Feeding the Multitude

For years, A. Venkattahiri, a farmer in Ramakuppam village in Tamil Nadu’s Thiruvallur district, grew rice the traditional way. He would sow a few kg of seeds in a flooded field, grow seedlings, transplant them into another flooded field, use a lot of water, and harvest the crop four months later.

That changed a few years ago, when he adopted a new farming method, known as the System of Rice Intensification. Venkattahiri found he needed to sow only a fraction of the quantity of seeds he used earlier on his 2.5 acre plot. His water consumption fell drastically. His output shot up by a third. And his earnings doubled. “I got over Rs 1 lakh against the Rs 50,000 I used to get by following the conventional method,” he says.

Ananda Reddy, a farmer in Hosur, in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri district, has also seen his horticultural crop yields surge. Thanks to the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, a few farmers in Krishnagiri and the neighbouring Dharmapuri district are experiencing a surge in crop yields. This, in a region that does not receive heavy rainfall.

The university helped these farmers adopt “precision farming” (see story below) to grow a variety of fruits, vegetables and horticultural crops. Again, they used fewer seeds and less water to more than double their yields. “But for precision farming, several of us would have been facing trouble,” says Reddy. “We are seeing the difference in our yields and income.”

Encouraging trend

Precision Farming and the System of Rice Intensification are just two of the new farming methods being adopted by farmers today. Some have gone in for Direct Seeding, System of Wheat Intensification and Multi-cropping to increase their output and earnings. Others have opted for the Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative or Accelerated Pulses Production programme.

Although these techniques have been adopted by only a handful of farmers, they hold the promise of increasing India’s yields dramatically with wider adoption.

In recent years, there has also been a greater adoption of mechanisation to run farms because of the shortage of farmhands.

Drip irrigation is also finding more takers while the quality of seeds and fertilisers has improved.

All this is good news for a country that needs to increase its agricultural output, particularly of foodgrains, to feed its burgeoning population.

According to the Agriculture Ministry’s fourth advance estimate, foodgrain production in 2012-13 fell by 1.5% to 255.36 million tonnes (MT) in the crop year ended June. Production will have to rise well above that level in the coming years.

According to a UN report, India is expected to become the world’s most populous nation by around 2028, with around 1.45 billion, surpassing China. By 2050, that number is projected to increase to 1.62 billion.

Increasing the output of foodgrain to feed that multitude may not be easy given the difficulties confronting the agricultural sector today.

Challenges Aplenty

Those challenges include non-availability of land, lack of timely credit, shortage of labour and the high cost of seeds, fertilisers and diesel.

The sector’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product has fallen from 14.6 per cent in 2009-10 to 13.7 per cent (government estimate) in 2012-13.

Of late, the scarcity of farmhands has become a problem. For instance, farmers in the Punjab, who rely heavily on migrant labour for their sowing operations, have faced an acute shortage of labour in recent times.

Some have blamed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for the decline. Farmers are also not getting remunerative prices for their produce.

Moreover, more than half of the total cultivated area in the country still depends on rains, while the monsoon continues to be erratic.

The good news is that many pockets in the farm sector are rising to the challenge.

“Today, farmers have strategies and solutions to overcome risks in agriculture. Their knowledge levels have increased due to better rural literacy. This has set in motion farm-level innovations, communication, and better use of public media to share experiences,” says Dr K. Ramasamy, Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

Turning to Machines

Many are turning to mechanisation and the tractor is playing a big role in that endeavour. Equipment and machinery that can be operated with the tractor is also becoming popular.

Today, farmers use tractors for everything from tilling and sowing to weeding, pesticide spraying and even harvesting. “Given the vagaries of weather, tractors help farmers prepare their field on time,” says an agricultural scientist with a private research firm.

Take the case of Prabhakar Mayya, 42, a farmer in Nada village near Belthangady in Dakshina Kannada district. The teacher-turned-farmer saw his expenditure to farm an acre of land shoot up by more than 50 per cent because of the high cost of inputs, labour and diesel.

In 2010, he paid about Rs 300 for a bag of fertiliser. Today Mayya has to shell out Rs 800 for the same quantity. The price of paddy seeds has also doubled over the same period.

He decided to automate as many processes as he could, beginning with tilling. “Mechanisation and innovations have helped us cut costs and save time. It will take 40 workers and several days to till an acre of land. But with a tractor, tilling takes a few hours,” he says. These measures have saved him a few thousand rupees.

In Karandia village, in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district, Sunil Mukhati faced a shortage of labour and high costs to spray pesticide on his 30-hectare soyabean farm. He now uses his tractor to spray the pesticide, thus saving a few thousand rupees.

In Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchi district, Iyya Kannu isn’t able to find farm workers even though he is willing to pay Rs 300 day. And so, he has begun renting tractors to save time and money.

Not so smooth

Farm mechanisation has its own problems, though. According to the 2010-11 agricultural census, there were 92 million farmers with small and marginal holdings in the country.

Marginal farmers are those whose land holdings are less than two hectares. Their numbers have almost trebled in the last four decades.

Small farmers have holdings of two to 10 hectares, and their number has increased by over 70 per cent to 24 million over the same period. There are only about one million farmers with large holdings.

“Marginal farms pose problems in mechanisation. The scale of economies, too, don’t match,” says Patit Paban De, a farmer in West Bengal’s Hooghly district.

As a result, mechanisation for marginal farmers stops at ploughing the field. Statistics show that nearly 50 per cent of the farms are still ploughed by bullocks and other animals.

Irrigation and seeds

Judicial use of water is playing a big part in increasing yields, particularly drip and sprinkler irrigation. India’s gross irrigated area has trebled since the 1970s to over 90 million hectares

Here, too, more can be done. Though the potential for drip irrigation is tremendous, only around 1.25 million hectares have this facility. Cotton, sugarcane and horticulture growers are at the forefront in adopting this technology.

The Union and State Governments are offering a 50 per cent subsidy for drip irrigation and this is likely to result in more farmers adopting this system.

The use of higher-quality seeds, particularly hybrid ones, is also helping improve production.

According to the Department of Agriculture, distribution of such seeds has increased to 2.77 million tonnes from 0.86 million tonnes in 2001-02.

Initially, only horticulture growers went in for quality certified seeds. This has now caught on with those growing paddy and wheat.

Hybrid seeds are playing a crucial role in cotton and corn production. Bt or genetically modified cotton is grown over 95 per cent of the 120 lakh hectares under cotton cultivation and cotton seed manufacturers are profiting from this trend.

Use of hybrid seeds saw corn production hit a record 22.23 million tonnes in the 2012-13 season, which ended in June.

All these efforts are already showing results in some segments. Oilseeds production is estimated to have risen by over 30 per cent from 2011-12 to 312 lakh tonnes in 2012-13. During the same period, cotton output has gone up by one-and-a-half times to 360 lakh bales (of 170 kg each).

Horticulture production, particularly potato, is at record levels and sugarcane output has increased by a third to some 334 million tonnes.

Harvesting Hope

The overall agricultural output could increase further if the Centre hikes the minimum support price for crops further. The support price for most crops has already doubled since 2007. “The higher minimum support price, in itself, is a reason for rising production,” says Vice-Chancellor Ramasamy.

“Farmers are overcoming the odds to survive and continue feeding the nation,” says Oxford educated Salai Sivaprakasam, a farmer from Tiruchengode in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district. Indeed, they may have no choice if India is to feed its multitude.

(With inputs from M.J. Prabu in Chennai and A.J. Vinayak in Mangalore)

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