Economic and Political Weekly 2011: Review of Agriculture (June 25 - July 8, 2011)

28 Jul, 2011 . 5 mins read

Review of AgricultureHalf a century ago, scholars first noticed that small farms in India demonstrated a higher per acre productivity than large farms. In the 21st century these farms still produce more per acre than large farms. We should be looking at making the most of the higher agricultural productivity on small landholdings.
Where earlier seed varieties were seen as a crucial input for Indian Agriculture, it is now water that has become a critical resource because of its over-exploitation and wasteful use on crop land. In the search for better ways to harvest and use water resources, there has been tendency to hark back to the past and look at small and localized systems, but we forget that the demographic settings then were different and we do not acknowledge the fact that the institutional settings of the time made for inequitable access.
AS the government grapples with modifying the 2002 National Water Policy, an independent effort is made to formulate a draft that looks at water use in all areas in a holistic manner. These and other articles in this review look at different aspects of Indian Agriculture.

Issue: VOL 46 No. 26 and 27 Jun 25 - July 08, 2011

Review of Agriculture

Irrigation in Telangana: The Rise and Fall of Tanks

Gautam Pingle

Agriculture currently produces only 30% of total income in the Telangana region, but it remains the basis for survival of nearly 78% of the population. During the 53-year period, 1956-2009, Telangana lost 2.92 lakh hectares of tank irrigation. Meanwhile, despite the high cost of irrigation – both in capital and operating costs – over the same period the area irrigated by tube wells has grown up. The latter is entirely dependent on the recharge of groundwater and the availability and cost of power. Whatever the future irrigation policy and its implementation, it will need a close ground level, local district and regional governmental efforts in Telangana. View full Article

Farmers’ Suicides in Punjab: A Census Survey of the Two Most Affected Districts

R S Sidhu , Sukhpal Singh , A S Bhullar

This is a report on the first-ever census survey conducted on suicides by farmers in the two most affected districts of Punjab, Sangrur and Bhatinda. It tries to arrive at the number of farmer suicides, the reasons (whether they were caused by economic distress alone or they were due to the interplay of the forces of economic distress, social conflict, cultural backwardness and lack of community/state support) and also the present economic status of the families of the victims. View full article

Reorienting Land Use Strategies for Socio-economic Development in Uttar Pradesh

Arun Chaturvedi , N G Patil , S N Goswami

While the per capita availability of agricultural land has been decreasing rapidly everywhere in India, this article points out the socio-economic implications of current land use and management strategies in Uttar Pradesh. It argues that a judicious land use policy in synergy with the physical, economic and institutional factors should be framed, even as investment is encouraged in non-agricultural sector for employment.View full article

Revitalising Higher Agricultural Education in India

J Challa , P K Joshi , Prabhakar Tamboli

Agricultural education and R&D in India have grown overwhelmingly over the years but funding levels have not kept pace with growth in the number of programmes, institutions, colleges and universities. Restricted funding and vacant faculty positions are not allowing institutions to modernise the programmes and infrastructure to catch up with the changing needs of agriculture and agro-processing. This article proposes a comprehensive programme to revitalise higher agricultural education. View full article

Farm Size and Productivity: Understanding the Strengths of Smallholder and Improving Their Livelihoods

Ramesh Chand , P A Lakshmi Prasanna , Aruna Singh

During the 1960s and 1970s there was an intense debate on the observed inverse relationship between farm size and per hectare agricultural productivity in India. It was subsequently argued that the higher productivity of smallholdings would disappear with the adoption of superior technology, modernisation and growth in general. However, close to half a century later, National Sample Survey data from the initial years of the 21st century show that smallholdings in Indian agriculture still exhibit a higher productivity than large holdings. These smallholdings however show lower per capita productivity and the incidence of poverty is widespread. Strategies for Indian agriculture and smallholding households should include reducing the inequality in land distribution and promoting off-farm work in the rural areas itself. The strategy of improving the crop land-man ratio by facilitating migration from rural India has not worked and will not work. The lives of smallholding families can be improved only by building on their higher per acre agricultural productivity and by promoting off-farm rural employment. View full article

Spread and Economics of Micro-irrigation in India: Evidence from Nine States

K Palanisami , Kadiri Mohan , K R Kakumanu , S Raman

The adoption of micro-irrigation projects has resulted in water saving, yield and income enhancement at the farm level. However, the overall impression is that they are capital-intensive and suited to large farms. In this context, a study was undertaken in nine states, mainly to examine the actual area covered compared to the potential area and to understand the adoption level of mi as well as to analyse the cost and returns under different farm categories. The results indicated that only about 9% of the mi potential is covered in the country. Key suggestions include reduction in capital cost of the system, provision of technical support for operation after installation, relaxation of farm size limitation in providing subsidies and the establishment of a single state level agency for implementation of the programme. View full article

Water Harvesting Traditions and the Social Milieu in India: A Second Look

Shri Krishan

India has a variety of local community traditions of water harvesting. There are a number of scholars and activists who tend to valorise premodern wisdoms without critically evaluating their sociocultural context and realising how deeply they were embedded in the social hierarchy of their times. There has been, of course, a great deal of stress lately on a kind of “eco-golden age”. This is clearly a case of an “anachronistic projection of modern phenomenon on to the screen of tradition”. Seen from such a perspective, all pre-industrial societies would exhibit a kind of harmony with nature. However, most of the times, it was the demographic and technological factors that made these societies less harmful to the environment. It was not that they wished to protect the whole canopy of nature. This reappraisal demonstrates how precepts and rites, culture and customary practices and state policy interact to lay the bases of water harvesting traditions. Social customs are the necessary conditions for sustaining these traditions, while local autonomy in resource management is the critical sufficient condition but it never results in equitable access for all. View full article

National Water Policy: An Alternative Draft for Consideration

Ramaswamy R Iyer

The Ministry of Water Resources is at present engaged in revising the National Water Policy 2002. Instead of trying to make changes in the 2002 Policy, the ministry should put it aside and draft a new policy, starting from first principles. In that context, the draft presented here is an attempt to formulate the kind of document that could be drawn up. It seeks to set forth for consideration a broad national perspective on the nature of water and on its prudent, wise, sustainable, equitable and harmonious use.View full article

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Post By: chandrasekharnemani

Topic

Agriculture Irrigation Rainfed Agriculture Conservation - Reducing Water Usage

Sub Categories

Research Papers