The media will have to serve as sources of early warning in relation to the emerging food crisis.
A major trigger for the Green Revolution, which was a term coined by Dr. William Gaud of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1968 to mark a significant increase in crop production through yield advance, was the enormous enthusiasm generated among farm families by the print media and All India Radio on the opportunity created by semi-dwarf varieties of wheat and rice to enhance yield and income very substantially. The revolution resulted from a symphony approach with four major components – technology, which is the prime mover of change; services, which can take the technology to all farmers whether small or large; public policies relating to the price of inputs and output, and above all, farmers’ enthusiasm promoted by the mass media. When in 1963 we started large-scale research and testing with semi-dwarf varieties of wheat obtained from Mexico through Norman Borlaug, the new plant types attracted media attention immediately. Several enthusiastic reports appeared in Indian newspapers as well as in foreign journals like The Economist of London on the new opportunities opened up by scientists to achieve a quantum jump in yield. Such reports were based on the visits of experienced correspondents to the experimental fields of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, and the Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana.
The media reports led to widespread demand for the seeds of the new strains. To meet this demand, 18,000 tonnes of seeds of a few good varieties were imported in 1966 from Mexico, as a part of the purchase of time operation we had then designed. From 1964 to 1967, the country had the good fortune of having C. Subramaniam as Union Minister for Agriculture and Food. This facilitated timely public policy decisions.
In addition to the original Mexican material, we had selected from the segregating populations sent by Dr. Borlaug amber grain wheat varieties such as Kalyan Sona and Sonalika. Farmers in the interior areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh used to refer to the new varieties as “radio varieties” since they had heard about them only through All India Radio. The media thus helped to convert a small government programme titled “High Yielding Varieties Programme” into a mass movement. This is why the progress witnessed was revolutionary and not merely evolutionary. India’s print media came to the rescue of the country at a time when the global media and experts had written off India from the point of view of its ability to feed itself. Experts like Paul and William Paddock had even applied the triage analysis methodology and concluded that India cannot be saved from mass starvation and death caused by hunger. It is in this background that the Green Revolution took place and converted India from the position of carrying a begging bowl to becoming a bread basket. The print media and the radio thus served as bright affirming flames in the midst of a sea of despair, and helped generate a new confidence in our agricultural capability.
It is now over 40 years since the onset of the Green Revolution. There is talk about the need for a second Green Revolution. However, such a revolution is nowhere in sight. The media faithfully report the Prime Minister’s desire for a second Green Revolution, but have no time or space to discuss why this is not happening. To the financial media, in particular, what matters is GDP growth rate, as well as the state of the economy as measured by the situation in the share market. Even this year’s widespread drought and the consequent suffering caused to millions of children, women and men were dismissed as unimportant to the economic growth rate, since agriculture contributes less than 18 per cent to GDP. Since we have enough foreign exchange reserves to resort to large-scale food imports, the media’s attitude in general seems to be: “why bother about farmers and farming?” The fact that nearly two-thirds of India’s population live in villages and that agriculture constitutes the backbone of their livelihood and survival, is put under the carpet since it constitutes an “inconvenient truth.” No wonder over 40 per cent of the farmers interviewed by the National Sample Survey Organisation have expressed a desire to quit farming, if there is another option available.
The extensive prevalence of child and adult malnutrition and India’s anticipated failure to halve the number of the hungry by 2015 as per the first of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, receive only a passing mention in the media. The social and economic consequences of pervasive hunger and destitution are hardly highlighted. Even during the Green Revolution days of the 1960s and 1970s, Indira Gandhi stressed in her address at the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, that the health of the environment will depend on the attention we pay to the basic needs of the poor in relation to food, shelter and work. Only mega-calamities such as severe flood, drought and tsunami, and farmers’ suicides attract media attention. Journalists like P Sainath, who has been analysing such issues in depth in the columns of The Hindu, are rare.
It is now two years since a National Policy for Farmers based on a draft provided by the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) was placed in Parliament by Union Agriculture and Food Minister Sharad Pawar. This is the first time either in colonial or independent India that a comprehensive policy for farmers has been developed. All the earlier policies were for agriculture and not for the men and women who toil in the sun and the rain to feed the country. The National Policy for Farmers calls for a paradigm shift from measuring agricultural progress merely in terms of growth rates, to measuring it in terms of the growth in the real income of farm families. The policy stresses the need for an income orientation to farming, both to overcome poverty in rural India and to attract and retain youth in farming.
