While understanding the worldwide
agricultural crisis one can easily discern a fact that everywhere the governments
have knowingly kept the farmers at a disadvantage in terms of their income.
Farmers did not get a fair price for their crops. This only caused the current
crisis.In order to understand the situation, we will have to know about the
economic design and cycles of India and other countries. We may compare the agriculture in the 1960s and present times in the US to find that the real
income of the farmers has gone down. This is admitted by the Chief Economic
Advisor of the US Agricultural Department.

In 2018, the average income of the US
farmers has fallen not for the first time, but for the sixth year in a row. This
is the state of the US which we look up to in matters of technological
advancements and policies.

India too suffers from a similar
crisis. Our governments have deliberately kept farmers away from better incomes
to discourage agriculture because it is believed that economic transformation
would only be realized upon agriculture’s fall. Economists of India and
elsewhere are of the opinion that people be pulled to the cities to provide
cheaper labour for the industries. Industries require cheap raw materials in
order to thrive. This is why the agriculture crisis is existent.

The Indian Economic Survey 2016
informs that in 17 states or we can say half of India, farmer family’s average
annual income is Rs 20,000 which is Rs1,700 per month. Such an amount cannot
even support a cow’s upkeep. Now imagine how would a farmer family be managing
on such a pittance?

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A large portion
of Indian population is directly engaged with agriculture. Is such a sizeable
population then constantly being overlooked?

The NITI Aayog had, in one of its
reports, mentioned that for the past two years the farmers’ real income rise
was zero. In the five years prior to this, the real income of the farmer
families had only increased by a mere half per cent. I know the exact figure to
be 0.44%.

Let us go back a little further in the
past. A research revealed that for the period 1985-2005, the farm-get price
(the price which a farmer receives) remained frozen. Keeping in mind the
inflation, one would notice that the price which farmers got in 2005 was the
same as that in 1995, rising input costs notwithstanding. It means that for
over 20 years the prices remained constant.

We can understand better with the help
of another report. As per a report of Organization for Economic Co-ordination
and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations
(OECD-ICRIER), the farmers suffered a loss of Rs 45 lakh crore during the period
2000-2017 due to not getting a fair price for their produce.

So, you can well understand the
agriculture crisis where the farmer is made to survive on the same income for
the past 40 years. Had the same happened to any of us, we would have long
committed suicide or left the business for good. There is a need to view this
crisis in terms of income versus expenditure. But instead, such a scenario was
created that farming isn’t economically viable because of poor yield to the
farmer. This notion is false.

But isn’t it
generally said that the farmers are disappointed over poor yield?

I agree that many crops fall short at the national level, but even more important is to know what will be done of a
better yield. Is it to be found dumped by the farmers on the roads due to lack
of fair pricing or resulting in farmers’ suicide? This means that the problems
lies elsewhere and we are looking for it somewhere else.

Take for example the situation in
Punjab. With 98% of the area in Punjab well irrigated, there would hardly be a
single field without access to water. Punjab leads the world in paddy and wheat
crops output. Better irrigation, better crop output and still Punjab shocks the
world by the frequent cases of farmers’ suicides. In the past 10 years, more
than 10 thousand farmers have ended their lives in Punjab.

This shows amply that the crisis is
not due to lack of irrigation or production because even in the regions having an abundance of both farmers are still resorting to suicides. Somewhere the policymakers, governments and politicians will have to really look and think what is
actually wrong and find means to resolve it. It should not be that for an
Indian problem we look into Europe and the US for finding the solution. Many times, we have taken the wrong lessons from foreign nations and have paid
dearly for it. So, I say that we should seriously deliberate to find a
localized solution.

A big concern for
the farmers is their input cost. The government now talks of zero budget
natural farming. Tell us more about it.

I believe that the term ‘zero- budget’
has sent across the message that we need not invest anything during farming and
that the farmers needn’t put in much. If the policymakers believe that a decrease in the cost of production will translate into an increase in the
income then such a formula of zero budget is problematic.

India has had a long tradition of
natural methods and low-cost production. Even you at some point been asked what
is in a name. Once I was told by the famous writer Khushwant Singh that his
record-breaking novel was rejected by over 20 publishers before he renamed it
as Train to Pakistan. Zero budget, therefore, seems an obvious escapist move to absolve a government of its
responsibility.

The RBI date for the period 2011-2016-17
reveals that the total agricultural investment in the country was a mere 0.4%
of the GDP while the sector supports 50% of the population. It means that one
isn’t inclined to invest for 50%. So, following the 0.4% investment, the
zero-budget formula of the NITI Aayog seems but natural.

I believe zero-budget farming
technique to be sound, it just needs the addition of agro-ecological or needs
to be kept nature and environment-friendly. Many people in India have worked on
natural farming—Narayan Reddy in Karnataka, Bhaskar Salve in Gujarat and
Naamalvar in Tamil Nadu had taught people to cultivate without pesticides. With
these three long gone, there are still many who are dedicated to promoting
natural farming at their own level. Farming should involve minimum external
input, whatever is available in fields or home must be used for farming.

Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitaramanan
had begun a new chapter by mentioning it (zero budget farming). This needed to
be vocalized because the world has finally understood that it is better to keep
harmful pesticides at bay. India started a dialogue when such issues are
already taken up in the US and Europe.

Does it mean that
the developed nations are considering a revisioning of existing agricultural
practices?

A few days ago, there came up a report
of a commission in Britain (food farming and countryside commission) advocating
several major changes. The report warned that the path of intensive farming
that we currently follow is not correct. People’s health has suffered, the soil
has suffered, input costs have risen, environment adversely affected, water
drained out and even climatic changes have all been attributed to the intensive
farming system which called for intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides.

They say that Britain must undergo a
transitional period towards agroecological systems by adopting nature-based
farming.If Britain thinks on these lines that this is the right opportunity for
India as we had adopted their modern farming practices and methods before. So,
if they are changing so we must. All nature-based processes are beneficial.
Whether organic farming or zero-budget natural farming or home therapy or
bio-dynamics—we must promote and adopt them judiciously. Some process would
more effective in Punjab than Karnataka, a technique used successfully in
Rajasthan may not be as effective in Kerala. Therefore, varied techniques must
be brought into use. We would have to show the farmers the way to resolve their
woes. Pesticides anyway are poisons and their use in any crop is bound to have
its ill-effects.