The National policy for farmers presented to the Parliament in September 2007 for the first time talked about farmers? centric policy. With more than 80% farm holding being small (less than 1 hectare), we need to give both research and development and income orientation to farming rather than measure progress in terms of million tonne of rice, wheat and other crops. We have suggested that you take the human being behind the production and put a face before the figure and then try to understand how to increase the income and well being of the farmers.
The key issue is to increase the productivity and profitability of small holdings by bridging the gap between actual and potential yield. We need to improve productivity through technology and management, giving the power and economy of scale to the small producers. It may be through cooperative farming or group farming or contract farming, etc. The big challenge is how to give income orientation to farming, as without it we would not be able to attract the younger generation into farming. If that does not happen soon, the future of the agriculture sector is bleak. Mahatma Gandhi back in 1930 had said, ?The worst form of brain drain is migration of educated youth from villages to towns?.
During his recent visit, US President Barack Obama pointed out that India is fortunate to have a youthful population with over half of the total population of 1.2 billion being under the age of 30. Of the 600 million young persons, over 60% live in villages. Most of them are educated. But I can categorically say that we are deriving very little demographic dividend in agriculture. Younger people, even graduates from agriculture universities, are not going back to farming. They are not sure how much income they would have as it is a risky profession. Moreover, we hardly have an insurance system worth its name in place.
So the first challenge before the agriculture sector is how to give income orientation to farming. The key is productivity improvement so that there is enough marketable surplus for smaller farms, otherwise, you do not have cash income, and secondly, value addition through biomass, creation of more opportunities in the non-farm employment. The service sector particularly in the agriculture sector is not developed. The services sector is growing more in urban centres.
Some years ago, the government launched a programme for enabling agriculture graduates to start agri-clinics and agri-business centres. This programme administrated by NABARD and National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management is yet to attract the interest of educated youth to the degree originally expected. It is hence time that the programme is restructured.
The idea of agri-clinics was to provide the services needed during the production phase of farming, while the agri-business centre would cater to the needs of farm families during post-harvest phase of agriculture. The next challenges for rejuvenating agriculture is ecology. Many of our natural resources are under threat from vagaries of weather and over-exploitation. Climate change would spell mega disaster unless we take a lot of anticipatory action. Unfortunately, we are not doing enough on this front. The so-called various missions announced by the Prime Minister are all high-sounding missions, while nothing happens on the ground. All these missions are drafted by bureaucrats and except for educated people, nobody knows about these programmes. Green Revolution was not a government programme; it was mass movement; a small government-aided initiative to augment food production become a mass movement.
The term ?second green revolution?, as stressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would not come just by drafting mission statements. Nothing will happen. Ecology of the farm, land care movement, watershed management, initiatives towards more crop per drop of water?all of them can come only if more farmers participate. It has to be a marriage between farmer participation and technology.
As far as the climate change is concerned, it can be a mega disaster. It is estimated that we will lose about 8 million tonne of wheat if there one degree rise in mean temperature.
Protection of ecology and climate care movement have to be very important. Climate change means climate-resilient agriculture. The next challenge is gender equity, as increasingly there is ‘feminisation of agriculture’. Many poorer farmers are migrating to cities or working under NREGA for better incomes, leaving the women to be custodians of our food security. They do not have enough extension support and also land rights. The gender concern has to be mainstreamed.
We need technical upgrade of farm operations, including fishery, animal husbandry, etc. We have not got the technology policy for agriculture right. About the controversy concerning moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal, the present system of Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), headed by an additional secretary, would not work. In future, we have to have recourse of biotechnology for increasing yield. Information technology, space technology should be used widely in agriculture.
The writer is an eminent agriculture scientist