While the Budget is likely to focus on providing more to the farming community, the current agrarian crisis is too deep-rooted to witness an instant recovery through just a farmer-friendly Budget. A holistic approach is needed
The agriculture sector in India is witnessing an unprecedented downturn in the income levels of farmers. The severity of the state of affairs have come to such a head that it is being estimated that the current trend of sliding agricultural incomes are further expected to fall by 25 per cent in the next seven decades. Rapidly deteriorating events in this sector have prompted the NDA Government to scramble for urgent remedial measures and rescue the agriculture sector from a crisis never seen before. As a part of these measures, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a first ever interaction of such kind, met with over 100 economists.
The Economic Survey report 2017-18 has clearly spelled the adverse role played by climate change in the ongoing agrarian crisis faced in India today. The impact of climate change has drastically reduced farmers’ incomes. Moreover, the present condition runs contrary to the ambitious plan of the NDA Government, which is to double farmers’ income by 2020. In fact, all of the NDA Government’s programmes and schemes, related to agriculture, are being calibrated towards this goal.
The Economic Survey report clearly states that climate change might reduce farm incomes by up to 20-25 per cent in the medium-term and cites climate change as a big threat to the country’s most employment-intensive economic sector.
Quoting scientific assessments by various Government agencies, the survey states “extreme temperature shocks reduce farmer incomes by 4.3 per cent and 4.1 per cent during kharif and rabi respectively, whereas extreme rainfall shocks reduce incomes by 13.7 per cent and 5.5 per cent.” But the impact of climate change on farm income is more pronounced in the case of rain-fed areas, home to 60 per cent of operational landholdings. These areas account for more than 60 per cent of farmers in the country.
The Economic Survey report estimates that farmers’ income losses from climate change would be between 15 per cent and 18 per cent on an average. It would be higher between 20 per cent and 25 per cent in rainfed areas. These are stark findings, given the already low levels of incomes in agriculture in India.
So the pertinent question here is: What has gone wrongIJ Especially given the fact that between 2004 to 2014, the country’s agriculture sector witnessed its highest ever growth phase with nearly four per cent growth per year. This is quite impressive as compared to 2.6 per cent per annum during the previous decade that is 1995-96 to 2004-05.
The Economic Survey offers a glimpse into this period and mentions that timely and effective intervention by the Government of the day helped immensely in achieving growth during the period in question.
The Union Budget 2018-19 to be presented today must concentrate heavily on revamping the agricultural sector by providing some much needed sops, but will it be a classic case of too little too late, only time will tell as the current agrarian crisis is too deep-rooted to witness an instant recovery through a farmer-friendly Budget.
The Government will have to focus on encouraging livestock trading for the farmers and ensure that it acts as insurance during periods of crop failures. But more importantly, the Government must put in place an effective mechanism to counter the impact of climate change on agriculture and equip the farmers to be the managers, who are able to mitigate climate change and its role on crop yields and productivity.
Close to 22 per cent of the farmers subsist below the poverty line. The dip in farmers’ income is a precarious situation for India as agricultural growth critically decides poverty reduction.
According to historic data, agricultural growth has much more impact on poverty reduction than any other activity like industrial growth. So, it is time the Government got its focus back into the factors that once ensured this recovery phase and as a foremost effort, the marginal farmer with fragmented land holdings needs to be attended with priority as they stand to lose the most in the event of any adversity.
The impact of global warming and deteriorating environmental conditions are spelling the doom for agriculture, a firm action plan from the Government is long overdue and hopefully the Budget will become a platform from which the farmers are able to expect prosperous returns from their land holdings.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)