Market Driven Agriculture

Is Market Driven Production System Sustainable in Agriculture!

Post green revolution, agriculture is becoming more and more complicated and technology savvy enterprise. Technology has made vast invasions on production systems. Latest advances have made possible even simulation of required environment for growing the crops. Greenhouse technology, for example, makes year round cultivation of crops possible. Soilless culture such as hydroponics and rock wool give an illusion of agriculture without natural medium anywhere in the world. Thanks to corporate sector, diverse crops and varieties are finding places throughout the world like globalised, manufactured goods.

Globalised market tendencies have opened up flood gates for various food produces and products. Contract farming and buy back arrangements are the buzz words of cash rich farmers. Export boom is driving big business houses to build infrastructures for commercial enterprises in agriculture.

But a close analysis of the ground situation gives a shocking picture of agriculture and horticulture in India. Most of the export dependent floriculture units are facing closures either due to crash in export market or increasing cost of cultivation or quality problems as a result of pests and diseases. Farmers rushing to market driven crops like vanilla, ginger, perishable western vegetables, etc are in a soup as a result of unstable market tendencies.
Intensive, modern technologies have failed to give long term returns due to increasing cost of production and degradation of agro ecology. Medium and large farmers are facing debt trap as a result of irreversible stages they have reached in farming systems.

Besides, agro biodiversity is the biggest casualty of the modern market driven agriculture due to intensive monoculture package by the technologists. Degradation of agro ecology, soil and as a result, increasing intensity of pests and diseases is adding to very high cost of production. Lack of adaptable varieties and hybrids has made the situation worse for farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs.

Fluctuation in the market demand and prices has made the profession a vicious circle of exploitation and distress. This is adding to the woes of landless laborers also in the rural areas due to worsening situation of the farming community. As a result, farmers’ apathy towards farming, abandoning of profession and migration of rural population is the common scenario in the country. Today, rural India is a mirror image of unsustainable agriculture economy and lost hopes of the future.

Development Approaches in Agricultural Technologies

Sustainability and endogenous development oriented policies are the key to make agriculture a viable enterprise. Technology has to be adaptable to the local/prevailing agro climatic, soil, water and cultural conditions to make it sustainable. Development approach devoid of endogenous angle needs creation of ideal/artificial conditions which is not practical and sustainable in agriculture. Let me take the example of hybrid seed technology to illustrate the point. There are two approaches to this.

Exogenous approach : This is the approach being followed by the institutions and corporate sector, post-green revolution era. Best performing genetic materials are selected from different regions of the world or a country with varied agro climatic conditions in the breeding program. Two parental lines are selected to get a hybrid taking into consideration traits such as fruit/grain quality or yield, dwarfness, pest/disease tolerance, etc.

The evolutionary agro climatic, soil and other conditions of the parents are not considered in this process. Nor does it include farmers participation is developing the products. F1 hybrids thus developed are tested in different parts and introduced based on the performance in representative areas. Performance of such products are by chance or coincidence. Assured performance requires creation of ideal conditions of climate, soil, water and ecosystem which is not practical. Some conditions like soil nutrients and water can be created but only by involving huge costs and damaging the ecosystem which is neither economically feasible nor sustainable.

Endogenous approach : Let us consider the alternative approach. In this process, genetic materials are collected to develop the hybrids for a particular set of agro climatic conditions or a region. Hybridization is done using the parental lines of the conditions of the same region where hybrids would be introduced. They are introduced to the same conditions of evolution of their parents. The performance is not a chance here but assured. It is a product for the prevailing conditions in which the parental species are evolved.

This is the opposite process of endogenous approach where ideal conditions are sought to be created to perform to the potential. Sustainability and economic feasibility are the features here. It is a decentralized approach and closely linked to the market situation. It also stabilizes the agricultural production and the market because of stable distribution system. Community is also assured of sustained and stable income or livelihood from agriculture. Besides, it ensures the conservation of local biodiversity which is the casualty of the market driven agricultural production. Such approaches can involve participation of farmers and local governing bodies also.

Endogenous and sustainable approaches need to be adopted in other sectors also like promoting cropping pattern/production systems, supply chain management, distribution and marketing. The current cropping patterns are driven by market forces which are volatile and unreliable. In fact, market forces need to be driven by the production systems which are more sustainable and stable. They need to be decentralized involving local governing bodies so that market remains stable without bullish tendencies. Centralized marketing approaches are the major factors creating the unreliable situations forcing the farming community to adopt monoculture and intensive agriculture methods leading to glut conditions or shortage situations. This has impact on the farming community’s response on the ground making the agriculture an unsustainable enterprise.

