Bharat Ratna C Subramaniam's dream of transforming agriculture needs a push

Raghupati, a farmer in Kanchipuram district in Tamil Nadu standing in the midst of his SRI rice field  

Raghupati is a new age farmer. Based 105-kms from Chennai in Tamil Nadu, he farms 4 acres of irrigated land in Sirunagar in Kanchipuram district. Speaks a little bit of English, and when he told me that the farmers' club he chairs -- Sirunagar Farmers' Club -- was awarded for best performance by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) I was not only curious but also keen to know.

The club has 17 volunteers who reach out to more than 70 farmers in the village. But that's not the only thing that is important. What is more important is the willingness with which he has been experimenting with new farming practices turning the polluted landscape into a verdant, healthy and ecologically-sustainable landscape. More keen to know about the farming practices he followed, I walked with him across the crop fields. His face beamed with pride when he showed me the healthy looking traditional rice varieties (white ponni is the rice variety) he cultivates on his farm, and that too adopting the System of Rice Intensification (popularly called as SRI) method of cultivation.

I asked, what was so special about SRI? Doesn't it require a lot of labour and seed as a result of which the cost of cultivation goes up? No, he replied. It's a wrong impression being created. Raghupati told me that SRI has resulted in 1/3rd saving of water and simultaneously an increase of 50 per cent in crop productivity. The seed requirement has come down from 30 kg/acre to 5kg/acre, and there is no additional labour required. Against an application of about 75 kg of urea per acre he has completely stopped its use while he has been able to scale down the usage of DAP fertiliser from 3 bags to one bag now.

When I told him that I don't believe your claims about input applications, he challenged me to talk to any of the farmers who now cultivate a total of 50 acres of paddy in this village. His argument is that farmers have shifted to the use of panchkavya, neem oil, cow urine based plant bio-pastes that have been effective source of major and trace nutrients and at the same time act as insect repellents. No pesticides are being used by those farmers who are members of the club.

The claims were endorsed by Mr M R Ramasubramaniyam, Executive Director of the National Agro Foundation (NAF), who along with his colleague Mr Murugan, accompanied me to the village. I have now requested them to prepare a case study of SRI in rice cultivation for all the villages in Kanchipuram district that the Foundation works in.

National Agro Foundation was set up by the late C.Subramaniam, awarded Bharat Ratna, who many consider to be the real architect of the Green Revolution. Set up in 2000, the NAF has now completed 14 years. "It was Subramaniam's dream," his son, S S Rajsekar, who is the Managing Trustee, tells me "to set up a training centre that helps take the farmers take the next logical step -- from seed to the market." The NAF now works 'directly or indirectly' in some 250 villages in Tamil Nadu besides providing services in food safety and agriculture, which includes vocational training for confectioners, hawkers and bankers.

At another village, Kamsalapuram, located about 85 kms from Chennai, I met a young and enthusiastic farmer, Thiruvengadam. He cultivates 5 acres of land in which he grows rice, brinjal, onion and chillies and also has a few native breed animals. He heads a 30-member volunteer farmers club, which reaches out to about 100 farming families in the village. Although his village has mainly small farmers, owning 1 to 1.5 acres each, the applicationn of chemical pesticides has been reduced by 50 per cent on vegetables. Instead, farmers now apply chilli+garlic+ginger paste sprayed two times to ward off worms. Plus, for sucking pest control they prepare a five leave extract, which includes leaves of datura, neem, nochi, and tumbai.

I asked Thiruvengadam how much has training helped him to become a better farmer. "What I am doing today is because of the training I got." How many times have you gone to NAF training centre, I asked. "Must be some 40 times", he replied. Accordingly, the continuous training system has helped them move to a more sustainable farming practices which has provided the fellow farmers with increased income in their hand.

Visiting the watershed village of Nugumbul village, some 100 kms from Chennai, reminded me of the famed Sukho-majri village in Haryana, which has completely transformed the village, from a typical drought affected poverty-stricken village to a prosperous village. At Nugumbul, Mr Murugan explained to me how adopting the simple water conservation techniques like gully plugging, water absorption trenches and check dams has changed the village profile. Earlier, water-melon was the major crop, and now it is rice. 100 per cent crop cultivation is now being done in this village, up from 50 er cent earlier.

The community-based water harvesting systems adopted in 4 villages by NAF has helped save 28,000 lakh litres of water in a year, changing the fate of 850 villages.

