Indian agriculture needs another revolution

The crisis in Indian agriculture, which has been persisting for nearly two decades now, adversely affects farmers and farms and depicts a scenario of poison-to- mouth. This crisis of today has a greater predicament than the ship-to-mouth crisis of the 1960s. To address this, India has to invest substantially on agro-ecological approaches.

The Peasant at Risk

There is an Indian peasant saying: "Abundance of water, destroys life; scarcity of water, destroys life." In spite of these vagaries from the weather-gods, peasants have shown grit and resilience in adapting to the adversities. Their capability to resist is compromised because they have to increasingly address market shocks and withstand climate change.

Indian agriculture, for nearly two decades now, has been in a state of crisis. This crisis has twin dimensions - the agrarian and the agricultural. The agrarian crisis being the adverse impact on the livelihood of the people dependent on it - a symptom of this being the more than three hundred thousand reported farmers suicides in the last two decades. The agricultural crisis stems from the inappropriate designing and inadequate interventions - a reflection of this has been an insistence on increasing production of certain crops through an input-intensive agriculture that may not be in sync with the underlying agro-ecological considerations and thereby adding to the risks and vulnerability.

Ship-to-Mouth and Green Revolution

One ought to acknowledge that the input-intensive cultivation itself was a response to an earlier crisis of the 1960s. At that time, large masses of the population had to depend on grain grants from the United States, under Public Law 480 - India lived from ship to mouth. While, in principle, this was a grant. In the complex world of international relations, particularly during the cold war era, it would have had its unwritten demands.

It was at the time of ship to mouth that there was a debate going on whether India should or should not adopt the high yielding varieties (wheat from Mexico and rice from Philippines) that required investment in seeds, irrigation, fertilisers, research and extension, public procurement through support prices, and distribution of procured grains through fair price shops. The unwritten demands that came with Public Law 480 along with food shortages (particularly, in urban India where decision-makers lived) tilted the balance in favour of input-intensive cultivation or the green revolution. Thus, an emergency like situation that required an immediate solution ended with a permanent solution.

Recourse to green revolution was perhaps the need of the hour then, but it created a structure where the technique associated with input-intensive cultivation came down from scientists to farmers, from lab to farms, from a controlled and certain environment to an open and uncertain environment. This has resulted in monoculture production systems that has led to overuse of inputs (water, fertilisers, pesticides, and credit among others) and dependence on a technique where the rate of increase in costs happens to be higher than the rate of increase in output. This increases net returns when the situation is close to lab-controlled conditions, but added to risks when there is deviation from those conditions. And, thereby, making agriculture unsustainable and credit non-serviceable.

Production or GDP Fetish and Poison-to-Mouth

What is more, it is this overuse and dependence that, unknown to the farmer, has adversely affected soil health and water quality. Along with these, to increase shelf-life and saleability, chemicals are added at the storage and distribution stage. So much so that all these has poisoned the food that one eats. A recent study by National Institute of Nutrition finds that food intake by children in Hyderabad has ten-to-forty times more pesticides than that in Europe or North America. The Central Institute of Fisheries Technology has issued a guidance note to guard against use of formalin in fish. All these are driven by a production or income or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fetish.

As against these, inter-cropping or crop rotation practices that add to soil health and provide micronutrients to the plants from the soil do not add to GDP. Activities that stop the production, sale and use of harmful chemicals and pesticides will not only have adverse implications on GDP but will also have an uphill task against powerful economic interests.

The GDP accounting is such that expenses incurred towards treatment of patient's travelling in the  cancer train from India's green-revolution belt in Bhatinda, Punjab to Bikaner, Rajasthan will add to GDP. At the same time, relatively lower health-related expense because of a better health status among residents of Enabavi, the first organic village of India that also contributes to ecosystems, does not augur well for GDP.

In spite of the importance of ecosystems, a 100 year old tree that has enormous value from the perspective of ecosystem services will have no contribution to GDP. However, if the tree is cut and sold as wood it will add to GDP.

The irony in GDP accounting, the poison on our plates, and the unsustainable agriculture imply that the crisis in India's agriculture today has many facets. Poison to mouth of today seems to point to a greater predicament than the ship to mouth of yore. Hence, any intention to address this requires a commitment to invest. 

Call to Agro-ecology and Knowledge Systems

There is no alternative (TINA) reflects a poverty of reason because if the powers that be will and facilitate appropriate investments in knowledge systems and agro-ecological approaches for location-specific resilience then many alternatives exist (MAE). In other words, MAE makes TINA redundant. Some notable recent initiatives are zero-budget natural farming of Andhra Pradesh and revival of millets in Odisha. The University of Cambridge led consortium to Transform India's Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies (TIGR2ESS) also holds promise.  But, more needs to be done.

ZBNF field, Ramjogi, Dharmavaram, Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh

To do away with poison on our plates and to keep income fetish aside we have to think afresh. India needs to overhaul her agriculture. More of the same cannot be an option. India needs to invest in knowledge systems and agro-ecological approaches that recognises location-specific resilience that nature provides.

[The views expressed are those of the author and not of the organisations that he is associated with.

Srijit Mishra researches and teaches development-related issues. He is Director, Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies (NCDS), an Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) institute in collaboration with Government of Odisha and Professor (on leave), Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR). He is the co-editor of Agrarian Crisis in India (OUP), has recently co-authored A MANUSH or HUMANS Characterisation of the Human Development Index and has been involved in the action research intervention of Odisha Millets Misson (OMM).]

Demon-et-ise: 2K view

Earlier I had shared my one-paise view on demonetisation. Here, I would like to share my 2K view or the demons of 2K. Before you lay any apprehensions, I must take you aside for a moment and say that my concern for these demons does not in any way support other demons - black money, counterfeit money or terror funding money. I reiterate that I am against all these three demons, which I will now refer to as dark matter, an euphemism to avoid being called a racist or anything that is not politically appropriate (not withstanding the fact that dark matter is a cosmological constant attributed to contribute to expansion of universe).

Perceptions matter
Use of image at source.

