Farmers' Bill & illusion of a green revolution

Kalpajit Saikia

(The writer can be reached at kalpajitsaikia@gmail.com)

When the entire North India is burning with farmer's agitation there is complete silence in Assam. Righty so, as the debate on the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, popularly known as farmers bill is meaningless in Assam. With almost the entire farming community being marginal, APMC yards have never been a destination for Assamese farmers selling their produce. Very few farmers have ever heard of MSP, let alone taking advantage of it. In fact, the second bill which was introduced along with the Farmers Bill, The Farmer (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of price assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 may be beneficial for the farmers of Assam by enabling them to be aggregators and directly dealing with the buyers, of course with great caution.

The problem is more fundamental for Assam. It is the question of viability of agriculture itself as the primary occupation for majority of its population. Not so long ago, there was a strong campaign launched by the government motivating the youth to take up agriculture in the name of self-reliance. The Chief ministers and his ministerial colleagues started visiting farms to encourage farming, legendary singer Jubeen Garg with his characteristic impulsiveness joined the bandwagon, stories of successful farmers started dominating the pages of newspapers. Looked like Assam was on the cusp of a green revolution. But analysis of such dreams through the prism of practicality was conspicuously missing.

Assam's GDP is approximately Rs. 4 lakh crore and agriculture's contribution to Assam's GSDP is 17%, which is approximately 68000 crore. This comes from a cultivable land of 30 lakh hectares and 53% of the total workforce is involved in the professional. Now let's look at one of the most advanced state in Agriculture, Punjab. In their total GSDP of Rs. 6.45 L crore, agriculture contributes 25% which is around Rs.1.61 L crore. It has 42L hectares of cultivable land and roughly around 26% of work force is employed in agriculture and allied services. Punjab has achieved this high productivity level with decades of hard work, robust farmer-friendly policies and the support of an unparalleled irrigation network. The crop intensity of Punjab is 190% and that of Assam is 145%. The imbalance is obvious. But even if Assam increases crop intensity, quality produce, yield etc., and achieves the efficiency of the level of Punjab, the agriculture GSDP can only increase up to around 1L crore (at current prices). Needless to say, this will take years.

The most important aspect of the imbalance is the workforce employed in agriculture. Assam employs much more people in agriculture than it should have. The main reason for it is not the profitability of the trade, but lack of other avenues. 17% contribution to GSDP with the employment of 53% workforce talks volumes about the ground realities. Government's aggressive promotion of agriculture may lead to more and more people turning to the profession. With limited land resources, this may have catastrophic effect on the economic condition of the population.

It is obvious that agriculture is not a lucrative profession anymore. Farm sizes are decreasing rapidly increasing the number of marginal farmers. The cost of production is often higher than the selling price. A study conducted by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 2018 revealed some alarming facts. The survey, conducted in 18 states found 76% farmers preferring to move out of agriculture and 61% of them wanting to move to cities. 62% of the farmers didn't even know about minimum support price (MSP). The situation will be far worse if the government doesn't work in lightning speed to arrange for alternate profession for the farmers.

Ramesh Chand, member of Niti Aayog in one of his papers titled "Transforming Agriculture for Challenges of 21st Century" clearly said, "During the 25 years after 1991, share of agriculture in workforce declined to around half in Brazil, China, and Malaysia. Labour share of agriculture in Vietnam declined by about 40 per cent. In the case of India, the decline has been much smaller (one third). This has created serious structural imbalances between sectoral composition of output and employment."

The question is why government encourages people to move to agriculture when it is supposed to do the opposite. The reason is mostly political. Firstly, it can target a massive population employed in the profession and secondly, Agriculture unlike other Industries doesn't need lot of action from the government in terms of infrastructure development, investment and creation of an Industry-friendly environment. The need of the hour is to work on creating employment in other sectors while trying to increase productivity in Agriculture. There are 4 clear actions government should take if it indeed intends to work for the prosperity of the farmers of Assam.

1. Promote agricultural enterprise, not agriculture: Assam should promote Agro-based Industries and not agriculture. Assam can be a major source of the branded food products for the country with intelligent, selective farming and branding strategy. These Agro Industries will increase employment and will also trigger an increase in crop intensity and yield. There should also be focus on Industries like meat and milk. These Industries are not limited by capacity constraints and with a good investment climate, they can be huge contributor to GSDP.

2. Work on a mission to increase crop intensity and yield: There is scope of improvement of crop intensity and yield. The government should publish recommendations on crop sequencing for a geographical location based on climate and soil quality. Great caution should be taken in use of fertilizer and organic fertilizer should be promoted. Modern technology should used to monitor yield and corrective steps should be taken if there is any gap.

3. Reduce dependency on weather with proper canals and flood control systems: With only around 5% of the cultivable land under irrigation network and flood creating havoc every year, Assam's farmers are completely dependent on the divine hand for their output. No sector can prosper if there is such unpredictability about the output and factors affecting them are not in control. The government should have an integrated plan of flood control and irrigation if they are genuinely interested in growth in agriculture.

4. Reduce agriculture workforce and promote other Industries: Any lastly, agriculture is not the dream profession in a country with exploding population and limited land. Other Industries should be promoted more aggressively to reduce dependency of the population on agriculture.

The designated brand ambassador for Agriculture said in one of his interviews that he wants to see Assamese farmers drive BMW and Mercedes like the farmers of Punjab. Well, that is only possible in a state where 25% GDP is contributed by 26% workforce. The bitter truth about Assam's tryst with green revolution is that it will be successful only if more people move out of it rather than moving into it.