NCFS

GS 3: Major Cropping patterns to Land reforms

• Chaired by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan.
• Suggestions to achieve the goal of "faster and more inclusive growth" as envisaged in the Approach to 11th Five Year Plan.

Terms of Reference

The NCF is mandated to make suggestions on issues such as:

• strategy for food and nutrition security;
• enhancing productivity;
• rural credit to all farmers;
• special programmes for dryland farming for farmers;
• make them globally competitive;
• protecting farmers from imports;
• improve sustainable agriculture;

Key Findings and Recommendations

Causes for farmers' distress

• Agrarian distress has led to suicides in recent years. 
• The major causes of the agrarian crisis are:
• unfinished agenda in land reform,
• quantity and quality of water,
• technology fatigue, access, adequacy and
• timeliness of institutional credit, and
• opportunities for assured and remunerative marketing. 
• Adverse meteorological factors add to these problems.

Recommendations

• Farmers need to have assured access and control over basic resources, which include land, water, bioresources, credit and insurance, technology and knowledge management, and markets. 
• The NCF recommends that "Agriculture" be inserted in the Concurrent List of the Constitution.

Land Reforms

• Land holdings inequality is reflected in land ownership. 
• In 1991-92, the share of the bottom half of the rural households in the total land ownership was only 3% and the top 10% was as high as 54%.

Table 1: Distribution of Land 

Land Holding	% of House holds	% of Land hold
Land less	11.24
Sub-margin holdings (0.01 - 0.99 acres)	40.11	3.80
Marginal holdings (1.00 - 2.49 acres)	20.52	13.13
Small holdings (2.50 - 4.99 acres)	13.42	18.59
Medium holdings (5 - 14.99 acres)	12.09	37.81
Large holdings (15 acres + above)	2.62	26.67
	100.0	100.0

Some of the main recommendations include:

• Distribute ceiling-surplus and waste lands;
• Prevent diversion of prime agricultural land and forest to corporate sector for non-agricultural purposes.
• Ensure grazing rights and seasonal access to forests to tribals and pastoralists.
• Establish a National Land Use Advisory Service.
• Set up a mechanism to regulate the sale of agricultural land.

Irrigation

• Out of the gross sown area of 192 million ha, rainfed agriculture contributes to 60 per cent of the gross cropped area and 45 per cent of the total agricultural output. 
• The report recommends:
• reforms to enable farmers to have sustained and equitable access to water.
• rainwater harvesting and recharge of the aquifer should become mandatory.
• "Million Wells Recharge" should be launched.
• Substantial increase in investment in irrigation sector.

Productivity of Agriculture

• Per unit area productivity of Indian agriculture is much lower than other major crop producing countries.

Table 2: Comparative Yield of Select Crops in Various Countries (Kg/ha)

Country			Crop
	Paddy	Wheat	Maize	Groundnut	Sugarcane
India	2929	2583	1667	913	68012
China	6321	3969	4880	2799	85294
Japan	6414	-	-	2336	-
SA	6622	2872	8398	3038	80787
Indonesia	4261	-	2646	1523	-
Canada	-	2591	7974	-	-
Vietnam	3845	2711	4313	1336	65689

In order to achieve higher growth in productivity in agriculture, the NCF recommends:

• Substantial increase in public investment in agriculture related infrastructure.
• A national network of advanced soil testing laboratories.
• Promotion of conservation farming, which will help farm families to conserve and improve soil health, water quantity and quality and biodiversity.

Credit and Insurance

• Timely and adequate supply of credit is a basic requirement of small farm families.   

The NCF suggests:

• Expand the outreach of the formal credit system to reach the really poor and needy.
• Reduce rate of interest for crop loans to 4 per cent.
• waiver of interest on loans in distress hotspots.
• Establish an Agriculture Risk Fund to provide relief in the aftermath of successive natural calamities.
• Develop an integrated credit-cum-crop-livestock-human health insurance package.
• Expand crop insurance cover to cover the entire country and all crops
• create a Rural Insurance Development Fund.

Food Security

• The Mid-term appraisal of the 10th Plan revealed that India is lagging behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving hunger by 2015. 
• The report recommends:
• Implement a universal public distribution system. Total subsidy required for this would be one per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
• Promote the establishment of Community Food and Water Banks operated by Women Self-help Groups (SHG), based on the principle ‘Store Grain and Water everywhere'.
• Formulate a National Food Guarantee Act

Prevention of Farmers' Suicides

Some of measures suggested include:

• Provide affordable health insurance and revitalize primary healthcare centres.
• The National Rural Health Mission should be extended to suicide hotspot locations.
• Set up State level Farmers' Commission with representation of farmers.
• Restructure microfinance policies to serve as Livelihood Finance.
• Cover all crops by crop insurance.
• Provide for a Social Security net with provision for old age.
• Promote aquifer recharge and rain water conservation.
• Every village should aim at Jal Swaraj with Gram Sabhas serving as Pani Panchayats.
• Ensure timely availability of agricultural inputs.
• Recommend low risk and low cost technologies (avoid high cost technologies like Bt cotton)
• Have a Price Stabilisation Fund in place to protect the farmers from price fluctuations.
• Need swift action on import duties to protect farmers from international price.
• Set up Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs) or Gyan Chaupals in the farmers' distress hotspots. These can provide dynamic and demand driven information on all aspects of agricultural and non-farm livelihoods and also serve as guidance centres.

Competitiveness of Farmers

The measures suggested by NCF include:

• Land pooling – large agricultural holdings by communities.
• Improvement in implementation of Minimum Support Price (MSP). 
• Availability of data about spot and future prices of commodities through the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCD).
• Reforms in state Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Acts [APMC Acts] and move towards a Single Indian Market.

Employment

• Include farm activities under MGNREA

Bioresources

• Smart use of bioresources like animal waste, agricultural waste etc.

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