These
days there is much talk of transforming India into
a ''knowledge society'' producing goods and services
rich in explicit and implicit knowledge. Even farmers
are to be empowered into becoming ''knowledge workers''
using the latest available information and knowledge
about cultivation practices, inputs and output markets.
As
early as 2001, a Task Force set up by the Planning
Commission argued that this would increase agricultural
productivity and release surplus person power from
traditional agriculture, which could then be redeployed
elsewhere (''India as a knowledge superpower: Strategy
for transformation'', Planning Commission, June 2001).
More recently, pronouncements from within and outside
government have focussed on the creation of a knowledge
society and economy as the basis for defining official
strategy in all sectors.
It is almost
trivially obvious that emerging as a ''knowledge society''
is a desirable goal for any society, as it is to aim
for a situation in which farmers, along with everyone
else in society, have access to the latest knowledge
and techniques and can use them to improve their conditions.
But there are some equally obvious problems with such
an ambitious aspiration.
One problem, of course, is that improving labour productivity
in any one sector and thereby releasing labour for
other activities is socially useful only when the
economy is able to absorb this labour in productive
ways. This far, unfortunately, other sectors in India
have not been able to generate enough employment even
to meet the needs of those already unemployed, not
to mention those released from cultivation. This is
one of the causes for the dramatic deceleration of
employment generation in the recent years. Our huge
labour force is certainly a huge potential asset,
but it needs to be utilised, which requires not just
education and appropriate training, but even more
importantly macroeconomic policies which generate
more employment.
Another problem relates to what exactly is
knowledge. Only the most foolhardy would claim that
Indian farmers, for example, are operating on the
basis of ignorance and complete lack of basic information
relating to their own activities, simply because they
are not aware of the latest results of what may be
corporate-sponsored agricultural research. The huge
wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by
policy makers, as is the remarkable ability of farmers
to adapt and develop cultivation practices according
to their own specific situation and experience. Indeed,
there are several studies citing cases where the departure
from such traditional knowledge has created not only
greater cultivation risk but also less sustainable
practices.
So it need not be true that all the new research
and ''knowledge'' that come from various sources always
generate the best or most desirable practices, even
in something as apparently straightforward and technical
as cultivation practices. Especially now, when a multiplicity
of research undertaken by different agencies provides
different results, and when at least some corporate-sponsored
research provides results that come suspiciously close
to marketing the products of those same corporates,
there are reasons to emphasise that knowledge itself
is not necessarily ''neutral'', but can be complex
and possibly ambiguous.
In many states of India, it has become evident
that new knowledge disseminated by input dealers who
may have a vested interest in promoting particular
inputs has become a source of more problems rather
than improved cultivation practices. For example,
in Andhra Pradesh the state government's Commission
of Farmers' Welfare found in 2004 that unviable or
undesirable practices (such as excessive chemical
pesticide use or improper use of certain new transgenic
seeds) were actually promoted by input dealers.
All this needs to be borne in mind when designing
strategies to increase farmers' access to new technology
in cultivation. In any case, it is useful to begin
with some sense of what could be called the current
base-level reality. Fortunately, a recent report from
the NSSO (Report No. 499: Access to modern technology
for farming, based on NSS 59th Round, 2003) provides
some information on this.
The survey, which covered 51,770 farming households
in 6638 sample villages, found that the majority of
farmers did not access any source of information on
modern technology in the previous year. As Chart 1
shows, only around 40 per cent of the sample accessed
such information, and it came dominantly from other
farmers, input dealers, radio and television. (It
should be noted that information from radio and television
includes advertisements by private input suppliers.)
The
most significant fact to emerge from Chart 1 is the
almost negligible role played by public agencies.
Taken together, the public agencies that are meant
to deliver such knowledge to farmers – that is agricultural
extension workers, government demonstrations and the
Krishi Vigyan Kendras - had been accessed by only
8.4 per cent of the farmers surveyed. By contrast,
other farmers were the largest source of information,
with around 17 per cent of farmers getting information
from them, followed closely by input dealers, who
had been accessed for such information by 13 per cent
of farmers. Even the local co-operative societies
had less than 4 per cent of farmers using them as
sources of information for new cultivation practices.
Chart
1 >> Click
to Enlarge
Predictably,
there is substantial variation across states even
in terms of the proportion of farmers even trying
to get information on new technology. Chart 2 presents
the evidence by states, and Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal
and Kerala emerge as the states where the most farmers
(nearly two-thirds of the sample) had accessed such
information in the previous year. Kerala has the country's
most diversified agriculture. And in Andhra Pradesh
and West Bengal there have been substantial diversification
of cultivation and changes in cropping pattern over
the recent period, and farmers in both states have
been observed to respond rapidly to changing market
conditions, but not always to their own advantage.
Interestingly, states such as Punjab and Haryana which
are known to be highly commercialised, indicated only
a minority of farmers accessing new technology over
the previous year. It could be that cultivation patterns
here have stabilised such that farmers feel that they
do not require new knowledge in the same way.
Chart
2 >> Click
to Enlarge
The most telling indictment of the lack of effectiveness
of public dissemination of new agricultural technology
comes from the data gathered on the extent to which
farmers actually put into practice the information
gathered from any particular source. Table 1 provides
such evidence.
