Surinder Sud: Handicaps in agri-research and education

Among them are inadequate funding, understaffing, gender issues, illogical curricula and inbreeding

What ails agricultural research and education system in India? This question is pertinent given that India prides itself in having one of the world’s largest and most extensive farm research and education networks functioning under the broad umbrella of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). It is manned by some of the most qualified and dedicated scientists. Yet, the overall out-turn of this network does not measure up to its potential. Many, if not most, of the game-changing innovations come from other, relatively smaller, research set-ups run by national or international bodies. This can be attributed largely to handicaps which this system has to cope with. These include, among others, inadequate funding, understaffing, gender issues, illogical educational curricula and rampant academic inbreeding with the institutions’ own pass-outs being absorbed in their faculties.

These constraints are evident from the latest data released by the agricultural science and technology indicators programme (ASTI) of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). It reveals that the overall spending on agriculture research and education is rather meagre, falling far short of actual needs. Against the target of investing one per cent of the agricultural sector’s gross domestic product (agri-GDP) on farm research and education, the actual spending is barely one-third of it — 0.3 per cent of agri-GDP. This compares unfavourably with China’s investment of 0.6 per cent of its agri-GDP in farm research. Worse still, the allocation has shrunk steadily from 0.34 per cent in 2000 to 0.32 per cent in 2009 and just 0.3 per cent in 2014. More disquietingly, bulk of the available funds (73 per cent) goes towards salaries alone, leaving little for actual research and teaching work.

Moreover, the overall strength of the scientific cadre, which is already inadequate for the size of the system, is gradually declining, instead of growing. The total count of full-time researchers dipped from 13,106 in 2000 to 12,746 in 2014, a drop of some eight per cent. Over 22 per cent of the sanctioned posts in the ICAR set-up and more than 38 per cent in the state agricultural universities are vacant.

As a consequence, the number of agricultural scientists per 100,000 farmers has ebbed from 5.52 in 2000 to 4.62 in 2014. The situation is rather disturbing in states like Jharkhand and Bihar which rely the most on agricultural development to alleviate poverty and improve the living standard of their people. They have only 1.6 and 1.7 scientists, respectively, per one lakh farmers. This is in sharp contrast to 18.4 scientists in Haryana and 15.5 in Punjab. Notably, some of the hilly states are also relatively better placed in this respect. Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, for instance, have 24.7 and 19.7 scientists, respectively, per one lakh farmers.

The ASTI numbers bring out a clear gender discrepancy in the scientific cadres. Only 18 per cent agricultural researchers are females; very few being in the research managerial positions. Such a situation is untenable considering that about a third of the country’s crop farmers, close to half of farm labourers, and about half of the postgraduate students in farm varsities are women. Improving gender balance among researchers and research managers will enable the country to more effectively address the priorities and challenges of all farmers, particularly female agriculturists, maintains the ASTI report.

A grave problem plaguing the agricultural universities is the undesirable practice of academic inbreeding. About 80 per cent of the faculty of most universities comprise those who had taken their graduation and postgraduation degrees from the same universities. This forecloses the possibilities of inflow of fresh ideas from other universities and institutions.

The course curricula of agricultural universities, too, are, by and large, misdirected. Though about half of the employment opportunities for agricultural graduates are generated in the private sector, the curricula of most universities are targeted predominantly to meet the needs of the public sector. These issues need to be addressed suitably to make the Indian agricultural research and education more relevant to modern farming and let the system perform to its potential.

surinder.sud@gmail.com