The agricultural sector is the backbone of the Indian economy as it covers nearly 50% of available land for agricultural activities and provides employment to about 62% of the working population of the country and contributes about 341% to National GDP. But, the irony is our backbone is crumbling and the hands which works tirelessly for feeding us, are bleeding!
Their hue and cries are falling flat on the deaf ears and our farmers are forced to commit suicide. What is it that we are doing to protect our farmers? The time, today demands not just a change, but an aggressive revolution to enhance the life of our farmers and boost the growth of the agriculture sector.
For this to happen, we must all pledge to be the part of this revolution, we can’t afford to rely on the government alone, this time we must ensure the change do happen. Let’s come together for a cause that needs us and our voice. After all, its My India, My Vote, it must count and it will count.
We are presenting our list while we are open to any suggestions from our readers, policy makers and experts:
Increase investment to realize the agricultural growth prospects: Over 60% of Indians country's GDP comes from agriculture. Obviously, there are lots of dependencies on agriculture sector. Due to overburdening,over nine million people have left farming in the past decade. But agriculture is essential to feed the population. Hence it needs rejuvenation. The primary task is to increase investment in agriculture from both public and private, to realize the untapped irrigation potential, catalyze scientific research and link producers with consumers.
Aid to farmers to increase productivity: The policy must aid to farmers to enhance of productivity of food grains as well as vegetables and other cash crops, which lag behind international benchmarks. In paddy, for instance, India's average yield of 3.6 tonnes per hectare is not only less than half the United States' yield of 8.4 tonnes per hectare, but compares inadequately even with China's 6.7 or Vietnam's 5.6. As part of this effort, we must strengthen Agri-extension services to deliver new technologies to farmers.
Bridge the gap between farmers and the Markets: Enabling farmers to produce more won't suffice, if they don't connect to the markets and are unable to fetch a good price for their produce. Hence, we must develop agricultural markets with deep linkages with small producers, including transport infrastructure, as well as infrastructure for storage and warehousing, including cold chains. The government must also ensure remunerative prices to farmers and competitive wages for agricultural laborers.
Make Crop Insurance, reliable and guaranteed: The crop insurance is another step to protect the farmers against losses caused by crop failure on account of natural calamities like drought, flood, hailstorm, cyclone, fire, diseases, etc.. But, we must ensure this help reaches the needy, as of now the process is very cumbersome and there are lots of loopholes that need to be taken care of.
Introduce Remunerative Price to maintain food security and enhance income:
The fundamental objective of the Indian government’s price policy is to protect both producers and consumers. Currently, food security system and price policy consist of three instruments: procurement prices/ minimum support prices, buffer stocks and public distribution system (PDS).
There is a need to provide remunerative prices for farmers to maintain food security and enhance the incomes of farmers. There has been a debate on price vs. non-price factors. In our view both price and non-price factors are important in raising agricultural production.
Irrigation and Water Management: Our agriculture largely depends upon monsoons for irrigation facilities. Development of irrigation and water management are crucial for raising levels of living in rural areas. Major areas of concern in irrigation are: slump in real investment, a thin spread of investment, low recovery of costs, reduction in water table, wastages and inefficiencies in water use and, non-involvement of users.
Both investment and efficiency in the use of water are needed. Major areas of reforms needed in irrigation are: stepping up and prioritizing public investment, raising the profitability of groundwater exploitation and augmenting ground water resources, rational pricing of irrigation water and electricity, involvement of farmers in the management of irrigation systems and, making groundwater markets equitable.
Reduction in Subsidies and increasing Investments: One major reform needed in agriculture sector relates to a reduction in subsidies and an increase in investments. Agricultural subsidies are fiscally unsustainable and encourage misuse of resources, leading to environmentally malignant developments.
Research and Technology Gap: Research & Technology plays an important role in improving the production of the crops.. The National Commission on Farmers indicates that there is a large knowledge gap between the yields in research stations and actual yields in farmers’ fields; the yield gaps given by the Planning Commission range from 5% to 300%, depending on the crop and the state. It’s high time the gap between latest technological advancements & research be reduced and the farmers are equipped with modern know-hows.
Credit: According to the expert group on Financial Inclusion, only 27% of farmers have access to institutional credit. Though, some improvements have been seen in this regard, there is still lots to be done. The government needs to be sensitive to the four distributional aspects of agricultural credit. These are: (a) not much improvement in the share of small and marginal farmers; (b) decline in credit-deposit (CD) ratios of rural and semi-urban branches; (c) increase in the share of indirect credit in total agricultural credit and; (d) significant regional inequalities in credit.
Diversify to Hi-value Agriculture and Marketing: There has been a diversification of Indian diets away from food grains to high value products like milk and meat products and vegetables and fruits. Since risk is high for diversification, necessary support in infrastructure and marketing are needed. Price policy should also encourage diversification. The government must have a second Green Revolution by diversifying agriculture in crop sector and allied activities. The real benefit of diversification can be seen only, if more emphasis is given to allied activities like animal husbandry and fisheries. The livestock sector contributes 5.4% to GDP and 22.7% to total output from the agriculture sector. Ownership of livestock is more equitable than that of land and women play a significant role in animal husbandry.
Combating the emerging challenge of abrupt Climatic Change: The Vast majority of population depend on climatic sensitive sectors like agriculture, forestry and fishery for livelihood in the country. The adverse impact of climate change in the form of declining rainfall and rising temperatures and thus increased severity of drought and flooding, would threaten food security and livelihood in the economy. The support systems and policy changes have to support in raising productivity and incomes of the small and marginal farmers.
These are the concerns which we could think of, and we know there are many other concerns that we might have missed out but would like our readers to contribute in.
We, at INNLive believe we must come together for the cause of revolutionizing the agriculture sector and witness another session of the Green Revolution.We conclude by saying that, The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the farmer to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves. It’s now or never,Let’s Empower our farmer!
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