Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | India's shifting food bowls -Ravish Tiwari

India's shifting food bowls -Ravish Tiwari

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Aug 16, 2014   modified Modified on Aug 16, 2014
-India Today

Geography of rice and wheat has been transformed with Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh generating surpluses

Almost 50 years ago, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri went on air to appeal to Indians to skip a meal a day. Foodgrain supplies had come under strain after the 1965 drought, and the patriotic ethos cautioned against over-consumption: what you ate left that much less for the rest. Today, it is impossible to imagine a prime minister urging Indians to consume less and hoping to get away with it. In any case, the country has transformed enough for acute shortages to be near-impossible. The Green Revolution took care of that. But to track what and how India cultivates and consumes continues to be an exercise in profiling change.

Reeling from the foodgrain shortages from mid-1964, coupled with the shock of two consecutive years of monsoon rainfall deficit of 18.2 per cent and 13.2 per cent during 1965 and 1966, respectively, the government took a clutch of measures-including setting up the Food Corporation of India (FCI), an Agricultural Prices Commission (APC), a precursor to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), and embracing high-yielding varieties of wheat to unleash what came to be known as the Green Revolution.

Whether it be dwarf varieties of wheat developed in Mexico or the semi-dwarf variety of paddy developed in the Philippines, India open-heartedly adopted measures to reverse food shortages. The result changed the agricultural landscape of north-western India (Punjab and Haryana), making it the country's food basket, along with Andhra Pradesh too becoming a significant producer of paddy. Since that turnaround, the geography of rice and wheat has been transformed further, with new states generating surpluses, and taken together with the emergence of broiler farms in rural India, the food basket circa 2014 stands significantly remapped.

Green Relief

The original Green Revolution areas are coming under stress from the political economy of grain procurement and the ecological effects of maximising output. The public procurement mechanism instituted to evacuate surplus foodgrain from Punjab and Haryana to food-deficit regions created vested interests for the state government and farmers in the region alike. Paddy and wheat, consequently, have become cash crops for farmers, as it assures them an income from public procurement, and state governments perpetuate it to obtain taxes from procurement operations.

The paddy-wheat cropping cycle, however, has taken a toll on soil fertility in the region and on its groundwater resources, raising input costs for farmers by way of more fertilisers and more power to draw water from even deeper levels to remain the food basket of the country. Against this backdrop, a clutch of states have increased cultivation and productivity, helping thereby to extricate Punjab and Haryana from the cycle that perpetuates declining soil fertility and receding water tables. The new centres of foodgrain gravity in the country are Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand for paddy and Madhya Pradesh for wheat.

New Rice Bowl

In 2004-05, Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh were the major surplus regions, contributing about 60 per cent of national rice procurement while producing only 27.7 per cent of the total production. Almost a decade later, their share in total procurement has dipped to under 52 per cent while their share of production has also declined marginally to 25.2 per cent (in 2012-13 figures). Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand have eaten into this share of the paddy basket. From a roughly 10 per cent share in national output in 2004-05, their contribution has risen to 16 per cent of national rice output. Consequently, their share in national procurement has also risen from 12.9 per cent in 2004-05 to 18.6 per cent.

See it another way. While paddy production went up by over 20 million tonnes, from 83.13 million tonnes in 2004-05 to 104.4 million tonnes in 2012-13, about 8.45 million tonnes (about 40 per cent) of this jump in paddy production was contributed by these three states. In contrast, the contribution of major states such as Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana was only about 15 per cent (3.2 million tonnes) of the increase. In absolute terms, the production of paddy in Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand jumped from 8.53 million tonnes (2004-05) to 17.07 million tonnes (2012-13), marking a 100 per cent increase in rice production, as compared to the 25 per cent increase countrywide during this period. Bihar, in particular, has seen a 200 per cent jump in paddy production, from 2.47 million tonnes in 2004-05 to 7.34 million tonnes in 2012-13, signalling its emergence as a significant rice bowl along with Chhattisgarh, where paddy output rose by over 50 per cent during this period. Adoption of the new agronomic practices known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in the new zones, with help from the government, has led to this massive jump in paddy production.

"A comprehensive strategy has been adopted to achieve this positive change," says Amrit Lal Meena, principal secretary (agriculture) of Bihar. "The measures deployed include extensive seed replacement through certified seeds, farm mechanisation, use of green manures and, more importantly, transfer of technology, particularly SRI through posting of government extension workers." Central government statistics suggest that rice output in Bihar surpassed that of Chhattisgarh in 2012-13. However, Chhattisgarh's robust procurement system means that it is still far ahead of Bihar in adding to the grain basket.

This shift in rice cultivation will ease pressure on Punjab and Haryana to cultivate this water-guzzling crop in their lowering water table regions without jeopardising the food security of the country. "Areas in eastern India- Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand among others- are the real rice growing areas from an ecological point of view as they have abundant water, and good soil and climate for the crop," says Gurbachan Singh, former Union agriculture commissioner and currently chairperson of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board. "Additionally, in the first Green Revolution areas, the yields have plateaued and groundwater levels have also depleted," he adds. "In contrast, these new areas have low productivity and high potential for paddy cultivation. The time has come to phase out paddy cultivation from the original Green Revolution areas and undertake diversification."

