Wishful thinking

Talk of doubling the rate of increase in farm production seems to have become semi-permanent fashion. The previous NDA government stuck to the theme for five years, and the present UPA government has already spent two-and-a-half years chasing this elusive milestone. Now the Planning Commission has made doubling agricultural growth to 4 per cent the official target for the 11th Plan, which starts in April. As it happens, this was the agricultural growth target for the 10th Plan also, which unhappily is ending with average annual growth of less than 2 per cent in this sector.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now identified "four deficits" as the causes of the agrarian crisis. These include investment and credit deficit, infrastructure deficit, market economy deficit and knowledge deficit. These broad areas encompass every conceivable aspect of the agricultural economy, indicating that action is needed on all fronts and not just in one or two specially problematic areas. But regrettably, when it comes to addressing all the enumerated issues, the focus invariably narrows to agricultural credit and the rampant indebtedness that is forcing so many farmers to end their lives. This seems to ignore the obvious fact that indebtedness is the symptom and not the disease itself. At the root is the farmer's incapacity to repay debt for want of adequate income from farming. Advancing more credit to farmers who are already deep in debt, without addressing the causes of their impoverishment, will only increase the number of suicides. This is why the special packages dished out for the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra and three other states have failed to show the expected results.

Deceleration of farm output growth in the agriculturally progressive, largely irrigated areas and the frequent crop failures elsewhere are the result of several factors that have not received their due attention. For one, the inherent fertility of land has deteriorated due to the unbalanced use of chemical fertilisers (the result of flawed pricing signals) and an insufficient application of organic manures. Soil in the intensively cropped lands has become depleted of carbon and several key plant nutrients, without which optimum yields are impossible. Besides, the under-pricing of power and water is causing the depletion of groundwater and indiscriminate use of canal water, resulting in waterlogging and soil salinity, ultimately rendering the land unfit for high productivity.

This apart, the kind of wheat and rice varieties that pushed up crop yields several fold in one go to usher in the Green Revolution are hard to come by today unless plants are genetically modified to boost their inherent production potential. This requires heavy investment in research in fields like biotechnology. This is not forthcoming in the public sector, though the private sector, chiefly multi-national companies, is evolving such seeds for selected crops. Even the existing production potential of the available crop varieties is not being tapped optimally in several areas, as reflected in the yield gap between the agriculturally progressive and under-developed regions. Moreover, an outmoded marketing regime and poor post-harvest value-addition deny proper returns to producers. Further, the unabated fragmentation and consequently diminishing size of land holdings is adversely impacting the incomes of the market-linked farmers, and driving subsistence farmers to a more marginal existence. Under the circumstances, it is wishful thinking to expect the rejuvenation of agriculture without first addressing these critical issues.