Save Indian Agriculture
Reorder Agriculture S&T
Strengthen Rural Extension
Promote Practices of Ecological Farming
AIPSN
Sources
of growth of agriculture and allied sectors have been changing right from the
independence. In the years after independence, India was in a
difficult situation to meet the domestic food needs. Much of the food was
imported. A concerted approach of technology, institutions and policy support
made India food self-sufficient and also brought in prosperity in some rural
areas. The focus on improving food production by improving productivity by
intensive use of chemicals, water and responsive cultivars proved successful
for some time. But now for several years it has been evident that by persisting
with the same approach to technology of crop production the policymakers are
imposing a great amount of economic burden on the peasantry and rural labour.
In agriculture, in the absence of appropriate correctives being made in the
practice of science and technology, there is the challenge of ecological crisis
growing at a rapid pace in certain parts of the country in the form of soil
deterioration, falling groundwater levels, increased chemical use in
agriculture impacting on environment and human health.
The
economics of agriculture has become unfavourable for the farmer. Particularly
the risks for the poor and middle peasants are becoming greater. The
contribution of agriculture to GDP gradually decreased and today we stand at about 14%. While many of the sectors have grown faster,
agriculture has not grown sufficiently and real incomes to farmers are coming
down leading to indebtedness and poverty. Area cultivated both in term of net
sown are and gross sown area has shown a decline in the post reform period due
to urbanisation, industrialisation and marginalization of land holdings which
had an impact on growth on agricultural production. Yield which played a significant role in the
growth of agriculture during 80’s due to spread effects of green revolution has
come down during 90’s with the advent of neo liberal policies due to reduction
in public investment on irrigation and seeds, technology and extension has
greatly affected yield. The engine of agricultural output during post
reform period is cropping pattern. It is observed that, there is a shift in cropping pattern towards from food grains to
commercial crops due to favourable prices and terms of trade but these factors turned
negative which had significant effect on growth of agriculture.
There
are number factors contributed for the slowdown in growth of agriculture in
addition to reduction in
public investment. Volatile output prices, reduction of subsidies on inputs,
dependency on high cost inputs increased cost of cultivation which was not
backed by adequate credit supply on the one hand and on the other hand crop
failures and faulty remunerative prices affected whole peasant community and
pushed them into debts. The NSS 59th round Survey on Indebtedness of Farmer Households
conducted in 2003 reported that48.6% of farmer households were indebted. The poorer sections among the
peasantry, especially the small and marginal farmers and the agricultural
labourers, who constitute the vast majority of the Indian population, are the
worst sufferers. As per the National Commission for Enterprises in Unorganized
Sector report (NCEUS,
2007), real incomes of farmers have stagnated, with the average being Rs.1650
per family per month. This study also made evident that the average family
expense in the villages is Rs.2150 per month; even at such below-poverty-level
consumption, the average family still spends more than it earns, thus getting
into debt.
Finally,
all sectors in agriculture and sections among the peasantry are affected by the
deepening agrarian crisis. The severe crisis in agriculture is pushing farmers
to move out of farming. The 2011 census data show
People depending on agriculture has come down from 69.43% to 54.6% in last
60yrs. During 2001-11 about 86.10 lakh
people have left farming in India which is about 2358/day. While farmers or children of farmer leaving
farming for better opportunities is always welcome, the worrisome issue is the
most of them are ending up as casual agriculture workers. For the first time 2011 census have recorded
agriculture labour numbers have surpassed the numbers of cultivator both in
absolute numbers and in proportion.
Among the 54.6% of people depending on agriculture 29.9% (144.3 m) are
agriculture labour and 24.64% (118.7 m) are cultivators. The farmer suicides are another extreme symptom of such crisis. As per
the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB, 2012) 2, 84,694 farmers have committed
suicide in the last eighteen years.
