AGRICULTURE

Agricultural Policy Strategy, Instruments and Implementation: A Review and the Road Ahead




Govt plans 'soil health cards' for all farmers

Seeking to spur agricultural growth, the Centre will soon launch a comprehensive plan to provide 'Soil Health Card' to all farmers across the country. The card will carry crop-wise recommendations of nutrients/fertilizers required for farms, making it possible for farmers to improve productivity by wisely using inputs.

A computerized system will be developed, allowing local agriculture science centres to keep details of 'soil test' results. Soil samples will be collected even from small farms in remote villages.

The system will, eventually, allow farmers to download the 'Soil Health Card' using 'unique number' allotted to each soil sample. This way, any change in ownership of the particular farm land will not create any problem in getting such cards or getting it updated.

Though a few states including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana had successfully distributed such cards a couple of years ago, most states did not make it operational beyond villages around various agricultural universities. The Centre's fresh move will make it universal.



He told TOI that the move will help farmers in identifying "health of the soil" which will go a long way in improving productivity through judicious use of fertilizers and water.

Since collecting 'soil samples' and uploading/updating the test results will be a mammoth exercise, the Centre may write to states urging them to take help of students of agriculture universities in doing this. Officials here do not rule out the possibility of linking the final degree of agriculture students with their work in fields like helping 'Krishi Vigyan Kendra' officials in sample collection and its periodic update.

All soil samples will be tested in various soil testing labs across the country. Thereafter, experts will analyze the strengths and weaknesses (micro-nutrients deficiency) of the soil and suggest measures to deal with it. The result and suggestion will be displayed in the cards.

Singh said, "Distributing 'Soil Health Card' to all farmers and providing irrigation facility to all villages under the 'Pradhan Mantri Gramin Krishi Yojna' across the country will be two major components of our agricultural policy."

Here Comes Trouble

Avinash Celestine





El Niño could lead to a weak monsoon, posing the most serious challenge yet to the new government

The first big challenge to Narendra Modi's prime ministerial skills is now possibly in plain sight -and it's developing not in India but thousands of miles away off the coast of Peru, South America. The now-notorious El Niño weather phenomenon is not yet fully developed -it will reach its full fruition around September and October, but already it is being linked to a weak monsoon, soaring prices of vegetables and the possibility of poor agricultural output. The BJP fought this election around the inability of the previous government to rein in inflation and the rising prices of essential commodities. Now it is faced with the very real possibility that inflation could well head higher in the coming months.The signs are hardly positive. The monsoon shortfall is currently around 42% and with land temperatures high and little sign of rain in a number of regions, crop planting is delayed. During the 2009 drought, one of the worst India faced in many decades, rainfall deficit in June was running at similar levels. Delayed planting of key crops such as onion has already forced prices upward.
What is El Niño and how will it affect the monsoon? The big problem here is one of uncertainty -about the future path of the monsoon, about the extent of any weakness in rainfall and even the extent of the El Niño phenomenon. “It has been, and still is, very difficult to predict the monsoon and the effect of the El Niño on it,“ points out Balaji Rajagopalan, professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder (US), who has researched the links between the Indian monsoon and the El Niño.
The El Niño Cycle Indeed El Niño, and the role it plays in periodic droughts which hit the Indian subcontinent, was one of the foundational questions that drove modern weather research.
In his book on Victorian famines, writer Mike Davis calls the El Niño Southern Oscillation (or ENSO to give it its full name) the “elusive great white whale of tropical meteorology for almost a century“. And despite more than a century of research, it still, in a sense, remains that way.
El Niño arises in the eastern Pacific, along the coast of South America. In `nor mal' years, there exists both a temperature and air pressure difference between the oceans there, and the western Pacific, thousands of miles on the other side, near Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The waters of the eastern Pacific near South America are colder, and are associated with higher atmospheric air pressure over them, as compared with the waters of the western Pacific which are warmer, and are associated with lower atmospheric pressure.
As we learnt in high school geography, wind always blows from a region of high pressure to a region of low pressure, and this is what happens over the Pacific, with winds blowing from the east to the west. In turn, the air over the western pacific rises into the atmosphere and then cycles back east, and the whole process starts again.
During El Niño, the sea temperatures off the coast of South America are much warmer than in other years. Along with this, the air pressure over it is much weaker as well. This sharply narrows the difference between the western and eastern Pacific, making the cycle much weaker. In a sense the region of low pressure moves away from Asia and towards South America. The Indian monsoon too is affected by this movement of low pressure air away from the Asian region into the middle of the Pacific and is `dragged' away from the Indian land mass. The result: rains and winds over India which are far lower than normal. Indeed, large parts of South and Southeast Asia become drier. Conversely, the Pacific coasts of South America, including countries such as Peru, become much wetter and see much higher rainfall.
This, very broadly, is how El Niño works. In actual fact though, it's hardly that simple.
An Old Puzzle As the chart on the next page (El Niño and the Indian Monsoon...) shows, strong El Niño conditions (the shaded region to the right) usually occur along with a weak monsoon. But note that there have been cases, most notably in 1997, when a very strong El Niño was accompanied by a normal monsoon. “We were anticipating a major disaster in 1997, as El Niño developed, but nothing happened,“ says K Krishna Kumar, a meteorologist currently consulting with the meteorological department in Qatar, but who has been with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology since 1982. Kumar and Rajagopalan were co-authors on a paper in 2006 which pointed to a simple fact: “...severe droughts in India have always been accompanied by El Niño events. Yet El Niño events have not always produced severe droughts“.
The reasons for this complex relationship are still unclear. In 1997 for instance, one possible reason for the normal mon soon, despite a strong El Niño, was another phenomenon, which occurred independently of El Niño.
The mechanism involved was similar to El Niño (a difference in pressures and temperatures between two different parts of the ocean which sets up a cycle of wind movement), except that this time, the cycle didn't occur in the Pacific, but between the western and eastern Indian Ocean. This so-called `Indian Ocean Dipole' (IOD), effectively acted as a counterweight to El Niño, dragging the Indian monsoon back towards the Indian landmass.
This tug-of-war between the El Niño phenomenon, and other separately occurring weather phenomena, makes the complex problem of forecasting a monsoon's strength much more so. “A positive IOD [such as that which occurred '97] can nullify the impact of El Niño,“ points out a senior government scientist. “Forecasters will be looking to see how the IOD will behave this time around as well.“
The 2006 paper pointed to another possible indicator of how strongly El Niño affects the Indian monsoon. It argued that Indian droughts are much more likely to occur in years when the warming effect of El Niño in the Pacific ex tends far beyond the eastern Pacific and into the central Pacific Ocean as well. If true, this means that just knowing the existence of an El Niño phenomenon isn't enough -it's also important to understand exactly which parts of the Pacific Ocean are getting unusually warm.
“However, currently our El Niño prediction models don't have the ability to account for this factor,“ says Kumar.
Adding to the problem is that El Niño doesn't occur before the monsoon -it evolves along with it.
“El Niño is not a predictor of the monsoon,“ says the government scientist. “It co-evolves along with it. They are not two independent systems interacting apart from each other.“
Rajagopalan says: “El Niño is firmly established around September and that's when the correlation between Indian monsoon patterns and El Niño is the strongest.“
Unfortunately of course, govern ments and farmers don't have the luxury of waiting till then to understand the nature of the effect.
Reading the Signs So what will scientists be looking at in the coming weeks? Apart from the direct indicators of the drift in El Niño, as captured through various indices and measures, they will also look for possible phenomena like the IOD that could counteract the adverse effects of El Niño. On that front, the news isn't good -earlier this week Japanese weather forecasters pointed to the possibility of an IOD which could actually reinforce the impact of El Niño, and force monsoon winds and rain away from the Indian subcontinent. “I would also look at incidents like the occurrence of rainfall over the eastern Pacific,“ says Kumar. “Once that happens, it disturbs the monsoon circulation which gets displaced away from the Bay of Bengal. However this has not happened as yet.“
Ultimately though, as Rajagopalan points out, there is no getting away from the complexity. “I don't see monsoon forecasting getting much simpler any time soon. We will have to learn to manage our risks much better in this context.“
The stakes are high enough. As Sulochana Gadgil and Siddhartha Gadgil pointed out in a paper some years back in the Economic and Political Weekly, despite agriculture's share in GDP declining substantially over the past several decades, the impact of severe droughts has remained between 2% and 5% of GDP. The 2002 drought they found, lead to a 15% impact on food grain production. And ironically, they found that while the adverse effects of a drought on GDP remained relatively unchanged, the positive impact of a good monsoon on GDP had actually declined since 1980.
The new government has its work cut out.





In The Shadow of El Niño

Vikram Doctor





Today's leaders are better equipped to handle the meteorological phenomenon unlike their Victorian predecessors who preferred profiteering to famine relief

On February 23, 1900 The Times of India ran a brief item on the increase in exports of hides, bones and horns from drought-devastated Gujarat. A government inspector had taken totals from all the railway stations in the region and come to a total of 139,984 maunds of hides.“Assuming that six hides go to an Indian maund, it is pointed out in the official note that the figures under review must represent a mortality of cattle of more than 800,000,“ wrote the Times, noting that two years back, in 1898, the amount exported was just 6% of this total. The hides went to tanneries and the bones were ground and exported, along with the horns which were used to make glue.
It is hard to underestimate the quantity of misery that underlies this brisk note. Cattle had always been a critical resource for farmers in Gujarat, providing them with dairy proteins in their diet, labour and manure for their fields and perhaps even some surplus income through sale of butter and ghee. In famines many farmers tried to keep feeding their cattle and only let them die in utter extremis.
Tropical Scourge This is the rare fact that Mike Davis does not cite in Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (2002). There can be few other relevant ones not included in this datadriven, yet passionate book. It is packed with tables and maps, and hops from India to China to Brazil and other places in-between, yet makes for gripping reading due to the controlled rage that drives Davis' exploration of how a global climatic event combined with capitalism as practiced by European empires to kill well over 60 million people from 1876 to 1902.
Davis acknowledges that the El Niño Southern Oscillation's (ENSO) impact is now being seen as so huge and wide that it is tempting to go back in history and link it to many historical events, like the French Revolution. But he points out that ENSO's real impact is felt in a fairly well-defined tropical area, and much less in temperate regions beyond (like France). But his point is that it isn't ENSO as much as the response to it which caused “a disaster of truly planetary magnitude, with drought and famine reported as well in Java, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Korea, Brazil, southern Africa and the Maghreb“ quite apart from the epicentres in China and India. ENSO was an enabler, but European empires ruthlessly took up the opportunity.
Davis starts with India where ENSO seems to really flex its muscles first, with failure of the southwest monsoon.
From here the effects fall eastwards, reaching the northeast coast of Brazil as much as two years later. In 1876 the viceroy, Lord Lytton, was a particularly bad choice to deal with problems. He hadn't wanted the job, had no knowledge of India and may have been addicted to opium. But this didn't prevent him being quite focussed on enforcing the economic doctrine of the day, which was a fervent belief in free markets, as long as they worked to the benefit of the British.
Capitalist Conspiracy This wasn't quite how it was expressed.
In the nearly 20 years since the Rising of 1857 the British had been at pains to paint their raj as a force for the benefit of India, compared to the undisciplined looting of the East India Company days.
This was why the telegraph and railways had been built, both of which would assuredly prevent such things like famine deaths by first informing the authorities of the problem and then helping them rush aid there. Indian peasants were being helped to move beyond a subsistence economy by growing cash crops, like cotton, for which Britain provided a ready market.
In 1876 these arguments were shown to be not just hollow, but hypocritical.
Growing cash crops helped the British recover land revenue efficiently, and benefitted traders and moneylenders.
But in a pattern which can still be seen to this day in crops ranging from onions to mangoes, farmers often fail to get the benefits -traders take the bulk of the profit, moneylenders most of what's left and farmers are left more vulnerable for no longer growing even their subsistence crops.
Lytton wasn't just expressing an economic doctrine, but also a broader philosophy that would later try to gain some scientific standing by allying itself with the late Victorian era's great scientific hero, Charles Darwin. Applying his vision of the natural world evolving through a struggle for survival, the social Darwinians, as followers of Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin) would be called, argued that human beings had to struggle and losers were weak and deserved to lose.
Famine relief was seen as a waste because the people who needed it didn't deserve it. “The Gujarati is a soft man...
accustomed to earn his good food easily. Very many, even among the poorest, had never taken a tool in hand in their lives,“ wrote one bureaucrat.
A Few Good Men The older school of British administrators, like the Duke of Buckingham in Madras, tried to resist such policies, but were overruled or eventually fell in line. A striking example was Sir Richard Temple who in Bengal in 1873-74 stopped a famine with rice imported from Burma and doled out in adequate amounts along with dal for protein. But after a viceregal reprimand he changed tacks so completely that when sent as Famine Delegate to South India he decreed a famine ration so small it “provided less sustenance for hard labour than the diet in the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp.“
This was in the camps that the government finally opened. Lytton was forced into this by bad publicity back in the UK.
This came from journals like The Statesman, which deputed a correspondent to cover the famine, but Davis also notes the impact of foreign observers, particularly Americans as missionaries or travellers -like the ex-President Ulysses Grant, whose world tour of 1877-79 ensured his group, including journalists, saw the effects of ENSO in almost every tropical country they visited. They weren't deferential to the British and were truly appalled by what they saw and reported.
The late 19th century ENSO events also resulted in an even more important long-term change -the rise of Indian activists to challenge British rule.
Davis points out how the words of critics like Dadabhai Naoroji, whose paper “The Poverty of India“ came out in 1876, were given weight by the famine, while institutions like the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, which came up to deal with famine in the Deccan, were radicalized by the poor response of the British into taking a more radical route than first envisaged. AO Hume, a British administrator who retired during Lytton's tenure, was moved to help start the Indian National Congress after seeing first hand the negative effects of the hypocrisies of his peers.
Communists Were no Better Much of this was linked to the relief camps. Pushed into starting them, the government made sure these provided little real relief. The camps became very efficient as places to die, thanks to the diseases that spread among the weakened people and the lack of hygiene (another person Lytton ignored was Florence Nightingale, who had long lobbied for better hygiene in India). Lytton retired in 1880, but his legacy was continued by successors like Lord Curzon, who also had to deal with drought stemming from an ENSO event around 18991900, but again allowed thousands to die due to inadequate relief and unrestricted food trading.
Davis is careful to focus blame on the British and not on ENSO. It is easy to assume -and some of this can be seen as we gear ourselves for the current ENSO -that such an unstoppable force inevitably brings death in its wake. But Davis counters this by looking at ENSO-linked droughts before 1876, going back to Mughal times. All these caused hardship, but not on the same scale since farmers were more self-sufficient, followed traditional water conservation techniques and grew grains like drought-tolerant millets.
Davis may be a bit too lyrical in lauding traditional rural practices. They might have withstood drought better, but probably at the expense of weaker sections, like women and Dalits. And it is Amartya Sen despite being vilified as a doctrinaire leftist, who gently criticized Davis in a generally admiring review of his book.
Sen pointed out that capitalism alone can't be blamed for famines, since some of the worst of the 20th century took place under communist regimes. And he points out that technology like railways can be a force for good -it could, and sometimes did bring food to famine hit areas, so it redoubles the blame on the British that often it did not.
Some Winners If Europeans were directly enabled by ENSO, Americans gained indirectly.
North America benefits from ENSO with better rains, and in the period covered by Davis the US recorded bumper harvests. Railroads helped take these to ports, from where they were exported, undercutting grain markets across the world. This contributed to agricultural depression, though some of this grain did come to India as food aid from American churches (much to their fury, the British taxed it).
Perhaps the most important result of the chaos of this period was that it finally helped meteorologists understand ENSO.
Davis details how by the late 19th century the British had weather stations across the world and the data they produced started to be analyzed by scientists like Gilbert Walker who was appointed director-general of observatories in India in 1904. Explaining the recent monsoon failures was high priority and Walker slowly started to identify the patterns of ENSO, though it would take decades before Jacob Bjerknes at UCLA would put most of the pieces in place.
This understanding is what can change our experience of ENSO today.
Its vast scale is unstoppable, but unstoppable should not mean we are unable to respond. Knowing that it is coming makes it all the more important to be prepared. If India's leaders still fumble in their response to ENSO today their fault will be even worse than the failings of those late Victorian viceroys so devastatingly detailed by Davis.