My concerns for 2K are in some sense related to the Y2K problem. Or, should I say related to the bug problem, which is intertwined with the computational or mathematical logic. For transactional purposes, getting a 2K note is a restriction (given the paucity of 0.5K notes), one would be in need of at least 15 notes of 0.1K from the receiver for transactions below 0.5K. The need of the hour would have been 0.2K notes along with more of 0.5K notes and should have done away with 2K notes. Besides, more of 2K notes will add to the dark matter (all three demons) and lead to an expansion of the universe that will end with a big explosion (unless of course the universe has neither any beginning nor an end).

If you are of the view that the current dispensation is not thought through the dispensing of the 2K and 0.5K notes then you are mistaken. These notes are not going to replace the old notes withdrawn, neither now nor any time in the future. This, as of now, is a given; something akin to a cosmological constant, but without the dark matter. 

To state that the universe is finite with its existence being infinite can be a point of view, subject to verification. However, if one takes a similar position with regard to the economy then my existence (as an economist) will definitely become finite. 

Nevertheless, with trepidation, I assume (not presume, as I want to leave some safety valve for my survival) that the new 2K and 0.5K notes are meant to have a finite existence and are not going to replace the old 1K and 0.5K notes. One strong reason for this assumption being that the 2K notes (along with the new 0.5K notes) will add to the dark matter (the three demons). 

One also feels that one is not going to see the 0.2K notes to come to our rescue any time soon. Given the mammoth task of getting even the limited amount of 2K notes and new 0.5K notes to circulation, this will not be physically possible.

The new normal is that we are moving into a digital world (tending towards cashless). The sooner all of us understand this and plan to adjust to this new normal (whether we agree with it or not) the better for all of us. Now, if the economy (nay, universe) is constant and there are substantive changes in the nature of internal transactions then some will gain and some will lose. 

It is imperative now to know whether those who will gain on account of 'facilitating' the transition into a digital transaction have any checks and balances on their rent-seeking returns. Are our institutions geared towards recognising and addressing these concerns. What would be the cost of internet accessibility and transaction charges? What would be its implication on the poor and the vulnerable? 

We also need to be concerned about dark matter beyond the above-mentioned three demons and have adequate safeguards for card cloning, data theft, phishing, pharming, smising and vishing among others. Do we have human resources to train the entire population and enable them to guard against such incidents? Will there be space for sovereign guarantee under such circumstances?

Further, as we will be moving towards an automated world, as is being globally talked about then what would be the implications. Is it not appropriate that we also start discussing the need for a universal basic income, as the need for that, at least for certain sections like those dependent on agriculture indicated through incidence of higher farmers' suicides (notwithstanding efforts at their underreporting), is already knocking at our doors.

Profession wise Suicide Reporting in India for 2014 opens Pandora's Box

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of India has now come up with its annual publication for 2014 on Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI). There have been 1,31,666 suicidal deaths in 2014 that is less than that of 2013 when there were 1,34,799 suicidal deaths. It needs to be mentioned that these deaths are as per police records and, as indicated by the Global Burden of Disease following a study on Suicide Mortality in India in the Lancet by Vikram Patel et al, would be underestimates.

There have been some important changes in profession wise suicide reportage for 2014 and some of the professions are not comparable. For instance, in the earlier profession wise classification, the self-employed were indicated under four sub-categories (business, professionals, agriculture/farming, and others). In 2013, more than 21 per cent of the total suicidal deaths were self-employed [others] and any exercise to improve clarity would be welcome. 

In 2014, we have self-employed indicated under three broad sub-categories (business, agriculture, and others). Further, the first two sub-categories were further bifurcated such that for agriculture we have a category called self-employed [agriculture (agricultural labour)] and self-employed [agriculture (farmers)] with the latter being further sub-divided to those who own land and those who are on contract/lease. Instead of increasing the clarity, the new categorisation has added to the confusion. 

At the outset, one should feel that the category of self-employed [agriculture] of 2014 is comparable. to self-employed [agriculture/farming] of 2013 and earlier. But, a closer look indicates that they are not. This is so because the former also includes a category called self-employed [agriculture (agricultural labour)]. To an outsider it would give the impression that this category was included in the earlier reporting, but this should not be the case for the simple reason that agricultural labourers are not self-employed. This also means that this category should not be there in the 2014 classification under self-employed. Thus, raising the question about who they are.

In revenue terms, in some places, a person is not considered a farmer if the land is not in his/her name and this problem holds even if some other member of the household owns land. In some other places where land leasing is illegal, any reporting by the police could exclude tenancy. In places where tenancy was made legal (like West Bengal) this would not include sub-tenants. Thus, it is quite likely that a large proportion of the self-employed [agriculture (agricultural labourers)] are likely to be farmers who may not be considered as such in the police records. Thus, indicating that this exercise of new classification was done without a proper understanding.

One gets the impression that the purpose of the new classification was to provide a relatively lower number of farmers' suicides (5,650 in 2014 compared to 11,772 in 2013). However, if one takes the entire category under self-employed [agriculture] then the total number of suicides turn out to be 12,360. Even if one goes by the classification and interpretation taken by the Bureau then they should be worried about a relatively higher suicides among agricultural labourers (with 6,710 suicidal deaths).

One observes that the profession wise suicides have not been given for cities in 2014. This would have been important from the perspective of understanding the categories with relatively higher suicides and whether there has been a rural-urban divide for some of the non-agricultural professions.

The report gives additional information on farmers' suicides by causes and by their land holding status, which is also welcome. But, one fails to get the merit of providing causes as mutually exclusive when the various factors are interrelated, as discussed with regard to Farmers' Suicides in Maharashtra and elsewhere. To illustrate, an immediate cause because of family problems is likely to be inherently linked to livelihood failure. One also fails to understand its relevance because one of the disclaimers of the report is that "(t)he causative factors ... are not being captured by the Bureau." In addition, the rare event that suicides are, a classification by land size has to be carefully interpreted from a statistical perspective.

