UGC Report on Inter University Center on Rural - Ministry of Rural ...

Small farmers should not be subjected to experiments in the area of crop
diversification without first linking them to the market for the new commodities, says
The National Commission for Farmers and while import of wheat, pulses, sugar, and
oilseeds may have been necessary during 2006 to prevent an undue rise in prices, we
should avoid the danger of making this a habit. The first important requisite is
opportunity for assured and remunerative marketing for farm products like pulses,
oilseeds, millets, vegetables, fruits, milk and meat. The need is to move Indian
agriculture from low value agriculture to high value agriculture and from low
yielding activities to a dynamic competitive sector capitalizing on its inherent
advantages. The National Commission agrees with us that to make agriculture
competitive, the farmer has to be supported in terms of cost of production of efficient
farming. Those costs monetize existing practices, meet the immediate cost of
technology adoption and learning and would sometimes embody in new inputs. Many
of these would be of immediate kind and after initial thrust and support; the farmer
would compete on his own. Agriculture profitability has fallen by 14.2% during
1990-91 and 2000- 2001.There has been a deceleration in input use mainly because
of inadequate expansion of public infrastructure and less favourable input prices
during the 1990s. The deceleration in the growth of input use after 1996-97 according
to the Commission means that policy can remedy matters almost immediately. It
wouldn’t do to procrastinate. We must not escape into unrealistic utopias like
interlinking of rivers and corporate rather than contract farming for replacing peasant
farming
The policy maker has to implement a road map for major crops in each of India’s
agro climatic regions. It must work in a liberalized regime through market friendly
measures like tariff policies, monetary and tax policies rather than through large
estatist interventions which almost always worsen matters. Markets must also be
created and encouraged in areas where they are not available or weak. India’s land
and water has to be developed and used with loving care and not vandalized. The
Road Map has been worked out by experts for selected crops.
There are some important agreements in the evolution of the Eleventh Plan:
Self Evident Propositions
• 1. Agricultural growth of a sustained and widespread kind is a precondition of rural
development: possible only if the reform process, makes crop production profitable:
• 2. Non-crop based agriculture is important and beyond animal husbandry,trees could
trigger the next round of high growth;
• 3. Land and water development policies are a precondition of broad based agricultural
growth: stakeholder community based organizations have to be structured for this
purpose and financial rules developed to support them:
• 4. Non agriculture growth is also a way of life for many in rural areas and that could
be a way out in a globalizing economy. Policies which support those who make
profits succeed:
• 5. There is the old Indian favorite; Technological leapfrogging
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