Bumper crop production proving to be a bane for Indian farmers Recent trends show more

farmers growing vegetables, setting off a vicious cycle of glut followed by falling prices.
Indian farmers are currently faced with a problem of plenty. A bumper crop has led to
procurement prices plunging, pushing them deeper into the depths of despair. The crisis
has been compounded by inept state governments. Onion growers in Madhya Pradesh
have been on the streets for days demanding better prices for their produce, but the
administration failed to respond in time. It finally woke up after protests turned violent this
Tuesday, leaving at least five farmers dead. Ironically, the bumper production which ought
to have been a boon is proving to be a bane. The agricultural ministry estimates that 273
million tonnes and vegetables will be produced this year, but it is unlikely that either the
farmers or the consumers will benefit. Only middlemen stand to gain since the Agriculture
Produce Marketing Committee laws bar farmers from selling their produce directly in local
markets. They can sell only through commission agents. The Reserve Bank of India has
already sounded an ominous warning, stating that the crisis could spread further with the
market price of pulses hovering well below the minimum support price (MSP). Further, the
horticulture sector is not even covered by the MSP system, leaving a vast majority of
farmers vulnerable. The Centre’s pric e mechanism covers only 14 of the 51 major crops. It
includes staple food items such as wheat, rice and cereals but not vegetables. Vegetables
are perishable and growing them entails a fair degree of risk. But recent trends show more
farmers growing vegetables, setting off a vicious cycle of glut followed by falling prices. Last
year, farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and
Punjab dumped their winter crops such as potato and tomato on the road. This year,
farmers in Rajasthan and Maharashtra are facing a similar desperate situation. Farm sector
still employs 60% of India’s population even though contribution of agriculture to gross
domestic product (GDP) has fallen from 18% in 2013-14 to less than 14% in 2016-17. The
National Institution for Transforming India (Niti) Aayog estimates a further fall to 10-12% by
2025, meaning that the farm sector will expand at a much slower rate than the overall
economy. But data suggests that loan waivers are at best a temporary balm and cannot bail
out farmers in the long term. India has a capacity to store just 35% of its total produce and
40% of agri-produce worth an estimated 96,000 crore rupees is wasted every year. What
can make the difference though are better storage facilities and steps to do away with
middlemen. Hard labour must be rewarded and the farmers certainly deserve better price
for their produce. They are the country’s backbone and we cannot continue to fail them. 2 .
Bumper productions are good news but without adequate infrastructure in place for the
movement of crops, a solution to farm distress can’t be found A bumper crop production
year after year seems to be India’s strength. Advance estimates released by the Agriculture
Ministry predict that the total horticultural production, including fruits, vegetables, spices and
flowers, until July this year will be 314.67 metric tonnes, as against 311.71 metric tonnes
last year. Yet, we hear a lot of news about subsidised irrigation water, power, seeds and
fertiliser to grow crops that often give surplus yield. Why do our farmers still need subsidies
when their counterparts in other countries, despite producing only a part of the “bumper
production”, are more self -reliant? We are circumspect whether it will augur well for the
farmers or be yet another year of a struggle for right prices. In my interactions with the
farmers, I came to know that a few issues and aspects of mobilisation of crops come up
year after year. Discussing them in brief will give an idea of where we are lacking. Need
more and better warehouses: Typically, the demand-supply dynamics that rule the market
ensure that prices plummet during harvest and surge during the lean period. This means
that the farmer effectively gets less for the produce despite more than usual harvest. One of
the most effective ways to address this irony is to create an ecosystem of well-positioned
and well-equipped warehouses across the country. This will help farmers save the crops to
deal with times when there is no harvest in spite of the demand. In fact, one of the reasons
why farmers in other nations have a better earning despite lesser yield is that they have
been able to monetise their limited harvest in the best possible manner. Apart from enabling
profitable access to the market, these storage centres can play an important role in
facilitating access of crops to food processing and packaging units. To be able to reach
these units will be a more commercially-viable option for the farmers and a good way to
utilise the surplus crop. Improve access to roads and vehicles: In continuation with the
earlier topic comes the question, where do we build these storage centres? Highways, one
of the main routes to transport agri-produce from one part to the other, can be a rather
opportune site. Most farmers choose roadways over any other means of transport.
