Explore
Indian Wisdom to Revive Agriculture
In
the Indian system agriculture has been considered as the most important
activity of human life. As such farming was considered as a noble profession. India
is known for her superior agricultural systems since the ancient periods.
Scholars
and experts from foreign countries who visited India during the earlier
centuries were surprised to see the very high performance of the agricultural
sector. The famous agricultural scientist Albert Howard, who came to India
during the British period, regarded the Indian farmers as ‘professors’ and “decided
that he could not do better than watch their operations.”
The
colonial period witnessed the state interfering in the agricultural sector. The
British administration followed similar policies over the subsequent years
resulting in the decline of agriculture. Bajaj and Srinivas note: “The
abundance of food began to turn into a state of acute scarcity within decades
of the onset of British rule. As the British began to dismantle the elaborate
arrangements of the Indian society and began to extract unprecedented amounts
of revenue form the produce of lands, vast areas began to fall out of
cultivation and the productivity of lands began to decline precipitously.”
Very
high levels of taxes forced several thousands of farmers to move out of
agriculture. At the same time, the death of handicrafts, village based
industrial and service activities compelled the displaced population to depend
on land based activities. Hence there was higher proportion of population in
the already unviable sector, leading to a mismatch.
After
suffering for a long period during the alien rule, the independence gave a hope
for the farming community. There were several attempts and new initiatives
during different periods over the past decades to help the sector. With the
result, there were progress in certain areas such as food production. India
ranks second world-wide in farm output.
But
unfortunately, the farmers continue suffer in large parts of the country. Their
plight has increased manifold in the globalized system. Most of the smaller
farmers are not able to make living out of agriculture, as it is no longer
profitable. While thousands are committing suicides every year, several
thousands are leaving agriculture.
The
share of contribution of agriculture has been continuously going down over the
years. Table 1 below shows the declining share in the Gross Value Added during
2011-12 to 2014-15.
Table
1
Share in GVA at factor cost at current prices
(2011-12 series, in percentages)
Sector
|
2011-12
|
2012-13
|
2013-14
|
2014-15
|
Agriculture & allied activities
|
18.9
|
18.7
|
18.6
|
17.6
|
Industry
|
32.9
|
31.7
|
30.5
|
29.7
|
Services
|
48.2
|
49.6
|
50.9
|
52.7
|
Source:
Central Statistical Organisation, Govt. of India
But still almost half of the employment is provided by the
agricultural sector, as it continues to remain the primary activity in the
country. Table 2 provides the share of employment of different sectors during
2011.
Table 2
Share of Employment, 2011 (in percentages)
Agriculture & allied activities
|
48.9
|
Industry
|
24.3
|
Services
|
26.9
|
Source:
Central Statistical Organisation
Several scholars reiterate that India has a very good potential
for successful agriculture, due to the presence of strong fundamentals. Balasubramanian
notes: “India is richly endowed with plentiful
natural resources and tremendous density and diversity of bio-resources. Its
cultivable area of 160 million hectares is about 60 per cent of the total land
area against the world average of 10 per cent. The average rainfall throughout
India is 105 cm per year, higher than what other large areas of the world
receive.”
Agriculture
has become a complex subject for the modern experts and economists, who take
decisions based on the text book approaches. They have complicated it over the
years with lack of understanding of our agricultural history and the Indian
systems. The ordinary farmers, with their enormous common sense and knowledge of
ground realities, do not have much say in the policy making process.
The
traditional Indian wisdom and practices that helped India to remain as a
powerful agricultural nation remain ignored to a large extent. Balasubramanian
writes: “India has one of the
largest networks of organisations and infrastructure for agriculture anywhere
in the world. Nevertheless, traditional Indian agriculture has hardly any space
in the research or extension and dissemination services of the central or state
governments.”
Even
the large body of modern scientific evidence supporting the use of the traditional
Indian systems remain unnoticed. He notes further: “The Indian Council of Agricultural Research launched a
nationwide mission mode project on collection, documentation and validation of
indigenous technical knowledge under the national agriculture technology
project in 2000. Information on indigenous technical knowledge was collected
from primary sources through voluntary disclosure and collection and
compilation of the Indigenous
Technical Knowledge volume
was made from available literature.
The compilation has five documents in seven
volumes (published between 2002 and 2004). The first two documents consisting
of four volumes listed 4,879 indigenous practices. The third and fourth
documents describe efforts at validating and cross-validating these
practices. Of the 4,879 practices documented, a set of 111 practices were
selected and subjected to experimental testing in efforts that were conducted
by ICAR institutes and state agricultural departments and universities. These
pertain to various topics such as pest control, crop protection, farm
implements and weather forecasting. The results of these validation experiments
were published as separate volumes.”
“ The chart shows that slightly more than 80
per cent of these practices were valid and about 6 per cent of the practices
were partly valid. …. In summary, there was overwhelming evidence in favour of
the validity of these practices. However, it is strange that this entire
exercise seems to have left no impression whatsoever on our body of scientists
nor have the validated practices been disseminated through our extension
services.
In fact, the existence of this voluminous body of information is hardly known, much less publicised widely. Information about the series could be procured only after filing a petition under the RTI Act! ”
In fact, the existence of this voluminous body of information is hardly known, much less publicised widely. Information about the series could be procured only after filing a petition under the RTI Act! ”
Agriculture
is critical for India as we are home to one sixth of the humanity. We cannot
depend on others for our food. India cannot fail in agriculture, with her
superior agricultural history, knowledge systems and hardworking farmers.
All
possible steps should be taken to study and understand the Indian wisdom and
try to make use of it for a higher performance in the coming years. India’s
emergence as an economic power would be complete only when we succeed in
reviving agriculture and making farming a respectable economic activity.
References:
1. J.K.Bajaj and M.D.Srinivas, Annam
Bahu Kurvitha, Centre for Policy Studies, Madras, 1996
2. A.V.Balasubramanian, “A
hand to the plough”, The SandTHE series, May 2015
3. Central Statistical Organisation quoted in Economic Survey
2014-15, Govt. of India
4. Albert Howard quoted in Winin Pereira, Tending the Earth, Earthcare Books, Bombay,1993
( Yuva Bharati, Vivekanda
Kendra, Vol.42 No.11, June 2015)