BARC Research Programme in Agriculture 

A huge amount of energy is released by splitting an atom. This energy can be utilized for various peaceful applications. 'Nuclear agriculture' is one such important sector having a major societal impact. Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division (NABTD) of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is involved in broad based research programme in agriculture and allied areas. Nuclear agriculture involving mutation and recombination breeding is one of the core areas of such research. Development of biopesticides for integrated pest management, nutrient formulation for improved fertilizer use efficiency, research on bioregulators, biosensors, and agro-processing are some other areas of research.

Improved Crop Varieties

            Using radiation induced mutations and hybridization, 41 crop varieties such as groundnut, mungbean, blackgram, pigeonpea, soybean, cowpea, mustard, sunflower, rice and jute have been developed and released for commercial cultivation in different agroclimatic zones in the country.

            These varieties are endowed with one or more of improved characters such as higher yield, earliness, large seed size and are stress-resistant. Mutation and recombination breeding in wheat and rice is also being carried out to improve yield and disease resistance. A late flowering mutant in Sesbania has been developed with the potential to produce more biomass under short day conditions and is an excellent material for green manuring.

            The deployment of crop technology and large scale production of breeder seeds of these released varieties is being undertaken through linkages with various Central and State Government Institutions, seed corporations and NGOs. The societal impacts of these varieties are reflected in terms of their enhanced popularity, productivity and extensive cultivation.

Plant Biotechnology

            Micropropagation protocols have been developed for banana, sugarcane, grapes, pineapple, potato, turmeric and ginger. Technology for tissue culture production of banana has been transferred to Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Puducherry and the Maharashtra State Seed Corporation, Akola.

Enzymes and Micro-biotechnology

            Research and development is undertaken on techniques for immobilization of biocatalyst and multi-enzyme complex,  production of enzymes and downstream processing, biosensors, bioremediation of organic and inorganic pollutants like heavy metals, radionucleides, nitrate, phenol and TBP besides bio-nanotechnology and molecular dynamic simulations for understanding protein solvent interactions.

Soil Science and Insect Pest Management

            Farmer friendly soil organic carbon detection kit for the analysis of soil organic carbon on field has been developed and technology transferred for commercial production. Phosphorus fertilizer formulation using single super phosphate, phosphoric and bio-sludge of molasses based distilleries and zinc fertilizer formulation using zinc sulphate heptahydrate and bio-sludge of molasses based distilleries having slow desorption as compared to most prevalent fertilizers like single super phosphate and zinc sulphate have been developed.

‘Nisargruna’ Biogas Technology

A biogas plant named "Nisargruna" has been developed to process kitchen waste. Digested slurry from this plant has good fertilizer value for crops. The biogas plant has the ability to process other forms of organic wastes like pre-soaked grass and even shredded paper. Various Nisargruna plants have been commissioned across the country and are functioning satisfactorily. The biogas technology is rapidly gaining popularity and acceptance from the municipal corporations for disposal of municipal waste.

Indian Farmers Need Income Support, not MSP

During the green revolution, a common message given to the farmers was that the more you sow, the more you produce and hence, more you earn. The result was heavy investment by the farmers on pesticides, fertilizers, seeds and the farming machinery.

However, even after several decades, our farmers are still battling with poverty. The NSSO farm income survey of 2003-04 only confirmed their sorry financial status. More than the surveys, the widespread farmers’ suicide, after the so called economic reforms and liberalization was initiated in 1990s, are graphic proof of their desperate and precarious situation. If the government did not repeat the survey, it must be only to avoid embarrassment.

We all know it very well that today a government peon and even the lowest rank employees earn far more, and without much labor or investment. The minimum support price (MSP), which has been always used to a political tool to charm the farming community, is relevant to only that section of the farming community that has the capacity to take their produce to the mandis. Knowledgeable people say that the vast majority of small farmers (estimated to be well over fifty percent of the farming community) have hardly any surplus to sell. Their efforts, however, help them survive. They are at least self reliant in food; that’s the consolation.

Imagine what would happen if they stop farming tomorrow: their food must be produced by other farmers or be imported. This is a real danger as the current economic policies encourage migration towards the cities. Look at how the agricultural lands around the cities are being given away to real estate developers; thus, shrinking the land area under agriculture. The government must initiate a survey to find out how many farmers have converted themselves into real estate agents in the past 10 – 15 years. That’s has emerged as a new area of business under the current economic policies

The point is: the small farmers do produce wealth. Is there any reason why they should not be compensated? Even the most incompetent government employees are entitled to regular monthly income and retirement benefits as per government rules, so why there is no such policy for the farming community which probably does the most labor intensive work in the country.

