SPECIAL AGRICULTURAL ZONE It is easier to pay integrated attention to natural resources conservation, eco-farming and small farmer-friendly commerce in SAZs, with the aim of strengthening the income security of farm families. D. K. Roy Contrary to many policy pundits playing down the spectre of the looming foodgrains shortage that consumers will face, the Prime Minister, with his characteristic candour, recently expressed his apprehension on the efficacy of the agriculture policy pursued in the last four years. Suggestions are doing the rounds that free market, corporatisation of agriculture, unbridled use of biotechnology and the existing intellectual property regime do not fit well with the agricultural scene in our country, where more than 70 per cent of the agriculturists are small and marginal farmers. These factors are leading to prohibitive costs, threatening to restrict experimentation by farmers and potentially undercutting local practices that enhance food security and economic sustainability. Enough hints have been thrown that the Government is ready to invoke the Nehruvian controls built within existing commodity regulation laws to manage depleted buffer stocks and below target offtake of grains by government agencies from the farmers. Can the agrarian crisis and foodgrain supply crunch really be solved by reneging on pro-market reform push and going back to Nehuruvian era of command and control of 1960s and 1970s? Cannot reverse gains The pragmatic way to face the crisis is to find a way where we do not reverse the gains of agricultural reforms post 1990s achieved so far while making efforts to address the economics of small-scale farming. If farm economics go wrong, nothing else will go right in agriculture. One important way to do this would be to convert and develop the areas affected by agrarian crisis into Special Agriculture Zones (SAZs). It would be easier to pay integrated attention to natural resources conservation and enhancement, eco-farming and small farmer-friendly commerce in SAZs, with the aim of strengthening the income security of farm families. For the success of SAZs agricultural scientists, extension agencies, policy-makers have to work in tandem with government departments dealing with agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and forestry, environment and agro processing and agribusiness, irrigation, commerce, rural development and finance on the principles of convergence and synergy. The SAZ concept will provide a platform for collective action to save the lives and livelihoods of small and marginal farmers by providing key centralised services to support decentralised small-scale production as well as market and income security. As small-scale farmers are predominantly located in rain-fed areas which constitute 60 per cent of the arable land, the National Rainfed Area Authority, an organisation created at the initiative of Prime Minister that has completed almost a year of activity, may make suitable contributions to the concept of SAZ. Evergreen revolution The Prime Minister has lamented that the first Green Revolution has run its course, we can turn the second Green Revolution into an evergreen revolution by focusing attention on the following issues: a) Conservation of prime farmland for agriculture and soil health care and enhancement, issues relating to organic matter and macro and micro nutrient status of soils; b) Water harvesting and management, conjunctive use of surface, rain and ground water and treated effluent water and safeguarding water quality. c) Credit and insurance reform d) Low-risk and environ-friendly green technologies and provision of needed inputs at the right time and place at affordable cost e) Assured and remunerative marketing f) Defend the gains made in the first Green Revolution in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. These areas remain major source of foodgrains for the Public Distribution System. Ecological and economic distress of farmers in these areas due to exploitative agriculture should be replaced by conservation farming and green agriculture; g) Extend the gains of the first Green Revolution to new areas like the entire Eastern India with its fertile soil and water resources as well as rainfed hill and coastal areas; h) Gains from new initiatives in farming systems, diversification and value addition, and post-harvest technologies. We must realise that small and marginal farmers are also consumers. To create a hiatus between farmers and consumers is misleading. After all, farmers are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, independent, virtuous and hard-working individuals, and they are tied to our country and wedded to its soil and sovereignty. (The author is a Senior Under-Secretary in the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal.)