The famine of jobs is one of the primary causes of food insecurity in the country. Recent reports that over 5,000 persons apply for each clerical job available in the railways and banks is evidence of the growing frustration among educated youth. Agriculture can trigger job-led economic growth, provided it becomes intellectually satisfying and economically rewarding. This will involve the technological upgradation of small-farm agriculture and giving small farmers the power and economies of scale through appropriate group management innovations. This will also call for strengthening the services sector relevant to small-scale farming, such as agri-clinic, agri-business centre, and Small Farmers’ Agri-business Consortium.
Nearly 60 per cent of India’s cultivated area is rain-fed, with the result that Indian agriculture continues to remain a gamble in the monsoon. There are, however, new technologies which can help enhance the yield of dryland crops like pulses and oilseeds by 200 to 300 per cent. The country’s imports of pulses are increasing, while there is great scope to produce in the rainfed areas the pulses and oilseeds we need. In the 1960s, media correspondents visited experimental stations and conveyed to readers the excitement of the new genetics. Such visits and reports are rare now.
Because of the proximity of the Copenhagen Summit, there is currently considerable discussion on common and differentiated responsibilities with reference to the containment of greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is very little discussion on the potential impact of a rise in the mean temperature by 2 degrees C, as agreed at L’Aquilla by the G-20 nations. Such a rise in mean temperature will diminish the production of wheat, rice and other crops significantly. Food production will also be affected globally and the price of the basic staples will go up. We cannot therefore depend on imports to meet the food needs of a growing population. Also, global warming will affect rural women more, since they are traditionally involved in the selection of feed and fodder, the care of animals and the fetching of water. The gender dimensions of the impact of climate change are receiving scant attention.
We currently produce about 220 million tonnes of cereals to meet the needs of a population of 1.15 billion. While calculating food requirements, we often overlook the needs of farm animals. We have nearly a billion farm animals including poultry that need feed and water. We have to double cereal production by 2050 in order to meet the needs of the expected human population of nearly 1.8 billion, in addition to meeting the needs of livestock and poultry. Globally also the human population is expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and global food production will have to go up by at least 70 per cent to meet the needs. Two years ago when petroleum prices went up, food prices also went up and there were food riots in many countries. The saying “where hunger rules, peace cannot prevail” is not just a cliché. The media will have to serve as sources of early warning in relation to the emerging food crisis.
Finally, farmers get inadequate and uncertain prices for their commodities. This is why the NCF recommended that the minimum support price for rice, wheat and other commodities should be C2, that is, the total cost of production plus 50 per cent. Fortunately, the Commission on Cost and Prices adopted this formula while recommending a support price of Rs.1,080 a quintal for wheat last year. I hope this year’s announcement of Rs.1,100 a quintal of wheat will be suitably adjusted at the time of procurement, taking into account the meteorological conditions and the price of inputs.
Unless the media assume a pro-small farmer approach in their reporting, food production will either stagnate or go down. This will obviously affect the country’s social stability adversely. It is time the media resumed their active participation in revitalising our agriculture and in safegaurding our food sovereignty.
(Professor Swaminathan is a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha. This article is based on a presentation he made on November 6 at a workshop on the theme ‘Parliament and the Media’ organised by the Rajya Sabha in New Delhi.)
Keywords: green revolution, media, agriculture, irrigation, technology, food crisis, malnutrition, climate change
Comments:
The good professor has brought out in bold relief the importance of media focusing on publishing agricultural related news and issues and problems.The need to increase productivity and yields can no more be ignored and such increase in yields has to necessarily come from dry land farming and small farm holders. We wish that the powers that be especially Planning pundits and policy makers in Agri Ministry listen to the warning bells sounded by the eminent scientist and focus more on improving dry land farming and make it remunerative for farmers. Public investment, providing investment credit by banks,fixing remunerative prices for the produce, focus on developing improved seeds and enriching soil are crying needs of the hour.