Those working with global networks tell a consistent pattern worldwide: there is highlysubsidized farming in the developed countries but the highest level of subsistence farming in the developing countries such as India.

Therefore, the best way to bail out subsistence farmers is to provide them with direct income support as is done in the developed and industrialized countries. The MSP is inherently biased in favor big farmers who form just a minority in India. According to noted trade policy expert, Devinder Sharma, it can be a game changer and will inject a fresh lease of life among the Indian farmers and has the potential to reverse the ciy bound distressed migration. It will also insulate the farmers from the vagaries of the market demand.

The direct income support should be location specific since agriculture costs vary depending upon the geographic area and factors such as the land size, soil quality, water availability and so on. The direct income support policy, however, must not encourage farmers to sit idle, yet keep them away from distress migration.

Why FDI in Retail and Commodity Trading are just a Mirage

It is argued that by eliminating the middlemen the direct purchase from the farmers will raise their income. Another connected idea, commodity trading, is also being much talked about. If they can really augment farmers income, they will go a long way in reducing the agriculture subsidy. These two mechanisms have been operational in the US which is also home of well known retailer, Walmart. Yet, the farmers were given a subsidy of Rs 12.50 lakh crore during 1995 – 2009, claims Devinder Sharma. For instance, cotton farming the US was made economically viable by the income support, and not by Walmart buying or commodity trading. Plainly speaking, commodity trading favors traders and speculators, not farmers.

According to an analysis of 2005, the total production of cotton was worth 3.9 billion dollars but the farmers were paid support of 4.7 billion dollars. On top of it, textile industry was paid 187 million dollars to buy that subsidised cotton. This made the US farmers “efficient” and they priced out the “inefficient” farmers of the West Africa and India’s Vidarbha region. The later lost not because of low productivity, but due to lack of subsidy. The US just can’t afford to cut subsidies, despite championing it for other countries. When it lost a case filed by Brazil, it did not cut its domestic subsidies, but instead started paying 147 million dollar support to the Brazillian farmers.

