Will the Agri Sector continue to remain a laggard?

Will the Agri Sector continue to remain a laggard?

Dr. BK Mukhopadhyay

(The writer, a noted management economist and international commentator on ongoing business and economic affairs, can be reached at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

So far the developing world is concerned, the fact remains that the state of agriculture continues to change at a snail’s pace. The major grey area, as usual, has been the farm sector, where the uncoordinated efforts still continue to exist in spite of the GDP drum beating. It is crystal clear that tinkering around the ongoing weapons cannot help reach the target.

Not That Good Going Indeed

The point here is that had the developing zone been one of the grain bowls [still the scope remains] by now this group could have reaped large benefits from the rising international prices of the agri-commodities. The most important factor on this score is that demand for such commodities — especially the food grains — would never come down rather it is all set to go up over time. Population upsurge coupled with growing demand from industrial sectors could keep the demand factor at reasonably high level.

Clearly, if the current trends are of any indication, the food and agricultural policy is in disarray. The symptoms of such a disarray are not difficult to locate — incoherent/inadequate response to exploding food prices; slowdown in agricultural productivity growth; water problems; a disorderly response to continuously disturbing energy prices; rapid concentration in multinational agri-business corporations without adequate institutional innovation aiming at properly guiding them; lack of progress in addressing scarcity; widespread nutritional problems [hunger/obesity/chronic diseases] plus agriculture-related health hazards [avian influenza, etc] and adverse impacts on climatic fluctuations.

Poor plan implementation continues to hit hard. Underinvestment in areas related to food, nutrition/agriculture [research/infrastructure/rural institutions invite spill-over effect/global impacts, among others. It is high time that sincere collaborative programmes are resumed among the countries in order to adequately address opportunities and challenges.

No End To Learning Process

Positive points do exist. Ongoing trend is steadily moving in terms of registering quicker growth in agricultural productivity. Good going - growth and modern farm practices and inclusive technologies are being implemented in order to foster the rural growth process. It is also a fact that cellular technologies, wireless communication networks as well as GIS-based agro-software technologies are reaching rural India to disseminate vital information and updates on weather, farming technologies, fertilizers, livestock, commodity prices as well as stock markets. Still, a huge number of villages do not have access to advanced farming technologies and interactive communication networks, not to speak of the pace of rural electrification and clean drinking water availability.

Is it not the appropriate time to broaden the sight and look at vital aspects — re-identifying policy dimensions and initiatives; capacity building through PPP, individual initiatives and joint ventures; boosting agri-business and agri-marketing; GIS mapping and harvesting trends; mitigating climatic change hazards; precision farming — optimum utilisation of resources; leaning heavily on most modern agri-practices; micro-finance and micro-credit and attaching top importance to food security? Needless to say the responsibilities are to be shouldered not only by banks, but also government departments; NGOs, commodity exchanges; agri-marketing and state marketing boards and, of course, the extension departments of various States in India.

Time is ripe for more well-knitted coordinated actions so as to: initiate inter-sectoral-linkages; progressive decision making, information sharing and performance improvement; capacity building; creating more opportunities for partnership building, development reorganization and capacity enhancement for the rural stakeholders.

Clearly, agricultural modernization has no alternatives. Area under cultivation cannot be raised continuously even if the fallow land is brought within cultivation [that too not more than 10 per cent in a year] cannot brought under cultivation as such. The question is regarding availability of quality seeds, bio-fertilizers’ applications, and finally, technological consolidation of holdings. Best water use process is another area that deserves attention. Here also scientific planning regarding exploration of groundwater holds the key as indiscriminate use gives rise to other problems. Surface water utilisation has also not been optimally done.

The urgent need is there to go for overall farm development efforts. For that matter, needless to say, the infrastructure holds the key. The loss incurred during the entire production process, inclusive of the damage done in the unscientific threshing, rat menace, field loss, can be minimized. Without proper training imparted to the farmers as regards post harvest technology not much can be expected on this score. Connectivity between the producing zone and the selling zones calls for immediate reinforcing. Buy-back arrangement is obviously a good process provided the actual producer receives the legitimate benefit in due course.

Systematic planning is the only way out. And for that matter the tools of regional planning can be readily made use of. Regional peculiarities must be the starting point of any realistic decision making on this score. Economic factors alone cannot give a full-fledged guidance as the strength of non-economic factors count for no less. There is always the gap between the cup and the leap. Initiating change has never been an easy matter and change resisting factors count for.

In Lieu of Conclusion

The potentialities still remains so high. The quality of many horticultural crops enables countries like India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, to remain largely unbeatable in the global market. In spite of competition becoming intense — hotter and hotter — we are able to retain the markets for many agri-commodities. The flip side: we have to remain contended with insignificant share in global trade in agri-commodities. Strong cooperation among the developing and developed world is a must, as hunger cannot go on ad infinitum. Let there be a good inter-regional cooperation in a more practical way.

Especially, South-east Asia requires immediate pep up on this score. Neglecting agriculture results in heavy immediate and future loss. The huge upcoming population in the workable category, in turn, is one of the rare assets that could give rich dividends exactly by the same route as China gained in the previous years.

Whatever it is, the lead is to come from the major performers – India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, among others. As a matter of fact, the world has to depend on these two regions in the days to come. China has, of late, also has been stressing hard on this sector, clearly realizing that those big industries alone or an export-led growth ultimately hinges heavily on how the food factor extends support. For India, fortunately that severe negligence has not been there - the missing factor remained at not properly exploring the resources at a quicker pace. Had it been so by now we could have ruled the world so far as many such commodities are concerned. A lot thus depend on formulating realistic policies and then regular practical follow up and supervision.

Can we expect some bold realistic moves so that the farm sector could be in a position to give a better push to quicken the growth and development process so far as the developing economies are concerned?

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