Page 159 - DECO502_INDIAN_ECONOMIC_POLICY_ENGLISH

Unit 13: Recent Issues in Indian Agriculture

Low Soil Fertility Notes
Soil fertility is also an area of concern. Maps of India show that only about 11 percent of soils are high
in available nitrogen. Similarly, about 20 percent of soils are high in available phosphorus and about
50 percent in potassium. With intensive cropping using only NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and
Potassium) fertilisers and limited use of organic manures, soils and crops became deficient in a large
numbers of elements even as food production increased with time.
The major issues around soil health today are :
• Physical degradation of soil - compaction, crusting and other effects caused by excessive
cultivation
• Chemical degradation of soils due to wide gap between nutrient demand and supply
• High nutrient turnover in soil-plant system coupled with low and imbalanced fertiliser use
• Emerging deficiencies of secondary nature and micronutrients
• Poor nutrient use efficiency
• Insufficient organic resource use because of competitive uses
• Acidification and aluminium toxicity in acidic soils
• Irrigation induced water-logging
• Biological degradation by organic matter depletion and loss of soil fauna and flora
• Soil degradation due to water and wind erosion
• Soil pollution from industrial wastes, excessive use of pesticides and heavy metal contamination
Climate Change
Indian agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate change which A. K. Singh, deputy director-
general, natural resource management, of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, believes could
cause yield drops of between 4.5 and 9 percent by 2039. Crop yields may fall by 25 percent or more by
2099.
India has had a taste of what is to come : rain-fed tracts have been experiencing three to four droughts
every 10 years. Of these, two to three droughts are generally of moderate intensity and one is severe.
Furthermore, there has been a fluctuating weather cycle with unpredictable cold waves, heat waves,
floods and heavy one-day downpours. In 2008, the groundnut crop in the Rayalaseema (Andhra
Pradesh) was subject to high as well as low rainfall at different stages of crop growth. While heavy
rainfall early in the season adversely affected the development of pegs (which bear groundnut pods
below the soil), the relatively drier spell at the later stage hit the development of pods. The impact of
these dramatic weather cycles on agriculture is baneful.
Climate change affects the small and marginal farmers the most because they can least afford irrigation.
Indeed some 80 million hectares (net sown area of around 143 million hectares) is irrigation-deprived
and depends on the errant rains, but more than 85 per cent of the pulses and coarse cereals, more
than 75 percent of the oilseeds and nearly 65 percent of cotton are produced from land characterized
by low yields, usually in semi-arid zones.
Food Wastage
The most inexplicable issue around Indian agriculture is the continued waste of food that has promoted
the Supreme Court to castigate heavily the government. The food ministry has admitted that foodgrains
of USD 6 billion have gone waste in 2010, most of it in state warehouses.
Given a production (in 2010) of around 80 million tonnes but the combined storage space of the Food
Corporation of India, State Warehousing Corporations and other agencies of just 60 million tonnes,
some 20 million tonnes of food is left out for the elements to ravage. The estimated loss was around
INR 270 billion rupees (US $6 billion). Between 1.2 million metric tonnes of rice and wheat was
wasted in Punjab alone, forcing the Supreme Court to order the Centre to distribute free food grains,
especially to those in the drought and flood-hit areas. The highest court also directed the Centre to

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