Schemes for Farmers’ Skill Development and Training

A number of ongoing schemes have an inbuilt component of skill development and training in agriculture sector. Continuous efforts are being made to improve the coverage and quality of these programmes through regular reviews, monitoring and formulation of new strategies. The details of Schemes providing skill development and training for the farmers are given below: Department of Agriculture & Cooperation                                             i.            Support to State Extension Programmes for Extension Reforms:Agriculture Technology Management Agencies (ATMAs) have been set up in 630 rural districts of 28 States & 3 UTs including 22 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The scheme promotes farmers centric extension system by putting inplace  a new institutional arrangement for technology dissemination in the form of Agricultural technology management Agency(ATMA) at district level. The activities taken up under the scheme includes capacity building of extension functionaries and farmers, front line demonstration, exposure visits, kisan melas, farmers group mobilization, farm schools and farmers-scientist interaction. Through these activities, latest agriculture technologies are disseminated to farmers of the country.                                           ii.            National Food Security Mission (NFSM): Amongst different interventions, under NFSM, Farmer Field Schools (FFS) are being implemented on a large scale to provide first-hand information to the farmers in their fields and equip them with necessary skills to enable them to adopt the improved crop production technologies for higher productivity. It involves demonstration of Improved Package of Practices (such as System of Rice Intensification) and promotion of improved varieties/hybrids of wheat, rice & pulses. All the farmers in the Mission areas are eligible for participating in the FFS. It is implemented in the Full Crop Season for a single day in a week or fortnight with total sessions ranging from 8 to 20. FFSs are also being run under Plant Protection Scheme & also under Cotton/Jute Technology Missions.                                         iii.            National Horticulture Mission (NHM): Human Resource Development through training and demonstration is an integral component of the NHM. Under this Mission, training programmesfor the farmers are conducted at district level, State level and outside the State on emerging issues of Horticulture.                                          iv.            Horticulture Mission for North Eastern and Himalayan States (HMNEH): The HMNEH scheme, being run in North Eastern   and Himalayan States, has also got component of transfer of technology through training/exposure visit of farmers.                                           v.            Development and Strengthening of Infrastructure Facilities for Production and Distribution of Quality Seeds: Skill development through training and demonstration is provided for farmers and seed growers on techniques to be adopted for hybrid rice seed production.                                           vi.            Promotion and strengthening of Agriculture Mechanization through Training, Testing and Demonstration:  Information & latest technologies in the field of Agriculture Mechanization are being disseminated to farmers and rural unemployed youth through training programmes and demonstrations.                                         vii.            Post-Harvest Technology and Management:  Assistant is provided to the State governments and other implementing agencies in organising demonstration & trainings on post-harvest technology.                                      viii.            Integrated Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oilpalm and Maize (ISOPOM): Trainings are conducted for farmers for skill development in the area of adopting new technologies related to new varieties, pest management/control and adoption of new package of practices including new implements.  Department of Agricultural Research and Education                                         ix.            Krishi Vigyan Kendras: The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has created a network of 634 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in the country aiming at assessment, refinement and demonstration of technology/products. As part of this process, the KVKs also organize a number of training programmes to update the knowledge and skills of farmers.             This information was given today by Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, ShriTariq Anwar  in a written reply to Rajya Sabha questions. Steps to Support Small & Marginal Farmers As per Agriculture Census 2010-11, land holdings of less than two hectare, cultivated by small and marginal farmers (many of whom are below poverty line), constitute about 85% of total land holdings in India. Considering the importance of this segment in agriculture sector, due attention has been given to it in formulation and implementation of various schemes/programmes of the Government. Government is taking all possible steps for the welfare of the farming community and to make agriculture sector an attraction vocation. Plan outlay of Centre for Agriculture for XII Plan period has been substantially increased to Rs.1,34,746 crore as against Rs.61,527.90 crore during XI Plan period. The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation has budget provision of Rs.21,609 crore for the year 2013-14. During the year 2011-12 and 2012-13, the budget provisions were Rs.17,122 crore and Rs.20208 crore, respectively. Important schemes/programmes being implemented for the welfare of farmers, and particularly the small and marginal ones, are Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, National Food Security Mission, Integrated Scheme for Farmers’ Income Security (including covering risks through insurance cover), Price Support Scheme (PSS), Market Intervention Scheme (MIS), National Horticulture Mission, Funding of Farmer Producer’s Organisations, Self Help Groups of Small & Marginal Farmers for achieving benefits of economies of scale, Augmentation of Extension Services, Crop diversification etc. Small and marginal farmers are especially encouraged to form aggregates to avail the benefits of economies of scale in sourcing the inputs and for marketing their produce. Farmers are being provided inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, farm machinery and implements etc. at subsidized rates. Farmers are also provided Institutional Credit at concessional interest rate of 4% on farm loans provided they repay their loan in time. Government has approved, in principle, the restructuring of the schemes/programmes into five Missions, five Centrally Sponsored Schemes and one State plan Scheme for implementation from the year 2014-15 in order to have focused approach and to avoid overlap. This information was given today by Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Shri Tariq Anwar in a written reply to Rajya Sabha questions. Technologies Evolved for Preparation of Enriched Manures From Organic Wastes The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has developed technologies for preparation of enriched/vermi composts/manures from various rural and urban wastes such as crop residues, agro industrial wastes, city garbage, forest litters etc. These have been tested and found useful in improving soil health and crop productivity. The Government through National Project on Management of Soil Health and Fertility (NPMSHF) and National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF) is promoting use of composts/manures in the country. Farmers are being educated on this aspect through training and demonstrations. The Government is providing financial assistance for setting up of organic inputs (Manure) production units as back-ended subsidy by NABARD to the tune of 33% restricted to Rs.60.00 lakh for setting up of Fruit/Vegetable market Waste/Agro-waste compost units. Steps to Mitigate Hardship Faced by Farmers Government has announced several packages to mitigate the hardship faced by farmers including Rehabilitation Package of Rs.19998.85 