This was one of the important factors that had led this vast country through the first Green Revolution in the Seventies. The lessons of the first Green Revolution seem more relevant today when UPA rulers are talking about working for another Green Revolution in the States of Eastern Region. The UPA Government's policies have fuelled skyhigh prices of foodgrains. Despite enough stock of foodgrains, shortages of foodgrains were allowed to spread, putting even the middle class families in a binge.

The UPA Government policy-makers, devoted to liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG), encouraged speculation even in foodgrains through forward trading, leading to hoarding of foodgrains. The Centre's calling upon the States to check hoarding in foodgrains looks like the proverbial policy of 'running with the hare and hunting with the hound'.

Agriculture in a developing country of India's size and tradition, is important for producing not only foodgrains but also raw materials for industries, manufacturing cloth, cigarettes, tea, sugar and a host of other things, these industries employ lakhs of workers. Moreover, the nation's largest number of unorganized sector workers are employed in the agriculture.

The Economic Survey 2009-10 says that employment in Agricultural sector as share of the total employment in 2004-05 as per CDS was 52.1 per cent. The number of landless agricultural workers itself is placed at over 100 million. The small and marginal farmers had played an important role during the first Green Revolution. The then Government had devoted special attention to their needs so that they being majority of the proprietary peasants, could develop their lands and its productivity. Small and marginal farmers in the country constitute 80 per cent of the total peasant proprietors.

In this backdrop how does the UPA-2 Government propose to go about development of the Agriculture. The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his Budget 2010-11 has talked about the strategy related to reduction of wastages in storage as well as the operations of the existing food supply change. In this context, he underlines the need for “greater competition” and the need for opening up of the retail trade. He claimed that this would bring down the considerable difference between the farm gate prices, wholesale prices and retail prices. Commenting on this, the leading agronomist and Rajya Sabha member Dr. M.S. Swaminathan has said that “the opening up of retail trade to large companies, whether national or multinational, needs to be taken up only on the basis of an employment impact analysis”.

Dr. Swaminathan's more important critique on the Budget is: “Unfortunately, irrigation which is the most important input for agriculture does not find special mention in the Budget speech, although provision would have been made under Bharat Nirman.” Irrigation facilities are the most important input specially for the small and marginal farmers who can not dig their own wells and have to buy irrigation water from well-to-do farmers at higher costs.

Addressing Bangalore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Swaminathan was reported to have said that the Rs 400 crore allocated for extending the Green Revolution to eastern India “was unlikely to have a significant impact”. He also said that accessibility to food has become difficult for the poor. Referring to the Budget's promise of establishing “mega food parks” he said that the experience with food parks had not been good because the emphasis has only been on establishing processing centres, instead of focusing on sourcing raw material.

Many in the media described the Budget 2010-11 as “pro-farmer budget”. Commenting on this characterization of the Budget, in “The Hindu”, P. Sainath caustically remarks: May be the pro-farmer claim was merely a typo or proofing error. They just dropped the word 'corporate' before 'farmer'. Reinstate that and all is true. “This is a budget crafted for and perhaps by, the corporate farmer and agribusiness.” (emphasis IRL)

Says Sainath: “Take Mr Mukherjee's 'four-pronged strategy' for agriculture. The first of these 'agriculture production' could mean anything. The other three are goldmine for large corporations, not the countless millions of small and marginal farmers who produce India's food. Take 'reduction in wastage of produce'. This means more big bucks for companies setting up storage facilities. Take this together with the related 'credit support to farmers'. Already an Ambani or a Godrej can set up a cold storage in Mumbai and get agricultural credit for it. This is thanks to our rejigging of what 'agricultural credit' and 'priority sector lending' mean. This budget takes that process further.”

Further commenting on the Government's agricultural loan policy, Sainath asks if anyone met any subsistence farmers taking out Rs 25 crore loan lately? Obviously, this is not possible for a small or marginal farmer to take such a loan. What has been happening in practice? Several of the loans disbursed as 'agricultural credit' are in excess of Rs 10 crore and even Rs 25 crore. And even as loans of this size steadily grew between 2000 and 2006, agricultural loans of less than Rs 25,000 fell by more than half in the same period. This should provide a clue of who are being promoted by the Government's agricultural credit policy! At least, not the small and marginal farmer.

There is much talk about Government spending on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Development Guarantee Act. Dr. Swaminathan who knows the state of Indian agriculture has rightly remarked, “those who are saying this do not see the reality.” We have been giving umpteen instances of how the unique programme of MGNREGA has been mismanaged in Rajasthan, Bihar, Orissa, etc. The latest example is that of Uttar Pradesh where Chief Minister Mayawati has suspended 22 officials found guilty of irregularities in the implementation of MGNREGA. It is said that following reports of large scale irregularities in the programme implementation, a review by a third party had also been ordered by the Chief Minister. FIRs have been lodged in 40 cases in 30 districts. Reports of Madhya Pradesh allege long delays in payment of wages to workers under MGNREGA.

Policy-making ruling elite seem determined to follow the same economic policy route which had ultimately proved disastrous and brought about global crisis and slowdown. No lessons are being learnt. This only means people's unrest will continue to grow and take its own course to find solution to their ailments sooner or later without such elite rulers. (IPA Service)