The attention of the Indian media, especially television, is riveted on the Nano, Bollywood romances, cricket and such rather inconsequential (in the national perspective) stories and it hasn't the time or interest to talk about agricultural productivity and other issues of vital importance to the nation. But the All India Radio and even Doordarsan which have a wider reach in the countryside are available to the government to communicate with the farmers across the country. But, to begin with the government has to be interested in such activity. When agricultural production took a nosedive due to this year's bad monsoon, the Prime Minister was only talking about the huge stock of foodgrains with the government and the Finance Minister about immporting these commodities.The media as usual just reports such ministerial prononcements and never asks the government about what it proposes to do to reduce the dependence of agricultural production on the monsoon. On the role of agricultural scientists and technologists, does anyone provide the type of leadership which Mr. M. S. Swaminathan provided at the time of the green revolution?
Since agriculture is dependent on monsoon than on anything else, it is very important that we give priority to develop a strong meteorological community that helps not just the farmers, but save the whole country by serving advance warnings and accurate weather predictions. Also, the media should realize that if only they take initiation a constructive discussion and debate would come up for the falicitation of something like a second Green revolution. People get the initial data or primary information, the food for thought, mainly from the TV and print media.
It is true that technological upgradations will make farming more productive and rewarding. But the use of machines like the ones for cutting and threshing rice is drawing huge protests from workers who used to get their livelihood from these fields. Though their protest cannot be completely justified, it is true that the use of machines is making lives difficult for them. This flipside should not go unnoticed.
Dr M S Swaminathan is correct when he said unless the media assume a pro-small farmer approach in reporting, food production will either stagnate or go down. The first Green Revolution in the sixties was made possible because of a combination of favourable factors like research advances in different disciplines of agricultural sciences that made it possible in achieving higher yields, media particularly the print and All India Radio's farm and home units that gave wide publicity to the benefits of adopting short duration high yielding varieties, effective lab to land policies adopted by the government of the day.
Till about late eighties, print media, both language and english newspapers used to cover a lot of rural problems and agricultural related activities in their district editions supplied to readers along with main dailies. Eversince centralisation of newspapers in state capitals started for various economic and technogical and logistic reasons, the focus has shifted from rural coverage to urban-centric coverage. Lifestyle issues and city or capital-centric coverage has become the order of the day. The rest of the state coverage is minimalised and slotted in inside regional pages of major dailies. Often the focus is more on capital cities and to a large extent rural reporting is relegated to background. Change be it science and technology or even in information dissemintion is inevitable. Even now some language and english dailes carry rural reports but the percentage of coverage is minimal.
As Dr Swaminathan rightly quoted a National Sample Survey study which revealed that given an option 40 per cent of the people prefer to migrate to towns and cities. Reasons are not far to seek. Agriculture as a viable proposition has lost its appeal and sheen because of a number of factors like cost escalation, unremunerative rates for farm produce, and unimaginative policies followed by the governments.
It took 200 years of hard and relent research by Land Grant Colleges in USA to achieve a semblance food self-sufficieny. Our country has excellent pool of farm scientists and a pro-active responsive farmers. What is needed political will and policies. It is the social rersponsibility of the Media to take initiative and play a proactive initiatuive as it did in the late sixties to achieve food self-sufficiency. Political will, proper policies and right direction with media disseminating rural information more than ever now would ensure self-sufficiency in food. Theodre Schultz, farm scientist, who authored `Rural Dynamisation' gives useful suggestions for policy framers in High food drain, Intermediate and Low food drain economies and to agrarian secto.r.
I completely agree with Vijayakumar's point.We all need to know about as to what is happening in our villages. Media has to play an important role in this. Making movies or TV shows is far away, I cant even remember the ads on the TV to spread awareness about the issue and various schemes in place.
The agri sector has been deliberately ignored by the successive governments in the last couple of decades. Moreover there was a propaganda that the only way out from an apparent food crisis is to use corporate farming methods and GM seeds. This is a result of a conspiracy to take the multi billion agri business out of the small scale farmers' hands and vest it in the hands of a few. There is no surprise that an eminent scientist like Dr. Swaminathan has come out with such harsh criticism on the criminal negligence shown by the mainstream media. Excellent article; hats off to Dr. MS Swaminathan
Dr. Swaminathan's article is very timely. One of the reason why second green revolution is not taking place in India is lack of well trained human resources to generate new technology. The state agricultural universities, main source of human resource development ,are in bad shape. There is urgent need to revitalize the Universities.
Dr.M.S.Swaminathan has higlighted the negligence of all sections of Indian society in looking after the needs of the farmer. Do we, as a society thank the person who works tirelessly in the background to feed all of us? The answer is no. The solutions have to be sought on an urgent basis from the decision makers, media and society in general.