crore covering 31 suicide prone districts in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra, Package of Rs.1840.75 crore for development of Kuttanad Wetland Eco-system in Kerala, Package of Rs.764.45 crore for mitigating agrarian distress in Idukki district of Kerala, Bundelkhand Special Package of Rs.7266 crore for drought mitigation and Vidarbha Intensified Irrigation Development Programme (VIIDP) with total allocation of Rs.3250 crore from 2012-13 to 2016-17. Government has also taken several other steps to revitalize the agriculture sector and improve condition of farming community on sustainable basis by increasing investment, improving farm practices, rural infrastructure and delivery of credit, technology and other inputs, extension, marketing, etc. Various programmes/schemes for the development of agriculture sector are being implemented in a decentralized manner with flexibility to State Governments to formulate and implement appropriate projects to suit their specific requirements. The focus of Government is primarily on expansion of farm income, creation of non-farm income opportunities, improvement in productivity of rainfed agriculture, increasing coverage of farming areas under protective irrigation and forging appropriate backward and forward linkages. Other measures taken by the Government for the benefit of farmers include enhancement in minimum support prices of agricultural commodities, increase in credit flow to agriculture sector, debt waiver/relief, interest subvention on crop loans, revival package for strengthening Short Term Rural Cooperative Credit Structure.  National Monsoon Mission Government has launched the National Monsoon Mission to set up a state-of-the-art coupled ocean-atmospheric climate model for a) improved prediction of monsoon rainfall on extended range to seasonal time scale (16 days to one season) and b) improved prediction of temperature, rainfall and extreme weather events on short to medium range time scale (up to 15 days). The mission is envisaged to achieve the operational implementation of the state-of-the art dynamical prediction system for more accurate monsoon rainfall prediction on all spatial and time scales over the Indian region. The improved system will help us in issuing more accurate short range forecasts (up to 3 days) and warnings for extreme weather events like heavy rainfall events, active (heavy) and break (weak) spells during the monsoon season in advance and more accurate seasonal forecasts for all-India monsoon rainfall. An allocation for the mission is Rs. 400.0crores for a period of 5 years (2012-2017). Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Shri S.Jaipal Reddy gave this information in reply to a written question in the Lok Sabha Sabha today.  Polavaram Dam Project in Andhra Pradeshm As per the information furnished by the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP), the works of Polavaram project of Andhra Pradesh were commenced in October 2004 and are programmed to be completed by June, 2018. In Andhra Pradesh, there will be submergence of 276 villages and 38694 hectare of land affecting a population of 177275. In Odisha, there will be submergence of 4 villages and 648.05 hectare of land with a population of 6316 being affected. In Chhattisgarh, there will be submergence of 8 villages and 795.59 hectare of land with a population of 11766 being affected. As per the information furnished by the State Government, they have sanctioned an amount of Rs.2051.52 crore towards implementation of R&R for the Project Affect Families due to the project. Protective embankments, to be provided by GoAP along rivers Sabari and Sileru in the territories of Odisha and Chhattisgarh, are expected to avoid any submergence and displacement of peoples in these States. Embankments are proposed for a length of 30.0 km (i.e. 11.0 km along river Sileru and 19.0 km along river Sabari) in Odisha and for a length of 29.12 km along river Sabari in Chhattisgarh. GoAP has agreed to provide the protective embankments at a cost of Rs. 621.64 crore. This information was given by Union Water Resources Minister Shri Harish Rawat in written reply to a written question in the Rajya Sabha today. Sardar Sarovar Project The Prime Minister has received letters dated January 17, 2011, May 17, 2011, June 21, 2011, August 3, 2013 from Chief Minister of Gujarat regarding Sardar Sarovar Project- considering DDP area at par with DPAP under AIBP Scheme; The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the continuation of the scheme of Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme (AIBP) for 12th Plan in September 2013. As per the approval, for the purpose of determining the quantum of assistance, a project benefiting Desert Development Programme (DDP) area/Desert Prone Area (DPA) will be treated on a par with those benefiting DPAP areas. The ongoing projects already under AIBP and benefiting Desert Development Programme /Desert Prone Area will continue to get Central Assistance @ 25%. As such Sardar Sarovar Project, which is an ongoing project already under AIBP and benefiting Desert Development Programme /Desert Prone Area, will be eligible for Central Assistance @ 25%.  Central sector integrated scheme on agricultural cooperation during 12th five year plan The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the implementation of the Central sector integrated scheme on agricultural cooperation with an outlay of Rs. 920.088 crore during the 12th Plan. This scheme is a result of the merger of two erstwhile schemes of the 11th Plan namely, (i) the restructured central sector scheme for assistance to National Cooperation Development Corporation (NCDC) – Programmes for Development of Cooperatives and (ii) the Central sector scheme for Cooperative Education and Training. The financial assistance to the two components are Rs.802 crore and Rs.118.088 crore respectively. The implementation of the scheme would yield following benefits: • Streamlining the cooperative marketing structure. • Diversification of activities. • Capacity building of cooperatives to undertake value addition. • Enabling cooperatives to have storage/cold storage facilities. • Undertake business operations. • Improving activities in allied areas such as dairy, poultry, fishery, coir, handloom and sericulture. • Involving grass-root level cooperatives in integrated area development. • Helping cooperatives in the least/under developed states and those of weaker sections through special programmes and schemes. • Providing appropriate managerial and technical inputs besides manpower development and training etc Continuation of ongoing State Plan scheme of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) during 12th Five Year Plan The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the continuation of the ongoing state Plan Scheme of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) in the 12th Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17) with an outlay of Rs 63,246 crore as follows : (a) RKVY Production Growth with 35 percent annual outlay for projects and interventions to raise production and productivity in agriculture and allied sectors. (b) RKVY Infrastructure and Assets with 35 percent outlay for filling gaps in agricultural infrastructure in States. (c) RKVY Special Schemes with 20 percent outlay for funding focused national priorities as notified by the Government of India from time to time. (d) 10 percent as RKVY flexi fund for State specific needs/priorities. One of the basic objectives of RKVY is to incentivize investments in agriculture and allied sectors by linking state wise allocation of RKVY funds to the increased share of State plan expenditure in agriculture and allied sectors. This has helped in stepping up allocation to agriculture and allied sectors as a percentage of total State Plan expenditure from 4.88 percent in 2006-07 to 6.04 percent in 2011-12 (RE) and 6.33 percent during 2012-13(BE). The agriculture and allied sectors grew at 3.64 percent annually during the 11th Plan as against 2.46 percent per annum in the 10th Plan. Background: The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) is a continuing scheme under implementation from the 11th Five Year Plan period. RKVY is a State plan scheme that provides considerable flexibility` and autonomy to States in planning and executing programmes for incentivizing investment in agriculture and allied sectors. During the 11th Plan, States have taken up 5768 projects across the entire spectrum, such as crop development, horticulture, agricultural mechanisation, marketing and post-harvest management, animal husbandry, dairy development, fisheries, extension, etc., out of which 3228 projects have already been completed.  