Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry
Posted: 31 May 2018 00:25
I think a distinction should be made between a farmer and a farm owner!
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There already is a column called "Maalik" aka "Owner" and "Kashatgar" aka "Farmer" on your Girdavari document (Patwari gives you this document and he/she comes to village to check each crop and to estimate yield). Most of this is now computerized in Haryana and Punjab.Indranil wrote:I think a distinction should be made between a farmer and a farm owner!
The government has set a target of producing a record 285.2 million tonnes of food grains in crop year 2018-19 beginning July, despite monsoon rainfall has been 9% below normal so far this year.
The target is 0.53% higher than the initial forecast made in April, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.
India harvested a record 284.8 million tonnes of food grains in 2017-18.
For the current crop year, the government targets higher production of rice, wheat, oilseeds and cotton, while production of pulses, coarse cereals and sugarcane is expected to be lower than last year.
Kharif production this year is expected to be better to last year’s owing to excellent crop condition, ministry officials said.
They, however, did not explain the reasons for buoyant forecast for a year when rainfall has been below average and some parts of the country have been ravaged by floods.
Parshottam Rupala, minister of state for agriculture, said rains have been less than normal in some parts of the country, and more than normal in some places. “Despite that we expect higher production in kharif,” he said. “Due to water availability in reservoirs, even the rabi planting will be very good.”
The agriculture ministry has set kharif production target at 141.20 million tonnes, which is 0.71% higher than the target set in April.
The ministry also said it expects rabi planting — which begins by mid-October — to be higher than last year since there were good soil moisture and higher water levels in reservoirs.
The food grain target for 2018-19 — announced by agriculture commissioner SK Malhotra during a two-day national conference on planting strategy for the upcoming rabi (winter) season — is 0.14 % higher than the fourth advance estimate for 2017-18 production at 285.2 million tonnes.
For 2018-19, the agriculture ministry has fixed the production target for rice at 113 million tonnes, against 112.9 million tonne last year. Wheat production target has been set at 100 million tonnes against 99.7 million tonnes last year.
The target for pulses has been kept at 25 million tonne, slightly less than last year’s 25.2 million tonnes. In case of coarse cereals, too, the target has been lowered slightly to 46.7 million tonnes against 46.9 million tonnes in 2017-18.
Target oilseed production for 2018-19 has been fixed at 36 million tonnes, up from 31.2 million tonnes last year, while cotton output is targeted to be raised to 35.5 million bales of 170 kg each from 34.89 million bales.
Sugarcane production target for 2018-19 is fixed at 355 million tonnes, down from 376.91 million tonnes last year.
Social media is rife with the story of a farmer who got just Rs 1,064 for 750 kg of onion. So upset was he with the amount he received, that he is said to have sent the entire proceeds to the prime minister.
The story is about a farmer named Sanjay Sathe, a resident of Niphad tehsil in Nashik district, who told PTI on 2 December that he had produced 750 kg of onion in this season, but was offered a rate of Re 1 per kg at the Niphad wholesale market last week. Sathe was one of the few “progressive farmers” selected by the Union agriculture ministry for an interaction with the then US president Barack Obama when he visited India in 2010.
There are three things to be considered here.
Factor 1
First, is Sathe’s story credible? According to traders in the market, retail prices of onions currently hover between Rs 30-40 per kg because of tight supplies. Last week they could have been lower. But not as low as Re 1 per kg. Some traders allege that it is possible that the farmer could have been trying to sell the previous season’s crop today, and it is also possible that some of the onions might have started rotting… That could have resulted in a price of Re 1.
But that is merely an allegation. The fact is that farmers usually get barely 10 percent of the retail price of an agricultural produce which is outside of the government’s procurement basket of rice and wheat. So if the prices of onions were Rs 10 a kg, it would not be improbable that the farmer may have been able to get Re 1 per kg.
But why should the farmer get only 10 percent of the retail price of the crop?
That brings us to factor 2.
One reason why the farmers get less is that the wholesale traders have ganged up to become a mafia protected by what is known as the APMC or the Agricultural Produce Market Committee. This is a body which is made up of politically powerful farmers (usually politicians) who usurp the right to become the canalising agency for all agricultural produce. The APMC then sells the produce to retail traders, who in turn sell it to smaller traders, who offer the produce to the consumer. Typically, if you go beyond the limits of Mumbai, you could get vegetables at one-tenth the price consumers pay in the city. At times of overproduction, you could get the produce for even lower than that level.
