Just think about a farmer who has got a lot of potatoes in his yard in one season and in the next season he struggles hard to get even half of them due to any one of the calamity out of so many he fears off. A farmer's yard is exactly like Indian Stock Market, its less dependent on itself but more on anything which is external (like the FII's in exchange market). He has small landholding, less irrigation facility, less than 1% of storage facility, less markets and more hoarderswith jaundiced eyes who are one of his peers, reluctant authority, delays and a whole lot of lacunae in delivery of subsidies, leakages in social packages running at around 40-50% (its not leakage but perhaps drainage), high inflation in retail sector, ever increasing fees of private facilities and a gradual decline of public facilities and blah.....blah.....blah......
Thanks
So many problems and so many proposed solutions; government is aware of problems and that's why it comes up with schemes such as insurance of crops, increasing MSPs, and numerous other facilities, even many times relieving them of debt. But all this seems not to be working as it should have been. Many of the farmers have become bonded labours and to add to their apathy, as per 2011 census, urban population has added more number of people than rural population, which means mass migration!! Last year government got almost more than Rs 50,000 crore of product rotten due to lack of storage facility. The farmers were helpless because they often don't afford to produce crop in their yard, how could they afford to protect them!!! Protecting them is much heavier and taxing then producing them. Their small landholdings multiply their vulnerability as more than 87% of farmers have less than 47% of landholdings!! How can they afford a go-down which require a huge investment and also when they don't have that much to store about. Also when the literacy is less, shifting the mode of agriculture becomes quite difficult for the concerned party as they will trust less any new method.
Thanks
So many problems and so many proposed solutions; government is aware of problems and that's why it comes up with schemes such as insurance of crops, increasing MSPs, and numerous other facilities, even many times relieving them of debt. But all this seems not to be working as it should have been. Many of the farmers have become bonded labours and to add to their apathy, as per 2011 census, urban population has added more number of people than rural population, which means mass migration!! Last year government got almost more than Rs 50,000 crore of product rotten due to lack of storage facility. The farmers were helpless because they often don't afford to produce crop in their yard, how could they afford to protect them!!! Protecting them is much heavier and taxing then producing them. Their small landholdings multiply their vulnerability as more than 87% of farmers have less than 47% of landholdings!! How can they afford a go-down which require a huge investment and also when they don't have that much to store about. Also when the literacy is less, shifting the mode of agriculture becomes quite difficult for the concerned party as they will trust less any new method.
Where to hit the Nail
Its a question which even a farmer who sows the land, has no idea about. Where the basic problem lies, whether it is small landholding, or lack of technology, or poor allotment of government aid or something else. One thing is sure that there is no such problem which could be treated as a Magna Carta. Inaccuracies during more than 60 years of post-independence have left this sector in a complete mess. The blunder was committed by Nehru (though he was a visionary leader) and planning commission when it was decided to make a drastic shift in the 5 year plans. First Five year Plan focused on agriculture and was based on Harrod-Domar Model. It was a successful plan as per the planning commission itself. But the Second Five Year Plan gave priority to industry like public sector and perhaps, directly and indirectly discouraged agriculture. This plan was termed as moderately successful by the planning commission itself. We woke up to the demands of agriculture when our days in international market and politics turned very bad. The then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri did a lot to what should have been done 8-9 years ago.
Anyways, there is nothing one can get from mongering over past, but definitely we can learn from it. What we can learn from past is what many of us still neglect. After independence, India was suffering and had depleted foreign reserves and very less food to offer to its residents, it was importing heavily from developed countries such as USA. But, wait, What!!! USA; its a industrialised country, how come that we being an agrarian nation whose more than 80% of population being involved in agricultural activity at that time, was importing from a country which was industrialised?? If anybody asks me, I think its where we have to hit the nail. Any country which can't feed its people can't pace up with the global world. If it dreams of industrialisation at the coat of agriculture, then it has to witness what France witnessed in 1790s.... The French Revolution. India, hopefully knew this and that's why it focused on agriculture heavily after 1964-65. In just 5-10 years it became self-sufficient even though its industries continued to suffer despite adequate funding.
Agriculture is like women in the society; no society can grow if its women are in miserable condition no matter what-so-ever money it posses. Public spending has always a huge outcome, every one rupee invested in agriculture has an outcome of additional one rupee as an investment by private farmer which is what money circulation is all about, and this all comes at a cost of very less NPAs (Non Performing Assets; a term from which banks are marred today). The point here is this that we should not demonise one for the other. We need both,i.e., agriculture and manufacturing, but one should not come at the cost of other. To explain the point further let us go back once more to the Five Year Plans : The contribution of central government in the plan outlay dropped from Rs 63 per hectare during Fifth Five Year Plan to Rs 18 per hectare in the Seventh Five Year Plan,i.e., in just 17 years the share dropped exponentially. The 1 rupee investment in public sector capital formation helps to improve GDP by Rs 6. An expansion of net sown area by 1 hectare increases the farm output by Rs 25000. A 1% addition to trade in favour of agriculture leads to increase in farm output by Rs 120 crore. In addition the economic security to the uncountable mass would be another additional achievement.
Unless and until India becomes atleast the second most producing country, as per my view, we cannot expect the apathy to get over. The mass migration to mega-cities is adding to accommodation problems, law and order problems, mass scale of corruption, fraudulent activities by the agents and insecurity among the local residents as they see their security dwindle. On this whole name the murky political games are played and everybody blames every other body. Some ask for introduction of visas for the "immigrants" and some go and beat the already heavily debted body who with a penny a day, tries to keep the faith of his family alive.
Technological aspects are the other one to take care of. They are very important though the first challenge they face is that of small landholdings. Still we have many methods which can be run on small landholdings such as the combined irrigation by drip irrigation method. This method could be easily applied to all the lands put together and the water could be circulated from already stored water of previous years. So a combination of rain harvesting and drip irrigation can do a lot and help a lot the farmers to adopt and be self-dependent. Methods like these which focus not on productivity but on efficient use can help the farmers to a great deal. The technological institutions and research centres meant for this activity can help to a great deal.
Engaging Youths
One other method which can help phenomenally is the involvement of youth. The youths in India today unlike of earlier days, are very much attached to virtual world. They need some reality to be shown. While holding a smartphone in their hand and blaming all the bureaucrats and politician for the problems in their country, they all hail a life full of fantasies. Many of them try to Amercanise themselves though they miserably fail in that. Americans are way ahead than Indians, unfortynately, in patriotism(according to forbes rankingof patriotism). What they do not recognise is that Americanisation also lies in the community work which is compulsory for many of the Americans either in college or in schools. These youths are very talented but very lazy. Once pushed into the work then they can create miracles. These youths could be utilised in making farmers aware of the latest technologies, reading and choosing to their local needs, reading signal and interpret them correctly when they get something from that of satellites, educating farmers children for free, organising debates and involving women through micro agriculture and many more. All this could be done through making it as a part of academics during year-breaks and semester breaks which run for around 3-4 months in a year.
This all will make them more responsible, less market driven and more interest driven, it will provide them variety of platform like to work with banks, NGOs, government authorities, etc. This all will definitely pay in the long run.
Conclusion
Agriculture is a basic necessity of the society, compromising with that is like compromising with one's basic necessity. The apathy needs to be addressed. For this, additional schemes are not needed, perhaps expansion of the schemes are required so that we can get what we lack. This should not come with compromising the manufacturing or the other sector but there should be proper proportional distribution. The "Make in India" should bother about inclusion of agricultural industries and investment too. For it will also give better return and more inclusive growth.
