Member of the National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Aayog) Ramesh Chand has been helping governments at the Centre and States to draft policies on agriculture, food production, distribution and climatic resilience. A former professor with the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Mr. Chand stands for reforms in agriculture systems. In an interview to The Hindu, he explained the economic vision of the Niti Aayog and the government towards the sector even as the Opposition and farmers’ organisations have been alleging that the Niti Aayog’s policies are pro big business. Excerpts from the interview:
Both our major cereals wheat and rice are vulnerable to climate change. Farmers in Punjab have been complaining that paddy has resulted in depletion of ground water. Wheat cultivation is also facing challenges from El Nino and excess heat in March and April. What steps are you proposing to address this?
If we do not distort policies and artificially create conditions for the crops, it will be very costly for society and for the environment. Distortions in incentives must be corrected. The first distortion to crop patterns is free power. As long as we are giving free power, the area will keep moving towards water regular crops such as paddy and sugarcane. This needs to be fixed. I have been suggesting to States to replace free power with cash distribution to farmers equivalent to the subsidy. It will automatically economise the consumption.
Due to food shortages in 1960s, we invested heavily on research and development in cereals such as rice and wheat at the cost of other crops. We must raise technological productivity in other crops too.
In Haryana, the area under paddy is much less than Punjab. Haryana has taken some steps that has started showing results. Within rice, larger percentage is for basmati than non-basmati. Crop diversifications have also happened. That’s the way to go ahead.
For Punjab, free power must be replaced by direct cash transfer. Once the government does it, alternative will appear. This can be done by a government order. They should speak to farmers and remove apprehensions and enter into an agreement with them.
Wheat is vulnerable to climate change. So far, scientists were able to address it with heat tolerant varieties. But there is a limit for these varieties. There are broader sector level policies such as climate change adaptation and climate smart agriculture under the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture. We are constantly working out on methods to address this such as early sowing of wheat to adjust cropping patterns. The Punjab Agriculture University has developed a rice variety which matures early.
The Centre is promoting Farmers’ Producer Organisations (FPOs) in agriculture production and marketing. Big corprate companies have also shown interest in investing in FPOS. Is this a new business model in agriculture?
We have 86% farmers with a land holding of less than two hectares. One-third of the farmers have less than one hectare of land. FPOs will help them. It is one model and in a diverse country like us, one model doesn’t succeed everywhere. All FPOs were not successful. We are hand-holding them in production and marketing. Open Network for Digital Commerce is also helping them in marketing their produces. Self Help Groups is another model. But realising the enormity of situation, the total coverage of FPOs for 12-13 crore of farmers is not very high. That is why the government is floating and promoting a lot of cooperatives in production, marketing and even for exports.
The real change will come from cooperatives. Farmers are now better equipped to protect their cooperatives from bureaucratic interference. In terms of reach and range, cooperatives will have a much larger role to play. Cooperatives can do anything and that’s why a new Ministry was created for cooperation with a vision that cooperatives will have their own technology, warehouses and even procurement and distribution provisions. Minister Amit Shah has a very clear and strong vision about cooperatives. Once cooperatives start building their assets, more investments will come to agriculture.
Another worry is the decreasing public investment in agriculture. How do you view this?
Investment in agriculture is not decreasing. The level of subsidies given by the State and Central governments is 2.5 to 3 times compared to what is going as investments. It is a matter of concern. It has to be changed. At present, the public expenditure on agriculture is 2.7% of the GDP [Gross Domestic Product]. Ideally, it should be 4%. Around 14% share in the investment is by government and 85% is by households and very little investments come from corporate sector in production investment. It is very less as farmer organisations oppose it. We must encourage corporate investment in production too. The three farm laws were also to allow fit in the private capital in a larger picture so that they can enter into partnerships in agriculture production with farmers to reduce wastage, technological upgradations, promote processing and develop value chains. The intention was to help farmers. Now, we have model laws. There was also discussions as to why the Centre was enacting those laws. So, States can implement it. We will help States in implementing it. Some States like Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have already done it.
Decrease in buffer stocks of wheat and rice has created concerns about food security...
Buffer stocks were created in such a way that they should not remain the same in all the time. If there’s a shortfall in production, buffer stocks should decrease. But as of now, there is no danger. We are operating open market sales scheme too to stabilise prices. If there’s any threat to food security, government shouldn’t have started this scheme. Food requirement is expanding. We have buffer stock of three million tonnes of pulses. We are maintaining buffer stock of onions. We have buffer stock to stabilise prices. There is a mechanism in the country that reviews prices in every 15 days. I have requested the Food Secretary to rework the buffer stocks as the situation is changing. The last time we reviewed our buffer stock norms was in 2009-10.
Prices of essential vegetables like tomatoes and onions saw unprecedented increase recently. What were the reasons?
Tomatoes and onions are now strong necessity like wheat and rice. People can afford it. They are no more seasonal vegetables. The food habits have changed, accordingly production patterns have also changed. Because of El Nino, there was a decrease in production. But due to constant intervention, government ensured that prices do not go beyond a level. The goal of price policy is to balance interests of consumers and producers. Farmers are now getting much better prices than they used to get earlier. We defend farmers by putting curbs on import. When prices go very high, in the interest of consumers we curb exports.
