Surinder Sud: Energise your farm's future

Rising energy usage is no longer an option

Energy usage rising at more than double the pace of farm productivity, as it did in 1970-2005, is no longer an option.

Energy consumption is on the rise in Indian agriculture, and its growth is even faster than that seen globally. This, in itself, would be a welcome development as agriculture is basically a means of conversion of energy into bio-mass and edible food. But, this doesn’t fully apply in the case of the Indian farm sector because its energy-use is highly inefficient. As such, the higher energy input only ends up in pushing up production costs, eroding the profitability as well as global competiveness of Indian farm products.

 

This is reflected in the candid analysis of the energy consumption scenario carried in the ‘State of Indian Agriculture’ brought out by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). It points out that total energy use in the production of principal crops has increased 4.5 times between 1970 and 2005. However, the rise in overall crop productivity during this period has been less than two-fold — from 837 kg per hectare in 1970 to around 1,583 kg per hectare in 2005.

Significantly, a substantial part of the increase in energy content in the agricultural sector is accounted for by the replacement of energy from traditional sources such as animal and human energy — this has been replaced by commercial energy, notably electricity, petrol and diesel.

For instance, the share of animal energy in the total energy input shrunk sharply from 44 per cent to merely 6 per cent between 1970-2005, and that of human energy from 37 per cent to barely 8 per cent. On the other hand, the contribution of electric energy has risen spectacularly from just 0.2 per cent to as much as 38 per cent and that of diesel from 2 per cent to 18 per cent.

The reasons for this change are both economical and social. While small farmers, with land holdings gradually shrinking, do not find it economically viable to maintain bullocks who need to be fed around the year for performing seasonal farm operations, the large farmers have to necessarily go in for use of tractors or other farm machinery for timely completion of farm operations.

Where human energy is concerned, its use is declining because the cost of human labour is steadily rising and the rural youth, especially those belonging to the better off rural households, do not want to work in fields.

Since these trends are likely to endure, the energy consumption is set to rise further. The NAAS report projects that the farm sector’s demand for oil would swell by 1.4 million tonnes every five years and that for power would increase by 1.25 million tonnes of oil equivalent every five years.

Such a growth in energy demand makes it imperative to ensure its efficient use, which is far from what is happening today. The use of farm equipment of capacity (horse power) far higher than that is needed in the small and marginal farms is fairly common now. There is often a mismatch between the main machinery and the attachments used with it for performing various farm operations which results in wastage of energy.

The NAAS report points out that proper selection and use of matching equipment, such as disc harrows, seed-cum-fertiliser drills, land-levellers and the like, can help reduce fuel consumption of tractors by 30 to 50 per cent. Likewise, by switching over to new concepts of zero-tillage, laser land-levelling and raised-bed planting can help farmers cut down their energy costs substantially.

For threshing wheat after harvest, farmers generally use tractors of 35 HP that can easily run on 7.5 to 15 HP diesel engines or even on a 5 to 10 hp electric motors.

Crop irrigation, involving lifting of water from the source and conveying it to the fields, is a highly energy-intensive operation, accounting for nearly 75 per cent of all the energy consumed in stationary farm operations. But the operational efficiency of irrigation pump sets is generally very low, between 25 and 60 per cent, due to improper selection of the pump sets (for instance, the use of centrifugal pumps instead of just propeller pumps for lifting water from shallow depths), mismatch of drive units and unduly long piping system with avoidable bends.

There is, thus, ample scope for energy saving in farm operations which would ultimately reflect in lower cultivation costs and higher profits. What is needed is an intensive campaign to help farmers do so.

surinder.sud@gmail.com