Mr. Arul Sekar P, Director - Water and Sustainability, Nansei Restoration LLP, Puducherry, discusses about agriculture economics and benefits of small scale agro machines.
Everyone of us would always want to bring back the real feel good factor when we see green spaces, villages, and freshness. Lot of developments have happened with introduction of technologies such as AI. We should ask ourselves how much we have developed our basic needs such as food and water. In India, about 55% of landmass is arable, 51% is rainfed. We often come across depleted water levels of ground water. The deep borewells bring in arsenic, fluoride, and contaminants in water due to the fertiliser and pesticide we use in the land. It is a well-known fact that only 10% of our landmass is suitable for farming. When we cultivate cotton, about 50% of pesticide is applied for the same. When we sow a seed with the right proportion of moisture and nutrition, we get thousands of seeds from that one seed. No other industry can give such an output. We use fertilisers which goes into the ecosystem, ground table, and it gets mixed in the water we drink. When we retain the soil health, we can improve the soil moisture. We cannot separate water and soil as they are interconnected, we cannot calculate how much production we will get, and how much water or fertiliser we should apply. Nature provides the ecosystem services with soil working, rain and moisture working, and we get the yield. We are not ready to work on it.
In a large economics, soil, and water, machinery comes in. When we take a simple farming village, we have to think where it stands, the challenges, nutrition supply which has to come from soil, reducing toxicity which will help in soil health, and we have to get the job done by the soil. Next is loss of farmers at the farm level, village level, and panchayat level. Decades ago, we had best entrepreneurs and researchers in farmers. They worked under most instable conditions, and yet they managed it all. The major challenge in the agriculture system now is farmers get the same price for the product that they got about 20 years ago. The ecosystem change is about 30 years down the lane. There is labour shortage now, the physical ability of the humans has come down, health conditions and other things due to fast food habit and so on. Even in villages people are not helping, and non-favourable policies from the government also pose challenge. Government prioritises consumers than the producers. So the ecosystem at the farms are at the receiving end.
To reinforce soil is fundamental now. Though people may say they will do aquaponics or hydroponics, we need transition. We should calculate properly about the cost of the change management transition. The small machinery is vital now as we are at the junction where the country has to move forward. The farmers have labour shortage, payment issues, and all these problems arise because farming is not profitable now. We can continue to follow the model or large machinery or choose the different paradigm of farming. Here comes the option of small machinery where the CAPEX is small, small farmers can buy them. Big landlords can buy large machinery and rent them out to small farmers for money as they also have to get profit. But the small machinery has the advantage of local manufacturing jobs, and machinery manufacturing need not be done in large factories but even locally. For small tasks like weeding, the farmer can get the machine to do the de-weeding. It will help in not using weedicide, availability of non-toxic food, and the machine can add to the value addition of farm produce and fetch increased farm gate price to help the farmers.
We have a 6 point agenda to make farming more resilient. Water sustainability to help take water from within 40 to 50 feet depth, as it will help in power saving and environmental cost. Next is soil restoration and productivity which are very crucial. Small machinery, quality seeds, and farm gate price have to increase to help farmers do anything at all. There are community mobilisation, ground water restoration, village water management, overall rural ecosystem, soil and non-pesticide farming that need immediate attention. We have to revive the traditional water system to ensure water is properly channelised and infrastructure available to do this. There are many technologies that can help in ground water mapping to move in a positive direction. The other option is to see if we have decentralised model promoted in India as a cultural farming practice. Some economists feel that amalgamation of small farms, hundreds and thousands of acres of land as a single unit of farming, is viable as in Europe and American kind of situations. But we should not give into that theory without doing anything on the ground as we have vast knowledge, human resource engineering, IT, satellite data system, AI, and many. We have to use them to move forward as a nation, ecosystem, and society.
