Farm Sector: A fast and consistent approach is the need of the hour

Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality – Abraham Lincoln

Dr B K Mukhopadhyay

(The author is a Professor of

Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

India is steadily moving in terms of registering quicker growth in agricultural productivity. Good going-growth and modern farm practices. 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, fertilisers, 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 initiative; capacity building through PPP, individual initiatives and joint ventures; boosting agri-business and agri-marketing; GIS mapping and harvesting trends; precision farming; optimum utilization of resources; lending heavily on most modern agri-practices; micro-finance and micro credit - and attaching top importance to food security?

Reflecting the reality

Though the agriculture sector has been showing a topsy- turvy rate of growth over the years, yet the question naturally arises: who is to be blamed – planning methods, implementation or both?

No doubt - over the last decade Indian agriculture has become more robust with record production of foodgrains and oilseeds. Increased procurement, consequently, has added huge stocks of foodgrains in the granaries. India is one of the world’s top producers of rice, wheat, milk, fruits, and vegetables. However, given that India is still home to a quarter of all undernourished people in the world and since on an average almost half the total expenditure of about half the households is on food, increasing the efficiency of the farm-to-fork value chain is crucial for eliminating poverty and malnutrition!

The result not dull and drab : But Yeh Dil Maange More

In India’s planning this is nothing uncommon – set the high targets and ultimately become a laggard! Most of the plans lacked the realistic touch in as much as sectoral target fixing cannot ignore the spatial dimensions, regional peculiarities and related other sociological factors. More than often the politics pushes back the economic positives. Rather economics was used for achieving the political purposes. Not only is this the reality in India but also in the entire developing world. Either most of the projects are not taken up or even when the same is taken up, the rate of progress remains at a palpably low level – cost escalation is rewarded! The projects completed are not subsequently followed up or supervised adequately and as a result the same assignment is to be repeated within a short span of time involving more expenses. Of course, of late some positive steps are being taken and that deserves appreciation.

Obvious enough: the potentialities still are high – neighbours’ envy. How many countries are there in the world that can produce grapes twice in a year! The quality of many horticultural crops enables India 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 less than 1 percent share in global trade in agri-commodities!

The question of complacency

is not at all there

The time is ripe for looking at the inhibiting factors. It is very difficult to understand why the pulses (main protein source for the vegetarians) output hovers around 13- 20 million tonnes since the 1960’s! It is still considered as a second-grade citizen – though there is no doubt that a number of programmes have been taken by the government.

Poor implementation continues to hit hard.

The point here is that had we been one of the grain bowls (still the scope remains), by now we 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 foodgrains- would hardly come down, rather it is all set to go up over time. Population upsurge (of course for India a very negative factor) coupled with growing demand from industrial sectors could keep the demand factor at reasonably high level.

One has to become a dependent supplier so as to retain the markets gained - sometimes exporting cotton in a bigger way while in the subsequent years almost aloof from exporting catering to only indigenous mills’ demand. For onion the same thing prevailed. Most of the least developed economies depend on a handful of such agri-commodities and by any way if the export market is hit (like the recent past recession) the exports earnings suffer.

Agricultural risks management has emerged as the key arena

Food security is such an area where no compromise can simply be made. Either one becomes self-sufficient in vital areas or suffer!

That is why 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.

In fact the problems are so vast that every aspect requires individual care. Fortunately India is blessed with a number of good agricultural universities, personnel having the necessary knowledge backed by government encouragement plus skilled farmers. But where is the harm to learn more from the rich experiences in the West and countries like Israel, among others. Water management is something that we have to learn from them, among others, for example.

It is also clear that in most regions, fewer people will be living in rural areas and even fewer will be farmers, who, in turn, will need new techniques to grow more from available land. We require urgent actions to boost investment in the farm sector coupled with technology transfer.

Reducing food loss and waste plus limiting excess protein / calorie intake are no less important.

It is crystal clear that to become a strong force in the international markets a good production base is a must. If the produced items cannot be stored as per requirement and then the stored items are not timely made use of (agri-goods are perishable in nature), lots of potentialities would get lost inclusive of the huge investment incurred!!

The upshot -any country which has not attached enough of importance on this score has to bear the brunt. It is also a fact that overnight success is not more than a wishful thinking. 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.