Who believes the Central government when it says it can reform agriculture? Agriculture reforms is much tougher, it seems, than we imagined, to be a much more a high priority of the economic reforms. Even in economic reforms we don’t see any unity of thinking within the Cabinet. What the PM says is one thing; what the Kitchen cabinet says is another thing? Power Centers have extremely divergent views when it comes to reforms.
The farmer’s suicides continue unabated even the Debt Write-off has not helped the Farmers. Farmers suffer silently.
Few years back I had the opportunity to speak at leisure with late CK.Prahalad in Coimbatore. He said: “I think agriculture is not going to be reformed through agricultural policies. It is through large investments made by the retailers in their supply chains and could be a more effective solution to the sector’s problems than government policies” He gave me an example of Amul how it gave Farmers fair price for their milk. He said if we can recreate the Amul system everywhere then there is every possibility that Agri will grow at 6-7% annually.
“The amazing thing for me is Amul has 2.2 million farmers and processes 7 million kilograms of milk a day. It is the largest in the world. But most farmers have two or three buffaloes. And we look at that and we just don’t think that is a model to scale up in agriculture”.
The ideas of the government just don’t gel with the ground level reality. Government thinks loan write-off every few years and free power will keep the farmers happy and thinks that is the agriculture reform.
The reality is rural India does not want free power and loan write-offs. The Farmers in many states in India are realizing/realized that free power is doing more harm than good to them. They want 18 hours of good and reliable power and new technology in agriculture. Farmers know a lot about Israeli farming irrigation and farming technique but the Govt of Indian’s foreign policy of not having cozy relationship with Israel to keep a particular community is not helping the Indian farmers. The farmers want agriculture technology from Israel and want the government of India to help them in this regard.
Geographical information Systems plays a very important role in giving information to farmers through mobile phone. We should create an Agriculture Information system in every district that provides information on Agriculture technology covers a whole lot of thing like soil testing, information on weather, Fertilizers, Prices and others. Gujarat is the only state that has got Agri Information System (ARS). Every district Gujarat has an Soil Testing lab and the lab helps in establishing the quality of the soil and it suggests what kind of Fertilizer combinations should be used to get maximum yield. Its time we should establish ARS and Soil Testing lab in each and every district in India.
Research and Development hardly gets funding in India and agriculture is no exception. Indian Agri universities still depend on MS.Swaminathan for direction, they don’t want to explore others or for that matter the tie-up with top Agri-universities of the world.
The Engineering and Medical schools were opened up to private players in 1980’s and that enabled India to have skilled Engineering and Medical man power. Participation of private players in setting up engineering schools enabled the growth of IT and ITES sectors in India. Skilled Doctors meant India became a Medical Tourism hub, so in order to make Agriculture attractive we must open up agri education sector to private players.
The Industrial houses in India want to start agricultural universities in India and they are willing to have tie-up with foreign universities and invest in R&D but these proposal are not welcomed by the government of India. Tragedy is they don’t listen to the sane voices. Future of Indian Agriculture depends on how we develop drought resistant seeds that will enable good yield even in tough times.
We need atleast 100 more Agriculture universities to make Indian Agriculture Competative.
Farmers need education on Crops, Irrigation techniques, new methods of cultivation so farmers should attend a six week training program on latest trends in Agriculture. To keep the farmers updated on technology private participation is necessary, Big retailers such as Reliance, More, Future, Bharti should come forward to helping these farmers getting adept to new technology.
Big Tea companies such as Dilmah, Tata Tea procure from small and marginal plantation owners and they organize a meet every year and discuss about new tea plantation techniques, Market scenario and others. Big retailers should take a cue out them and organize a meet every year with Farmers.
Cold storage is key to get good price for the produce. Government of India should allow private players to open up cold storages. Funding for these projects are tough to come by and banks won’t led to setting up of cold storage so I would like to see Agri infrastructure fund should be created for this purpose. Agri Infrastructure fund should fund projects such as irrigation, Cold storage and logistics.
Agriculture subsides don’t reach poor and marginal farmers. Direct Cash Transfer is the way forward. All Kinds of fertilizers should NOT be subsidized only Nutrient based and highly essential fertilizers should be subsidized.
Irrigation is yet another key area. Interlinking of rivers in Gujarat has worked wonders and even desert like Kutch is now on the Agriculture map. Irrigation technique and maintaining the water table in Kutch is a case study in many Agriculture universities in the west. India has to learn a lot from Israel on Water Conservation and productivity. Israel has got the world’s best productivity per acre for any crop.
Israel is more than willing to share its Agriculture technology with India but the Govt of India is not willing to get these technologies from Israel.
India should develop a irrigation network that includes linking of rivers, linking of tanks and lakes. Architecture of these networks should be small to maximize the potential.
Don’t know govt will reform the Agriculture sector or keep them poor and treat them as vote banks. Reforms in this sector can’t wait. If Policy is not working! Logistics could break the impasse in agriculture! And we should make efforts to reform Agriculture and make them take policy decisions and make them work.
Media won't highlight the extraordinary work done by Gujarat Govt. The Reason they don't highlight Gujarat's Success because Gujarat is a Evil Hindu State. :)
