Daily Hindu Editorials

👉The government must move purposefully to address the systemic malaise in agriculture👈 Since June 1, many farmers are on an unusual 10-day ‘strike’ to draw the government’s attention to distress in the fields. A federation of 130 farmer bodies has decided to stop supplies of vegetables and dairy produce to major cities and hold a dharna on 30 national highways, without blocking vehicular passage. Prices of vegetables and fruits are inching up in urban centres given the supply shock created by this ‘Gaon Bandh’; in cities like Mumbai fishermen have joined the cause. The farmers’ demands are not new — enhancement of the minimum support price regime for crops in line with the M.S. Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, higher prices for milk procurement and loan waivers to offset low or negative returns on investment. Leaving out vegetables, food prices rose by just 0.55% in the first four months of 2018 — almost a fourth of the average 2% rise recorded in the same months between...

👉Researchers say it is time India moves on from hybrids👈 Pink bollworm infestation in Bt cotton in India has turned the spotlight on an important question: has hybrid cotton lived up to its promise? India was a pioneer in this technology in the 1970s; today, it is the only country that exclusively grows cotton hybrids. Yet, cotton researchers are now asking if our over-reliance on this technology is responsible for our biggest problems in Bt cotton, such as infestation and low yield. The world’s first commercial cotton hybrid, Hybrid-4 (H-4), was developed in 1970 by the scientist Chandrakant T. Patel. The crop revolutionised cotton farming in India. Due to a genetic phenomenon called heterosis, hybrids often outyield open-pollinated (OP) varieties. So, from paltry yields of 122 kg of lint per hectare, production in India rose to 290 kg per hectare by 1992-93. The advent of hybrids also led to a mini-employment boom in the 1980s, with some 25 million people, mostly women, ...

💥Farmers’ protests interrogate the reigning development model. Alternatives do exist The recent spate of peasant protests across wide swathes of the country points sharply to the unjust folly and sheer unviability of the path of development that India has embraced, especially in the reform era since the late 1980s. Even, say, a modest food critic in metropolitan India collects an immodest annual pay package which can easily go into seven figures. Such compensation is not even a dream for any small or marginal food-grower in the country, someone who works much harder and who is immeasurably more significant for the food security of India. It is such daylight disparity between the lives of villagers and city-dwellers which constitutes the background to an increasingly simmering discontent amongst the poor in India’s villages and cities. Last month’s farmers’ protest in Mumbai is one of many where the simmer boils over to more overt expressions. 👉Many asymmetries A...

🌲Devise a viable Cauvery scheme soon, stop disruptive protests🎄 The Centre cannot continue to evade its legal obligation to create a mechanism to implement the Supreme Court’s final verdict in the Cauvery dispute. This was the broad message conveyed by the court on Monday when it admonished the government for failing to frame a scheme within the six-week time limit given earlier. For the Centre, it was embarrassing to be asked to demonstrate its bona fides by submitting a draft scheme for the court’s consideration by May 3. The court’s frustration was evident, as the Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India was surprised and disappointed that the Centre had not put a scheme in place or sought an early clarification. It is obvious that a decree on the sharing of water requires a mechanism to give effect to it. It is an evasion of responsibility on the Centre’s part to set off a round of litigation just to determine the nature of such a mechanism. At the same time, it is easy to ...

💥A Kerala village’s struggle against land acquisition highlights the larger debate on striking the right balance Some time in the 1990s the Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar produced a text titled Encountering Development. It was searing account of the attack on the native peoples of his continent by the power elites who had commandeered it. An Indian economist nourished by the idea of the liberating impact on the country of the Green Revolution and conscious of the role of the policies of the Nehru era in ending over a century of stagnation under colonialism, I had not given it much importance at that time. So it came as surprise to read of events in a corner of Kerala that corresponded quite closely, albeit on a far smaller scale, to what Escobar was alluding to. 👉Keezhattur’s case In the village of Keezhattur in Kerala’s Kannur district, a section of farmers is holding out against the announced, but yet to be implemented, acquisition of their farm land. ...

💥Why India is the only Bt cotton-growing country facing the problem of pink bollworm infestation Earlier this month, the government cut royalties that local seed companies pay to Monsanto, for the second time in two years. This follows previous attempts to defang Monsanto. In February, for instance, the anti-trust regulator, the Competition Commission of India, decided to probe into anti-competitive practices by Monsanto. At the centre of all this is the pink bollworm infestation plaguing cotton farmers. Even though Bollgard 2, or BG-2, Monsanto’s second generation insecticidal technology for cotton, was supposed to protect crops against the pink bollworm, the pest has grown resistant to the toxins produced by this trait. As a result, farmers now spend more on pesticides to control infestations. This, along with the high cost of Bt seeds, is driving farmers to indigence. One solution suggested by the National Seed Association of India is for the government to encourage a mov...

