SOME THRUST AREAS IN AGRICULTURAL STRATEGY
(P. C. ALEXANDER)
SEVENTEENTH CONVOCATION ADDRESS
April 14, 1998
My esteemed friend Dr. Kurien had invited me to be the Chief Guest at the Convocation of this prestigious institute a couple of years ago but I could not accept his invitation then because of other prior commitments. He was kind enough to renew the invitation for this year's convocation and I feel very happy to be present here today.
I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Kurien and about his monumental services to the cause of rural development and in particular to dairy development in our country over the last three decades and I had always had the highest admiration for his grand vision, dedication, courage and tenacity. I am personally aware of a few occasions when bureaucratic apathy and some times political interference had threatened to frustrate his plans for the development of the dairy industry in our country but the strength of his commitment and his courage to stand up for his convictions had helped him to overcome the hurdles others had created for him and to make the White Revolution the grand success it is now universally acknowledged to be.
The Institute of Rural Management, recognised as unique among the 500 and odd institutions for management training in our country, bears the indelible imprint of Dr. Kurien’s vision and philosophy. This institute has trained you to become not only successful managers of India's rural development organisations, but what is more important has instilled in you the motivation and pride to serve the cause of the rural people. You are being initiated to join the great adventure of building the progress and prosperity of rural India and I congratulate you on the privilege of having been equipped for such a challenging and noble mission.
I wish to avail of this opportunity to share a few thoughts with you about some thrust areas which should get urgent attention and priority if the programmes for the development of the rural masses are to become stronger and more effective. Let me first take the case of foodgrains production.
We take legitimate pride in the fact that there has been a four-fold increase in foodgrains production compared with what it was at the time of independence. However, this spectacular success in foodgrains production through what is popularly known as the Green Revolution seems to have created in us a sense of complacency that the dynamics of the revolution will automatically push it to greener if not an evergreen future. We seem to be believing that the package approach of the Green Revolution-assured supply of water, fertiliser and improved seeds, access to credit and guaranteed minimum prices—which has proved to be successful so far in keeping the rate of food production above the rate of population growth will continue to be relevant and successful in the future as well. But it is important that we realise fully certain hard realities of supply and demand which have been thrown up conspicuously by the experience of the Green Revolution during the last few decades.
We seem to be often overlooking the fact that the current levels of caloric intake are unacceptably low in our country. Our daily caloric supply is only 2100 as against 2600 in China and 3000 in the upper income countries. If caloric supplies have to be increased to more reasonable levels required for even moderate health standards, it is imperative that our foodgrains production increases at much faster rate than the rate seen so far under the Green Revolution.
We cannot also ignore the special dimensions of our population problem. According to present estimates, India’s population which is about 950 million today will be 1.18 billion by 2010 and 1.39 billion by 2016 even assuming a very moderate growth rate of 1.6 per cent. Keeping in view this growth rate, India will need 216 million tonnes of foodgrains by the end of the 9th 5-Year Plan. Assuming a food reserve of 10 million tonnes and constant export target of 5 million tonnes, by 2002 the demand for foodgrains will be above 230 million tonnes. With the current level of 195 million tonnes, the challenging task immediately before us is to add 35 million tonnes in the next five years. We have also to achieve this without seriously damaging the environment and the finite resources of our corner of the earth.
About a third of India's land is already degraded because of over grazing, erosion, etc. It is estimated that about 2.5 million hectares are becoming waste lands and about 1 million hectares are getting degraded every year. Further we have the ever-worsening problem of fragmentation of holdings lowering the per capita arable land from 0.33 hectares in 1971 to a mere 0.18 hectare projected for 2000 A.D. It is estimated that by the turn of the century we will require additional 10 million hectares of net sown area, 40 million hectares for fire wood and 10 million hectares for fodder. An additional area of 4 to 5 million hectares will be required for such uses as human settlements, roads, railways and mines, defence and industrial establishments. The need for production of food, fodder, fibre and fuel will generate severe competing claims on the limited land available. Water logging, salinity and alkalinity of soils will further constrain the growth of net sown area.
These problems indeed look formidable, but this does not mean that we have no other alternative but to fall back upon the old practice of depending on other countries to grow food for our growing population. I am inviting attention to some of the problems inherent in our population size and the limited availability of land, only to stress the importance of some new thrusts and directions in our agricultural strategies.
