Serving farmers and saving farming

The newly-created National Commission for Farmers provides a clear technical roadmap for rescuing Indian agriculture from its present quandary

R V Bhavani Chennai

The greater percentage of India’s population is rural and dependent on agriculture and allied activities. India today, also has the largest number of under-nourished children, women and men in the world. All facts and figures indicate that Indian agriculture is in a state of crisis today. Overall agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the country has been below population growth for nearly a decade. The mid-term appraisal of the Tenth Five Year Plan has observed a sharp deceleration in agricultural growth from the Ninth Plan onward. The growth rate has been only 1 per cent during the first three years of the Tenth Plan. Investment in agriculture is only about 1.3 per cent of GDP. Indebtedness is on the rise and there are increasing reports of farmers’ suicides from different parts of the country.

It is important to realise that farmers constitute the largest consumer group in the country and no growth can be sustainable unless the problems of this sector are addressed. Farming is also the largest private sector enterprise in the country. The National Commission on Farmers (NCF) under the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India has the mandate of examining issues facing farmers across the country and making recommendations to the government.  The Commission has defined “Farmers” for the purposes of its deliberations and recommendations, to include landless agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, tenants, small, marginal and sub-marginal cultivators, farmers with larger holdings, fish, dairy, sheep, poultry and other farmers involved in animal husbandry, pastoralists, plantation workers, as well as those rural and tribal families engaged in a wide variety of farming-related occupations such as sericulture and vermiculture.  In all cases, both men and women receive equal attention. The aim is to encompass all categories of people involved directly in agriculture. The canvas is vast and there are myriad issues, both supply side and demand side, to be addressed.      

The NCF has so far submitted four reports  under the broad title “Serving Farmers and Saving Farming” (www.kisanayog.gov.in). The Third Report called for declaring the agricultural year 2006-07 as the Year of Agricultural Renewal and made several recommendations under the five broad heads of land, water, credit and insurance, technology and markets, the pillars of support where measures are needed for agricultural revival and progress. The NCF has also called for renaming the Ministry of Agriculture as Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and setting up of State Level Farmers’ Commissions for ensuring dynamic government response to farmers’ problems. Farm men and women should be represented in these Commissions.

The major recommendations of the NCF reports under the above five heads together with mention of other significant recommendations, to address the crisis in Indian agriculture, are presented here. 

Land

There is an urgent need for a National Land Use Advisory Service, linked to state and block level land use advisory services on a hub-and-spokes model to give advice to farmers. These can be virtual organisations with the capacity to link land-use decisions with ecological, meteorological and marketing factors on a location and season specific basis. Soil health enhancement holds the key to improving the return from investment in other inputs like seeds and water. Soil-testing laboratories have to be re-tooled and rejuvenated to address the problems of micronutrients deficiency in soil. A national network of 1,000 sophisticated soil-testing laboratories are planned to be established and each farm family issued a soil health passbook based on an integrated analysis of the physical, chemical and microbiological properties of the soil. Travelling seminars can enable farm men and women learn the factors responsible for “agricultural bright spots”, and farm schools can be setup in the fields of farmer-achievers.

Water

India needs a policy on water for agriculture with all technology missions converging around a watershed or command area. A million-wells- recharge programme should be launched and water bodies rebuilt. A water literacy movement is needed with water masters trained in every panchayat. Increasing supply through rainwater harvesting and recharge of the aquifer should become mandatory.  

The National Rainfed Area Authority should help in converting scientific know-how into field level do-how through large-scale demonstrations, foster water conservation and promote community pani panchayats. There should be a National Challenge Programme for Coastal Systems Research (CSR), for concurrent attention to coastal agriculture, agro-forestry, culture and capture fisheries. A National Research Centre on Glacierology has to be setup for collection, storage and dissemination of information on status of seasonal/perennial snow and ice, to address the impact of global warming.

Under fisheries, there is need for an interdisciplinary task force to address need for a comprehensive set of reforms in order to foster sustainable and equitable use of both coastal and inland waters for capture and culture fisheries. We need centralized support services to support decentralized small scale production, up-gradation and construction of new minor fish harbours and fish landing centres, large wholesale markets for larger and more hygienic handling of catch and greater employment generation. The subsistence allowance per fisher family should be raised from Rs 300 to Rs 1500 per month for better enforcement of close season. A National Fisheries Development Board can provide technical and infrastructural support to fisher communities, particularly in the areas of fish processing and marketing and fish seed and feed production and distribution.

Credit and insurance

The outreach of the formal credit and insurance system has to expand to reach the really poor and needy. A movement for credit and insurance literacy is a necessity. 

