Farm Bills Part 1
Before we discuss the three agricultural acts, we should first understand the problems faced by India’s farmers prior to the passing of said reforms.
Nearly half of India’s working population is part of the agricultural industry and yet, the industry only comprises 15% of the country’s GDP. Farmers are often victims of a plethora of systemic problems, leading to high suicide rates amongst farmers.
The issue isn’t even one of poor education, or a lack of farming experience. A few months ago, we covered the case of Vishal Pawar, a well-educated man who left his job to become a full-time farmer. Five years after he started, a series of droughts, pending bank loans and a broken system pushed him to committing suicide.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated case, and people have been calling for an overhaul of the agricultural industry for years. But what exactly needs to be changed?
1. Poor Irrigation
Water has been dubbed India’s scarcest resource. With 16% of the world’s global population, India possesses only 4% of the world’s water resources. Although 90% of India’s water is already used for agriculture, many small farms are entirely dependent on the monsoon rain, a problem that is only exacerbated by poor irrigation facilities. Drip irrigation, for example, triples cotton yield as compared to monsoon-dependent yield. Yet only about 18% of crops are irrigated. A need hence arises for more farmers to have access to irrigation, and other agricultural technologies.
Although 90% of India’s water is already used for agriculture, only 18% of crops are irrigated – most farms are still reliant on monsoon rains.
2. Crop Diversity (or lack thereof)
Agricultural reformists have long argued for a shift towards high value crops. Although such crops are riskier, demand for them has been increasing far more quickly than that for staple crops. Diversification also improves soil fertility, water efficiency and nutrient usage. Organisations such as the Swayam Farmer Foundation have managed to quadruple farmer’s incomes through this shift. Commenting on diversification, the World Bank wrote that “(w)hile diversification initiatives should be left to farmers and entrepreneurs, the Government can, first and foremost, liberalize constraints to marketing, transport, export and processing”.
3. Agricultural wastage
As of 2015, India was already entirely agriculturally self-sufficient. Yet, many Indians go hungry every day, a consequence largely brought about by agricultural food wastage. Most perishables are unable to survive long journeys in the scorching heat, while India’s current infrastructure is unable to support different storage conditions for the variety of crops available. The UN estimates that more than 40% of agricultural output is wasted before reaching consumers.
4. Defective Agricultural Marketing
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Under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) acts, most farmers are required to sell commodities in a local mandi (or ‘market’) where middlemen often exploit farmers by purchasing crops at lower prices and charging commission.
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A lack of transportation facilities hinders farmers from being able to take their produce to markets where they could fetch better prices for their crops.
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As of 2019, India had only 6630 mandis (or ‘markets’), with an average area served of 463 square kilometres. This means that some farmers take several hours to reach the markets, during which their crops may already have been ruined due to heat or rain. Consequently, most farmers end up selling to village traders at low prices.
5. Misuse of resources
The impact left over the half a century was that half of the country’s cultivable lands had become saline with excessive use of chemicals and the productivity was coming down drastically.
These 5 problems will form our understanding for analysing the farm bills in our next post.
Citations:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/05/17/india-agriculture-issues-priorities
https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/agricultural-marketing-reforms
https://accountlearning.com/top-10-problems-faced-in-marketing-agricultural-goods/
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/lsquoGreen-revolution-turned-soil-infertilersquo/article16883597.ece