[Added on 24 July 2015: Today the Minister of Agriculture in a reply in the Rajya Sabha to a question on farmers' suicides indicated that impotency and love affairs are some of the causes. This ignores the disclaimer by NCRB. This also made me add a sentence from Suicide of Farmers in Maharashtra (footnote 24, page 37) quoting AA Leenaars that causative factors are complex because of the following example: “A 16-year-old was found dead in a car, having died of carbon monoxide poisoning. People were perplexed: “Why did this young person from an upper-middle-class family kill himself?” The parents found out that his girlfriend had rejected him the day of his suicide. That was the reason: … A few friends and his teachers knew that he had been having problems in school. That was the reason. A few others knew that his father was an alcoholic and abusive. That was the reason. His physician knew that he had been adopted and had been recently upset about that. She knew the real reason. And others knew…”]

Outside agriculture, some professions with relatively higher incidence of suicides are students (8,068 suicidal deaths and largely around the time when results are declared in the final examinations), unemployed (9,918),  or that among daily wage earners (a new category with 15,735 suicidal deaths). Of course, it would help if one could noramlise with appropriate population numbers before comparing.

Another welcome addition in the new report for 2014 is a discussion on suicides among Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). An obvious question on this is why was this restricted to the central forces alone and not extended to the state forces as also the army or was that collected and deliberately being withheld. The suspicion arises because suicides by those in the state police forces would be the easiest to collect by the Bureau and obtaining such data from the armed forces should also not be difficult.

   

The gender wise classification provides data for transgenders for the first time and the Bureau needs to be appreciated for this. However, it would also help in the larger understanding if the Bureau could consider providing unit level data. Of course, they should take care to not reveal the identity of the individuals, but this should not prevent putting in place cross-checks by independent organisations and scholars to improve data validity.

What is more, despite the new classification, there are 41,216 suicidal deaths (that is, more than 31 per cent of suicidal deaths) that are categorised under the profession 'Others'.  This needs to be improved. In any further exercise to improve classification, the Bureau could benefit from an earlier note on Suicide Mortality Rates across States in India or the more recent exercise on appropriate reporting and measurement of Farmers' Suicides in India.

To sum up, the latest reportage of suicides in ADSI 2014 by the Bureau is an underestimate. In addition,  the new profession wise reporting reduces comparability and lacks clarity.

Options and Priorities for Agriculture in India on the Eve of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan

Introduction

The Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi with the support from the Planning Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and The World Bank conducted a two day workshop on 'Policy Options and Investment Priorities for Accelerating Agricultural Productivity and Development in India' at the India International Centre, New Delhi during 10-11 November 2011. Besides the inaugural session (where Dr Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission delivered the keynote address), there were six technical sessions, viz., agriculture in the global perspective, agricultural growth, agricultural investments, technology, marketing and structural transformations, and three panel discussions on perspectives from the states, government perspectives and the way forward. Based on these deliberations, some policy aspects are raised on the eve of the twelfth five-year plan.

Issues and concerns

While agricultural productivity and development is an important question, there could be different perspectives such as increasing foodgrains production, providing livelihood security for more than half the population dependent on agriculture or efficiency in resource use of not only land but also water and other inputs. All these have their own rationale, but they can conflict with each other and that is the challenge for planning. In addition, questions of food inflation in recent times and the ongoing debate on food and nutrition security as also crop diversification, efficiency of small holdings and soil fatigue are also relevant concerns.

Learning from others

Drawing on the comparative study with a focus on Brazil, China and Indonesia, the lessons for India is to focus on research in facilitating appropriate technology, sprucing up the research and extension systems, emphasis on diversification and investment in infrastructure. At a global level, increasing hunger, adverse impacts on production on account of climate change and shift in acreage to biofuels among others are matters that are also pertinent for India.

Growth in agriculture: variation across states

After a period of deceleration from mid-90s, there has been a revival in agricultural growth in the eleventh plan, but this revival is being backed by a technology that is increasing the cost rather than reducing it, which jeopardises the livelihood sustainability of the mass of people dependent on agriculture. There are differences in priorities and policies across states and agro-climatic regions and the planning at the centre should take this into note. In particular, the rainfed regions and districts with lower productivity need special attention. The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) should be bottom-up in spirit and not just in letter, that is, start planning from the village level by involving the local communities based on their requirements.

Investments in agriculture: public and private

Public investments should sustain the momentum on irrigation, research & development, and rural roads; focus on rainfed and eastern region; and find ways to make fixed capital efficient among others. The policy environment to facilitate private corporate investment should also look into appropriate regulatory and institutional issues. Farmer household level private investment is complementary to public investment, but for this to happen, appropriate credit facilitation should be provided by the formal banking institutions keeping the marginal and small farmer in mind. Further, research should be encouraged with farm level data. The unit level data maintained by the Department of Economics and Statistics (DES) and used by Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) should be made available to researchers so as to help in the policy deliberations and planning process.

Technology: a critical link

New technological developments are required to improve production and this necessitates change in agricultural education, facilitating research that has to be integrated with on-field training and extension education, draws on farmers' innovations and incorporates the ecological concerns among others. For all these, appropriate additional investment is required in research and development. There should be ample scope to integrate Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) to the needs of the states with a focus on providing appropriate services, as required by the farmers. Efforts should be made to reduce yield gaps from research station potential to on-farm demonstration to actual farm outputs. Independent of the input-intensive cultivation, the alternative paradigm of rainfed cultivation with a focus on soil organic matter, supplementary irrigation, seed bank, millet production along with small ruminants and fisheries among others may be promoted on a pilot basis under the twelfth five-year plan in some selected blocks of backward rainfed districts. This also requires building up of farmer-friendly institutions to facilitate their livelihood security.

Market: beyond efficiencies

In recent years, Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) laws have been enacted or are in the process of being enacted in most states, but some of the variation across states need to be bridged with subsequent amendments and the enacted laws need to be properly implemented and where there are no laws, appropriate regulatory structures need to be put in place. There is a case to empower marginal and small farmers by expanding their choice set so that they benefit from market transactions and this may be possible through pro-poor value chains, and appropriate contracts that are situation-specific to guard them against price and income shocks. Risk mitigation at the household level has to be based on diversification and low external input technologies. There is a need for appropriate insurance instruments – crop insurance at the farm level and weather-based insurance to factor in different stages of crops life cycle and input requirements.

