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In search of a good harvest by Yoginder K Alagh


As the policies on better water management work themselves out and the larger sums of monies the UPA government is spending on them have an effect, technology is the major source of growth in Indian agriculture. Improved seeds matter. While the earlier seed suppliers in agricultural universities and seed corporations reorganise themselves with the support of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, private and public private partnerships (PPP) are flourishing. Bt brinjal got a lot of publicity and it was sad that its distribution was stopped. But in crops as varied as maize, paddy and of course cotton, Bt or hybrids are making an impact as also in fruits and vegetables, where public sector presence has traditionally been low. In other crops, if we organise ourselves well like we did for pulses, the beginnings already made can soon have an important effect.

The seed sector is still reeling in that half-way land between public sector regulation and privatisation. It is a sector without either the regulatory base or a tradition of rule-based systems to work with, where standards, environmental consequences and political sensitivities are high. So the requirements of a long-term view for this sector are classically based on sectors where R&D costs are high and regulation is required; once the technologies are known, marginal costs are low. It is a situation where competitive pricing can only work up to a point and intelligent regulation is required thereafter. Somewhat unnoticed, Bt seeds are price-controlled, for example, by state governments in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, with other state governments also getting into the act. Newspaper reports tell us that agriculture ministers and bureaucrats with little interest in or perhaps even understanding of pricing rules for a commodity, whose capital costs are high on account of the long haul in technology investments and marginal costs are low, periodically call in the hapless seed manufacturers and tell them the price they can charge.

The case for regulation is obvious, given the long-haul nature of the problem, its environmental aspects and the need to protect the small farmer. These are traditionally the areas where a regulatory mechanism is necessary at the national level. It is like the case of electricity in the 1990s when privatisation was brought in. The badly thought-out fast track project policy implemented was jettisoned when I was power minister and the CERC and distribution legislation introduced, which later amalgamated in the Electricity Act.

The first step would be to set up an empowered group, say, with a member of the Planning Commission as its chair, secretary agriculture, the chairman of the CACP, the chief economic advisor, a few agriculture ministers or secretaries of states like Andhra and Gujarat and experts in costing and agricultural economics. They could then be asked to work out, in consultation with farmer groups and chambers of commerce, a regulatory structure for the seeds sector. While this is being thought through and set up, the same group may advise the central government to regulate seed prices rather than state governments doing it at random.

There is the larger problem of spurious seeds. Since these are not registered with any body, it is a notoriously difficult problem. In fact if you ask about them officially, even their existence is denied, for no receipts are given or taken. The prevalence of such seeds is high, which is a cause of major worry. If, Lord forbid, an accident takes place in the sense that a toxic seed gets into the food or water chain, the consequences could be devastating. Even now for that one in a thousand cases where the crop fails, the hapless farmer, who paid through his nose for such spurious seeds and borrowed large sums, has nowhere to go to, since he is on the wrong side of the law. Interestingly the suicide belts were also illegal Bt cotton belts, at least in the early phases. There are only a few large seed manufacturers and a very large number of these small operators. My solution is for the big boys to network with the small ones and to turn adversity into advantage. But that needs legal and other changes. Swaminathan saheb’s biotech council may be a good idea in the long run.

The author is a fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and an independent director of Tata Chemicals and Rallis, India