Adopt grass roots innovations to rein in food inflation

When prices of agricultural commodities shot up more than 60% in the last few years, pressure on consumer prices was expected. It is alright for agricultural minister to say that to pay farmers well, society should bear the inflationary burden, but that is neither a very responsible attitude towards poor who suffer the most, nor towards farmers who don’t care about prices as much as about profits.

Why has this problem become so intractable? Let me suggest one clue. It is because we seem to have focused entirely almost on prices of output as a balancing exercise. We have not paid enough attention to the reduction of cost in most commodities. It is not only playing havoc with the sustainability concern but also making the whole approach almost unviable.

What needs to be done, if innovations become the watchword of future economic transformations? We need to aim at reducing unit cost of every goods and services with passage of time in manufacturing, as well as agriculture sector. Farmers also will not plead for higher prices every year if the cost of their inputs can be controlled and reduced.  But how will this be done? How will we convince wise people in the planning commission who assume the inflation and add 10% or so cost to every unit cost. How do we ensure the tendency of rampant cost over runs (Commonwealth games is a recent example of three times escalation) at central and state level. How do we encourage every body to experiment and innovate to reduce unit cost.

Let me give an example. Take cotton, a crop which consumes almost 40% of the country’s chemical pesticides, followed by paddy which consumes 20%. What do we do to reduce cost without having to use GM crop (if farmers so wish, though majority of farmers use GM cotton in Gujarat and other major states), which have diffused widely.

We should listen to farmers like Lakhra bhai of Surendranagar who, 20 years ago, in Gujarat (and Maharashtra) used the idea of growing lady’s finger around cotton crop to trap the pest of cotton. If that didn’t work, they sprayed jaggery or sugar solution (Sarja bhai of Bharuch) to attract black ants which will help control the pests.

But will these practices ever reach masses? No. Because, then farmers will become self-reliant and sustainable! Will department of agriculture share this, disregarding the pressure from chemical pesticide lobby? I doubt, for 20 years they didn’t do it, these kinds of solutions are available on sristi.org website in open source for decades.

When cost of failure is low, and chances of success high, only inertia can explain indifference to such bottom up grassroots solutions for decades. May wisdom prevail….may farmers’ organisation wake up.

These solutions will reduce cost, check inflationary pressure and make poor better off too. They will not suffer from exposure to chemicals. I hope technocracy will prove that we are wrong.