A four-point wish list for Indian agriculture

The present state of agriculture needs a highly decentralised, regional and State-specific approach to planning and implementation. (Mint)
The present state of agriculture needs a highly decentralised, regional and State-specific approach to planning and implementation. (Mint)

Summary

  • India needs to rebuild the trust between the Centre and states, repair its broken agriculture ecosystem, create state-level farm commissions, and set up a climate fund for agriculture.

Four simultaneous crisis have engulfed Indian agriculture. The first is an income crisis, with stagnant or falling incomes of farm households, which in turn has led to an investment crisis in agriculture. The second is a factor crisis, of rapidly degrading natural resources, especially soil and water. The third is the accelerating human resources crisis, as increasing numbers of rural youth lose faith in agriculture as a viable employment option and exit the village to seek alternative livelihoods in urban or even foreign locations (sometimes through life threatening methods). To add to this brew is the rapidly developing climate crisis, which threatens our hard-won food security, perhaps the most significant achievement since Independence.

Expecting solutions for legacy challenges through what is essentially an annual accounting statement of the central government is unrealistic. However, given the unique nature of the Union budget, and its outsized impact on the national economy, it has become something of a national pastime to wade through the finance minister’s speech for clues about the larger policy direction. Going beyond allocations to existing and a clutch of creatively named new schemes (which we should certainly expect), here’s a four-point wish list for a longer term reset for agriculture. What is expected is at least directional messaging, indicating that there is recognition of the long haul ahead.

The first and foremost requirement is to re-establish a relationship of trust and cooperation between the Centre and the states, an absolute pre-requisite to address the ongoing multiple crises in agriculture. Without this key pillar of the ecosystem being repaired and strengthened, it is unlikely that we can achieve even short-term outcomes, let alone address long-term policy goals. There is currently no standing mechanism at the apex political level, either at the Centre or in the states, where agriculture policy challenges and options can be discussed in an atmosphere free of political friction.

We need a budget announcement for the setting up of the equivalent of the GST Council for agriculture, preferably chaired by the Prime Minister, or at least the Union agriculture minister. This one step will mark a significant break from the policy drift of the past two decades and focus national energies on the urgent task of rebuilding our agricultural economy as an engine of food security, employment generation and value addition.

Secondly, many of the working parts of the agriculture ecosystem are either worn out, creaking or outright broken. These damaged parts must be identified, ranging from agricultural research and education to extension, from credit to rural infrastructure and from technology to pricing policy, to enable a holistic approach to rebuilding the ecosystem. A positive change from over 50 years ago, when the Green Revolution was being rolled out, is the expansion of private sector capacity and investments in the sector. This can be leveraged successfully to rapidly repair the potential of the ecosystem to respond to the current set of challenges. The budget can announce the setting up a National Farm Commission with an eminent group of domain experts, private sector and farm representatives to undertake this exercise.

The present state of agriculture needs a highly decentralized, regional and state-specific approach to planning and implementation, with agroclimatic conditions, land tenure systems, food safety and nutrition goals, market requirements and the short to medium term impact of climate change being factored in. The farming community today is far better informed and aware than was the case in the 1960s and 70s, which to an extent justified highly centralized planning. Thus, this time around, the farming community has to be given a far more active role in planning and execution. It must participate as a partner, and not a passive recipient, in policy making. Hence, the third announcement can suggest the parallel creation of state-level Farm Commissions, to work with the national body and build a truly ground-up vision for agriculture in the coming decades.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, this budget should address the threat of climate change to agriculture and the challenge it poses to our long term food security. This is one area which literally requires a whole-of-the-government approach. For India, climate change is not a matter of addressing emissions only, but rather of protecting access to food and basic livelihoods. Thus, the fourth announcement can set up a National Climate Fund for Agriculture, with an initial corpus of say, ₹5,000 crore. The goal should be to leverage on-farm investments of at least 20 times the corpus, to help farmers transition to the new resilient technologies and practices required to climate-proof agriculture.

The writer is a former IAS officer and currently Director, Samunnati, an agri value chain solutions company. Views are personal.

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