Increasing productivity of major food grains by 10% can help deal with the impending food crisis. Can entrepreneurs take up the social cause of promoting community farming to boost yield, while making profits?
Of late, stern warnings on food security and prices have been pouring in from the highest echelons of the government and international organizations.
At the Global Agro-Industries Forum (GAIF) in New Delhi on April 9, the Director General of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, talked of serious global shortages of rice, wheat and maize even as the world food prices have risen by 45% in the last nine months. At the same conference, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh linked the steep rise in food prices in India to macro-economic stability saying, “We are once again faced with a situation where rising demand for food grains and other food items is running into supply constraints, both domestically as well as internationally.”
A food crisis is hitting the world hard, and can have serious repercussions for developing countries such as India and China, which together have more than 2 billion mouths to feed. Food riots are raising their ugly heads in poor countries such as Haiti, Cameroon and Ivory Coast leaving scores dead and injured. The call to contain the situation has also come from the European Union, which has warned of a “humanitarian tsunami.” According to estimates, grain stocks globally are at their lowest in 30 years, and 36 countries are said to be facing a major food crisis, of which over 20 are in Africa alone.
Although India is in the safe zone as of now, compared to many other countries, but it cannot insulate itself for too long in today’s era of globalization. Inflation is hitting the common man hard, and is giving poll-bound UPA government sleepless nights. Prices of rice have risen 20% in the last one year, while that of wheat have gone up by 8%. For the week ended March 29, inflation hit a high of 7.41%, which is the highest since November 8, 2004. The relief though is that the weight of food products in the wholesale price index (read inflation) is around 22%, while that of manufacturing products is around 64% and that of fuels is around 15%. During 2007-08, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector is likely to grow at 2.6% only, as compared to 3.8% in 2006-07. Almost stagnant productivity, low levels of investment and unpredictable climatic changes are being held responsible for this.
This has not happened over a day, but has crept in slowly. The growing population in Asia, particularly India and China has led to an unprecedented demand for food. Crop failures can also be blamed besides the increase in production of bio-fuels. India’s productivity has almost stagnated. Poor storage and transit facilities have also led to shortages.
| DARE/second green revolution |
| PM’s call for Second Green Revolution |
| We need a Second Green Revolution. We need new technologies, new organizational structures, new institutional responses and, above all, a new compact between farmers, technologists, scientists, administrators, businessmen, bankers and consumers. The global community and global agencies must fashion a collective response that leads to a quantum leap in agricultural productivity and output so that the specter of food shortage is banished from the horizon once again. I believe that farming is increasingly becoming an unviable business proposition for many rural households. Small and marginal farms have become an unviable proposition. We therefore need to make farming viable at this scale. |
Increasing productivity
To meet the food demand of its growing population, India will have to increase productivity. With more than 60% of our population involved in agriculture, the government can ill-afford to ignore the primary sector. The Green Revolution of the 1960s saw the introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds and better use of fertilizers and irrigation. No doubt it made India self-sufficient in food grains and reduced our dependence on imports, but it seems to have lived its course. “We need a Second Green Revolution. We need new technologies, new organizational structures, new institutional responses and, above all, a new compact between farmers, technologists, scientists, administrators, businessmen, bankers and consumers,” the Prime Minister said at the GAIF.
To usher in the Second Green Revolution, DARE suggests increasing productivity by 10% of all major food grains. We take the example of rice, wheat, jowar, bajra and maize. Their average productivity has been 2001 kg/hectare, 2662 kg/hectare, 782 kg/hectare, 872 kg/hectare and 1916 kg/hectare respectively. The total average annual production of these food grains has been 184.46 million tons. If their productivity increases by 10%, it could make a huge difference to the overall food production. Not only this, increase in production would also mean huge monetary gains for farmers.
The big question is who will bell the cat? Making agriculture viable is the need of the hour, but other steps such as community farming, crop rotation, increasing crop density, multiple cropping, improvement and renewal of seeds and better agronomic practices would also be needed. Let’s focus on the opportunity of creating farm banks and the use of mechanized agricultural practices.
