Interview: Union Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar

INTERVIEW: NITISH KUMAR
''We Must Break Into New Markets''

The country's first-ever National Agriculture Policy, unveiled last month, has been ten long years in the making. It is a bold document, seeking to usher in liberalisation in the one sector that needs it the most. But it is also vague when it comes to implementation of the lofty ideals it espouses. In this interview with BT's Seetha, a pragmatic Union Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar explains why the policy is vague in some parts and how old attitudes to agriculture need to change:

Q. The National Agriculture Policy is quite forward-looking. But it is short on specifics.

A. The policy is a broad framework. It attempts to provide certain guiding principles for the formulation of five-year plans for the next 20 years.

Specifics were deliberately kept out. We need a commitment on broad policy. Right now, there is an ad-hoc attitude to agriculture: cut 10 per cent here, 5 per cent there. With the policy, agriculture will be regarded differently.

Broadly, the agriculture policy targets a growth rate of more than 4 per cent. Growth has to be equitable and sustainable. It also attempts to make agriculture a viable profession. Then there is also the challenge of globalisation....

So you don't see globalisation as a threat?

Not at all. It is inevitable. It has to be seen as a challenge. We have opened our markets. Now we must try to break into other markets. We need to produce what those markets need.

To do all this, we have to take a number of steps. One, land reforms are necessary. Land holdings are extremely fragmented. In this situation, how do we increase productivity? There should be redistribution of land in excess of the ceiling. Then there has to be consolidation of holdings. The example of the western states must be emulated.

Sharecroppers must get tenancy rights. But we have to balance this with the rights of those who own land and are not in a position to cultivate it. Certain legislative measures are needed for all this.

But it's a state subject. What can the Centre do?

We can only draw up a policy and give them financial assistance to update and computerise land records. But what's more important are the inputs. Water is one. Irrigation projects must be completed within a certain time frame. Ground-water resources must be used judiciously. There should be conjunctive use of surface water and ground water to ensure sustainability and prevent soil salinity.

In fertilisers, too, there should be judicious use of chemical and organic fertilisers. Seeds, the most important input, should be of superior quality. We are facing a major problem with regard to pests. Farmers commit suicide because whole crops are ruined. This calls for better risk management. But we also need pest-resistant seeds.

But there is such a controversy over genetically modified seeds that are highly pest-resistant.

Yes, there was this controversy over BT cotton. We are already using BT formulations as pesticides. If, with the help of biotechnology, it is imported into the seed and that becomes pest resistant, what is wrong? But there should be complete transparency about it. There should be informed debate on this involving all groups. We have two considerations: health and environment. If it is sound on both counts, what is the problem?

So your mind is open on the issue?

Absolutely. Biotechnology is the science of the present.

You spoke about soil conditions. Soil conditions are deteriorating due to wasteful use of water, which is a result of ridiculously low electricity and irrigation charges. Similarly, the skewed fertiliser subsidy structure has resulted in the over-use of nitrogenous fertilisers which harms the soil.

Wasteful utilisation happens due to lack of awareness. Wherever the use of sprinkler and drip irrigation systems have been demonstrated, farmers have adopted it. There's hardly any electricity in the rural areas. What's needed is adequate, good quality power.

But this is not possible if farmers refuse to pay.

Look, electricity reforms are going on. We have seen the consequences of promises of free power. Where there is no electricity, farmers are using diesel. The farmer wants electricity and is willing to pay. But the increases should not be done in one shot; do it in phases, instead.

Will you agree to the phasing out of fertiliser subsidy?

Personally I don't feel such a fuss should be raised over fertiliser subsidy. Rationalise it; improve the efficiency of factories. We are not saying let the production units close and let us depend on imports. If that happens, what will happen to our food security? So make fertiliser units more efficient. Don't put the burden on the farmers.

Increasing productivity alone is not enough. How do farmers market their produce and get a good price?

Marketing is an issue. We need to reduce the role of the middleman. We need to encourage systems like pledging of stocks. That reduces the compulsion to sell immediately. Let us develop the futures markets. It already exists. In Nalanda district of Bihar, traders from Varanasi come and buy up whole fields of betel leaf. This is a crude form of futures trading; we want to make it more scientific.

Similarly, contract farming also exists but the minute we mention it, there's an outcry: ''Contract farming? What will happen to the farmer?'' Contract farming gives farmers an assured market and assured income. That's what they are concerned with. We want to provide an organised structure to what is already happening.

You've sidestepped the issue of minimum support prices (MSPs).

MSPs are essential. Even with MSPs farmers are not getting the minimum price. The problem is that the minute our granaries are full, people say it is an era of plenty, remove this subsidy, that subsidy. We cannot be so short-sighted. Let us take a long-term view.

You've also kept farmers out of the tax net.

How can you tax the farmers? Seventy per cent of them are small and marginal farmers.

But large farmers also don't pay tax.

When you are talking about land reforms, and redistributing land in excess of the ceiling, which farmer will come in the tax net? You don't know the condition of farmers. When they take a loan they come under the Land Dues Recovery Act. They are jailed for non-repayment.

The banking sector says they have a problem recovering loans, and that there is a lot of political interference...

Let the banking sector people tell me what is the extent of rural deposits. Let them lend as much as the deposits that the rural sector generates. You can jail a farmer under a law framed during in 1902, but in the case of corporate defaulters, there is a law that you cannot reveal their names!

Your policy stresses involving the corporate sector. But with hardly any productive investment in agriculture, the sector is plagued with infrastructural problems. How do you hope to attract companies into, say, agro-processing in this situation?

Electricity, infrastructure are perennial problems. We plan to have food parks. The government will give money for common facilities-roads, electricity, sewage. Entrepreneurs can then set up plants. We have addressed all this in the policy. We will have an action plan taking up each point. Wherever there is a problem it will be solved in consultation with the states.

Is the attitude towards the corporate sector changing?

That will have to change. Seventy per cent of our farmers are engaged in sustenance agriculture. But we also need to tap the world market. Leasing of land, contract farming benefits everyone. Suspicions will go away with actions.

There should be an informed debate. Agriculture is one sector where there is no informed debate, no holistic view. Someone will talk about subsidy, someone about onions, someone about genetic modification, someone about one pest. Agriculture needs a comprehensive view. This policy fulfils that need.

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