The editorial, “Rebooting agriculture” (November 2) rightly points out that “the need is for a comprehensive, all-embracing process of agricultural reform”, not addressing the problem in bits and pieces, as the NITI Aayog has done.
The process of reform in India in the last 25 years has neglected this matter that concerns our food security and is often the cause of social unrest and even tragedies such as farmer suicides. What can be more important than ensuring that people do not go hungry or are malnourished in an economy hoping to become a developed one otherwise!
The editorial also points out that the most important aspect of our low yields and poor productivity has always been the failed socialistic concept of “land ceiling”. The world over, only large land holdings have generated better productivity and lower costs. There is no way our little land parcels of an acre or so each can survive. At those holdings there are no sustainable arrangements for irrigation, fertilisers and insecticides or pesticides, leave alone mechanisation.
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Developed countries such as the USA have long had the practice of large holdings of 50,000 acres or more, where everything is mechanised and food grains, vegetables, fruits and oil-yielding nuts are produced at costs much lower than in India. The US, Russia and China have never known any shortage of food or felt the need to import it. On the contrary, these countries have always been exporters of food.
Our misconceived “land ceiling” laws have never allowed viable land holdings. This needs to be addressed immediately.
Mechanisation, as opposed to jobs, will be an issue but productivity and cost of production should be a greater consideration. We should create more jobs in industry and services, not only in agriculture.
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