Village studies: multiple perspectives required

The changing technological and market scenario as also socio-economic intervention is also bringing about a lot of changes in rural India. Revival of village studies from multiple perspectives would help complement our understanding from large scale surveys and macro data. Such studies need to be encouraged.

The way forward

On the eve of the twelfth five-year plan, the challenges for agriculture are multiple – climate change, foodgrains production, technology fatigue, resource use efficiency, food inflation, and livelihood security for those dependent on agriculture among others. It requires coming together of many domains and perspectives, as has been shown in this workshop wherein one received support from the government and multilateral organizations involving researchers from Indian as well as International institutes with an attempt to initiate a conversation between agricultural scientists and economists.

Alternative technologies emphasizing on sustainable and conservation practices with a focus on rainfed regions need to be explored. This has to be complemented with appropriate institutions: (1) those that organize farmers from the village level to aggregate their input and market requirements, (2) those that help to leverage scientific developments and the claimed potential with on-field outcomes at the farmer level through appropriate research and extension structure that are bi-directional in nature and also take into consideration the local situation – both agro-climatic as also socio-economic, and (3) those that facilitate collection and analysis of quality data at the micro (farm or household level including village studies), meso (regional or state-specific studies) and macro (aggregate economy level studies) level. There is also a case to bring together the concerns of agricultural development with that of rural development.

The task ahead is daunting. To quote Robert Frost, “…And miles to go before (we) sleep, And miles to go before (we) sleep.”

(This has been prepared by Srijit Mishra in consultation with S Mahendra Dev and with inputs from Ritika Palit, Sanjay Prasad, Upasana Sharma and D Suganthi.)

Some of my other recent related posts are:

Size-class and returns to cultivation in India

Food, hunger and ethics

Report on strengthening the role of agriculture for nutrition secure India

Poverty estimates in India

Size-class and returns to cultivation in India

'Size-class and returns to cultivation in India: a cold case reopened' is the title of a recent working paper from IGIDR that Sarthak Gaurav and I have co-authored. This revives the age-old debate on farm size and productivity that started in the early sixties  by Amartya Sen. Some excerpts from the abstract, introduction and conclusions of the working paper are given below. An abstract of its revised version published in Oxford Development Studies is also given below.

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between returns to cultivation per hectare and size-class of land cultivated in India, using unit level data from the 59th round National Sample Survey, 2003. The analysis is done separately for ‘kharif’ and ‘rabi’ − for total value of cultivation from all crops at the all India level. The empirical evidence rejects the null hypothesis of no relationship and points to the existence of an inverse association. We argue that the efficiency of the small-holders has to be taken with a pinch of salt because their low absolute returns brings into focus the question of their livelihood sustainability which is further aggravated on account of higher unit costs. Being the first exercise in a series of proposed explorations into disaggregated analyses across states, and for specific crops, it opens up the classic debate on farm size and productivity in the 21st century.

Introduction

In recent years, Indian agriculture has been reeling under a crisis and one of the concomitant outcomes is poor returns to cultivation which has rendered farming as an unsustainable livelihood option – particularly for the marginal and small holders.2 This also raises the long debated question of inverse relationship between size-class and productivity, that is, whether marginal and small farmers are relatively efficient vis-à-vis larger size-class farmers? The current paper explores this aspect of Indian agriculture using unit level data from the Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers, administered in the 59th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS).This survey was conducted during 2003 and collected information for the agricultural year 2002-03.This is the latest (and the largest) nationally representative data set for analyzing the state of farming in India. By conducting the analysis at the unit level, to the best of our knowledge, we provide the first baseline for the 21st century. An attempt has been made to assesses the relationship between size-class and returns to cultivation; and in doing so, it expects to contribute and open-up the long drawn out, and till recently dormant debate.

...

Conclusions

An analysis of size-class and returns to cultivation using nationally representative data from the Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers (SAS) of the 59th Round of the National Sample Survey, for the period 2002-03 opens up the classic debate on the efficiency of the small holder. Our empirical results, computed separately for kharif and rabi, at an aggregate all India level as also for each size-class reject the null of absence of any relationship between size-class and productivity and indicate the existence of an inverse relationship. While the small holder seems efficient the low absolute returns raises questions on livelihood sustainability. This is also important from the perspective of the risk bearing capacity of the small-holders given the fact of their per hectare costs being higher.

To the best of our knowledge, these are the first estimates for the 21st century and at the pan-Indian level; and could be used as a baseline for comparative analyses in the future. Our empirical evidence can be considered as an important contribution to the literature on size-class and productivity relationship. While opening up this cold case we are aware that one needs to go down to further details and control for other factors that may affect returns to cultivation. It would be equally important to analyse the variation across states, social groups as also the crop-specific patterns. We plan to do some of these in a series of future exercises.

In spite of the limitations of our study, it is a first attempt at a fundamental problem in Indian agricultural using a nationally representative sample. Given the relevance of our findings in corroborating the story of a crisis in Indian agriculture on one hand, and with the promise to reopen the classic debate on farm size and productivity on the other, we argue for the need for further inquiries, and if feasible, a future round of the SAS as it is almost a decade since the first (and only) survey.

Those interested in the full paper can click, 'Size-class and returns to cultivation in India: a cold case reopened'.

A revised version of the paper is now available as 'Farm size and returns to cultivation in India: revisiting an old debate' Oxford Development Studies, Published online 21 Nov 2014.

The abstract of the revised version is as follows. This paper revisits the long-debated question of the relationship between farm size and productivity by studying the relationship between area cultivated and net returns to cultivation in India using a nationally representative data-set. The analysis is carried out separately for the two major agricultural seasons, kharif and rabi, and for both the seasons pooled together. Our findings suggest the existence of an inverse relationship, even when we control for a number of household and farm characteristics and even when we treat factors such as household type (occupation), social group (caste), agro-climatic zone (region) and agricultural season as fixed effects. The result is also robust to correction for selection bias. However, the efficiency of the smallholder as a result of this greater productivity has to be treated with some caution as it ignores the low absolute levels of their returns, which raise questions about the sustainability of their livelihoods. This is further aggravated by the fact that they pay relatively higher unit costs and because of their greater dependence on purchased inputs.