Equally important as meeting the food demands of our burgeoning population is the imperative to use agriculture as a major earner of foreign exchange for the country. With the fast growing demand for imports to meet the needs of industry and infrastructure, the agriculture sector will have to play a much bigger role than it had in the past to increase the country's foreign exchange capabilities. Till now we have been following a strategy of exporting whatever could be spared after meeting domestic demands. It is crucial now that we seriously turn to producing surpluses for exports instead of exporting whatever is surplus.
There is a mistaken impression among some sections of our people that our commitments under the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and the membership of the World Trade Organisation militate against any big export role for India in the area of agriculture. If we analyse the provisions of the new trade regime to which we have become a party, we will find that it has, far from inhibiting agricultural exports, opened up great possibilities for a major expansion in exports. The restrictions in the export of agricultural commodities particularly foodgrains in future are going to be far more serious for the developed countries which have the lion share in this area now. The new trade regime has no doubt imposed very severe restrictions on subsidies for both domestic production and exports but a country like India will hardly be affected by these restrictions. The obligations to reduce domestic subsidies under the new trade regime arise only if the total aggregate value of all subsidies given to farmers exceed 10 per cent of the value of total agricultural production in the country. Further, subsidies given to low income of resource poor farmers are exempt from any obligation for reduction of subsidies. In fact it has been calculated that the subsidies which India gives to its fanners, far from exceeding the 10 per cent ceiling prescribed by the new trade regime, are really negative.
In the case of export subsidies as distinguished from the production subsidies, it has been established that none of the subsidies given by India at present will attract the adverse attention of the new trade laws. Thus the scenario that will emerge soon will be one of greater competitiveness for exports from developing countries like India with disadvantages for the developed countries who are now the dominant players in the world foodgrains market.
The crucial question is whether India will be able to produce adequate quantities of foodgrains to meet the demands of the growing population and also to take full advantage of the favourable export market that will be open to it very soon. Everyone knows that without a significant increase in productivity it will be difficult for India to play this big role in domestic arid export market. The question that we should ask ourselves seriously is how China with 48 million hectares of irrigated land produces 407 million tonnes of foodgrains while India with about the same area of irrigated land does not produce even half of this quantity. In terms of production India is the second largest producer of both rice and wheat, but in terms of crop yield its position is 51 in rice and 43 in wheat.
What is it that we can do to get out of this syndrome of low productivity and low export capabilities in our agricultural sector keeping in view the problems inherent in our situation earlier referred to by me. Let me just flag two or three thrust areas.
The first is the need and urgency of a critical look at the current policies of exploitation of irrigation potential. The irrigation potential in several states have almost been fully utilised and new project in many cases are likely to prove highly cost ineffective. In Maharashtra for example, hardly 15 per cent of the agricultural operations are dependent on irrigation and even if all proven irrigation potential is to be exploited not more than 34 per cent of cultivated land is likely to be brought under irrigation. The strategy therefore has to be one of more economic use of the available irrigation facilities and a re-ordering of the priority in the use of irrigation water wherever such water is scarce. Recent studies have clearly established that income per unit of water is quite unfavourable for crops like sugarcane compared to most cereals and even crops like onion and chillies. Still farmers appear to be reluctant to switch over to other water saving crops even in irrigation starved states. Probably long traditions and practices have created rigid mindsets among the rural farmers which prevent changes in the pattern of water use.
Rainfed agriculture is the predominant occupation of nearly 70 per cent of farmers. Still adequate research and application of new techniques for economic use of rain water do not appear to be receiving the attention they deserve. Research and Development in rainfed systems appear to be still dominated by the theories and concepts of high inputs which were relevant to the Green Revolution areas. The success achieved in some states in recent years in watershed management techniques has demonstrated that rainfed agriculture can nearly be as profitable as irrigated agriculture. Still the progress of application of such technologies in most states appears to be half-hearted and halting.
This brings me to my second point and that is that the pace of application of modern science and technology which had revolutionised agriculture in advanced countries has been painfully slow in Indian agriculture. The developments in bio-technology, molecular biology, information technology, dryland agronomy, etc., seem to have created little enthusiasm in our farmers. What is more disappointing is the fact that they have not adequately percolated to our research centres and agricultural universities. Modern technology and science have brought about spectacular improvements in yield, quantity, processing and utilisation of products, decreasing reliance on agro chemicals and other external inputs and for conservation and use of genetic and other natural resources in advanced countries but we seem to be still stuck at the Green Revolution stage in the application of technology and science. The Green Revolution could be sustained during the past 30 years because India had the trained manpower to manage it. A new breed of scientists and technologists has to come up, and come up quickly and in large numbers, if we are to take the Green Revolution through the Gene Revolution and to other advanced stages of productivity. High priority has to be given to the task of upgrading the technological and scientific content in research and instruction in our universities and higher institutions for agricultural research if they are to become instruments for change.
