas. In Maharashtra, over 55 per
cent of the farm households are in debt. Average household
size of farmers is 5.5 at the all-India level. In the
low-income groups, the average size goes up to 6.9.
According to the National Sample Survey Organisation-59th
round, the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure
of farm households across India was Rs.503 in 2003.
Endemic hunger (i.e., chronic undernutrition) is high
both in families without assets like land or livestock,
as well as those with small land holdings without access
to irrigation. Policy reform in agriculture is thus
overdue. The National Commission on Farmers has therefore
recommended that the agricultural year 2006-07 be designated
the Year of Agricultural Renewal. |
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| During this year, an integrated
package of measures should be introduced in every part
of the country to increase farm productivity and profitability
in perpetuity without associated ecological harm. The
present agricultural crisis can then be converted into
an opportunity for not only reversing the decline, but
for taking our agricultural evolution forward. This
by helping farm families to bridge the gap between potential
and actual yields through mutually reinforcing packages
of technology, services, and public policies. The programmes
initiated during the 2006-07 Year of Agricultural Renewal
by Central and State Governments, panchayati raj institutions,
agricultural, veterinary, rural and women's universities,
and IITs, private and public sector industries, civil
society organisations and mass media should be designed
to foster productivity, quality, sustainability, profitability
and employment revolutions in the farm sector. It should
help to promote job-led economic growth in our villages
through concurrent attention to on-farm and non-farm
livelihoods. |
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| Five components |
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| The following are the five major
components of the Action Plan for the Year of Agricultural
Renewal. They require integrated attention from Central
and State Governments. |
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| Soil Health
Enhancement: Agricultural universities, research
institutes, krishi vigyan kendras, fertilizer companies,
State departments of agriculture, and farmers' associations
should commemorate 2006-07 as the Year of Soil Health
Enhancement. The aim should be to increase the productivity
potential of soils through concurrent attention to their
physics, chemistry, (macro- and micro-nutrients), and
microbiology. Dry farming areas need particular attention. |
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| Irrigation
Water Supply Augmentation and Demand Management:
Water is a public good and a social resource and not
private property. The privatisation of its distribution
is fraught with dangers and could lead to water wars
in local communities. Improving supply through rainwater
harvesting and recharge of the aquifer should become
mandatory. In addition, a nationally debated and accepted
strategy for bringing 10 million hectares of new area
under irrigation under the Bharat Nirman programme should
be developed. The Polavaram Project to be built across
the Godavari in Andhra Pradesh is a case in point. Different
viewpoints can be reconciled only by dialogue and consensus
building. All existing wells and ponds should be renovated.
Demand management through improved irrigation practices,
including sprinkler and drip irrigation, should receive
priority attention. A water literacy movement should
be launched and regulations developed for sustainable
use of ground water as well as for preventing pollution.
Seawater farming should be promoted in coastal areas
through the cultivation of mangroves, salicornia, casuarinas,
and appropriate halophytic plants. The conjunctive use
of rain, river, ground, sea, and treated sewage water
should become the norm. |
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| Credit
and insurance: Credit reform is the primary pathway
to enhancing small farm productivity and to ending farmers'
suicides. The spread between the deposit and lending
interest rates is high in India by international standards.
The need is to improve efficiency in the financial delivery
system by controlling both transaction and risk costs.
On the part of the Government, crop insurance as well
as the speed and manner in which the debt recovery and
settlement process operates would need to be considerably
improved. Keeping in view the decline in profitability
of agriculture, and the farmers' distress, the Government
may consider providing support to the banking system
for reducing the rate of interest for crop loans to
four per cent during the Year of Agricultural Renewal.
There are areas in the country where recurrent and frequent
drought and floods cripple the incomes of farmers. These
farmers become defaulters to the banks and thereby become
"push-outs" of the formal credit system. Rescheduling
and restructuring of farmers' loans are not enough in
the event of successive natural calamities. The Central
and State Governments must step in to create an Agriculture-Risk
Fund to provide relief (waiver in full/ part of loan
and interest) to the farmers in the case of successive
droughts and in areas hit by floods and heavy pest infestation. |
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| Technology:
Agricultural scientists should state the performance
of new varieties and technologies in terms of net income
per hectare, and not just in terms of yield per hectare.
For this purpose, there is need for a farming system
orientation involving crop-livestock integrated production
systems to both research and resource use. There should
be a proper match between production and post-harvest
technologies. A post-harvest technology wing should
be added to every krishi vigyan kendra. Also, lab-to-land
demonstrations should include post-harvest technology.
It is suggested 60,000 lab-to-land demonstrations be
organised in the area of post-harvest processing and
value addition during 2006-07 to mark the 60th anniversary
of Independence. Many of them should be organised in
dry farming areas, where millets, pulses, oilseeds,
and cotton are grown. Value addition to biomass will
help to generate skilled jobs in the non-farm sector.
Rice occupies the largest area in the country and there
are opportunities for generating more jobs and income
by establishing rice bio-parks. Similarly, eco-boards
can be produced from cotton stalks as a replacement
for plywood made from timber. |
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| Biotechnology and Information Technology
should be demystified and a cadre of Rural Farm Science
Managers should be developed by training a couple of
women and men members of every panchayat in the management
of new technologies, such as the establishment of refugia
in Bt cotton fields. A professionally led National Biotechnology
Regulatory Authority should be established without further
delay. |
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| Market:
Ultimately, it is only opportunities for assured
and remunerative marketing that will determine the economic
viability of farming both as a way of life and a means
to livelihood. Market reform should begin with production
planning, so that every link in the cultivation-consumption-commerce
chain receives adequate and timely attention. |
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| There is an urgent need for a National
Land Use Advisory Service, linked to State and Block
Level Land Use Advisory Services on a hub and spokes
model. These can be virtual organisations with the capacity
to link land use decisions with ecological, meteorological
and marketing factors on a location and season specific
basis. The National Land Use Advisory Service should
have continuous contact with the India Meteorology Department,
the Indian Space Research Organisation, agricultural
universities and departments, commodity exchanges and
futures markets, the Agricultural and Processed Food
Products Export Development Authority, commodity boards,
and all credible national and international sources
of information on domestic and international markets.
The Land Use Advisory Service should cover crop and
animal husbandry, horticulture, inland fisheries, and
forestry and agro-forestry and have the capacity to
proactively assess potential surpluses and shortages
of essential commodities. |
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| Thus, the National Agricultural
Renewal Year Programme of 2006-07 should deal concurrently
with soil health enhancement, augmentation of the area
under irrigation coupled with efficiency and equity
in water use, credit and insurance reform, technology
upgradation and dissemination, and farmer-centred marketing.
There should be synergy between this programme and other
major recent initiatives like the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Programme, Bharat Nirman, and the National
Rural Health Mission. We should not remain silent spectators
to agricultural decay. Both food and human security
and national sovereignty are at stake. Overall economic
growth rates have little meaning if we do not look after
the economic health and survival of over 60 per cent
of our population. |
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Prof.M.S.Swaminathan
Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers. |
| Source : The Hindu, 31
December, 2005 |
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