Such alternative and sustainable development models demand development oriented professional management and policy directions. This requires thorough understanding of technical, management and sustainable development thinking.

The role of sustainable development professionals with technical background is crucial in guiding the policy makers, business houses, technocrats, academics and researchers besides farming community and local governments to really make the agriculture and food sector healthy and strong.

Indigenous Variety

WHAT IS INDIGENOUS VARIETY ?

What is indigenous seed variety for a farmer or from the agricultural point of view? Does it mean that the variety is from the same country? From the same region he belongs to? From the same village he is from?

Most people interpret and understand it as a variety from his own country. The perception that an indigenous variety is a variety from within the geographical, political, legal, administrative or emotional boundary is highly misplaced. Because, the most crucial issue of a variety is its adaptability to a given climate, soil and farming practices. Any crop variety adaptable to a given condition can be called indigenous variety. But, testing a variety for its adaptability and introducing to categorize it as indigenous will be misplaced again because it is evolved in similar conditions over a number of years.

When a farmer, scientist or policy maker looks for adaptability issue, he should trace the evolutionary conditions of a variety. Climatic (rainfall, temperature, humidity), soil and farming practice factors need to be traced. We should also have a fair idea about the prevailing conditions where a particular variety is intended to be introduced. The varieties of similar conditions (if not identical) can be exchanged and introduced between the regions or locations. Such a variety truly fits into the indigenous category for all practical purposes of farming.

Participatory approach
We need to adopt participatory approach in selecting a variety for cultivation. Collection of agro-climatic information through the farmers’ participation is more practical. Information on areas of a variety need to be collected by interacting with the local farmers. Seasonal information is also very crucial as to understand the adaptability of a variety. So also is the growing season of the interested crop species. Collection of similar information on the areas of the variety’s introduction should be done to decide on the release for cultivation. When the conditions of both the regions match or at least nearer, the variety can be considered suitable for cultivation. Season of growing can be decided from the collected information.

Sustainable and Endogenous Approach

Agriculture Scenario in India

During my professional experience in agricultural field, I have been trying to understand and analyze the factors affecting the upliftment of rural community and urban agricultural enterprises in India. In spite of much-publicized Green Revolution in 1960’s and Horticultural Revolution in1980’s, the farming community’s socio-economic status either remained stagnant or has been deteriorating. Imagine the suicide death of thousands of farmers every year in a country where agriculture is the backbone of the economy and with more than two thirds of the population engaged in agriculture. More distressing is the very low productivity level in almost all the crops compared to other countries of the world.

The successive governments in independent India have never considered rural economy seriously. Planning has been poor in this sector. As a result, large sections of the farming community find agriculture a non-profitable enterprise and are migrating to urban areas in search of employment. There are alarming instances of distress selling of land by the farmers in the recent years.

The reasons are many

· There is a mismatch between the production, supply and requirement in market for agricultural commodities
· Unorganized production without any public policy based on food requirement of the country where as storage is pathetically organized witnessing over 30-40% of losses quite oftenly.
· Poor organization of the supply chain and distribution
· Lack of processing industry back up
· Poor post-harvest handling and storage
· Many a times, it is untimely production resulting in glut in the commodity market causing destruction of a large quantity of perishable produce or shortage situations.

This unorganized production where farmer is loosing, with tremendous depletion of natural resources is a result of unstable market tendencies. This is responsible for large-scale futile utilization of industrial inputs, which in turn makes use of non-renewable energy and raw materials.

India, being a diverse agro-climatic region, needs to evolve a comprehensive plan of cropping systems, supply chain and market management. Cropping pattern and production have to be planned as per the prevailing agro-climatic conditions.

Development Approaches
Sustainability and endogenous development oriented policies are the key to make it a viable enterprise. Technology has to be adaptable to the local/prevailing agro climatic, soil, water and cultural conditions to make it sustainable. Development approach devoid of endogenous angle needs creation of ideal/artificial conditions which is not practical and sustainable in agriculture particularly under such diverse conditions as Indian. Failure of the hybrid seed technology is the living example for the lack of endogenous approach.
Endogenous and sustainable approaches need to be adopted in other sectors also like promoting cropping pattern/production systems, supply chain management, distribution and marketing. The current cropping patterns are driven by market forces which are volatile and unreliable. In fact, market forces need to be driven by the production systems which are more sustainable and stable. They need to be decentralized involving local governing bodies so that market remains stable without bullish tendencies. Centralized marketing approaches are the major factors creating the unreliable situations forcing the farming community to adopt monoculture and intensive agriculture methods leading to glut conditions or shortage situations. This has impact on the farming community’s response on the ground making the agriculture an unsustainable enterprise.