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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

The next green revolution

The agriculture ministry’s revised farm output projections for this year, indicating just about a 7.5 per cent downturn in foodgrain production despite the worst drought in recent years, lend themselves to some significant inferences. For one, the performance of the crops has turned out to be far better than what was feared. The earlier projections, released in November last, had put the likely crop loss at over 21 million tonnes, or nearly 19 per cent, in the kharif season alone. The revised numbers indicate not only a lower loss in the kharif output but also marginally better production in the ongoing rabi. While the kharif foodgrain harvest is now assessed at 99.85 million tonnes, against 96.63 million tonnes projected earlier, the rabi output has been put at 117 million tonnes. In fact, this is only the second time in over a decade that the rabi foodgrain production has exceeded that of kharif. The previous occasion when this happened, interestingly, was also a drought year (2002-03), though the rainfall deficiency then was 19 per cent (23 per cent this year). This reinforces the notion that it is the rabi season’s largely irrigation-based agricultural production system that moderates the fluctuations in farm production.

Secondly, a performance that belies the earlier fears of a sharp fall in crop production can also be construed to mean that either the drought’s severity from the agricultural point of view was exaggerated or that the situation was managed well. The truth is that it was both in parts. This year’s drought differed from the previous droughts in that the paucity of precipitation was more in areas which are traditionally not drought-prone and where this deficiency did not matter, for agriculture, as much as it did in the drought-prone tracts of land. The highest deficit in the rainfall, 36 per cent, was in the key north-western agricultural belt where over 95 per of farmland is irrigated. This was followed by the north-eastern states (rainfall deficiency of 27 per cent) which, in any case, are a high rainfall region. The dry spells during the monsoon season, too, were interspersed with periods of good rainfall and so could be managed by changing the crop varieties or resorting to re-sowing or adjusting the fertiliser usage. Moreover, the Centre and the state governments also deserve credit for ensuring timely availability of alternative seeds and other inputs needed in such a situation.

Thirdly, this year’s experience is an indication that the country’s agriculture is now ready for the much-needed second green revolution. However, that would require a major technology push. Unlike the first green revolution, which was the result of the high-yielding crop varieties bred through conventional techniques, apart from the supportive technology and services, the next jump in output will require the use of frontier sciences like biotechnology and nanotechnology to produce tailor-made, situation-specific crop varieties. In that respect, it would essentially be based on the “gene revolution”. For this, the involvement of the private sector is a must as it has already acquired an edge over the public sector in these fields. The private sector has displayed its calibre in the allied fields of agriculture — horticulture, floriculture, dairy, poultry and fisheries — by helping them grow faster than the rate at which the crops sector has grown. The crops sector too can achieve the desired overall average annual agricultural growth of 4 per cent by involving the private sector.