• It’s been 40 years since the Green Revolution actually began, when the seed was planted. Somehow, the public discourse is as if the farmer is where he was in the ’60s. It is of course very true.• But why this feeling?The mindset towards agriculture has unfortunately remained the same, almost from colonial times when people thought agriculture was a profession where people had to produce food for the urban population. But today, agriculture in the context of the backbone of our food security, jobs and income of 70 per cent of our population, and also on the basis of our national sovereignty — the multi-dimensional nature of agriculture — has not yet sunk in. • After we became self-sufficient in food, would it be that we became complacent about agriculture? To some extent, I would say there has been complacency because there were large grainstocks and the government felt that there was enough. People began talking about self-sufficiency, India has become a grain-exporting country and so on. But I think the whole context of the larger role of agriculture — with nearly 40 per cent of the rural people having no land at all. that it has to provide people with jobs, income — was forgotten. And that is why we see this paradox today, what foreigners call ‘‘grain mountains and hungry millions’’. We have the paradox of being one of the very dynamic agriculture countries. At the same time, as one single nation, we have the reputation of having the largest number of women, children and men. I always feel so very sad that. we don’t want that recognition. We must be number one in many other areas, but not in the number of people who are undernourished. • You see that as one of your challenges as the chairman of the National Commission for Farmers? The challenge is that we must look upon agriculture in the sheer context of looking at the problem of income, jobs, apart from food security and livelihood, and also export earnings. Over 600 million people are in agriculture. People don’t realise. when they talk about private sector enterprise, they talk about some big companies and so on. But the largest single private enterprise in the country is agriculture. I use the term agriculture in a larger context — crops, animals, fisheries, forestry, agro-processing and so on. The whole area of land and water-based occupations. We must change the mindset, the pre-Independence mindset, and look upon agriculture as the pride of our country. • As a wealth creator or as. A wealth creator, a job creator. • Or as a food giver? All the three. We also want food for over 1 billion people, and we can’t really import food. I’ve always said that importing food in a predominantly agricultural country is like importing unemployment. • How would you elaborate that? The reason is that 70 per cent of our people, even by the 2001 census, live in rural areas. For the majority of them, the occupation is different kinds of farming — crop husbandry, animal husbandry. Now, if you depress prices by getting food from outside, what will happen? Even today, most of our farmers say agriculture is no longer profitable because the input costs are high, output is low, productivity is low. Therefore, we should think of jobs for Indians as the fundamental bottomline of all our development works. • Somehow, the feeling is that it is the industry that creates jobs, not agriculture. Industry is now really leading to jobless growth. The job-led growth can only come from agriculture. • Or industry linked to agriculture. That is true. That’s what the Chinese did. Their reforms started in agriculture, not in industry. About 24 years ago, they started from rural areas, reforms in agriculture. When they started reforms, they looked at two kinds of people: one to whom they could give land because land was socially owned, the other who would have to depend on non-farm employment. So they had rural township enterprises, where people who had no land could be employed in skilled jobs. Otherwise, we see what will happen in our own country — people who are transplanting paddy and so on. these women who are transplanting hardly get that one dollar per day, the World Bank’s. • And this is in the heart of Tamil Nadu, which is by no means the least developed or most backward state. There are states that are much more backward than this. That is right. It’s a progressive state. Like in all states, farmers have three major problems: credit, water and market. These are really the three pillars. You have to have credit for the poor man. You have to have credit to buy goods, I mean inputs, seeds and so on. You have to have water. Without water, nothing can be done. And thirdly, we must have a market for the produce. While they will keep some produce for their own consumption, the rest will have to go towards cash income. • What do you see as your main challenge? We are looking to you to create the second Green Revolution. The Green Revolution really means the improvement of production. Green is the colour of chlorophyll. We all live as guests of green plants. Without green plants, animals cannot survive, we cannot survive. The revolution does not mean an evolutionary jump but a quantum jump in production. For example, wheat production: we were producing 6 million tonnes in 1947, our farmers produce over 80 million tonnes now, so we made progress. • Six to 80. You would say our population has grown about four times? Four times. • And food production has grown about 14, 13.? Food production on the whole has kept above the pace of population growth. Although the ’90s have seen a deccelaration in the growth rate, we should not be complacent. Our population is still growing at more than the desired rate. So we have to look at population as the number one issue. The population exceeding capacity of the land should not be exceeded. So when you ask about the challenges in agriculture, I would say that the number one challenge is productivity — improvement of small farms. Most of our farms are small holdings — one hectare and below or two hectares and below. The smaller the farm, the greater is the need for marketable surplus to get cash income. But productivity improvement has to be done without any ecological harm to land, water, salinisation — as has happened in some of our intensively cultivated areas such as Punjab and Haryana region, where there are secondary problems because of the over-exploitation of natural resources.unsustainable exploitation. So what we need in India is an ‘‘Evergreen Revolution’’ — this means Green Revolution plus Ecology. • We were complacent for a long time about agriculture. Now, we seem to be either reacting in panic, or with a good heart. The Finance Minister said on this show that he will now flood the countryside with cheap credit. Is that the way to go? Credit is important. But it has to be linked with insurance — the health insurance of the person, crop insurance — because they can’t take risks; because agriculture is still not an occupation that is under control. It is not like growing in a greenhouse, one day they will be floods. I have seen in Punjab. today there may be an excellent crop but a hailstorm may come at night. • And flatten it. And flatten it. This is why farmers say seeing is not believing. Harvesting the