While
we need to expand the non-farm sector in the rural areas to provide employment
to more people from agriculture, but this cannot be done without putting
agriculture in good health. Non-farm employment has not been growing at the
required pace to absorb people from agriculture at a significant level. The figures show that the net
new jobs created in the economy during 2004-05 to 2009-10 is only 2 million
while the working age population has increased by 55 million. Therefore,
while we make efforts to expand other sectors of the economy, we also need to
ensure sufficient incomes from farm and off-farm activities, in order to
prevent major distress in the farming community.
During
the last three Five Year plans, recognizing the importance of the Agriculture
sector, much effort has been made by the Government to boost the growth in
agriculture. We have seen the improvement from 2.5% growth rate during the 9th
Plan (1997-02) and 10th Plan (2002-07) to 3.2% in the 11th
Plan period (2007-12) and the target of 4% growth in Agricultural GDP has not
been met. The Approach
Paper to the coming 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) recognizes that a one per
cent growth emanating from the agriculture sector would be at least two to
three times more effective in reducing poverty than the same growth coming from
non-agriculture sectors.
Therefore,
firstly, we should recognize that a boost to the agriculture sector is very
important to the entire economy. Secondly, the problem is not just production
but the income levels of the farmers. If the income levels improve, it will
directly reduce the levels of rural poverty. Furthermore, the increased purchasing
power will also boost the entire economy.The
very first chapter of the National Policy for Farmers which was adopted by the
Government in 2007 is titled “Need for Policy Reorientation.” It says, “There
is a need to focus more on the economic well-being of the farmers, rather than
just on production... The aim of the Policy is, therefore, to stimulate
attitudes and actions which should result in assessing agricultural progress in
terms of improvement in the income of farm families, not only to meet their
consumption requirements but also to enhance their capacity to invest in farm
related activities.”
About 83 per cent of holdings
are less than two hectares in size and together they account for a little more
than 40 per cent of the cultivated area, contributing roughly half of the value
of agricultural output. Where they lose out is in marketing,
as the top end of the value chain (organized retailing and processing) is
consolidating and scaling up, while farm holdings are still fragmenting.This can be addressed by getting small farmers
organized in clusters as cooperatives or farmer producer organizations (FPOs),
get into value addition and link up with processors and organized retailers.
This was achieved under the AMUL model in case of milk and needs to be
replicated for most other high value perishable commodities such as fruits and
vegetables, poultry and meat products.
This will bring plenty of rural off-farm and non-farm employment
opportunities which in turn will improve the incomes and livelihood
opportunities for the rural poor.
Remunerative prices are a major issue for farmers – to get sufficient
incomes, there should be sufficient margins above the cost of cultivation. Many
issues remain with regard to the system of fixing and delivering of the Minimum Support Prices (MSPs).
In many cases, the CACP data itself shows, the Farm Harvest Prices are higher
than the Minimum Support Prices for many of the crops. Though the MSPs are being now announced in
nearly 25 crops, the procurement operations happen only in a few. Therefore,
for many of the major crops, the MSPs do not always deliver. The situation of crops which are left to
markets is much worse. Currently the input subsidies are embedded in certain
products purchased from the market like chemical fertilizers. With the frequent increases in petroleum
prices, the costs of fertilizers are also going up making them unaffordable by
farmers. With declining petroleum reserves and potassium reserves, it is high
time we look for more sustainable methods in agriculture and create newer
support systems around them.
Although
there are certain limitations on the front of increasing the prices of
agricultural commodities, particularly on food items considering the needs of
the consumers and industry, but the government can look at the option of farmer
income support policy to take care of the issue of incentives to peasantry for
technology adoption, higher production and environmental corrections.
Developments in WTO on the subsidy front do also suggest that in order to
protect the concern of food security and farmer income protection the country
needs to shift away from complete dependence in respect of the input subsidies
and output support on the subsidy side and the policy of pricing of farm
produce on the income side.
Major policy changes are needed in order to
improve the quality of life of farmers. The new policy should focus on bringing
economic sustainability in farming ensuring secure incomes. The policy should
address the question of distress among farmers and generate a positive dynamic
by enabling farmers to make positive investments into agriculture, by
increasing their purchasing power, and by retaining more youth in the rural
areas.
