Farmer’s Day Gift – Ending the Crisis in Agriculture

Is there really a crisis in agriculture? Newspapers reports of bumper crops year after year, MSP, loan waivers, tax & insurance benefits- create the impression of a strong support ecosystem. Failure, if any, would seem to be an individual failure and not a sectoral problem. But there is a parallel narrative too. Of a hereto peaceful farming community increasingly taking to the streets in protest, farmer suicides, youth migrating out in hordes.

So, is there a crisis, or is there not?

The answer is both yes and no. There is no crisis in agriculture output – the statistics prove that. But in agriculture, there is an Economic Crisis for the farmer, Nutrition Crisis for the consumer and an Environment Crisis for the country.

The economics of the current ‘Grow at any cost’ Agriculture borders on irrationality. Agriculture needs judicious use of nine components – Gyaan (Knowledge), Saamaan (Materials), Dhyaan (Observation), Kaal (time), Bhoomi (Soil), Gagan (Space), Vaayu (Air), Agni (Sun), Neer (Water). However, over the decades since the Green Revolution, Samaan (Material) has been positioned as the most critical element. It is portrayed as the magic pill – that compensates for deficiencies in the others and gives the farmer the power to subjugate nature. Materials – fertilizers, pesticides, seed varieties, machinery, labour – form a huge industry. That industry has grown so big that instead of agriculture driving the demand for these materials, agriculture has been forced in a direction that creates an ever-increasing demand for these materials. And that is what has created the Economic Crisis of agriculture. Bumper harvests that crash market prices, whipped out from dead soils by expensive chemical inputs leave the farmer with no real income.

While economics hits the farmer, the nutrition deficient, poison filled produce strangles the consumer. Good looking produce, in-season and off-season, plumped up with artificial nutrients, hormones, protected by toxins that kill any being that dares touch this lethal beauty, wearing color enhancers and wax make-up lure consumers. Believing their promise of health, the consumer willingly allows the poison entry creating a host of problems in their bodies.

The Environmental Crisis in agriculture is both the cause and effect of the other two crises. Intensive monoculture agriculture with high irrigation, chemical and machine usage causes soil, air and water depletion and pollution. Conversely, the farmer, impacted by the poor quality of natural resources, compensates by increasing the dosage of the inputs and so, the downward spiral of environmental degradation spins at an ever-increasing speed.

While the bumper harvests create a sense of food security in the short-term. The aftermath, not too far behind, will be a severe food crisis and an intensification of the economic, nutrition and environmental crises.

A solution exists for this multiple problem – naturalisation of agriculture. Not going ‘back to nature’ but ‘moving forward’ to aligning better with nature. While current agriculture thinks of nature as an unpredictable foe that needs to be tamed, naturalization implies thinking of nature as a friend and finding ways of leveraging its tremendous power through judicious use of all nine elements. Of these 9 elements, the 6 natural elements – BhaGWAN – Bhoomi (Soil), Gagan (Space), Vaayu (Air), Agni (Sun), Neer (Water) and Kaal form the bedrock of Naturalization of agriculture. The other 3 are tools – Dhyaan (Observation) we read the cues of nature thus getting Gyaan (Knowledge). Then through use of appropriate Saamaan (Materials) at the appropriate time and giving adequate time for growth (kaal), we can get the best out of BhaGWAN. The result, low input costs and high, diversified output thus giving the farmer a healthy profit, the consumer nutritious poison free food and a pollution free environment. On an average, naturalization enables a farmer to gets approximately 80% more income, saves 60% water and within 3 years restores the health and fertility of his soil.

However, it is easier said than done. The rulebook for Naturalization of agriculture is very different from the one we use for industrial agriculture. Naturalization of agriculture’s ideology is that of coexistence while industrial agriculture’s way is that of coercion. A farmer needs to unlearn conventional farming. Instead of monoculture, he needs to do multiple cropping, instead of levelled & tilled fields, he needs to make permanent beds with minimum tillage; instead of increasing irrigation, he needs to minimise it, instead of cleaning beds after harvest, he needs to retain the residue in the furrows and instead of increasing seeding intensity he needs to increase the gap between plants.

These practices allow crops to get the maximum benefit from nature. With multiple cropping, crop residue and undisturbed permanent beds, microbes flourish regenerating the soil. Direct seeding saves plants from transplantation shock and the increased space between plants allows them to take full advantage of the sun, air and soil. Irrigation through furrows gives plants the moisture and nutrients they need through capillary action while also saving them problems of root and stem rot because of over irrigation. The relatively dry soil condition on the permanent bed reduces pest and weed infestation.

Naturalization of agriculture certainly does not mean that one does not supplement nutrients or pest/weed protection through artificial inputs – organic or inorganic. Especially in the initial years of transition from conventional to naturalized agriculture and especially for small, naturalized agriculture fields surrounded by conventional fields, the fields would need some bolstering. But, with each passing year and careful observation by the farmer, the need would decrease.

This farmer’s day let’s decide to put an end to their economic crisis by recognizing that the solution must be a holistic package that gives the consumer poison free food and environmental sustainability.

Naturalization of agriculture is that solution.