crop and taking it home — when it reaches the home, then only is it believing. Agriculture suffers from many risks. We don’t have an effective mechanism of insulating our farmers from these risks which are beyond our control, whether it is pest damage or natural resources. • If you look at the broad situation, how is the challenge today different from the challenge of the ’60s. ’60s was humiliation and hunger. The ’60s were ship-to-mouth existence. They classified our country as beyond redemption. • I believe it was very humiliating for us to go looking for food abroad. Very humiliating. I once went with Babu Jagjivan Ram to talk to a Secretary of Agriculture of the US. Babuji just got up and walked out because he couldn’t stand it. • But what happened? That man started talking all kinds of things — ‘‘Mr Minister, you are under-estimating hunger in your country’’ and so on. So Babuji said, ‘‘Mr Secretary, I came to buy wheat and not to discuss other problems of my country’’. He just got up and went away. I was very proud of Babu Jagjivan Ram. You see, we had to compromise, that is why our national sovereignty. Now, we can have an independent foreign policy because we have some food. • Pokharan would not have happened if we didn’t have food security. If we were importing 10-15 million tonnes of wheat as in 1965-66, Pokharan would not have been possible. Pokharan came in ’74. • Just after initial food security. We had 20 million tonnes. • In reserves. So, how is this essentially different? I would like to say in the ’60s, the challenge was filling our bellies; in the 21st century, the challenge is to create surpluses. Surpluses for our own needs, for export markets. Above all, the current challenge is how to give more income to us. • No, surplus in the farmers’ hands. Because he also wants to send his children to medical schools, engineering colleges. Surplus in terms of cash income. He needs cash income. And you also require more skilled employment, because the farmer’s son or daughter is not going to live on the farm if farming is always going to be associated with drudgery, tediousness. So, I think today we must become more knowledge-intensive, farming must become more knowledge-intensive, we must give them the facilities of modern technology. • But giving them freebies is not the answer. Free is not, because ‘‘free’’ will become inefficient, in the sense that you don’t appreciate anything which comes free. If you give free water, for example, I think it will be used inefficiently. • But the politician’s instinct is to give, say, free power in Andhra. Political leaders, unfortunately, some of them not all, take the short-term view of these matters. Maybe, they want to address an immediate distress of the farmer. But in the longer term, our policies must be in the well-being of the farming family, not in the short-term alone. That is why the ‘Evergreen Revolution’. • So free power itself is not a good idea? Free power may be necessary under certain circumstances. But it should be used in a way that helps the farmer in the long-term production point of view. It should also help the ecology of the farm. • But are you in agreement with free power now in say Andhra Pradesh, given the situation there? Well, they seem to have made an election promise and made an announcement, but I do hope these short-term steps will be reviewed in the long-term interests of not only the state but also the farmers. I should not commit long-term, what I call, ‘ecocide’ — losing the productivity of land, excess use of water. • If the farmer has to pay for it, if there is a value to it, he will be more conscious. Anything which will give value. If I buy seeds, fertiliser. everything, you know, when I pay money, then I am more careful about it. I use it, I look after it. This is the law of life, not only in farming but everywhere. • Two things: in fact, the R word and the P word. After the elections, politicians have been scared of using the word ‘‘reforms’’. It is heartening that two persons who have used it are Sharad Pawar and you. Both of you have used it in the context of agriculture. So the challenge of addressing rural poverty, the state of the Indian farmer — is more reform or less reform the answer? My second question is how do you bring in more private sector, more privatisation, into farming. You said farming is our most privatised business. Farming now requires more reforms, not less reforms, but informed reforms. Reforms that can lead us to progress, that can lead into the next step in our evolution of agriculture, that take both the short-term and the long-term view — not a very short-term view, because land and water, these are all basic life-support systems. We have a very good biodiversity in our country, so we must look after it. I would say the reform must be such that it can improve the well-being of farmers and the productivity of the land so that we can produce more. That means more knowledge-intensive farming. Five important elements of farming: first is productivity improvement. Our average productivity is low in contrast to other countries. There is no use comparing with China, because most of the land in China is irrigated. Here, barren or unirrigated land is still predominant. I consider it a blessing that we have an untapped production reservoir. So we can immediately increase productivity. Secondly, we must increase the profitability of agriculture. That comes from the more efficient use of inputs, whether it is water, fertiliser, seed, or in the case of animal husbandry, feed, breed and so on. • So these can be done with more reforms? What kind of reforms? More inter-state trading? Reforms, one we already discussed, about the pricing of the inputs. I would say what we need in our country is not trade distorting — what the WTO will classify as trade distorting subsidies— but life-giving support to the farmer. • What we see here is that the policy seems to pauperise the farmer and then make him beg for subsidies. And when he gets his subsidies, most of it is given in bribes anyway. Subsidies ultimately go in the pockets of the system. There are leakages. Many subsides are not meant directly for farmers. It may be for the consumer, it may be for the fertiliser factories. There are leakages in between. • Most of the fertiliser subsidy goes to the fertiliser producers, not to the farmers. If I am farming practically, I would be happy if I have basic infrastructure — proper roads, rural godowns — particularly if I am producing perishable commodities like fruits and vegetables. I would require a proper godown and market price, like what has been done with milk. Milk is a good example. We are the number one producer in the world. America is only number two. • We are number one in fruits now. We are number one or two in most of the products now. • But we are also number one in malnutrition, hunger and poverty. That is why I said this dichotomy has to be removed. And it can be removed only by greater attention to the agriculture sector. You asked about private sector. It has an important role. Some of them are playing that role in terms of assured marketing facilities. Marketing is the best fertiliser to the farmer. Secondly, they can also provide more knowledge and timely help.