Ensuring
Income Security to Farmers
The
goal of all policies supporting agriculture should be to create an environment
where farmers can economically and ecologically sustain farming.
Farmers
Income Commission: A Farmers Income Commission should be established a
statutory body which periodically (once in three to five years) assess the real
incomes of the farmers taking into account the costs of cultivation, prices,
subsidies and other support systems to farmers and their costs of living and
suggest measures to governments to ensure at least minimum living incomes to
all farming households – including tenants, sharecroppers and agricultural
workers. The main function of the Farmers Income Commission should be to
recommend and ensure that the policy measures be implemented to assure income
security to farming households. The minimum living incomes can be arrived at
using the same guiding principles which Pay Commissions’ use while assessing
and recommending salary structure to employees. AIPSN supports the demands for
the introduction of:
a. Minimum
income: to
cover the living costs taking the average consumption units (three in case of
urban areas which can be five in case of rural areas.
The minimum living income recommended by the Farmers Income Commission should
be indexed to inflation and be corrected every year taking into account any
changes in costs of cultivation, prices, support to farmers etc. which impact
on farmers’ incomes.
b.
Attachment benefit: The package should
provide enough incentive to retain the (brightest) people and also attract the
best to join the profession of agriculturist in future.
c. Ecological premium: The global food crisis
has shown that the food security lies in viability of the small farms and not
in the industrial farming by corporations. Provide income support based rewards
for practicing sustainable, eco-friendly agriculture.
d. Remunerative
Pricing Policy: The prices for agricultural commodities should be based on
the real cost of production and linked positively with inflation.
I.
Agriculture being a State subject
establishes a State level Agricultural Costs and Prices Commission which takes
into account real costs of cultivation and recommends the price to the central
government. The real cost estimations should take into account all the costs
including the family labour. For food crops, the national CACP has to take into
account and fix the price taking into account the recommendations by the
Swaminathan Commission. The prices could
be from 10-50% over the C2 depending on the crop. A Price Stabilization Fund
has to be established to deal with the price fluctuations in the commercial
crops. The State Commission should take into account the declared price by the
Centre and any variation compared to the recommended price should be
compensated. The
payments of crop compensation should be made directly to the farmers, through a
local delivery mechanism such as post office, bank account deposit, panchayat
or self-help groups. Timely payment should be made for each season.
II.
It is important that this system should benefit
the real cultivators including tenant farmers and sharecroppers rather than
non-cultivating land-owners. There should be system in place to identify and
record tenants and sharecroppers. For example, the AP government is introducing
a Bill to provide Loan Eligibility Card to tenants and sharecroppers so that
they can access loans, crop insurance, crop compensation and so on. For the
same purposes, it is imperative for governments to introduce such mechanisms in
other states also. The same mechanism can be used to record the cultivator data
for the Price Compensation system.
III.
Labour wage support for all agricultural
operations: Today we are in an ironic situation where agriculture
workers are unable get employment (and government is running a program like
MGNREGA) and farmers are unable to afford agriculture workers due to increasing
wages. The government should provide input subsidy in the form of labour wages
(up to 100 days in a calendar year) to the farmers to monetize the use of
family labour or to pay external labour engaged on the farm. This should
include all agricultural operations from sowing to harvesting. The subsidy
component can be equivalent to the wage rate in MGNREGS and the balance can be
paid by the farmer. For e.g., if the
wage rate in a village for sowing operation is Rs. 250.00/day and the MGNREGS
wage rate is Rs. 120/day, the farmer will get a subsidy of Rs. 120.00 per day
of labour. This can be operationalized
on similar lines as MGNREGS, or by suitably increasing the number of days
covered under MGNREGS and extending it to agricultural work. This will also provide additional employment
to the agriculture workers in the villages.
IV.
