Talking Point

Agriculture still is a significant source of livelihood in the countries of South Asian region. The pressure on farm sector has however been increasing due to multiple reasons: lower yield, fragmentation of land holdings, poor irrigation, depletion of ground water, inadequate extension services / supply of inputs, poor post harvest management, lack of value addition at the producers level and a long supply chain involving a number of intermediaries. The resultant woes, unemployment / underemployment, migration to cities in search of a better life.    

There is a strong need to assist the farmers to increase productivity to move up the value chain in stimulating the farm economy and employment demand. Interventions such as, establishing market linkages, providing access to micro credit, creation of irrigation facilities/ rain water harvesting structures, efficient water use through micro-irrigation, managing natural resources efficiently etc. can generate better farm as well as non farm sector yields and change the rural landscape for better.

Dr. Subir Ghosh, who has worked extensively on the management side of agriculture and allied sectors, in his following series of articles, writes to offer sustainable agricultural practices in this context. 

SRI: System of Rice Intensification is a methodology which works on less water and some technical changes such as young age nursery, line sowing with wider spacing, weeding for both weed removal and aeration purposes. The best part of SRI is it uses nearly 30 -40% less water than the traditional paddy cultivation practice, which is a major boost for promoting the methodology in water stress situation. The present drought like situation across the country and more specifically in the rain rich states has sent alarming bells across. Paddy, the main staple crop, which is all rainfed across the states has still not being fully transplanted or directly sown because of the low intensity of rainfall. This would create a major issue on the food security.

The advantages: The experiences of promoting SRI has shown that SRI as a methodology has great potential to overcome the food insecurity in the rather food insecure regions. The productions have gone from 4 ton/ha to 10 ton/ha. It has also been studied that SRI helps in reducing the water requirement of paddy because of the practice of farm management involving, furrowing, raising the beds and channels for excess water exits. This shows that in the rain stress situation, the crop survives well and produces much better than traditional practices.

In case of delayed monsoon, where there is no rainfall upto mid July, the farmers involved in promoting SRI do not have much to worry on the nursery preparation. They can wait for some amount of good rains and then go for the nursery beds. As the saplings only have to be 9-12 days old, it does not need much water to grow the nursery and manage it for long time as done in traditional practice. This saves lot of time and resource with the farmers. With good rains for some days and being able to prepare their paddy lands, the farmers are able to transplant the paddy based on the line sowing technique. Thus low rainfall in initial periods does not make major issues for the SRI methodology of transplanting. This means a dry spell for a period of 15-20 days could be taken by the crop through the farm management practices.

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Danny Boyle’s, eight Academy Awards winning yet controversial film Slumdog Millionaire, set and filmed in India, gave the country another name derivative – the Slumdog Land. The name tagging apart, the film also carried a deeper symbolism for India, a land of many contradictions.

As India surges forward in taking big strides of development, there are millions of slumdogs, aspiring to become millionaires all over the country in their own entrepreneurial ways. The making of new India thus needs a thoughtful blend of big ticket macro development as well as the inclusive growth of micro-small-mid sized enterprises for a sustainable growth path.

28th Feb 2009: It was the last day of my trip. In the morning I went for my customary eye check up at “Sushrut” the eye hospital set up by my uncle, Dr. Sunil Bagchi, a renowned eye specialist. Sushrut offers low-cost but quality eye care to the masses.  For a modest fee of Rs. 50 one can avail of the best in eye care. Even the rates at the in-house spectacles shop seemed unbelievably low. I have always admired this great initiative and this time discussed with Dr. Bagchi the possibility of taking the concept to the districts and rural areas, where quality eye care was not available.  Unnecessary (and preventable) blindness resulted in a massive loss of productivity, especially in poor families. A lot of this can be prevented through timely eye check-ups and minor corrective operations. Also, as Dr. Bagchi pointed out, children must undergo a compulsory eye check-up, between the ages five and eight. Defects identified at this stage could easily be rectified, thus freeing up our youth from future eye defects and leading to fulfillment of careers that required a clear vision.

Why not open up basic eye centers at the district level with just a technician to undertake basic eye check ups? These centers could be connected to the Sushrut main hospital though the internet, thus enabling ‘online’ check-ups, diagnosis and treatment advise by the specialists. Finally, for cases requiring operation, the patients could be asked to visit Sushrut.  This would really be a great health initiative for the masses. Dr. Bagchi seemed intrigued by the idea. For the time being though, he was busy planning for the utilization of an adjacent plot of land offered to him by the government for setting up a “Center of Excellence”.

That night having completed the immigration and security check formalities, as I waited for Singapore Airlines to make its boarding announcement, I reflected on the experiences and insights of my mini ‘bharat darshan’ i.

Millions of slumdogs were aspiring to become millionaires all over the country! Most by fair means and some by means not so fair. Indeed, the Reserve Bank of India had a daunting challenge, reforming the financial system, trying to ensure maximum openness to technology- induced inclusiveness and at the same time ensuring minimum possibilities for misuse and fraud. By all accounts, it was doing a great job! It had already okayed mobile banking in a limited manner and had put in place an innovative policy for branchless banking to ensure financial inclusiveness.

Today, a poor migrant worker in a remote village can open a bank account with a commercial bank and carry out small deposit, withdrawal and remittance transactions without ever setting foot in the bank’s daunting premises! 

What came out over and over again was the fact that great levels of creativity, innovations, diligence, industry and ambition flowed from very modest infrastructural support and low-cost operations! This is something that is unbelievable in the western world and indeed even in other Asian countries. The end result is value-for-money and competitive strength in Slumdog-Land that is perhaps unparalleled.

Consider for example, the fact that the Indian Microfinance industry thrives on a 15% interest on their microloans whereas in the Philippines (and many other Asian countries), MFIs charge between 36 to 40% interest. The difference becomes all the starker when one realizes that the rate at which the MFIs themselves borrow funds is more or less the same in both these countries!

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i Bharat Darshan: Tour of India