A grim harvest

India’s success with agriculture and food security is probably the last nail in the coffin for Malthusian theories. We are a living refutation of the rather prudish argument that population growth will be limited by the availability of food and resources. Agricultural productivity has grown exponentially despite India’s lagging farm mechanisation, while population growth shows signs of tapering off. Yet, there is something deeply unsustainable about the agricultural economy in India. 

One of the most basic limitations that we are running up against is the availability of freshwater resources. Agriculture consumes 80% of freshwater in India and there is no abatement in sight for its ravenous appetite for water. Perverse incentives have encouraged the cultivation of water intensive crops like Rice in Punjab - a state that is running out of groundwater, or Sugarcane in Maharashtra, a state that faces acute water scarcity every summer. A system of MSPs (Minimum support price) and powerful interest groups has captured the sector and has forced successive governments to keep supporting these disastrous practices.

For a tropical country that is likely to face the brunt of global warming, India seems oblivious to the contribution of agriculture to greenhouse emissions. While a large part of the emissions are generated by livestock (India has the world’s largest livestock population at 500m+), methane emissions from rice cultivation are a key culprit. Add to that the emissions from the unchecked use of nitrogenous fertilisers (caused by the skewed subsidies for urea over Phosphatic or Potassium) and you have a festering threat on your hands.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is symbolic of the mess. Every year, the FCI is forced to procure millions of tonnes of food grain - mainly from rich farmers. Since procurement is usually well in excess of actual demand for this foodgrain (for Public distribution and maintaining food security stocks), there is widespread pilferage and rotting of foodgrain every year. India spends billions of dollars from its already stretched budget in procuring these crops. Is this a welfare scheme guised as an economic model? Perhaps, but it is clearly not sustainable. Surely there are better ways to transfer benefits to deserving small & medium scale farmers - especially given the direct benefit transfer technology that India has pioneered in other areas.

A glaring example of how interest groups have captured agriculture is the annual burning of crop residue in the northern plains - an exercise that converts our cities and towns into gas chambers every winter. The incentives and cropping patterns favour farmers who choose to burn the residue rather than leave it on their fields as ‘mulch’, i.e. natural fertiliser for the next crop. Despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal and a crackdown from the courts, no government has the stomach to take on the powerful farmer groups of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh who continue to adopt these pernicious practices.

It doesn’t have to be this way. With shifting consumption patterns, there is a possible win-win situation where farmers can adopt ecologically friendly patterns that are also remunerative. As income levels across the country rise, consumers have begun to demand diverse diets. There is an increasing focus on quality rather than quantity of calories, and a slow realisation that eating what grows locally and sustainably is also better for human health. Organic farming also holds promise - both for farmer incomes as well as ecological outcomes. A combination of deft policy making and market friendly approaches can defuse the ticking time bomb that we have on our hands.