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Farmers cutting across sections are upset that the NREGA scheme has made things difficult for them.
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. “Wage costs for farm labour have nearly doubled. Last year, a farm labour was paid Rs 130 a day. Now, we have to pay Rs 250,” says Mr Iyya Kannu, General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu wing of Bharatiya Kisan Sangam. Until last year, we were paying Rs 70 a day to women, who are engaged in transplanting paddy. Now, we are offering Rs 120 a day but they are not willing to work on the fields,” Mr Iyya Kannu says.
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“Last week to harvest paddy, I had to pay Rs 1,000 to get four workers. On top of it, I had to get them food and also liquor,” says the 71-year-old Pavadairayan from Sutheri village in Gingee taluk.
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“For normal farm work, we have to give Rs 250 and provide the labour tea. But for harvest, we have to get them liquor,” says Mr Iyya Kannu.
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Most of those who get work under NREGA scheme earn Rs 75 a day.
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“The problem is when we call them, they say we make them slog from morning to evening. If they go for work under NREGA scheme, they say they can sit under shade for most of the time,” the farmers' leader says.
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The problem of lack of farm hands is not confined to Tamil Nadu alone. A similar situation exists in Karnataka too, where coffee planters are groping in the dark to get hands for their estates. ‘Rural job scheme adds to farmers' woes’ BL 0608
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| Populist Measures destroying traditional Indian work ethos |
Offers of free lunches are good politics, and produced an abundant harvest of votes for the UPA in 2004 and again in 2009. Unfortunately, good politics can be bad economics. Free lunches, including ‘dig and fill' employment programmes, can be very inflationary. These programmes might have won over the aam aadmi, but they have destroyed the traditional Indian ethos of hard work and frugality. ‘Paying the price for populism’ Sharad Joshi, BL 310710
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| Stagnant Agri GDP growth since 1995: Agriculture needs investment and reform- Busn. Standard |
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1985-95=3.62% per annum, 1995-2005=2% per annum
X plan period- 2002-07= 2.3% per annum.
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In the first three years of the current Plan period, the farm sector has achieved an average annual growth of 2.16 per cent and if the PMEAC's projection for this fiscal and the next proves to be correct, on the assumption that there will be good rains next year also, then the average annual growth for the entire 11th Five-Year Plan Period would be 3 per cent.
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Moreover, given the anticipated overall GDP growth of over 8 per cent, the poor acceleration in the farm sector that still supports nearly 65 per cent of the population is an indictment of the strategy of “inclusive growth”.
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Several factors have combined to deliver this dismal result, ranging from inadequate investment in irrigation, research and development and in rural extension services to improper and often sub-optimal use of yield-enhancing inputs, including seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and, most importantly, water; poor technology transfer; and inefficient marketing that denies growers a fair share of what the consumer pays for farm goods.
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| Also contributing to it are factors like inadequate reach of institutional, timely and affordable, credit. All these factors constrain the farmers’ ability to invest in farming. Thus, while private investment is inadequate, public investment goes largely into “subsidies”, some of which, like in the case of water and power, are proving counterproductive by accelerating degradation of natural resources. |
| The Planning Commission had made it clear right in the beginning of the 11th Plan that hitting the target of 4 per cent annual agricultural growth would require the public investment to increase at a minimum of 12 per cent a year in real terms from its 2006-07 level. This seemed a truly tall order. |
| The first green revolution owed much to the spread of irrigation, which, in turn, spurred the use of other inputs, notably fertilisers. That is not happening any more. For instance, most of the additional irrigation capacity created during the 10th Plan, only 50 per cent of the target on paper, was just notional because the land use data showed no increase in irrigated area. This could be partly because the created potential was actually not utilised and partly because the old irrigated area steadily went out of the net due to poor maintenance or decay of the irrigation system. |
| Similarly, the use of fertilisers, the other key farm input that shows immediate results in terms of higher crop yields, is dismally low, besides being imbalanced. The country’s per-hectare consumption of fertiliser is estimated at merely around 113 kg, against 166 kg in the neighbouring Bangladesh and 137 kg in Pakistan. Worse still, over half of the total fertiliser consumption is accounted for by five states — Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh — and virtually three crops (paddy, wheat and sugarcane). |
Such a situation is far from conducive for the green revolution to spread out to more states and more crops. Unless all such issues are addressed simultaneously, high and enduring agricultural growth may remain elusive. Both the Centre and states have to pay much closer attention to investment, productivity and institutional challenges in agriculture if the overall growth story has to remain hopeful. “Waiting for second revolution” / August 03, 2010
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| “Area under Bt cotton increased from 29,000 hec in 2002-03 to 80 lakh hec : in 2009-10,” Minister of State for Food and Agriculture Mr K V Thomas said in reply to Lok Sabha. The minister said that the cultivation of Bt cotton has resulted in 31 per cent increase in yield per hectare, and 39 per cent reduction in pesticide usage. The Bt cotton cultivation has proved 80 per cent more profitable for farmers. |
“The average yield of Bt cotton has also increased from 300 kg per hectare in 2001-02 to 560 kg per hectare in 2007-08,” . The factors identified for better yield include elite germplasm, better resistance to bollworms thus reducing pest incidence and thereby resulting in higher yield per hectare. The total production of cotton in India is estimated to be around 22.3 million bales of 170 kg each. - PTI 040810
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| Pesticides can save grains worth Rs 2.5 lakh cr a year' |
| Through judicious use of pesticides, the country can save foodgrain worth Rs 2.5 lakh crore a year , according to Mr R.G. Agarwal, Group Chairman, Dhanuka Agritech Ltd. ‘By proper exploitation of yield potential of crops, the country's agricultural sector has the capacity to add Rs 5 lakh crore worth foodgrains a year’. BL 030810 |
| Equity capital of 68 PSUs wiped out, Cumulative loses Rs.85,000 Crore |
| The aggregate net worth of 68 of 300 Central PSUs analysed by CAG was a negative Rs 70,595 crore as on March 31, 2009. because of the negative net worth, recovery of loans given by the Government to these companies was “doubtful”. The accumulated losses in these 68 companies decreased by Rs 12,893 crore to Rs 85,193 crore in 2008-09 from Rs 98,086 crore in 2007-08, it said. |
| Krsr/and 137/140810 |