However, few can afford an air-conditioned transport that would save the produce from the
heat, moisture or cold. As a result, a part of the harvest is lost in transit. Locating
warehouses on the highway can ensure that the farmers are able to save their crops until a
more favourable time to sell them. However, access to these will depend on the condition of
roads and availability of vehicles. While most roads in the interiors of India have potholes
and ditches peppered on them, getting the vehicle can be challenge for the farmers. Such
poor connectivity issue is one of the major reasons that agri- produces struggle to find a
way to the markets. India’s road network, too, is far from adequate. According to available
figures from the Statistical Year Book India 2017, out of a total highway (State and national)
length of 265,100 km, 263,263 km are surfaced while out of a total of Panchayati Raj and
Rural Roads of 1,831,043 km and 2,437,255 km, respectively, only 986,075 km and
1,486,069 km have been surfaced or concretised. These roads are key to ensuring that
farmers growing crops in the interiors of the country can sell their produce, either through
physical access to the markets or through e-NAM (electronic National Agriculture Market).
Digital literacy to leverage e-NAMs is lacking: In a country where general literacy covers a
sizeable population and access to the internet has enabled an enviable smartphone
penetration, digital coverage among farmers remains questionable. These people still
depend on age-old practices that are often unproductive, if not counter- productive. As a
result, the Government’s move to e -NAMs (National Agricultural Markets) bore limited fruit.
Physical access to mandis is a task for many farmers, especially small and marginal ones.
Only around 600 mandis are enrolled in the e-NAM system. There is an urgent need to
improve their performance to encourage sponsors to raise their bids and compete to enroll
farmers to secure input supplies. Farmers are yet to take advantage as many of them are
not digitally adept. Historically, bumper productions are good news to statisticians, who can
play around with the figures to show how increase in production pushed down the
wholesale price index (WPI) and consumer price index (CPI), and thereby kept the dreaded
inflation under check. Meanwhile, retail customers would be flooded with choice, though we
may doubt how useful that ultimately proves to be. Farmers are the last ones to reap the
benefit.The time to change it is here. 3 . Sugarcane farmers' crisis: bumper harvest turns
bane Thanks to a high yield sugarcane variety, India witnessed bumper harvests in the last
3 seasons, but sugar prices have fallen and sugarcane farmers have been incurring heavy
losses For decades sugarcane was a darling of farmers. The crop can endure weather
vagaries and gives fixed returns because it is procured by sugar mills at prices fixed by the
government. It is not sold in the open market. The situation, however, has changed in
recent years. Thanks to a new seed variety, CO-0238, the country has witnessed bumper
harvests in the last three seasons, particularly in 2017-18. But sugar prices have fallen
because of the demand-supply mis-match and sugarcane farmers have been incurring
heavy losses. The variety was introduced in 2012 in Uttar Pradesh, which produces nearly
half of India’s sugarcane. Down To Earth (DTE) travelled to Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat,
Shamli, Bareilly, Sambhal, and Hardoi districts in Uttar Pradesh and found that almost every
farmer was cultivating this variety. Take the case of Ashok Kumar, a farmer of Baghpat’s
Malakhpur village. He started using the seed in 2017 and saw a 25 per cent rise in the yield
in the very first year. In 2015-16, the new variety was sown in a little over 0.4 million hectare
(ha) in Uttar Pradesh and by 2017-18 the acreage increased threefold, to 1.21 million ha, as
per Lucknow-based Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research (IISR). Not only does the seed
have a higher yield, the recovery percentage of sugar from it is also higher than the other
varieties. Sugarcane production, consequently, saw quantum jump. According to the Uttar
Pradesh Cane Development and Sugar Industry Department, sugarcane production in the
state increased from 148.7 million tonnes in 2016-17 to 182.1 million tonnes in 2017-18.
The sugar production by mills also went up across the country, due to which the sugar
prices plummeted so much that the sugar mills in India cumulatively owe Rs 22,000 crore to
farmers for cane supplied in 2017-18. Was a seed that was supposed to be a boon turn out
to be a bane? “Don’t blame the scientists,” says Bakshi Ram, director of Coimbatore -based
Sugarcane Breeding Institute. Ram is credited for introducing this variety in 2011. “A
scientist’s job is to produce a good product. If governments cannot manage it, how is the
scientist at fault,” he asks. All India Coordinated Sugarcane Research Project Coordinator,
S K Shukla, working with IISR, explains Bakshi’s point. “The bumper harvest could h ave
been a boon had we invested resources to produce ethanol,” he says.