Although, the NAF has a lot of activities in food and nutrition security, women empowerment, technology transfer, veterinary, horticulture, farm machinery and water management etc, it hasn't been able to communicate its role with the people at large as well as the policy makers. Not many outside its direct association are aware of the role NAF has been quietly playing in rural transformation. Since the research and training infrastructure has already been created, and is operational, it is time to turn the NAF centre into a multi-purpose training and development centre. It has to move to the next logical step of opening up to the masses, including colleges and university students, and taking a bigger role in training and education, which can be better coordinated by not only collaborative efforts with ICAR/CSIR/banks but also with civil society groups/NGOs/colleges. Media could have been used as a strong ally in reaching out.

NAF needs a complete re-orientation in the way it has been working so far. More documentation of the work accomplished, periodic assessment studies, case studies and analysis in its areas of operations need to be published and shared. Finances are a constraint for everyone who is engaged in rural development, but a little more imagination and vision could have turned NAF into a household name. Perhaps that is what C Subramaniam envisaged. #

Food Inflation: Farmers' Market is the answer

A Farmers' Market in India. Most Farmers' Market are unhygienic, dusty and filthy.  

In the midst of the food inflation period, especially during the time onion prices had shot through the roof, I had been often asked as to what is the way vegetable prices can be maintained at a reasonable level all through the year. This question assumes importance in the light of the exploitation of farmers as well as the consumers at the hand of the middlemen.

When onion prices had touched Rs 70/kg in August, a study by NABARD had shown that while farmers were paid Rs 8/kg in the month of April-May, the traders had collected the onions and stored it at several paces, only to make a killing by creating an artificial scarcity. The consumers paid as high as Rs 70/kg for onions in August, and two months later in October the prices had crossed Rs 100/kg at several places. A newspaper report has computed that the wholesale and retail trade had profiteered by at least Rs 8,000-crore by keeping the prices high in the past 4 months.

Not only onions, prices of all vegetables had remained on an upswing. No vegetable, except for potatoes, were available for less than Rs 40/kg. Even in case of leafy vegetables, prices had jumped by close to 200 per cent. Interestingly, even in the organized retail chains – like Reliance Fresh, Easy Day, Metro, Big Bazaar – the prices had remained almost at the same level as the open market. These organized retail chains were supposed to remove the array of middlemen and thereby provide vegetables and fruits much cheaper to the consumers. 

Even at the time when open market price of onions was around Rs 100/kg in the open market, prices in the wholesale were around Rs 55/Kg, which means the retail traders had also been making a fast buck. While it is known that the unorganized retail chain too had exploited the situation to sell onions at Rs 100/kg, I don’t understand why didn’t the organized retail chains sell it at Rs 60/kg or so. If Reliance Fresh, Big Bazaar and the likes had made available onions at Rs 60/kg we would have seen an uncontrollable rush before these shops. There would have been long queues of buyers. 

It is therefore very clear that organized retail is not the answer to food mismanagement. Neither the farmers nor the consumers stand to benefit. The only beneficiaries are the organized retail chains, which have replaced the arhtiyas and the hawkers. They certainly have made huge profits. This shows that the big fish is no different from the smaller fish. Nor do I see much hope in corporate giants like Mahindra & Mahindra who have announced with much fanfare a proposal to diversify from its manufacturing activities. The auto-to-airspace giant now proposes to become a middleman. It plans to kickoff with branded apples – sourced from Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh – and sell them at its proposed 15 outlets in Hyderabad for a premium of about 10 per cent or so.

This may be suitable for the upwardly mobile section of the population who do not want to buy from the traditional vegetable markets.  But for the aam aadmi there seems to be no respite from the rising vegetable prices.

Expecting the agri-business industry to provide good quality fruits and vegetables at affordable prices will remain a fake dream. Nowhere in the world has the agri-business industry succeeded in doing so. But there is a new renaissance in food delivery, quality of produce and economics that is I find is slowly but steadily taking roots.  From Australia to United States, from Japan to Argentina, the local food systems are changing. Enhancing the livelihoods of local producers, and meeting the consumers’ aspiration, food markets are now becoming popular.

Even in America, where Wal-Mart dominates the retail market, the growth in farmers’ markets has been phenomenal. From just 370 farmers’ markets that existed in 1970, there were more than 7,000 in 2010. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that in 2007, more than 136,000 farmers were selling food directly to consumers. In Australia, farmer markets too have grown rapidly. From none in 1999, there are 150 farmers markets in Australia today. The Australian Farmers’ Markets Association claims that as per a survey the Farmers Markets in the province of Victoria alone have registered sales of over $ 2 million every week.

