Fix agriculture for sustained growth in Punjab
After a decisive people’s mandate, which was basically a verdict for change, the challenges it brings for the new Punjab government are enormous. While the expectations are huge, and given the precarious fiscal situation that Punjab finds itself in, there is no denying that the task ahead is monumental. But business as usual is certainly not the way forward.
Ignoring the powerful message would be like missing a great opportunity to bring about a healthy transformation.
The socio-economic crisis that Punjab is saddled with, an outcome of more than three decades of misgovernance, certainly needs a new economic design to chart out a credible pathway. It cannot come alone from seeking investments for setting up new industries and expanding businesses. While the clamour for reviving industries and the need for ‘industry-friendly policies’ is growing, what Punjab desperately needs is to redefine economic growth, by adopting the principles of a double-engine economy — that focuses equally on reviving industries and at the same time revitalising agriculture.
Not to be confused with the political sloganeering of ‘double-engine sarkar’ which essentially means the same party forming the government at the Centre and the state, a double-engine economy relies on two thrust areas for economic growth — industry and agriculture — leading to a new but everlasting economic foundation. While economic reforms had focused solely on industry as the engine of growth, the neglect of agriculture over the years has only worsened the farm crisis. Nowhere is it as starkly visible as in Punjab, the food bowl. Even with a crop productivity of more than 11 tonnes per hectare per year, amongst the highest in the world, farm indebtedness has only grown over the years. Intensive agriculture has led to severe environmental crisis. Moreover, despite achieving record production year after year, Punjab has turned into a major hotspot of farmer suicides.
Emerging from the shadows of the iconic farmers’ protest at the gates of New Delhi, the underlying message that protesting farmers have delivered is loud and clear. Not to be lost in the noise and din of the electoral campaigns for the Assembly elections that followed, farmers had actually called for a systemic change in economic thinking. Instead of sacrificing agriculture for the sake of the industry, the need is to revitalise agriculture and treat it as the second engine of economic growth. Ignoring the powerful message would be like missing a great opportunity to bring about a healthy transformation.
Agriculture alone has the potential to reboot the economy, provided we fix the broken food system. A vibrant agriculture has the capacity to provide gainful employment, thereby taking away the pressure the governments face for creating job opportunities in the cities. Moreover, an economically viable and sustainable agriculture is the pathway to remove rural distress, move towards crop diversification, reduce groundwater depletion and also restrict international migration. It’s time to realise that a healthy agriculture and rural sector is the first barrier against many of the social and environmental ills Punjab is faced with.
With more than 98.5 per cent of the cultivable area under assured irrigation, and with an elaborate agricultural marketing infrastructure, including a wide network of village link roads, a strong foundation for rural transformation already exists. Knowing that the AAP has already initiated efforts to focus on public health and education, adding agriculture to the list and linking it with non-farm activities will act like a booster dose for the economy.
To begin with, given the huge environmental fallout from intensive farming, and that includes devastated soil health, alarming levels of groundwater depletion, stubble burning along with the growing emergence of lifestyle diseases, Punjab needs to move towards an ‘Evergreen Revolution’. Defying all doomsday prescriptions that are bound to be raised by powerful lobbies, political determination to shift to an ecological farming system, taking in the right kind of steps at the right time, can make Punjab the seat of ‘Evergreen Revolution’. This will require appropriate changes to be made in research and educational curriculum, and also calls for reorientation of agricultural extension activities. This must be accompanied with an evaluation of ecosystem services approach, a concept that helps incentivise those farmers who protect natural resources.
According to the UN Food Systems Summit 2021 Scientific Group, the real cost of producing food is almost three times higher than what a consumer pays. Without realising the harmful impacts, the society at large pays for it in the form of environmental and health damages. The ‘ecological footprint’ of producing food, especially in areas like Punjab which rely heavily on chemicals for increasing crop production, has to be reduced. The sooner we begin, the better it will be.
While there has been a lot of discussion about crop diversification, expecting farmers to move away from the intensive wheat-paddy crop rotation, the absence of an assured price and an enabling marketing infrastructure for the crops that are suggested as alternatives, has stood in the way. Let’s first look at vegetables and fruits. Learning from the experience of Kerala, a system where the state government assures a minimum floor price which covers production cost plus 20 per cent profit for 16 vegetables and fruits, and steps in whenever the prices fall below this band, should be introduced in Punjab. While Kerala has set aside Rs 35 crore for the purpose, Punjab being a bigger state should begin by allocating at least Rs 250 crore. In addition, like the vast Mother Dairy depots network in Delhi, Punjab can also plan for retail sabzi outlets.
Shifting to millets, pulses and oilseeds has also to be planned on similar lines. A lot more needs to be done, but given the constraints of space, let’s leave it for some other day.
No agricultural reforms would be viable, unless Punjab first sets up a State Commission for Farmers’ Income and Welfare with the mandate to ensure that the average monthly income from farm operations alone (excluding non-farm activities) should not be less than Rs 25,000. If farming becomes economically viable and sustainable, I see no reason why Punjab — adopting the double-engine economy approach — cannot be the harbinger of a new economic revolution
