PM’s Advisory Council Member delivers the Tarlok Memorial Lecture at UoH

Hyderabad|India|October'2011: Good harvests of last two years should not make us complacent. Long-term trends are deeply disturbing. While GDP from agriculture is sharply declining, workforce dependent on agriculture is declining at snail’s pace, said Prof. V Y Vyas, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur and Prime Minister’s Advisory Council Member while delivering the Tarlok Singh Memorial Lecture as part of the Annual IASSI conference at UoH. The lecture is hosted in memory of the Founder and first Chairman of Indian Association of Social Science Institutions (IASSI), Shri Tarlok Singh.

Prof. Vyas stated that the present agricultural scenario characterized by impoverished peasantry and stagnant agriculture has to be changed to a dynamic agriculture benefiting the large sections of small producers. He said the measures recommended are: Expansion of small holdings by, a) legalizing leasing of land, b) completing the process of redistribution of land available by strict enforcement of land ceiling legislation, c) facilitating purchase of land by small farmers with adequate credit and with assistance from state agencies. Increasing productivity of land by scientific agriculture has happened in case of crops like cotton, maize and soybeans. Encouraging and supporting high value crops, keeping in mind high capital requirements, sophisticated marketing and larger risks in entailed in high value crops.

Further Prof. Vyas opined that the institutions supporting agriculture will become more effective if they introduce suitable organizational changes, and use technology to reduce transaction costs, as is being attempted in the credit sector. Simultaneously, there should be systematic efforts to encourage rural industrialization, to absorb surplus labor from agriculture. Such industrialization will be demand driven, with larger farmers playing the key entrepreneurial role, and supported by technical and research institutions.

Impact of macro policies on agriculture, which is the largest industry in the country, should be taken into consideration; remaining kinks in the policies on credit marketing and trade have to be sorted out; allocation of resources for rural infrastructure and capacity building has to be increased to a sizable extent. First Green Revolution was initiated and sustained by medium and large farmers. The next revolution can be ushered in by the small farmers. And that will lead to a more just and sustainable transformation, said Prof. Vyas.