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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Hybrid hopes


The Government of India’s initiative to focus on agricultural development in the eastern states, as represented by the meeting that the Union ministers for finance and agriculture attended in Kolkata last week, is welcome if belated. Some may see this as a pre-election gimmick with an eye to elections in Bihar and Bengal. But there is no gainsaying the fact that the region’s agricultural economy needs a productivity boost. Among the ideas mooted, a task force is to be set up to ensure speedy popularisation of hybrid rice in the same way as has been done in China where over 60 per cent of the total land under rice now grows hybrid rice. While the talk of a “second green revolution” in eastern India has been heard for a long time, the recent spike in food prices, due largely to supply-side constraints, seems to have stirred activity in New Delhi. Moving green revolution technologies to new areas is one way of boosting land productivity in the country, while at the same time making the growth process more regionally inclusive. The eastern region has the maximum untapped potential for high-yield farming. It has fertile, deep alluvial soils, copious water resources and plenty of sunlight — all the prerequisites for productive agriculture. Moreover, the present crop yields in the eastern zone are far below those in other zones.

While all this bodes well for the success of efforts to enhance crop productivity in the East, the proposed strategy of concentrating chiefly on hybrid rice for this purpose seems dicey. It is, no doubt, true that hybrid rice has the potential to yield 20 to 25 per cent more rice than the available high-yielding rice varieties. In fact, the yield advantage may be even more in the eastern region where the present rice productivity is quite low because of poor penetration of high-yielding varieties. But, at the same time, what also needs to be borne in mind is that hybrid rice cultivation requires relatively costlier inputs, especially seeds that need to be bought afresh every year. The resource-starved farmers of the East may not be able to afford it. Besides, it also requires specialised skills for both seed production and crop cultivation which, at present, are found to be wanting in the region. Farmers who have failed to adopt the available and relatively cost-effective agronomic techniques, may find it difficult to straight away graduate to sophisticated hybrid rice cultivation technology. Though the government intends to involve private seed companies in the production of hybrid rice seeds, these firms will need time to acquaint themselves with rice hybridisation technology and build adequate trained manpower to take it up on a large enough scale. This apart, the fact also is that the farming systems based on single or double cropping, as has been the case in the north-western bread basket of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, tend to create ecological problems in the longer run. The better option will be to promote diversified farming systems right from the beginning.