[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...

MORE MARKETS, LESS GOVERNMENT
planning based on the resources availability
in these zones is required to be done to
use the resources judiciously. Planning
should be based on scientific study coupled
with commercial planning, with farmers’
interest in mind. If his land is suitable
for a specific cash crop, which will give
him better return on investment, he should
be induced to do so, even if it means he has
to buy food grains from the market. Under
this planning, the country as a whole has
to evaluate, which crop we should produce
here and which crop we should import, so
that overall return on agriculture improves.
Similarly, if water is deficient in an
area, farmers should not cultivate sugarcane
there. Instead of thinking in terms
of quintals per hectare, we have to start
thinking in terms of Rupees per hectare.
This will be the real transformation of sustenance
agriculture into agri business.
Hence, the third mantra is national level
integrated crop planning, with focus on
farmers’ return on investment.
4.4 Information is key to success. Authentic
and timely information reduces
uncertainty in business. India is one of the
leading countries in respect of Information
technology. But, if we look at Indian
agriculture or even information relating
to Indian agriculture, we do not find IT
application working anywhere. We know
from USDA data what is happening in US,
but we do not know what is happening in
our own villages. Authentic information
can be generated only if we have robust
information system coupled with robust
connectivity backbone upto village level.
For this purpose, if the entire agricultural
land in the country is mapped on computer
software and latest technology for database
designing and data mining is used,
it will prove to be the most powerful tool
to help agriculture. If the village level representative
is required to feed data on
daily basis regarding sowing, crop pattern,
harvesting on daily basis relating to all
land holding in his area and all such data
travels to a central server, where it is processed
to generate consolidated reports, we
will get the most valuable information
about Indian agriculture on daily basis.
This information will be most useful for
the farmers also, because they will know
in how much area, onion is already sown
and so, whether he should do onion cultivation
or shift to some other crop. Today,
if price of a commodity is higher in a year,
lot of farmers will cultivate the same commodity
next year, which leads to glut; fall
in price and resultant loss. A number of
companies will be interested to buy data,
because their business is connected with
agriculture and hence, the entire venture
can be run in a profitable manner. Looking
at the outstanding success of telecom
revolution in our country, it is not a difficult
target. Hence, the forth important
strategy should be to develop real time
database system to track agriculture after
mapping each and every land holding cultivated
in our country.
4.5 The area under cultivation in our
country is consistently under pressure. Urbanization,
industrialization, housing for
increasing population are taking a toll on
the land under cultivation. But, still India
has a lot of barren and wasteful land, which
is not under cultivation. Such land is wasteful
due to variety of reasons. Somewhere
land is not fit for agriculture because it is
full of stones and hilly layers. Somewhere
it is not cultivable because of poor rainfall
and lack of irrigation facilities. If through
comprehensive planning we can convert at
least a part of such wasteful land into agriculture
land, it will ease the food security
threat. In Rajasthan, agriculture has
progressed very well after creating irrigation
facilities through canalization. In
Kutch area, similar wonders have been
achieved by using Narmada water through
canalization. Similarly, area covered with
stony layers not fit for agriculture can be
developed for poultry. Hence, the next
In Rajasthan, agriculture has progressed very well after
creating irrigation facilities through canalization. In Kutch
area, similar wonders have been achieved by using
Narmada water through canalization
strategy for solving food security problem
should be to convert wasteful land into agriculture
wherever possible.
4.6 If land resources are limited and
population is continuously increasing, fundamentally
there will always be a mismatch
in the long run. The production of food
grains has a degree of inelasticity in the
long run because of long crop period and
seasonality factors. Compared to that, in
the same area production of fruits and vegetables
can be increased manifold by using
better techniques, multi-layer cropping,
THE INDIA ECONOMY REVIEW
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