Dr. Debesh Roy
The criticality of
agriculture for sustainable and inclusive growth of the Indian economy can be
gauged from the fact that, the sector provides employment to about 48.9 per
cent of the total workforce in India, but contributes only 15.2 per cent to the
country’s Gross Value Added (GVA). Indian agriculture continues to depend on
the vagaries of nature. For instance, after two years of back-to-back poor
monsoons and drought conditions in several parts of the country, agriculture in
India picked up momentum during 2016-17 due to normal monsoon. Therefore, the overdependence
of agriculture on monsoons needs to be reduced, with a view to achieving
agricultural sustainability.
There are various other constraints
and challenges that need to be addressed urgently at the policy, planning,
technological, institutional, and operational levels, with a view to achieving sustainability
of Indian agriculture. About 85 per cent
of operational holdings in the country are in the small and marginal
categories, and the average size of an operational holding is only 1.15 ha. Due
to fragmentation and disorganisation, farmers face constraints in procuring
inputs like seeds and fertilizers at reasonable prices, lack bargaining power
in the market for realising better value for their produce, and have inadequate
access to credit, technology and extension services.
Stagnation in
productivity of agricultural crops has been observed in India, due to decline
in farm size and income; depleting natural resource base; increasing input
costs, and adverse economics of farming; deficiency of micronutrients in the
soil and deteriorating soil health; inadequate post-harvest technology; uncertain
market prospects; and high indebtedness of farmers. Capital formation is of
critical importance for the sustainability of agricultural growth, and it is
imperative to arrest the declining trend and increase investment in the sector,
through both public and private investments.
Climate change poses a daunting challenge to
produce enough food for the increasing population in the face of decreasing
resources. It is, therefore, imperative for the smallholder production system
to adapt to climate change while making agriculture more sustainable and rural
livelihoods more resilient. It is felt that reactive adaptations like improving
the markets, changing agricultural policies, enhancing social protection and
preparing for disasters have their limitations. Therefore, more adaptive
improvements like Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) are required instead.
In a smallholder
dominated agricultural production scenario, group approaches, viz. farmer
producer organisations (FPOs)/ farmer producer companies (FPCs), farmers’
federations, etc., with a focus on
diversified activities, viz., agricultural crops, horticulture, dairy,
fisheries, bee-keeping and off-farm sector, could lead to profitable and
sustainable agricultural production systems. This is possible through the
development of efficient and inclusive agriculture value chains. Agricultural
marketing reforms in the form of enactment of new model APMC act by states, and
electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) would be a win-win situation for
farmers, traders, processors, retailers, and consumers. Agricultural
policy also needs to focus on creating the right ecosystem for opening up of
the export market for agricultural produce of small and marginal farmers.
Enabling environment for
agricultural sustainability could be created through massive investment in
irrigation, with a focus on water-use efficiency, and value chain infrastructure,
easy availability of credit (especially investment credit), and risk mitigation
through wider coverage and effective implementation of Pradhan Mantri Fasal
Bima Yojana (PMFBY), and futures and options trading by FPOs in commodity
markets. Effective and efficient implementation of these transformative
strategies, could lead to sustainability of Indian agriculture, and facilitate
the achievement of Government of India’s goal of “Doubling of farmers’ income
by 2022”.