The Hindu Business Line : When farm technology falls short of expectations

IF THERE is one thing that should prick the conscience of India, it is the continued suicide of farmers. Those who filled our granaries now find themselves in despair.

The alarming number of deaths and the sweep of the tragedy have occurred in Andhra, the `granary' of the south, to a lesser extent in Punjab, the `cradle' of the so-called Green Revolution, in Karnataka, the `hub' of the plantation crops in South India and even in Kerala, in Palakkad district, once known as the "rice bowl" of the State.

Of course, it is in Andhra Pradesh that the suicides continue to make news. The people, particularly the farmers, have over the past few years been let down badly by the politicians, the bureaucrats and the so-called `intellectuals'.

Many reasons and many more `theories' have been put forward to explain the tragedy. Yet, none seems to look into why these tragedies began to occur at all.

If one critically analyses the suicide pattern, there is a common thread that runs through all — a disappointing failure of farm technology. It is a pattern that has been unfolding for quite sometime in India, and the few who noticed it chose to ignore it.

Lopsided largesse

Protagonists of the Green Revolution, which is supposed to have brought about the "problem of plenty" dish out as evidence the `overflowing' godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), conveniently forgetting that this `huge' buffer stock was built up by paying unsustainable minimum support price (MSP), mainly to the rich and super-rich farmers of Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh and Andhra — part of the political largesse dished out by New Delhi.

The `rice barons' and the `wheat barons' walked away with the crores, while the poor and marginal farmers — the ones with one or two acres — cultivating groundnut, bengal gram, red gram, cotton, chilli, and so on, were left out in the cold as these crops did not enjoy the privilege of the MSP.

These helpless and disadvantaged farmers had neither the financial nor political clout to arm-twist New Delhi.

The Committee on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) is on record to have said how the farm lobby in Punjab inflated production cost for paddy to draw the maximum financial mileage for the rice barons by way of the MSP.

High input technology

To understand these tragedies, one must look at the basics of the "high input technology" — the hallmark of the Green Revolution.

The technology is essentially a package of high inputs — copious use of irrigation water, and the unbridled use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides — that led to booming yields in rice and wheat in Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

One must remember that all these `success' stories are confined only to the land-rich and capital-rich farmers of these States. When one transposes this high-input technology onto the small and marginal farmers' fields, problems begin to surface.

For instance, the opening of the market to MNCs and slashed subsidies have crippled the rural economy. The prices of the principal chemical fertiliser inputs have hit the roof.

A decade ago, a 50-kg bag of urea cost Rs 138 and now it is Rs 251 — up 82 per cent; diammonium phosphate (DAP) went up from Rs 234 to Rs 486, up 108 per cent; and muriate of potash (MoP) from Rs 231 to Rs 885, up 283 per cent.

Seed cost went up by 200 per cent and MNC seed (as, for instance, the Bt cotton of Monsanto) by as much as 400 per cent!

A common pesticide used in rice farming, monocchrotophos, is available for Rs 120 on cash payment, but only for Rs 300 on credit, which is the maximum retail price (MRP), and the trader takes shelter under the MRP law!

A poor and distressed farmer whose crop suffers a pest attack (for instance, the brown leaf hopper in paddy — a phenomenon of the "dwarf, miracle" rice varieties of the Green Revolution) will go for the latter deal, pushing up his production cost.

Thus, by investing large sums of money, the small farmer takes a big risk, while the land-rich and capital-rich farmer can afford to take these risks.

When the crop fails, it would be very hard on the small farmer rather than the large one. This is why we do not hear of suicides by the rice barons but only of the one-acre pulse grower or the two-acre cotton farmer.

This is like what happened with Bt cotton two years ago in Andhra Pradesh, where many poor small and marginal farmers burnt their fingers when the supposedly bollworm-resistant cotton started wilting, not due to drought as was commonly believed but for reasons which, to this date, have not been accurately explained.

The Parliamentary Committee appointed to look into the fiasco submitted a report pointing a finger at the Bt cotton seed but, by then, many farmers had taken their lives. So, nothing really happened.

Unsustainable practices

One can take another example from Kerala, where many rice farmers in the Palakkad district took their lives.

