Why we need Agroforestry !!

The increasing population will need a lot of household wood products, paper products, packing material and fire wood. To meet the growing demand we can't rely on the forests alone, so private agroforestry is  inevitable.  India's per capita consumption of paper and paperboard is less than 10kg and whereas China is 72kg. The productivity of timber in India is only 0.7 cubic meters /ha/year whereas the world average is 2.1 cubic meters /ha/year. India's forests are covered in  69 million hectares i.e.  19.5% of the country's area, the  availability of forest land per person in India is one of the lowest in the world at 0.08 ha, against an average of 0.5 ha for developing countries and 0.64 ha for the world. The demand for timber was  85 million cubic meters in 2008 and now it is expected to cross 153 million cubic meters by 2020, the supply of wood from forests  are projected  to 60 million cubic meters by 2020. This means India needs to depend on imports or else agroforestry in private and community lands for its growing wood requirements.

Increased cost of cultivation, non availability of farm labor, higher farm wages and various reasons farmers are switching to less investment and less labor intensive farming like short term commercial crops and forestry plantations. Agroforestry system is mostly practiced by  the large farmers who have alternative source of income rather than agriculture, It won't viable to small farmers  since they need annual returns on agriculture for their livelihood. But some of the areas the small farmers  also cultivating the  agro forestry  by  inter cropping  the food crops between the rows up to one or two years or till the trees get  bigger, which is a good sign for food security and wood security.

Leucaena and Eucalyptus trees are widely cultivated in Andhra Pradesh which give the guaranteed farm income and the yield of each acre is used to be between 25- 30 tonnes  for  every four years as the trees are harvested only after 4 years.The wood pulp is being used in paper industry and as well as plywood, particle boards and wood veneer. The waste wood has been used in bio mass power generation plants as a substitute to coal and other fossil fuels to reduce the green house gas emission. In Prakasam district alone has more than  one lakh acres have been cultivated and  producing  10 lakh tonnes of wood valued around Rs 390 crores annually. The market price has increased  recently up to Rs.3900 per tonn  due to the shortage of wood and fair competition among the firms in industry which is a lucrative income for farmers. Most of the progressive farmers  would like to adopt agroforestry model for sustainable agriculture to improve the farm productivity and profitability.

Indian has achieved self sufficiency in food production, now we should focus on ecology,  preserving our fossil fuels and also cater the growing wood demand caused by population growth and economic development. The agroforestry system is capable to sequestrate the massive amounts of carbon  that helps to mitigate the danger of green house gas concentrates. We can implement this system in large barren lands, farm boundaries to improve soil fertility and water conservation. There is a remarkable scope in agroforestry  to focus on the ecological issues, biomass production,  cattle fodder and various outputs to industries as well as employment generation.

India needs nutritionally enriched Food security

On July 5th the Food security ordinance was approved by the President of India, the ordinance will guarantee 5 kg of rice or wheat or millets  a month to poor at a discounted rate of Rs. 3, Rs. 2 and Re. 1 respectively.  Food security means ....not only  providing  5 kilograms of subsidized food grains but  also that should ensure the nutrition security. I don't  think  that 5 kgs of food grains is not enough to feed  one person per month. Average consumption per year for each person is around 178 kgs. ( 15 kgs per head/monthly) and average family size in India is  4.8 persons,  so each family needs at least  65-70 kgs of grains per month.  Food habits have been changing gradually, people are slowly shifting from grains to more protein and nutritional based foods. Edible oil, pulses  are good source of nutritional values , each person needs minimum 1kg of edible oil and the same way 1kg of pulses per month, though which  is less than nutritionist 's recommendations  i.e. 16kgs of edible oil and 20kgs of pulses per capita. I don't know, how come this bill is going to ensure the food security by just giving  5 kgs of grains and the same way how it's going to reduce the malnutrition by just giving grains without any nutritional food items.

India ranked 65 among the 79 countries which are listed in global hunger index. ( High number means most vulnerable) . As we know  that our working class poor people are still in calorie deficient and they definitely need the nutrients to get strength, endurance and productivity at their workplace. The UPA-2 government is trying to mesmerize the people that it is doing a big favor to below poverty line by the Food Security Act. The edible oil and pulses are essential for human beings to sustain proteins, vitamins and minerals. The market prices of edible oil and pulses are very high and have been increasing , the government  doesn't have any control  over the prices and price mechanism . The nutritional food items  must be reasonably priced to consumers, then only the people will get comprehensive food security otherwise it 's  going to be a futile exercise.

