HAR KADAM KISAN KI BAROSHA MEIN --COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLICATED INDIAN AGRICULTURE

HAR KADAM KISAN KI BAROSHA MEIN --COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLICATED INDIAN AGRICULTURE

Introduction:

India is gifted with rich soils, most suitable climatic conditions and water resources to produce variety of crops throughout the year. Being tropical country with different climatic zones we are in a position to grow variety of fruits round the year and Indian food and fruits taste better due its natural conditions.

Due to these advantages, despite huge population, fragmented holdings, lower investments we are able to meet our requirements and by and large recognized as self sufficient country. Green revolution, white revolution, thrust on major irrigation dams soon after independence richly contributed for growth of Indian agriculture.

Recent challenges:

The impact of inappropriate minimum support prices, lack of timely credit facilities, storage facilities, failure of APMCs, globalization, technology, rising input costs, erratic prices, inconsistent government policies, imports, change in food habits etc are the challenges being faced by Indian farmers and the cumulative effect is reflecting as farmer suicides, demand for loan waivers, farmer agitations etc.

The non implementation of Swaminathan committee report – fixing of minimum support price for crops based on total cost of production plus 50%, is real heart burning issue.  Congress dodged on the issue for about 8 years and NDA made it as major election issue and came to power. In fact our Hon’ble Prime Minister made it as major election promise particularly in rural areas and in 400 odd election meetings made a commitment that if he is voted to power, Swaminathan commission report will be implemented in letter and spirit.    

APPROPRIATE & WORKABLE SOLUTIONS:

Storage systems:

• Successive governments provide huge funding in annual budgets and created mega storage systems, but unfortunately they are meeting the needs of traders more than the farmers.

• APMC market yard storage systems also fail to gain farmers confidence, resulting in lower space occupancy by farmers.

• Farmers shall be encouraged to build their own storage facilities; it can be part of the house they live in. Such facilities work out cheaper to farmer in terms of security, post harvest management, family involvement in loading, unloading etc.  

• Governments can aim at creating about 20% of total production storage at village level in next 5 years and can make budget allocations and proper implementation plan.

• If such storage can be made as reality, the distress sale during arrivals will come down. Banking institutions has to come forward to liberally finance against crop storage in their own godowns. Unfortunately the credit against stocks is more traders friendly. 

• Liberal bank finance, subsidies, depreciation benefits etc are to be made part of integrated action plan and it can be appropriately named as “MISSION STORAGE”.

Marketing facilities:

The existing marketing through APMC markets has its limitations and the moment farmer move his produce from village to market yard, he is becoming vulnerable to market forces and no government intervention or technology is able to help him. So there is need for innovation and making alternatives available to farmers while continuing with existing systems.

1. Virtual e markets:

·         Taking mandal/block/ 10 kms radius as catchment area, virtual Agri markets shall be planned (similar ITCs e choupal concept). Local producer organisations/SHGs established through World Bank support poverty alleviation program has to take the lead role in field. Good technology partner with huge trader/industry/exporters/end user base has to be identified and put in place. Dash board facility with cross country interface shall be established to equip farmers with latest prices, cropped area, projected yields, rainfall data etc.

·         Farmers will have liberty to sell the crop whenever they feel prices are fair, need for funds etc rather than forced sales. An integrated transparent system of sample collection, sample transmission to traders, rates quoted, rate acceptance, transaction closure, payment gateway, bank finance clearance/no due certificate, stock lifting etc with stake holder engagement.  

   

·         The whole concept will be designed and executed in such a way that it will work as a self sustained model. May be the initial infrastructure and training, capacity building shall be accessed from existing government programs budget.

2. Farmer direct rice/wheat/pulses/oils  markets:

• At present mostly paddy/wheat is procured directly by FCI or state agencies and the grain movement, milling, levy in case of paddy to rice is being done under control of FCI. Respective   state governments are engaging local rice mills on custom hiring basis and rice is being moved for PDS/other subsidy programs and to FCI for interstate movement.

