The Hindu Business Line : Greening India

After a 90-minute early morning walk, “it is the usual yoga and exercise for 40 minutes. I spend more than two hours in maintaining this body, which is growing old at the age of 71, with five heart-attacks.”

It is like a badge of honour that Jain Irrigation Systems Chairman Bhavarlal H. Jain wears his “five heart-attacks, two bypass operations, one angioplasty and one instrument sitting here (pats his heart)… So you have quite an interesting medical history sitting before you. I’ve only recently celebrated the silver jubilee of my first heart-attack that came in 1982 at this very campus (Jain Hills in Jalgaon, Maharashtra),” he says cheerfully.

Hailing from a humble agricultural background, Jain understands the needs of farmers — access to the latest in agricultural technology and inputs — and is pained that India’s ruling classes do not really understand what ails Indian agriculture today.

He describes his father as “a petty trader who had gone through just three classes in the local language. My mother was an illiterate woman who had all the world’s wisdom and a heart that was as large as it could be. I did not inherit any wealth but a lot of wisdom from them; wisdom combined with integrity is what they gave me”.

He recalls how his father would travel to different villages either on foot or by bullock-cart, collect samples of cotton — 10 kg from one house, 20 kg from another — process them, clean them and sell them at the weekly market. Gradually he bought some land “which I inherited; in all 56 acres. Our total revenue till 1972 from the four or five pieces of land was not more than Rs 11,000.” Last year his company’s sales topped Rs 1,200 crore!

The young Bhavarlal went through four years of education in his village (Wakod), after which his father sent him to Jalgaon to complete his high school, and then to Mumbai for a B.Com followed by LLB, which he completed in 1961.

“I did prepare some briefs but my heart was really in business,” says Jain. In 1962 he had three options — pursue a career in law, continue as a first-class gazetted officer as he had passed the Maharashtra Public Services Commission exam or start a small business. “There was not much money available, and with great difficulty my mother gave me Rs 7,000, which was the total seed capital available in 1962. So I began my career with it but couldn’t do much except run an agency business where you don’t need a lot of money for selling somebody else’s products.”

With that money he bought some empty containers, took an apprenticeship for Esso, and later became its agent. “For 15 years I marketed Esso petroleum products, so my rural marketing skills were honed and developed by those guys!” Gradually he started dealing in agri inputs like fertilisers, seeds, pesticide. In 1978, he acquired a sick unit and manufactured Papain, and commenced making PVC pipes in 1980.

Drip irrigation

Next came drip irrigation; “around 1984 I went to an international trade fair in Fresno in the US and saw that there was a technology that saved water. I knew from experience that Maharashtra would forever be short of and hungry for water, and decided to get into this business.”

As for the response to this new technology in the late 1980s, he says, “Forget the farmers, both the opinion-makers and the bureaucrats had to be educated on what I was talking about. When I went to get the licence to send $30,000… big money in those days… the officer concerned asked me a funny question. ‘We are not importing water; there is no import substitution in this technology, so why should I allow you to send this $30,000 outside? I don’t think this is appropriate technology for India.’ This was the first response from a bureaucrat.”

Jain adds that at the level of opinion-makers/politicians, “most were simply not aware of such a technology except for a few like Sharad Pawar and his brother. The farmer is always the last in the link when it comes to awareness of any technology; so he didn’t know anything.”

The man who today holds a nearly 50 per cent share in drip irrigation in India and has played a major role in bringing profitability to the banana farmers of the Jalgaon region and beyond, had to launch an ad campaign “to educate the public on the benefits of water savings; it cost me Rs 50 lakh. Mind you, this was not a product but a concept selling campaign,” he shrugs.

Now there are 54 players in the field, Jain being the largest and credited with having brought 80 per cent of banana cultivation under drip. Asked if he had any doubts in the initial years, Jain says, “For me it was an article of faith; I believe water will be the igniting part of World War III, and there will be fights for water not only between countries, but within the country — states, districts, tehsils and villages.” He is alarmed at the shrinking per capita availability of water in India and asks: “Do you know that in 1947 we had 6,000 metric cubes of water availability per capita and now it has come down to 1,250 metric cubes, which is just the borderline for declaring yourself water scarce.”

On the continuing distress of farmers and their perennial quest for water he says, “Recharge and judicious use is the answer. Micro-irrigation (drip and sprinkler irrigation) has been declared a national policy and provided sufficient funding, but unfortunately the utilisation is not as good as it could be.”