The Public Distribution Systems is not functioning efficiently,  it’s all corrupted and controlled by the second fiddles of local MLAs. Everybody  knows that the PDS food ration is going to the black markets and  also too many   fake ration cards. The PDS system shall be pruned to remove the bottlenecks  in supply chain of food distribution especially  for  this upcoming Food Security program. The UPA's National Food Security bill doesn't have any time bound or any target orientation.  There is no clarity in elimination of malnutrition and how many people will be moved out of hunger in next 5 years or next 10 years and so on. The Bill is just targeted for 2014 elections for their electoral prospects and it is political hoax .

The government must focus on 4 Ps i.e. Production, Procuring, Preserving and Proper distribution of food grains. Food security act will not only serving the poor but also encourages the production of food grains which is directly  benefit to the farmers since the consumption will be more. At the same time, the farmers should not be burdened  with the cost of subsidizing the supply. India needs to be self sufficient in food grain production to meet this new demand, so the agriculture should  have high priority in National Food Security program.

My way of thinking on GM crops

Developing countries are adopting the Biotech crops at faster rate, Genetically Modified (GM) crops have been cultivated more than 1. billion hectares worldwide, 10 % of the world crop lands were planted by GM crops in 2010, 17.3 million farmers grew GM crops in 2012. India cultivated 9.4 million hectares of GM crops in 2010. Major scientific academies and regulatory bodies of the world from the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Russia, Australia and  New Zealand  have completely  endorsed the safety and efficacy of the science and technology of GM crops. Most of the developed nations experience with Biotechnology crops are  reliable, alternatives to traditional pests, reduced input costs, quality in crop yields and finally income benefits to farmers.

Achieving food and nutritional security is tough task, we need to try all possible options like GM and conventional. Malnourishment still exists in India, India ranked 65 among 79 nations in global hunger Index. ( High ranked = Most vulnerable).Everyone concurs that sustainable agriculture plays a critical role for future food needs and better environment. The first green revolution achieved by applying the chemistry and petroleum, but now the Biotechnology, information technology and renewable energies are crux  for the next green revolution. It's something modern way of thinking for food security, economic development and environment. Now the most of farming community has been dependent of information, communication and technology, they are adopting modern growing techniques of precision farming  like  System of Rice Intensification Method  in paddy cultivation, modern farm implements, organic farming and also cultivating the transgenic commercial crops like BT cotton.

Applying Biological solutions instead of Chemical applications has been growing in agriculture. In India, lot of hurdles to integrate the biotechnology into agriculture research I.e technical, political, environmental, intellectual property, biosafety and trade related issues. Based on the demand, it is suggested to implement Biotechnology applications in strategic areas where the agriculture get more gains. As we know that, parliamentary standing committee and a Supreme Court of India jointly appointed the Technical Experts Committee (TEC) to perceive the pros and cons on GM Crops, TEC has recommended a ban on field testing of GM crops which are under development in both public and private labs for a decade, but it was dismissed by the courts and now the Environment and Forests Ministry has allowed the field trials on 20 GM crops such as cotton, rice, tomato, groundnut, potato, corn, sorghum, okra, brinjal, mustard, wheat, watermelon, papaya, sugarcane, rubber, castor, banana, pigeonpea and chickpea. Out of 20 crops, field trials were initiated for only three crops ( Cotton, Corn, Mustard) upon obtaining the no objection certificates from the state governments. 

All these actions indicate that India has positive approach towards transgenic crops, the real challenge is that how the scientific regulatory bodies monitor the process of trials and research. The regulatory precautions should be implemented very meticulous and ultimately those crops must not negatively affect on human health and  environment or animals and other crops. In India lot of apprehensions on GM crops which are related to safety aspects of human health and environment, let us wait and watch.. how the scientists and policy makers are going to address the public apprehensions on the GM crops which are now in field trials  Everything should be transparent in the field trial process and the research data, nothing should be hide, farmers and consumers must be better informed.

GM seeds are expensive and the technology is protected with stringent intellectual property laws and patented. Some of the international seed companies are monopolizing the business by merging the small seed companies and they are pushing their GM seeds in place of conventional. To break the monopoly of big biotech companies, government should encourage the extensive research and field trials through private companies and universities, so that  the enhanced competition will help the small and marginal farmers to afford the GM seeds. Nonprofit organizations and public sector scientific agencies should focus on safe and effective application of biotechnology to the extremely important crops for the benefit of small and poor farmers.

