Sustainable Agriculture
             It requires integrated agro- industrial policy
S. S. Johl
Simply put, sustainable agriculture entails an optimum production pattern of agricultural commodities moving on upward shifting growth path, not only without depleting the scarce production resources, but more so enhancing and conservation of these resources for continuous use for all time to come in the future. Fastincreasing demand for agricultural commodities due to unabated continuous increase in population and changing consumption patterns because of improving incomes in the society as wells acutely skew distribution of incomes has necessitated strong emphasis on enhancing production, especially of food grains. As a result, augmentation and conservation of scarce natural resources have been put on back burner for decades in the past and the situation continues to be the same even today.
For decades, underground water table has been receding, water balances have been deteriorating, chemical and biological pollution of irrigation and drinking water as well as poisoning of soils with chemicals has been continuing in almost all the intensively cultivated areas of the country under the nose of the policymakers and administrator of the country. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been used indiscriminately to enhance production, especially of food grains. As a consequence soils in most of the double cropped irrigated areas of the country have become virtual cultures requiring higher and higher doses of scarce inputs to maintain the same level of output of the agricultural commodities. This has also lead to the depletion of micro and trace nutrients in these soils and has created environmental hazards too. Above that global warming is playing its debilitating role by way of uncertain, abnormal and truant rainfall patterns and weather conditions deviating vastly from their normal levels. Yet, the policy makers and authorities in power remained oblivious of the developing debilitating conditions by design or default at the cost of the economy. No doubt feeding of the nation with food grains remained the main focus, and rightly so, yet the agricultural ecology was taken for granted and vote bank oriented electoral interests were nurtured ignoring the much needed corrective and ameliorative measures. At best the policy makers paid only lip service to the emerging disastrous conditions. Soft paddling by the politician in power and politicized bureaucracy avoided rightful hard decisions. Now when the situation is visibly getting out of control, there is lot of talk in the air about diversification and sustainability of agricultural production patterns in the country.
The fact remains that problems are very well known and their solutions too. Yet, the million dollar question is whether the political and administrative authorities concerned, especially at the level of states, will ever take courage to take hard decisions. The first priority should be to make handsome investment in agricultural research and development, especially in the state level research institutes and agricultural universities in order to develop technologies that become instrumental in promoting of desirable production patterns that economize on scarce resource use, restores and improves the soil health, control water, soil and air pollution, enhance factor productivity and improve farm incomes. If the research system in the states remains starved of funds as it is today, whatever efforts may be made on other fronts, one cannot even dream of desirable changes in the production patterns and agricultural ecology. Today good coin is being replaced by the bad coin in the country. Public sector research system is yielding place to the private sector corporates. Their overriding commercial interest is putting the farmers, especially the small farmer, at a disadvantage.
Secondly, the public sector dissemination system for improved technologies has gone almost morbid and ineffective in reaching out to the farmers. It needs to be realized that millions of farmers cannot be reached personally, especially in the remote areas by the limited number of extension workers. There is, therefore, a need for extensive use of information and communication technology (ITC) for extension education of the farmers as well as development of early warning and quick alert systems through creating knowledge centers in every village and net working them with the servers of central technology dissemination centers located in agricultural research institutes and universities.
Market clearance at competitive prices is another crucial factor in the introduction of desirable alternative farm enterprises like fruits, vegetable and other high value perishable and semi-perishable crops as well as animal enterprises including meat, milk, fish and poultry production. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) was created to make price and non-price recommendations that take into consideration the interest of the producers as well as consumers and facilitate adjustments in the production patterns in alignment with the changing consumption patterns. Seems, the Commission has been almost side lined and rendered irrelevant. Their recommendations are invariably being over ruled and ignored with impunity due to myopic vision of politicians in power for misplaced short-term political considerations.
Another important aspect of developing and maintaining of sustainable agricultural production system is the right pricing of scarce production resources, especially the underground water for irrigation and power supply. Across the board free or subsidized supply of irrigation water, power and other inputs gravitates mostly to the larger farmers and invariably gets translated into corresponding higher land rents and has deleterious effect on financial resources of the states. Such unfocused input subsidies, in contrast to investment subsidies, distort production patterns that go inconsistent with consumption patterns and adversely affect the sustainability of agricultural production systems.
Further, the need of the hour is not only to diversify the agricultural production patterns that conserve scarce productive resources and ensure environmental sustainability, but more so to diversify the rural economy that has healthy mix of farm and non-farm enterprises complementary to each other for sustainability of fast growing progressive rural economy maintaining healthy rural environment. This requires well integrated rural agro-industrial policy which is totally lacking at this stage. Separate agricultural and industrial policies even if developed diligently will not help the rural economy and will not ensure sustainable agricultural production that would conserve scarce production resources and improve rural and agricultural ecology. Yet, the question remains whether the governments at the center and state would wake up to the field realities and act in consonance to prioritize allocation of much needed financial support and exhibit an express concern to handle the fast deteriorating ecological situation on rural front, particularly so in the farm sector.