OVER five decades since the green revolution started, farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the food bowl of India, are realising that the health of the soil is getting worse, the water table is falling and ultimately the productivity is going to be affected. The era of intensive agriculture has brought an era of anxiety.
Agricultural production is virtually stagnating. In 1995-96, foodgrain production slumped to minus 3.60 per cent. In 1997-98, it further declined to minus 3.70 per cent, the worst-ever since the heady days of the green revolution. In recent years too, food production has been low.
Of course, the agricultural growth under green revolution helped the country in a major way, not only economically but also by way of international prestige. Known for living from the ship to mouth, India developed, thanks to its farmers who took to the new agricultural technologies in a big way especially in Punjab, Haryana and western UP, its agriculture both vertically and horizontally in terms of productivity and cropping intensity. In encouraging farmers, the price support system worked wonders. The famine-avoidance strategy that India launched had all the necessary ingredients for a sustained effort. An autonomous body, Agricultural Prices Commission was constituted, with the basic objective of assuring fair prices for farm produce. The commission works out the cost of cultivation for several agricultural commodities, and suggests a price to the government that includes profit that should serve as an incentive to grow more.
Studies have shown that the most significant aspect of the price support mechanism has been insulation of farmers against a decline in prices. For instance, wheat production was very high in 1971-72, as a consequence of which prices should have declined by at least 25 per cent. Since the government purchased all the wheat that was offered, farmers were actually paid 7 per cent more. Again, in 1982-83, when wheat production was 14.3 per cent higher than the previous year, the prices should have actually declined by 32.5 per cent. With the government purchasing all the wheat that flowed into the markets, however, the farmers realised 18 per cent more.
The biggest achievement of the Indian food policy, dependent more and more on buffer stocking and operational stock holding, has been the avoidance of famine. Since the early 1970s, the country has avoided famine even during adverse weather conditions, through a carefully designed food security system involving the maintenance of both substantial grain reserves and an extensive PDS. As experts have noted, the severe drought of 1987, rated as the most devastating of this century, affected nearly 155 million hectares. In spite of this, no starvation and hunger deaths were reported. This was essentially the result of excellent food management based on foodgrain reserves built largely from homegrown wheat and rice.
It was with the basic objective of curbing consumption and ensuring an equitable distribution of available food supplies, especially in the deficit areas and among the poorer strata of society, that the Public Distribution System (PDS) was introduced. PDS supplies were also used for ‘food for work’ programmes as well as other anti-poverty programmes. At present, PDS covers more than 80 million families and the total foodgrains distributed through a network of 40,000 fair price shops accounts for over one-third of the total trade in foodgrain.
However, the green revolution brings a litany of woes. According to a study, the miracle that began with wheat was replicated in rice. This is where the cost-benefit ratio has turned negative. The downward spiral in food production continues through the southern regions of the country. Tamil Nadu is under tremendous strain from intensive cultivation. In Karnataka, the negative trend in yield levels of all food crops, barring cotton and sugarcane, are noted. Kerala too is passing through its worst-ever crisis on the foodgrain front.
India’s economic restructuring has placed emphasis on agri-exports. The nation is no more aiming at self-sufficiency in food. Today farmers are expected to produce crops that are suitable for export and to compete in the international market. With the promise of cheap food available off the shelf in the global market, the focus has shifted from agriculture to industry, trade and commerce, from the small and marginal farmers to agri-processing companies, which alone can bring in investments and add value to produce.
