The debate is being shifted. The emphasis is now on competition. It is therefore not unusual to hear that Indian farmers have to be competitive enough to survive in a global era. Increasing crop productivity is the only way to remain competitive. 

Go to any conference and I find distinguished scientists, economists and planners at pains to explain how enhanced crop productivity plays a crucial role for the survival of the farming community. “Those who cannot increase crop productivity will not only remain at the bottom of the heap but would be eventually pushed out of agriculture.” 

This is however a fallacious debate. Indian farmers are not at all inefficient. Nor are the American farmers or for that matter farmers in the rich and industrialised countries more efficient. In fact, the Indian farmer is in reality the most efficient of the international farming community. It is only that our own policy makers, planners and economists are deliberately trying to push the Indian farmers into the category of inefficient, backward and an unviable lot. 

The global parameters of farm efficiency are so designed that it actually makes inefficient farmers emerge on the top of the chart. I am not only amazed but also surprised at the way mainline economists all over the world have accepted the faulty conditions.

Is it not surprising to find an average Indian farmer surviving on 1.40 hectares of land whereas it requires on an average 10 hectares of land to feed a cow in the United States and Europe? Isn’t it time to applaud the Indian farmer despite the miniscule land holdings for sustaining his family and the country by producing enough year after year? 

Ask an American farmer if he can farm in 1.40 hectares of land and he will laugh at you. Farmers in the rich and industrialised countries cannot even in their wildest of imagination think of farming in the kind of landholdings that dot the developing world. They would instead prefer to commit suicide. 

Take crop productivity. One of the examples that is repeatedly quoted is that of rice. We know that rice is a staple food for India like a majority of Asia. In America, the per hectare productivity of rice paddy is 7 tonnes. In India it is approximately 3 tonnes.

We are repeatedly told by distinguished agricultural scientists is that if the Indian rice farmer has to survive in a globalised world than he must increase his rice productivity from the existing 3 to 7 tonne. It looks so plausible that invariably you will see Indian scientists and planners nodding their head in agreement. “Yes, this is what we need to do in the years to come. Productivity is the essence”.  It appears that if the rice productivity increases than Indian farmer would remain afloat and survive. Farmers would become economically viable. This is a faulty assumption.

Let me explain. It is true that in America the average yield of paddy is 7 tonnes per hectare. The total production of rice is worth $1.2 billion in value terms. With such a high productivity, the American farmer should be economically viable. And if he is not able to survive even with such a high productivity, there is no justification for achieving such a high harvest. Higher productivity comes with an enormous environmental cost.

What is not known is that despite the high yield of 7 tonnes per hectare, American rice farmers cannot survive if they do not get a corresponding subsidy. And how much is the subsidy they get? The US government doles out approximately $1.4 billion to produce a crop worth $1.2 billion. And what if the Indian farmers were to increase rice paddy productivity to also 7 tonnes per hectare? Who will pay him the corresponding subsidy? 

What we therefore need to understand is that the Indian farmer too can increase his productivity to match the American levels. Give them an adequate and assured monthly income and they would do the rest. In the absence of income support, farmers are being pushed into what I call as a “produce and perish” phenomenon. You produce more and then commit suicide for want of buyers to purchase your paddy.  

The efficiency in American agriculture is essentially because of the massive subsidies being provided year after year. On an average, US agriculture receives a bonanza of  $90 billion every year as farm support. For the 30 rich and industrialised countries forming the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the total farm subsidies a year amount to $350 billion. Such massive subsidies bring down the international prices of major farm commodities thereby pricing out the Indian farmer. 

Take the case of cotton. There are nearly 20,000 cotton growers in America. They produce a cotton crop worth $3.9 billion a year. To ensure that these farmers do not quit cotton cultivation, American treasury pays $4.7 billion every year. In other world, these 20,000 cotton growers receive a daily support of $12 million. Consequently, the global cotton prices fall by about 45 per cent as a result of which the Vidharba cotton farmer looks inefficient. 
Provide Indian cotton farmers with even a fraction of this subsidy and they would storm the global cotton market and make the American farmer look highly inefficient.