We are working on water restoration using the latest technologies. We have used technology based water restoration using ground water mapping and satellite data. Our objective is to reduce overall pesticides with technology. Emerging value chain with automation, simple labour, seed, water, equipment, data analytics, satellite data, drone based data, and robots we have to accept with a clear vision and move forward. We cannot go for amalgamation of lands as our landholdings are small, systems are different, and ecosystem is different. Reports have pointed out that a long term water sustainability is needed for humanity to survive. Many innovations are happening in India in small machinery industry. We have small weed remover in the model of a bike. Sukoon Electrics have come up with small machinery, solar dryers, and groundnut thrashers. We have other equipment for sugarcane, paddy, and other major crops. The small machinery can help in value addition such as cotton from the field that can be spun to make garments. This increses the income of the farmers manifold. I want to emphasise that we need to get back to our culture roots, take steps in the right direction towards using, adapting, and creating technologies to improve our wisdom, help in ecosystem to flourish, and humans to eat good food.
How do economies of scale in …. Agriculture production? What are the key factors influencing the profitability of small scale farming?
When we invest some amount in a rainfed crop, our returns is usually meagre. When we grow cash crops, the investment will be slightly higher, but the income is high depending on the price. If it is a well-maintained area, good water, the returns from cash crop is more. We cannot force farmers to use large machinery as it will need a lot of money to be paid to the big landlords who rent out the machinery. But, if the government can come up with the policy to make small machinery available for the small farmers, they will be benefited as their profit will not be eroded much. We can also increase the farm gate price to solve many issues. The farmers in Europe or USA are not profited if the subsidies are removed, and they do not amalgamate the farms. In a short term basis, FPOs can help to procure small machineries and rent them out within the group so that they do not pay the extra cost of using the large machinery which are however not needed for small landholdings. Such groups have to plan the farm activities so that everyone is benefited. Next is the farm gate prices. The government has to fix the minimum support price. When the government cuts down exports and price of farm inputs go up, there is no justice in opposing MSP for the farmers. We should not fall into the trap of following Western models. Cultivation of millets that can be done with minimal resources to increase the procurement. The next thing is soil which is critical. We are losing soil, vision, health, and 90% of the soil where we are doing farming is not a good healthy soil. So unless we reverse this, we cannot improve.
How does agriculture mechanisation contribute to increased productivity? What are the advantages of using small scale agro machineries in farming operations?
Productivity can be put into 3 slabs. One is mechanisation which can help in improving the soil health. We can reduce the use of pesticide and fertilisers, it will help remove the toxic elements from the soil that are detrimental to the soil and microorganisms. Soil health is retained by using small machinery. Next is the process of automation. We should have other options to handle this loss of jobs in villages. We can use small farm machineries to reduce farming cost. Next is the post production loss which is considerable. So we should aim at reducing the postharvest loss. Adoption of machinery will help in these areas and increase productivity. Since the cost of labour is high, adoption of such machinery will benefit. It will also mitigate use of pesticide, weedicide, and herbicide. If the machinery are rightly adopted, we can reduce the use of these which will improve the soil health to bring in more productivity. The small machinery ecosystem has to be followed by society, community, and government where the small machinery can be produced in the rural areas. About 1 million people are moving out of villages due to lack of job opportunities. We cannot be stuffing cities and towns with more industries and population. So, we have to create rural employment, and if the farm machinery industries can be set up with the help of economists and entrepreneurs, and government policies, there is a possibility to have open source designs. Small workshops and industries can be set up in rural areas to cater to the local needs. This will be a paradigm shift, and even if we attempt to have small machinery set up in rural areas offering machinery at affordable cost, it will benefit many.
What role do small agro machines play in reducing labour intensity on farms? How can small scale farmers access and afford modern Agri equipment? What are the benefits of integrating technology into small scale agriculture?
