Dr. D. Y.
Patil Arts Commerce & Science College
GEOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT
(General)
Topic- Challenges to Sustainable Agriculture in India
SYBA Sem-3
Name- Abhisweeta Das
Class- Syba, sem-3
Roll no-143
INTRODUCTION
Arguably, the Green Revolution remains the most defining phase of Indian
agriculture in the last century. An input-intensive and technology-focused
approach helped India avert potential famines and meet its food security needs
by reducing food imports. While the Green Revolution has ensured India’s self-
sufficiency for our cereal needs and has touched most Indian farmers, its long-
term impacts are now visibly evident. Be it degrading topsoil, declining
groundwater levels, contaminating water bodies, and reducing biodiversity.
Crop yields are unable to sustain themselves without increased fertiliser use.
Fragmented land holdings and associated low farm incomes are pushing many
smallholders towards non-farm economic activities. Maturing climate change
science is making it evident that input-intensive agriculture is both a contributor
and a victim of climate change.
Sustainable agriculture: a promising way-forward?
In the face of increasing extreme climate events—acute and frequent
droughts, floods, desert locust attacks—examples of resilience are emerging
from the ground, highlighting sustainable agriculture’s potential. For instance,
in Andhra Pradesh, during the Pethai and Titli cyclones of 2018, the crops
cultivated through natural farming showed greater resilience to heavy winds
than conventional crops. While such examples are emerging, the overall
understanding of the state of sustainable agriculture at a pan-India level is
missing.
Sustainable agriculture: terminologies and the agroecology lens
It is important to understand what ‘sustainable agriculture’ is before
identifying specific sustainable agricultural practices. As a concept, sustainable
agriculture is dynamic with wide variations in its definition and practice. In our
efforts to reconcile the concept, we encountered almost 70 definitions of the
term.
With increasing extreme climate events, examples of crop resilience are
emerging from the ground, highlighting sustainable agriculture’s potential
concepts of sustainable agriculture. Let us consider the Google search trends
of the last 15 years. Organic farming is the most popular term, followed by
sustainable agriculture, agro-ecology, natural farming, and then regenerative
agriculture.
CHALLENGES TO SUSTAINABLE
AGRICULTURE IN INDIA
➢ Agriculture is the main source of livelihood in rural India, which
is home to 75% of the nation’s poor. Though it provides
livelihoods to more than half of India’s workforce, the sector
contributes to less than one-fifth of the country’s GDP. The per
capita income of farmers is a fraction of the national average.
Such low incomes are a result of a deteriorating natural resource
base, disconnected value chains, fragmented landholdings, weak
infrastructure, inadequate knowledge and multiple
intermediaries. A majority of the farmers are trapped in a vicious
cycle of low productivity and low investments.
➢ Though technological solutions can be found to address the
challenges of low productivity, the critical problem lies in making
the farmer capable of implementing them. Transfer of
technology, including know how and information, customisation
and capacity building are crucial in empowering the farmer to
raise productivity and adopt sustainable agricultural practices.
Given the complexity of geographical spread, diversity of crops
and the large number of farmers involved in agriculture,
innovative models of engagement are essential to ensure robust
sustainable agricultural practices as well as avenues for
livelihood creation.
➢ Such innovation need to address some of the inherent conflicts
in the agricultural sector. Some of the conflicts that need to be
resolved are as follows:
▪ Food vs fuel/fibre/fodder: Competing land usage
▪ Today’s vs tomorrow’s income: Building capacity to enhance
risk appetite to invest for long-term benefits
▪ Consumer vs farmer: Producing what the consumer demands
vs consuming what the farmer produces
▪ Market vs government: Well-meaning government
interventions that may lead to market distortions.
➢ In the modern context, the private sector can play a vital and
complementary role in ensuring an increase in agricultural
productivity. Investments by large agri businesses can ensure
coordination of the availability of inputs, facilitation of finance
for crops and capital investments and augmentation of
resources. This will enable the delivery of customised extension
services to improve productivity through technology, regenerate
and enrich land fertility, enable better usage of scarce water
resources and adopt best practices in crop management.
➢ Apart from the lack of fiscal incentives, sizeable investments are
today unviable for large agri businesses due to constraints like
non-implementation of the ‘Model APMC’ Act recommended by
the Centre. The Act facilitates a direct interface between farmers
and agri businesses and helps in reducing transaction costs.
There is also a lack of cohesiveness in licenses required for agri
input sales. For instance, each input like seeds, nutrients, and
crop protection chemicals is governed by a separate Act, making
it cumbersome especially for companies working across
geographies.
➢ In addition, the Essential Commodities Act imposes an undue
burden as it restricts volumes that agri businesses can buy or
stock, besides transportation and exports, further affecting the
viability of agri businesses. Similar limitations are also imposed
by the Forward Contracts (Regulation) Act. While it is
acknowledged that strong regulation is necessary to curb
excessive speculation, the Act doesn’t allow sufficient flexibility
for genuine players and deprives them of critical risk
management tools, such as options.
➢ ITC operates across the agri value chain of 13 crops and is
present in 17 states with substantial investments in resource
intensive models that entail heavy capital infrastructure. These
agri value chains that have empowered over 4 million farmers
have been severely constrained by such restrictive regulations
that do not distinguish between genuine agri businesses and
unscrupulous hoarders.
➢ Policy reforms in the agriculture sector need to cognise for
several conflicting needs mentioned above that impact the value
chain from the farmer to consumer.
➢ There is also need for an enabling policy framework that boosts
the provision of rural infrastructure so that wastage can be
eliminated and farmers can receive better returns.
CONCLUSION
Increasing population and related food demand always remain
the most imperative challenges for the developing world. It
could only be attained by an increased agricultural production
based on external inputs like mineral fertilizers and pesticides
during the twentieth century. The green revolution-based
modern agricultural practices have resulted in the substantial
increase in grain yield at the cost of natural resource
degradation. The externalisation of agriculture led to a
considerable decline in soil fertility and environmental
resilience. It calls for a different approach which should educate
the farmers to utilise their traditional knowledge to produce
more grains using less external inputs. This approach is known
as sustainable agriculture which is the need of the hour, at
present. The sustainable agriculture practices are derived from
the amalgamation of traditionally adapted healthy practices
with a modern development of agricultural systems. Thus,
sustainable agricultural practices are supposed to be resource-
conservative and resilient to the present climate change
scenario. Moreover, a higher proportion of traditional inputs
either in the form of resources or the knowledge may
encompass the socio-economic balance among different
societies. In this review, a brief insight has been given on the
concept of sustainable agriculture, its need in the present
scenario and a critical assessment in terms of challenges and
opportunities for overall sustainability in developing nations by
considering India as a model country. How the integration of
traditional knowledge and modern agriculture practices will
improve the agricultural productivity, soil quality and health as
well as socio-economic balance, has also been discussed in terms
of research opportunities.
