September 8th, 2009 by R.S.Dahiya

Sustainable farming

Indian agriculture faces an unprecedented crisis in sustainability. Foodgrain productivity in the food bowl, comprising Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, is on the decline. The green revolution areas are encountering serious bottlenecks to growth and productivity. The dryland areas (comprising nearly 70 per cent of the cultivable lands) continue to drown in misery and apathy. Excessive mining of soil nutrients and groundwater have already brought in soil sickness. Indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides has done serious harm to environment, human health and ecology.

There is therefore a need to immediately:

a) Draw a balance sheet of the collapse of Green Revolution. We need to know what went wrong with agriculture, so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes. A post mortem of Green Revolution is absolutely necessary.

b) Investments and increased outlays for agricultural research that is based on external chemical inputs like fertiliser and pesticides need to be phased out. Instead, financial allocation should be made for reviving low-input agriculture, which uses cheap and locally available technology and in turn improves production, reduces cost of production and protects environment.

Pesticides were promoted blindly on rice. The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines now says that pesticides on rice were a waste of time and effort in Asia.
c) Draw a map of the soil health of India. In future, all crop introductions should be based on soil health. If a crop (including cash crops) has the possibility of destroying the soil fertility and thereby accentuating the sustainability crisis, that cropping system should not be allowed.

d) Role of technology too needs to be ascertained. Pesticides were promoted blindly on rice, for instance. The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines now says that pesticides on rice were a waste of time and effort in Asia. But meanwhile, pesticides usage has already taken a huge toll, and pushed farmers in a debt trap.

e) Agricultural research must reorient itself to learn from the existing sustainable farming models. The focus of genetically modified crops must immediately stop as it is risky and expensive for the farmer. This has been amply demonstrated in several parts of the world.

f) Water productivity and efficiency has to be the hallmark of agricultural research based on the local conditions.