The Hindu Business Line : A poor harvest for agriculture

THE Finance Minister's second Budget for 2005-06 holds out an olive branch to the rural sector. The neglect of this sector was one of the reasons for the rout of the National democratic Alliance in the last general elections; the fascination for the `hi-tech' spelt political doom for some. There is a pervasive feeling that unless Bharath is taken out of its morass, India cannot shine.

The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram's proposals on agriculture and the rural sector must be examined in this light. Overall, agriculture and allied activities get Rs 6425 crore, up 34 per cent from the previous figure of Rs 4799 crore. It looks like an impressive increasetill one critically analyses the break-up. The food subsidy bill for storage, handling and transportation of food grains is budgeted at Rs 26,200 croreagainst Rs 25,800 crore last year, a marginal increase of 1.6 per cent. In the light of the recentIndia Development Report, which details the state of food insecurity for the poor, this is a paltry sum . The per capita availability of cereals has fallen by 20 per cent in three years from 1999 to 2003. The availability of pulses, the main protein supplement of the poor, has come down from 36.5 grams to 28.2 grams in the same period.

Currently, 47 per cent of the child population is malnourished and 74 per cent anaemic. As much as 36 per cent of married women in the age group of 15-49 in the rural areas suffers chronic energy deficiency,54 per cent has no access to education, and about 50 per cent of the pregnant women suffer from micro-nutrient deficiency.

The Finance Minister's Budget should have focused more on providing adequate nutrition to the rural poor. India's annual rate of population increase is around 1.8 per cent while the annual rate of increase in food production is less than 1.5 per cent, a clear case for setting in motionthe Malthusian theory of population growth overtaking the rate of increase in food production.

Horticulture , which received Rs 630 crore, is not a priority for the countryunlike pulses and oilseeds . India is the world leader in fruit and vegetable production and not in foodgrains such as wheat and riceor in pulses or oilseeds. Diversification of agriculture should not be at the expense of food crops. India's food economy should continue to be grain-centred.

India is not producing enough food to feed its burgeoning population, the so-called Green Revolution notwithstanding. If it was, basic food would not be as expensive as it is today. There is a pervasive mindset that India is self-sufficient in food. If one critically analyses the food and nutrition situation in the country, it is found to be far worse than in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there was no Green Revolution.

And the common refrain, shared even by many intellectuals, that it is the lack of purchasing power and not insufficient food production that is the root ofhunger among India's poor, is hollow.

India's agricultural scientists, in particular the plant breeders of rice and wheat, have not been able to break the yield barrier for a number of years now. And the soil management strategies, which can enhance yield of crops, continue to be restricted to text book knowledge, leading to low yields of principal food crops such as rice and wheat.

The soil scientist and the agronomist have failed to show vision in this direction. One must look at the outlay of Rs 400 crore for micro irrigation in the same vein. Micro irrigation will not help cereal crops such as rice and wheat but will help horticultural crops and vegetables .

Small dams, anicuts and overall watershed management are the need of the hour. The Finance Minister has skipped this.

Two other items in the Budget for agriculture that must come under critical scrutiny arethe allocation of Rs 100 crore for the creation of Knowledge Centres and the Rs 50 crore for Strategic Agricultural Research.

The Rs 100 crore has to come from the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) and its Rs 8000 crore allocation can, perhaps, allow Rs 100 crore to be allocated to fancy names.

The rural idiom of Mr Chidambaram's Budget will make sense only if the funds are effectively used. For instance, the Rs 72 crore allocated for freeing rural markets will help farmers only if is firmly linked to each state suitably amending the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Acts .

Purveying government money in the rural areas is hardly efficient, given the experiences of the last several decades. There are hundreds of Krishi Vigyan Kendras(KVKs)spread across the country funded liberally by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and supported by a Rs 1000-crore World Bank-aided National Agricultural Technology Project.

These KVKs should be modified to better cater to needs of therural poor by installation of modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities and instilling the personnel with an attitude to serve more effectively.

A Knowledge Centre is old wine in new bottle!We have much old winebut, the bottling should not be at the expense of tax payer's money. As for Strategic Agricultural Research, the less said the better. India has more than 35 agricultural universities, one or more in each State,umpteen State and Central research institutes, commodity boards, nd to top it all, the ICAR. The government must strive to create an enabling atmosphere in these institutes meant to cater to the agricultural sector of the country , rather than fritter treasury money on fancy names.

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

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