Direct Income Support: Direct
Income Support to make up the shortfall to minimum living income to the needy
section. To begin with,
the Direct Income Support will be implemented for all small & marginal
farmers and agricultural labour. The job
of the Farmers Income Commission would be to identify such needy class of
people during its periodic assessment (3-5 yrs) and fix the amount of Direct
Income Support for the next period. This
can be paid directly to the people as direct benefit transfer[1]. The Indian
Government has already acts for conferring the Right to Information, Rural
Employment Guarantee and Education. Also we have an Act providing Lands Rights
to scheduled tribes and forest dwellers.
Parliament has just passed an Act which will confer the Right to Food on
all the needy citizens of the nation. In
a similar fashion Farmers Income Security can be shaped.
Policies for S&T to promote
sustainable farming
Unfortunately,
growth and structural change are being achieved by encouraging the global
integration of Indian agriculture, promoted through the system of contract
farming and corporate input supply. These are the distinctive features of the
new strategy in agricultural development. The latest Indo-American Agreement on
Agricultural education and research in which Wallmart and Monsanto are on the
governing board is its new research arm. Through this new instrument of
agricultural technology development the Indian policymakers are now trying to
move the system rapidly towards the new priorities of “corporate agricultural
biotechnology” and food processing. Just with a paltry 9 percent of the total
investment in agricultural research this new instrument of agricultural
technology development poses a grave threat.
It
is trying to take the system completely in the direction of control of
priorities of the system in the hands of agribusiness. It is taking the system away from the priorities
of location-specific soil and water management, crop rotation and biological
agriculture that thanks to the efforts of some of the members of scientific
community the leadership had chosen to work towards only recently in the Tenth
Five year Plan. Since in the proposed new agri-biotechnology based
socio-technical transition the corporate sector is increasingly going to be
itself in driver seat and is in search of those technologies that can be widely
applied through the agri-business friendly pathways, it can be taken as a given
fact that in this new strategy too there is apparently very little space for
the cultivation of an integrated approach for the realization of values of
ecological and social justice.
This
is becoming the case not only for the development of agri-biotechnologies and
genetically engineered food crops but also for the development of organic
agriculture. In fact, for the agro-food innovation system to be radically
transformed to tackle the problems of diversity, it would be of course
necessary to get out of the current socio-technical regime of green revolution.
We will have to work more vigorously to facilitate the socio-technical
transition to a new type of socio-technical regime and a new kind of system of
STI.
Policies for rural industrialization
As already suggested, it is also becoming
clear that the sector of agriculture is also not able to absorb all the additional
labour available in rural areas. So far by following the industrialization
framework chosen for the support of green revolution agriculture the government
has promoted the practice of externalizing the production of industrial inputs
to the metropolis and making the system of supporting industries import
dependent. This has been hollowing out the rural economy of its potential for
rural industrialization based on agriculture. Agriculture is no more an
important driver of sustainable growth for the rural industries. This is now
being aggravated much further through the new corporate strategy of
diversification into agriculture, aquaculture, animal husbandry, horticulture
and floriculture using even more of external inputs than before.
In order to realize the true
potential of agriculture as a driver for rural industrialization the strategy
of development of agriculture itself must be changed. In the long run, the
framework of rural industrialization needs to be realigned with the proposed
strategy of agricultural development using agro-ecological approaches involving
the use of resource conserving technologies and integrated bio-farming systems
involving multi-storied agriculture. Then only the country would be able to get
the desired results in respect of the productive absorption of labour in
agriculture and rural economy in India. Fifty percent of the Indian population
would be still living in the near future, if not forever, in areas dependent on
rural economy based production systems. Therefore, agriculture and rural
industries need to be upgraded even for the reasons of limitations of both
infrastructure and employability of rural migrants in the metropolis and
cities. They are working not very thoughtfully when they are forcing the people
to quit farming through even the regular operations of capitalist agriculture.
Climate change may also trigger
thinking in this direction. Full implications of climate change are yet to be
realized by the policymakers. In the context of agriculture, it is even
necessary to realize that in many agro-ecological regions the problems of
ecological sustainability have become today the biggest barrier to the
enhancement of agricultural productivity[2].