There is an urgent need for a paradigm shift from micro-finance to livelihood finance, comprising a comprehensive package of support services including financial services, agriculture and business development services and institutional development services. Keeping in view the decline in the profitability of agriculture, and increasing farmers’  indebtedness, the government may consider providing support to the banking system for reducing the rate of interest for crop loans to 4 per cent.

The Government of India should to create an agriculture-risk fund to provide relief to the farmers in the case of successive droughts and natural calamities and also waiver of interest on loans in areas hit by droughts, floods, heavy pest infestation and so on. This fund should have contributions from the central government, state governments and banks in a predetermined fashion. 

Crop insurance today covers only about 14 per cent of the farmers. The need is to expand the cover to all farmers and all crops in a time-bound manner. The scheme needs to be made more farmer-friendly and the premium reduced. An integrated parivar bima (family insurance) policy for the rural poor maybe introduced for providing medical cover, life cover for deaths/disabilities and cover for dwelling units.

Credit counselling centres maybe setup to provide severely indebted farmers with a debt rescue package of information in order to get them out of the debt trap, and thereby save them from committing suicide.

Technology

All Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutions and agricultural universities should strengthen participatory research and knowledge management with farming families through lab-to-land programmes in the area of post-harvest technology, value addition to primary products and biomass utilisation. Agricultural scientists should state the performance of new varieties and technologies in terms of net income per hectare, and not just in terms of yield per hectare. All programmes designed to foster access to technologies must be gender sensitive. A cadre of rural farm science managers should be developed by training a couple of women and men members of every panchayat/ local body in the management of new technologies, such as biotechnology and information, communication technology (ICT), which can be effectively harnessed to empower rural communities through the “Every village a knowledge centre” movement (www.mission2007.org) with farming system and season specific information as well as market and price information. National federation of farm technology missions, headed by a farmer-achiever, can help to bring to the watershed community the benefits of all other relevant technology missions including pulses, oilseeds, cotton, horticulture and dairy. A national agricultural bio-security system on a hub-and-spokes model is a priority need in order to help in preventing pandemics like avian flu. Hope generation teams comprising students and faculty of agriculture universities should go to crisis areas to alleviate farmers’ distress through guidance .

Markets

There is a need for focused attention for improving the rural periodic markets, which are the first contact point for the farmers and also for improving the infrastructure facilities at the regulated markets. The role of the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) / State Agriculture Marketing Boards needs to change from regulatory focus to promotion of grading, branding, packaging and development of markets for the local produce. Legal instruments like the Essential Commodities Act also need to be reviewed in this light. Commodity-based farmers’ organisations like small farmers’ cotton, horticulture, poultry and medicinal plants estates should be promoted to combine the advantages of decentralised production and centralised services, post-harvest management, value addition and marketing, for leveraging institutional support and facilitate direct farmer-consumer linkage.

Arrangements to protect Minimum Support Price (MSP) implementation across the region and MSP for crops other than paddy and wheat need to be put in place. MSP should be adjusted according to the wholesale price index. Prices of sensitive commodities have to be monitored for need-based intervention under the Market Intervention Scheme (MIS). A code of conduct for contract farming has to be developed so that the farmers do not get a raw deal.

Other recommendations

Medium-term strategy for food and nutrition security – six point action plan for hunger free India

a. Reform of the delivery system based on a life cycle approach to food and nutrition security.

b. Community food security systems – community managed gene-seed-grain-water bank continuum

c. Eradication of hidden hunger based on natural cum food fortification approaches

d. New deal for the self-employed for rural livelihoods

e. Enhance the productivity and profitability of small holdings to increase marketable surplus

f. Introduce a National Food Guarantee Act combining the features of the NREG Act and Food for Work Programme.

Policy for women in agriculture

Women play a major but largely unrecognised role in agriculture. Pattas should be issued to ensure land ownership rights to women, access to credit and kisan credit cards.

Rural Non-farm livelihood initiative

Several programmes have been initiated by government and non-government agencies for generating off- and non-farm employment. It would be useful to integrate all initiatives like Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), Agri-clinics and Agri-business Centres, Food Parks etc., into one initiative like China’s Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs) and launch a Rural Non-farm Livelihood Initiative for families without land or other productive assets. Only a multi-pronged concerted approach on the lines indicated can rejuvenate Indian agriculture and bring it out of the crisis situation prevalent today. Neglect on the other hand will be at our own peril.

The writer is Officer on Special Duty in the National Commission on Farmers (NCF). The article is based on reports of the NCF.