The dire crisis of dairy farmers

India is the largest producer and consumer of the dairy milk in this world producing around 130 million tonnes and the total world production estimates 730 million tones.  FAO estimated 85% of all milk worldwide was produced from cows and the rest is from other species ( 11% Buffalo ,2% got and 2% others.). USA is the second largest producer of milk and the first largest producer of cow's milk. Israel dairy farms are very productive with an yield of 12,546 kgs of milk  per cow per year.

Indian Dairy farmers are in crisis with increased cost of production and non remunerative prices. Return on investment for dairy farmers are very less due to increased costs of feed and medical expenses for animals. Earlier, the cattle used to depend on grazing, natural resources and crop residue for fodder which are decreasing now. The milk farmers are forcibly depend on the packaged cattle feed to increase the milk production, eventually the cost of production has increased. Feed cost has been increasing up to 30- 50 percent from past four consecutive years, but the milk procurement prices have not increased comparatively. Health care also big burden, vaccination and De-warming costs have been increased.

The productivity of the cattle is based on the caring and managing, farmers are slowly decreasing their non performance animals and switching over to efficient breeds like Jersey and Holstein Friesian. Investment on these exotic cattle is heavy burden for the farmers and these breeds need more feed, water and caring since they are not native animals. Farmers are struggling to get loans for milking animals and also the bank charges are very high up to 12% interest rate and insurance cost is additional. With the increased cost of production including  expensive breeds the dairy farming is not remunerative, so the farmers are slowly decreasing their herd size and some of the farmers have giving up the dairy farming.

The procurement prices have not increased comparatively with milk market selling prices, in fact the procurement prices have reduced in Oct and Nov months of 2012. The Andhra Pradesh farmers have faced a bitter experience called "MILK HOLIDAY" due to the false market analysis by milk marketing companies. They have imported low-priced Skim milk powder by estimating that the milk production is going to be less for this year but there is a  consistent growth in milk production. Most of the milk marketing companies including Co-operative sectors have reduced the procurement prices and some of them have stopped to collect the milk from farmers. Animal fodder is the biggest problem for the farmers, decrease in grazing land, natural resources and drought situations  leads tough time for animal fodder. Last year, the dry forage was sold at Rs.2.00 per kg in some arid districts of  Andhra Pradesh. The loan facilities for cattle are too tough for small farmers, a rural poor woman who wants to buy a buffalo she gets the loan with high interest rate up to 14%  with a great struggle, where as in the cities the car loan get approved with 7-8 percent  interest rate without any hurdles.

Our Indian Dairy Industry is in chaotic situation, India is the largest milk producer in the world, ironically...

whereas chemical mixed adulterated milk is widely available in the market.

whereas milk consumption is very less and 68.72 Kg/capita/year.

Whereas The Food and safety standards authority of India ( FSSAI) has announced the 68% of the bulk milk supplies have found to be unsafe and substandard quality.

Indian government has opened the gates to FDI's and excited to enter in free trade agreements, already France's DANONE is aggressively marketing it's dairy products in Indian market associated with Dynamix Dairy- Baramathi ( Maharashtra), New Zealand's FONTERRA and DANONE  are interested to acquire major stack in  Hyderabad based Tirumala Dairy products. As we know that all largest milk producing countries are keen to enter in Indian market, most of the developed nations' dairy farming is massively funded and heavily subsidized by the governments with various income support plans like  i.e.  Milk income loss contract payment, Market loss assistance, Dairy Income loss assistance programs, dairy Indemnity, milk marketing fees and so on. Such huge subsidies keep the International milk prices down which are going to affect very badly on our Indian dairy industry. we should oppose as strong as possible to protect our Indian dairy Industry against dumping.

In order to protect our dairy farmers, the milk procurement prices should be fixed based on the cost of production as the practice where implemented in crop farming. The banks should liberalize the policies in cattle loans for Individual farmers to buy one or two animals and Government should  arrange interest free loans to the dairy farmers. Government should invest in co-operative dairies and allot matching grants of subsidies for remunerative milk procurement prices. The government need to take some steps on milk promotion programs by offering small quantity of milk to school going children, lactating women and pregnant women to boost milk consumption. The Indian milk marketing companies including co-operatives all together should run a united advertising campaign which shall create an importance of milk in our daily life.. like www.gotmilk.com by California Milk processor  Board.

We shall have to try all possible options to rescue our milk farmers, if not they will give up dairy farming, therefore India may encounter serious milk shortage which leads to malnutrition.

Plate full food ends up in Landfill

A survey by University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bangalore says that  annually, Bangalore alone wastes 943 tonnes of quality food during weddings and the total food wastage in the city is estimated at Rs 339 crores. As per data from the solid waste management department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), around 140 tonnes of leftover food is collected daily from the hotels and restaurants in the city which nearly 50 percent is good to consume. India is facing the loss of Rs.50,000 crores worth of food items.  United states, the food waste worth is $180 billion every year, Canada's food waste is approximately 40 percent and worth of $27 billion, around 5.3 million tonnes of food waste goes to trash in UK that's worth is £12 billion, the food wasted in Italy can feed the entire population of Ethiopia. The FAO estimates  that more than 30% of the global food production goes to garbage that counts 1.3 billion tonnes which can cater to 3 billion people.

Food waste can be occurred in three levels 1. Farm level ,2. Distribution level, 3. End user level.

The major food waste happens in the farm level. Before harvesting, the crop losses could be with  pest, birds, rodents and wild animals and the natural disasters also can cause for crop damages. Losses may be high in harvesting process since the machine harvesters are unable to detect the difference between ripen and half grown crops and also it collect some part of the crop and the rest will be left in the field itself. Some crops like horticulture produces must be harvested by hand picking only, then some root crops may damaged  by careless hand harvesting and acute labor shortage lead to the yield loss as crops are not harvested and decayed in the fields.

At the distribution level, supply chain & value chain losses are very frequent due to lack of storage facilities, no proper transportation and unable to access the markets on policy issues. A nation-wide study on quantitative assessment of harvest and post harvest losses for 46 agricultural produces in 106 randomly selected districts was conducted by CIPHET in 2010 revealed that wastage in fruits and vegetables is between 5.8 - 18.0 % for different crops. Wastage are lower for other items as compared to fruits & vegetable: for crop (3.9 -6.0%), cereals (4.3-6.1%), pulses (4.3-6.1% ), oilseeds (6.0%), Meat (2.3%), fish (2.9% ) and poultry(3.7%). Although the food stored in proper facilities, some portion get waste by the pests and microorganisms, supermarkets always reject the produces for slight cosmetic imperfection though they met the edible standards. Retail stores, farmers markets and whole sellers are losing huge amounts in unsold fruits and vegetables, we can't ignore the export losses in food products since they don't meet the agriculture, safety and health standards. Altogether, a significant quantity of food produced goes waste during the processes of pre & post harvesting, supply & value chain.

Food waste can be seen everywhere in our daily life, in kitchen at home, restaurants, in big fat weddings, gala parties, in work place canteens  and so on. Some social behaviors have lead to food waste like cooking surplus food, ordering excess food in the restaurants, load-up the plates with more than sufficient items in buffet. Once in a while when we check our refrigerator, we may find some leftovers and uneaten food that ends up in the trash can. Super markets promotion sales also push the consumers to buy more than enough food and which is frequently throw away.

Waste happens in throughout the food system in all stages like farming,  transportation, processing, distribution, supermarkets, restaurants, food service providers and  households which accounts  around 40% of the food we produce.

Recycling and disposal expenses are additional burden to the food waste, all uneaten food ends up in our landfills which generates green house gas emissions and it is estimated that 14% of the world’s CO2 emissions are caused by food waste itself. This huge waste of food puts heavy pressure on agriculture as it must provide for growing  population that is wasting up to 2 billion tonnes of food a year. Agriculture consumes  70% of water reserves in the process of food production, 3000 liters of water required for our daily food needs, management of water is the key for our food production and water is going to be more expensive in future. One more important issue is land usage, if we lose the food with wasteful habits  the demand will be increased for extensive usage of  land for farming and livestock. The food waste has ripple effects on other industries like energy, fertilizers and pesticides which are produced by coal, chemicals, fuel, natural gas and so on, all these incremental cost is driven by uneaten food.

Wasting a food is a cultural habit, by not wasting food we can express ourselves as well mannered and responsible. The most important thing is... to buy only whatever our actual need and use it completely. The super markets should liberalize their purchase practices  i.e. rejecting the food stocks for just small flaws in physical characteristics. Government should set a national goal to reduce the waste and sensitize the public against the waste of food by creating awareness and should encourage the NGOs who are working against food waste. Modern engineering and technologies should be implemented in  Pre/Post harvesting stages and fully integrated infrastructure should be created for transport, storage and processing. Elimination of  food waste will provide a lot more food for growing population, it reduces the carbon foot print and mitigates the heavy load on agriculture.

Kisan Divas

Chaudhary Charan Singh's birth anniversary on December 23rd every year is observed as Farmer’s Day ( Kisan Divas). The late Charan Singh is also remembered for the one and only budget he presented in 1979. That Budget had everything a farmer could dream of in his favor. He also came out with various initiatives in favor of farmers, his passionate appeal and magnetic persona united all the farmers against the moneylenders and landlords. He was also a very effective writer and penned his thoughts on farmers and their problems and solutions. Charan Singh passed away on 29 May 1987.

Re−shaping the small and marginal farmers

Three quarters of the world's farmers cultivate small plots of land, India is the land of marginal and small farmers, the average size of farm land holding is 1.16 hectares ( 2.86 acres). 85% of the Indian framers are cultivating the 70% of farm lands which are below two hectares each, more than 60% of the farm produces come from the small farms only. The productivity of the small farmers is the solution for growing population food needs, the future of the Indian sustainable agriculture is depends on the performance of these small and marginal farmers only. Most of small farmers cultivate the farm land with the support of their family members and local labor which the quality of the work is higher. They spend more time on mulching, trellising, weeding, removing the rock stones, soil conservation and building the irrigation systems which are a part of good agriculture practices . They grow multiple crops and sow as soon as they harvest, small farms have been the most efficient for sustainable and bio-diversified way of agriculture.

India's land holdings average size has been decreasing i.e. 1.16 hectares ( as per 2011 data) and at the same time the number of land holdings are increased to 138 million which are caused by the population growth and family subdivisions. Some researchers argue that small farm land holdings' output is always low and their operating expenses are high. I feel, the farm size is not a constraint for the productivity, small farms are sustainable and the efficiency also more or equal to large farms. Numerous studies have confirmed that there is an inverse connection between the size of forms and yield per hectare, the smaller they are the yield is greater, the contribution of output is higher for marginal and small farmers and they grow high value crops like fruits and vegetables. But small and marginal  farmers have been facing lot of problems like credit and Indebtedness, land titles and tenancy issues, low level education and skills, globalization challenges and climate changes.

The Western model of agriculture is being forcibly advocated by some agricultural policy analysts and economists which is really applicable for only large land holdings. As per Indian agri profile, we can't shift our small farms to larger farms that will cause a decline in food production and also the unemployment of displaced workers that's  going to be a big problem. It is very clear that the Western model of agriculture can't support our Indian agriculture like heavy mechanized, less labor-oriented, chemical-based, high-input agriculture. Actually we should adopt the Eastern model of agriculture which have been implemented in Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and China. The far east agriculture practices like experimenting with high yield verities, controlled use of fertilizers, drip irrigation, effective use of manpower, multiple cropping and custom made small farm equipments are exactly appropriate to Indian farm lands. Moreover, Indian small scale family farmers can't afford to heavy farm equipment, extraneous inputs and hired workers, so the Eastern style of agriculture is the way forward for India.

While small shops, hawkers, farmers markets are being wiped out and replaced with super markets and hyper malls, the small farmers loss their customers. The large super markets always need the consistent supply, competitive price, high quality produces with safety standards, this will be a big challenge for the small farmers since most of the farmers deliver their produces to local vendors and open markets. Supplying to large chain supermarkets is a great opportunity to the small farmers, to confront the same, the government should enact the collective farming by combine all small farm land holdings in to a farmers' cooperative for mutual benefit. Under this model, the farmer will be an independent share holder and collectively utilizing the supply chain/value chain with their own operated marketing societies or private processors.(Just like dairy co-operatives).

This is the time to reshape our Small scale farm production and marketing systems since we are allowing the FDIs in retail trade, to integrate with big chain retails markets the small and marginal farmers should be strengthened with modern technologies and policy reforms. We wish the small and marginal farmers avail the market opportunities for better prospects.