The pathway being followed for agriculture has been creating the metabolic
rift; agriculture has ceased to be self-sustaining in the sense that it can no
longer find the natural conditions of its own production within itself. In this
pathway, nutrients have to be acquired through long distance trade and separate
industries outside of the agriculture sphere. This creates a rift in the
natural cycles of soil fertility and waste accumulation. Today there are many
more loops resulting in new imbalances introduced, thanks to the perusal of
external input intensive agriculture and the additional of capitalist food
chain based production of processed foods in the world system of agriculture.
At the wider social level, a rift has also been widening between
humanity and the natural world due to the relation of wage labour and capital[3].
Private property in the earth’s resources, the division between manual/mental
labour, and the antagonistic split between the town and country illustrate the
metabolic rift on a social level. Today the rift at social level is manifest in
many ways in the pathway that the country is following, such as the primacy of
corporate speculation in real estate, the loss of autonomy of subsistence
farmers to the knowledge of “expert technicians”, the tenants / landless
labourers becoming alienated from the land and ceasing to be the custodians of
land and water resources, and the demographic transition from rural farms to
urban centres.
For the restoration of this rift, it is clear that today the humanity
needs to move away from the system of capitalist production and enter into a
paradigm of development to solve the metabolic problem of not only agriculture
but also of the economy as a whole. India cannot afford to follow the well-treaded
path which is already producing one disaster after another in the developed
capitalist countries. Although to what extent these societies would continue or
be able to afford the above said limitations is not the most relevant thing to
discuss in India, the challenge of transition is quite different in our case
due to the large percentage of population being still dependent on agriculture.
The kind of transition that the western
world experienced is not repeatable. Only a small percentage of population is
dependent on agricultures in these countries. India colonizing others is
neither desirable nor feasible. If the transition of western kind is more or
less out of question for India
The road ahead for sustainability
It is
also important that we recognize broadly the complexity of socio-technical
challenge facing the people of India. Take for example the radical popular view
that the neighborhood communities of users and providers of various services
such as water, energy, and infrastructure and health education would have to
come together and how they can be provided for from local sources. While it is
true that there exists much potential in the local human and natural resources
based systems to provide for the basic needs of the people as a whole even
today, but the challenge of building a system that works efficiently is not as
simple as getting together the neighborhoods. The institutions needed to build,
operate and manage are required to be crafted in the midst of unequal power as
associations of producers of new services and products using technologies that
are new and need power relations to be altered completely in the sphere of use
of resources.
This
challenge is quite different from being members of the community or
associations of users of water and energy to be provided from the large systems
as ready- made final products. Even the proponents of radical view now
recognize that in order to provide the marginalized people of their basic
rights or entitlements in respect of water and biomass we would need at this
stage the leverage of the external inputs which the state can offer in the form
of the conditions of programme sanction and facilitate through the subsidized
provision labour. Even this solution would effectively apply to the projects of
infrastructure. But how we would realize the sustainability of production of
goods and services in respect of projects that do not constitute to be part of
the infrastructure and where the conditions of competition in production and
commercial considerations are going to play a critical role.
Peoples’ centric innovation systems
As far
as the pertinent issues of knowledge intensive innovation and diffusion are
concerned, we cannot forget about the significance of multiple scales in
production for achieving efficiency and sustainability. We should also recognize
the importance of adequate capacity to produce within the regions and supply
the needed input at a large scale within the regions. Emulation of the successful
practices is also going to be dependent on the performance of training and
capacity building for which the support will have to come from the public
sector based S&T system. Vocational training, basic education, supply of
finance and credit and incubation infrastructure would be needed. And the state
will have to play a major role in the management of transition. Both, the state
system and society, would be regenerating themselves in the process.
