Business of Agriculture March April 2019 Edition | Page 30

AGRICULTURAL – IMPORT:
A POTENTIAL STUMBLING BLOCK ON ROAD
TO DOUBLING FARM INCOME AND FARMERS’
PROSPERITY SCHEME
By: Dr Mukti Sadhan Basu *
A
The private
and public
systems have
developed a
number of
hybrids with
high yield
potential
and in High
Quality
Protein
Maize
(HQPM)
category,
which can be
utilised to
make good
of shortfall
gricultural Imports in India, particularly food
grains where the county happens to be
leading producers of cereals like rice, wheat,
maize, etc. is like cutting the roots of a tree and
pouring water on the canopy! The recent move by the
traders to import around 10 lakh tons of maize in view
of certain shortage in production in 2018 is certainly
not good for the health of Indian agriculture and the
farmers associated with the cultivation of maize.
In 2010, maize production in India touched a new
record of 22 million tons, which further moved up
and reached to 29 million tons in 2017 as compared
to 12 million tons in the year 2000 and 15 million tons
in 2005. In 2018, the production was a bit low with a
likely shortfall of 2 million tons. Such fluctuations may
be there based on the occurrence of biotic and abiotic
stresses and moreover with the climate change in
place. This doesn’t mean to open the import window
to get rid of a temporary problem on a short-term
basis undermining farmers’ interest and long-term
consequences.
In such a situation the Ministry of Agriculture in
consultation with Indian Council of Agricultural
30 Business of Agriculture | March-April 2019 • Vol. V • Issue 2
Research (ICAR), working under the same roof should
develop a contingency plan to mitigate the shortfall
rather than advocating import. Ministry of Commerce
(MoC) may not be exactly aware about the crop-
specific the agricultural situation, cropping systems/
sequences, flexibility of growing a particular crop in
different seasons within a year and so on.
Incidentally, maize crop is commercially grown during
rainy (Kharif) and post-rainy (Rabi) seasons across
India and any amount of shortfall can be mitigated by
planning a targeted production in the following crop
season, within the same year. It may require 4 lakh
hectares to produce 10 lakh tons with productivity
of 2.5 tons per ha and by allocating in such states
where productivity is high. The private and public
systems have developed a number of hybrids with
high yield potential and in High Quality Protein Maize
(HQPM) category, which can be utilised to make
good of shortfall.
Fifty percent of the total annual production of maize
is used as poultry feed. Should India for the sake of
maintaining the health of poultry birds, break the
backbone of our farmers allowing mindless imports?