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This slow growth has depleted the country's food stock and forced the government to import 5 million tons of wheat. With no more land to farm and some land already depleted, this miracle is not easy to achieve. Science and technology have to play a big role. High-yield seeds, private sector involvement and expenditures on long-stalled irrigation schemes are key to achieving higher production.
Population growth in India is 1.8 to 2.2 percent per year. This growing population and slow rate of agricultural growth will produce an alarming situation in the next five to eight years. The food self-sufficiency of the 1990s will be a forgotten achievement. Shortages will loom. Famines may not visit India, but shortages will visibly shake the national confidence. To quote an old Chinese saying: "When the price of rice goes far beyond what a common man can pay, heaven ordains a new ruler."
Agrarian distress is much worse than industrial unrest. It ejected the otherwise well-run government of the National Democratic Alliance in 2004. Farmer suicides and other agrarian issues lost votes for the NDA. The situation is no different today, except that timely rains this year have brightened the prospects for the wheat crop. Still, that is not likely to keep the issue from the forefront in the coming federal elections.
To strengthen the gains of the first Green Revolution (1970-1990), a second phase is necessary. The first Green Revolution succeeded because of the availability of a variety of "miracle wheat," electricity at the farms and land reforms. The triumvirate of Indira Gandhi plus agriculture specialists M.S. Swaminathan and G.S. Venkatraman provided the leadership. With its success, the begging bowl stereotype of India in the West was laid to rest and a new India was born, still poor but confidant, providing outsourcing services to the world in fields of information, business and knowledge. There was a 15-year respite from bad news on the agricultural front, and grain was exported in quantity.
We in the West, of Indian heritage, who still prefer Indian rice and pulses -- basmati and daal -- loved to purchase all things Indian. Now we are reading about depleted food reserves in India, and wheat arriving from Australia. Luckily, rains in February and March mean it may not be necessary to import a full 5 million tons of wheat to make up for a shortfall in grain this year. However, the issue is not only today, but what is likely to happen over the next 10 years if agricultural production remains sluggish.
The government of India is back to square one in terms of what needs to be done to trigger higher agricultural growth in India. The second Green Revolution must be a high-end initiative with both federal and state governments as full participants.
It will also require genetically modified (GM) seeds to double the per-acreage production; development and marketing of GM foods by the private sector; and links between rivers in areas with surplus water to those with a water shortage, to provide adequate irrigation.
Farmers must also make a significant contribution. They must advance beyond the ancient mode of peasant farmers on small land holdings and become businessmen who trade in agricultural products. Like any other businessmen, they must seek economical ways to boost productivity and increase their profit. The practice of dividing land holdings among many children, after a father passes away, has depleted the economic viability of farms. Farm economics have to be revisited and viable farms re-established. Continued dependency on government bailouts during a crisis has to be minimized. The less the government is involved, the more likely it is that controls and state trading in grains will be eliminated. This requires farmers to become responsible businessmen.
Consumers have to grow up a bit also. Genetically modified foods are here to stay. They are the salvation of a rapidly increasing population. Opposition to GM food in India is wholly politically motivated. This must end in favor of adopting new techniques to boost productivity. Forty years back, a similar political lobby opposed the introduction of Mexican wheat to India. This in fact began the first Green Revolution. Today, the results of this variety of wheat are wonderful. Now a similar campaign to demonize GM food is under way. Believe it or not, some of these well-tried concepts could be India's ultimate salvation.
GM food is new and the concept is not well understood, especially in India. Information about it is faulty. Everyone who opposes the United States in one way or another has contributed to the tirade against it. But GM food is an American private innovation; governments had nothing to do with it. The private sector invented and marketed it. Today a significant amount of the food consumed daily in North America is GM food. Genetic modification is about improving a crop's yield, pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, etc. It will improve the yield from a field by 25 to 50 percent. It is something every farmer would wish to have. It is something a consumer would wish to have -- pest- free food on the dinner table. Shortages would cease to exist.
There is definitely a health risk with GM food. Because it is a recent innovation, its long-term impact on the human body is not well understood. But North American consumers have been the best laboratory, having been consuming it for the last 15 years. They will be the first to feel any untoward effects. The production of GM crops in the United States over the past 10 years has increased 50 times. In India, the yield of maize, oil seeds, fruits and vegetables, soybeans and wheat will dramatically increase. Other beneficiaries will be cotton, potatoes, onions, etc.
Building on this success in the United States, in 2005 a US$100-million initiative, the U.S.-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative was signed, with the precise intention of bringing a second Green Revolution to India. Its details are not well known. One reason for this secrecy is the political sensitivities in India. Without knowing the details or analyzing the benefits, people who oppose it have called it an Indian sell-out to American corporate interests. Even if only 20 percent of the land comes under GM cultivation in India, it will add 30 to 60 million tons of additional food. Not only that, farmers on these parcels of lands will be lifted out of poverty. This is just the beginning. Fifteen years hence, GM food may lead the way to lift all the rural population out of poverty.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. @Copyright Hari Sud.)