Table
1: Per cent of farmers adopting
recommended practice, by source |
State |
Source
of information
|
|
Extension
worker |
TV |
Radio |
Newspaper |
Input
Dealer |
Other
farmers |
Andhra
Pradesh |
73.5 |
54.7 |
50.5 |
52.5 |
86.3 |
91.5 |
Assam |
74.6 |
53.1 |
59.6 |
63.1 |
48.6 |
72.8 |
Bihar |
26.9 |
57.2 |
61.1 |
49.1 |
83.2 |
87.2 |
Chhattisgarh |
41.2 |
31.6 |
29.7 |
53.5 |
30.3 |
60.3 |
Gujarat |
83.4 |
70.5 |
53.7 |
74 |
85.5 |
93.1 |
Haryana |
72.1 |
64.6 |
66.2 |
62.8 |
89.3 |
81.5 |
Jammu
& Kashmir |
26.7 |
67.4 |
75.8 |
50.9 |
100 |
100 |
Jharkhand |
100 |
66.3 |
36.8 |
27.6 |
84.9 |
48.8 |
Karnataka |
29.4 |
35.9 |
37 |
43.1 |
71 |
59.3 |
Kerala |
74.4 |
44.9 |
48.3 |
50.2 |
75.7 |
79 |
Madhya
Pradesh |
54.5 |
59.1 |
54.8 |
52.2 |
80.3 |
80.4 |
Maharashtra |
59 |
46.5 |
40.8 |
50.4 |
65 |
82.6 |
Orissa |
43.4 |
36.4 |
31.1 |
38.2 |
82.6 |
88.9 |
Punjab |
29.8 |
56 |
42.3 |
59.8 |
66.7 |
92.2 |
Rajasthan |
87.2 |
66.8 |
67.6 |
80.9 |
94.7 |
92.3 |
Tamil
Nadu |
74.1 |
49.8 |
52 |
54.1 |
86.7 |
85.3 |
Uttar
Pradesh |
48.2 |
65.1 |
66.3 |
63.2 |
87.5 |
86.4 |
West
Bengal |
85.3 |
45.7 |
49.8 |
56 |
83.4 |
88.8 |
India |
62.5 |
53.1 |
54.5 |
53.8 |
81.7 |
85.1 |
Table
1 >> Click
to Enlarge
It has already been observed that agricultural extension
workers account for a very small proportion of the
information access for farmers. But Table 1 indicates
that in most states, farmers rarely trust them to
the extent of putting into practice their recommendations.
And certainly they come far below the trust scale
when compared to other farmers and input dealers.
In some state, such as Punjab and Bihar, extension
officers' advice was acted upon less than 30 per cent
of the times, compared to more than 80 per cent for
input dealers. In many states, even radio, TV and
newspapers -ads and all - were relied upon more than
extension officers.
It is worth noting that the data on trial of the new
technology indicate lower percentages of farmers,
suggesting that in a substantial proportion of cases,
farmers put into practice the advice received on new
technology from other farmers and input dealers without
prior trial.
Given the problems already noted with private dealers
(who may be and typically are interested parties)
and other private agents being the main sources, it
is not surprising that there was a general degree
of dissatisfaction with the information thus accessed
and used. Around half of the farmers reported that
the information received was not good, and extension
workers and input dealers fared equally in this regard.
In fact, the best ranking was received by newspapers,
with 55 per cent of farmers feeling the information
from this source was good.
It is obvious that if India is to come anywhere near
being a ''knowledge society'', a preliminary requirement
is that farmers, who still constitute around 60 per
cent of the labour force and support around two-thirds
of the population with their income, must have good
quality access to the best knowledge (which does not
always mean the latest knowledge) regarding agricultural
techniques. But the NSS data always shows clearly
that at present, our farmers are nowhere near being
even minimally empowered in this respect.
A basic failure that merges is that of the public
agricultural extension services, which have clearly
not delivered what was originally expected of them.
The blame for this lies not with the extension officers
themselves, but with central and state governments
over the past decade and half, who have systematically
reduced public expenditure in this important area
and reduced both the scope and capacity of this system
in general.
Extension officers are often inadequately trained
to start with and in almost all states do not receive
continuous training that would keep them up to date
with new developments. Their numbers have been reduced
o the point that one officer has to cover a vast area
and a large population, which is typically not feasible.
They are not provided with the minimum requirements
of effective functioning, such as transport vehicles
and cellphones to enable communication. It is hardly
surprising that so few farmers access them for new
technology and even less farmers believe what these
hapless extension officers are able to tell them.
This is a major lacuna, because it is both unrealistic
and potentially problematic to rely only upon private
agencies to meet the information requirements of farmers.
While the current agrarian crisis in India is hydra-headed
and has many causes, the apparent collapse of public
extension services has certainly had a role to play.
The resulting problems of undesirable or inappropriate
choice of cropping pattern, spurious input provision
and unnecessary, excessive or improper input use have
dramatically added to the costs and risks of cultivation,
especially in some states.
The revival of public agricultural extension services
is therefore of critical importance. Since this requires
in the first instance a substantial infusion of additional
resources by state governments whose responsibility
this is, it is unrealistic to expect this to happen
given the current strains on state finances. So this
also requires intervention by the central government
in assisting or enabling such expenditure.
In addition, the focus of training of extension officers
must shift to one of continuous learning and upgrading
of knowledge through various sources, including ICT
based training where possible. Constant interaction
with farmers has to become the norm, so that extension
officers can become aware of current and emerging
problems in cultivation and transmit these to the
agencies devoted to agricultural research and other
relevant policy makers.
All this requires not only a drastic overhaul of the
extension system itself, but an acceptance that the
creation of a knowledge society has to begin with
the areas that may seem to be the least apparently
connected to frontier knowledge but are the most basic,
and therefore possibly also the hardest, to tackle.
