Research & Publications
Research & Publications
Mr. Dilip Rath, NDDB Chairman, Prof. Hitesh Bhatt, Director, IRMA, faculty members, all the distinguished guests, dear students. It is a great privilege and honour for me to deliver the seventh Dr. Verghese Kurien Memorial Lecture. I was looking forward to being personally present and I had committed myself to this date to the NDDB Chairman. Unfortunately, due to a very urgent official meeting I have not been able to join you personally and this is my loss entirely. I can assure you that I will be there very shortly and I will spend a full day with all of you (applause).
Ladies and gentleman, it is a great pleasure for me to be part of the immense legacy that the great architect, Padma Vibhushan Dr. Kurien, of the Indian cooperative revolution has left behind for each one of us to cherish. And I think, the unique role model that he has been; he has left the stage for a young workforce to follow him as change agents for a better tomorrow. His heritage is immense. He is a great legend to follow. Dr. Kurien’s contribution to economic development at the grassroots’ level is an inspiration for all of us, not really to look up to but to follow. Dr. Kurien pioneered the Anand pattern of dairy cooperatives to replicate it nationwide based on the bottom up and top down approaches simultaneously. Dr. Kurien launched the great brands- AMUL in milk, Dhara Golden Flow for cooking oils, Mother Dairy, Operation Flood, and Safal for vegetables. And today, these are all household names. He founded the Institute of Rural Management Anand to groom managers for cooperatives.
Many of these students today occupy very important positions in micro finance, cooperatives, rural banking, rural marketing, consulting, public policy including Niti Aayog, infrastructure, and think tanks. And they leave a very strong imprint wherever they go. They are very outstanding products. And I can assure you from my own experience of dealing with the alumni of IRMA , both in Kerala and in the Government of India, that the students who graduate from IRMA are truly outstanding (applause).
One of the first jobs that I took up right after my sub division was to work in the fisheries sector of Kerala. We replicated Dr. Kurien’s model through an organization called the Matsyafed. The traditional fishermen in Kerala then would get only 18 to 20 percent of the market price of fish. There were layers and layers of middlemen. For almost three-and-half to four years I worked in the sector forming their Self Help Groups and providing better technology, new crafts, i.e. fibre glass crafts, outboard motors, new technology to enable them to go much further into the sea, new fishing news – now known as disco nets – and we introduced beech level auctions for a better intersection of demand and supply. We opened their
(fishermen’s) bank accounts so that a substantial portion of their daily catch could go there and some proportion to their repay their loans. One of the challenges was that traditional fisherwomen would catch buses in which it would be very difficult for them to keep their fish baskets. We introduced specially designed fisherwomen’s buses so that the baskets would be kept at the back and they would be able to sit in front. I am very delighted to tell you that simply because we had emulated Dr. Kurien’s learning that we could take the returns of traditional fishermen from almost 20 percent to close to about 80 percent (applause). This was because we introduced beech-level auctions and engage in value added processing and enable fisherwomen to take 25 odd buses to the city. This was a great learning experience for me because my belief is that in these sectors it is very important for India to introduce technology, form their Self Help Groups, and ensure that our traditional farmers increase their returns through better technology, Self Help Groups, cooperatives, and better marketing.
Ladies and gentleman, one of our key challenges is that we need the Anand pattern of cooperatives simply because we need a revolution for pulses, coarse grains, and the supply chains of perishables. There is a huge potential and I think that with technology supporting e-auction we have a new paradigm and value chain and multiple players in the e-retail segment to support the supply chain. We need a smart collaboration between the cooperatives, the public and private sectors. This can be a game changer enhancing the earnings of our producers. Without this it will not be possible for us to double the earnings and incomes of our farmers. Essential strengths must be identified and all of us in the government and cooperatives must engage in enhancing the strengths and capabilities of the producers and work with new age institutions.
I am particularly delighted that today you have a vast number of young people with a vast number of startups trying to provide new technology. New technology must drive production and productivity. I am saying this because we need to enhance productivity in agriculture and allied sectors. India lags behind global peers in agricultural productivity. In major crops – rice and wheat – our yields are very low. In India, our yields are only 53.3 percent and 57.2 percent in rice and wheat of yield as compared to China. In horticultural crops, productivity is less than half of that of USA for potatoes, and only 68.8 percent of that compared to Indonesia for bananas.
Unless we provide technology and enhance production and productivity and ensure better retail distribution, better marketing, it will be very difficult for us to double farmers’ incomes. To my mind, technology, enhancement of productivity, and better markets and re-structuring the markets with technology and linking them technologically and digitally is the long-term solution for enhancing production, productivity, and famers’ earnings. There is no substitute for this.