Report on Strengthening the Role of Agriculture for Nutrition Secure India

The Indira Gandhi Institute ofDevelopment Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi organized a workshop ‘Strengthening the Role of Agriculture for Nutrition Secure India’ on 13 September 2011 at New Delhi.

In his welcome and opening remarks, PK Joshi pointed out that the concerns of hunger, micronutrient deficiencies and undernourishment should take our thinking beyond growth. He also mentioned that one per cent growth in agriculture has a greater impact on poverty reduction than a similar growth in non-agricultural sector.  He urged the need to look at agriculture and nutrition linkages through three lenses - economic, social and governance.

S Mahendra Dev indicated that one of the purposes of the workshop is to bring in agriculture-nutrition linkages into the policy making exercise. In particular, the twelfth five year plan. Five concerns that he raised are (a) to increase productivity of rainfed resource poor regions with an emphasis on small and marginal farmers, (b) to diversify the diet beyond cereals and include locally available nutritious food, (c) to curb food inflation, particularly for proteins like pulses, (d) a greater need for empowerment of women, and (e) convergence of agriculture with other programmes. Also see his recent co-authored policy note, Pro-nutrition agriculture in India.

In his inaugural address, Vijay Vyas used some recent nutrition indicators on children and women from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) where India, when compared with similar indicators for other countries, is nearly at the bottom. In addition to low levels, he also pointed out their persistence and in some cases the deterioration of malnourishment. To a large extent, India has addressed the issue of chronic hunger. But seasonal hunger, particularly during the period after sowing and before harvesting, for some sub-groups of population in agricultural communities is a matter of concern. However, when it comes to calorie-protein adequacy and micronutrient requirements we are still below the norm. We are not even able to provide 1800 calories to many and then again a substantial amount of what is provided is only through cereals. Thus, it is not just agriculture, but also the dietary intake, economic accessibility and environmental factors that matter. He reiterated the pivotal role of agriculture both as a supplier but also as a sector that can generate maximum demand. He called for more production, more variety in terms of nutri-cereals, fruits and vegetables and to make this possible the need for changes or a move beyond rice and wheat through policies of pricing, credit facilitation, distribution and institutional reforms among others.

The keynote address was given by RB Singh who began by quoting Hippocrates “Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine be they food” and then goes on to reiterate Dr Vyas’s point by presenting actual data on India’s poor nutrition indicators in a global comparative perspective, particularly with Brazil and China, for undernourishment, underweight children, low birth weight, low body mass index of mothers, greater fertility, higher child anaemia, lower expenditure on child care, lower vaccination, lower mother’s literacy and lower public expenditure. Both Brazil and China also intervened on clean drinking water, sanitation hygiene, education and awareness and backed this up with political will. He reminded the gathering about the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 reiterating the need for Lifelong Livelihood Security and how neglecting issues of child malnutrition can have adverse impacts on the economy. There is immense scope for research towards leveraging agriculture for nutrition. He put up a case in favour of new technology for seeds, but on genetic engineering he said that cisgenic (genes taken from the same species or a closely related one) will have certain advantages and less regulatory requirement when compared against the transgenic (genes from other species like the Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt). He also highlighted the importance of home/kitchen garden in meeting most of the micro nutrient deficiencies. He praised the rich gene biodiversity of India and said that we should maintain it and propagate agro-ecologically differentiated practices. Keeping the importance of children in this concern of nutrition, he concludes by showing the picture of a child with the caption “Hold my today; I will hold your tomorrow.”

In her presentation, Suneetha Kadiyala began by highlighting the overall scenario in India, higher growth, but not doing well in human development dimension and with much higher share of poor and malnourishment (both undernourished and overweight). The agriculture sector is not doing well and one has observed a high food price index. In the global hunger index, India is not doing well and the state-specific hunger index also does not augur well for almost all the states analyzed. To address nutrition problems, direct interventions like infant feeding and bio-fortification could address only one-third of the problem whereas indirect interventions through agriculture, social protection, education, health system, and women’s empowerment turn out to be important. Some of the emerging findings from their recent study are as follows. (a) A cross-country analysis indicates that agricultural growth helps in the reduction of stunting, but the result weakens when Indian states are included in the analysis suggesting a poor linkage or disconnect between agriculture and nutrition in India. (b) There is a data disconnect as the existing information make it difficult to analyze the said linkage. (c) Over the years, dietary diversity has increased and the food base has moved to non-cereal sources but mother’s education and household income seem to have a positive impact on diversity. Some of the key entry points from her presentation are that household income matters, agriculture influences dietary pattern, women’s asset ownership is critical for decision making and nutritional outcomes, and that direct health and nutrition interventions matter.

Praduman Kumar’s talk was from a small holder perspective. It began with the contrast that at an aggregate level, India is self-sufficient in food, but it also has the largest number of hungry and poor and most of them happen to be agricultural labourer and marginal farmers with less than one hectare of land. The presentation pointed out that demand, particularly of non-foodgrain crops will increase, but supply will not. This will increase prices and reduce per capita consumption and also have an adverse affect on dietary diversification. Thus, for a food/nutrition secure India we need to focus on livestock, education, irrigation, aquaculture, horticulture, and dryland agriculture. There is a need to bridge research and policy gaps and integrate them with local wisdom. The presentation ended by showing a critical triangle with the three dimensions being food security and agricultural growth, poverty reduction and rural development, and environmental sustainability.