• In addition to the existing system, if individual farmers/ farmer organizations are coming forward to go for direct milling they shall be encouraged and interstate movement of rice, wheat, atta by farmers directly shall be incentivized.

• Local farmer organizations, SHGs shall be encouraged to establish mini rice mills, flour mills, create own brands and market linkages shall be created through velugu/jeevika/ such World Bank funded programs. 

• All existing PDS outlets, local market outlets established through farmer producer companies, kendriya bhandars, army outlets, and public sector cooperatives shall be directed to procure their requirements through these initiatives.

• The complete procurement of rice, wheat, atta, pulses, spices shall be procured from farmers/farmer organizations directly.

• All public places like metro train stations, railway stations, bus stands shall provide place for marketing farmers produce directly. With low investment cost on establishment and rentals even the consumer will be benefited to large extent.

• Program shall be planned to have market share of minimum 20% in next three years and necessary infrastructure and investments, banking shall be geared to handle the same.

• Similar intervention for pulses like red gram, black gram, green gram, Bengal gram shall be planned with promoting conventional processing and market through the network which is discussed above. The logic shall be extended to cold pressed oils processed locally. In fact Patangali is promoting these and commanding premium. 

3. Turmeric/Chillies/ Spices markets:

·         Compare to wheat, rice and pulses these markets are very limited and concentrated in few areas. For example Erode, Nizambad, sangli & Duggirala are markets for turmeric and Guntur is the largest chilli market in the world.

·         Due to concentrated areas and centralized markets, few traders and processors control the market and product movement.

·         Efforts must be put to break these cartels and facilitate larger participation of traders from cross country in local markets by providing them space in APMCs, storage facilities, transport linkages etc. APMC markets have to play the role of marketing rather than just facility provider.

·         Producer companies, DWACRA groups emerged through livelihood programs has to play key role in establishing local processing facilities, custom processing and packing for branded products there by some value addition to local farmers.

IMPORT/EXPORT POLICIES:

·         Mere order by commerce ministry to import 5 million tons of maize (having known that non GM maize is limited in availability & expensive and GM maize imports are banned) played its role in creating negative trend in markets and reduced maize prices by 20% resulting losses to farmers in last season.

·         Similar order to import 5 million tons of wheat & real imports had negative impact on wheat sales and farmers are not even getting MSP.

·         Import of pulses during last year to the tune of 5.8 million tons and our commitment given to import pulses from African countries for next five years had shown severe negative impact on Indian markets and pulse rates dropped from average of 10000/qtl to an average of Rs.3500/qtl, resulting in distress sales by farmers.

·   Respective state governments who were asked to import pulses to meet their PDS requirements and to ensure maintain buffer stocks filed up with dead stocks and liquidated the stocks at less than 30% of procurement cost.

·     These types of inconsistent and impulsive decisions are costing dearly to the nation as well as to farmers.   Though on paper all these looks transparent and implemented with direct involvement of STC, MMTS, and people behind the deals are few vested interest business groups with strong administrative political linkages. These nexus shall be broken to bring in real transparency so that decisions will be taken in genuine interest of farmers, consumers, not with intention to benefit the influential links in the supply chain.

·    The necessity for import of Agri commodities into the country shall be established by agriculture ministry alone in consultation with different state governments, farmer organisations and the role of food and commerce ministries shall be confined to procedures rather than decision making.  

SEED POLICY & SECURITY:

• Seed has become an important and major input and in few crops like maize it amounts to over 35% of cost of production. Any intervention in seed pricing, seed procurement will have positive impact on cost of production and income security to farmers.

• In case of self pollinated crops like paddy, Groundnut, Pulses, farmers can do their own seed selection and reduce seed cost drastically & also be sure of seed quality. 

• GOAP came out with seed village program with an objective of saturating villages with introduction of high yielding varieties in self pollinated crops. The program did not create impact due to influence of vested interest seed companies on field extension staff, lack of transparency etc.

