The life and work of Dr. M S SWAMINATHAN

Efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in food started in our country soon after Independence. In fact Jawaharlal Nehru once made a remark that everything else can be, but not agriculture. The districts worked on more irrigation projects, established fertilizer factories and so on.

In-spite of all this, progress was not good, and one of the reasons was that we had varieties of crops, which were not high yielding. They were selected for low fertility conditions. This deficiency we made good in 1960s by breeding high yielding varieties of wheat, rice, jowhar, bajra, corn and maize. After this, both production and productivity went up. For example, at the time of India's independence in 1947, our farmers were harvesting 6 million tonnes of wheat. This year it will be about 73 million tonnes of wheat. Therefore, phenomenal progress has been made.

Food security was achieved by a combination of three important factors. One was technology, which was economically viable and an inspiration to the farmers. Then good water services and extensive supply of seeds, fertilizers and electricity. Above all, public policies in terms of input-output pricing and marketing. Just as fertilizers stimulate farm growth, it is only assuring and remunerative marketing which stimulates farmers' interest in new technologies. Therefore the Government announced a floor price on major commodities and facilitated easy purchase of these materials.

Food security is not just availability of food in the market. It is more purchasing power. Economic access where there is plenty of grain, fruit and vegetables in the market. But if you do not have economic access to food, then you cannot have the benefit of a balanced diet. But even today nearly 300 million people go to bed partially hungry every night, inadequately nourished.

We do not have access to clean drinking water and so even if you eat something, the biological absorption of food in the body is not good, because of unclean drinking water and poor environmental hygiene. So I should say that we have entered the next phase of the food security challenge, mainly economic access to food and also the biological absorption of food in the body. This will require more attention to rural jobs, attention to drinking water and sanitation.

MSSRF's philosophy is what we call Sustainable Development. In other words, we like to see whether we can increase production and productivity, but without associated ecological harm. So we are working on what is called Precision Farming methods, by which farmers give just that amount of fertiliser, that amount of pesticide which is needed at the right time, the right place. This helps you reduce cost of production, increase productivity and above all avoid environmental hazards.

We have also concretised our strategies for natural resources conservation and poverty eradication through what we call a Bio-Village Paradigm of rural development (another term for human-centred development). The `Bio-Village' is based upon a pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-woman orientation to a job-led economic strategy. Industrialised countries are witnessing what is called jobless growth. Jobless growth is what I call joyless growth. The `Bio-Village' shows the way to conserve natural resources, how to utilise them well and how to have an economically viable enterprise. These are not based on subsidy, but based on small-scale community banking. The `Bio-Village' programme is based upon micro village planning, micro enterprises and micro credit.

We have also launched as part of our sustainable development strategy, a community food and water security system. This comprises conservation of local bio-diversity and development of seed banks. Several times, the major constraint is the non-availability of good seeds. Just depending upon a few Corporations will not help in a country of one billion. Therefore, we must have a decentralised approach. That is why we are developing a village seed bank, by which hybrid rice and hybrid tomato seeds can be produced by one self-help group (group of 10 to 15 women). It is completely viable. Not based on any subsidy, except training.

The third component is the village water bank. This is nothing but community water harvesting, using small ponds and using them for high value, but low water-requiring crops. Our water banks, unlike the commercial water markets, is based on harvesting rain water, keeping it, saving it, sharing it and using it. So I am quite excited.

We are now concentrating on what we call `Agenda 2007' to commemorate the 60th anniversary of our independence. We are trying to add in our agenda two more items- one is food security at the level of individuals and population stabilisation.

The Agriculture sector has problems. Lack of infrastructure, poor road conditions and inadequate storage. In rural India there is more money taken out from villages, than going into it through bank deposits. First of all, rural India is crying for attention for infrastructure. Today, most of our people dry paddy on the roads. And cars, jeeps and buses go over them. How do we compete?

The second major challenge is the problem of increasing very small holdings. Already holdings are small, but with the death of the father, it is further divided, becoming more and more fragmented. There is no proper land consolidation and no organised group effort. Only now some group effort has come in water management, but these people are not able to take much of a risk. Ultimately, in the agricultural sector the yield is based upon the cost, return and risk structure. Cost is becoming high, risks are becoming high and the return is getting lower.

And finally there is the onslaught of imported foods. So many kinds of foods have come into the market. And they can out price our people. Moreover, our import has gone to Rs. 10,000 crores. So what happens when you neglect your own farmers? The investment in agricultural sector has slackened. For instance comparing an average Tamil Nadu farm and an Iowa farm in the US, the investment will be of the proportion of 1:100,000. How do we compare?

So we are going through a difficult phase in our agriculture because our policies are more urban and consumer-riented rather than being production and farmer-oriented. Free electricity and subsidies are further ruining prospects.

What we did in 1964 was a kind of national demonstration on corner streets, to voice our views. But today, through Information Technology, developments are easily communicated. I suggest we must have more radios, covering 10 kilometres, because lot of the technologies are location-specific.

The new technology, what we call in our foundation, eco-technologies, (economically sustainable technologies) are knowledge-intense and not capital-intense. That will require using communication technology more intelligently and as I said linking each knowledge-centre to small, local radio stations. In fact what we do in Veerapatinam, a coastal village in Pondicherry, is that every morning the woman who opens the centre, gets information on sea conditions not of the Indian Ocean or Bay of Bengal, but of Veerapatinam sea. 100 metres from there, what will the tide be? 1000 metres from there, what will the tide be? Very accurate data, available every morning, broadcast by the women through loudspeakers, before their husbands go on their catamarans out to sea.

We are information-rich, but action-poor in our country. Instead, we should use this knowledge for the purpose of empowerment of the people.

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