💥Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services from volunteer doctors, and also bandwagon support of all political parties from the left to the right. 👉Beyond lip service Indeed, even the Chief Minister of Maharashtra said he supported the cause (not the march), but as head of government his job was to address their issues, not to agitate. The most remarkable thing about the march was that it was successful. The State government agreed to all the demands, including pending transfer of forest land to Adivasis, expanding the scope of the loan waiver and ensuring high...

💥Maharashtra’s farmers win hearts and minds; their issues must be addressed everywhere The gruelling six-day march of nearly 200 km from Nashik to Mumbai by thousands of farmers, with the aim to gherao the Maharashtra Assembly and sensitise the government to their problems, was remarkable. The manner in which they conducted themselves — without disrupting the lives of other citizens and refraining from aggressive sloganeering — is not how India’s myriad protesters typically behave. And, while urban India usually has little patience for agrarian problems, many Mumbaikars not only backed the stir but also pitched in to help with food, water, medical aid, and even footwear. While Opposition parties as well as BJP ally Shiv Sena backed the farmers and tribals in an attempt to isolate Devendra Fadnavis’s administration, he managed to emerge unflustered and deal with the issue effectively. The farmers were persuaded to complete the final leg of the march early on Monday to avoid inconven...

Similar to the last two Budgets, this year’s pro-agriculture intentions are palpable through increased outlays to the agricultural sector and initiation of various programmes. They seem impressive, but closer scrutiny shows that the measures may be of little help to stem the tide of agrarian distress. There are some real challenges confronting three laudable Budget announcements. 🔹Three challenges The first is to raise the minimum support price (MSP) by at least 50% above the cost of production. The MSP will also be extended to all crops for which estimates on cost of cultivation and a remunerative price are to be ascertained. There are two pertinent issues here. One is to estimate the cost of production of commodities not covered under the scheme and their procurement procedures, if undertaken. Two, the production cost, as calculated by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, is based on three different methods, termed as A2, A2+FL, and C2. A2 covers all paid-...

Electricity is a major concern in rural India, especially for farmers. The Government of India has come up with an original plan to address this problem. Instead of transmitting electricity to the farmers, the government, to start with, wants farmers to use solar energy to power their irrigation pumps. According to the January 2018 report of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, there are about 142,000 solar pumps in India. The government is planning to install one million solar pumps by 2021. 🔹Solar capacity To achieve this, the Union Budget 2018 has allocated close to ₹48,000 crore to set up the Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM). This programme will help set up more than 28 GW of combined solar capacity through these solar pumps. Additionally, to ensure optimal use of this solar energy, and to incentivise farmers to shift to renewable energy, the government plans to purchase the surplus power through electricity distribution companies. This pr...

The efficiencies of the direct benefit transfer for fertilizer subsidies should be increasingly visible Across the hinterlands of the country, a silent revolution is taking place. Each time a farmer purchases fertilizers from a dealer, he/she presses his or her thumb at a point-of-sale (PoS) device and an authenticated receipt comes out giving details of the purchase and subsidy to be paid by the government directly to the manufacturer. The records of dealers are automatically updated and payment is made digitally or in cash. Farmers, especially those purchasing urea, who were facing constraints of availability and occasionally overcharged in the past, now receive it at a printed price with complete transparency. Welcome to the world of direct benefit transfer (DBT) in fertilizers. 🔹The pilot project Unlike DBT in LPG where subsidy is directly transferred to the consumer’s bank, and in food where pilot projects of DBT replacing physical delivery of rations have taken pl...

More and more farmers in Kashmir are switching from paddy to high-yielding apple varieties from Europe. This is boosting the rural economy and creating jobs, but there are also environmental concerns, reports Peerzada Ashiq As the mellow winter sun prepares to set, the lengthening shadows turn hazy from the smoke in Nazeer Ahmad Dar’s paddy fields, some 59 km away from Srinagar. The 52-year-old resident of Anantnag’s Sir Hama village in south Kashmir will soon burn the last of his paddy shoot stocks, spread over the 20 kanals (1.1 hectares) of his farm. Having spent six decades cultivating paddy, the Dars, a family of six, have taken the tough decision to switch crops and await the change in their fortunes. “My neighbour’s son uprooted expensive and well-nursed traditional apple trees and replaced them with high-density, high-yielding, foreign variety apple trees. I can see how things have improved for them in the last four years. I want to replicate their suc...

India must exploit the potential of this technology to help farmers meet irrigation needs In the past few years, solar pumps have consistently piqued the interest of various bureaucrats and politicians. The Prime Minister spoke about solar pumps from the ramparts of the Red Fort in 2016. There is no shortage of ideas which the Centre, States, civil society organisations, and enterprises are adopting to enhance penetration of solar for irrigation. But how should India proceed with this impactful technology? 🔷  Case studies Maharashtra is solarising its agricultural feeders by installing solar power plants at the substation level, through competitive bidding. Karnataka is promoting solar pumps for existing grid-connected farmers under a net-metering regime, allowing them to generate additional income by feeding back surplus energy into the grid. In eastern States, GIZ, a German development agency, has piloted community ownership models providing water-as-a-service using so...