Shreekant Sambrani: Sisyphean challenge of Indian agriculture - III

Borlaug's Green Revolution was brought about with hybrid seeds; yet, we're doing our best to delay the GM revolution.

Ask any farmer and he will tell you that he is in a no-win situation. His low production and the poor prices he receives do not fetch him an income he considers adequate for his needs; hence the term income-deficit. Yet, one half of the country has no other source of livelihood. Ironically, the only people who make money from agriculture are those who are not dependent on it: the gentlemen farmers, professionals and so on, who can afford to make investments, take risks and bypass traditional market structures, none of which is within the average farmer's ken.

Even the so-called big farmers lag far behind their non-agricultural counterparts in terms of incomes and suffer from a similar income-deficit, determined as much by socio-cultural factors as by survival needs. As the per capita income gap between agriculture and other occupations widens, so does the perceived income deficit since consumption standards are set by the dominant income groups. The result is a heightened sense of deprivation. The gulf between India and Bharat is real and fearsome.

The marketing of agricultural produce has been controlled so strictly and for so long that it is almost impossible to imagine a free market. Even those who suffer from it otherwise lose no time in demanding government intervention at the slightest sign of distress. Such reforms as have been haltingly attempted "" allowing direct purchase by major players, setting up forward markets "" have come under severe criticism by politicians of all hues and the government is only too willing to roll them back. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has been a voluble champion of market reforms, but his own party in Maharashtra opposes them at the grassroots level because they threaten one of its power bases, the agriculture produce marketing committees. Reform legislations as passed promise much but deliver little because of the many exceptions and loopholes they contain.

A completely free produce market may not be feasible or even desirable for India at present; even China, whose recent agricultural success is largely attributed to market reforms, has many restrictions still in place and the prices are nowhere near global levels. But surely, freeing the farmer from some of his shackles in reality (not on paper) could have as salutary an effect as even the limited reform has had on the rest of the economy.

There is much talk of accelerated investment in agriculture, in water and soil conservation, in dryland farming and for smaller farmers. All of this is supposed to enhance farm productivity. Yet it evokes little enthusiasm and less response. Let's face it: most of this talk is as old as the hills and does not appear to be sexy enough; moreover, the government approach comprises mostly a rehash of trusted, tried and failed schemes. In contrast, recall what happened with the Green Revolution. Norman Borlaug [whom Nitin Desai unfairly forgot to credit in his column ("Freedom For Farmers", April 17); the three South Indians could have done little in his absence] had in his bag magic seeds with dramatically higher yields and different appearance. Farmers lapped up the hybrids; they would have done so even if the government were not to push them. Cotton growers lined up at Dharwad University in the 1970s to buy hybrid seeds at Rs 5 a piece!

The only component of agriculture technology that could have such an appeal at present is genetically-modified varieties. Witness the clamour for BT cotton and its impact on production. Yet our process of testing and approvals is so slow as to almost choke this effort, which Borlaug has called as absolutely vital for our continued food security. The many NGOs that militate against them ultimately do most harm to those whose champions they claim to be, just as the Narmada agitationists have most hurt the tribals and others in whose name they took up the struggle in the first place.

Ultimately, however, all these efforts would come to nought if the dependence of population on agriculture does not decline radically. Today, agriculture is the employer of the last resort, accommodating all those who cannot find jobs elsewhere. The many successes of Indian development have created jobs only for a few and those too, with qualifications and skills. The vast majority of the unskilled and uneducated bloat the agriculture workforce; they also lead to increasing fragmentation of land, which causes their fortunes to spiral further downwards.

This then is the plight of Indian agriculture today. All talk of wasteful subsidies and giveaways to agriculture must be seen against this light. It is an indication of our not-so covert biases that a bequest of Rs 20,000 crore annually to 55 lakh families in the wake of the Sixth Pay Commission causes us practically no concern but a one-time waiver of at most Rs 60,000 crore for four crore families leads to much hand-wringing.

Is there a way out? Surely, there must be some out-of-the-box thinking possible. Some friends have suggested massive investments in education for rural areas, to make farmers children eligible for the new jobs opening up, and setting up a fund to buy up unviable small holdings at attractive prices (to be sold at a profit after consolidation to willing buyers) and using the proceeds for setting up trust funds for the seller families. I have advocated massive infrastructure projects, including those for bulking, transporting and storing commodities, which could add substantially to rural jobs. There could be many other suggestions. Would they be accepted, would they succeed? Even when I have suggested them to personal friends of long standing, who now occupy top positions in agriculture policy and credit organisations, the response has been a thundering silence. You can draw your own conclusions.

Where do we go from here? The prognosis is none too good. Worsening shortages of land, water and energy would add to the agriculturists' woes. As in all such cases, struggles for these limited resources would become more intense. We have already witnessed land wars (Nandigram, Singrur), water wars (Sri Ganganagar, Bundi and endless tensions between states) and power wars when rural areas are denied them. What will happen when they intensify and become worse is unimaginable, especially since a third of the country is already under Naxal influence arising out of such tensions.

These thoughts are from one who has seen and studied agriculture for close to 40 years and has considered himself an optimist. The only solace I have is that I will not be around to see the worst of it. If this appears dismal, think of the poor farmer, whose lot is to be crushed under the boulder in his never-ending struggle to push it uphill.

This is the concluding part of a three-part series on Indian agriculture. Read part 1 at https://www.business-standard.com/320287/  and part 2 at https://www.business-standard.com/320538/ . Also read Surinder Sud's "What food crisis?" at https://www.business-standard.com/319430/