This drastic change in one sector – agriculture – is propelling the entire economy of the state.Here are some key drivers of agricultural growth in Madhya Pradesh and the lessons that the state holds for other large ones of India.
The farmers in MP have seen their cumulative income rise by 32 per cent in the past one year mainly due to diversification of farm activities to high value crops from cereals, and better road infrastructure.
This drastic change in one sector – agriculture – is propelling the entire economy of the state so much so that from the per capita net state domestic product of Rs 15,400 in 2004-05, MP finally breached the Rs 50,000 mark in 2014-15 at current prices, registering a three-and-a-half times higher growth on the key economic metric.
Given this tremendous record, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was asked to give a presentation during the governing council meet of NITI Aayog which was held recently. He presented a road map to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.
In his presentation, Chouhan mentioned five areas where the governments need to focus on: decreasing the cost of cultivation; increasing productivity, shift in farm activities towards high value crops; better prices for farm produce; and risk mitigation through a comprehensive system of insurance and timely compensation.
An excellent paper , authored by India’s preeminent agriculture scientist Ashok Gulati and his team came in handy for us to understand the key drivers of agricultural growth in Madhya Pradesh and the lessons that it holds for other major states of India with somewhat similar characteristics.
Diversification
Diversification from cereals and pulses towards high value crops, livestock and fisheries is one of the major factors behind the agricultural growth in MP. In the last five years alone, the state’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) in animal husbandry has grown from Rs 8,976 crore to Rs 33,751 crore and in fisheries from Rs 650 crore to 1,805 crore.
Apart from this, milk production recorded an increase from 6.4 million tonnes in 2006-07 to 10.8 million tonnes in 2014-15. Vegetable production increased from 3.6 million tonnes in 2010-11 to 14.2 million tonnes in 2013-14, taking the state from thirteenth to fourth place in vegetable production. Meat production tripled from 20,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes.
The following charts from the ICRIER paper illustrate the success of MP in diversifying farm produce.
Fruits and Vegetables
Milk production
Meat Production
Fish Production
Irrigation
Irrigation has played a pivotal role in scripting the spectacular success story of agriculture in the state. Gross irrigated area increased from a meager 4.3 million hectares in 2000-01 to an impressive 10.3 million hectares in 2014-15. In 2000-01, the irrigation ratio in MP was 24 per cent, was 17.2 percentage points lower than the all India average. By 2013-14, the ratio dramatically increased to 41.2 per cent, reducing the gap with the all India average to just 6.2 per cent, which is a pointer to impressive irrigation infrastructure the state has developed. By 2014-15, the irrigation ratio in MP reached 42.8 per cent.
The MP government managed to establish an impressive network of irrigation infrastructure comprising dug wells, tube wells, tanks/ponds and government canals, through a combination of public investment and incentivising private sector investment. Area covered under tube well irrigation increased from 0.9 million hectares in 2000-01 to 3.2 million hectares in 2013-14, dug wells from 1.9 million hectares to 3.3 million hectares, irrigation facilities though government canals increased from 0.9 million hectares in 2000-01 to 1.8 million hectares in 2013-14, and irrigation through tanks increased from 0.1 million hectares to 0.3 million hectares.
Electricity
The government made the following interventions to improve the electricity situation for agriculture use in the state:
- Ensured 24 hour power supply in the state, out of which eight hours was exclusively for agriculture purpose.
- Provided power to agriculture on a flat rate of Rs 1,200 per year, with the provision to pay in two installments.
- Provided separate rural feeders for agriculture; 43,517 villages have been provided with a separate feeder of 11 KW line comprising 71,688 Km and 1,516 transformers of 21 KW.
- Aggressively implementing Deen Dayal Upadhaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) a centrally sponsored scheme, which was initiated in 2014 with separation of feeders for agricultural and non-agricultural consumers.
The share of agriculture in total power consumption in MP is around 33.7 per cent, which is much higher than the national average of 20.8 per cent and higher than in states like Karnataka (33.7 per cent), Punjab (30 per cent), Gujarat (23.6 per cent), and Maharashtra (22 per cent).
Roads
The third important factor that has contributed to agricultural growth was the building of all-weather roads. Road density in MP had increased from 526.8 per thousand sq km in 2000-01 to around 742.3 per thousand sq km in 2012-13.
The surfaced roads as a percentage of total roads have increased from 49 per cent to 68 per cent during same period. This enabled farmers to access markets over a larger area, and thereby reducing their market risk.
Procurement
Due to availability of better roads, more power and increased irrigation, the productivity of farms increased. This was especially true for wheat production as shown in the chart below. This was mainly because the state government gave a bonus of Rs 100 per quintal on the minimum support prices (MSP) for wheat over and above the centre’s MSP between 2007-08 and 2012-13 and Rs 150 per quintal in 2013-14 and 2014-15.
The result of this was that once a paltry contributor to the procurement pool, the state became the second largest contributor in just one decade.
However, this was achieved through various steps taken by the government.
- Compared to two other big contributors to wheat procurement pool, Haryana and Punjab, MP kept taxes on MSP low which meant private players bought more from MP than Haryana and Punjab.
- Unlike Haryana and Punjab, MP decentralised its procurement process. It chose to do procurement through co-operative societies instead of arhatiyas.
- More production meant more wheat started coming into mandis choking the roads. Manual payments to farmers was a slow and corruption-prone process. MP digitised the process through ‘e-Uparajan’ initiative with an aim to enable a smooth and efficient procurement.
- Increase in production and procurement meant that the state needed more storage facilities. It has greatly expanded its capacity. The government is also focusing on opening more cold storages for perishable produce.
Mechanisation and farm credit
Mechanisation enhances productivity. However, small land holdings have proved to be a lacuna in universalisation of mechanisation. To make it more affordable to small farmers, MP launched yantradoot scheme under which farmers can rent farm equipment instead of paying big buck to buy them. The government also encouraged youth to open custom hiring centres by giving subsidy and lucrative bank loans. The government has also provided some small equipment to farmers free of cost.
This has resulted in a spurt in use of agriculture machinery as the charts below show.
Non-availability of credit is a big problem for farmers. In 2012-13, MP launched a new loan scheme through state owned co-operative banks, bringing the interest rate from a high of 16-17 per cent in 2006-07 to zero. As a result, disbursement increased from Rs.33.3 billion in 2006-017 to Rs.112.1 billion in 2013-14.
Madhya Pradesh’s agriculture success story is a lesson worth learning for many states of India who are struggling to get their agriculture moving. The literally central state of India has many lessons which may prove central to the country’s agricultural story in the twenty-first century.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.