New Avenues in Agriculture is Must for India - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

New Avenues in Agriculture is Must for India

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(1) Opening    —    Growth of population and vision of land holdings.

(2) Body    —    Agriculture in the eighth plan.

    —    Percentage of marginal farmers.

    —    Development of dryland agriculture.

    —    The future food production.

    —    Drought Prone Area Progra-mme.

    —    Productivity of small farms.

    —    Methods of improving yields.

    —    Research work in Agri-culture.

    —    Raising income rather than only self-sufficiency in food.

(3) Closing    —    We do not expect revolutio-nary change in the short run but a powerful forces of technological and economic change which over a period of time will bring about sig-nificant social and structural changes.

India's population has reached 1000 million, each staking additional claims on the nation's food supply. More than half of these will join rural families who depend directly for their livelihood on agriculture. Competition for land will increase.  The rural labour market already characterised by low wages, strong seasonality and a high degree of insecurity will need to provide more and more jobs in the coming years. The average size of an operational holding in the country today has come down to 1.82 hectares each holding further split into 5 to 6 scattered parcels, making he effective side of an operational farm unit to 0.3 to 0.4 hectare each. This is going to assume a more serious dimension if we continue with the present policy of permitting unbriddled sub-Division of holdings.

Improving India's agricultural performance during the Twelfth plan period, ensuring growth with social justice, against this difficult background, will be a formidable task. The twin objectives of our agricultural policies during the last couple of decades have ben to achieve self sufficiency in food production and to increase farm incomes in an equitable manner. While significant progress has been made in the first direction, floods and drought notwithstanding, the second objective is still to be achieved. The problem that planners and policy makers and need to grapple with in this plan period , if not sooner, is how our farm policies could be made subservient to the needs of not only increasing the physical output of selected agricultural produce but also to increase the income of the farmers.

The percentage of marginal farmers has in the recent past gone up from 50.6 to 56.5 and that of the landless labourers from 16.7 to 24.9 percent. If this section of rural population goes on produce; as is the case now, per workers income will continue to shrink while it is rising at a rapid rate in the organised sector. Indeed, on the one hand the emoluments in the industrial sector and services sector are rising steeply, there by raising the general price structure, on the other the income in the agricultural sector is stagnating, if not getting relatively depressed resulting in further widening the gulf between the agricultural sector and other sectors.

Among the documented results of greater agricultural output in may countries have been labour-displacing farm machinery, small farmer oriented lift irrigation ruined by lowered water table from powerful large landowner pumps and most importantly, support prices for food grains raised to the detriment of both wage earners and deficit farmers who purchase grain in the market. Indeed, there have been reports from some states that agricultural labourers are at great risk of sinking to poverty and hunger where growth of farm production is fastest.

In this connection it is of significant relevance that, under Indian situation, development of dryland agriculture, to which the country's research system is deeply committed, is inescapable for national food security and poverty alleviation and also for correcting regional and social imbalances and disparities. The thrust of agricultural development in the present Plan is accordingly on dryland farming to bring down the income disparities between the farmers having irrigation facilities and those without.

The future food production has to come from more difficult areas which are economically and ecologically at a disadvantage. Our ability to overcome weather aberration through measures like contingent cropping, positioning of critical inputs, professional extension service etc., will continue to have direct and positive bearing on the overall performance on the food front in the coming years. The chronically drought prone areas of the country, comprising 615 blocks of 90 districts 13 states, covered by the Drought Prone Area Programme, will demand more serious attention from researchers to do something more. Rain-fed farming under other extreme situation, where annual rainfall may be as high as 2,000 mm, will merit equal attention and will continue to pose a challenge to both management and technology.

Farm scientists and technologists, spread over the length and breath of the country with impressive achievements to their credit, may have to gear themselves up for the new tasks that lie ahead. What can be done even with available technology in small farms of 1 hectare farm uses 3 or 4 times more labour as well as capital and produces 4 or 5 times more yield than a farm of the same size in Orissa, for example. If the productivity of this small farm could be increased by a half of its counterpart in Japan a real revolution will ensure and unemployment and underemployment problem opening up new possibilities of improving dramatically the return per unit area of both land and labour in small farms. A new approach by the Indian  council of Agricultural Research to land and water management, promises to boost yields of 5 staple crops of country's semi arid regions- sorghum, millet, chick-pea pigenpea and ground generating an extra income of Rs. 10000/- per acre. Experience of Gujarat. Andhra and other State suggest that incomes in the dryland  farming can be increased and farmers given a measure of protection against risk of drought by encouraging them to inter crop their mustard, groundnut and millets with fuelwood trees. The real challenge is to explore methods of improving yields based on locally available materials at costs that the subsistence farmers can afford. Fortunately the scope to meet the challenge is vast. Genetic modification of crops to stand moisture stress, biological nitrogen fixations, alleviation of environmental stress, multiple and inter-cropping, multi-tier cropping, fertilizer placement at the root zone, crop-saving techniques under serve drought, alternate cropping to suit different weather conditions, use of by products and reduction of waste are some areas where technologies are either available or are being generated. What is needed is an effective forward looking extension service to spread these technologies far end its present selected crop-oriented approach and be treated as means to an end which is to optimise the utilisation of resources of the farmers and consequently improve the quality of life of the rural poor. The extension approach should be geared to solving farmers' all land-based problems without, however, going back to the earlier multipurpose approach encumbered by largely redundant logistical supply functions.

It is time the researchers, extension workers and anti-poverty campaigners joined hand to reach millions of small and marginal farmers, provide them access to low cost technology and guide them concentrating on making the most skilful use of their land and labour for augmenting their produce and income.

Raising income rather than only self-sufficiency in food; renting and hiring of implements, pumps, and power tillers on a custom basis rather than ownership; labour-cum-capital intensive farming rather than primarily labour intensive farming; step by step increase to high value cropping rather than traditional cropping; introduction of a reward and penalty package to promote sound banking and discourage wilful default of loan repayment; development of transport facilities and medium industries in secondary markets and other growth centres in the country side; facilitating lease of land by small farmers; and imposition of a floor for site of holdings to avoid further  fragmentation are the key elements to an approach aimed at income generation on small farms, recommended by the economists. 

All these may not bring revolutionary change in the short run but would nevertheless introduce powerful forces of technological and economic change which over a period of time will bring about significant social and structural changes in the desired direction of raising small farmers' income. We must not forget that with a gradual decline in the size of our farm holdings, the efficiency of small farm management holds the key to the progress of Indian agriculture.