A Paradigm Shift necessary for our agriculture
Posted 06-04-2008 at 09:41 AM by vijurags
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• Economic growth of our country lays heavy reliance on agriculture.
• Agriculture contributes more than 20% to the GDP and generates 60% employment.
• About 180 million hectares of arable land is available. A wide variety of crops growing possibilities exist with the climatic condition that currently prevail.
• If agriculture cannot grow at 4% annually, it is said that the GDP growth at 8% and above cannot be achieved.
• Our agriculture suffers from many problems; consequently agriculturists face these squarely. They need alleviation fast.
• Our population is growing at 1.9% but the food production is behind at 1.5%. The productivity is also very low at less than a tonne of food grain to a hectare while China’s productivity is 4.71 tonne / hectare. This comparison is with 430mmt of food grains versus 222 mmt of food grain production in India.
• Though the Government’s initiatives for their uplift are comprehensive, they do not seem to benefit the farmers. This is because the farmer has to harness these initiatives individually; but they are deep down with misery and problems that prevent them from taking advantage of the benefits so offered. Only a collective action can bring a big change.
• It is thus a problem of Managing Agriculture by the agriculturists. With such large fragmented farm lands, economics of scale and consistency and quality produce is a casualty for sustained growth.
• Corporate sector has already entered the Agri arena. They look upon Government support to entrench into agri-business with greater investment and commitment. Their experiments so far have not borne the desired results. They suffer from scalability, consistency, quality due to inability of mass production, competition from their existing channel, problems with middlemen in the system, to cite a few.
• Corporate should be encouraged to undertake agriculture in large scale to reap the benefit of technology, economics of scale, high profitability. Overtime, they can plough back some allocation of profits to build rural infrastructure like godowns, schools, hospitals, and animal husbandry to grow healthy cattle. These can be at a cost to the public, like the AMUL model. They must take to this business just as a commercial activity and not as a social uplift programme.
• In doing the business of agriculture by using the lands of the farmers, the Corporate will not take away the land from the farmers but instead use their land for which they could pay a usage fee; partner with the farmer by issuing equity shares against the land engaged with the corporate, employ the farmers / his family members to work on the fields and pay wages, create non-farm activity that will absorb every human energy in the village to produce items of local consumption / marketable items; thus generate employment. Later after a full cycle of production in agriculture, reap the benefit by paying dividends, as equity stake holders in the company.
• Once this happens, peace and tranquility will dawn in villages, militancy will be eliminated and suicides will be history. It will foster oneness, harmony to build the rural environment that will unassailable.
• Farmers need to be assured that their lands will remain as liquid as ever and they could buy or sell lands as they did before even though the land is in use with the corporate, similar to equity shares held by individuals in a joint stock company listed in stock exchanges. It is suggested that the land documents are converted into dematerialised form that will be tamper proof. This will also provide assurance to the farmer, just as a share in dematerialised form assures a corporate investor. Such simplified form of transacting will infuse confidence in the mind of the farmers about the safety of their land. This is again very crucial for the success.
• The well known Professor of Management in the IIM Bangalore, fondly known as ‘bullock cart Ramaswamy’, has mentioned that “Bullocks used for ploughing and carting save the country 6 million tonnes of petroleum, valued at Rs. 20,000 crores [at 10year old prices]. By improving bullock carts and taking good care of livestock, 20 million additional jobs can be created and rural earnings would increase by Rs. 30,000 crores. The asset value of livestock sector to the economy forms 7 per cent of the GNP, but the plan allocation is only 0.3 per cent. If attention is paid to this sector, it would increase its output tremendously and solve off-season unemployment problems in rural areas" says, Professor Ramaswamy. Hence even after mechanisation, enough employment generation shall take place building farmers’ resources further. In addition to agriculture, non-farm activities will be kindled and these will additionally generate employment. The need to migrate to towns will fall appreciably.
• Government support will be essential in the form of assurance to the people that their lands will not be taken away from them by the corporate and that they will have all the legal rights as they have presently. Some strengthening of the legal system towards this area will be further helpful and confidence building. In addition the Government needs to act as a regulator such that no misuse of the farmer’s land takes place. This will supplement the level of comfort to the farmer besides, the Government acting as a watch dog. For doing this ‘service’ the Government will benefit enormously, as it shall be let-off of the burden of subsidizing the farming activity like withdrawing subsidies on fertilizer, power and any such doles the Government is making to this sector at much considerable strain on its own resources. With these saving the Government can usefully pay attention to other issues that it is concerned with.
• This idea is likely to contribute to a sustainable society in India can rebuild India as a stronger nation, both economically and commercially and will be unassailable.
• Economic growth of our country lays heavy reliance on agriculture.
• Agriculture contributes more than 20% to the GDP and generates 60% employment.
• About 180 million hectares of arable land is available. A wide variety of crops growing possibilities exist with the climatic condition that currently prevail.
• If agriculture cannot grow at 4% annually, it is said that the GDP growth at 8% and above cannot be achieved.
• Our agriculture suffers from many problems; consequently agriculturists face these squarely. They need alleviation fast.
• Our population is growing at 1.9% but the food production is behind at 1.5%. The productivity is also very low at less than a tonne of food grain to a hectare while China’s productivity is 4.71 tonne / hectare. This comparison is with 430mmt of food grains versus 222 mmt of food grain production in India.
