The ailing Indian farmer: how we got here
Farmer distress in India is a complex issue to tackle. I shall attempt to briefly describe the historical context behind the current state of agriculture.
Problems in the agriculture sector stem from the issue of land ownership. Before British India, there was a system of Jagirdars and Zamindars who reported to the king, but the peasant essentially owned the land. The Permanent Settlement Act by Lord Cornwallis in 1793 made Zamindars hereditary land-owners and made the cultivators landless. It created a rift between the two. The land became a commodity to be bought and sold and it has led to land fragmentation through the years. Needless to say, British rule until 1947 had been characterized by mismanagement of peasants and famines.
Post-independence, the Nehru Administration's focus on heavy industries, took attention away from agriculture. India became recipient of the Public Law 480(PL480) program of the USA in 1954. It allowed them to buy grains in their own currency, and hence save foreign exchange for investment in industrial equipment. The objectives of driving forward the PL480 program apart from humanitarian assistance can be attributed to the creation of markets to sell surplus produce of American farmers and also attempt to wean away developing, newly-formed countries from Soviet influence. In fact, the term Green Revolution was coined by USAID to counteract the Soviet Union's Red Revolution.
India hence started to become increasingly dependent on PL480 for wheat, while itself diverted attention to cash crops like jute for export. This carried on until the1965 India-Pak war(read CIA's assessment of the situation, Pakistan being a recipient of PL480 too) and the Indian government's subsequent condemnation of American invasion of Vietnam, after which food aid was cut.
All this while in the 1960s, following questionable principles of Malthusian economics, a narrative of food crisis in India hinging mainly on wheat shortfall was pushed forward, correlating exponential population growth and linear food produce growth. Unfortunately, a couple of draught years followed, leading to a 'ship-to-mouth' crisis and aiding the narrative.
In these circumstances, Indian minister C Subramanian visited the USA and sowed the seeds for the advent of the green revolution in India with the help Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug and M Swaminathan(in India). Following the template used in Mexico, high-yielding variety seeds were imported, which required greater use of chemical pesticides, fertilizers and water. These seeds resulted in an increase of wheat(and later rice production) in a relatively short time period, ushering in an era of self-sufficiency.
However, the long-term unintended consequences and social costs of the policy and imported technology are being felt today. Increased soil toxicity and ground-water pollution due to pesticide/fertilizer run-off, loss of groundwater due to unsustainable ground-water extraction and loss of genetic crop diversity are some of the environmental effects. It's also partly the reason for income inequality among farmers which exists today because of unequal technology/resource distribution.
Currently, there are talks about bringing in a Green Revolution 2.0. Bill Gates has been one of its proponents and is leaning towards weather-resistant crops which essentially means genetically modified varieties(GMOs). From past experience, it's imperative that any 'revolution' ushered in carefully calculates the socio-economic and environmental costs. It may be wise to return to simpler organic methods of farming.
There is enough food produced in the world, it's a matter of efficient and equitable distribution.
References:
-Rohit
Thanks for the thorough background on India's agriculture sector. I believe the urgency of 1960s outweighed the potential environmental concerns, which led to the success of Green Revolution. I would also be interested in learning more about harvest wastage taking place at government storage centers. Underdeveloped logistical infrastructure and overall mismanagement by the center/states has also led to huge grain wastage. On the economics side, I would be interested in learning more about how the national parties are looking to alleviate farmer distress. The introduction of UBI concept by Congress has certainly attracted attention, and it could be a game-changing policy move by the center, if implemented in any form.
ReplyDeleteThats the hypothesis which is under spotlight from some quarters- 'was green revolution a success'? considering the present farmer situation, soil & water quality etc. And what direction agriculture in India needs to take in the future..
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