Agriculture- the problems , some solutions
Posted : January 26, 2005 at 8:33 pm [IST]
Sustained increase in farm incomes is a must for India. It is required to attain the desired GDP growth. More importantly it is necessary also to sustain a growing market for goods and services. Its potential for employment is bigger than any other sector.
It will be interesting know some facts about India’s agriculture: India has an arable land area of 184 million hectares. India produces 91 million tonnes of milk- the world’s highest. It also produces 150 million tones (mt) of fruits and vegetables (second highest). India possesses 480 million livestock that is the largest. Its 210 mt production of food grains is the third highest. And India produces 6.2 mt of fish.
The full potential to increase the production of all these items has hardly been exploited. Gujarat’s milk production and Punjab’s wheat and rice production can be emulated in many other states too. The same is true for other cereals as well as fruits and vegetables. With just a will, we can produce edible oil seeds sufficient enough to avoid huge drainage on foreign exchange on importing palm oil. However, the agriculture demands some necessary attentions of the government and actions along with some policy changes. First of all there must be change in the mindset for the agriculture at all levels. The distance of policy makers from the real scene is a big handicap. Farmers lack education about the latest in farming in the language they understand. Agriculture graduates must work on the farms rather in offices. Farmers require knowledgeable people with practical experience available and accessible, as the machine operators require engineers and maintenance men in engineering companies to solve their problems.
Irrigation facilities are to be built to eliminate the dependence on monsoon. The existing ones must be expanded by repair and renovations. And India must build barrages on the seasonal rivers in large numbers and interlink rivers to avoid the loss of agriculture produce by floods every year and to help irrigation to certain extent with the stored water. It is unfortunate that even after almost 8 months, the work promised by the finance minister in his budget speech about the renovation of water bodies are still on paper only. The water bodies could have been source for fisheries too.
India is very poor in processing. The processing activity of fruits and vegetables is just 2%, of milk at 14% and fish at 4%. More criminal is the fact that nearly 40% of fruits and vegetables go waste. Food processing in even the neighbouring countries is far better. Processed food products constitute 45% in Philippines and 23% in China. India processes only 7% food products.
But then what are the deterrents for going in big way for food processing?
Naturally, the inadequate infrastructure, particularly rural road connectivity, inadequacy of information, marketing linkages and the absence of cold-chain systems must be significantly improved. The cost of packaging that ranges from 10- 54% of production cost must be lowered.. The cold-chain capacity that caters to less than 10% of the produce must be expanded.. High cost and low availability of credit has been specially taken up by the finance minister. It must reach to all those who require it.
The regulatory framework preventing farmers from directly marketing their produce, except through designated agricultural markets, must go. As suggested, the wholesale modification of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Act is an inescapable necessity. Contract farming must get right encouragement. The land ceiling acts require amendments for allowing consolidation of land holding to make agriculture more viable..
Let us review only one aspect. “Currently, food laws span nine ministries, comprising of thirteen Central orders alone! In addition, states have their own control orders. Organisations responsible for enforcing these regulations are poorly staffed or trained and represent the worst vestige of the licence-permit raj.” It must go. A cohesive legislation is a necessity that takes care of all infirmities.
And all these are possible and can be executed fast, if the government can shake off the lethargy. Let the bureaucrats understand that it is because of them that India is falling behind when other are speeding up. They must get into productivity, efficiency, utilization, quality, loss prevention, conservation, better yield, innovation, improvement, technology, competition modes. And they will find themselves achieving the goals.
- Indra
Category: Rural development |
Leave a Comment