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| Edited By: Anil Gupta |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 04, 2018, 06:15 AM IST
Increasing income of farmers and workers must be addressed together, one doesn’t necessarily lead to another. It is also true that sometimes the condition of marginal farmers are worse than labourers because of the lack of mobility and thus limited opportunity to benefit from higher wages coming from distant labour markets. If productivity increases, the work and wages may eventually increase. Cost reduction is treated on a first priority basis for most farmers. If that is done, then the pressure on increasing prices will be reduced to that extent.
We must reduce the cost, firstly, through reducing water use, phasing out flood irrigation in five years through education, demo and on farm trials with full guarantee of covering any loss due to at least 50 per cent reduction in water use without decline in yield. Secondly, we must reduce fertilizer use by encouraging increased organic content in soil, green manuring, fallowing, and growth promoters, spray on crops rather than in soil with almost 70 per cent loss in many cases. Thirdly, the compulsive use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) rather than only chemical pesticide use, massive extension effort for time bound reduction in pesticide use, ensuring worker safety, and reduction in the adverse effects on the environment. Fourth, a few rows of non hybrid seed rows surrounding hybrid seeds may yield the same, as whole hybrid seeds, farmer’s own selections to be popularized, as vigorously as scientist bred varieties. Lastly, improving soil health through micro-nutrient application which will in turn also improve human and animal health apart from reducing costs.
In situ value addition: Unless we start an agro and food processing revolution, the farm incomes cannot be increased substantially. When farmers start selling in grams and not quintals, a real revolution will follow. Flax seed is the pointer about things to come in the area of functional foods.
In each agro-climatic zone, there will be a fleet of mobile food processing and bulk packing machinery units. Wherever there is distress due to excessive production by small farmers, these vans like ambulance under 108 service, reach, offer to process at concessional cost, pack and either give back to farmers or have private sector partners lined up to buy the processed and procured value added farm produce at reasonable price. The problem of pesticide residues in food and consequent adverse health effects on workers who spray and consumers who eat such products has been ignored. The industry puts up a lot of hoardings about which pesticides can be used but hardly any hoarding is put up on safe use of the same. Relative promotion of biocontrol vis a vis chemical pesticides is negligible. About 20 years ago, several states had done experiments on IPM and found that it succeeded in reducing the use of chemical pesticides without affecting yields adversely. But then the project was discontinued for reason best known to the state governments. It is time to bring focus back on the subject if farmers suicides have to be stopped. The nature of extension system and approach has to be completely redesigned to make location specific agro-meteorological information and sensor based soil, plant, water and pest conditions useful for farmers’ expert systems. More on AI applications for BIG data analysis with Internet of things, thoughts and feelings ( IOTT) in Agriculture, health and education next week.
