The Hindu Business Line : Time to sow an organic revolution

Nothing reflects better the shallowness of policymakers' response to what is probably the worst symptom of the systemic crisis in agriculture than reducing farmer-suicides to numbers and percentages. Not too long ago, both the Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra governments underplayed the crisis by denying the magnitude of the lives lost; at the Centre too, Agriculture Ministry officials are busy reducing the increasing trend of self-destruction to a minor statistic in relation to the population.

No one needs to be told that, whatever the number, the fact that farmers in various parts of the country have taken their lives and are continuing to do so points to sheer despair, the root causes of which are yet to be identified. No agency can adopt the proverbial ostrich-like position on these deaths.

There have been many attempts at investigating the causes of farmer suicides, occurring in such "prosperous" States as Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, as well as in the Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra. Over the past few years, various scholarly reports and the media's on-the-spot investigations have attempted to probe the reasons for such calamitous responses to economic distress. One departmental enquiry by a State government is reported to have pinned the cause on bad habits of farmers!

Such irreverence apart, concerned observers have linked the suicides to various causes — from the very apparent, such as indebtedness and the inability to service the debt due to failure of crops and income, to the more substantial factors, such as declining yields as a result of soil erosion and fertility that itself result from increased application of fertilisers and pesticides, as much as the depletion of groundwater resources.

Policy failure

Another set of reasons singles out the failure of government policy, declining public investments, absence of easy credit and increasing recourse to the informal banker to purchase high-cost inputs, inadequate price support measures, and inadequate risk-minimisation programmes.

The problem worsens into a self-perpetuating cycle of high-cost inputs and chemicals and more debt and less returns and, ironically, the devastation of soil fertility. Every segment seems affected and prone to the tragic expression of futile existence — small and medium as well as large farmers, the landed and the landless!

High and unserviceable debt has been made out to be the prime villain and the great leveller in the countryside. But this begs another question; debt has been a burden the peasant has borne for centuries. Recovery methods have been harsh, often brutal, leading to a form of slavery and, at best, landlessness. The response was often stoic and sometimes militant, but there were never suicides, certainly not on the scale seen today. What kind of despair has forced the indebted farmer to take his life — an act signifying total hopelessness?

Perhaps the answer lies in the perception that the only means of livelihood, the land itself, has turned barren, that Mother Earth is no longer bountiful. A land poisoned by chemicals, pesticides, falling water tables, yielding less every season despite more fertilisers and pesticides is perhaps worse than simply watching the moneylender usurp a productive asset, as was the case earlier, because the farmer/peasant could always hope to redeem it some day, perhaps with help from the government, or a bank. But when the land folds up on him, all hope is lost.

If this is the case, the current relief packages, such as free electricity or water, easy or interest-free loans or even free inputs, including new seeds and GMOs, will not help. Perversely, compensation for the bereaved family, necessary as it may be, has sometimes acted as a stimulus for further suicides!

Clearly, we are in the trough of the productivity cycle, reflected in the diminishing returns and the falling profitability of land. Although the Green Revolution provided food security, the price it has extracted has been heavy and tragic; soil fertility deterioration, resistance to pesticides and concerns about the output's health hazards, not to mention declining incomes for the farmer.

Traditional knowledge

The issue is not one of hindsight but prospective policy. Is chemical-intensive farming the right choice, particularly in a country with rich traditional knowledge of organic farming? Sir Alfred Howard, a botanist of Colonial times — considered the pioneer of organic farming and who did considerable work in this area in India in the 1940s — had suggested to the West that it learn from the East the organic methods of cultivation. Today, Europe, the US and Japan are the leading consumers and advocates of organic foods produced through chemical-free, non-destructive farming.

The central question, then, is to use the appropriate technology choice for Indian agriculture in the same manner that was done for industry decades ago, with the "South-South" transfer of technology in the formative years. A sector that accounts for the livelihood of 70 per cent of the population and, till recently, determined the growth of national GDP, has never been the subject of what technology is most appropriate for it.

With the land now having long crossed the point of maximum returns, the time has come to question the intensive use of chemical inputs that agriculture research institutes and government extension services "sold " as the only technology for rainfed cultivation areas.

With land productivity depleting rapidly, policymakers must consider the role that organic farming can play as an appropriate technological choice — a panacea to the ills that have befallen the farm sector.

The latest GMO (genetically-modified organism) technology operates with the same choice of high chemical/water usage and has policymakers and scientists euphoric over its potential for high yields. But the jury is still out on the full and adverse impact of genetically modified crops on land, the farmer, food-safety and consumer health.

Promote organic practices

In the interest of sustainable development it is imperative for the nation's policymakers and the farming community to look at organic farming as a rejuvenator. Dedicated and concentrated efforts are required to propagate and promote organic farming as the preferred system of agriculture.

Current policy appears equally ambivalent to GMO technology and organic farming systems but an attitude of "let's have an organic farming model too" will not deliver results, given GMO contamination issues.

Organic farming would benefit the land by preserving or, in the case of land destroyed by chemicals, restoring its bio-diversity. The farmer could escape the clutches of the moneylender by reducing the high costs of such inputs as chemicals/pesticides.

Over the past few decades since organic farming was `rediscovered' as a viable alternative to modern, chemical-based farming and as a means of sustaining the environment in the West, much progress has been made to upgrade its potential, increase yields and retain productivity. Monoculture farming can give way to multiple cropping.

There is a need for strong advocacy movements to educate farmers and consumers about the sustainable alternative of organic practices, and its effects on soil fertility and the environment, apart from the beneficial health aspects of organic foods themselves.

But, most important, farmers must organise themselves. A paradox is that, even though farmers associations are highly politicised, they do not seem to effectively address grassroots-level systemic crises. One cannot but wonder if a CII-type body for agriculture would not represent farmers' interests better.

Organic farming is now acknowledged the world over as a sustainable model for alleviating poverty and increasing farmers' (read also small farmers') prosperity. This is the starting point. There are issues related to seeds policy, price support, subsidies, certification, labelling and marketing that need to be addressed.

Agriculture is as knowledge-based a sector as industry. Just as with HYV seeds earlier, agricultural research institutes would do well to spend resources on honing organic farming knowhow and techniques. It is debatable if India needs to move from the Green Revolution to a gene revolution. It is time to move from glib and facile diagnoses of the sector's crisis to a well-considered prognosis in the form of organic cultivation practices. It is also time to remember an old adage: As we sow, so shall we reap.

(The author, who has diverse sector experience, was Vice-President in Tata Consultancy Services and runs Solaris Consultancy. She can be reached at girijau2@yahoo.com)