• Though the Government’s initiatives for their uplift are comprehensive, they do not seem to benefit the farmers. This is because the farmer has to harness these initiatives individually; but they are deep down with misery and problems that prevent them from taking advantage of the benefits so offered. Only a collective action can bring a big change.
• It is thus a problem of Managing Agriculture by the agriculturists. With such large fragmented farm lands, economics of scale and consistency and quality produce is a casualty for sustained growth.
• Corporate sector has already entered the Agri arena. They look upon Government support to entrench into agri-business with greater investment and commitment. Their experiments so far have not borne the desired results. They suffer from scalability, consistency, quality due to inability of mass production, competition from their existing channel, problems with middlemen in the system, to cite a few.
• Corporate should be encouraged to undertake agriculture in large scale to reap the benefit of technology, economics of scale, high profitability. Overtime, they can plough back some allocation of profits to build rural infrastructure like godowns, schools, hospitals, and animal husbandry to grow healthy cattle. These can be at a cost to the public, like the AMUL model. They must take to this business just as a commercial activity and not as a social uplift programme.
• In doing the business of agriculture by using the lands of the farmers, the Corporate will not take away the land from the farmers but instead use their land for which they could pay a usage fee; partner with the farmer by issuing equity shares against the land engaged with the corporate, employ the farmers / his family members to work on the fields and pay wages, create non-farm activity that will absorb every human energy in the village to produce items of local consumption / marketable items; thus generate employment. Later after a full cycle of production in agriculture, reap the benefit by paying dividends, as equity stake holders in the company.
• Once this happens, peace and tranquility will dawn in villages, militancy will be eliminated and suicides will be history. It will foster oneness, harmony to build the rural environment that will unassailable.
• Farmers need to be assured that their lands will remain as liquid as ever and they could buy or sell lands as they did before even though the land is in use with the corporate, similar to equity shares held by individuals in a joint stock company listed in stock exchanges. It is suggested that the land documents are converted into dematerialised form that will be tamper proof. This will also provide assurance to the farmer, just as a share in dematerialised form assures a corporate investor. Such simplified form of transacting will infuse confidence in the mind of the farmers about the safety of their land. This is again very crucial for the success.
• The well known Professor of Management in the IIM Bangalore, fondly known as ‘bullock cart Ramaswamy’, has mentioned that “Bullocks used for ploughing and carting save the country 6 million tonnes of petroleum, valued at Rs. 20,000 crores [at 10year old prices]. By improving bullock carts and taking good care of livestock, 20 million additional jobs can be created and rural earnings would increase by Rs. 30,000 crores. The asset value of livestock sector to the economy forms 7 per cent of the GNP, but the plan allocation is only 0.3 per cent. If attention is paid to this sector, it would increase its output tremendously and solve off-season unemployment problems in rural areas" says, Professor Ramaswamy. Hence even after mechanisation, enough employment generation shall take place building farmers’ resources further. In addition to agriculture, non-farm activities will be kindled and these will additionally generate employment. The need to migrate to towns will fall appreciably.
• Government support will be essential in the form of assurance to the people that their lands will not be taken away from them by the corporate and that they will have all the legal rights as they have presently. Some strengthening of the legal system towards this area will be further helpful and confidence building. In addition the Government needs to act as a regulator such that no misuse of the farmer’s land takes place. This will supplement the level of comfort to the farmer besides, the Government acting as a watch dog. For doing this ‘service’ the Government will benefit enormously, as it shall be let-off of the burden of subsidizing the farming activity like withdrawing subsidies on fertilizer, power and any such doles the Government is making to this sector at much considerable strain on its own resources. With these saving the Government can usefully pay attention to other issues that it is concerned with.
• This idea is likely to contribute to a sustainable society in India can rebuild India as a stronger nation, both economically and commercially and will be unassailable.
Total Comments 2
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handsomeExcellent article,but the sad part is that these theory are not actually brought into practice,and as you say the big corporates in each state should take the lead,its not going to come from the government.The need to modernise old tools of agriculture is a very practical and realistic step with the dependence on electricity and fuel becoming very costly and farmers cannot hope to pay higher rates which does not justify the income that they generate.
I wish atleast a few corporates come forward and take the lead,it will really lead to a lot of prosperity and happiness in villages. |
 
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When we talk about the government, do not forget the 1946 plight of Kaira district farmers with their milk. 60 years down the line the nation knows this cooperative movement by the name AMUL standing at a sales figure of more than Rs. 22 billion.
This was not done resorting to traditional techniques, but adapting to the modern techniques. Moreover, rather than investing in bulls, invest in cows and buffaloes to produce milk. Milk is the largest agricultural produce of the country and with a high growth in the international context. We need to come together to revolutionize this sector once again and take dairy farming to new heights. Already the attack on this traditional Indian activity has begun from a few foreign companies in Gandhinagar. It is the time we resort to modernised and mechanised dairy farming. I have seen this sector very closely in the most developed dairying nations (not on the total production of milk but productivity of each milch animal) and I feel that if like minded people can come closer in India, we can bring about a revolution in this field. India Inc. will be able to produce 150 billion litres of milk in the next year as well with the existing resources. What needs attention is the quality of feed and the feeding practice we follow. Israelis do not have a magic wand or are not super humans. They only implement the proper techniques based on science sincerely. Do you know how many days is the lactation period of the milch animals in India (in practicality)? Guys continue this discussion and let's bring about a new modern and scientific culture of dairy farming in India. |
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