Kerala needed around four million tonnes of rice per annum, while the production was only 0.7 million, the shortfall being made up from imports from such rice-rich States as Andhra Pradesh. Palakkad had about 1,21,000 ha of rice and produced about 2,62,500 tonnes per annum, a mere 2.2 tonnes per hectare.

At the peak of the Green Revolution, the `miracle' dwarf rice varieties such as IR 8, IR 20, IR 36 and IR 50, developed by the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, were widely cultivated, pushing out such traditional ones as "Thavalakannan" and "Chenkhazhama", the tall varieties.

The "commoditisation mindset" of monoculture — higher yield and profit — resulted, as in Punjab, in the widespread cultivation of the dwarf varieties.

Soon, the Kerala farmers realised to their great dismay that the "high input technology" was no more sustainable.

Pest infestation broke out, input costs escalated, mechanisation was virtually impossible because of the Kerala Land Utilisation Act and labour started migrating to urban areas in search of less strenuous work.

Yields plummeted and those who stuck to rice cultivation started losing money. As the situation worsened, the escape route was either to mortgage the land or, worse, sell it.

When even that failed, the only escape route was to end their lives. This author has seen the tragedy and met farmers who were unable to make even Rs 50 a day on a five-acre farm.

What is the way out?

If, indeed, our agricultural research is meant to cater to the really needy farmer, how far has the country succeeded? This is a very unsettling question for which no satisfactory answer has emerged.

I shall take two examples from Kerala to show how unsuccessful the scientists have been in tackling two problems — the coconut and pepper wilt. Despite spending crores of rupees on `research", there is no solution in sight.

Add to this the recent "mandari" (mite) disease. Every now and then, a scientist comes out with a new `theory' and a new `solution', but with little success.

Even on the production side, we are far behind. Kerala prides itself as the land of pepper and its cultivation goes back to 3000 B.C. in Malabar.

Yet, our average yield of 294 kg per ha pales in comparison to that of Thailand and Vietnam (late-comers to pepper cultivation in post-Second World War years), which have yields of 3,594 and 1,100 kg per ha respectively.

To cap it all, Kerala has the world's first pepper research station in Panniyur, Kannur district, established in 1952-53 under the Kerala Agricultural University, a full-fledged ICAR Institute working on spices, where the main focus is pepper, and a Spices Board catering to many problems. There is a Rs 100-crore "Pepper Mission" and a Rs 1,000-crore "Coconut Mission" in the pipeline. But to what use will the funds be put?

If India's farm research and development is to make a real impact on farming and prevent tragedies of this kind, its focus must change.

As of now, almost all of India's field research, be it the development of a new crop variety or a new production technology, is primarily confined to an experimental farm affiliated to the research establishment, which is nothing but a model and is not subject to any of the financial or other physical constraints that a small or medium farmer suffers from.

One must remember that when a farmer puts into practice the results of these experiments, popularly known as the "package of practices", he invests both his capital and time and, thus, there is an inherent element of risk in the enterprise.

A capital- and land-rich farmer can afford to take the risk, but a small or marginal farmer cannot and that is why, when the crop fails, tragedy strikes. So, what should be the alternative?

Get to know thoroughly what the problems of the farmer are, design experiments to seek the answers and conduct the experiments in the farmer's field so that the results obtained will be as representative as they can be, instead of extrapolating what one obtains in the experimental farm to the farmer's field.

This route is tough and calls for far more dedication and innovation from the scientists involved.

This is not to say that all research can be done on farmer's fields. But the bulk of developmental work, once basic information is generated at the experimental farm or laboratory or green-house, should be on farmer's fields so that what is relevant can be retained and what is not eliminated.

In fact, the situation in the experimental research centre is not always replicative of what one observes in the farmer's field. Results from such experiments can be far from accountable.

It is important to remember that the public sector research establishment, the ICAR, is the second biggest in the world.

In addition, there are 32 agricultural universities, many full-fledged research institutes and regional research stations, spread along the length and breadth of the country.

It is time the agricultural scientists did some deep introspection and asked how accountable their research is to the nation's welfare.

Also, it is equally important to remember that the nation pays the scientist to do research, but the farmer pays from his pocket to translate his research into reality.

And, when there is mismatch, tragedies occur, which we must try and avoid. We owe this much to the nation.

(The author is a former National Science Foundation Professor, Royal Society, Belgium. He can be reached at Nair_KPP@yahoo.com)