The next presentation was on Food Security Atlas of Rural India by Preet Rustagi, which was based on a district level exercise for rural areas of eight states. At the district level they came up with two indicators – one on food security based on 12 indicators (of which four were on availability, six on access and two on absorption) and an outcome indicator based on underweight children and under-five mortality. From the 281 districts, 101 are food insecure (all the 18 in Jharkhand, most (13 out of 16) in Chhattisgarh, 29 out of 45 in Madhya Pradesh and 19 out of 30 in Odisha and the relatively food secure districts are mostly in Uttar Pradesh (16) and one each in Maharashtra and Rajasthan. There is a clear connection between food insecurity and low irrigation, poor connectivity, income insecurity, hilly terrain, higher proportion of scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, higher proportion of agricultural labourers, low agricultural wages and low female literacy. However, there did not seem to be much connection with the outcome indicators. Severe or extreme insecurity in outcome were observed in 82 districts (31 in Uttar Pradesh, 26 in Madhya Pradesh (there could be some connection here) and 15 in Rajasthan).  The way forward is to focus on the food insecure and poor outcome districts on various associated risk factors, but the interventions should be locally relevant.

Speaking from a gender perspective, Bina Agarwal brought into the discourse some welfare and efficiency concerns. She vouched the concept of land bank, which can act as a depositor of landowners and creditors to tenants. The landowners could be given some minimum returns and higher returns if the land is put to use by tenants. The latter can work in groups, but they need not worry about going to individuals for leasing in. She also mentioned about integrating other support services for the final tiller.

Coming back again, S Mahendra Dev raised some additional issues. The question of availability/access is important, but so is the productivity of water. This reminds RB Singh’s keynote that one kilogram of potato requires 900 litres of water but one kilogram of beef requires 15,500 litres of water. The other concern is that of climate change, as it could adversely affect the yield. Other matters of concern are to bring nutri-cereals into the public distribution system, who should grow pulses (small or large farmers), the slowing growth of fruits and vegetables (or as someone said, the slowing down of horticulture revolution), bridging the gap in prices between what farmers receive and what consumers pay, and the need for convergence of different district level plan through the panchayati raj institutions. An important point that came up during the discussion is the increasing input costs and adverse impacts of pesticide usage.

Veena Rao, a bureaucrat, lamented that nothing much happened out of the National Nutrition Policy 1993 and the National Plan of Action on Nutrition 1995 where the linkage between agriculture and nutrition was spelt out. However, some of these have been taken up in the Karnataka Nutrition Mission. The important ones being that nutrition is to be addressed from a life cycle approach – infants, children, adolescents, lactating and pregnant mother; bridging calorie, protein and micronutrient deficiency through appropriate intervention to different target groups; accelerating, integrating and tightly monitoring multi-sectoral ongoing programmes; achieving convergence between different programmes and covering pragmatic gaps; involving civil society and community; launching awareness and making available nutritious and energy rich food at lower cost through public-private partnership. This reminds me of the ‘health and nutrition’ intervention through the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) in Andhra Pradesh. In some villages where nutritious food was given to lactating and pregnant mothers, the cost of food in some villages could be met by the participants doing some packaging work for the local grocery shop, and as a result none of the child births in this village was less than 3.5 kilograms – the proof of the pudding lies in its eating.   

Kaustav Banerjee, representing the revitalizing rainfed agriculture, pointed out that from the perspective of availability at the aggregate level one should not be worried for foodgrains as a whole. While there availability at a local level does matter, but a matter of greater concern is the unavailability of millets in adequate quantities even at an aggregate level. Further rainfed agriculture comprises two-thirds of the farmed area but has attracted comparatively less policy design and interventions. Thus, there is the need for a new architecture to address this, which should be holistic and integrate agriculture with livestock and area development.

Comparing the Empowered Group of Ministers draft versions of the National Food Security Act to that prepared by the National Advisory Council, Biraj Patnaik pointed out that the former has several shortcomings. It does not have the definitions of some important concepts such as child, malnutrition, starvation, job chart and health centre upfront and the definitions of foodgrains, homeless person and public distribution system are relatively restricted. The entitlements for a person per day have been reduced from four to three kilograms of foodgrains. There are no special provision for single women, lactating and pregnant mothers, malnourished children and emergency and disaster affected persons. More importantly the rights of the people living with starvation have been watered down. As a result, the links with nutrition is  absent. He also raised the attention of the house to two other things. The global land grab in Africa where many countries (including India) and private companies (including Indian) are leasing in land to produce food to address shortfalls in their own countries, besides building food reserves to make gains through speculation and trading, is contributing to less land being available for the production of food for the local economies in Africa. The other concern was on the role of the commodities futures markets and its implication on food prices (see the Report of the Expert Committee To Study the Impact of Futures Trading on Agricultural Commodity Prices, particularly the note by the Chairperson of the committee, Abhijit Sen).

In his remarks, Sukhadeo Thorat pointed out that some vulnerable social groups suffered more in terms of malnutrition. If one factors in the gender dimension, women from these social groups are found to be suffering more. To address this, there is need to have a group specific policy. He also pointed out that the larger scheme of things makes the farmer take a decision on crop production based on profitability and not on nutrition. See his co-authored policy note on addressing the unequal burden of malnutrition. 

Ramesh Chand began by pointing out the weakening link between agriculture and nutrition and the paradox of higher production as also high prices and hunger existing concurrently. He raised the concerns of India being a global diabetic capital, of whether lower consumption of 1400/1600 kilocalorie by some people is because of absence of purchasing power or low requirement based on different homeostatic conditions, and of the fact that people continue to avoid purchasing nutri-cereals even in those regions/areas where their prices are lower than rice and wheat. The homeostatic argument reminded of PV Sukhatme's dissent note to the Report of the Expert Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of Poor, pp.46-49.

Pravesh Sharma, a bureaucrat with the Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium, made the last presentation where he outlined three things. First, he pointed out that the institutions of the 1970s that were meant to achieve a macro level food sufficiency are not appropriate to address livelihood and nutrition security. There is need to encourage producers organizations that embed technology credit and market and are also linked to pathways that foster food and nutrition security. Second, there should be diversification at the household or village level, which on the one hand will spread the risk of the small farmer, and on the other will also give the farmer household a healthy and varied nutrition basket. Third, there is a need to encourage the non-farm sector with good backward and forward linkages, as this would be of help for the small and marginal farmers, the local region as also the overall economy.

