The Hindu Business Line : Needed a soil, not green, revolution

Agriculture can never be salvaged with a "trickle down" approach, which stands debunked now after four decades of the so-called Green Revolution. We need a revolution on the farm.

ADDRESSING the delegates of the 93rd Indian National Science Congress in Hyderabad last week, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, calling for a "second" green revolution, made two observations.

While elaborating that the "first" Green Revolution had run out of steam, he said there have been "Two criticisms of the first Green Revolution: One, that it did not benefit dryland agriculture, and, two, that it was not scale neutral and had benefited only large farms and big farmers. The second Green Revolution must benefit small and marginal farmers." There has been talk of a second Green Revolution and an "ever green revolution" for some time now. There has been some clever word play — "more crop per drop" at a national seminar on water management — as if just by juggling words Indian agriculture can be transformed.

It would be futile to go into why the first Green Revolution ran out of steam. But to take one aspect to illustrate: Post-liberalisation, Rural India has become more indebted, according to the latest data released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). In just one year (January to December 2003) the rural household indebtedness increased from 4 per cent to 27 per cent. That is a whopping six-fold increase in just 12 months, which works out to a staggering rise of 48 per cent every month.

At the national level, rural household indebtedness accounts for Rs 1,12,000 crore, which is more than 63 per cent of the nation's aggregate outstanding debt of Rs 1,77,000 crore until June 2002. The average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of farm households across India is an eye opener. It was Rs 503 in 2003. This is just about Rs 75 above the rural poverty line. And, it is an average across regions and classes and income groups. So, even this dismal figure hides inequities.

A chunk of the rural households are below poverty line; millions substantially below it. Further, the dismal Rs 503 is an average that includes the "supposedly well off" Kerala (one has to go to Wynad district in the State where farmers have been committing suicides in large numbers) with an MPCE of Rs 901 and Punjab ("the grain bowl" of India) with Rs 828, at one end, and Orissa (Rs 342), Jharkhand (Rs 353), Chattisgarh (Rs 379) and Bihar (Rs 404) at the other.

More than 20 per cent of the farm households in these States and Madhya Pradesh had an MPCE of Rs 225 or less. The tragedy is that over 55 per cent of this amount is spent on food. The average household spends less than Rs 17 per capita per month on education and about Rs 34 a month on health.

All this after the so-called Green Revolution. And it is very difficult to accept the argument of even Dr Amartya Sen that it is the lack of purchasing power that is at the root of much hunger in India. No, because, had India's agricultural scientists, in particular the plant breeders of staples such as wheat and rice, developed superior crop varieties, which would have yielded more than the current best, and produced grain in plenty, food will no more be as dear as it is to day.

One has only to draw a parallel with China. For a population differential of slightly more than 300 millions, China harvested more than 550 million tonnes of foodgrains last year compared to India's less than 200 million tonnes.

The stock position of wheat with the Food Corporation of India on April 1, 2006 will only be 1 million tonnes, while the minimum buffer-stock should be 4 million tonnes. In other words, if we go by the national norm of 500 grams of staples a day, as stipulated by the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, our food stock will not be enough to even cover a day's demand in case of an emergency. Where will we go for the extra food? And, has the National Farmers Commission alerted New Delhi on this dangerous situation?

What must be done to redeem this desperate situation of the Indian farmer? Notwithstanding the rhetoric of the commissions and conferences, the ground reality of Indian agriculture is that it is going downhill. Post liberalisation, the annual average farm growth rate plummeted to 2.2 per cent from 4.5 per cent during 1991-1996 (Eighth Plan) or an annual decline of over 10 per cent. In the first three years of the Tenth (current) Plan, farm growth further dipped to 1.1 per cent. No wonder shortages of such vital items, such as foodgrains, pulses and oilseeds are becoming endemic and can only get worse if the current growth trends continue.

But most worrisome is food production which is, let alone keeping pace with the population increase, rapidly declining, setting in motion the Malthusian theory of population increase overtaking that of food output. It is here that New Delhi needs to urgently bestow greatest attention against the background of the just concluded Hong Kong Ministerial of the World trade Organisation.

Both the US and Europe can afford huge payments as subsidies, but not India. The impact of a subsidy cut either by the US or the EU on a principal cereal such as wheat would be to raise its global price, and with our falling production rate, coupled with a lackadaisical population policy, how shall we feed ourselves in the years to come? The Prime Minister is mistaken in laying the emphasis on horticulture in which India is already self-sufficient. India's food policy must remain principally grain-centred and the only way is to bring more of potentially arable land under grain crops.

India's `arable land to total land' ratio is 51 per cent, while the world average is just 11 per cent which means that we can still bring in large parcels under the plough. In other words, for every acre in the country, only half is farmed. It is here that the latest soil management techniques assume importance. But in India soil management continues to be "textbook oriented". Indian scientists have simply not kept abreast of the latest soil management techniques. What stands in the way — Lack of political or scientific support?

An analyses of why the so-called Green Revolution ran aground would zero-in on, among others, the total mismanagement of soil resources. There is no national policy on land use, land tenure is still a dream for millions of poor and marginal farmers. At one end of the spectrum we have farmers who own hundreds of acres — in Punjab, Haryana ,Western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu — and at the other we have millions who eke out a living on half-acre patches. There is little evidence that anyone is even looking at India's varied land mass as a national treasure.

In this context, it is perhaps pointless to get mired in the controversies surrounding genetically modified crops, when available research suggests that even after a decade "genetic engineering (GE) has not delivered on any of its promises for human health benefits," as spelt out by Ms Margaret Mellon, Director of the Agriculture and Biotechnology Programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists in the US, the home of GE crops.

Indian agriculture can never be salvaged with a "trickle down" approach, which stands debunked now after four decades of the so-called Green Revolution. We need a revolution on the farm, on the soil. Only when agriculture survives, can India grow.