By: P Krishna Reddy
Over the last 10 years, governments have been making efforts to take welfare to the doorstep of every individual in need of it. For example, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme tries to provide employment to every farm worker. The Public Distribution System supplies basic food items to every needy family through fair price shops. The Aadhaar scheme provides an ID to every individual. Similarly, why can’t we use our information technology capability to deliver actionable expert advice to every farm and track every pond/tank? Current developments in information technology enable us to build cost-effective knowledge delivery systems for each farm. By disseminating information on the best practices in agriculture management, storage and marketing to every farm in India, it is possible to produce export-quality farm products while securing food security and conserving our soil and water. Accordingly, our policy should aim at hand holding every farm and farmer and help him/her to extract more profitability from his investment.
The birth of a separate state of Telangana affords us a unique opportunity to build rewarding linkages between agriculture — the mainstay of our economy but presently in a state of difficulty — and information technology, a sector in which we have developed impressive capabilities in the 15 years or so. Such a linkage would provide a very desirable momentum to the new state’s economy.
Another important departure we must make lies in the area of performance metrics, the method by which we measure the efficacy of our policies and schemes in agriculture. All existing systems measure performance based on the number of stakeholders who benefit without relating it to the total number of stakeholders. The performance metric for any scheme should be about the percentage of stakeholders covered. For example, the performance of an insurance system should not be measured in terms of the number of farmers insured. It should be measured as the ratio of the number of farmers insured to the total number of farmers.
Here are some problems and opportunities and the solutions for Telangana’s agriculture.
Problem Area: Quality Seed Production
Currently, seed is not produced in sufficient quantities to meet demands of farmers. Spurious seed companies are dominating the market. New varietal research should be taken up as a top priority. By providing the appropriate seed to every poor and marginal farmer, crop failure and low productivity/income risk can be mitigated to a significant extent.
Recommendations
– Initiate new research on agroclimatic region-specific varieties.
– Produce sufficient seed.
– Ensure that seed reaches all farmers.
Opportunity: Use IT to Deliver Scientific Advice to Farms
Poor and marginal farmers are not getting the maximum yield due to unscientific practices. Scientific agriculture advice is crucial for efficient crop production. By providing scientific advice to farms at regular intervals, it is possible to improve productivity significantly. Each farmer should be helped to use best practices. It is thus possible to produce the crop products with export quality by conserving natural resources.
Recommendation
Deliver actionable agricultural knowledge to every farm. The eSagu model built at the IIIT Hyderabad aims at providing actionable agricultural knowledge to farms based on photographs sent by farmers. The eSagu model can be replicated across Telangana.
Problem area: Crop insurance
Currently farmers are dissatisfied with the crop insurance schemes and the sampling procedures adopted for settling claims. Often, genuine farmers’ do not get insurance benefits and are pushed into a crisis. By exploiting developments in IT, it is possible to track every farm. If insurance is decided on the basis of individual farms, risks can be mitigated.
Recommendation
Develop and implement a farm-specific insurance to mitigate risks. Farmer gets the claim if unexpected failure occurs.
Opportunity: Toddy research centre
The toddy palm provides livelihood to a significant number of families in Telangana. Without wasting any time, a research centre should be set up to investigate new varieties of toddy palm, and preservation and marketing of palm produce.
Recommendations
– A research centre should be started for the Palmera (toddy) family which will investigate efficient seed, production, distribution and marketing.
– Develop Palmera-based cropping zones and utilizing problematic soils (such as sodic, saline and alkaline soils and rainfed regions).
Opportunity: Pig farming
There are a significant number of families which depend on pig farming in every village in Telangana. Currently, pigs randomly wander in the villages, make the surroundings dirty and spread diseases. By propagating professional piggery, these families can lead a sustainable life in addition to contributing to food/nutritional security.
Recommendations
– Identifying interested farmers in every village.
– Encourage professional pig farming
– Connect to export markets
Problem: Respectability for agriculture
Our youth are losing interest in agriculture. They have a feeling that it is an insult to be in the farming profession. For example, youth are not interested in picking up agriculture practices from their parents.
Recommendations
– Take up a massive social sensitising programme to make agriculture a primary profession.
– Modify high-school/intermediate/degree syllabi by linking agriculture and allied activities.
– In the cities, create a mechanism for interested individuals to cultivate vegetables by getting a small developed land on lease.
Opportunity: More agriculture colleges
Being a state dependent on agricultural, it makes sense for Telangana to have more agriculture colleges than engineering colleges. The question is how to provide employment to agriculture graduates. Taking the analogy of medicine, we should encourage agriculture consultancy.
Recommendations
– Start about 100 agriculture degree colleges during the next five years and 10 agriculture universities.
– Ensure that pesticide shops sell pesticides on prescription from certified agriculture expert.
Problem: drudgery in Agriculture
Agriculture is labour-intensive. It is important to encourage the design of robust and cost-effective agriculture machinery.
Recommendation
Ensure a robust, small, farmer-friendly machines from sowing to harvesting are available.
Opportunity: Recover and manage every tank
Tanks are vital natural water resources in Telangana. Delineate the existing tanks and ensure that they are filled regularly. Also, manage tanks by desilting and enriching farm land.
Recommendations
– Recover, fill, manage tanks
– Construct new tanks
Problem: Encourage sustainable crop
During the year, based on resource availability several kinds of agricultural production systems are possible. Research should be carried out to identify potential crop production systems.
Recommendation
Encourage sustainable crop production systems by identifying opportunities for every family which are ecologically sound and economically viable by encouraging agro-forestry.
(The author is a professor at IIIT Hyderabad)
Courtesy: New Indian Express