The day’s session ended with the remarks from Liz Drake, Department for International Development (DFID) and the hosts S Mahaendra Dev, Director, IGIDR and PK Joshi, In-charge, IFPRI, New Delhi. The takeaway from the exercise is that a small group will work towards formulating key policy suggestions that would be submitted to the Government of India. From IGIDR’s perspective, this has been a nice collaborative exercise with IFPRI and in New Delhi and one is looking forward to more such endeavours in the future.

(The author thanks Bhaskar Goswami for his suggestions on an earlier write-up.)

Also see my post, Food, Hunger and Ethics.

Day 35 of farmers march coincides with Obama's visit to India

Farmers marching across India to save agriculture are now in Andhra Pradesh. This peoples movement of liberating agriculture and ushering in hope does not reverberate with Obama's call for liberalizing and opening up agriculture.

Logo of Kisan Swaraj Yatra. © Kisan Swarj Yatra

Kisan Swaraj Yatra (KSY) taking inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi started the freedom tour on his 141st birthday has today on its 35th day reached Andhra Pradesh, Mr Obama also started his India tour by visiting his hero Gandhiji's museum 'Mani Bhavan', Mumbai. KSY's journey is a peoples movement that calls for hope to do away with the ills plaguing Indian agriculture, Mr Obama's ascendancy to office two years ago in the United States was also reverberating with hope for people across the globe. The similarities, one hopes, should not stop there; but, unfortunately, it does.

Flag off of Kisan Swaraj Yatra from Sabarmati Gujarat 2 October 2010. © Kisan Swaraj Yatra

The visit has a lot on platter for business ties. An opening up of the economy so that they buy goods and services from America so that there are more jobs back home. There are significant interests in liberalizing agriculture so that Indian farmer relies heavily on the market for inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. These benefit business interests in America and also India. These will also have adverse affect on Indian livelihoods as tidbits of news from the Yatra indicates.

In a meeting at Jangaon in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh on 3 November 2010 the slogans that rented the air are “Farmers’ welfare is nation’s welfare”, “Companies that loot farmers, gotta go; Ministers who are company agents, gotta go”, “Farmer who feeds us, don't commit suicide”. A host of groups came together and the mood may be summed up by the remark of a police official present “I have never seen all these organizations coming onto the same platform. How did you all manage this?” This was possible because of an engagement with people, what the Human Development Report has been stressing.

On 2 November 2010 in a meeting at HD Kote, Karnataka a discussion revealed that not non Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) seeds and organic seeds are not available in the market and Pandit Krishi Vivek Cariappa added that parental lines of hybrid seeds have been contaminated. Another speaker emphasized that "to save the country, we should save our villages; for saving our villages, we should save our farming; for saving farming, we should save our seed, our land and our ecological farming methods." The absence of regulation for private input providers, the yield stagnation, the increasing health risks were also discussed. The Yatris joined the paddy diversity festival at Rangayana, Mysore.

Meeting and paddy diversity festival Rangayana, Mysore, where Yatris had delicious lunch made out of many traditional rice-based recipes, 2 November 2010. © Kisan Swaraj Yatra

The tour had reached the state of Kerala on 30 October 2010. In a public meeting at Palakkad, Mr Mullakkara Ratnakaran, Minister for Agriculture, conveyed through phone that "all the issues being raised by the Yatra are issues of concern for the state government too." Mr Diwakaran, the local member of the legislative assembly, mentioned about "the disappearance of honeybees and the huge environmental imbalances that we are creating."

The state of Kerala, which has been in the centre of many environmental movements such as the save silent valley, has now also declared itself to be free of genetically modified crops. The state has a policy towards organic farming and plans to implement the same in a few years time said Sridhar Radhakrishnan of Thanal.

Sridhar says that KSY in Kerala is a celebration as the state has declared itself a GM-free organic state, Palakkad, Kerala, 30 October 2010. © Kisan Swaraj Yatra

Kavita Kurangathi of Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) who said that the Yatra "aims to provide a message of hope to farmers in the country that there is indeed a way out of the crisis in farming today – that of adopting self-reliant, ecological farming." It comes in the backdrop of the government not addressing "the issue in fundamental ways, including assessing the role of unsustainable technologies in creating and exacerbating the crisis."

On their second day in Kerala the Yatris visited a school where the meeting was organized by the Mallapuram Organic Farmers’ Movement. Dr VS Vijayan (Former Chair, Kerala State Bio-Diversity Board) explained the local practices and gave the example of a farm family that "has been living off the organic farm by integrating innovative cattle and organic farming techniques." The historic relevance of the place Eddappal, Ponnani where there was an uprising in the struggle for independence was indicated by Dr Jacob Vadakkanchery.

Dr. Vijayan addresses the crowd at Eddappal, Mallapuram, Kerala, 31 October 2010. © Kisan Swaraj Yatra

Farmers from different parts of the country shared their story of the over-hyped green revolution in Punjab, the yield of nine tonnes of paddy per hectare during pre-independence days at Chengalpat, Tamil Nadu or how farmers in Budelkhand kept their seed stock for the next generation even during extended period of drought. A second meeting was organized at Nilambur by Haritha Senam, a farmers collective which has been working on the issue of debt and farmers suicides.

The third day in Kerala began at the memorial for Pazhassi Raja, the Adivasi King who fought the British for independence. The town reverberated with slogans in Hindi and Malyalam. The Yatris visited the farm of Mr Raman who has been growing 23 different traditional varieties of paddy. Mr Kalpetta Narayanan, a writer and poet, questioned the industrialization of agriculture. He gave examples from Gandhiji to explain the real meaning of 'swaraj' (freedom).

Yatris pay homage to Pazhassi Raja, the king who fought the British for Adivasi rights, Wayanad, 1 November 2010. © Kisan Swaraj Yatra

Mr Obama are you listening. Farmers' across the country do not agree that opening of agriculture will not affect their livelihoods.

(This write-up was first put up in Digital Journal, 6 November 2010, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299596.)

Other articles in this series are day 28 of the Yatra and their travels in eastern regions and northern regions of India.

