The Hindu Business Line : Farmers' groups flay obsolete ICAR handbook

THE latest edition (released in February 2005) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research's `Handbook of Agriculture,' not revised since 1980, has come as a shock for farmers' bodies.

Talking to Business Line recently, Mr P. Chengal Reddy, Secretary-General, Confederation of Indian Farmers' Associations, New Delhi and Hon. Chairman, Federation of Farmers' Associations, Andhra Pradesh, said the handbook is stuffed with "obsolete and questionable information" that is not useful for present day agriculture.

The federation has urged the Government to constitute a high-powered committee to study the matter and recommend sustainable solutions. A visibly disturbed Mr Reddy asked, "Saddled with a 1980 handbook (reprinted verbatim in 2005), how can anyone expect Indian agriculture to sail through the WTO era?"

He said that compiling and disseminating the latest scientific information on agriculture has to be mandatory for the ICAR scientists. "Failure to do this should be made punishable."

It is stated in the book that "in recent times, locust activity was maximum during 1950-54 and 1960-62 ." How could something that occurred 50 years ago be termed as recent times, fumed Mr Reddy.

It is also mentioned that India is the largest producer and exporter of cardamom in the book, which is totally wrong, as Guatemala overtook India in this item more than 10 years ago, he said. Most of the data in the book pertains to the 1970s and earlier periods, he clarified.

According to the federation, if Indian agriculture has to survive global competition in a WTO scenario, ICAR scientists must lead from the front and "it should not be left to farmers to pinpoint gross deficiencies in the role of scientists, even though present day farmers are fully capable of maintaining a watchful eye."

The federation, in a recent representation to Dr Mangala Rai, Director-General, ICAR, has pointed out that the contents of the book have not been revised since 1980, and that between 1980 and 2005, the handbook has been reprinted 10 times without undergoing any revision.

The farmers' body pointed out that the country has 38 agricultural universities, employing nearly 26,000 scientists, "and it is both sad and surprising that this huge stock of scientific talent has failed to contemporise the book, which is sold to farmers and students."

How can a reprint of the 1980 version of the handbook be called a "valuable source of reference for scientists, students, farmers and field workers," asked Mr Reddy.

It is pointed out that the ICAR's Web site pages have less on agricultural research and more on administrative trivia. Mr Reddy said that the Web page titled "databases" did not provide any relevant information on crop production data.

Instead, it has a directory of retired ICAR scientists and a list of seminars scheduled for 2004. For example, statistics on Indian fish production were not updated after 2001, he pointed out.

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