ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS

New Delhi, 20 February 2008

Strengthen Agricultural Sector

WHERE IS THE SURPLUS FOODGRAIN?

By Dr. Vinod Mehta

(Former Director (Research) ICSSR)

While the Government is planning sops for the farmers in the coming Budget, reportedly wheat output might fall in the coming months as the farmers are said to have reduced the area under wheat crop.  This is likely to affect the availability of wheat as well as the Public Distribution System (PDS).  Besides, the international prices of wheat are very high and importing wheat in such a situation to boost wheat stocks could be a very expensive proposition for the country.

The Economic Survey and the budgetary proposals (2007-08) rightly drew the attention of the country to the lopsidedness in our economic growth.  The manufacturing and the service sectors are doing relatively very well while the agricultural sector is lagging.  Now we are getting ready for the budgetary proposals for the next fiscal but the agricultural sector continues to remain sluggish. 

The import of grain can at best be a temporary solution for a big country like India. The real solution, however, lies in increasing the productivity of food grains along with the other essential commodities.  Productivity of our agricultural products is ridiculously low by world standards.

If we compare the productivity of the Indian agriculture to that of the productivity in other countries, we will find that our agriculture is way behind them. Take for instance China, which can be our competitor in the international agricultural market. With only 100 million hectare of agricultural land, China is producing 400 million tonnes of grain while India with its 146 million hectares of agricultural land produces on an average only 108 million tonnes of food.

If we take the production per hectare of individual crops too we will find that the country is way behind other countries. The average production of rice per hectare in India is around 1,756 kgs compared to 5,475 kgs of North Korea; we are harvesting only 2117 kgs of wheat per hectare compared to 7,716 kgs by the Netherlands. Similarly, India produces only 1606 kgs of corn per hectare compared to 9091 kgs of corn per hectare by Greece.

It is the same story when it comes to soyabean and groundnut. The production of soyabean per hectare in India is 804 kgs compared to 3,453 kgs in Zimbabwe. As for groundnut, the country harvests only 929 kgs per hectare compared to 4,600 kgs per hectare harvested by Israel. In other words, Israel is getting five times the groundnut per hectare as against India. Similarly, India produces 15,817 kgs of potatoes per hectare compared to 45,349 kgs produced by Belgium. As for sugarcane we produce 65,382 kgs per hectare as against 135,448 kgs per hectare produced by Peru.

If we take these comparisons seriously, which we as a nation should, then India has a lot to explain and lot to do. The feel good factor will not deliver results here. It may be all right to have a record harvest occasionally and overflowing granaries in a relative sense. But we are just able to meet the domestic demand for foodstuff and may have surplus to see us through one or two bad harvests.

For a country, which also looks forward to entering the international agricultural market in the near future this is not enough. It is necessary to have a substantial surplus of agricultural products every year on a fairly continuous basis if we are to emerge as one of the important exporters of agricultural products in the world like Australia, USA or the European Economic Union countries and also meet our own domestic demand.

The figures also show that the potential of increasing the agricultural productivity is immense. If other countries can get three to five times the production per hectare of any agricultural product why can't India at least double its output per hectare of the agricultural produce?  The potential for such an increase exists and there is no reason why the country cannot achieve this. 

Additionally, in spite of the fact that we are spending so much on agricultural research, the country has not yet been able to produce seeds of high yielding varieties of international standards --- seeds which can change the face of Indian agriculture. There has to be some match between the funds we spend on agricultural research and the actual results we get in the form of produce per hectare.

The figures also reveal that India is not using its agricultural inputs to the optimum level.  A country like China which has less cultivable land than India has developed one of the best water management systems to get the maximum advantage. Similarly, Israel has turned the desert into an arid land, again mainly through its water management system.  A country like Netherlands which can grow only one crop a year because of the cold weather and snow makes the best use of its inputs to get the maximum output per hectare.

The lessons which the experience of other countries in the agricultural sector holds for us are that we have still a long way to go to tap the full potential of our agricultural sector. Moreover, by following an appropriate strategy we can increase the produce of our agricultural products several-fold.

There is no getting away from research in the agricultural sector. All efforts need to be put in to develop the high yielding varieties of various kinds of agricultural products which go well with the kind of weather conditions we have in the country. Also, this research would have to be extended to other allied activities like animal husbandry, fishing and plantation. 

However, the kind of bureaucratic environment that exists in our agricultural research institutes is not conducive to research that is needed for the development of the high yielding varieties of crops or milch animals. The number of suicides in the ICAR in the past goes to show how callous we are towards the agricultural research scientists. 

Therefore, as a first step we must revamp the setup of our agricultural research institutes and agricultural universities and fix some goals for the development of high yielding strains of food crops, edible oil seeds, sugarcane etc. Increasing allocation for agriculture research is not enough. We have to deliver results.

But pending the development of our own high yielding strains, we should make the best use of the available high yielding seeds of various crops that are available in the international market. If the seeds being sold by the multi-national companies can substantially raise the agricultural productivity per hectare, why should not the country go in for the use of such seeds immediately, even if they are expensive?  The use of such seeds would also increase the earnings of the farmers. 

What the agricultural research institutes can do is help identify the seeds being sold by multi-national companies which would be more suitable to the Indian climatic and soil conditions and would yield the maximum produce per hectare.

In fact, Professor M.S. Swaminathan, the architect of India’s Green Revolution, has been expressing his concern for a long time over the trends in the agricultural sector. He is disturbed by the fact that there are no real policies in the agricultural sector except for subsidies.  His observations need to be taken seriously.

This fiscal the growth rate is estimated to be between 7 and 8 per cent, but the Prime Minister speaking at the 80th AGM Meeting of the FICCI recently stated that he was confident that the country would realize a growth rate of 9 per cent during the Eleventh Plan period. The manufacturing and the service sector are doing relatively well and therefore to realize such a high overall growth rate we will have to push up the growth of the agricultural sector by focusing on increasing the productivity not only of food crops but also of commercial crops. ---- INFA

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