Dr.
S.S.Chhina
Perhaps
Agricultural Policy in Punjab would be launched for the first time, but it
should be extolled, though being belated. The policy draft is replete with
number of suggestions and amplified covering the diverse aspects related with
the welfare of farmer as well as agricultural labourer. The prudent decision to
merge the three departments of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Cooperation
should be lauded, keeping in view the inter dependence of their functions. The
fruitful results are expected and it would precipitate the promotion of nonfarm
rural sector that ahad been ignored since the inception of planning for
development. Though a most developed agricultural state, but it remained
rudderless and obscure in respect of its production management.
Punjab that is called a farm
state, where whole of its area is cultiviable and 99 percent of it is having
regular and adequate irrigation facilities. In the era of green revolution,
Punjab had yielded staggering results because of the easy application of chemicals
because of the availability of abundant water that was needed for obtaining
better results. The cropping intensity has reached to 205 percent highest in
the country, that means whole of the area is yielding two crops in a year. That
is why Punjab with its 1.5 percent of the area had been contributing 60 percent
in the food stocks of India.
But inspite of these good
results the majority of the farmers remains festering in the poor standard of
living with escalating debt burden. The agricultural labourers too are facing
the same the worst condition as vying for the limited and depleting job
opportunities in this sector. The contribution of agriculture in State Gross
domestic product has depleted to 28 percent but still almost double from the
national level of 14 percent, and Punjab is the only state, where the share
dairy in the State gross domestic product is 9 percent.
Here the remarkable role of
dairy cooperatives that had contributed a lot for enhancing farm income is
worth mentioning. The dairy farmer is selling his milk at village society with
remunerative price but remains the share holder in the District, State and
National level value addition of dairy products
and he is given bonus in the profits earned by diary federation. Even he
is the share holder in the profits earned by exports of dairy products, that
had never been possible for a single diary farmer. Such cooperatives are
required to be launched for the other products. But merging these three
departments it is hopefully expected to explore the potential of cooperatives
in other products. The cooperatives for value addition in vegetables, fruits,
pulses and oil seeds would provide the scope for farmers to become share
holders in the sale of their products. It is a veritable fact that there is a
wide gap between harvest and retail price of number of agricultural products
particularly the vegetables and fruits. But the venture of cooperatives shall
make him the share holder in the sale of his product even in the value addition
of the product with the processing by the cooperatives that had never been
possible for a farmer irrespective of the size of the farm.
It had been observed that the
contribution of Industry in the S.G.D.P. is stagnant rather it has depleted
though marginally, but the installation of Agro Processing Units under
cooperatives would enlarge the rural economic base by creating new job
opportunities to the under employed and disguisedly unemployed population
engaged in farming without impacting the output. The cropping pattern of the
State has shrinked to two crops only that of wheat in Rabbi and Paddy in
Khariff. These two crops are occupying 80 percent of the total area, but it has
depleted the work load for these two crops that remains limited to sowing and
harvesting period only. The prudent policy is required to enlarge the area
under other crops. There is enormous potential of yield in pulses, vegetables,
oil seeds and fruits, but there is also a big volatility in the prices of these
products resulting into wastage of sources. The research in the past had its
focus only on food crops but now it should shift for other crops for
diversification. Actually the intervention of Punjab Government is needed to
remove the volatility and to assure the remunerative price and marketing, with
this merging of these three departments
under one ministry, the possibility should be explored to make the contracts
for certain products like Potato, Onion, Tomato and Moong. The policy of
marketing intervention for such products should be adopted to promote
diversification of farming. The contract farming should be encouraged through
private companies on the Zonal basis. The hinderances and legal impediments in
the contract farming should be removed by applying the simplest procedure. Albeit
the interests of the company and farmer both are required to be protected for
the larger national interest.
Punjab is cultivating Paddy on
28 lakh hectares, If this area may be reduced to 15 lakh hectares it would not affect the food security of the country.
Though Punjab is exporting about 80 percent of the total basmati exported from
India but it is rightly said that Punjab is exporting water rather than Rice.
Paddy is considered as the main factor for depleting water table in the State,
where it has gone to 150 feet deep in more than 100 blocks of the State. The
water scarcity and pollution is emerging as the biggest problem in future.
The new policy has mentioned to
promote organic farming in the State in a welcome step. It is only the organic
farming that can be sustainable farming. The perpetual surge in the application
of chemicals in fields and their penetration in soil, air and water resulting
into number of problems is evocative as there seems no end of such an
dependence. This is much perverse to the natural environment. Actually organic
farming is also yielding equally good results provided the new organic manures
and organic methods are adopted. The new policy must focus on the research of
new organic manures, inputs and methods to obtain the better yield through
organic farming that had been ignored in the past.
The Writer is a Senior
Fellow of
Institute of Social Sciences, New
Delhi
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें