K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

Any agriculture strategy must involve the farmer. — Parth Sanyal

AGRICULTURE was the focus of the Prime Minister's attention at the recent National Development Council (NDC) meeting attended by Chief Ministers and the top brass of the Planning Commission. Again, the Prime Minister succumbed to the idea of forming a sub-committee on agricultural affairs.

With two years to go before the curtain falls on the Tenth Plan, and at the time when the NDC is "endorsing" the Mid-Term Appraisal (MTA), one must introspect on the goings-on in the agricultural sector in the last 13 months — the time the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has been in office.

There can be no discussion on agriculture independent of the farmer because more than 60 per cent of India's population is engaged in agricultural activity, one way or another.

The first question that needs to be asked is: Are the terms of trade favourable to the farmer?

If not, why? Productivity is no longer the focus. The farmers not only need to produce higher quantities, they need to do so competitively.

Up to about the early 1990s, agriculture thrived; not because there were breakthroughs in agriculture technology, for the so-called Green Revolution had run out of steam by the late 1970s and productivity was stagnating due to environmental, primarily soil related, problems, but because agriculture was "protected" by tariff walls.

The farmer was content to produce, however non-competitively, because there was a ready domestic market to absorb his produce.

And he could also export the surplus. But all that changed when the World Trade Organisation entered the picture. Vietnam edged out the premium Malabar pepper, and Guatemala replaced the Indian cardamom because both countries not only produced these commodities in surplus, but did so at more competitive prices.

This despite the fact that it was in Panniyur in Kannur district of Kerala, in 1953, that the first pepper research station in the world was established.

For cardamom, India was on top of the world trade up to the 1970s and nobody then had even heard of the tiny South American country of Guatemala.

This takes us to the central and very unsettling question: Has the agricultural fraternity been able to provide competitive and sustainable technology to the Indian farmer? The technology that the farmer adopts to produce pepper or cardamom in the 21st century is almost the same as that used in the previous century; it is 30 years old. Ditto for foodgrains. Ask a rice or wheat farmer from Punjab and he would credit his success to a combination of a good variety, plenty of water for irrigation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

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