The Hindu Business Line : The wages of neglect

Complacent after a series of electoral victories, the UPA government is yet to wake up to the effects of global warming on agriculture. Nor does it look keen to take the developed world to task on the issue of farm subsidies.

Sharad Joshi

The UPA is in an upbeat, if not complacent, mood following its electoral victories in the States since the Lok Sabha elections. The Minister for Agriculture has particularly good reasons to be satisfied. The performance of his party (NCP) in both the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra legislative assembly elections were encouraging . He is not overly concerned about the drought or the famine situation or the phenomenal rise in the prices of foodgrains, pulses and vegetables. 220;The trend might continue,” he said, “for at least another three months”.

The production of foodgrains has suffered enough to cause concern mainly as regards paddy. But the procurement in Punjab has been fairly satisfactory. The handling of the drought situation left much to be desired, but was good enough not to provoke any loud protests from the suffering farmers.

The minister has succeeded remarkably in concealing from his Cabinet colleagues the real predicament of agriculture.

GLOBAL WARMING EFFECTS

The drought India faced this year was perhaps only one manifestation of the global phenomenon of warming and climate change. Already, the situation is changing and large tracts are facing floods . There could be very high temperatures in the coming year. The monsoon may bring in cloudbursts and flooding. The Government has developed an acumen for facing droughts and floods that alternate at annual intervals. It is yet to come to terms with extremes of temperature and precipitations alternating at more rapid intervals.

This year, the Government succeeded in supplying seeds and power to the farmers whose first sowing had failed. Replacement of wasted seed did not involve serious logistical problems. However, if meteorological predictions are any indication, the distribution of seeds could not have led to a massive shift in crop patterns. If this year of drought is followed by one of inundation, the agricultural experts will have little idea on how to advise the farmers on cropping patterns.

The Government is even less prepared for facing a situation where “under the sky” agriculture becomes non-viable, if not impossible. Shift to ‘covered agriculture’ and sophisticated systems of irrigation and fertilisation will require massive amounts of capital.

That kind of money will not come without substantial modifications in the budgetary priorities of both the Central and the State governments. The current situation does not appear to permit an allocation of 20-30 per cent of budgetary resources to agriculture for two or three years . The farmers might on their own decide to take advantage of high land prices and raise capital by selling off a part of their land to start practising modern agriculture on a fraction of their present holdings.

The Government is unprepared for a radical transformation of this order in Indian agriculture.

On the multilateral trade front, the Commerce Minister seems unaware of the effects of global warming on exports and imports. That the Government is seen to be doing a U-turn on WTO negotiations does not help matters.

The Prime Minister has announced his opposition to any return to protectionism. . Meanwhile, the Commerce Minister organised a mini-ministerial in the national capital and created an impression that he was trying to take a U-turn in relation to his predecessor. The latter succeeded in conveying to the world that he had got the developing world to rally against the US and the EU.

There is not even an attempt to restore some sanctity to Marrakech agreements with a view to forcing the developed world to respect their earlier commitments regarding agricultural subsidies. Nor is there any effort to simplify the Marrakech structures to make them more easily comprehensible to the principal players — the farmers and the traders.

The Indian delegation to the WTO has submitted five proposals with the ostensible intention of strengthening WTO structures. The proposals have been circulated by the chairman to all the stakeholders. The proposals show that the Indian negotiators are still struggling to find their feet in the WTO negotiations. The proposals seek to authorise the Secretariat to create useful database regarding non-tariff barriers (NTBs), regional trade agreements (RTAs) and modifying the structures of the WTO committee meetings.

Obviously, the purpose is to signal to the world that, “Barkis is willing” and that India is prepared to go along with the WTO negotiations should they resume.

COMPLACENT ATTITUDE

Back home, there is little indication that the Commerce Ministry will resist pressures from the textile lobby to ban the export of cotton and give a pat on the back of the courageous farmers who adopted Bt cotton to produce superior varieties at much higher levels of productivity.

The UPA-II is overly concerned about economic slowdown and not too bothered about other looming crises.. .

After winning the Lok Sabha elections, it has gone into a slumber. The people are paying for its attitude of neglect.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Rajya Sabha MP.)

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