The Hindu Business Line : Why it is bleak on the farm front

It is a tragic irony that the Centre, which had set 4 per cent growth for the agricultural sector in the National Agriculture Policy 2000 has to reiterate the same goal post at the recent National Development Council (NDC) meeting. The Prime Minister’s announcement to spend an additional Rs. 25,000 crore over the next four years on various initiatives is a welcome recognition of the criticality of agriculture to growth and poverty reduction. According to the Prime Mi nister, small and marginal farming had become an unviable proposition. Owning only 33 per cent of the total cultivated land, these categories of farmers comprise 78 per cent of the farming community and produce 41 per cent of the country’s foodgrains.

Inverse relationship

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen had famously highlighted the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity in Indian agriculture. The question then arises how farming at this level should be made viable to reduce rural poverty and distress. This is possible only when small and marginal farmers are empowered to access the crucial productive resources such as water, energy, credit and appropriate technologies.

It needs no repetition that small-holders cannot remain subsistence-oriented. Policies and strategies must help diversify on- and off-farm activities and thereby enhance sustainability and productivity. The contribution to food security will depend on small/marginal farmers’ responsiveness to policies and to investments in agricultural research and infrastructure. The decline in public investment is due to the inability of the Centre to push the much-needed reforms in price policy and contain input subsidy. For example, prices of many inputs — fertilisers, water and power — are not market linked, while on the output side, the MSP (minimum Support Price) regime combined with ad hoc controls of export and import of farm products and policy flip-flops play havoc with market based incentives.

Food Security Mission

A time bound ‘Food Security Mission’ for enhancement of production of wheat, rice, pulses and edible oil has to be launched. It is recognised that agricultural diversification besides achieving food security and increased rural employment, impacts favourably on soil fertility. Food security implies not only the availability of basic foods, but also accessibility to them. However, many other factors — of technology and policy — determine the extent and intensity of hunger and poverty in the rural areas. Such factors include irrigation and inputs supply, appropriate technologies for crops, integrated rural development programmes, and off-farm employment opportunities and the Public Distribution System.

Improved technologies

Improved agricultural technologies are “size-neutral”, though some are not “resource-neutral”. Hence, in generating improved agricultural technologies, small-holder-oriented research and extension should emphasise “cost reduction without yield reduction”. There is, thus, need for enhanced and sustained investment in research, technology development, human resource development, and extension.

Improved agricultural technologies are the key to raising productivity, competitiveness, and hence nutritional and income security. For the non-irrigated areas, these improved technologies must include watershed development and water saving techniques. Rural development and rural employment generation require investments in human resource, in skills strengthening, education and other social services.

Accountability

Last but not the least is the question of accountability for every rupee spent on agriculture. One of the primary focus of the Five Year Plans was to address the issue of poverty and thereby ensure food security through innovative schemes for the poor and the marginalised. Unfortunately, poor governance failed to achieve the target and hence even in Eleventh Plan, the Centre has to formulate schemes of poverty alleviation and food security. But in the absence of an effective mechanism of accountability, this only leads to drain of resources without the desired outcomes. Even where accountability systems are in place, they do not work. There are many laws but they often not enforced. Public agencies are given mandates and funds, but their performance is not assessed and no correctives taken. Public audit of accounts and Parliamentary reviews are conducted, but there is no follow-up. The mere presence of mechanisms is no guarantee for accountability. Poverty reduction has been a major causality of this process.

(The author is a Senior Under-Secretary in the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi. The views are personal.)