DOUBLING FARMER'S INCOME – AGRICULTURE
News: Modi
government promised to double farm income by 2022 but it has only come down:
Congress
What's in the news?
● Targeting
the Narendra Modi government over its promise to double farmers’ income by
2022, the Congress on December 29 said the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government
had actually raised farm incomes between 2004 and 2014.
● The
party also demanded a White Paper from the Modi government for not fulfilling
its promise to double farm incomes.
Causes of Farmers Distress in India:
1. Low agriculture income:
● The
‘Situation Assessment Survey of
Agricultural Households' conducted by the National Sample Survey Office
(NSSO-SAS) of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI)
suggests that average income of an agricultural household was much below the
income of the non-agricultural household.
2. Poor Policy and Planning:
● In
the past, Government strategy primarily focused on raising agricultural output and improving food security rather than
recognising the need to raise farmer’s income,
● The
absence of direct measures to promote farmers’ welfare is also one of the main
reasons for agricultural distress.
3. Low price realization:
● There
is a large gap between what the farmers get for their produce and the prices
that the final consumer pays for the same.
4. Issues with MSP:
● The
issue of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) is a recurrent theme where we see the
farmers seeking higher MSP from the government.
● Lately,
the farmers have been demanding for raising the MSP to 50% of input costs as
per Swaminathan committee recommendations.
● Regional disparity
in getting the benefits of MSP by farmers is one of the important problems.
5. Bankruptcy or indebtedness:
● The
high level of debt, especially from non-institutional
sources (36% of the total credit) with high interest rates compel farmers
for suicide.
6. Poor Market linkages:
● There
is absence of a direct linkage between farm producers and consumers.
● The
limited spatial spread of Agricultural
Produce Market Committee (APMC) markets and high market charges of APMCs
are also responsible for the low price realization by the farmers.
7. Post-harvest Losses:
● A
study conducted by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in 2010 shows
that the post-harvest losses of various commodities range from 4%-18% for
cereals, pulses, fruits and vegetables.
● The Ashok Dalwai report estimated
losses worth 34% and 45% in fruits and vegetables respectively.
8. Dependence on Rainfall and Climate:
● Indian
agriculture is heavily dependent on monsoon and ever-increasing global
temperature has made agriculture more prone to extreme weather events.
● Out
of about 141 million hectares of net area sown in the country, about 65 million hectare (or 45 percent) is
presently covered under irrigation.
9. Lack of Mechanization:
● Introduction
of the latest technology has been limited due to various reasons like
accessibility for credit and low awareness.
10. Other reasons:
● Shortage of inputs
like seeds and irrigation facilities.
● Climate change
related issues that affect the agriculture produce.
Measures need to be taken:
1. Processing industries and cold storage facility:
● Today
90% farmers want processing units and cold storage facility in the villages,
especially for vegetables and fruits.
● So
that farmers will get proper marketing
& rates.
● Government
should incentivize industry to open food processing units and cold storage
facilities near villages.
2. Need for better water management:
● Currently
available irrigation facilities do not cover the entire cultivable land.
● In most cases, it is not
the lack of water but lack of proper water management that causes water
shortage.
● Improved
modern methods of rain water harvesting should be developed. Surplus water from
perennial rivers can be diverted to the needy areas.
● Connecting
the rivers throughout the country will solve this problem.
● Construction
of national waterways will improve
the irrigation facility, which in turn can save the farmers, if the monsoon
fails.
● The
water-use efficiency can be improved significantly with better use of
technologies that include drip
irrigation.
3. Developing alternate sources of income for farmers:
● The
Government should take up the responsibility for providing training to the farmers to acquire new skills to reduce the
dependence on agriculture.
● New
areas like horticulture, aquaculture, fishery
should also be promoted.
4. Sustainable farming methods:
● Organic farming
is the way out for sustainable farming.
● Precision farming
helps to get out of drought adversities by targeted input delivery. It requires
minimum input and also reduces cost of production.
5. Climate Resilience farming (CRF):
● It
depends mostly on technological tools like smart
weather forecasts using Big data analytics.
● Plant biotechnology
by developing short duration varieties, submerged crop varieties for coastal
regions, drought resistant varieties for arid areas can further promote CRF.
6. Need for Market Reforms:
● The
creation of a competitive, stable and unified national market is needed for
farmers to get better prices.
7. Develop village level procurement centers:
● Developing
Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs)
will help develop the agricultural marketing infrastructure and bring markets
closer to the farm-gate.
8. Promotion of Cooperative Farming:
● Consolidation
of land holdings also becomes important to raise farmer incomes.
● Farmers
can voluntarily come together and pool land to gain the benefits of size.
● Through
consolidation, farmers can reap
economies of scale both in input procurement and output marketing.
9. Development Initiatives:
● Initiatives
including infrastructure, technological interventions, farmer friendly policies
and institutional mechanisms can increase agricultural growth and farmers
income.
10. Ashok Dalwai Committee:
● The
Government had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee in April, 2016 to
examine issues relating to ‘Doubling
Farmers’ Income’ (DFI) under the leadership of Ashok Dalwai.
● The
Committee had submitted its Report to the Government in September, 2018
containing the strategy for doubling farmer's income by the year 2022.
● The
DFI strategy as recommended by the Committee include seven sources of income growth such as
○ Improvement
in crop productivity.
○ Improvement
in livestock productivity.
○ Resource
use efficiency or savings in the cost of production.
○ Increase
in the cropping intensity.
○ Diversification
towards high value crops.
○ Improvement in real
prices received by farmers.
○ Shift
from farm to non-farm occupations.
11. Implementation of the recommendations of National Commission
of Farmers:
● Distribute
ceiling-surplus and waste lands.
● A
comprehensive set of reforms to
enable farmers to have sustained and equitable access to water.
● Promotion
of conservation farming, which will help farm families to conserve and improve soil health, water quantity and quality and
biodiversity.
● Expand
the outreach of the formal credit system to reach the really poor and needy.
● Restructure
microfinance policies to serve as Livelihood Finance, i.e. credit coupled with
support services in the areas of technology, management and markets.
12. Price Realization:
● Replace
the Commission on Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP) by an agriculture
tribunal in line with the provisions of Article 323 B of the Constitution.
● Statutory
status to the minimum support price system.
13. Establish regional production belts:
● As
in the cluster-based approach,
supported through the Mission on Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH).
● This
will support the government's initiative of doubling the farmers income.
Huge
R&D investment is required for development of smart and technological
solutions to Agricultural problems of India. Advocating use of Drones and smart
phones to assess crop failures in PM Fasal Bima yojana crop insurance scheme,
e-NAM are few Policy initiatives. But there is huge scope for the government to
solve farmers problems with technological solution.