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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

How Do We Combat Droughts?
-Economic and Political Weekly

Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research.

For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking that even after nearly 70 years of agricultural development and massive investments in irrigation, rural electrification and provision of farm subsidies, the country is still vulnerable to extreme climate events like droughts. The rate of growth in agriculture is down from about 4% in the Eleventh Plan to just 1.7% in the first three years of the Twelfth Plan (2012–15). Since agriculture even today is the source of livelihood to an estimated 600 million Indians, droughts push the already precarious lives of smallholder farmers and agricultural labourers to the brink, leading to massive agrarian distress.

Finding a way forward in Indian agriculture may require a substantial rethinking of the current model of development. The model of development followed in the country since the late 1960s has led to a growing vulnerability to droughts and climate variations. This model has been built on crop-centric research focused on yield improvements, with scant attention being paid to the natural resource context of agricultural development. While it has pushed up the rates of growth of agriculture and of food, in particular, it has also resulted in crop systems with considerably reduced diversity and flexibility. It has led to a severe depletion of natural resources of water and soil, and has significantly intensified the use of synthetic chemical inputs and pesticides.

Official land use statistics show that 55% of the cultivated area still has no access to irrigation. The contribution of this rain-fed segment of Indian agriculture is by no means small. It produces about 40% of foodgrains and a major share of pulses and oilseeds as well. The worst impact of drought is felt here. Through public investment in water, we need to create facilities for providing supplemental irrigation to crops at crucial periods of plant growth. The experience of watershed projects over the last three decades has shown that local harvesting monsoon runoff for supplemental irrigation can be a good drought-mitigating mechanism. It is also known that public investment leverages considerable private investment in water. The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) has recently been launched with the express objective of providing water to every field (“har khet ko paani”), and with a financial allocation of Rs 50,000 crore over five years. When converged with investments on water under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and watershed programmes in rain-fed agriculture, the PMKSY can be effective in mitigating the impact of droughts. Since agriculture accounts for over 80% of the water use in the country, demand management of water use in agriculture through cropping patterns with drought-resistant varieties and water-saving methods of irrigation needs encouragement.

Along with water, soil is another area where urgent investments are required. Healthy soils with high organic matter content have better water retention and hence contribute to conservation of soil moisture. Due to poor organic matter incorporation, soil organic carbon is below the required level in most parts of India. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers has further eroded soil health. Several methods are available for recycling organic matter and “wastes” (such as cattle urine and agricultural residues) and incorporating them into soils. They need consistent government support for better farmer uptake. Currently, fertiliser subsidies and the fertiliser pricing policy are heavily biased in favour of synthetic chemical fertilisers. Restructuring these for promoting organic methods of soil enrichment would help improve soil health in the long run. Recently, the government has initiated the Soil Health Card Scheme but it cannot be a substitute for substantial public investment in soils.

A diversified, multi-product crop system is the best insurance to protect farmers against the impact of frequent droughts. Pulses and millets play a vital role in crop diversification in rain-fed agriculture as well as in the food security architecture of the country. Even with changing consumption patterns, pulses have remained the main source of protein for poorer sections of the people. Since they are more resistant to moisture stress, millets impart greater resilience to the cropping systems in traditional millet-growing areas. Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) have largely remained irrelevant for farmers growing millets and pulses since there has been no system of public procurement of these crops, even in the rain-fed states where they account for a major share in the cropped area. Public procurement would also encourage expansion of pulses production to new areas like the eastern states.

The success of the Green Revolution can largely be attributed to the dedicated work of scientists and extension workers of the public-funded agricultural research and extension system. Over time, this system has undergone a great decline and has become almost ineffective in agriculturally backward states. According to the 68th round of the National Sample Survey (2013), only 15% of the farmers sourced technical advice from extension workers, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and agricultural universities put together. An overwhelming 70% were dependent on “progressive farmers,” commercial agents and radio/TV/internet for agricultural knowledge. This shows the pitiable status of our agricultural extension system. The Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) has an integrated structure, which includes specialist scientist as well as farmer organisations and NGOs in its ambit. A reformed ATMA can become the focal point of agricultural transformation in agriculturally backward states of India.

Another major segment which calls out for attention is the organisational aspects of agriculture. Markets have always been important in farmers’ lives. With the falling size of landholdings and lower ­market surpluses, smallholder farmers (numbering close to 120 million) are increasingly trying to come together and find new ways for establishing links to markets. Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) have come up as an option but for them to be viable, several support measures and policy changes are needed. These cover areas of financing, storage and transportation, risk minimisation and value addition. Agencies like the Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) have been active in implementing programmes for supporting FPOs and these efforts need to be sustained and considerably expanded.

The potential of these components of an alternative model of agricultural development has been demonstrated through micro-level experimentation by concerned scientists, many civil society organisations and farmers themselves. The task at hand is to scale up and integrate these components into a package for reducing drought vulnerability and should be supported by substantial public investment. Efforts under ongoing programmes like the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, MGNREGA and many others should be converged with a focus on enhancing the resilience of Indian agriculture in the face of recurring rainfall deficits. In this way, we can combat droughts and protect our farmers from distress and suffering.