From paddy sowing, de-weeding, spraying, harvesting, and postharvest management, we are seeing drastic changes. More companies and people are getting into farm automation, data analytics, to help farmers get advantage. The FPOs can enable all these, but the design ecosystem is not there yet. The government has to act with the kind of policies that it has which can determine the exports, imports, and the income of the farmers for their produce. A small percentage of what the government is spending for fertiliser budget can be allotted to the small farm machinery to enable a different kind of ecosystem. Many farmers are facing problems for even sowing as they have to borrow from financial institutions with interest rates. Asking farmers to invest on farm machinery would not be a great proposition. Here, FPOs, government, design ecosystems can really pitch in to enable this major blocker for their benefits. Technology is great, but where are we going to use them? The water we drink is toxic due to the pesticides and fertilisers we use that pollute the water source. So, the food that we eat is also toxic, but nobody thinks they can do anything about it. Technology is going to be the deciding factor in the future, and so we have either to follow our culture for a strong position or follow what is happening in Western countries. Everyone has to put in their hands to enable this. Many technologies are coming in now, but farmers will not easily accept them if they are not viable for them. They know by using fertilisers and pesticide, the food gets toxic, and that is why they use a small area to grow for their own house usage.
How can small agro machines contribute to sustainable farming practices? What are the challenges faced by small scale farmers in adopting modern Agri technologies? How can government support small scale agro machines among farmers?
Reduction of pesticide or weedicide or herbicide usage has to be adopted as these are the major killers of the local ecosystem and sustainability. We are unable to see the small insects and diversity of such insects in the fields nowadays which indicates the ecological health of the fields. We are losing our pollinators quickly, and in some places people have to do the pollination manually. We are going through insect apocalypse where a lot of insects are getting eradicated. Small machinery can help in making farming more sustainable and ensure that it will not affect farmers and people. For small scale farms, technology such as drones, satellites etc can be viable. We have had issues in getting the essential services such as electricity. We should ensure that rural areas get the urban amenities. SaaS model, where we pay for the usage, is being worked on by companies. The technologies should be offered to the farmers at as-per-use models so that it is not a burden for them. There has to be innovation or common rural innovation by setting up innovation centre for farms in every block. We have had discussions on how to enable compatible designs. The government should facilitate innovation centres to bring in the entrepreneurs and innovators to come up with open designs to enable the small machinery culture. They can also offer a scheme where FPO or a small farmer can avail 30% subsidy for a small machinery. We have to think beyond and go further to enable the ecosystem, and government is the right machinery to do this.
Everyone of us would always want to bring back the real feel good factor when we see green spaces, villages, and freshness. Lot of developments have happened with introduction of technologies such as AI. We should ask ourselves how much we have developed our basic needs such as food and water. In India, about 55% of landmass is arable, 51% is rainfed. We often come across depleted water levels of ground water. The deep borewells bring in arsenic, fluoride, and contaminants in water due to the fertiliser and pesticide we use in the land. It is a well-known fact that only 10% of our landmass is suitable for farming. When we cultivate cotton, about 50% of pesticide is applied for the same. When we sow a seed with the right proportion of moisture and nutrition, we get thousands of seeds from that one seed. No other industry can give such an output. We use fertilisers which goes into the ecosystem, ground table, and it gets mixed in the water we drink. When we retain the soil health, we can improve the soil moisture. We cannot separate water and soil as they are interconnected, we cannot calculate how much production we will get, and how much water or fertiliser we should apply. Nature provides the ecosystem services with soil working, rain and moisture working, and we get the yield. We are not ready to work on it.
In a large economics, soil, and water, machinery comes in. When we take a simple farming village, we have to think where it stands, the challenges, nutrition supply which has to come from soil, reducing toxicity which will help in soil health, and we have to get the job done by the soil. Next is loss of farmers at the farm level, village level, and panchayat level. Decades ago, we had best entrepreneurs and researchers in farmers. They worked under most instable conditions, and yet they managed it all. The major challenge in the agriculture system now is farmers get the same price for the product that they got about 20 years ago. The ecosystem change is about 30 years down the lane. There is labour shortage now, the physical ability of the humans has come down, health conditions and other things due to fast food habit and so on. Even in villages people are not helping, and non-favourable policies from the government also pose challenge. Government prioritises consumers than the producers. So the ecosystem at the farms are at the receiving end.