Changing Wheat belt

There has been a dramatic shift in the centre of gravity of wheat production and procurement in the last decade, with Madhya Pradesh emerging as a new wheat surplus state to share the burden of the original Green Revolution areas to meet the food security requirements of the country.

While wheat output from Punjab and Haryana stood at about 35 per cent of national output in 2004-05, their surplus was such that these two states contributed about 85.5 per cent of total wheat procurement. But by 2012-13, their wheat output stood below 30 per cent of the national pie and even their contribution to national procurement was down to 56.35 per cent.

In contrast, Madhya Pradesh has emerged as a major contributor to the national wheat harvest, increasing its contribution from 10.5 per cent in 2004-05 to 14.2 per cent. In fact, wheat production in the state has gone up by about 83 per cent, from about 7.18 million tonnes (2004-05) to 13.13 million tonnes (2012-13). Madhya Pradesh, consequently, has become the second largest contributor of wheat for the public distribution system, displacing Haryana to third place. This is a remarkable achievement for a state which contributed less than 5 lakh tonnes of wheat procurement in 2004-05. That number was up to about 8.5 million tonnes in 2012-13. Looking at the change from another angle, while overall wheat production went up by from 68.64 million tonnes (2004-05) to 92.49 million tonnes (2012-13), Madhya Pradesh alone contributed about 25 per cent of this national improvement with an addition of 5.95 million tonnes -while Punjab and Haryana contributed only about 3.47 million tonnes (under 15 per cent) of the national improvement in wheat production during this period.

"There are several factors behind this improvement," says Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. "First, it is the expansion of irrigation facilities. It has gone up from about 7 lakh hectares when I took over as chief minister (2005) to over 27 lakh hectares now. Second, we have enhanced the seed replacement ratio to about 30 per cent. Along with this, we have assured power and fertiliser availability on time. While we have offered farm loans at zero per cent interest, we have incentivised farmers to produce more by offering them a bonus." He, however, adds that the emphasis going forward is also going to be on horticulture crops and food processing to enhance farm incomes.

Poultry Revolution

The composition of the agriculture sector has also undergone a major change to meet demand on account of rising incomes and increasing urbanisation. The most visible testimony to this change is the fact that the share of live stock has overtaken the contribution of cereals in overall agriculture and allied sector output. Between 1990-91 and 2010-11, share of cereals in total agricultural output declined from 27.3 per cent to 21 per cent. In contrast, the share of livestock increased from 23.7 per cent to 29 per cent. This means that the contribution of the livestock sector to overall agriculture GDP is more than the contribution of cereals. Even the horticulture sector's contribution has increased from about 16 per cent in triennium ending (TE, or the three years ending) 1990-91 to 20 per cent in TE 2009-10. That means horticulture's contribution in the agriculture sector is catching up with the contribution of cereals, and it is only a matter of time it overtakes cereals segment.

This shift appears to reflect a change suggested by NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) figures-a decline in per capita consumption of cereals and double-digit growth in consumption of eggs and chicken (both poultry products) between 2005 and 2010. This meets the protein-driven nutritional demand arising out of growing incomes and urbanisation. In fact, this compositional change indicates that the agriculture sector is responding to the new consumption pattern.

While the economic reforms in 1991 led to the decline of the contribution of agriculture sector to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from about 30 per cent in 1990-91 to less than 15 per cent in 2011-12, rising incomes and urbanisation thereafter are the driving forces of reconfiguration of the agriculture sector itself.

Egg production has risen by over 37 per cent from 50.7 billion eggs in 2006-07 to 69.73 billion in 2012-13. That is a long way since 1950-51, when annual egg production was 1.8 billion. Yet, even though the contribution of non-cereal segments of agriculture GDP is increasing, it still appears to be lagging rising demand. While the recent NSSO survey suggests over 10 per cent annual growth in demand for eggs (during 2005-10), production is estimated to be rising at about 5 per cent annually. This is why inflation for egg, fish and meat items has been in double digits for the last two years.

Notwithstanding the demand-supply mismatch, the poultry sector highlights changes in agriculture and allied sectors. In fact, per capita annual availability of eggs has gone up from five in 1950-51 to 55 in 2011-12. The five major egg-producing states are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Haryana, the last a region with a history of Arya Samaj and vegetarianism.

Galloping demand has compelled the poultry industry to evolve from unscientific backyard farming of indigenous breeds to organised commercial enterprises involving hybrids in states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana. It is telling that it was Venky's group, an Indian poultry sector major that bought Blackburn Rovers Football Club a few years back. The poultry sector has not only attracted large-scale investment in operations like breeding, hatching, rearing and processing, even small farmers have started rearing hybrids. Indeed, the proliferation of broiler farms across rural India is the standout sign of larger changes in the farming sector over the decades.

India Today, 25 August, 2014, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/independence-day-special-geography-of-rice-and-wheat/1/376949.html


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

"Session 1: Scope of IDEA and AgriStack" in Exploring...

"Session 2: Farmer Centric Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

"Session 3: Future of Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

Objectives | About Us | Workshops | Disclaimer
share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close