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The fading rice revolution

K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

THESE days the computer revolution commandeers most conversations, and a mention of the Green Revolution is only likely to elicit disdain, if not outright contempt. The official line is that the FCI's godowns are overflowing with buffe r-stocks and there is enough food to go around.

The latest report of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has not come a day too soon. In Agricultural Outlook 2000-05, it says that India cannot make do without importing 10-45 million tonnes of foodgrains by the first quarter of this century -- even if it managed to raise production by 50 per cent in the current decade. A far cry from the what the Agriculture Ministry hopes to achieve.

The country has targeted 212 million tonnes of foodgrains production for 2000-01. But with the rain gods unwilling to oblige, the country will most likely end up with a shortfall of four million tonnes, including 2.1 million tonnes of wheat for 1999-2000 as the Economic Survey predicted. Close on the heels of the OECD report comes one from the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Known as the Mega Project, in 1994 it began examining why rice yields have been falling consistently si nce the Green Revolution's heyday.

The introduction of early maturing semi-dwarf rice varieties in the 1960s permitted the intensification, or multiple cropping each year, of lowland-irrigated rice in Asia's tropics and sub-tropics. Today, double- and triple-cropping of rice is practised on about 14 million hectares of irrigated lowland in the developing Asian nations. About 50 per cent of the global rice supply is harvested from these systems, and/or rice-wheat systems of South Asia. The `rice-wheat bowl' of Punjab and Haryana contribut ed in no small measure to the success of the Green Revolution. Rice is the staple diet in much of South- and East-Asia.

However, little is known about the long-term sustainability of these important, and yet, new cropping systems. Results from double- and triple-cropped field trials on IRRI farms and other research stations in the Philippines and India indicate trends of declining yields at constant fertiliser input and unchanged crop management practices over almost a quarter century since the launch of the Green Revolution with the semi-dwarf rice varieties. Interestingly, no comparable database of yield or productivit y (ratio of yield to inputs) trends exists for intensive rice cropping at the grassroots -- in the fields.

The Mega Project report examines the crucial question. Although `high input technology' associated with double- and triple-cropped irrigated systems became possible only with the development of the high yielding semi-dwarf rice varieties in the 1960s, it has already become the foundation of Asia's food security. Recently, however, the sustainability of these intensive-irrigated rice cropping systems have come into question. Long-term declines in grain yield at constant inputs -- primarily chemical fert ilisers -- have been noted in on-station (experimental farms) field trials of double- and triple-cropped irrigated rice in India and the Philippines.

Based on preliminary field evidence, an important cause of this decline can be attributed to the decrease in native soil fertility -- primarily mineral nitrogen, key to the production of cereals despite regular application of this key fertil iser element. It is important to point out here how the current dispensation on fertiliser subsidy, especially the 15 per cent price hike in urea (principal source of nitrogen), can affect cereal production in the country.

Admittedly, the subsidy system is a conundrum of corruption and inefficiency. But, then, competitive politics is not the right answer for difficult questions. Rational answers must come from consensus, not confrontation. The diametrically opposite views held by the ruling BJP and the principal opposition Congress (I) on the question of subsidies is a case in point. In principle, a subsidy is a must, and more so for agriculture. It is heavily subsidised in the US and Europe. But when 87 per cent of the C entral and State subsidies (a total of Rs. 1.50 lakh crores), or nearly Rs. 1.30 lakh crores, is ``non-merit subsidy,'' as indicated in Parliament by the previous Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, in 1996, it is cause for great concern. The nation's kitty cannot be a bottomless pit, much less one that leaks all around!

The Mega Project was initiated by the IRRI in 1994, with co-operating institutions in the National Agricultural Systems (NARS) in Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Burkina Faso and Mali (Africa). The primary mandate of the project was to examine the crucial question of declining farm productivity in rice and to improve the efficiency of inputs, primarily fertilisers.

Salient findings: Biophysical

The results clearly indicate the need to critically re-examine husbandry -- primarily the fertiliser management aspects -- of the semi-dwarf rice varieties in farm of all the countries investigated. Interestingly, results from India, primari ly from the project monitored by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, clearly indicate that the presently advocated ``blanket recommendations'' are of little utility to a sensible fertiliser management policy in rice.

