Time for paradigm shift in priorities

India's policy-makers need to look at agriculture for job-led economic growth in the country, according to renowned agricultural scientist and the 'Father of Green Revolution,' Dr M S Swaminathan. He has also suggested that it is time that India had a pesticide policy in place.

Delivering the key-note address at the 'Conference on Roadmap for Indian Agriculture to be Contemporary' organised by the Madras Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI), Swaminathan said that an "evergreen revolution" could be built only on the premise of conservation and enhancement of the existing ecological foundation..

Swaminathan stressed the need to improve the quality of agricultural output in India. "Today we hear reports of pesticides found even in a mother's breast milk. The chambers of commerce like MCCI must start a quality literacy movement in the country and its is time we had a pesticide policy in India."

"The productivity in Indian agriculture can improve even with the available technologies. In the case of paddy, India's average output is 1.7 quintals per hectare while it is five quintals and seven quintals per hectare in China and Japan," he said. He cited precision farming as one of the several techniques available to increase the productivity levels in the Indian agriculture.

He further said that it should be made mandatory not to divert prime farm land. "Three paradigm shifts are needed to improve the status of agriculture in India. The first shift should be from unskilled work to skilled work, second, from on farm work to non-farm work and finally individual to group endeavour which would enable co-operative and contract farming to take off," he said. He said the future of agriculture would depend on the availability of technology and the public policy.

The poor quality of agricultural inputs for producing value added and processed food was also highlighted at the conference.

Utpal Sen Gupta, the president of Agro Tech Foods, said, "even for simple products like popcorns and French fries, we import corn and potato." He said the Indian farmers must learn to produce what the customer wanted. Highlighting the poor logistics in India, he said, "we import edible oil all the way from Argentina, covering 12000 miles at the cost of $45 per metric tonne. The same oil if moved from Punjab to Tamil Nadu costs $ 55 to cover just 1300 miles."

The share of agriculture in the gross domestic product in developed economies like US and France is two to three per cent and the population dependent on agriculture for livelihood is around 2.4 to 4 per cent.

In India, while the share of agriculture in GDP is 25 per cent, close to 65 per cent of the population depend on agriculture for employment, he said and added that a one per cent growth in agriculture would result in a two per cent growth in the manufacturing and service sectors.