Fields Of Crisis

Context: Public investment and government support (which drives India’s Green revolution in the 1960s) are needed to solve India’s present farm crisis.

Factors responsible for India’s farm crisis

• Adverse impacts of Green revolution: long-term economic and ecological effects.
  • Decreased diversity in cropping system: E.g. in 1960-61, Punjab had 21 crops in the cropping system, which fell to nine in 1991.
  • Depletion of groundwater levels: due to wheat-rice cropping monoculture-> Water Scarcity-> growth rates of yield have decreased to 2% per year for wheat; stagnant or negative for rice
  • Excessive use of chemical pesticides - Threat to biodiversity
• Absence of land reforms: resulting in increased inequality.
  • The 10th Agriculture Census (2015-16) shows that small and marginal farmers(86.2 % of all farmers) own just 47.3 % of the crop area.
  • While semi-medium and medium land holding farmers (13.2 % of all farmers) own 43.6 %.
• Exacerbating rural-urban divide: reflected in a decrease in consumer spending in rural while urban consumption increased. (based on National Statistical Office’s (NSO) survey.
• Low public sector investment: as per the Reserve Bank of India, it has been around 0.4% of the GDP between 2011-12 and 2017- 18. (woefully inadequate of 60% of the population dependent on it)

Arguments against the farm laws: in addressing the above issues

• May lead to low farm growth: According to the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the scrapping Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Bihar led to low farm growth,
  • The farm growth between 2001-17 was only 2.04 % (lower than the all-India average of 3.12 %).
  • This will affect farmers’ ability to invest and diversify. 
• They may fail to attract private investment: there has been hardly any private investment in states where APMC market yards were abolished.

Way forward: To address the farm crisis

• Improve market access for smallholder farmers: By increasing Public investment in infrastructure and Minimum Support Prices.
• Agroecological transition through diversification:
  • In Andhra Pradesh, yields had increased by 11 % in paddy and 79 % in brinjal under a program bringing all 80 lakh hectares of its cultivable land under Agroecological Farming by 2024.