To reinforce soil is fundamental now. Though people may say they will do aquaponics or hydroponics, we need transition. We should calculate properly about the cost of the change management transition. The small machinery is vital now as we are at the junction where the country has to move forward. The farmers have labour shortage, payment issues, and all these problems arise because farming is not profitable now. We can continue to follow the model or large machinery or choose the different paradigm of farming. Here comes the option of small machinery where the CAPEX is small, small farmers can buy them. Big landlords can buy large machinery and rent them out to small farmers for money as they also have to get profit. But the small machinery has the advantage of local manufacturing jobs, and machinery manufacturing need not be done in large factories but even locally. For small tasks like weeding, the farmer can get the machine to do the de-weeding. It will help in not using weedicide, availability of non-toxic food, and the machine can add to the value addition of farm produce and fetch increased farm gate price to help the farmers.
We have a 6 point agenda to make farming more resilient. Water sustainability to help take water from within 40 to 50 feet depth, as it will help in power saving and environmental cost. Next is soil restoration and productivity which are very crucial. Small machinery, quality seeds, and farm gate price have to increase to help farmers do anything at all. There are community mobilisation, ground water restoration, village water management, overall rural ecosystem, soil and non-pesticide farming that need immediate attention. We have to revive the traditional water system to ensure water is properly channelised and infrastructure available to do this. There are many technologies that can help in ground water mapping to move in a positive direction. The other option is to see if we have decentralised model promoted in India as a cultural farming practice. Some economists feel that amalgamation of small farms, hundreds and thousands of acres of land as a single unit of farming, is viable as in Europe and American kind of situations. But we should not give into that theory without doing anything on the ground as we have vast knowledge, human resource engineering, IT, satellite data system, AI, and many. We have to use them to move forward as a nation, ecosystem, and society.
We are working on water restoration using the latest technologies. We have used technology based water restoration using ground water mapping and satellite data. Our objective is to reduce overall pesticides with technology. Emerging value chain with automation, simple labour, seed, water, equipment, data analytics, satellite data, drone based data, and robots we have to accept with a clear vision and move forward. We cannot go for amalgamation of lands as our landholdings are small, systems are different, and ecosystem is different. Reports have pointed out that a long term water sustainability is needed for humanity to survive. Many innovations are happening in India in small machinery industry. We have small weed remover in the model of a bike. Sukoon Electrics have come up with small machinery, solar dryers, and groundnut thrashers. We have other equipment for sugarcane, paddy, and other major crops. The small machinery can help in value addition such as cotton from the field that can be spun to make garments. This increses the income of the farmers manifold. I want to emphasise that we need to get back to our culture roots, take steps in the right direction towards using, adapting, and creating technologies to improve our wisdom, help in ecosystem to flourish, and humans to eat good food.
How do economies of scale in …. Agriculture production? What are the key factors influencing the profitability of small scale farming?
When we invest some amount in a rainfed crop, our returns is usually meagre. When we grow cash crops, the investment will be slightly higher, but the income is high depending on the price. If it is a well-maintained area, good water, the returns from cash crop is more. We cannot force farmers to use large machinery as it will need a lot of money to be paid to the big landlords who rent out the machinery. But, if the government can come up with the policy to make small machinery available for the small farmers, they will be benefited as their profit will not be eroded much. We can also increase the farm gate price to solve many issues. The farmers in Europe or USA are not profited if the subsidies are removed, and they do not amalgamate the farms. In a short term basis, FPOs can help to procure small machineries and rent them out within the group so that they do not pay the extra cost of using the large machinery which are however not needed for small landholdings. Such groups have to plan the farm activities so that everyone is benefited. Next is the farm gate prices. The government has to fix the minimum support price. When the government cuts down exports and price of farm inputs go up, there is no justice in opposing MSP for the farmers. We should not fall into the trap of following Western models. Cultivation of millets that can be done with minimal resources to increase the procurement. The next thing is soil which is critical. We are losing soil, vision, health, and 90% of the soil where we are doing farming is not a good healthy soil. So unless we reverse this, we cannot improve.
