The Hindu Business Line : Why not covered agriculture?

With climate change threatening the viability of farming, a shift is likely to take place from ‘under-the-sky’ to covered cultivation. Beyond facilitating the credit, the Government should adopt a hands-off policy during this transition.

A number of new technologies that can help counter the forces of global warming are appearing.

Sharad Joshi

We are faced with unprecedented global warming, as also threatened by drought and famine. However, this happens to be the time when radical restructuring can be undertaken. A large proportion of the farming population, according to a study by the Planning Commission, wishes to leave agriculture and opt for another vocation that is less risky and more paying. The writing is on the wall.

New technologies

A number of new technologies that could help counter the forces of global warming are appearing on the scene. ‘Under-the-sky’ agriculture is becoming unviable, if not impossible. Farmers will be forced to move towards ‘covered agriculture’ under a controlled environment, using new technologies for irrigation and pest control and switching to seeds and varieties that can withstand vagaries in temperatures and rainfall.

Prices of agricultural land are at a level that allow farmers to leave agriculture for another vocation, with a degree of ease that was absent in the past.

During the period of transformation, the Government will need to take certain steps that are not so much in the nature of active State initiative as in the nature of desisting from unnecessary interventions in agriculture.

A positive intervention from the Government would be in the nature of providing credit for switchover to covered agriculture and new technologies.

Typically, the State budgets provide less than 7 per cent of their resources for agriculture. Andhra Pradesh has shown the way to effectively counter the unprecedented crisis caused by environmental factors by setting aside almost half its budget for agriculture. This kind of allocation would be necessary for no more than four-five years. For the rest, the Government’s will to help agriculture is to be expressed through abstaining from unnecessary intervention.

NO STATE INTERFERENCE

Agriculture needs to be de-statised in the sense that the agricultural land must be recognised as a part of the farmer’s private property that he has a right to acquire, maintain and dispose of according to his wish.

Instead of promoting reforms that cause fragmentation of land, measures should be taken to permit at least operational consolidation, so that it encourages production and application of new technologies. Government intervention in the supply and distribution of agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilisers should be discontinued.

The institution of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs), dominated by middlemen and local political satraps, should be replaced by electronics spot and futures markets as the main channel of agricultural marketing. This by itself should take care of the problem of scarcity of investments in agriculture.

The fetish about formal credit institutions needs to be given up as they have shown their incapacity to develop the flexibility and skills that are required for dealing with a sector dominated by natural phenomena.

Institutions based on the private moneylender will have to be encouraged, with proper registration and monitoring . The Government should not impair farmers’ access to markets and technologies.

Extension services required for bridging the gap between the laboratory and the farm should be left entirely to private initiative. A salaried extension worker has failed far too long to deserve a fresh lease of life.

A system based on payment of a substantial proportion of the incremental income in the first year would encourage knowledgeable experts to enter the field of extension and render their services for economic and monetary incentives.

Had the state not intervened for political motives, agriculture would have developed on altogether different lines.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and a Rajya Sabha MP. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

More Stories on : Agriculture | Insight | Down to Earth

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
A faulty system

Green in patches

Why not covered agriculture?

The worsening power crisis

Monetary policy and fiscal consolidation

Nation expects transparency

Indira and India

’Other income’

‘Cane truths’