However,
to get going on this front, again needless to say, we need to have a good set
of supporting policies at the centre and state level. As these policies are
still lacking, there are not sufficient efforts taking place on the ground for
the creation of a set of appropriate social carriers. These social carriers
would need the moral and material support of the social movements. Such pioneering
organizations are still small in number; this means the experience is only
beginning to be gained within the country. Although for quite some time the
country has had a cooperative movement of the petty producers, but the
cooperative institutions needed for cooperation in production have been far and
few (Dinesh Beedi, Indian Coffee House, etc.).
At the
moment there exists only many credit and input supply or marketing cooperatives
and loose SHG federations in the states. The challenge is also therefore one of
building the institutions of cooperation in production. We urgently need to
build a large number of associations of producers. Social movements will have
to experiment and practice the art of creation of production systems based on
an appropriate heuristics. They will have to learn by doing and learning before
doing to understand the political economy of production and technology. Those
who are able to internally develop among themselves the relations of planned
cooperation, democratic participation and camaraderie would only succeed.
To
compete in the market economy and with the aim to change the power relations
surrounding the production systems, it is quite clear that they will have to
depend on the systems of technologies which are able to function as the new
forms of productive forces. If we are planning to implement a new
techno-economic paradigm, as is the case with the proposed strategy of banking
on biomass for the development of rural economy in particular, the challenge is
one of developing the local economies as the multi-sectoral systems of
networked planning of production units that bank on biomass for food, energy
and materials.
Lessons from PSM experience
There
has been some effort within the PSM organizations to work in this direction.
But this effort is also yet to achieve its critical threshold. It needs the
cooperation of class organizations to move rapidly. At the level of action
research it is already going on at a few places in the country. It has produced
a set of viable technology systems in the sectors of production of vegetable
tanned leather, processing of fruits and vegetables, processing of oilseeds and
pulses and bio-farming. In other areas, the stage is still one of development
of the systems of technologies. But what is important about this effort is that
it is based on the heuristics of development of local economies as systems in
themselves for the purpose of making an ecologically and socially sustainable
just transition at the level of the rural economy.
This
heuristics suggest that local economies are not just a village level economy
but a system of network of smaller villages carrying out largely primary
production (S level), medium size villages having a higher level of
concentration of agricultural laborers (M level), bazaar villages having a
higher level of artisans and secondary production (B level) and nodal taluk
level town where the level of secondary and tertiary production is high (N
level). These economies are capable of being networked for the creation of
large-scale networked production systems.
Experience
indicates that the democratically formed associations of producers can certainly
become the social carriers of viable economic units of production. This demands
that the initiatives for decentralized planning should also be shaped in the
manner suggested for the organization of production linked S&T based
efforts for the promotion of sustainable local economies. This perspective also
demands going beyond the involvement of panchayati raj institutions (PRIs). We
will have to build the class organizations of rural labour to play a role of
the social carriers of appropriate socio-technical change. This demands that we
also organize the processes of learning and innovation as an integral part of
our mobilization of the people in rural and urban areas to support such a
strategy. It demands a regeneration of the politics capable of combining
constructive action and non-cooperation that the people used to defeat the
colonial pathway only some sixty years ago.
Experiments and going beyond
There is a need to
examine the specific experiences of select experimental interventions underway
in the country to develop the required technological innovation system to
achieve a more desirable socio-technical transition in the case of agro-food
system in India. PSMs also need to take a stock of the efforts being put in by
the network of innovators active in the field of developing appropriate /
alternate technologies for the sustainable development of rural industries to
contribute to the stability, resilience, durability, robustness and
sustainability of the socio-technical transition that India needs to pursue for
upgrading the local economies as systems in themselves in the process of
building a self-reliant multi-level economy.
Since the
marginalized rural people suffering from the current agrarian crisis would have
to be mobilized with the aim to create a pathway for the desirable
socio-technical transition to achieve both, ecological as well as social
justice, efforts for should be for the building of adaptive capacity on the
ground with a view to develop a set of social carriers of techniques for
sustainable development of the agro-food system to act as a countervailing
power which would be capable of pressing the STI system to work towards the
development of techniques for agro-ecological approaches combinable with
endogenous multi-sectoral rural network systems of industrial development.