How does agriculture mechanisation contribute to increased productivity? What are the advantages of using small scale agro machineries in farming operations?
Productivity can be put into 3 slabs. One is mechanisation which can help in improving the soil health. We can reduce the use of pesticide and fertilisers, it will help remove the toxic elements from the soil that are detrimental to the soil and microorganisms. Soil health is retained by using small machinery. Next is the process of automation. We should have other options to handle this loss of jobs in villages. We can use small farm machineries to reduce farming cost. Next is the post production loss which is considerable. So we should aim at reducing the postharvest loss. Adoption of machinery will help in these areas and increase productivity. Since the cost of labour is high, adoption of such machinery will benefit. It will also mitigate use of pesticide, weedicide, and herbicide. If the machinery are rightly adopted, we can reduce the use of these which will improve the soil health to bring in more productivity. The small machinery ecosystem has to be followed by society, community, and government where the small machinery can be produced in the rural areas. About 1 million people are moving out of villages due to lack of job opportunities. We cannot be stuffing cities and towns with more industries and population. So, we have to create rural employment, and if the farm machinery industries can be set up with the help of economists and entrepreneurs, and government policies, there is a possibility to have open source designs. Small workshops and industries can be set up in rural areas to cater to the local needs. This will be a paradigm shift, and even if we attempt to have small machinery set up in rural areas offering machinery at affordable cost, it will benefit many.
What role do small agro machines play in reducing labour intensity on farms? How can small scale farmers access and afford modern Agri equipment? What are the benefits of integrating technology into small scale agriculture?
From paddy sowing, de-weeding, spraying, harvesting, and postharvest management, we are seeing drastic changes. More companies and people are getting into farm automation, data analytics, to help farmers get advantage. The FPOs can enable all these, but the design ecosystem is not there yet. The government has to act with the kind of policies that it has which can determine the exports, imports, and the income of the farmers for their produce. A small percentage of what the government is spending for fertiliser budget can be allotted to the small farm machinery to enable a different kind of ecosystem. Many farmers are facing problems for even sowing as they have to borrow from financial institutions with interest rates. Asking farmers to invest on farm machinery would not be a great proposition. Here, FPOs, government, design ecosystems can really pitch in to enable this major blocker for their benefits. Technology is great, but where are we going to use them? The water we drink is toxic due to the pesticides and fertilisers we use that pollute the water source. So, the food that we eat is also toxic, but nobody thinks they can do anything about it. Technology is going to be the deciding factor in the future, and so we have either to follow our culture for a strong position or follow what is happening in Western countries. Everyone has to put in their hands to enable this. Many technologies are coming in now, but farmers will not easily accept them if they are not viable for them. They know by using fertilisers and pesticide, the food gets toxic, and that is why they use a small area to grow for their own house usage.
How can small agro machines contribute to sustainable farming practices? What are the challenges faced by small scale farmers in adopting modern Agri technologies? How can government support small scale agro machines among farmers?
Reduction of pesticide or weedicide or herbicide usage has to be adopted as these are the major killers of the local ecosystem and sustainability. We are unable to see the small insects and diversity of such insects in the fields nowadays which indicates the ecological health of the fields. We are losing our pollinators quickly, and in some places people have to do the pollination manually. We are going through insect apocalypse where a lot of insects are getting eradicated. Small machinery can help in making farming more sustainable and ensure that it will not affect farmers and people. For small scale farms, technology such as drones, satellites etc can be viable. We have had issues in getting the essential services such as electricity. We should ensure that rural areas get the urban amenities. SaaS model, where we pay for the usage, is being worked on by companies. The technologies should be offered to the farmers at as-per-use models so that it is not a burden for them. There has to be innovation or common rural innovation by setting up innovation centre for farms in every block. We have had discussions on how to enable compatible designs. The government should facilitate innovation centres to bring in the entrepreneurs and innovators to come up with open designs to enable the small machinery culture. They can also offer a scheme where FPO or a small farmer can avail 30% subsidy for a small machinery. We have to think beyond and go further to enable the ecosystem, and government is the right machinery to do this.