These results were also substantiated by those obtained in the Mekong Delta (Vietnam), Central Luzon (the Philippines), Burkino Faso and Mali. It is the author's firm belief, buttressed by available scientific data, that fertiliser practices in India, du ring the pre- and post-Green Revolution phases, were essentially rooted in classical textbook knowledge that took no account of the strides made in understanding the mineral nutrition of crop plants. This led to a situation where farmers underfertilised, when the full yield potential of the crop is not exploited; or overfertilised, aggravating soil and groundwater pollution.

Both situations cause yield aberrations. This is a major reason why India's fertiliser-input-crop-output ratio is one of the lowest. The principal biophysical findings of the Mega Project bear out this fact.

Though several hypotheses are being tested to explain long-term yield decline under continuous cropping, both in experiment stations and farmers fields, the Mega Project has focussed on fertility decline and suggests a general decrease in the ``effective soil nutrient supply capacity'' in intensive-rice cultivation. Present fertiliser recommendations are made on a regional basis and so do not reflect the variability in the above parameter.

Thus, farmers tend to apply either too much or too little fertiliser, resulting in inefficient fertiliser use and reduced total factor productivity. For more than two decades, this author has worked on a soil testing procedure, using an array of test cro ps and soils in Europe, Africa and Asia to monitor the effective soil nutrient supply capacity, known as the `Nutrient Buffer Power Concept.' The Paris-based International Fertiliser Industry Association, the apex body monitoring fertiliser use worldwide , has endorsed the concept as a path-breaking one. This article has no scientific scope to go into the intricacies of the concept. Suffice to say that the concept has the potential to dramatically change the fertiliser management scene in India.

An agricultural system, in the short term, must at least meet its costs to survive. For this reason, the profitability of the rice production system must be considered. Data in Tables 1 and 2 show that in the wet season Indonesia showed the highest net r eturn, while in the dry season the net return was highest in the Philippines. Interestingly, India showed a higher net return in the dry season, but the lowest net return and profitability ratio among all the countries investigated. Be it the wet or dry season, for a dollar invested, India earns less than $2, while for the Philippines, it is as high as $5.

Data in the tables are very revealing. Despite comparably high rice yields, its very high labour use and very low partial productivity are responsible for the low economic returns in India. In the wet season, Indian yield is 46 per cent higher than that of the Philippines, yet the economic returns are 39 per cent lower. The key to this dilemma lies in the abnormally high use of labour in India compared to the Philippines (140 per cent higher) and the low partial productivity (38 per cent lower). Even in the dry season, when the yield trends are reversed, the labour use and partial productivity paint a dismal picture.

What are the implications of this very important Mega Project for India?

The country is gradually inching towards an unbridgeable cereal gap. The signals were all there, for quite some time, first in the case of the wheat crop in the Green Revolution Belt'' of the North -- Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and now with rice in the South. It is the firm belief of this author that no superior variety, either in the case of wheat or rice, is in the horizon to salvage the situation. There has been media hype about the `hybrid rice' and it is still almost a decade away .

In March this year, there was talk of a ``super rice'' (a genetically modified (GM) strain produced by inserting maize genes into rice, enhancing photosynthesis and sugar accumulation, leading to a yield increase of as much as 35 per cent) in an internat ional conference held in the Philippines. The new strain has been tested in China, Chile and Korea. With the GM crops and its technology under a big question mark -- even in Europe -- it is anybody's guess whether it can make any inroads in India. There are far too many imponderables about the environmental integrity of these crops and their safety for human consumption. Meanwhile, Britain's Prince Charles has lent his voice to the crusade against GM crops. In this year's Reith lectures broadcast on BBC on May 17, the Prince departed from the discreet silence the British monarchy maintains over controversial public issues, and plunged himself into a major political debate when he said that human beings should ``show greater respec t for the genius of nature's designs'' and ``not change what nature is, as we do when genetic manipulation seeks to transform the process of biological evolution.''

With the multinationals dealing in GM crops, waiting in the wings to ``free the developing world of hunger'' and strike it rich in Indian fields, the day may not be far when big farmers scrambling to make a fast buck buckle under the monetary lure of the ``gene technology.'' And yet, it must be remembered that, even if the country decided to go in for a game of genetic roulette, it will have to be played on Indian soils -- as was the case with the so-called Green Revolution -- which, as the Mega Proj ect has shown, is only unfolding a quarter century later. Our soils are tired and it is high time we started putting in place a sensible soil management programme.

(The author is a senior fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany.)