• Agri universities in Telugu states are in position to supply yearly breeder seed requirement of 3500 MT & potential is there to multiply in registered farms. But in reality about 50% of seed is procured /segregated from normal crop stocks and certification is being managed. These shall be put to stop to ensure quality self pollinated seeds supply to farmers.

• Own seed selection & seed treatment and preservation in self pollinated crops shall be encouraged and Government shall fix targets and reduce seed cost to farmers.

• In case of cross pollinated crops like cotton, maize, vegetables  the seed technology is different and seed is produced through selection of males, females from germplasm, cross pollination in fields and then seed development. The cross pollinated seeds development and multiplication is systematically moved from government/research institutions to multinational seed companies and they have created monopoly situation.

• There is an urgent need for revival, documentation and protection of germplasm and develop cross pollinated crop foundation seeds in our universities level and challenge multinationals.  

• Agricultural universities performance can be accessed and supporting them shall be linked to cross pollinated seed research and bringing out the seed material matching with present market or even better.  Sufficient funds to preserve germplasm, buying germplasm from other countries, research support shall be augmented with targeted approach and work with a plan to produce about 20 to 30% of cross pollinated seeds internally within next three years.

Impact of inputs other than seed:

·   Neem coated urea is good initiative and helped the system from diverting urea to the applications. A clear action plan to reduce dependency on chemical fertilizers and replenishing the same with organic material is to be planned. Year wise action plan aiming at 30%organic manure shall be attempted by encouraging organic manure units such as Neem cake, oil cake, press mud based manure, vermiculture, develop labs for certification of organic manure etc.

·         Similar exercise shall be planned to partly replace pesticides with organic pest repellents.

·         The organic farming, zero budget farming, cow based farming which are being promoted in different ways in different parts of the country shall be brought under one umbrella. They shall be made an integral part of agricultural universities and scientific research shall be taken up on natural farming integrating the same with other line departments like agronomy, soil science, entomology, pathology and come out with comprehensive agricultural policy with natural farming as integral part before scaling it up in big way.

·         There is need for multi fold scaling up of drip, sprinkler and other micro irrigation systems other than promoting conventional rain water harvesting and storage systems.  This shall be possible if the dependency on huge subsidy comes down and systems become affordable in open markets. These shall be achieved through promoting SSI units  producing drip laterals etc locally and supply at even 20 to 30% cost of multinational products. An action plan to have 50% SSI presence in micro irrigation shall be worked out and put in action. The 80 to 90% present subsidy component can be partly diverted to promote SSI units for micro irrigation.   

Changing food habits:

• The recent reports on reduction of cereals intake in food is certainly a matter of concern.

• Traditional foods are being replaced with junk foods such as pizza, burger and influence of imported foods with the tag of convenience is being felt.

• Indian chicken products are feeling the heat from import of chicken by McDonalds and other multinational food giants.

• Instead of feeling the change in food habits as a threat, see it as opportunity and our national institutions like CFTRI, NIN etc shall focus their research on developing convenient foods with Indian taste and promote the same through Indian food giants.

• Promoting regular food festivals in all cities and towns to ensure that our traditional foods find their importance and keep the link with our growing working class.  

Reflections:

An attempt is made to present workable and implementable solutions for the problems being faced by farmers on regular basis. Respective stake holders engagement by clearly defining the roles and responsibilities is highlighted and hope these will catch the attention of policy makers and put into action.

The sustainable livelihoods and poverty reduction program funded by World Bank, which is working in various states and claiming that workable models are developed have huge scope and challenge in terms of scaling up the activity and achieve desired results through stake holder engagement.  By getting into this mode the present criticism on the program like the funds are mainly getting into consultants, documentation, and capacity building rather than scaling up the activities. Even after 25 years of presence in India and engaging with poverty reduction programs, it is not convincing if these programs still are in training and modules development rather than scaling up the activities.

Approach has to more towards action research and presenting more of figures rather than process documentation.

For any clarifications, suggestions reach me on

B Guruva Reddy-9866889246

grbonthu@gmail.com