To lift Indian agriculture from its present moribund state the agricultural marketing and extension systems must be reformed immediately. Also needed are a policy to prevent fragmentation of land holdings and a farmer-friendly exit policy. There has been, as early as 1929, only one real issue in Indian agriculture. It has been a non-paying vocation. The American Civil War sucked Indian cotton into the world market. Since then, Indian agriculture has become marginalised. After the Great Depression, the Second World War ensured low agricultural prices coexisting with food scarcity. The British followed the policy of "procuring cheap raw materials in India and importing expensive manufactured goods into India'. Indian industries were also beneficiaries of this policy. Independence came with the Partition. Some of the agricultural surplus provinces went to Pakistan and the flood of refugees worsened the problem of scarcity. The dependence of the Government on the bureaucracy and the incipient mindset of socialism ensured the emergence of the licence-permit-control-quota-inspector Raj, euphemistically called "low-cost economy'. This policy had a built-in bias against the farmer. The socialistic pattern of society only made things worse because the emphasis on industrialisation required a regime of cheap raw materials and wage goods. Green Revolution The Green Revolution in the 1960s marked the end of food scarcity but also introduced expensive agricultural inputs like fertilisers, pesticides and electricity. The weaknesses in the marketing system and infrastructure nade agriculture a losing proposition. The establishment of the Agricultural Prices Commission (APC) and the system of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) did bring about a brief respite of about five years, from 1965 to 1970. After that, a change in the character of the APC and its successor, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), saw a period where the Minimum Support Prices recommended by the Commission were deliberately depressed and, as a consequence, the MSP came to be the highest prices that needed to be paid to the farmer. Restrictions on export and trade, inadequate storage, processing, transport has kept Indian agriculture mired in poverty. Economic reforms The economic reforms of 1990s were limited to the domain of industry and finance and left agriculture totally untouched. The period of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) saw some reform in the marketing front. The second phase of reforms under the UPA has again left agriculture a closed and State-dominated sector. There is also talk of a Second Green Revolution. There is a general awareness of the need to reform the present system of agricultural marketing. Suicides by over 1,50,000 farmers in the last decade has brought in a sense of urgency to reforms. Unfortunately, while the mindset in the Congress party has undergone a major change; it is the voice of its Left allies that continues to dominate. As a result, the UPA government appears to be bringing in changes that are irrelevant and inappropriate. The rate of the growth of GDP is entering an era of double digits while that of agriculture is yet to cross 3 per cent. The policymakers are putting great emphasis on ensuring a rate of growth of 4 per cent in agriculture. Of course, a higher rate of growth in agriculture is welcome. But it should not be forgotten that the target of 4 per cent was fixed without any study of the correlation between the rates of growth of GDP and that of agricultural product. Experts were talking of a target rate of 4 per cent when the GDP rate was just around 6 per cent and they continue to do the same even though the rate of GDP has gone above 9 per cent. The preoccupation with the co-operative form of business organisation for everything that is rural and agricultural will need a second look. Co-operatives, as a general rule, have failed except in cases where there was inspired leadership or a situation of monopoly advantage. Food scarcity was a problem in the pre-Green Revolution days and it continues to be so even today despite India becoming a major producer of a number of commodities. In order to justify the talk of food security, the definition of "food security' is being enlarged. Food security no longer means mere physical non-availability of food. It is supposed to include the purchasing power to acquire it, availability of water, fuel, adequate levels of literacy and even women's empowerment. The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) obviously have a vested interest in expanding the scope of the term "food security'. The government has succumbed to popular pressure in creating a Food Security Mission. This mission is pursuing the "grow more food' strategy, similar to the one that failed in the pre-1960s period, reinforcing infrastructure and technology with little or no attention to the economic incentive for the farmer. Small, marginal farmer The influence of the Left economists has also dominated the agricultural debate by emphasising the condition of the marginal and small farmer. The fact is that the size of the holding of an individual farmer depends more on the cohesion of his family than its economic situation. The small holders generally come from families where the land gets divided between the siblings in each generation. Remarkably, these economists do not suggest any way of operational consolidation but recommend further land reforms and fragmentation. This has to stop. There is a similar prejudice against the moneylenders in the rural scenario. The fact is that despite insistence on enforcing formal credit organisations, the informal moneylender continues to provide a major part of the agricultural credit, and that too at no cost to the government. The rates of interest that they charge and the methods of recovery they adopt are not worse than those used by the micro-finance organisations. Rather than ape the Bangladesh model it would be a much better idea to recognise the moneylenders as a formal credit institution and revive the "Usurious Loans Act' in order to eliminate unsavoury practices in rural credit. The "dig the and fill' schemes, such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), that have become hot-beds of corruption, do not produce any tangible assets. On the contrary, these schemes jeopardise the agricultural labour market to the detriment of the farmer. The issues Having made a sufficiently long list of issues that have ceased to have relevance since Independence, it may be useful to shortlist some of the major issues that will confront Indian agriculture in the decades to come. Most Indian farmers are trapped in agriculture because their parents left them the land. According to surveys, a majority of the farmers would, given the choice, leave agriculture. On the other hand, there are others better endowed with finances, managerial skills and technological know-how that appear to be anxious to enter agriculture. Agricultural land is becoming increasingly scarce and there is a ready market at attractive prices for it. It would be inappropriate, under these conditions, to enforce on the farmer compulsory acquisition for schemes such as the Special Economic Zones (SEZ). It would be more appropriate to draw up a farmer-friendly exit policy under which the farmer will have the right, if he so wishes, to pursue agriculture and also have the sole authority to dispose of the land if he wishes. The process of globalisation would have little meaning unless there is some scope for inter-sectoral transfer of factors of production. Global warming A new calamity for which India is largely unprepared is that of global warming. Most of the good work that has been done since the 1960s may be totally nullified by climate change. The high yielding variety seeds that paid rich dividends during Green Revolution might cease to play the same role in times when temperatures and precipitations become profoundly skewed. As admitted by the Finance Minister during last year's Budget speech, the systems of agricultural extension and input subsidies have collapsed. The extension system must be reformed from one based on the salaried adviser to one involving commission-earning consultants. The mockery of terming subsidies, such as those on food and fertilisers, as subsidies to farmers must stop. It is not difficult to ensure that the advantage of subsidies reaches the farmers directly, but only if there is the political will to do so. (The author is founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament