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lines of West Bengal, acceptance of the proposed to legalise tenancy with
adequate safeguards, etc. are long-term agrarian issues which remain to be
addressed. In the immediate and medium-term contexts, the policy initiatives
taken in the recent period including the larger developmental funds earmarked
for agriculture and allied activities deserve to be sustained. A bigger challenge
is being faced in providing the necessary support base for the processes of
diversification to the high-value segments of agriculture (fruits and vegetables,
livestock and fisheries) that is said to hold the key to future sources of growth in
agriculture and provide higher incomes for farmers. These activities are scale-
neutral, thus providing an outlet for improved incomes for small and marginal
farmers provided the public support system work in their favour. They are
said to sport an endless market because of the higher expenditure elasticity
compared to foodgrains. These activities also favour women employment thus
helping substantial mobility.
There are a large, complex and mutually-dependent factors involved
in this process. These factors, as the 11
th
Five-Year Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12)
has highlighted, are the natural resource base (rainfall, precipitation, ground
water facilities, extent of dry-farming areas, etc.), technology and technology
dissemination arrangements (including extension agencies), infrastructure
(including irrigation), and the economic environment comprising price signals
and institutions (including value chain arrangements and warehousing). This
is a tall order and improvements in these respects have just begun afresh.
Enduring results are yet to be seen.
In the meantime, a number of extraneous factors are throwing up fresh
challenges. Changes in population composition and expenditure patterns are
undergoing rapid changes, resulting in differential demands for foodgrain and
foodgrain substitutes. In recent years, the growth deceleration has been much
sharper in foodgrains than in non-foodgrains, thus raising the question of food
security. And within foodgrains, the old problem of pulses output stagnating
persists thus putting in jeopardy the programme of improving the protein-
based nutritional standards of the poor, particularly of women and children
amongst them.
In technology and technology absorption and application, while
technology generation is largely under the public sector, it essentially “consists
of a supply-driven process of putting technologies in the shelf of the scientists
without adequate regard to farmers’ needs and perceptions and with insufficient
marketing of the technology” (Planning Commission, 2011, p.67). At the same
time, private sector varieties of seeds, primarily of foreign origin, like Bt Cotton,
