Agriculture is the traditional occupation of Indians; the Vedas allude to farming innumerable times and archaeological evidence suggests that agriculture was the mainstay of the Indus Valley civilisation. According to a famous medieval saying, farming is the noblest profession, trade comes next, with service being an infinitely worse choice. However, in modern times, technological progress has carried trade, and the service industry, far ahead of the agricultural sector; while traders have prospered and professionals earn in crores, most farmers barely make both ends meet.
Even though food is a basic necessity, everywhere farmers are in distress, and most capitalist economies have to subsidise agriculture so that agricultural activity does not cease altogether and there is some locally grown food on the table. Neglect of agriculture in First World countries, and the comparative advantage of farming in fertile lands, saw much of the world’s agricultural production shifting to countries like Russia and Ukraine.
The disadvantages of this arrangement, and the importance of agriculture and food security, were brought home by the Russia-Ukraine war that led to food scarcities in many parts of the world, and skyrocketing prices of agricultural commodities everywhere. India is fortunate that our farmers produce more than enough for our needs and the National Food Security Act 2013 guarantees free rations for 81 crore people ~ almost two-third of our population. However, farmers as a class ~ except the largest ones and those who evade taxes by showing business income as exempt agricultural income ~ have grown progressively poorer because prices of commodities such as oil, gold, or copper, have risen much more than prices of agricultural products. For instance, the average price of a quintal (one hundred kilogrammes) of wheat, that was around Rs.70 in 1970 is now Rs.2300 i.e., an increase of 33 times, while the price of gold has increased from Rs.184 (per 10 grams) to more than Rs.61,000 i.e., an increase of 331 times. Similarly, the price of petrol has increased from 90 paise per litre to around Rs.100 per litre, that is 112 times.
The rise in share prices has been even steeper ~ more than a thousand times. Macroeconomic indicators buttress this proposition; more than 45 per cent of our population is engaged in agriculture, which accounts for merely 15 per cent of our GDP. No wonder, despite increase in production, our farmers are much worse off than their peers, in other sectors. A pointer to the distress in agriculture is the increasing number of farmer suicides. Obviously, an ecosystem in which agriculture and agriculturists can flourish is yet to be created. The Mughals, and later on the British built a network of canals, which tradition was continued in independent India, but there has been no pathbreaking advance in agriculture after the
Green Revolution in 1965-66. Today, farmers are accused of wasting natural resources by using too much water, degrading the soil by using too much chemical fertiliser and causing environmental damage by using pesticides. Far from devoting money and thought to end these harmful practices, no alternative model has ever been suggested by anyone in authority. Rather, the stillborn Farming Acts, if implemented, would have aggravated waste of resources and the concomitant environmental damage, because after leasing huge tracts of land, cash-rich corporates would have practised mono-culture, using even more water, fertiliser and pesticides (A Disaster Averted, 4 December 2021). During corona times, when production of all commodities nosedived and exports touched their nadir, production and export of agricultural commodities actually increased.
When factories and business establishments closed down during the lockdown, agriculture absorbed the exodus of retrenched workers. Yet, despite being the bedrock of the country’s well-being, agriculture is the proverbial stepchild of Indian polity; while lakhs of crore rupees are given away to the manufacturing sector as Production Linked Incentive and other hand-outs, nothing substantial is earmarked for the agricultural sector. In fact, no worthwhile initiative has emerged for agriculture for quite some time. Neglect of agriculture and the entire agricultural ecosystem has kept yields low, and farmers in penury.
Additionally, consumers, that is the entire population, are affected by madly fluctuating prices of agricultural commodities ~ sometimes farmers throw their produce on the road because of low prices, and at other times consumers throw up their hands in despair, at the high prices of agricultural produce. Despite the Government’s ambitious Operation Greens scheme, aimed at ensuring availability of TOP (tomatoes, onions and potatoes) vegetables at stable prices, the prices of these vegetables often touch the sky. As an ameliorative measure, the Government opens some few distribution centres, that sell these vegetables at reasonable prices benefitting 0.001 per cent consumers. However, a long-term solution has not been thought of, much less implemented.
Another, more serious anomaly, is that despite having adequate stock of food grains in FCI godowns, and with the National Food Security Act mandating distribution of food grains to the poor, a significant percentage of the Indian population is nutritionally challenged. A Report titled “Asia and the Pacific ~ Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022” prepared by FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO makes depressing reading; around one-sixth of our population is undernourished, probably because a healthy diet requires much more than cereals ~ vegetables, milk, eggs to name a few.
Evaluating our progress, at the halfway point, since the SDGs were announced in 2015, the Report notes that progress towards ending malnutrition has stalled, and we do not seem to be on track to achieve Targets 2.1 and 2.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Significantly, the Indian Government did not furnish statistics for preparation of the Report, but with no similar survey being conducted by the government, one has to place reliance on the FAO report. The Report blames the 5Fs ~ lack of food, feed, fuel, fertilizer and finance ~ for the present crisis, the last four factors being squarely applicable to the Indian milieu.
Also, in what could be an indication of inequality in our society, child obesity is increasing sharply. In a related development, the stock of wheat and rice in Government godowns is falling (see table): This depletion in stock holding is despite a reduction in entitlement from 10 kg of wheat/rice to 5 kg from 1 January 2023, and substitution of rice for wheat in the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), as also a push towards consumption of millets. In a Press release, the Government has cited (a) lower procurement of wheat due to lower production (b) prices higher than MSP in the open market and (c) the adverse geo-political situation for the drop in stocks, which are still at a manageable level.
One reason not mentioned in the Press Release, is a significant rise in export of food grains in the last three years, with rice exports rising two and a half times and wheat exports rising twenty times ~ despite export curbs imposed by the Government. Resultantly, the food price index has been rising steadily since March 2020 i.e., since the onset of Covid-19, with an increase of 12.5 per cent in the last financial year alone. The FAO Report notes that worldwide, food prices have risen sharply; it would appear that the era of cheap food prices is now definitely over, though farmers are nowhere near getting a remunerative price for their produce.
Therefore, a tough managerial challenge faces the Government, which is to ensure that enough food items are available in the market at reasonable prices, yet farmers are not short changed. A slew of reforms is required, from ensuring that agricultural holdings are not fragmented further, to making agricultural inputs available to farmers at reasonable prices. Then, a fair and transparent market for agricultural commodities has to be developed, farmers have to be made aware of the latest agricultural techniques and village economies have to be developed, so that the burden on agriculture is reduced.
The lot of farmers is pitiable worldwide; the reason for which was explained succinctly by US President (then Senator) John F. Kennedy: “The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways” (Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner, Bismarck, North Dakota, April 11, 1958). Unfortunately, not much has changed for farmers since then.
(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-TaX)