The Hindu Business Line : Nurturing farm productivity

The most striking paradox in Indian agriculture is that of productivity. We have one of the largest cultivable land-masses on Earth. Although productivity gains were sustained in the 1990s after the liberalisation process began, the yield rates for most crops in India are far below the comparable rates in several other countries.

Except for tea, coffee and citrus, India’s yields are lower than the world average. We have huge areas under rice cultivation, but the average yields in many other regions are much more than ours. Egypt has over three times India’s yield rates in rice. In all major crops, India’s productivity seems to lag other nations.

Limiting factor

It is this ‘productivity paradox’ that is perhaps the most severe limiting factor in India’s competitive position vis-À-vis agricultural trade. Turning to the demand side, there is a rapid increase in the need to enhance output to keep pace with changing food habits.

India’s growing affluence is not just restricted to cities having a middle-class with ever-growing purchasing power, but also covers rural areas. About 49 per cent of Rural India figures in the middle/upper income segments. Increased affluence has led to an increased demand for more nutritive foods, including fruits and vegetables, in addition to staple cereals and pulses.

Vegetarianism is also growing in popularity the world over. This is a trend increasingly observed in the developed nations. This change in eating habits has made it feasible for farmers to diversify into horticultural crops. These crops have relatively high nutrient requirements. Moreover, they are also labour-intensive to cultivate and generate rural employment.

Knowledge: Key Catalyst

Awareness among India’s farming community is increasing, as a direct corollary to increasing literacy and open access to global information. Three per cent (1,066 lakh households) are estimated to have at least two graduates. About 16 per cent have at least one member who is SSC/HSC+. This is equivalent to five times the population of Singapore, three times that of Israel and a little less than all of Australia’s.

A wealth of scientific knowledge about soil chemistry and physics exists, as well as extensive geo-data on the distribution of soil types. Thanks to modern technology, telecommunication and satellite television, this information is being taken directly to the farming communities and through rural tele-centres, electronic information resources and other media, including video presentations.

Access to information

The “digital divide” remains a very real constraint, but the rapid spread of mobile phones and satellite technologies opens new vistas for extending access to relevant knowledge. In fact, the communications revolution has comprehensively networked Rural India. Apart from leapfrogging directly into the era of mobile telephony, 70 per cent of farmers have access to televisions and an even higher 86.8 per cent listen to the radio. This has “opened up” the farmer’s world and has ensured growing access to relevant information.

Harnessing the power of this knowledge and converting it into cost effective and efficient crop management programmes is crucial.

Plant Nutrition

Key elements of a strategy to improve farm productivity cannot ignore the following: Making balanced plant nutrition a national imperative. One of the major reasons for the poor yields per unit of land area is the inefficiency in the use of fertilisers and poor cultivation practices leading to imbalanced nutrition.

The use of modern farming practices on a wider scale and integrated nutrient management practices are essential, if India’s farmers wish to produce crops in line with the observed global standards of quantity and quality.

When addressing the need for balanced fertilisation (ensuring availability of all 16 nutrients to the crops at the optimum levels and at the appropriate times), it must be borne in mind that the potential for increasing productivity of land already under cultivation is far greater than that for bringing more land under cultivation.

The inherent limitation in this approach is that plant nutrient deficiencies in both irrigated and rain-fed farms will increase. The elimination of these deficiencies is already a major problem today and it will aggravate in the future. Ensuring supplementation of major, secondary and micronutrients in a balanced, integrated manner is absolutely essential.

Integrated nutrient management has spin-off benefits as well. The most crucial is the improvement in the plant physiology that builds levels of resistance and reduces the incidence of disease and pest attacks. Increasing resistance through efficient nutrition programmes can thus reduce the application of harmful (and expensive) pesticides and make farming more productive, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards prescribed by developed nations prescribe very low permissible levels of pesticide and chemical residues. Thus, developing resistance makes the farm produce more ‘saleable’ in world markets.

Use of GM Seeds

It is commonly said that if the last decade was one of Information Technology (IT), then the next decade will be one of Bio-Technology (BT). India is known as a potential future bio-tech hub for the world.

Seeds constitute, on average, 60 per cent of the Input costs for farmers. Use of genetically modified (GM) high-yielding varieties of seeds has the potential to usher in the ‘Next Green Revolution’. Farmers in the US have adopted GM seeds on a large scale, leading to an estimated benefit of $6 billion. China, similar to us in most respects, has achieved remarkable productivity increases of 30-40 per cent from the use of GM seeds. However, lack of political will, views of scientists on the “perceived” ill-effects instead of on demonstrated bio-safety risks and cumbersome procedures have worked to ensure that India has effectively missed the Genetic Revolution.

Fortunately, the pendulum has finally swung in favour of adopting the use of GM seeds has been allowed, however, starting with non-edible cash-crops (like Bt cotton) and hopefully, Indian farmers will be allowed to move with caution towards food crops. Uncertainties exist now more with regard to the speed and extent of adoption of new-generation seeds.

Agri-biotechnology has proved useful to farmers in increasing yields, controlling pests, insects and weeds, creating drought-resistance, flood-resistance and allowing cultivation on “stressed” soils.

At mercy of rain-gods

India’s agriculture is still completely at the mercy of the rain-gods. Changing seasons are now more of a certainty. It is imperative that Indian agriculturists brace themselves to meet this ‘certain’ uncertainty.

Overcoming this rain dependence is crucial to assure markets that India can continually supply farm output at cost effective prices.

Recent campaigns by international organisations and government policy initiatives, including subsidies and extension services, have led to the slow but steady rise in practices such as drip irrigation, hydroponics and greenhouse cultivation.

This reduces phenomenally the need for water in agriculture and promotes conservation of this scarce resource. It also makes farming more productive with the delivery of the right quantity of nutrients at the right time, in the least available cost, using the optimum volume of water.

Moreover, rainwater harvesting projects are penetrating the hinterland. Agro-forestry initiatives, wasteland cultivation using hardy crops needing least quantity of water, are also underway to reduce the dependence on the monsoons, while at the same time, sustaining revenue from agricultural land.

Demand-supply mismatch

India is at a point where productivity levels are on the decline and land area under cultivation is falling, while demands from a young population growing in affluence are increasing.

Increasing farm productivity becomes vitally important and advocating balanced nutrition, reducing rainfall-dependence using micro-irrigation and increasing use of high-yielding seeds seem to promise success.

(The author is Executive Director, Aries Agro Ltd, and teaches Rural Marketing at IIM-Ahmedabad and NMIMS University, Mumbai.)