Farmers’ income commission need of the hour, says expert

Amarjit Thind

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 17

The prevailing economic conditions do not favour a resource-efficient, resilient and low-carbon system. The need of the hour is to ensure income security and setting up a farmers’ income commission, a statutory commission of balancing decisions effecting costs of production, subsidies and support, costs of living and prices.

This was stated by Dr Ramanjaneyulu GV, executive director, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad, on the sidelines of a function on ‘Looking beyond per hectare productivity.

He said performance measures should assess the effectiveness of different scales, types and styles of farming.

“As such, contemporary societal demands regarding agriculture go far beyond low-cost food production. Farm performance parameters used in the past have lost much of their credentials as intensive agricultural production systems are not resilient and depend excessively on external inputs like nutrients, finances, etc. and have a low buffer capacity,” Ramanjaneyulu pointed out.

These systems are heavily affected by changes in market prices and have a low adaptive capacity due to a high level of capital investment and debt.

“Nevertheless, a diversity of farm development trajectories can be observed in practice — we need to recognise this diversity as an asset and a source of inspiration,” he said.

The solution is a sustainable rural livelihood (SRL) framework which takes into account land, water, biodiversity, infrastructure, machinery, human capital, labour, skills, savings, disposable assets, rights and support systems.

Care also needs to be taken to address the problem of environmental pressures resulting from human actions — pollution, residues, emissions and waste.

“The problem with farming now is resource-intensity of industrialised production systems with high-energy inputs, GHG emissions and excessive water use. We need to reconfigure the farming system to take full advantage of natural resources and ecosystem services. New orientations and pathways mean new assessment methods. We need to go beyond field and farm levels. This calls for new regulations, support services and designing a scheme that makes a break with the present practice of passing all risks to the farmers,” Ramanjaneyulu said.