Ever since Narendra Modi, as chief minister of Gujarat, began a campaign for abolishing of APMCs and giving the farmers the right to sell agricultural produce directly to consumers, some states have withdrawn the tremendous powers that APMCs once enjoyed. As the chart alongside will show, many states have apparently defanged APMCs. But in reality they still wield tremendous clout.
https://www.firstpost.com/business/onio ... es_5662201Consider how, in Maharashtra, just a few days ago, the state government was forced to back down from passing a legislation that sought to close down APMCs in the state. The state wanted to de-notify all agri-commodities from the purview of the mandis. The Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing Development and Regulation Act Ordinance had already been passed in the lower house but was withdrawn from the upper house. Reason? The traders had observed a one day-bandh against the government’s decision. The traders and workers at APMC went on indefinite strike against the new APMC law.
That is because most of the trucks that transport vegetables from the mandis to the markets are controlled by the APMCs even today. They even control the storage places and the warehouses. They have a stranglehold over the farm sector. Unless the organisation is itself dismantled, farmers will remain at the mercy of these cartellised traders.
It is these traders, backed by very powerful political bodies that account for a bulk of the difference between what the farmer gets and what the consumer pays.
So what options do the farmers have? And this takes us to factor 3
The two solutions
The first solution has been in existence for almost 60 years. It is the one introduced by Verghese Kurien. He believed that the farmer was the most important player in the agriculture to consumer ecosystem. Thus, instead of promoting the global norm of one-third to the farmer, one-third to the processor-aggregator and one-third to the trade, Kurien insisted that the the farmer gets at least 50 percent of the market price of the produce.
To ensure that market prices were not allowed to go down, Kurien used NDDB (National Dairy Development Board), which was allowed to become the canalising agency for any import of any milk whether as a commercial purchase or as a gift. NDDB sold these at market prices, thus ensuring that the market price for milk did not ever get hurt. The few times when farmers suffered grievously was when the central government ignored this rule and allowed for import of milk and milk products.
NDDB then went on to replicate this model for fruits and vegetables under the brand Safal (Sabzi and Phal or fruit and vegetable in many local languages). But it failed because the APMCs protected by state governments did not allow it to procure vegetables and fruits directly from farmers. It was only when the APMCs had begun being dismantled, that the move to revive Safal has begun. But government support for it is not as forthcoming as it ought to be.
In fact, a few years ago, NDDB sought to create a similar structure for pulses in Akola. The plans were being rolled out, when the NDDB chairman resigned. The reasons are not known.
If Kurien’s model is followed, farmers would not suffer distress prices that they currently face.
There is another way. The government had enacted a brilliant piece of legislation called the Warehousing Development and Regulation Act (WDRA) in 2007. But it was forgotten thereafter. It got notified only on 25 October, 2010. Even this notification could have been because the Supreme Court exerted tremendous pressure on the government to explain why it had allowed grain (especially rice and wheat) to rot in the sun and the rain, merely because there were no warehouses.
The apex court had ordered the government to provide all the grain free of cost to India’s poor rather than allow it to rot. The government dragged its feet. Its argument was that sending the grain to public distribution shops (PDS) would be a very expensive affair – costing around Rs 5,000 crore. That justification was obviously specious, because the government could have asked NGOs to pick up the non-warehoused grain free of cost on an as-is-where-is basis. The costs would have to be borne by the NGO concerned. People consuming the grain is a better proposition compared to letting it get devoured by rats or worms.
It is probable that the government did not want to stop the rotting of grain because it wanted – as is being alleged in several quarters – the evidence of the surplus grain to be destroyed by sun, wind, rain and pests. All indicators point to a devious practice by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and several State Warehousing Corporations (SWCs) to make money illegally through grain procurement. The modus operandi appears to be procuring second-rate grain from well-connected farmers at first rate prices. The best way to erase evidence of the fraud is by allowing the evidence of the crop itself to disappear.
Whatever the reason, the desire to make the WDRA effective does not appear to have been strong. The organisation exists. But it has not been promoted strongly enough. This is despite the fact that the WDRA remains one of the most important pieces of legislation in recent times. It could potentially change the way agriculture and the trade surrounding it happens.
There are several things the WDRA was meant to do which were missing earlier.
First, instead of the state procuring agricultural produce, the Act allowed for WDRA registered warehouses to step in. Farmers could walk into any warehouse (every district was expected to have such facilities) where such produce could be stored.
Second, the warehouse would have an assayer who would evaluate the quality of the produce and certify both the quality and the quantity and give the farmer a receipt.
Third this receipt would be recognized as a negotiable instrument, which the farmer could take to the bank and get money for his produce at prevailing spot market prices. Else the farmer could sell the produce directly through the commodity markets at current or future prices. The farmer also had the option of keeping the receipt with himself till he believed he could get better prices. In that case, the farmer would have to pay for the storage of the produce till the time it got sold.
Thus a small farmer could bypass procurement officials and even traders. He could approach a warehouse with his meagre produce and get a receipt and encash it at his will. It would create a national market where a trader in, say, Orissa could purchase a few tonnes of onion or rice from a farmer in Maharashtra through the commodity markets and collect the given quantity and quality from the local warehouse.