A third thrust area is the non-crop sector in agriculture. While significant progress has been achieved in some states in the development of live stock, milk and milk products, fishery, poultry, sericulture, etc., the attention and priority given to them in the country as a whole continue to be marginal. For a majority of Indian farmers, agriculture still means only production of traditional crops.
Even in the crop sector only a few states are taking full advantage of the immense potential of fruits and vegetables particularly in the export market. They account for only 4 per cent of the gross crop area in our country. Again talking of Maharashtra's experience, considerable progress in the development of fruits, vegetables and flowers has been achieved in that state by linking the Employment Guarantee Scheme to these programmes. However, this successful experience does not appear to have served as a model for other states. Farmers appear to be very conservative when it comes to taking to new crops in spite of their clear advantages.
An exception to this traditional mindset is of course, the enthusiastic manner in which farmers have taken to all aspects of dairy industry including cattle productivity and improved production and marketing of milk. India's milk production after stagnating around 20 million tonnes for about 20 years after independence reached 70 M.tonnes as a result of the thrust given by the White Revolution. Today dairy industry's contribution to the GNP is estimated at Rs. 450 billion ahead of rice or wheat. A very highly satisfactory feature of Operation Flood lies in the fact that 75 per cent of its beneficiaries are landless, marginal or small fanners and that too mainly women. This social dimension of the programme makes it specially significant in the context of India's chronic problems of poverty and unemployment in rural areas. The lesson to be drawn from the success of "Operation Flood" is that in spite of the conservative attitude of the rural farmers, they can also be made to accept radical changes given wise leadership and imaginative programmes of motivation. The blame for the slow pace in taking to non-crop farming therefore is not so much with the farmer, as with the programmes themselves and the manner in which they are implemented.
Finally, I would raise the issue of the efficiency of institutional and organisational support to the farmers. The co-operative movement has proved to be ideally suited for organising rural farmers for a wide range of services particularly credit, supply of farm inputs, marketing of farm products and distribution of consumer goods. Here again the success of the co-operative movement has been uneven. States like Gujarat and Maharashtra have demonstrated how effective the co-operative movement can be in ensuring better services and returns for the farmers both in the crop and non-crop sectors.
Even in states where the co-operative movement has been acknowledged to be a success, urgent reforms are necessary if the farmer is to get the maximum benefits out of it. For example, we are still working within the framework of archaic laws and rules for co-operatives. Bureaucratisation of co-operative institutions and needless interference by politicians in the management of co-operatives have been common causes inhibiting the healthy development of the movement in our country.
While the co-operative movement has proved to be successful in areas like credit and marketing in some states, one area where it has yet to make a mark is post harvest processing. Traditional Indian agriculture has been dominated by trade in raw material form both in domestic markets and exports. Lack of facilities for processing and storage has led to considerable wastage and loss of foreign exchange and it is here that extension of the co-operative movement can prove to be of immense benefit to the farmers. Nearly 10 to 12 per cent of post harvest losses are common in all types of agricultural production in India. Two-third of paddy produced in the country are still milled in old hullers. Several oil extraction units are run below even modern standards of efficiency because of lack of modern machines and equipment. The loss of fruits and vegetables is as high as 25 to 30 per cent. The inability of individual farmers to acquire modern facilities for processing and storage are the main reasons for these heavy losses. It is here that extension of facilities based on co- operative principles can prove to be of great benefit to the farmers.
Dear graduates of the Institute of Rural Management, I have invited your attention to a few issues relevant to improving the productivity of agriculture and increasing income and employment in rural areas. There are several more such thrust areas which deserve attention of all those engaged in the improvement of the life for the people in rural India. I have no doubt that you will become more aware of them as you take on your new responsibilities.
It is customary for those who give convocation addresses to deliver some advice to the graduates. The only advice which I would like to give you while concluding my address today is that whatever may the assignments you may have and in whatever situations you may have to work, you should always endeavour to remain true to the ideals of your great alma mater.