Whirlwind Tour of Odisha

A very happy new year to you all. I have just returned from a whirlwind tour of Odisha. The initial purpose was to attend the Indian Economic Association 92nd annual conference held at Bhubaneswar and perhaps combine it with a meeting of friends from School after 25 years. The latter could not materialize. Thus, I combined my visit with some other work and made a whirlwind tour of rural Odisha.

I visited places in Banki (one flood prone village where I had a two-hour discussion with villagers), Nayagarh (two farmer field school groups (FFSGs) - one in their field one in their village, two civil society groups that facilitate formation of FFSGs and Selh-help Groups (SHGs) and additional livelihood activities, and one farm house), and Puri (a cluster of two-three villages in and around Birapurusottampur, which happens to be my native village) and also had discussions with various stakeholders. It will not be appropriate for me to reveal the contents of my discussion now, but it does reiterate the grim agrarian scenario in Orissa. The macro observations indicated earlier in Poverty and Agrarian Distress in Orissa (nay, Odisha) is more or less substantiated by these field visits.

A disturbing picture that one observed during this visits is reportage of farmers' suicides by the media almost every day. I did disucss this with many and the responses were familiar as these are similar to the ones that one came across when I was starting the study on Suicide of Farmers in Maharashtra. People have to get out of the denial mode (that this is just a media hype) and the least that they can do is to stop blaming the farmers for this. The media can have a look at the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on suicide reportage. This is a symptom of the larger Agrarian Crisis in India, elaborately discussed in the book edited by D. Narasimha Reddy and me and published by the Oxford University Press. There is need for technological and institutional innovations that reduce costs and improve returns.

Congress Comeback and Expectations

The election news in India is that the Congress will come back to power with some outside support. It looks like that this will also be a stable government.

With the monsoon going to set in early, the party has to give greater priority to Agriculture from the beginning. This is where more than half of the people and nearly three-fourths of rural people still depend upon there livelihood. If this is going to be a second term for Dr Manmohan Singh and he wants Mr Rahul Gandhi to be in the cabinet and I think that the latter should take up agriculture. In this sector, the opposition also needs to be involved in a major way. If planned well this has the capacity to address the larger financial crisis. The blueprint of the District Agricultural Plan has a lot of potential but then its implementation at the ground level is tardy.

Two positive and people friendly developments of the last government were the Right to Information (RTI) and the Nationation Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This has definited translated into votes. These have to be carried forward with more vigour, make NREGA more inclusive (as already indicated by the Right to Food group) and also bring in a comprehensive Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) so that this self-employment programme complements the NREGAs wage employment.

Before I forget, they should initiate immediate steps to free Dr. Binayak Sen. He has been in jail for more than two years now. Then only, Jai Ho!

Where is the 'Aam Aadmi'?

‘Business as usual is no longer an option’ has become a catchword with the current financial crisis, but was initially mooted by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) that presented its synthesis report in April 2008. Despite being a signatory to it, despite the acknowledgement of the larger agrarian crisis that the country has been facing and despite the similarity in purpose envisaged in the ‘inclusive growth’ slogan of the Eleventh Five Year Plan and IAASTD’s emphasis on ‘the reduction of hunger and poverty, the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and facilitating equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development,’ one does not find much mention of it either in the current interim budget of 2009-10 or other recent relevant policy documents.

The initiatives and achievement under agriculture, keeping the welfare of the ‘Aam Aadmi’ in mind, increased the plan allocation for agriculture by 300 per cent between 2003-04 and 2008-09 and launched the Krishi Vikas Yojana in 2007-08 to increase growth rate of agriculture and allied sectors to four per cent during the Eleventh Plan period. A good initiative that requires bottom-up planning from village to taluka to District Agricultural Plans and aggregating to form State and National Plans. Its implementation is tardy and an imposition of a target from the top makes the approach self-defeating.

Keeping 2003-04 as base, the government announced a package of doubling agricultural credit in three years and actually achieved a three-fold increase of credit by 2007-08. The fact that the Government had to come up with the Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme in June 2008 is itself perhaps indicative that the ground work to make agriculture remunerative was not done which also means that appropriate project appraisals were not done by the banks while doubling/tripling of credit. The debt waiver is a book-keeping exercise. It does reduce the mental burden of the farmer and makes him eligible for fresh loans, but not a single rupee from this Rs.65,300 crore would lead to investments that is required to spruce up the agrarian economy.

On the one hand, the long overdue increase in the Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) in recent years is a bit of relief that would help improve the returns to agriculture. On the other hand, the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) will ensure food security to those below poverty line. While talking of poverty, the Government should have updated the consumption-expenditure with appropriate nutritional measures, dealt on multi-dimensionality of poverty and on identification to avoid exclusion of the poor, of course, some of these go beyond the budget. Another matter of concern that remains is the huge subsidy bill on fertilizers, which largely goes to the industry and only indirectly to the farmers. There has been no increase in the fund allocated under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) when compared with the previous year.

Education, health and some other social sector initiatives are indicated. The question that one is haunted is, as indicated in the United Progressive Alliances (UPAs) Common Minimum Programme (CMP), whether the promise of doubling of public expenditure as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) achieved. A silence on this indicates that the answer is no.

Some of the notable initiatives in recent years have been the Right to Information and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Though there are hiccups, the efforts are indeed laudable. The need of the hour is to complement the wage-employment scheme with an equally comprehensive self-employment scheme. This requires revamping of the Sampoorna Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) through institutional innovation to help organize the poor, financial innovation to make required credit accessible and administrative innovation to improve facilitation. This is also very essential under the current financial crisis because it would encourage a large number of smaller players. Such an effort will also have its multiplier effects not only in stimulating the economy but more importantly in improving the livelihood of the poor and also help us in easing the load on agriculture.

The finance minister rightly quotes Professor Amartya Sen while emphasizing on the need for security during this down turn. But, note that this has nothing to do with increasing defense related expenditure. Rather, such protective security should also address the poor returns to farmers which on a per-capita per day basis is even lower then a liter of bottled water. Notwithstanding the increase in the revenue and fiscal deficits, one is left with the question, where is the ‘Aam Aadmi’?

A similar version has been published in the Financial Express, with the title Debt waiver is a book keeping exercise.