That would have ensured that the farmer could have got at least 3-4 times the current prices he gets from traders. It would have been much more than the prime minister’s promise of doubling farm incomes. It would be higher than the MS Swaminathan formula of giving farmers 50 percent more than his input costs.
Bitter reality
The fact also is that the farmer is paid a pittance. Estimates from Nabard shows how grave the farmer distress can be. The government’s formula of subsidies and grants is akin to treating a farmer like a beggar who holds out his bowl for charity and alms. It strips him of dignity, and of the ability to grow big and self-reliant. The Kurien solution or the WDRA method are better ways to empower the farmer. But clearly, local politicians do not want to lose the moolah – the fat difference between what the farmer gets and what the consumer pays.
The sooner, this parasitical layer is removed, the better will it be for farmers and the country
https://www.livemint.com/Money/qTyGharL ... onomy.htmlIndia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the second quarter (Q2) has laid bare the deepening distress in its villages. Farm incomes haven’t risen even though the government has announced a hike in minimum support prices. The country’s agricultural output, measured as gross value added, grew at a sedate pace of 2.8%, far slower than the 5.3% in the June quarter. This was on top of a low base of 2.6% growth last year.
Economists said that the GDP deflator for agriculture is negative for the first time in many years. In other words, farmers are earning less than what they were before. Indeed, if the recent marches to New Delhi by thousands of farmers are any indication, the farm sector has already sent up emergency flares.
What is notable is that even allied activities are growing slower. This doesn’t bode well for rural demand in the coming months.
For a government that will face the litmus test of its policies through a national election within six months, the farm sector’s woes are unsettling. Although agriculture contributes less than one-third of the output of the entire economy, rural centres are key demand areas. Consumption demand from the rural economy also needs to hold up for the overall growth rate to remain above 7%.
An extension of the troubles of the Indian economy has also been visible on the expenditure side. Private final consumption expenditure grew by 7%, which was lower than the 8.6% in the previous quarter. Consumption has been the strongest engine of growth and, incipient signs of a slowdown that was followed by distress in the financial sector, will hurt the economy.
To balance this gloom was a bright spark in gross fixed capital formation. This grew at a brisk pace of 12.5%, but on a low base of 6.1% a year ago. Gross fixed capital formation has been growing faster and faster every quarter over the last five years, which is a sign of traction in investment growth. Juxtaposing the not-so-bad 7.4% growth in manufacturing gives hope on the employment front.
That said, economists believe the latest growth numbers dash hopes of the estimated 7.4% GDP growth for the full year of 2018-19. The urge to let loose a fiscal stimulus ahead of elections is high, especially to alleviate the pain in agriculture. But can the government afford to give in to such an urge?
Even as the debate over revising past GDP growth rates continues, the government and the markets should be really worried about the impact of rural distress on the pace and direction of economic growth.
In January 2019, Chhattisgarh became the latest state in India to report infestation of Fall Armyworm (FAW), locally being referred to as American keeda.
In just nine months since Fall Armyworm was spotted in India in Karnataka in last June, it has invaded crops in more than 10 states. As if taking a pre-scripted route, Fall Armyworm infestation has spread from Karnataka to all southern states, then to western Maharashtra and Gujarat and now to the eastern Indian states.
Other than fast advancement, the pest is also attacking new crops. Though it is being detected mostly in maize crops — a preliminary calculation estimates that it has affected nearly 1,70,000 hectares of maize crops — there have also been reports from states where it has infested paddy, sugarcane and sweet corn.
Maize is the third-most important cereal crop in India after rice and wheat. It accounts for 9 per cent of the total food grain production in the country.
The up-to-2-cm-long pest “accidentally” landed in Africa in 2016 from its native Americas, almost after 100 years. Since then, it has wreaked havoc in over 50 countries in Africa and Asia ravaging crops, especially maize.
“The spread of Fall Armyworm is nothing like we have ever seen with any pest before. We have faced pestilences like wheat blast or the Maize Lethal Necrosis. But in all the previous cases, the incidents were mostly limited to a few countries and also limited to a single crop. With Fall Armyworm, the threat is much bigger, in terms of extent of damage caused to both the crop varieties and the area,” says BM Prasanna, director, CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE.
Presenting her maiden Budget in the Parliament, said the government would focus on “Zero Budget” farming.
This is in keeping with the suggestions of the Economic Survey 2019 to shift from green revolution to green methods.
It is also a tribute to the agricultural scientist Subhash Palekar, who invented ‘Zero Budget’ farming based on natural farming principles.
The announcement is a reflection of what the Economic Survey, tabled in the Parliament on 4 July, said. The survey, dealing on agriculture, suggested a shift from “green revolution” to “green methods”. There are very good reasons why the government is looking to shift from “green revolution”, which has led to self-sufficiency in the country’s food grain production, after it gained acceptance in the 1960s.
