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India is producing 280 million tonnes of food grains, which makes it one of the top producers in the world. But still the farmers are not getting sufficient returns on the hard labour.
The present issues of Indian agriculture are due to surplus produce, but there are no appropriate policy measures to address this issue, said Yogesh Thorat, Managing Director of MAHA FPC, here on Friday. at a panel discussion moderated by N Madhavan, Associate Editor, BusinessLine.
The industry also lacks productive alliances between the insurance and the banking sectors. Cooperation is also lacking in weather information and technology dissemination.
Globally, the technology in agriculture is moving towards artificial intelligence and other high-tech concepts, but the Indian government is still stuck with older systems, said Thorat.
Debojyoti Dey, Assistant Vice-President, Research, at the Multi-Commodity Exchange of India, said that the country’s agriculture policies have been formulated when it was suffering from an under-production of grains.
Nuanced approach
Policies such as MSP were meant to incentivise the farmers with higher production, but those were introduced more than forty years ago.
Such initiatives are no longer relevant as the farmers today are over-producing crops, and these policies cannot double their income.
Therefore, the farmers’ problems need to redefined, and newer policies must be formulated.
Today, the MSP is 1.5-2 times the cost of production, but it is not making any difference to the lives of farmers, he said.
Dey pointed that there should be more nuanced approach to deciding policy, as trends which are applicable to rice and wheat are not applicable to horticulture crops.
Just like “financial inclusion” has become a buzz word, market exclusion for the farmers must also be formulated.
Access issues
G Chandrashekhar, policy commentator and agri-business specialist, was of the view that the Indian agriculture still does not have surplus funds. The prices have collapsed not due to an abundance of farm production, but because the country has failed to create a demand commensurate with the higher production.
It is a tragic anamoly that in India, 50 million tonnes of surplus food grains are stored in the government warehouses; and yet, 250 million people live below the poverty line.
If those in need had access to the foodgrains, the surplus production will vanish.
Today, the policies revolove around production, not consumption. This gap is also leading to calorie and protein deficiency in the country, he said.
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