INDIAN AGRICULTURE HEADING TOWARDS CRISIS?-AN INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

ASSOCHAM, the business man's association in India has a valid point in raising the issue regarding the soil fertility in the country. It is well known that after the Green Revolution had run its course, the farm lands in the country had become almost semi deserts with vastly depleted nutrients and degraded soil, unfit to be used for economic cultivation. High inputs of fertilizers and crop protectants brought about this damage, a price the country had to pay for higher productivity from the land. Though this situation was known for quite some time, nothing much was thought of by GOI to rehabilitate the farm lands across the country. ASSOCHAM deserves credit for touching on this aspect and trying to sensitize GOI on this issue with its eminent suggestions. How far the message will sink into the minds of the politicians and bureaucrats, controlling the levers of power, remains to be seen.

"Satellite imagery shows that soil degradation has become endemic in large tracts of land, especially the Ganges agri belt. An index should be formed for specific regions or sub-divisions and updated regularly," Assocham General Secretary D S Rawat said. In the report, he claimed there were multiple nutrient deficiencies in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Gangetic belt produces 50 per cent of food grains and feeds 40 per cent of the Indian population. He said the most important nutrient, nitrogen is deficient in half of the areas in Uttar Pradesh, all parts of Haryana, most of Bihar and some parts of Punjab, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. Rawat said, in most states phosphorous deficiency is 20 per cent and micro nutrients like zinc, potassium, copper and sulphur are deficient in almost all kinds of soils found across India. The situation is worsening because the close relationship between farm animals and agriculture is being replaced by modern farm practices, where economic value rather than environmental concerns are main determinants. It would be critical to raise food grain production from the current level of 230 million tonnes (MT), as over 30 per cent of output will be required to support proposed food security entitlement, which the government intends to legislate shortly. With another 20 MT required for buffer stocks, any fall in foodgrain output could jeopardise implementation of basic foodgrain basket for 70 per cent of households. The demand is estimated to rise to 262 MT by 2021. About 128 million hectares (MH) of cultivated area is suffering from water erosion due to lack of proper humus on top soil. Satellite imagery shows 25 per cent of cultivable land (81 MH) is facing desertification due to top soil being lost to water, wind and other erosion. "Some 100 MH or 70 per cent of farmland is heading towards a situation where it will not be able to support economic cultivation," Rawat warned.

Organic cultivation system is known to raise the soil health though productivity may not go up dramatically but the logistics involved in converting the degraded farm land into healthy one are too complex. Even if the suggestions of the business body is taken up seriously, the larger question still remains as to who will organize the required services to help the farmers to decide about crops to be raised, access to right quality seeds and optimum agricultural practices, so necessary to attain maximum production. Intricately linked to soil quality assessment is the need for a national policy on agriculture, particularly regarding the diverse needs of food for domestic consumption and export if excess is available. If various reports on Indian agriculture are taken seriously, there is a marked disinclination on the part of the governments, both central and the states, to plough money into this sector for research and farm services. This mindset must change and the present investment must rise several fold if desired results are to be achieved.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
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