Focus on farmers’ issues, agriculture sector in India & long-term planning is the need of hour
The Asian Tribune
The agriculture sector is Indian economy’s major pillar and it needs serious attention.
Right now, major challenge is to ensure that the rise in farmers’ income should be in proportion with the inflation rate.
While the input cost is high, in this ratio, the farmers’ income is not going up.
This is one of the reasons behind the farm distress. The income can’t be raised well, until the rate at which crop is sold, remains less.
In such scenario, agriculture will remain profitable if production is high. Else, its net loss, farmers rotate credit & just manage to survive.
But this is not sustainable. If there is major loss of crop or drought, then it badly hits the farmer’s family. Insurance data gives indication.
The farmers’ suicide is also a symptom of the plight of farmers. It is for this reason that Agriculture survey needs to be conducted, with due diligence. If the baseline of data is outdated, the real picture can’t emerge.
On the basis of questionable data, large production can be claimed but it doesn’t change the situation on the ground.
Even if claim is made that the farm income has risen, harsh truth is that serious study has not come out of big institutes.
Empirical data [based on proper sample size] is always not available.
One example is that when a particular data was fact-checked, many people who were believed to be real farmers, came out as involved in work other than agriculture.
Lack of R&D is a major issue. In agri-sector, research has multiple aspects that include crop varieties. But there has hardly been an effort to commercialize the seeds.
Yet another area of concern is farm economy. Use of technology is must. Other sectors 0r factories get long-term financial support, it is different with farm sector.
Seed research and training of farmers in new and modern crop practices, is lacking.
Long-term planning, research is a must but less priority is given to it.
Owing to lack of funds, research in the entire sector gets affected. Just remember that the Agriculture bank of China is the second largest bank of the world, not just among agriculture banks, but all banks. Shouldn’t we have such a bank. Despite the fact that agriculture is the dominant sector, real focus is missing.
[Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya is CEO, Ekgaon group. He holds a degree in engineering apart from MBA. He is known for his work in farm sector. The views are his personal]
