The sudden repeal of the three contentious farm laws provides a historic opportunity to rethink, reinvent and redesign the future of Indian agriculture, laying the foundations for an evergreen revolution. Once the festivities and celebrations are over, it is imperative for the political leadership to recast the economic design with the underlying objective of making agriculture a powerhouse of economic growth.
Neoliberal economists will cry hoarse but making agriculture profitable, economically viable and environmentally sustainable is the crying need of the times. At a time when the world is waking up to the urgency of transforming the unhealthy and unsustainable food systems, India has the ability to provide a roadmap that is ecologically safe, as well as healthy for the people and planet. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bold but belated initiative in withdrawing the proposed market reforms in agriculture, the first step towards a reformative agriculture has already been taken.
Why I say reformative is because the proposed market reforms in agriculture have failed across countries and continents. From the United States to Australia, from Chile to the Philippines, markets have only added to the prevailing agrarian distress. If in the US, Canada and elsewhere markets have only increased farm indebtedness, succeeded in pushing small farmers out of agriculture, and turned farming into a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, to believe that the same markets would perform a miracle in India was a fallacy. In North America, despite higher investments, technological innovations, high productivity and the evolution of sophisticated international value chains, farm incomes had been on a steady decline for over 150 years. So much so that in 2018, the US Department of Agriculture had worked out that farmers share in every dollar of end consumer price had dropped to just eight cents, pushing farmers increasingly towards extinction.
Whether the decision to withdraw the farm laws in India were taken in view of the impending State elections or for economic reasons knowing that markets have failed to enhance farm incomes anywhere in the world is certainly a subject of public debate, but the fact that the so-called reforms have been set aside paves the way for revitalizing agriculture, bringing back the pride in farming. The perseverance demonstrated by protesting farmers, who had braved the weather extremes for a year, while staying put at the borders of New Delhi, had drawn the nation’s attention to the plight of the farming community. It is time to build on the policy space so created, and redesign a healthy and vibrant farming system that is everlasting.
The decision to take back the controversial laws is a battle half won. Withdrawing the laws means a return to status quo, which means no respite from the severe farm crisis that farmers were living with. It is certainly a victory in the first lap for farmers, but the race is still not complete. Unless farmers are assured of a living income, the supply demand principles that many economists believe leads to price discovery, will only end up further exploiting them. Food systems transformation cannot take place without first guaranteeing farm income. That’s the reform that agriculture, not only in India but globally, is desperately looking for.
Considering that on an average farmers get nearly 40 per cent less in market price compared to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) that the government announces for 23 crops, they do not even recover the production cost. As I have often said, when farmers undertake cultivation they do not even realize they are actually cultivating losses. Except in areas where MSP regime is implemented for wheat and paddy, farmers in the rest of the country do not even know what they have been deprived of. That’s what the Economic Survey 2016 had officially acknowledged, stating that the average farm income in 17 States of India, which means roughly half the country, was only Rs 20,000 a year. The Situational Assessment Survey 2019 has worked out the average farm income from crop cultivation at a paltry Rs 27 a day.
Making MSP a legal right for the farmers, meaning that no trading be allowed below the benchmark price, is the real reform that Indian agriculture needs. This is the second step of the reformative agriculture that I talked about. With more money in the hands of farmers, agriculture will not only become economically viable, but the country’s GDP will also gallop. This will not only strengthen rural livelihoods thereby reducing the employment pressure on the cities, but create a huge rural demand that will revitalize the rural economy and thereby fast forward the wheels of development. It is therefore time to reverse the flawed economic design that was built on sacrificing agriculture for the sake of the industry. Replace it with an economics that works for the people, needing investment on the human capital.
Guaranteeing MSP will still leave a sizeable farming population out. For those small and marginal farmers who have no marketable surplus, but are significant players in ensuring household food security, the entitlements under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme will have to be accordingly raised.
Farmers’ movement in India, perhaps the largest and the longest in the world, has drawn global attention, and rightly so. Knowingly or unknowingly, protesting farmers have managed to shake up but also challenge an outdated economic thinking that relied on keeping agriculture perpetually impoverished. This is no less an achievement, and if followed with an honest appraisal and rethinking it has the potential to sow the seeds of an evergreen revolution. If I remember correctly, this term was coined by the eminent agricultural scientist Dr M S Swaminthan, and entails a production system that utilizes traditional knowledge, amply available biodiversity, and farm practices that do not destroy the environment.
Redesigning the farming systems, bringing markets closer to farmers, and developing a food distribution system that provides for household nutritional security is absolutely essential. But this cannot be achieved by people who created the crisis in the first place. It needs a fresh thinking, a fresh approach.
To make this possible, let’s begin by first providing farmers with a living income. #
Source: A battle only half won. The Tribune. Nov 22, 2021. https://www.tribuneindia.com/
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