Farm banks
The total average area under cultivation for major crops under review has been 94.75 million hectares. According to some estimates, despite high growth, the average yield in India is generally only 30-50% of the highest average yield in the world. This is dismal given the fact that a massive chunk of India’s population depends on agriculture.
| DARE/agri-prescription |
| - Farm banks |
| - Crop rotation |
| - Multiple cropping |
| - Improvement and renewal of seeds |
| - Increasing crop density |
The concept
Most farmers in our country have small holdings that keep a lot of land unutilized or underutilized. After the abolition of the Zamindari system, under which one person or a single family held large swathes of land, agricultural land got divided into small blocks across the country. The Zamindari system was marred by large scale persecution of poor farmers, who worked mostly as bonded laborers under greedy moneylenders. Also, the decline of the joint family system further led to division of agricultural land.
Can we now look at reposing trust in each other, and work towards community farming? Farm banking or community farming would involve pooling land together and treating it as large single unit. This would help bring more land under cultivation, and thus lead to rise in productivity. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is said to have recently announced its plans to introduce community farming, which would involve consolidating several small land holdings in Andhra Pradesh. It is believed that the scheme would strive to boost the per capita income of small farmers.
The ground work
Exceptional leadership qualities to get people together to pool in their farms are needed to make
The ground work
Exceptional leadership qualities to get people together to pool in their farms are needed to make the farm bank concept a success. In a society deeply divided on religious and caste lines, this would not be an easy task. Removing barriers between small farms would make huge chunks of land available for cultivation.
The second step after pooling in the farms together would involve using best agricultural practices. Thanks to the superb advances in the field of plant breeding, biotechnology, plant genetics and physiology, and soil science, there is plenty of scope for putting these to use. Good agronomy practices are also linked to crop rotation, irrigation, and pest control.
| DARE/food grain cultivation | ||||||||
| Food grain | Area under cultivation | Production | Productivity (kg/hectare) | Prices per quintal (as on 17.4.08) | Value of produce (Rs) (as on 17.4.08) | Productivity (up10%) | Production (up 10%) | Value of produce (Rs) (after 10% increment) |
| Rice | 42.85 | 85.72 | 2001 | 1000 | 10,000,000,000 | 2201.1 | 94.292 | 11,000,000,000 |
| Wheat | 26.2 | 69.73 | 2662 | 1090 | 10,900,000,000 | 2928.2 | 76.703 | 11,990,000,000 |
| Jowar | 9.24 | 7.22 | 782 | 1100 | 11,000,000,000 | 860.2 | 7.942 | 12,100,000,000 |
| Bajra | 9.34 | 8.15 | 872 | 657 | 6,750,000,000 | 959.2 | 8.965 | 7,425,000,000 |
| Maize | 7.12 | 13.64 | 1916 | 640 | 6,400,000,000 | 2107.6 | 15.004 | 7,040,000,000 |
| Area: Million Hectare | 1 quintal = 100 kg | |||||||
| Production: Million Tonnes | 1 million ton = 1,000,000,000 kg | |||||||
| Yield: Kg/Hectare | Assumption: 10% increase in production | |||||||
What’s in it for me?
At Rs 1,000 a quintal, the value as on April 17, 2008 of rice produced (85.72 million tons) was Rs 1,000 crore. Presuming that the production jumps by 10%, this would rake in a whopping Rs 1,100 crore! The gains for an entrepreneur would come in the form of an effective revenue sharing model. An entrepreneur may take a share of the pie with the rest getting distributed among farmers, who are the major stakeholders. This can be replicated for all major food grains.
With a potential food crisis on the horizon for India, the solution for hunger is in increasing productivity and making stakeholders richer.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by S.Giri Kumar, September 28, 2009
Email:sgikumar@yahoo.co.in
written by manish kumar agarwalla, July 16, 2009
written by Raghavender, March 04, 2009
My mail id is raghavenderb4u@yahoo.com
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
I am Rekha Sharma and I want to do somthing good in Agriculture field But I am Facing fund Problem Then If you Help me.
My Contact 9302778785.