Promoting Organic Farming in the Country The Government is promoting organic farming through various schemes like National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF), National Horticulture Mission (NHM), Horticulture Mission for North East & Himalayan States (HMNEH), National Project on Management of Soil Health and Fertility (NPMSH&F) Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and also Network Project on Organic Farming of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Under National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF) scheme, assistance upto 25% and 33% of financial outlay upto a ceiling of Rs.40 lakhs and Rs.60 lakhs respectively is provided as back ended subsidy through NABARD for establishment of bio pesticides/bio-fertilizers production units and agro waste compost production units respectively. Besides, under National Horticulture Mission (NHM) and Horticulture Mission for North East & Himalayan States (HMNEH), financial assistance is provided for setting up vermi-compost production units @ 50% of the cost subject to a maximum of Rs.30,000/- per beneficiary, for adoption of organic farming @ Rs.10000/- per hectare for maximum area of 4 hectare per beneficiary and for organic farming certification @ Rs.5.00 lakh for a group of farmers covering an area of 50 hectares, assistance for promotion of organic farming on different components are also available under Rashtriya Kisan Vikas Yojana (RKVY). Further, under National Project on Management of Soil Health Fertility (NPMSH&F) financial assistance of Rs.500 per hectare is provided to promote use of organic manure. The financial assistance is provided on basis of project proposals received from States.  National Crop Insurance Programme being Implemented from Current Rabi Season             A new central sector scheme, ‘National Crop Insurance Programme’ (NCIP) has been introduced by merging Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (MNAIS), Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) and Coconut Palm Insurance Scheme (CPIS) throughout the country from Rabi 2013-14.             Administrative Approval for implementing NCIP from Rabi 2013-14 has been issued on 1st November, 2013.             NCIP has been introduced to provide financial support to the farmers for losses in their crop yield, to help in maintaining flow of agricultural credit, to encourage farmers to adopt progressive farming practices and higher technology in Agriculture and thereby, to help in maintaining production, employment & economic growth. Besides, farmers are also benefitted due to: - ·         coverage of indemnity for prevented sowing/planting risk and post harvest losses (due to cyclone in coastal areas), ·         higher level of indemnity and more proficient basis for calculation of threshold yield, ·         faster settlement of claims due to provision for making  50% advance of likely claims under MNAIS component for immediate relief to the farmers, etc. ·         To encourage the State Governments to implement the scheme at village/ village panchayat level, a provision to reimburse 50% of incremental expenses on Crop Cutting Experiments has been made in the scheme. Unit area of insurance has been reduced to the village/village panchayat level in the restructured scheme of ‘National Crop Insurance Programme’ (NCIP).  Continued efforts are made to create awareness about crop insurance schemes by the implementing agencies in coordination with implementing states.   The salient activities under awareness campaign, involve the publicity of features & benefits of the scheme through advertisements in leading National/local News Papers, telecast through audio-visual media, distribution of pamphlets, participation in agriculture fairs / mela / gosti , organization of workshops/ trainings and SMS through Kisan Portal etc. Approval of the National Mission on Agricultural Extension and Technology The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the implementation of the National Mission on Agricultural Extension and Technology (NMAET) during the 12th Plan period.   The extension of NMAET and its components will be expanded and up-scaled appropriately and implemented in a more coordinated and convergent manner. The Mission will have a total outlay of Rs. 13073.08 crore, with Government of India’s share of Rs. 11390.68 croreand State share of Rs.1682.40 crore. NMAET consists of 4 Sub Missions: (i)                 Sub Mission on Agricultural Extension (SMAE) (ii)               Sub-Mission on Seed and Planting Material (SMSP) (iii)             Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM) (iv)             Sub Mission on Plant Protection and Plant Quarantine (SMPP) Agricultural Technology, including the adoption/ promotion of critical inputs, and improved agronomic practices were being disseminated under 17 different schemes of the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation during the 11th Plan. The Modified Extension Reforms Scheme was introduced in 2010 with the objective of strengthening extension machinery and utilizing it for synergizing interventions under these schemes under the umbrella of the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA). The NMAET has been envisaged as the next step towards this objective through the amalgamation of these schemes.   The    Mission    Document   has   been   prepared    in   keeping   with   the recommendations of the Working Group of the Planning Commission and suggestions and inputs   received from  extensive  consultation  with stakeholders,  particularly farmers. Urea may be shifted to nutrient-based subsidy regime Buried in the Budget fine print is another big-ticket reform. The documents reveal that the Modi government plans to increase the administered price for urea “immediately” and move to a new nutrient-based urea policy. The Centre’s subsidy policy is widely blamed for the overuse of urea on Indian farms. Urea is the only fertilizer that remains under statutory price control and its maximum retail price is fixed by the government. The difference between production cost and the administered concessional price is allowed as subsidy. For the purpose of the calculation of the subsidy element, the Fertilizer Ministry, in consultation with manufacturers, determines the production cost for every urea plant separately. As a result, the manufacturers’ lobby is opposed to reform. The other fertilizers were brought under the nutrient-based subsidy regime by the previous government by which subsidy is not paid to the manufacturer on the basis of the production cost. Instead, the quantity sold is taken into account. The Modi government’s decision to bring urea under the nutrient-based subsidy regime assumes significance as the reform was first proposed by the Manmohan Singh government. The United Progressive Alliance shifted other fertilizers to the new subsidy regime but not urea owing to the then Fertilizer Minister M.K. Alagiri’s resistance to the reform. Saying that his Ministry’s proposal for fertilizers to be shifted to the new subsidy regime had ended up including urea also without his knowledge as he did not understand either English or Hindi, Mr. Alagiri had the Cabinet approve the reform for all fertilizers but urea. As a result, urea is the only fertilizer that continues to be subject to price distribution and movement control under the Fertilizer Control Order issued under the Essential Commodities Act. If the Modi government bites the bullet on urea subsidy, Finance Ministry officials estimate, the resultant fertilizer subsidy savings this year could be about Rs. 20,000 crore, enough to enable Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley meet the challenging fiscal deficit target.