The “green revolution” focussed more on agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides, and on cultivating water-intensive crops. For the 1960s, it could have been the right choice but not anymore. Rapid and rampant use of chemical fertilisers has led to the deterioration of soil health and nutrients, particularly in states like Punjab and Haryana that were at the forefront of the “green revolution”.
Being heavily dependent on external inputs resulted in production and productivity stagnating. Thus, returns to the farmers were not commensurate with the investments they were making. These developments had led to the thinking that the “green revolution” has perhaps had some fallout too.
Moreover, the acute water shortage that some parts of the country is facing has opened the eyes of the government and pushed them into promoting crops that consume less water. Extensive cultivation of water-intensive crops such as paddy and sugarcane is being questioned. The government made a deft move this year by announcing higher minimum support price for hard crops such as coarse cereals that consume less water.
Therefore, it is natural that the government is looking for a return to the roots through natural farming. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an arm of the United Nations, terms “Zero Budget” farming as a grassroots peasants movement that has spread across various states in India.
arshyam wrote:Perhaps one of the best proposals to come from this budget, given the growing reports of water shortage around the country. This article summarizes what ZBNF is.
Government To Focus On ‘Zero Budget’ Farming: Here’s All That You Need To Know About It - M R Subramani, Swarajya
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting her maiden Budget in the Parliament, said the government would focus on “Zero Budget” farming.
This is in keeping with the suggestions of the Economic Survey 2019 to shift from green revolution to green methods.
It is also a tribute to the agricultural scientist Subhash Palekar, who invented ‘Zero Budget’ farming based on natural farming principles.
Emaar Group is coordinating with the Government of India in respect of the investment relating to food security in the UAE. The investment will be made by other UAE entities, the details of which will be declared at a later stage."
The firms will make investments across India, creating as many as 2 lakh jobs while ensuring food security for UAE.
"They [UAE entities] have expressed their interest to invest up to $5 billion in mega food parks, logistics and warehouse hubs, fruits and vegetable hubs in various Indian cities, which would create 200,000 jobs across India," said Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry who was recently on a visit to UAE.
The remaining $2 billion would be geared towards contract farming, sourcing of agro commodities and related infrastructure, Goyal said.
As much as 30 per cent of Indian produce gets wasted each year and the investment in food processing can help bring down the number, while assuring better rates for UAE based buyers and Indian farmers.
Would you be interested in looking at this tech.? I know a party which has developed the tech. and is looking for funds and/or licensees.ashbhee wrote:Is there any use of stubble instead of just burning it? How about fodder, bio fuel, bio methane by anaerobic digestion?
Rice straw can be converted into fodder. Rice straw can be used to create paper, cardboard, ropes, packing material, etc. It is a huge business opportunity.Vayutuvan wrote:Would you be interested in looking at this tech.? I know a party which has developed the tech. and is looking for funds and/or licensees.ashbhee wrote:Is there any use of stubble instead of just burning it? How about fodder, bio fuel, bio methane by anaerobic digestion?
Punjab alone burns 20 Million tons of rice straw stubble a year. A 5 TPD bio-methane plant requires 40 Tons of rice straw. Punjab alone can support 1000 biomethane plants if the stubble is fed into the plants.
He further suggested the Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh government to put up Rice BioParks where farmers can convert stubble into income and employment.
“We should stop blaming farmers since it will take us nowhere. Instead we should propose methods which are economically and ecologically desirable,” he added.
Recently, a rice bio-park was established by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation at Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. It was funded by the Indian government. The rice biopark shows how stubble can be utilised to make products including paper, cardboard and animal feed, he said.
In East Asia rice fields double up as fish farms growing Catfish.Vips wrote:India registers fastest growth in fish production in more than two decades.
India’s fish production in 2017-18 grew at its fastest pace in more than two decades, driven largely by a 14.05 per cent increase in inland farming, data showed on Thursday.
The handbook for fisheries statistics for 2018 said the average fisherman earned Rs 4,411.16 per month in 2016-17, indicating the rise in production may not have improved incomes. The average income in 2011-12 was Rs 3,124.76 per month. Numbers for income in 2017-18 weren't mentioned.
Data showed that at 8.90 million tonnes, inland fisheries was the main production contributor. Its output rose by 14.05 per cent between 2016-17 to 2017-18. At 3.69 million tonnes, marine fish production grew by just 1.73 per cent in the same period.
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Singh said the government aims to achieve fish and related products export worth Rs 1,00,000 crore in the next five years from the current level of Rs 45,000 crore.
As a result, they can grow a variety of produce all year round, defying the seasons.
All of this adds up to farms that use 95% less water than traditional ones, while yielding up to 390-times more crops per-square-foot.