On the crops that benefit the most from micro-irrigation, Jain says, “Water guzzlers, obviously; but there isn’t a single crop which does not benefit from it, whether it is the tea gardens of Assam, the banana belt of Jalgaon, the grapes of Nashik or the oranges of Nagpur. As for rice, “in the south we have a factory near Coimbatore, and rice farmers are gradually accepting drip irrigation; it also gives very good results for coconut.” Jain says he keeps in close touch with farmers and his doors are always open to them. “For me, interacting with farmers is a rejuvenating experience, so I’ve cut layers of bureaucracy to be in direct touch with farmers.”

What ails agriculture…

Inefficient delivery mechanisms are responsible for the agri sector’s woes, he says. “Even when allocations are made, agriculture is unable to accept/absorb them because the delivery mechanism is so lousy.” He is not excited by massive debt waiver schemes. “The policy of making farmers debt-free per se looks very good but is not a long-term solution. It cuts into our very cultural roots. You are telling them to borrow and not pay.” He feels waiver of interest and repayment of capital over easy, long-term instalments would have been better.

So, what does Indian agriculture really need to pull it out of the 2-3 per cent dismal growth rate?

The policymakers need to be farmers, which we don’t have, says Jain. “The problem is that farmers are not diplomats, they cannot speak good English; all they can do is toil. And their culture is based on hard work; sweat is all they can offer. It is difficult but the first requirement is that the policy/opinion-making level comes from the farm sector so it really feels for the farmer.”

Unfortunately, most of the time “we look only at short-term policies or quick-fix solutions; you need to be a statesman and not a politician if you are looking at the long-term interest of the country. A statesman is one who looks to the interest of the next generation; a politician is one who is interested only in the next general election. And we have many politicians but very few statesmen. Mahatma Gandhi was above even that.”

He is deeply saddened by farmers committing suicides. “It never happened before but is happening now because the gap between the haves and have-nots has widened. This is going to invite a lot of unrest.”

Jain believes that any boasting about our progress and growth rate will fall flat if we don’t take the concerns of agriculture on board.

So are we paying too less for the food we consume? “As compared to everything else, we pay much less. But to keep prices low is the national priority. But yes, these prices are pathetically low; while other prices have gone up by 10-100 times in post-Independent era, food prices have not gone up in the same ratio because this is connected to the poor man. So a paradigm shift has to take place.”

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

Bhavarial H.Jain

Jainspeak

Journey so far: This year we are targeting a sales figure of Rs 1,800 crore; last year we did Rs 1,200 crore.

Expectation: There was no time to expect or imagine; I just had a dream, and the dream had to be implemented the next morning. There was neither a blueprint nor a master plan; it was a continuously evolving process, depending on resources, we kept expanding along the way.

Dream for Indian agriculture: Water management, water treatment and increasing the area under irrigation. Of the total irrigation area, not even 1.5 per cent is under micro-irrigation. Intervention of biotechnology and applied research is required for improving agri yields.

Genetically modified crops: For fibre or non-edible oilseeds, it's a welcome development. For food crops I'm yet to make up my mind because it has very long-term ramifications yet to be studied. For crops like cotton there shouldn't be any hesitation. But they bring in a new set of diseases and pests, controlling which is a problem. A lot can be said on both sides.

What frustrates him: The youth, because it has lots of skills but is losing all its culture. And if you do not have a culture and blindly follow somebody else's culture then this kind of growth can play havoc with you, which is happening.

Dream for India: Country must and will emerge a superpower but whether it would remain homogenous and integrated, with various strata of society, the rich and the poor, different classes, being able to maintain peace. I have serious doubts. If we do not take care of that aspect, all this growth will simply evaporate or prove to be suicidal.

Concerns: I fear increasing restlessness because the gap will grow between the section that is not getting enough and that which is getting more than enough. This is a mismatch. Our greatest challenge is to achieve a balance between retaining our culture while still growing. Growth is inevitable and must happen; I'm sure we'll become a superpower sooner than the world thinks but internally we must take care of these cultural shocks.

Relaxing: Oh, I do that by constantly finding a different subject to talk/think about. Food habits: Pure vegetarian, not even eggs; more emphasis on fruits and vegetables than grains and I think that has kept me alive.

Music: Never really developed ear for good music.

Preferred reading: Management or philosophy.

Movies: Not anymore; saw so many movies when young that I feel fed up with the kind of noisy and violent movies we get these days. My favourite remains Awara.