No alternative to agricultural modernisation

In many developing economies, governments change swiftly, but the state of agriculture changes at snail's pace! In India, another Five Year Plan is going to be over - a mixed performance - giving way to the next one. The major grey area, as usual, has been the farm sector, where the uncoordinated efforts still continue in spite of the gross domestic product (GDP) drum beating. It is clear that tinkering around the ongoing programmes cannot help reach the target. 
Reaching a target of 270 milliion tonnes+ of foodgrains output, in India, for example, [up from 51 million tonnes in 1951 when the first Five Year Plan was taken up], does not necessarily allow to be complacent.
The point here is that had the developing countries been the grain bowls, we could have reaped large benefits from the rising international prices of the agri-commodities. The most important factor on this score is that demand for such commodities - especially the foodgrains - would never come down rather it is all set to go up over time. Population upsurge, coupled with growing demand from industrial sectors, would keep the demand factor at reasonably high level. 
The time is ripe for looking at the inhibiting factors. It is very difficult to understand why the pulses (main protein source for the vegetarians) output in India hovers around 12-19 million tonnes since 1960's. Though the government took up a number of programmes, poor implementation of these continues to hit hard. 
Clearly, if the current trends are of any indication, the food and agricultural policy system itself is in disarray in India. The symptoms of such a disarray  are not difficult to locate. These are: incoherent/inadequate response to exploding food prices; slowdown in agricultural  productivity growth; water problems; a disorderly response to continuously disturbing energy prices; rapid concentration in multinational agri-business corporations without adequate institutional innovation aiming at properly guiding them; lack of progress in addressing scarcity; widespread nutritional problems (hunger/obesity/chronic diseases) plus agriculture-related health hazards (avian influenza, etc.) and adverse impacts on climatic fluctuations. 
Positive points do exist. Ongoing trend is steadily moving in terms of registering quicker growth in agricultural productivity. Modern farm practices and inclusive technologies are being implemented   in order to foster the rural growth process. Cellular technologies, wireless communication networks as well as GIS-based agro-software technologies are reaching rural India to disseminate vital information and updates on weather, farming technologies, fertilisers, livestock, commodity prices as well as stock markets. Still, a huge number of villages do not have access to advanced farming technologies and interactive communication networks, not to speak of the pace of rural electrification and clean drinking water availability.
Is it not the appropriate time to broaden the sight and look at vital aspects - re-identifying policy dimensions and initiatives; capacity building through PPP (public-private partnership), individual initiatives and joint ventures; boosting agri-business and agri-marketing; GIS (geographic information system) mapping and harvesting trends; mitigating climatic change hazards; precision farming - optimum utilisation of resources; leaning heavily on most modern agri-practices; micro-finance and micro-credit and attaching top importance to food security? Needless to say, the responsibilities are to be shouldered not only by banks, but also government departments; NGOs (non-governmental organizations), commodity exchanges; agri-marketing and state marketing boards and, of course, the extension departments. Time is ripe for a more well-knitted, coordinated actions so as to initiate inter-sectoral-linkages; progressive decision making, information sharing and performance improvement; capacity-building; creating more opportunities for partnership building, development reorganisation and capacity enhancement for the rural stakeholders.
In fact, the problems are so vast that every aspect requires individual care. India is blessed with a number of good agricultural universities, personnel having the necessary knowledge backed by government encouragement plus skilled farmers. But where is the harm to learn more from the rich experiences in the West? Water management is something that India has to learn from them, among others, for example.
Clearly, there is no alternative to agricultural modernisation. Area under cultivation cannot be raised continuously even if the fallow land is brought within cultivation. 
The question is regarding availability of quality seeds, bio-fertilisers' applications, and finally, technological consolidation of holdings. Best water use process is another area that deserves attention. Here also scientific planning regarding exploration of groundwater holds the key as indiscriminate use gives rise to other problems. Surface water utilisation has also not been optimally done.
The urgent need is there to go for overall farm development efforts. For that the infrastructure holds the key. The loss incurred during the entire production process inclusive of the damage done in the unscientific threshing, rat menace, field loss, can be minimised. Without proper training imparted to the farmers as regards post-harvest technology not much can be expected on this score. Connectivity between the producing zone and the selling zones calls for immediate reinforcing. Buy-back arrangement is obviously a good process provided the actual producer receives the legitimate benefit in due course.
The specific point here is that whichever country had not attached enough of importance on this score had to bear the brunt. But overnight success is not more than a wishful thinking. Systematic planning is the only way out. And for that matter the tools of regional planning can be readily made use of. Regional peculiarities must be the starting-point of any realistic decision-making on this score. Economic factors alone cannot give a full-fledged guidance as the strength of non-economic factors count for no less. There is always the gap between the cup and the leap. Initiating change has never been an easy matter and change-resisting factors count for.
Most of the plans in India lack the realistic touch inasmuch as sectoral target fixing cannot ignore the spatial dimensions, regional peculiarities and related other sociological factors. More than often politics pushes back the economic positives. Rather economics is used for achieving political purposes.  Not only is this the reality in India but in the entire developing world. Either the projects are not taken up or even when the same is taken up the rate of progress remains at a palpably low level - cost escalation is rewarded! What is more, projects completed are not subsequently followed up, supervised adequately as a result of which the same assignment is to be repeated within a short span of time involving more expenses.
The potentialities still remain high. The quality of many horticultural crops enables countries, like India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, to remain largely unbeatable in the global market. In spite of competition becoming intense - hotter and hotter - developing countries are able to retain the markets for many agri-commodities. The flip side - we have to remain contended with insignificant share in global trade in agri-commodies! Strong cooperation among the developing and developed world is a must. Let there be a good inter-regional cooperation in a more practical way.
For example, an economy like India still is counted to be the largest reservoir of poverty in the world, with 300 million of people, as per the national poverty line definition, and well above 800 million people just surviving on less than $.0 per day. Southeast Asia requires immediate pep up on this score. Neglecting agriculture results in heavy immediate and future loss. The huge upcoming population in the workable category, in turn,   is one of the rare assets that could give rich dividends exactly by the same route as China gained in the previous years.
Whatever is, the lead is to come from the two giants - India and China. As a matter of fact, the world would heavily depend on these two regions in the days to come. China has, of late, also has been stressing hard on this sector, clearly realising that those big industries alone or an export-led growth ultimately hinges heavily on how the food factor extends support. 
Dr B. K. Mukhopadhyay, a Management Economist, is Principal, Eminent College of Management and Technology, Kolkata, India.
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