Early this month, the penny dropped. In an article in a leading financial daily, NITI Aayog chief Arvind Panagariya has argued that since a significant number of farmers want to quit farming, we need an amendment to the 2013 land acquisition law to speed up the process (and reduce costs). This is only a step away from suggesting that a vibrant agriculture sector is an impediment to ‘development’. A conspiracy theorist may well ask, ‘will this government run down agriculture to hasten land acquisition’?

It is true that agriculture supports half the population by contributing less than a fifth of the GDP. This has led to a view that there are too many people living off the land. However, the land acquisition exercise is aimed at moving not just people, but land out of agriculture. In a predominantly malnourished country — the National Family Health Surveys tell us that — we should be growing as much food on as much land as possible. To dilute social impact assessment for ‘infrastructure, including social infrastructure projects’ (a category nebulous enough to accommodate anything) amounts to disregarding this basic sense of priority.

India has enough idle land for industry; this includes needlessly large factory complexes, industrial townships that have been abandoned and SEZs where nothing is produced. The supposedly surplus rural workforce can be accommodated in units situated on this unused land; why have a special land acquisition law for ‘make in India’?

There are enough indications that agriculture is once again in crisis. The Economic Survey 2014-15 points to a flattening out of rural wages, while minimum support prices were virtually frozen last year. Paddy farmers are a disconsolate lot, and their land is likely to be up for grabs. The Budget does not address the insecurities of small farmers. Instead, we have a top policy advisor citing the dismal state of agriculture as a fait accompli ! Don’t blame the conspiracy theorists.

A Srinivas, Deputy Editor

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