Farmer in India - R.K. Ramesh Kumar

 

Being a farmer in India:

Be an Indian, or an American or an European or an African, one thing vital for survival is food. How is the lifestyle of one who produces food, the farmer in our country? Do we think of our food producers apart from the hashtag seasons like severe drought or flood causing a lot of damage to the crop and the life of the farmer. Does our role simply end with sharing hashtags like save farmers or we are with farmers. Have we ever thought why farming or related activities are not so beneficial to the people involved?

In the past, agriculture in India was one of the profitable activities. The scenario changed in the middle of the 20th century with the introduction of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. In the past farming in India was a self sustained process. It has its own inputs, reduces the cost of raw materials and has its own control system. Are our farmers forced to do something they are not used to or they fell into some sort of trap depending on others for their sustainability.

Being one from a farming family and involved partly in organic farming, I felt few things have made a great impact on the livelihood of the current generation farmers. I have questioned myself many times, even though I have a passion for farming, why am I not fully involved in that ? The answer is always financial sustainability. The further question arises is how do people solely rely on agriculture lead their life? What is keeping me away from attaining sustainable farming? When conversing with a few old people who have been involved in farming, animal rearing etc as their only source of income, I understood a few reasons that may be keeping farmers away from financial freedom or profitability .

First and foremost thing is the small farm size in Indian agriculture. The average farm size in India is 1.06 hectares compared to 178 hectares in the USA. Yes you read it right, the farm size in the USA is more than 150 times bigger than their Indian counterparts. This helps in easy mechanization and the cost of mechanization is much cheaper. The larger farm sizes bring in the advantages of Economies of Scale. The cost of production is drastically reduced through reduction in input costs in man, machine and transportation. The larger scale operation helps in bringing technology to farm with minimal investment per acre and has some control in marketing of products.

To be frank, spraying manure or pesticide for a 200 acres mango orchard is much easier because the farmer can access technology like even spraying with a drone or sprayer fitted tractor or any new technology. The same pesticide spraying in a 2 acre orchard the farmer has to depend on the labor . The delay in execution leads either to loss in production or loss in quality of production both impact the revenue at the harvest. The same farm size gives advantage while marketing the harvest, the farmer with 200 acres have better say than a small farmer.

Second major issue I know is the lack of proper infrastructure to store the harvest or usable technological advancements for storage of the harvest. Majority of the farmers suffer due to supply demand imbalance. We are all aware that tomato prices go up till 150 -200 per kg for a few days
and the same goes south to 5 per kg.. In the first scenario the middle men and to some extent farmers enjoy the high price. But in the second scenario only the farmer burns his livelihood and bears the complete loss of the input cost and not even salary for his labor.

With no major common platform to share what crop is in production and to what extent, the farmers are at the mercy of the traders who have better control over demand supply. With the recent governments focussing on creating cold storages at the production points, some harvest are finding good prices by getting marketed at the high demand period.

With more than 1/3rd of the population getting involved in agriculture and related activities, a major focus towards making them sustainable will greatly contribute to the GDP of the nation. At present the contribution of agriculture to GDP stood at 30% which can be improved if the farming focuses on more mechanization with the increased farm size & geometrically shaped farms.

Third issue is proper disposal of waste especially from paddy fields in North India and plantain fields. If the technology available now can be made popular and the paddy waste and plantain waste are converted to fiber that can be used on sarees etc, it would be a great income generator for the farmers.

Apart from the above discussed areas if proper marketing support is available our farmers can make a decent revenue. The recent attack from polluting industries is also making the fertile lands becoming barren.

As a responsible individual we should understand the difficulties every farmer undergoes in bringing the food to our plate and stop bargaining at the street vendors and road side vendors.