The Hindu Business Line : Fragmented farming

At a time when agrarian crisis is translating into a disconcertingly rapid increase in food prices , suggestions are naturally pouring in thick and fast so as to get at the root of the problem — abysmally low productivity vis-À-vis the international norms — which is brought out vividly and starkly by the fact that an avocation which provides employment to 60-65 per cent of the populace accounts for about just 20 per cent of the GDP.

In fact, successive governments have been guilty of behaving ostrich-like ignoring the storm that has been steadily gathering momentum for years.

Recently, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, called for the ushering-in of a second Green Revolution, the fruits of the first one having petered out. Some, steeped in history, blame the Nehru-Mahanlanobis duo, who crafted the Second Plan that heralded jettisoning of agriculture from its primary slot in favour of industries, for the present predicament. They would have wanted an industrial economy to be built on the back of a sound agrarian economy. Be that as it may.

European model

There is also a section of economists who are pining for the European model of landholdings so as to conquer the problem of fragmented holdings that is perceived to be at the root of the larger problem of low productivity.

Under the law of primogeniture in vogue in these countries, the eldest son inherits all the property to the exclusion of his siblings.

In fact, the Samar Sen Committee appointed in 1986 was so fascinated by the European model that it recommended its wholesale adoption in India in the agricultural firmament after acknowledging primogeniture as the primary factor in stemming a sagging agrarian economy of these nations.

To be sure, it would certainly put an end to fragmentation of landholdings that is at the base of low productivity, defying as it does large-scale cultivation using modern techniques and equipment given the fact that at present with successive deaths in the family the size of a unit of agricultural land shrinks further and further. But will the remedy be free of side effects?

The truth is while avowedly solving the basic malaise bedevilling the agrarian landscape, it would give rise to filial and social tensions.

The law of primogeniture is not new to this country as kings and emperors swore by it bequeathing their kingdoms to their eldest sons. One is not sure whether we have seen the last of the patently iniquitous law that gives a short shrift to those who were unlucky to be born later by a quirk of fate.

Two sets of law?

It might have been all right with ruling families given the fact that there can after all be only one king. But even palaces more often than not reverberated with bloody discontent over this unjust dispensation — witness Mahabharata and other folklores and epics.

Its across-the-board extension to all segments of society would sow the seeds of sibling rivalry on a scale that one shudders to think of.

And there is no way we can have two sets of law on inheritance — one for agricultural property and another for other types of property.

The government is often accused of not implementing committee recommendations. But no one has seriously accused the government of dithering or feet-dragging in not implementing this part of the Samar Sen Committee report which, while setting out to solve a major problem, would spawn several others.

This, however, is not to say that the problem of fragmented landholdings should not be addressed. It must be addressed in all seriousness but not by ushering in a regime that can tear the social and filial fabric of this country.

Large-scale farming

Instead, the governments, both at the Centre and States, must educate through a high decibel campaign the advantages of large-scale farming that presupposes existence of large tracts of land. Producers’ cooperative on lines of the Amul model in the context of white revolution is an alternative that must be pursued without delay. Contract farming should come a little low in the pecking order.

Suitable incentives, including promotion of building of rural infrastructure like roads and cold storages contiguous only to those lands that conform to a minimum size, should be thrown in for good measure.

(The author is a Delhi-based chartered accountant.)