Day 43 – Q 1.Examine the ways and measures to reduce vulnerability of farmers from crop and market failure.
1. Examine the ways and measures to reduce vulnerability of farmers from crop and market failure.
फसल और बाजार की विफलता से किसानों की भेद्यता को कम करने के तरीकों और उपायों की जांच करें।
Introduction:
Agriculture employs around 47% of workforce. This population is highly vulnerable due to number of factors like erratic monsoon, crop failure, market failure, extreme events (floods, droughts) resulting from climate change, high indebtedness, lack of institutional credit facility and exploitation by moneylenders.
Body:
Crop failure occurs due to number of factors like lack of assured irrigation, poor soil, poor seed quality, unscientific farming and natural calamities.
Market failure is when farmer fails to get adequate price for his produce due to reasons like excess supply resulting from production or imports, hoarding by traders and lack of unified market.
Ways and measures to address
Crop failure:
- Requirement of assured irrigation as about 60% of net sown area comes under rain fed area. With climate change problems have further compounded. Need to focus on water conservation, rain water harvesting and watershed management with community participation. Ex: Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana- Her Khet Ko Pani.
- Cropping pattern as per agro-climatic zones.
- Timely and adequate supply of quality seeds.
- Effective soil management. Ex: soil health card.
- Adopting Precision farming techniques leading to precise application of inputs and efficient use of resources. Farmers must necessarily be educated about modern farming techniques and practices.
- Move towards natural farming techniques like Zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) which is based on agro-ecological principle. Ex: drought prone Rayalaseema region is seeing promising change with drought resistant farms employing ZBNF technique.
Market failure:
- Bridging information asymmetry by equipping farmers with information on future price trends thus avoiding cobweb phenomena.
- Implementation of Model APMC act.
- Effective use of special safeguard mechanism against sudden surge in imports.
- Incentives to diversify crop production thus minimising risks.
- Infrastructure creation like storage facilities post-harvest will help in preventing distress sale.
- Need for coherence between Exim policy and domestic production policy. Ex: recent slump in prices of pulses is result of increased domestic production and increased imports.
- The government-administered MSP should take into consideration the existing realities to cover the cost of production and to insulate farmers from fluctuating market conditions. Ex: considering Swaminathan committee recommendations.
- Comprehensive but affordable insurance schemes should be made available, covering farmers and crops from problems at every stage of the crop cycle. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana is a step in right direction.
- E-NAM would create national market and help farmer receive best price.
Conclusion:
At a time when government aims to double farmers income by 2022, achieving sustainability of agriculture is of utmost importance and for this to happen to vulnerabilities of farming community needs to be addressed.
Best answer: Diwakar
