Dr B K Mukhopadhyay
(The author is a Professor of Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)
What a big responsibility! Our farm sector is catering to our huge
population, exporting produce to bring in sizeable foreign exchange, and then supporting a number of nations. Even responding to urgent needs, like supplying green chilies, and onions to neighbours. In spite of these, if not much importance is attached to this sector, nothing can be awarded to such biased critics!
The agriculture sector has been showing a topsy-turvy rate of growth over the years. Who is to blame—planning methods, implementation, or both?
No doubt, over the last decade, Indian agriculture has become more robust with record production of foodgrains and oilseeds. Increased procurement, consequently, has added huge stocks of foodgrains to the granaries. India is held to be one of the world’s top producers of rice, wheat, milk, fruits, and vegetables. However, given that India is still home to a quarter of all undernourished people in the world, and since on average, almost half the total expenditure of about half the households is on food, increasing the efficiency of the farm-to-table value chain is crucial for eliminating poverty and malnutrition.
Let us go deeper
The reality in India’s planning is nothing uncommon—set the targets high and ultimately become a laggard! Most of the plans lack a realistic touch in as much as sectoral target fixing cannot ignore the spatial dimensions, regional peculiarities, and related sociological factors. More often than not, politics pushes back the economic positives. Rather, economics is used to achieve political purposes. This is not only the reality in India but in the entire developing world. Either the projects are not taken up or, even when they are, the rate of progress remains at a palpably low level—cost escalation is rewarded! What is more, projects completed are not subsequently followed up on or supervised adequately, as a result of which the same assignment is to be repeated within a short span of time, involving more expenses.
It is a reality for the farm sector as well. Targets have been, no doubt, nicely placed. But the rate of growth remains the same, traditional in nature, and not much achievement could thus be there yet as a result.
The potential is still so high that we are the neighbours’ envy. How many countries are there in the world that can produce grapes twice a year? The quality of many horticultural crops enables India to remain largely unbeatable in the global market. In spite of competition becoming intense—hotter and hotter—we are able to retain the markets for many agri-commodities. On the flip side, we have to remain content with less than 1 percent of global trade in agri-commodities!
So the question of complacency is not at all there; rather, the time is ripe for looking at the inhibiting factors. It is very difficult to understand why the pulses [main protein source for vegetarians] output continues to hover at around 13–18 million metric tonnes since the 1960’s! It is still considered a second-grade citizen, though there is no doubt that a number of programmes have been implemented by the vernment. Poor implementation continues to hit us hard.
The point here is that had we been one of the grain bowls [still the scope remains]. By now, we could have reaped large benefits from the rising international prices of agri-commodities. The most important factor on this score is that demand for such commodities, especially foodgrains, would never come down; rather, it is all set to go up over time. The population upsurge, coupled with growing demand from industrial sectors, could keep the demand factor at a reasonably high level.
Whatever it is, the lead has to come from the two giants—India and China. As a matter of fact, the world has to depend on these two regions in the days to come. China has, of late, also been stressing hard on this sector, clearly realizing that those big industries alone or export-led growth ultimately hinge heavily on how the food factor extends support. For India, fortunately, that sort of negligence has not been there; the missing factor remained not properly exploring the resources at a quicker pace. Had it been so by now, we could have ruled the world as far as many such commodities are concerned. A lot thus depends on realistic assumptions or projections.
No need to be complacent
One has to become a dependent supplier so as to retain the market entry gained—sometimes exporting cotton in a bigger way while in the subsequent years almost aloof from exporting, catering to only mills’ demand. The same thing has prevailed for onions. Most of the least developed economies depend on a handful of such agri-commodities, and by any way, if the export market is hit [like the recent recession], export earnings suffer.
Agricultural risk management has now emerged as the key arena.
Food security is such an area where no compromise can simply be made. Either one becomes self-sufficient in vital areas or suffers!
That is why the urgent need is to go for overall farm development efforts. For that matter, needless to say, the infrastructure holds the key. The loss incurred during the entire production process, inclusive of the damage done in the unscientific threshing, rat menace, field loss, etc., can be minimized. Without proper training imparted to the farmers as regards post-harvest technology, not much can be expected on this score. Connectivity between the producing zone and the selling zone calls for immediate reinforcement. A buy-back arrangement is obviously a good process, provided the actual producer receives a legitimate benefit in due course.
That is why agricultural modernization has no alternatives. Area under cultivation cannot be raised continuously; even if the fallow land is brought under cultivation [not more than 10 percent in a year], it cannot be brought under cultivation as such. The question is regarding the availability of quality seeds, biofertilizer applications, and finally, the technological consolidation of holdings. A good water use practice is another area that deserves attention. Here also, scientific planning regarding the exploration of groundwater holds the key, as indiscriminate use gives rise to other problems. Surface water utilization has also not been optimally done.
In fact, the problems are so vast that every aspect requires individual care. Fortunately, India is blessed with a number of good agricultural universities, personnel with the necessary knowledge backed by government encouragement, and skilled farmers. But where is the harm in learning more from the rich experiences in the West and countries like Israel? Water management is something that we have to learn from them, among others, for example.
The upshot is that whichever country had not attached enough importance to this score had to bear the brunt. It is also a fact that overnight success is not more than wishful thinking. Systematic planning is the only way out. And for that matter, the tools of regional planning can be readily made use of. Regional peculiarities must be the starting point of any realistic decision making on this score. Economic factors alone cannot give full-fledged guidance, as the strength of non-economic factors counts for no less. There is always a gap between the cup and the lip. Initiating change has never been an easy matter, and change-resisting factors count.
It is crystal clear that to become a strong force in international markets, a good production base is a must. If the produced items cannot be stored as per requirement and the stored items are not timely made use of, [agri-goods are perishable in nature], lots of potentialities would get lost, inclusive of the huge investment incurred.
Let us keep our hopes alive!!