Utter Mismanagement And Neglect Of Farmers’ Interests Mar India’S Food Bowl In Its Best Year

Managing food procurement should be as well-laid out as a governance model that ensures the entire system from the farmer’s field to the mandis to automatically fall in line. That’s the kind of ‘farm-to-fork’ model that India should pursue

Punjab is faced with a paradox of plenty. Even as its mandis are overflowing with paddy, there is inadequate space to store the bountiful harvest.

At a time when climatic aberrations had caused a shortfall in the previous years, forcing the government to impose a ban on export of non-basmati rice, which has since been lifted, a record production this season – expected to touch 230-lakh tonnes -- gives a sense of much needed relief on the food front.

But then, tardy lifting of procured paddy from the grain mandis is sending shivers down the spine for officials of food procurement agencies. Not only state government officials, even farmers are a worried lot. Driving from Haridwar to Chandigarh the other day, I encountered several farmers drying and bagging the crop by the roadside at a number of places in Haryana.

When asked the reply was that the mandis are full and there being no space, they are left with little option but to undertake bagging of the crop at the first available vacant space. A procurement delay in Punjab is a reason that is being cited for some Punjab farmers to divert their crop to Haryana along the border.

Most Punjab mandis are inundated. Out of the 13.62-lakh tonnes of paddy that arrived in Punjab mandis by Wednesday, about 12.06-lakh tonnes have been procured by government agencies. But with 88 per cent procured paddy still lying in the mandis, there is a kind of near-glut situation that has already cropped up. That is why farmers are dumping paddy by the roadside.

Punjab is expecting a record paddy procurement of 185-lakh tonnes, which means the peak of the procurement season, is still about 10 to 12 days (or a little more) away. Besides facing huge storage problems ahead, considering that Punjab godowns are already carrying 167-lakh tonnes of paddy and wheat from previous harvests, the challenge is to make available adequate space to store the new harvest.

But the state government is coming under attack for waking up late and not realising that the storage space that is available is already full. The sudden crisis has prompted the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) to give a call to wear black badges when Aam Aadmi Party (AAM) ministers and MLAs visit the mandis and also to gherao Chief Minister’s residence.

The tense situation has promoted the Chief Minister to hold parleys with concerned officials and to also appraise the Union government. While the Union Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Pralhad Joshi has assured Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of creating enough space by liquidating 40-lakh tonnes of carryover stocks by December, the pace of lifting remains rather slow. This unfortunate crisis of plenty could have been easily averted knowing very well in advance the size of the crop harvest expected. As Mann informed, the Centre needs to ensure regular movement of 20-lakh tonnes of foodgrains from Punjab to other deficit states, by March 2025.

What has complicated the crisis this season is first the strike by arhtiyas (the middlemen) and now the reluctance being expressed by rice millers to stock more paddy in the mill premises. Besides lack of storage space, the rice millers do not want to stock paddy harvest because there are certain un-recommended hybrid rice varieties that yield a lower milling outturn, and the millers do not want these included.

The millers say that against the norm of 67 kg of rice shelled from 100 kg of rice, which is the expected norm, the hybrid varieties and also the popular PR-126 variety (which was released eight years ago, and occupied 32 per cent area under non-basmati cultivation last year) gives lower percentage of rice comparatively.

Interestingly, while the Punjab government claims that the introduction of short-duration PR-126 paddy variety had resulted in a saving of 4.82 billion litres of water and Rs. 477-crore worth of electricity, the leader of Opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa has blamed the Chief Minister for aggressively pushing PR-126 paddy variety. The spread of PR-126 happened because of the state government’s initiation, the Congress party claims. The Vice-chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Dr. S. S. Gosal denies any problem with PR-126 variety but admits that the hybrid rice varieties being sold by unscrupulous traders are low-yielding and have less realisation of rice after shelling.

Reports point out that the seeds of hybrid varieties are sold at a much higher price, often 50 times higher than the certified seed varieties approved by PAU. The millers want the state government to separately conduct milling trials of the hybrid varieties. Against 67 kg rice, the hybrid varieties yield only about 62 kg. This means that the hybrid varieties cause considerable loss to farmers and also to the rice millers.

There are 5,000 rice mills in Punjab, which hand over rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) after milling.

Nevertheless, despite trading of charges, the fact remains that Punjab farmers have done exceedingly well by recording a higher productivity and eventually growing a bumper crop. The failure to ensure proper marketing is what is causing anger among farmers. Earlier too, in 2020, because of mismanagement, farmers were forced to dump their produce by the roadside.

Irrespective of the reason, the fact that an unnecessary controversy has arisen in a State, which has traditionally been the food bowl, smacks of gross mismanagement on the food front. There is no reason why the marketing system cannot be streamlined in a manner that the entire procurement operations should run smoothly. Come what may, managing food procurement should be as well-laid out as a governance model that ensures the entire system from the farmer’s field to the mandis to automatically fall in line. That’s the kind of ‘farm-to-fork’ model that India should pursue.

When I see farmers waiting in queues outside the mandis or dumping their produce by the roadside for want of space in the market yards, it is painfully a reflection of food mismanagement arising from casual handling of one of the most important economic activities that the country undertakes. After all, mopping up food surpluses, storing it without incurring any grain losses, and distributing the surplus grain to the deficit areas is the responsibility of the governments, both the Centre and the States, and has to be ensured without any hiccup. The country’s food security cannot be compromised at any cost.

This can only be possible if the Centre launches an “Ease of Doing Farming” matrix on the lines of Ease of Doing Business norms that the World Bank had promoted and withdrew after a significant impact became visible. The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) can be roped in to lay the matrix and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare can be asked to implement it.

During the time when Nirmala Sitharaman was the Commerce Minister, I recall her making a statement that the government had taken 7,000 steps, both small and big, under the Ease of Doing Business for the industry. If only 5,000 steps are undertaken under the proposed ‘Ease of Doing Farming’ norms, I am sure agriculture will become an attractive proposition bereft of the hurdles that farmers encounter, day in and day out.

As the farmer unions and the civil society have never raised the demand for setting up an ‘Ease of Doing Farming’ system, the governments have very conveniently ignored the need.

(The author is a noted food policy analyst and an expert on issues related to the agriculture sector. He writes on food, agriculture and hunger)