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| Agriculture: Moving beyond production | | |
Dr. Parveen Kumar
Agriculture production in the country has witnessed a record production in last few years. The food grains production has touched 300 MT, the horticulture production has exceeded the food grains production, milk production is at an all time high and today the country is leading producer of many commodities and also an exporter of such commodities. The record of huge food grains production is evident from recent Corona pandemic when food grains along with pulses were distributed free of cost among the peoples in the country consecutively for many months. The production in the country has now even surpassed our storage capacity and in the absence of proper storage facilities, reports regularly come out that food grains worth crores of rupees get spoiled. The excess production has also an effect on the price of that commodity. More the supply, lesser the demand and consequently lesser the market price of the commodity. Sometimes the prices fall so down that farmers’ had to go for distress selling. In many instances farmers destroys his crops in the fields as the conveyance charges of taking the commodity to the market exceed the total cost of the produce.
When the country attained independence, there was a situation of food scarcity. To overcome food scarcity and to ensure food security for all, all the thrust was on increasing production and productivity. The Green revolution of the 1960s played a pivotal role in making the country self dependent. Now that the country has attained self sufficiency in food grains production, it is high time to our agriculture to the next level i. e to move beyond production. Now, the need is to focus on marketing, post harvest processing and value addition, insurance, diversification to high value crops, credit accessibility, farmers’ mobilization, natural resources conservation and management, prevention of biodiversity loss and nutritional security for all. The food processing and value addition in the country is very less. Infact food processing and value addition are the sunrise sectors in agriculture and allied sectors. Hon’ble Prime Minister of the country Mr. Narendra Modi called for a food processing revolution while calling for the need to expand agriculture and give such options to farmers in which they are not limited to growing wheat and rice. PM called for trying organic food and salad-related vegetables and to give such options to farmers in which they are not limited to growing wheat and rice.
While addressing a webinar recently on implementation of budget in agriculture sector, PM said India of 21st century needs post-harvest or food processing revolution and value addition amid increasing agriculture production. Today, we have to focus most on processing in every sector of agriculture, every food, every vegetable, fruit, fisheries and all. Farmers should get modern storage facilities near their village.
Marketing is another aspect which needs to be looked into effectively. Although the government has introduced many marketing reforms yet the situation at the ground level has not changed much. Government announces Minimum Support Prices for different crops, but most of the farmers have no knowledge about MSP and even sell at below the MSP getting exploited by the middlemen and commission agents who charge huge commissions on their hard earned money. The remedy to this lies in the timely procurement by government agencies like FCI, NAFED and others. The government should come up with procurement centers at the Panchayat level where the farmers could sell their produce at Minimum Support Price announced by the government. In this way the farmers will get remunerative price of their produce and will also be saved from the middlemen. Access to credit is also still a distant dream for the farming community. The government has also done much in this regard but still a lot need to be done. Diversification to high value crops is also the need of the hour. The traditional wheat-paddy or wheat-maize cropping patterns need to be replaced with high value crops like fruits and vegetables. We have seen in Punjab how the traditional wheat and paddy sequence has depleted the ground water resources of that region. Punjab is also now on the way to diversification.
Crop insurance has also not achieved the desired results. As Indian agriculture is a gamble of monsoons, crop insurance is must. As for as farmers mobilization is concerned, these still are a static entities practicing subsistence agriculture with majority of them having not availed any help or assistance under different government schemes. Farming communities need to be mobilized by organizing them under different farmer interest groups, commodity interest groups, and self help groups. The formation of groups makes them dynamic entities where they can bargain collectively for their produce ultimately leading to their empowerment. There are numerous examples when women folk working in groups have led to their social and economic empowerment. As a result of the continuous use of chemicals in agriculture and misuse of our natural resources; our natural resources like soil, water, air have been degraded. There is an urgent need to propagate and practice such practices which restore our natural resources and do not compromise with the future generations. Although we have achieved food security for all, yet nutritional security is a matter of concern in the country. Reports after reports cite the growing incidence of hunger, malnutrition, stunting and wasting in our children. This calls for nutritional security. Nutritional security has to be promoted by kitchen gardening, bio fortification of crops, rural backyard poultry, Integrated Child Development Centers (ICDS). Due to our wrong practices, biodiversity loss has been going on continuously. We should also ensure that the loss to biodiversity is minimized to the possible extent. For this we should not interfere with the natural habitats and habits of the living organisims. The green revolution of the sixties was based on chemical led agriculture, but now time calls for an evergreen revolution based on sustainable use of natural resources, recycling of the waste products and a revolution that is borne out of self reliance. |
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