Surinder Sud: Crying for reform

FARM VIEW

Lack of infrastructure and declining profitability fuel dislike for farming as an employment option.

The rural young are no longer interested in agriculture and want to move out of villages. This is an ominous sign, especially considering that India is deemed a land of the youth. Nearly 40 per cent of the country's population falls in the age group of 13 to 35 years and about two-thirds of them live in rural areas. Underutilisation of the potential of such a huge human resource amounts to a colossal national waste. The issue of aversion to farming becomes all the more worrisome when viewed along with the finding of the 59th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) that 40 per cent of the farmers wish to give up agriculture.

The reasons for this are several, though the most significant among them are the lack of income opportunities in agriculture and poor living conditions in villages. Besides, the cost-risk-return equation of agriculture is worsening by the day. There is a huge income divide between farmers and non-farmers even in villages and rural townships which is further fanning the dislike for farming.

According to the NSS data (2002-03), the national average income of a farm household is just Rs 2,115 a month. This compares poorly with what even an unskilled construction worker can earn in a month. Even in an agriculturally well-off state like Punjab, the monthly average income is no more than Rs 5,000. Most states fall in Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 a month category. The average for Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa works out at just Rs 1,062 a month.

Not only that, the profitability of agriculture too has been eroded. According to The State of the Indian Farmer: A Millennium Study by Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, the all-India growth rate of real per-hectare farm business income (difference between the output value and the costs incurred) has decelerated sharply from 3.21 per cent per year in the 1980s to a mere 1.02 per cent per year in the 1990s.

Taking into account the 1.44 per cent annual growth in the number of cultivators in the 1990s and a meagre 0.45 per cent growth in the cropped area, the actual farm income growth would work out to almost negligible (about 0.03 per cent a year). This study also revealed that in most states (barring Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and West Bengal), the actual average land holding was lower than the minimum required to keep the farm family above the official poverty line.

The National Commission on Farmers (NCF), headed by Professor M Swaminathan, has reckoned that profitability in agriculture has declined by 14.2 per cent in the 1990s due primarily to stagnation in yield growth and the rate of increase in input prices outpacing that of output. The margins for crops like cotton, coarse cereals and oilseeds deteriorated sharply. It is unlikely that the farmers will, in the long run, continue to cultivate these crops if things do not improve, the Commission has said.

Indeed, the NCF has taken a serious note of the growing disinterest in agriculture among rural youth and has devoted a full chapter in its report on how to keep them in farming. "The youth can be attracted to and retained in farming only if farming becomes economically rewarding and intellectually satisfying and only when the rural settings encompass the barest minimum necessary energy, infrastructural, educational and primary health care facilities," the Commission has said.

Several of the pre-requisites stipulated by the NCF can be met if PURA (Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas), as proposed by President APJ Abdul Kalam, is sincerely implemented. But that, unfortunately, is not happening yet. The schism between the rural and urban areas, therefore, continues to widen. But, PURA too would really have to be accompanied with suitable policies for providing access to appropriate technology, services, institutional support, including credit, and efficient markets to be able to work on youth.

Several new institutions can be created in the rural belt to exploit the potential synergy between on-farm and non-farm employment. These include setting up of technology parks, biotech parks, food parks, textile parks and food, fodder, feed, seed and gene banks. The employment generation programmes of the rural development ministry need also to be integrated with agricultural development. Indeed, the government would do well to pay due attention to many of the useful suggestions made by the NCF and incorporate them in the planning process to woo the youth back to agriculture.

sud@business-standard.com