April 22 was Earth Day. It was in 1970 that millions of people came out in USA in support of saving this planet, the only one known to have intelligent life so far. These concerned citizens, under the leadership and clarion call of Senate Gaylord Nelson, felt at the time that humanity was damaging the earth’s environment severely in its race to development, and it may be an irreversible damage threatening the very diversity of life on the planet. More than 50 years have passed, and many Conferences of the Parties (COPs) have been held, the latest being the 28th edition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in November-December 2023. For the first time, agriculture was brought into the agreement in COP28. But India did not sign it, even when most of the G20 countries including the US and China did. The reason behind it was that the Indian government thought it would involve significant changes in our agricultural policies and farming practices.
However, the fact remains that agriculture is the one sector that is responsible for much of the biodiversity loss on this planet. It is a result of the rising population, which has to be fed. It took Homo sapiens more than 200,000 years to reach a population of one billion in 1804. But the next billion was added in just 123 years, in 1927. And now, within less than 100 years, humanity has multiplied from 2 billion to more than 8 billion. No wonder, if humanity had to be saved from mass famines and starvation deaths, farming had to be done on large swathes of land by clearing forests. In that race against hunger, genetic diversity and several species were lost. But even large parcels of land under cultivation through traditional and organic methods could not have saved humanity. As Norman Borlaug, the father of the green revolution, once said, this planet has a capacity to feed a maximum of four billion people on its own. If science had not come to the rescue, millions or even billions would have starved to death.
But science, like fire, can also harm if not used properly. The green revolution, based on high-yielding varieties, irrigation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, etc., did produce more food than humanity needs today. In fact, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 30% of the food produced never reaches the mouths due to high losses from harvest to retail and waste at the consumer end. So there is no dearth of food supplies though access to food is an income issue, and for that each country has to devise its own policies to ensure that people do not die of hunger. India has the largest food subsidy programme in the world — under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana 813 million people are getting free rice/wheat.
But the issue of inappropriate policies harming the planet has remained largely unaddressed. For example, the policy of heavily subsidising the use of chemical fertilisers, especially urea, has led to a skewed use of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potash (K). Soils have been damaged and are starving for organic carbon. The optimal level of soil organic carbon (SOC), according to World Food Prize laureate Rattan Lal, should be between 1.5% and 2%. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, who launched a campaign on his bike and drove across countries to “Save Soil”, says that SOC should be between 3% and 6% for the soil to optimise productivity in a sustainable manner without much chemicalisation. The reality, however, is that more than 60% of Indian soils have SOC of less than 0.5%. Our soils are literally in the ICU, but our policymakers are blind to it. Mere slogans of prakritik kheti or natural farming are not going to bring our soils out of the ICU. We need to change our policies, especially those of chemical fertiliser subsidies. A simple directional change from heavily subsidising the pricing of N, P, and K, to direct income transfer to farmers and then letting the prices of the fertilisers to be decided by the market forces can matter a lot. But this needs advance preparations in terms of land records of farmers, the crops they are growing, irrigation, etc. But all of this can be done if one is serious about saving our soils.
Take the case of groundwater in India. In most states, it is depleting, most alarmingly in Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Punjab and Haryana, in particular, are tuned to free power for irrigation, and minimum support prices and open-ended procurement of paddy (rice). It is leading to an ecological disaster in this belt, with the water table receding year by year, and paddy fields emitting carbon at the rate of almost 5 tonnes per hectare.
These policies are also leading to the loss of crop diversity. For example, in Punjab in 1960, only 4.8% of the cropped area was under rice. Today it is more than 40%, displacing maize, millets, pulses, and many oilseeds. Successful high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat also lead to a loss of varietal diversity.
So, the Indian portion of the planet, which is only 2.4% of the world’s geographical area, 4% of freshwater resources, and 18% of population, is under huge stress, be it soil, water, air (greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions), or biodiversity.
Unless we change our policies to be peasant- as well as planet-positive, we will be committing a crime against our future generations. Time is running out. Climate change is upon us, and extreme weather events are likely to increase, causing massive damage to lives and livelihoods. It is time to wake up and make our food systems not only climate-resilient but also restore our soils to a healthy status, arrest groundwater depletion, reduce GHG emission significantly, and reward biodiversity through green credits. Can we do it in time?
The author is a professor at ICRIER.
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