Innovations for inflation control: agriculture
When prices of agricultural commodities increased by more than sixty per cent in the last few years, pressure on consumer prices was expected. It is alright for agricultural minister to say that to pay farmers well, society should bear the inflationary burden, but that is not a very responsible attitude towards poor who suffer the most nor towards farmers who dont care about prices as much as about profits.
Why has this problem become so intractable. Let me suggest one clue. It is because we seem to have focused entirely almost on prices of output as a balancing exercise. We have not paid enough attention to reduction of cost in most commodities. It is not only playing havoc with the sustainability concern but also making the who approach almost completely unviable.
What needs to be done if innovations become the watchword of future economic transformation. We need to aim at reducing unit cost of every good and service with passage of time in manufacuting as well as agriculture sector. Farmers also will not plead for higher prices every year if the cost of their inputs can be controlled and reduced. But how will this be done? How will we convince wise people in planning commission who assume the inflation and add ten per cent or so cost to every unit cost. How do we ensure the tendency of rampant cost over runs ( commonwealth games is a recent example of three times escalation) at central and state level. How do we incentivize every body to experiment and innovate to reduce unit cost.
Let me give an example from agriculture from cotton, a crop which consumes almost forty per cent the country’s chemical pesticides followed by paddy which consumes 20 per cent. What do we do reduce cost without having to use GM crop( if farmers so wish, though majority of farmers use GM cotton in Gujarat and other major states), which have diffused widely. We should listen to farmers like Lakhra bhai of surendra nagar who twenty years ago in Gujarat (and maharshtra) used the idea of growing lady’s finger around cotton crop to trap the pest of cotton. If that did not work, they sprayed jaggery or sugar solution ( Sarja bhai of Bharuch) to attract black ants whioch will help control the pests. But will these practiuces ever reach masses? No. because then farmers will become self reliant and sustainable! Will department of agriculture share this disregarding the pressure from chemical pesticide lobby, I doubt, for twenty years they did not do it, these kind of solutions is available on sristi.org web site in open source for decades. When cost of failure is low, and chances of success high, only inertia can explain indifference to such bottom up grassroots solutions for decades. May wisdom prevail….may farmers’ organization wake up,
These solutions will reduce cost, check inflationary pressure and making poor better off too, they will not suffer from exposure to chemicals. I hope technocracy will prove that we are wrong.
Anil K Gupta
