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Saving rural livelihoods & strengthening food security

Jacques Diouf, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made two timely and significant statements last week. Dr. Diouf delivered a wake-up call by pointing out that “the world food situation is very serious today with food riots reported from many countries like Egypt, Cameroon, Haiti, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Bangladesh; the world has just about enough cereal stocks to feed the global population for two to three months.” Global food prices are rising steeply and there is no immediate respite in sight. India had a wheat stock of 5.8 million tonnes on April 1, 2008, against the buffer norm of 4 million tonnes. One million tonne of wheat is sufficient to feed 5 million to 6 million people for a year, if they are mainly vegetarian. In other words, we have a wheat reserve adequate to feed about 30 million persons for a year. Our population is now over 1100 million.

Addressing the Global Agro-industries Forum, Dr. Singh said, “Collectivisation, corporatisation and land consolidation through land alienation are neither possible nor socially desirable.” By making this point, he has tried to highlight that agriculture in India is not just a food producing machine but is the backbone of the livelihood security system for nearly two-thirds of our population. Those who are advising small farmers to sell their land and quit farming ignore the grim reality that such a step would add nearly 50 crore of people to the landless labour category with disastrous social consequences.

In contrast, a small farm management revolution, as in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (China), will lead simultaneously to work and income security in rural areas and national food security. No further time should therefore be lost in bringing about such a small farm management and productivity revolution, through mutually reinforcing packages of technology, services and public policies.

The management revolution should aim at conferring the economy and power of scale to farmers with marginal and small holdings through the provision of key centralised services to support efficient decentralised production as has happened in the case of Dairy Cooperatives. In this manner, the advantages of both “mass production” and “production by masses” technologies can be combined.

The Government of India has initiated numerous programmes such as the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (Rs.25,000 crore), the Food Security Mission (about Rs.5,000 crore), and the Horticulture Mission (about Rs.20,000 crore) to stimulate agricultural growth and safeguard food security. These are vertically structured programmes lacking a horizontal dimension designed to achieve convergence and synergy in the use of land, water, labour and capital. This is why there is a growing outlay-outcome gap. The cost of inaction or lack of coordinated action during the coming agricultural year (June 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009) will be high. Inflation cannot be curtailed, malnutrition will increase further, unemployment will become alarming and social unrest will spread. We cannot even revert to a ship to mouth existence now since global surplus stocks are dwindling and prices are skyrocketing.

Every calamity also presents an opportunity. The food crisis of the early 1960s gave birth to the green revolution. A similar atmosphere is prevailing now, with political, public, professional and media attention focussing on the future of farmers and farming. The time is therefore opportune for adopting a “we shall overcome” mindset and launching an evergreen revolution designed to enhance productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm. I suggest that the Government of India designate the agriculture year of 2008-09 as the Year of the Farmer, and initiate immediate action on the following lines.

First, we should take advantage of the vast untapped yield reservoir existing in rainfed areas. The available data show that the productivity of kharif sorghum can be increased 3 to 4 times, rabi sorghum 1.4 to 2.3 times and bajra 1.8 to 2.3 times from their current level of productivity. Similarly, the productivity of pulses and oilseeds can be increased 2.3 to 2.5 times, through attention to seeds, soil health, pest management, crop life saving irrigation and post-harvest technology. Supplemental irrigation based on rain water harvesting will help to increase yields further. Such an integrated rain water harvesting, more crop and income per drop of water agronomy, and assured and remunerative marketing arrangements will help to bridge the prevailing gap between potential and actual yields during the kharif season beginning in June 2008. “Bridging the Yield Gap” movement will be the most effective method of checking price rise and inflation.

A second area needing immediate attention and action relates to improving the productivity of wheat, rice, pulses and oilseeds in the Indo-Gangetic plains and eastern India, particularly in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. In most of these areas, water management and not water availability is the major constraint in productivity improvement. Gram sabhas can be involved in both command area management and efficient water use. At the same time, a contingency “beyond the floods” action plan should be kept ready, since the Indo-Gangetic and Brahmaputra plains are likely to face hereafter even more serious floods than normal due to the impact of climate change. Seed reserves of alternative crops are essential for crop security, in the same way as grain reserves are important for food security.

Soil healthcare and enhancement can be achieved through concurrent attention to the physics, chemistry and microbiology of the soil. In Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and several parts of eastern India, there is scope for converting single crop land into double crop land through the use of a appropriate implements and the adoption of an integrated rainwater harvesting and groundwater use strategy. Crop-livestock integrated farming systems will facilitate the widespread installation of biogas plants designed to provide fuel for the household and fertilizer for the field. Eastern India is a sleeping giant in the area of agricultural opportunity and we are fortunate to have such a vast untapped production reservoir to meet current and future food needs. Bihar is showing the way to agricultural progress by taking effective steps to bridge the yield gap and by declaring 2008 as the Year of Agriculture.

A third area which is crying for attention is the promotion of conservation farming in the heartland of the green revolution, namely Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Most of the food grains for the PDS come from this region and it is in the national interest that the ecological and economic problems confronting the farmers of this region are addressed speedily. Ecological security should be the bottom line of agricultural development programmes in all intensively farmed areas, such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Farmers in such regions should be enabled to switch to conservation farming, by extending support of the kind the U.S. government provides under its Farm Bill.

Fourthly, the four crore farmers who will be rescued from the debt trap as a result of loan waiver will have to be helped immediately to derive benefit from the numerous well-funded schemes of the Government of India. Every farm family can be given an Entitlements Passbook which will provide information on how to access the relevant provisions of these schemes. Unless timely support is given, the farmers covered under the loan waiver scheme will again get indebted. On the other hand, if such farmers are helped to produce even 5 additional quintals of grain per hectare, the nation will benefit to the extent of 20 million tonnes of additional food grains.

Finally, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme has been extended to all the districts of the country from April 1. This powerful social safety net scheme can also become an effective guardian of ecological and food security, provided priority in labour use is given to soil conservation, rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharge, farm pond and rural godown construction, watershed management and restoration of degraded common property resources. Concurrently, steps will have to be taken through gram sabhas for using the harvested water effectively and equitably. Unless there is equity in water sharing, there will be no cooperation in water saving.

For implementing the above action plan, it will be necessary to constitute a Technical Support Consortium in every district with the help of all the agencies concerned, like Agricultural and Animal Sciences Universities and ICAR institutions, public and private sector R&D institutions, women’s and rural universities, Home Science colleges, Mass Media and relevant government departments and financial institutions. The Technical Support Consortium can assist gram panchayats in implementing NREGA in a meaningful manner, promoting Jal Swaraj at the village level and enhancing the productivity and profitability of small farms through fostering group endeavour in water management, plant protection, livestock development and safe storage and profitable marketing of farm products. An effective mechanism for implementing the minimum support price announced for a wide range of crops should be developed, particularly in dry farming areas. The support consortium should be gender sensitive and pay attention to the technological and skill empowerment of women farmers, whose numbers are growing fast.

Social engineering through elected local bodies is as important as technology and inputs in achieving a small farm productivity and profitability revolution. The National Commission on Farmers recommended two years ago a “pan-political” approach to food security, guided and nurtured by a Food Security Board chaired by the Prime Minister and consisting of senior representatives of all political parties, the relevant Ministers of the Government of India and the Chief Ministers of food surplus and food deficit States. It is time a pan-political system of safeguarding food security and sovereignty came into existence.

(Professor M.S. Swaminathan is Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), and former Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers.)

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