In the Union Budget 2018-19, Arun Jaitley announced: “Madam Speaker, in our party’s manifesto it has been stated that the farmers should realise at least 50 per cent more than the cost of their produce; in other words, one-and-a-half times of the cost of their production. The government has been very much sensitive to this resolution and it has declared Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the majority of rabi crops at least at one-and-a-half times the cost involved. Now, we have decided to implement this resolution as a principle for rest of the crops. I am pleased to announce that as per the pre-determined principle, the government has decided to keep MSP for the all unannounced crops of kharif at least one-and-a-half times their production cost.”

The announcement, however, has come under a slew of criticism considering how words, intent and action were minced to ultimately not provide farmers with the benefit of 1.5 times of cost of production.

Considering how agriculture in India works outside the free-market economy, wherein price controls exist for inputs and restrictions are placed on final selling prices of produce, such pricing systems should be able to address concerns over cost and profit margins.

Therefore, the need to restructure MSP to cover costs of production and final remunerations to farmers seems reasonable.

“We have been cultivating the land for generations, yet it still comes under the forest department,” says a farmer who took part in the kisan rally in Maharashtra. “In spite of promises [to give land rights to Adivasi farmers under the Forest Rights Act of 2006] we are not owners of the land.” 

In a Nashik village, almost everyone cultivates rice. “The production cost for an acre is Rs 12,000. If the rains are good, we get 15 quintals of rice [per acre],” says Waghere, a farmer. “The current [market] rate is Rs 10 a kilo [Rs 1,000 per quintal]. How will we sustain? When I got to know of the march, I decided I will participate, come what may,” Waghere said.

Considering hard work, sentiments, security and an ability to pledge land as collateral when applying for loans, demands to land ownership rights can also be justified.

Loan waivers, however, are a different matter altogether since they are merely reactive relief packages dolling out myopic solutions to long-lasting problems.

One of the biggest issues with the relief-centric approach is that it discounts the efforts and ingenuity of farmers by treating them as basket cases. Also, since farmers comprise a large chunk of the voter base, appeasements seem like an easier way out in comparison to long-drawn, research-driven policies.

Chandini Singh, a policy analyst, published a paper on rain-fed farming in semi-arid India. One of the objectives of the study was to understand what strategies farmers adopted in response to perceived risks. The paper noted the following:

“This study found that tribal farmers in Pratapgarh were far removed from the caricature of passive victims of climate change and made proactive and reactive responses to changes in their environment… The thesis demonstrates how an understanding of livelihood trajectories and dynamic vulnerability pathways that incorporates views from the vulnerable, can allow agricultural and development policy to incorporate differential vulnerability, especially in the context of increasingly interdependent and multiple-scale drivers.”

This goes to show that what farmers need aren’t bail-out packages but an overall understanding of their practices, thorough research of agriculture in India and its problems and a policy which draws from the aforementioned.

In its Annual Report, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) listed achievements in research work relating to soil and water productivity, agricultural techniques which are resilient to climate change, rich genetic resources with high yield capacities, improved crop varieties, etc.

The Research Bulletin on the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) details recent advances such as low-cost storage technologies, drip irrigation facilities and hybrid seed production techniques. Policy-makers could bank on such research work to enable dissemination of the best farm practices to farmers and to better understand farming troubles which need overcoming.

There’s no doubt that there is a crisis in agriculture in India. However, much of the crisis has been brought on by quick-relief policies implemented by successive governments looking for vote banks over successive decades. What we need is a pause and rethink on the following:

•    Why is agriculture in the 21st century dependent on the vagaries of nature? Why aren’t irrigation systems efficient enough?

•    Why aren’t insurance programmes robust enough to capture farm-level data using satellites and other modern tools so as to be able to disburse claims faster?

•    Why is there no impactful interaction between agricultural research institutions and policy-makers?

•    Why aren’t innovative practices, followed by certain sections, considered while implementing broad policies for the sector?

•    And lastly, why are inertia and vote-bank politics the reason for lack of dynamic solutions in a perpetually struggling sector?

In an interview with Al Jazeera, M S Swaminathan, the pioneer of India’s Green Revolution said “Loan waivers, although temporarily necessary for the revival of farming, do not provide conditions for a secure credit system in the long term. The waiver of loans implies that banks will have to be compensated by the government for the amount involved. This means that large sums of money, which could have otherwise gone to strengthen the agricultural infrastructure and research – such as seed production, soil health enhancement and plant protection, will not be available.”

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