A5
“There is a major shift from small-ticket subsidies to bigticket subsidies, which is depriving small farmers of their due share”
CURRENTLY, TECHNOLOGY and economic policies are not in favour of “Evergreen Revolution” as envisioned by M S Swaminathan. As he puts it succinctly in the ncf report, the progress of farming in India has to be measured in terms of increased income and well-being of farmers rather than increased production or productivity.
Public investment in agriculture is declining. Currently, it accounts for less than 3 per cent at the national level, despite the fact that more than half of the country’s population depends on agriculture directly or indirectly. Hence, the support services, which farmers were supposed to receive, are getting reduced. Small and marginal farmers, who form about 85 per cent of the country’s total farmer population, are bearing the maximum brunt.
There is a major shift from smallticket subsidies (small implements and irrigation equipment in the range of `50,000 to `100,000) to big-ticket subsidies (tractors, harvesters, polyhouses in the range of `50 lakh to `30 lakh). Even on agriculture credit front, smallticket credits are declining and big-ticket credits are increasing. These deprive small farmers their due share and make their production costlier.
Escalating production cost is not taken into account and prices are always fixed in favour of buyers. Even the Market Intervention Scheme (mis) and Price Stabilization Fund (psf) are often used to help consumers rather than producers. Hence, the net income of farmers has plummeted. On the other hand, public policy shifts have led to privatisation of services like education and health, which has increased the cost of living. This general decline in wealth creation in farming has had a cascading effect on farm labour.
The only way to address this rural poverty is to move to a “farmers income security model” where the government performs a balancing act between cost of cultivation, market price, cost of living, subsidies and other support services through an institutional approach like the Farmers’ Income Commission.
The ecological crisis and risk in agriculture are also increasing because of the models of agriculture being promoted. It is time we moved into agro-ecological approaches and replaced chemicals with more renewable sources of nutrients. The entire world is now focussing on soil health and soil microbial properties. Still, most of the agricultural research institutes and universities have not updated their courses to help students gain modern understanding of soils. This becomes highly critical in the backdrop of changing climate and increasing risks in agriculture.
Similarly, there is a shift towards water-intensive crops and an excessive em-