Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Dec 07, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Dec 07, 2004 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Research & Development `Researchers must provide economic data to farmers' — Task group formed to revamp agricultural research system Harish Damodaran
Prof M.S. Swaminathan
New Delhi , Dec. 6 THE country's agricultural research system is set for a drastic overhaul and refocusing of research priorities to reflect the "cost, return and risk structure" of ground-level farming. The process of integrating "agronomy with economics" has been flagged off with the constitution of a Task Group under Dr M.S. Swaminathan for "revamping and revitalisation of the national agricultural research system (NARS)". The panel, set up by the Planning Commission on the advice of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, will submit its report by the month-end. "We have already had four meetings convened by the former Director-General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Dr V.L. Chopra, who is the Planning Commission Member looking after agricultural research. The scope of our recommendations extends to the entire NARS, which includes not only the ICAR, but also State Agricultural Universities and the private sector," Dr Swaminathan told Business Line. According to him, the fundamental thrust of the panel's work would be on how to make agricultural research more relevant to the farmer's needs. "Currently, the agronomist or plant breeder does not look beyond yields per hectare and they make all kinds of recommendations on inputs without going into costs. They do research without giving economic data, which involves providing information also on yields per rupee of investment or per thousand litres of water," he noted. Dr Swaminathan pointed out that in the farm research systems of countries such as the US, the agronomy, plant breeding and plant protection departments are integrated with the economics department. In India, on the other hand, farm researchers have little idea of how much it would cost the farmers to use the recommended inputs, the extra monetary returns to be obtained and the downside risks arising from monsoon failure, etc. "Our farmers, particularly those in dry land areas, primarily practice risk-minimising agronomy and not profit-maximising agronomy. One reason why they are so reluctant to use the various inputs recommended by the researchers is that they are not given clear data on costs, return and risk," he said. Whatever official data on production costs of various crops exists are now mainly generated by bodies like the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which do it purely for recommending minimum support prices. "If our research is to have any relevance to the farmer, we cannot leave these things to the CACP. The time has come to integrate agronomy with economics and provide economic data on each crop under different agro-climatic conditions that can also be used by insurance companies," he said. Dr Swaminathan was also clear that the country's agricultural research system had to perform much more, when viewed against the monies that the Government has been pumping every year. The ICAR alone today has an annual Plan Budget of Rs 1,000 crore. "When I started my career at the Pusa Institute here in 1947, we just had one microscope on which everybody had to fight. Today, there are thousands of microscopes and sophisticated equipment in our centres and salaries have also gone up. I would say that we are still under-performing for all the facilities and infrastructure that has been created," he added. Besides imparting cost consciousness to farm research, Dr Swaminathan also said that greater emphasis would have to be placed on "strategic research", especially in areas such as climate change. "This year, wheat yields in Punjab and Haryana fell by almost one tonne per hectare because of a sudden rise in temperatures in March. We have to invest more resources in studying the impact of global warming on our agriculture. After all, the researcher's job is to prepare the country not only for today, but even for tomorrow," he added.
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