Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Indian farmers have done a great job' that was published in Newsband

Indian farmers have done a great job

India’s recent agricultural performance is great. The farm sector is seen to have almost single-handedly underpinned recent economic growth. Even over a longer period the track record has been good. This is because most of the time in the past the monsoons were satisfactory.

Just government policies are not enough to boost agriculture. Monsoons should also cooperate. Let’s hope that even in the future the monsoons will continue to be beneficial.

Government should take steps to protect grains stored in government godowns from rats and insects. If we have food grains and sugar in surplus, we may have to explore export markets. For that, we need good quality food grains.

The good performance of Indian agriculture is mainly owing to the use of globally best technologies and R&D over all. When we consider land use for various ends, Indian agriculture has performed the best in terms of environmental needs too.  

Even though there is record breaking production in recent years still the inflation (especially food inflation) is on a higher side in the same period. What is required now is to take steps to ensure reduction of wastage of food in transport and adequate storage facilities need to be developed. The problem of storage is not only making the food grain to rot or get eaten up by the rats, but also provide the farmers less return of their crops upon which they have invested lot of their time as well as energy.

Exporting crops to other countries may not only increase the Foreign Investment in the country but also help the farmers financially.

Public policy, science and technology, aggressive and risk taking farmers and effective marketing have led to present highest production in food grains and horticultural crops - fruits, vegetables, tubers, spices - and plantation crops. Favourable monsoon was the critical factor for the success. Now technologies are available to maximize water use efficiency like precision farming, zero tillage, fertigation, use of aqua gels, organic farming and pitcher irrigation. Protected cultivation has revolutionized vegetable cultivation.

Support Price is the single public policy which made India and Indian Farmers to be ahead of other countries. A time has come to look for future crops in view of depleting water and climate change.

Lastly, let’s keep Farmers rich and happy!