Farmers Markets provides farmers and consumers a suitable environment to interact, and that enables farmers to meet the specific needs of the consumers. It enables greater consumption of fresh and healthy fruits and vegetables, and in the bargain reduces the carbon footprint. Since consumers are now becoming increasingly aware of the damage chemical pesticides and fertilizers do to health and immunity systems, the demand for organic food is growing by approximately 20 per cent every year. Moreover, since farmers come and sell directly to consumers on a regular basis, farmer’ markets eliminate middlemen thereby providing stable prices.

The concept is certainly not new. It was launched in Punjab as Apni Mandi a few decades back, but has never received the impetus and investments required. In Andhra Pradesh the farmers’ markets are called Ryatu Bazaars, again suffering from lack of support. In metros like New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata the weekly bazaars that have been operating for years now stem from the same idea. But because these weekly bazaars have not been provided any permanent space, with adequate infrastructure and sanitation, they have failed to emerge as an alternate marketing hub. These bazaars are being held in open spaces wherever available. These spaces are unhygienic, dusty and filthy.

Over the years, I find that less number of farmers and more commission agents are now operating in these markets. This is contrary to the underlying objective of farmers’ markets. Some mechanism therefore has to be evolved that makes farmers’ markets only accessible for genuine farmers. To begin with, farmers could be encouraged to form cooperatives for marketing purposes. Each cooperative could then participate in farmers markets. This would leave farmers to undertake other farming operations.

In UK the community food sector has grown to 150 million pound sterlings in just a five-year period between 2007and 2012. The potential in India therefore is enormous. All it needs is a shift in thinking, and proper policy support. It will be the beginning of a new food culture in India, supporting farmers, consumers and reducing much of the environmental damage as well as health costs. #

Further reading: An edited version appeared in Deccan Herald: Open Farmers Markets, Oct 30, 2013. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/366044/open-farmers039-markets.html

Onion prices: What brings tears to your eyes.

Onions being sold in a typical Indian market

Quoting a study by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), the Hindustan Times has reported that the stupendous price hike in onions was because the trade had manipulated the prices. In a report titled: Farmer sells onions at Rs 8, you buy at Rs 70 (HT, Aug 22, 2013. bit.ly/18LnbB7 ) it states: "You are right to feel ripped off, but spare a thought for the farmer, too. A NABARD report on onion reduction and marketing seen by HT shows that the farmer makes a profit of just Rs 3.60 for every kg he sells. In other words, a farmer would need to sell nearly 20 kg of onion if he, hypothetically, wanted to buy a kg of his own produce in plusher arts of Delhi."

In other words, the middlemen, and that includes the wholesale agents as well as the retailers, have together romped home with a huge profit. According to the NABARD study, "in an ideal situation -- with no hoarding or unfair practices, and wastage at the 'normal' 25% of the 150 million tonne crop -- onions should be available at Rs 14 per kg."

This is not the first time that the trade has been exploitative. Even at the height of the onion crisis in December 2010, when prices had touched Rs 80/kg, I had said there was no shortfall in production, and the unprecedented price hike was on account of hoarding and manipulation of the prices. Of course at that time, the Govt had sided with the hoarders simply because it wanted to justify the need to push in FDI in retail. (See my blog post: Now it can be told. Onion prices were stage managed. Dec 2010, http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.in/2010/12/now-it-can-be-told-onion-crisis-was.html).

Time and again, rising food inflation has been the topic of media discussions. Some magazine/newspapers have trailed the entire supply chain to explain to readers how the prices are jacked up, and at what stage. The general agreement is that it is the middlemen who exploits both the producers and consumers. So if the middleman's role is minimised or done away with, both the farmer as well as the consumers stands to benefit. The solution that is being suggested therefore is to bring in organised retail which will buy directly from the farmers, and therefore make it available relatively cheaper to consumers.

During the present onion crisis, the organised retail chains -- Reliance Fresh, Spencer's, Easy Day, Big Bazaar and the likes -- were charging Rs 60/kg when the open market price was also Rs 60/kg. A day or two later, it brought down the price to Rs 59/kg and eventually settled at Rs 50-55/Kg when wholesale prices were softening after the Govt announced imports. I had made it a point to visit Reliance Fresh store in Mohali (where I stay) just to monitor the prices of onions. Two things I observed. First, there was hardly any price difference. Secondly, the price that is fixed for onions is for A-grade quality, but what sells for most part of the day is very inferior quality produce. In other words, what Reliance Fresh is doing is that it does provide A-grade quality, immediately when the stocks come in for the day at a little less price that is in the open market, but then pushes bulk of its inferior quality produce at the same price throughout the day.