The challenge is
therefore one of not just how the social movements can press the state to solve
the agrarian crisis but also of how they can help build and support the newly
emerging social carriers of techniques. The social movements can also now start
participating in meeting a totally new challenge of conscious social construction
of technology (Socialism cannot depend on the technology systems organized by
the dominant forces). PSMs will have to participate themselves as co-evolving
actors in the process of transition and learn to steer the emergence of a
desirable socio-technical regime. Participation in the process of steering for
sustainable development would require from the social movements to develop the
capacity for regulation, providing vision, learning to learn and help the
social carriers to build their competencies for production and innovation and
developing countervailing power structures to participate in the task of
coordinating actors and networks.
Engagement with the system of STI
The
challenge of development of a science, technology and innovation (STI) system
suitable for the development of rural economies in India is required to be made
an issue of public engagement. We need to seek the inclusion of the rural
institutes, community polytechnics and other related institutions into the
building of a people centric system of innovation for agriculture in the system
of STI existing in the country. To grapple with the issue of scale and scope of
planning required for making an ecologically and socially sustainable just
transition possible at the level of the rural economies under the currently
prevailing conditions in India, PSMs will have to recommend an integrated
approach to the development of the agro-food system in conjunction with the
pace being created for rural industrialization and agro-ecological approaches
to crop production, animal husbandry, forestry and aquaculture.
Concluding remark
Already many of the successful experiments have
brought out forcefully the point that the regenerative economy would have to be
built on the basis of the principle of minimum use of external inputs of
electricity, water, energy and materials. To maximize the well-being local
economies would have to be shaped to become major providers of water, energy
and infrastructure services. It seems that by taking up the development of rural
industries as an integral part of the strategy of development of agro-food
system that has its root in the agro-ecological approaches the new social
carriers of techniques for sustainable development have a better chance to
embed the new socio-technical transition in the agency and power of the rural
labour and the peasant-artisan networks.
In such a pathway, it is clear that the strategy of
development is to bank on biomass and solar energy (in various forms i.e.,
thermal, hydro, wind and small hydro) and the exploitation of electronics,
telecommunications and information technology. Needless to say, for the
upgrading of local economies the above outlined integrated strategy of
technological change and economic development must be social justice achieving
and environmental friendly. If the strategy of agricultural development and
rural industrialization is not able to achieve the benefit of reducing CO2
emissions, pollution control and arresting land degradation, then it is not
consistent with the achievement of the long term goals of the humanity.
The same can be said of the dimension of social
justice. The people (peasants as well as rural labour) living on this earth are
not only the ultimate owners of land and water but also the custodian of resources
in whom the humanity is putting trust, and they have to use and care for these
resources in an environmental friendly and socially just manner for the benefit
of their progeny and succeeding generations.
………………
[1]Farmers Income Security across
the world
Across the world governments have adopted basket of
measures to ensure income security to farmers with twin objectives
a. To ensure parity
of incomes between agriculture sector/ farmers and other sectors/ non-farmers,
and thereby ensure equality and justice in the society
b. To ensure food
production and food self sufficiency
[2] Land, the earth (and the ecological cycles that define it), and
labour, which is the metabolic relation between human beings and nature,
constitute the two original sources of all wealth. If we want to heal the
metabolic rift and achieve metabolic restoration, we are required to treat land
and water as treasure, ones that must not be exploited for short term gain, but
rather replenished through rational and planned application of ecological
principles to agriculture (agro-ecology). And labour, being the physical
embodiment of a key, can access the land’s rich qualities to provide healthy
food and many other means of livelihood.
[3]Marx explored the ecological contradictions of capitalist society as
they were revealed in the nineteenth century with the help of the two concepts
of metabolic rift and metabolic restoration. The metabolic rift describes how
the logic of accumulation severs basic processes of natural reproduction leading
to the deterioration of ecological sustainability. Marx’s concept of metabolism
is rooted in his understanding of the labour process.
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