The Hindu Business Line : Agriculture: Still hoping for succour

How many of us ever think of the farmer who toils to put the food on our tables? More than 60 crore Indians are engaged in agriculture. Do we have a common market? Why are we being dictated to on what is good for us? And why cannot the agricultural fraternity break loose from its bureaucratic mindset, asks K. P. PRABHAKARAN NAIR, who says there is something inherently wrong in the way the country looks at the farm sector.

INTO THE SUNSET: An indication of where the farm sector might be driven by continued neglect?

There has been frequent mention of the figure of 4 per cent agricultural growth to keep India's economic engine chugging along. The reality, however, is that, weakened by years of neglect, the farm sector has been unable to pull itself above a meagre 2.3 per cent, on average, over the last several years.

In the just concluded National Development Council (NDC) meet in New Delhi, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said that 4 per cent growth is possible "if we take tough decisions," without clearly spelling out what those decisions are.

It seems the Prime Minister, his Cabinet colleagues and the 29 Chief Ministers who attended the NDC meet have but a vague idea of how to rescue Indian agriculture from its current mire. The Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers (NCF), a commission created by the UPA government three years ago when it came to power, is on record as having commented in a leading daily that the Report to the People (2004-07) by the Prime Minister on behalf of the UPA government is "business as usual" inasmuch as agriculture is concerned. This is, indeed, a serious charge.

That the farm package recommended for the desperate Vidarbha cotton farmers has not delivered speaks volumes for the kind of bureaucratic approach that is at the root of many a farm woe. When the battered cotton farmer is at the mercy of multinational corporations in India and the Maharashtra Agriculture Minister, Mr Balasaheb Thorat, is on record having said that Bt cotton is a failure in Vidarbha district, stating in no uncertain terms that: "The much-hyped and high-priced Bt cotton seeds are only adding to the burden of the farmers," there is obviously something very wrong in the way Indians look at agriculture.

`Collaborative research'

The Chief Minister of Kerala said, at the NDC meet in New Delhi, that any move to integrate Indian agriculture with global capitalism is inimical to the interests of the peasantry and, therefore, totally unacceptable. It is in this context that one must look critically at the "Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture," signed by the US President, Mr George Bush, and the Prime Minister, Dr Singh, in Washington more than two years ago, under which the country is obliged to open up the research facilities in the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) for "collaborative research," whatever that means.

The main thrust in such collaborative research will be on genetically modified crops, Bt cotton being the most talked-about. The NDC resolution makes it mandatory on States to amend the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act (APMC Act) by March 2008, which will allow a variety of market changes, including contract farming and corporate agriculture. In essence, the focus of the farm strategy being projected by the Prime Minister and his colleagues seems to be to allow the private sector to take control of Indian agriculture.

In the years to come import tariffs on wheat, rice, pulses, oilseeds, etc., will be slashed, and food security is bound to be threatened by a flood of imports. Until 1993-94, the country was self-sufficient in oilseeds. The tariff lowering led to cheap imports, and oilseeds farmers in the dry areas were the worst hit. New Delhi has committed Rs 25,000 crore, which works out to less than Rs 1,000 crore for the 29 States, for farm growth. This is a tiny drop in the ocean. We continue to talk about food security but are nowhere near achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of hungry by 2015 — less than a decade away.

Today, hunger and deprivation affect 260 million Indians — over 26 per cent of the total population, which means one in every three citizens is hungry and deprived. Wheat imports continue, and one wonders whether the targeted 150 lakh tonnes of public procurement of the grain for buffer stocks and the public distribution system (PDS) will ever be met with suppliers quoting upwards of $265 a tonne.

The scrapping of the State Trading Corporation tender has led to all kinds of speculation and the grapevine has it that the US lobby is working overtime behind the scenes to enter the wheat import system. With a monthly offtake of 10 lakh tonnes needed to meet the public distribution system, India is going to literally live "from ship to mouth".

There are many disturbing questions. How many of us, when we sit down to a meal, ever think of the farmer who toils in rain and sun to help put the food on our tables? Is there something inherently wrong and lopsided in the way we look at agriculture, compared to the way other professions are viewed? Indian planners seem to be fascinated by the information technology sector, that generates a huge pile of business outsourcing dollars that will boost GDP, but cannot ensure the basic right to food. The apathy to agricultural sciences, in general, is the fallout of such skewed priorities.

Technology Fatigue?

We are good at wordplay and coining catchy terms. A recent buzz-term is "technology fatigue". Here, one must pause to ask a crucial question — is it technology that really helped the poor farmer in the first place? Take, for instance, the "Green Revolution". What were its chief core parameters? Good seed — for instance, the dwarf Mexican wheat variety — that was imported in the mid-1960s, abundant, and sometimes mindless, use of chemical fertilisers and use of copious irrigation water. These are the factors that helped produce food in large quantities in the virgin soils of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, until then not used to the dumping of enormous quantities of fertilisers and pesticides plus irrigation water. It is such unbridled use of chemical fertilisers and insecticides that led to `soil fatigue' and the absence now of a good seed material. The soils are over burdened, stripped of their inherent fertility, the carbon base reduced to zero, polluted and degraded due to excessive use of chemicals and water. And the current plant varieties we have are unable to breach the yield barrier.

Look at the clamour for the Bollgard Bt cottonseed, even by poor and marginal farmers. This is because the farmers are tired cultivating cotton varieties that succumb to the dreaded bollworm. So, here steps in an MNC with a product which Indian scientists could not deliver. The MNC charges a very high price, because, there is no competition.

In China, the story is quite different. The same MNC that sells Bt cotton seeds for an unheard of price of Rs 1,950 for a 450-gm packet in India, is selling it for a fraction of this price in China, because, there is tremendous internal competition and the Chinese cotton scientists affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences did an admirable job, working very hard over the last decade, to bring out Bt cotton seeds of their own. The same goes with hybrid rice.

Bureaucratisation of Agriculture

Look at the way official agriculture operates in India and compare it with the way it operates in China. If today China is racing ahead with its hybrid rice, its own Bt cotton, etc., it is largely due to the efforts of the 1.5 million Agro Technology Assistants, who constantly innovate, working in the fields, shoulder-to-shoulder with the farmers. By contrast, our "Krishi Vigyan Kendras" (KVKs) are a world apart. The fact that only 0.9 per cent of Indian farmers access scientific information from KVKs speaks volumes for the kind of bureaucratisation that is at work to the detriment of actual agricultural progress.

Where do we go from here?

If projects and investments alone were to deliver, we should not be importing food. The country is awash with them. For over a decade, the World Bank-aided Rs 1,000-crore National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP), liberally staffed and equipped with the latest technology, was run by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). It has now been re-christened the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP). But, what has it delivered for the poor farmer?

The Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) to step up canal irrigation has run for a decade without any significant increase in the irrigated area of rice and wheat. The National Authority for Rainfed Regions (NARR) was announced in August 2005, but only last month was a CEO appointed to man the project. Such examples abound.

More than 60 crore Indians are engaged in agriculture. Do we have a common market? Why are we being dictated to on what is good for us? And why is the agricultural fraternity unwilling to break loose from its self-imposed bureaucratic mindset? If the Chairman of the NCF comments that it is time the "well-fed individuals in the Bhavans" recognise agriculture as the backbone of India's livelihood security system," it is time we collectively asked what purpose these Bhavans serve in the first place.

(The author, a former National Science Foundation Professor, Royal Society, Belgium, can be contacted at nair_kpp@yahoo.com)