What can Indian Agriculture
Systems
Learn from Other Countries?
T
he Indian agriculture systems have huge challenges and opportunities. The agriculture production systems which have the responsibility to meet the food demand of the country will only be able to meet 59% of the total demand in 2030 (Global Harvest Initiative, 2014). This article looks at how India compares in its agriculture systems with other countries such as USA, China, Brazil and France.
How do the World Agriculture Systems look like?
The table refers to certain features of the agriculture systems of five countries USA, India, China, Brazil and France. Some of the key observations that can be made from the table are as follows:
While the per capita income of the people dependent on agriculture in India is USD 1400 on an average, it is almost twice of that in China (USD 2800), thrice in Brazil (USD 4397), thirteen times in France (USD 18117) and 78 times in USA (USD 109608)1.
The yields of China are comparable with USA, Brazil and France. However, the average land holding size (0.6 ha) in China is much smaller than other countries. The average land holding size in India is almost twice of that in China. Much more wide is the difference of the average size holding in China with Brazil (105 times), France (225 times) and USA (278 times).
China has a much higher use of fertilisers amongst the five countries. It uses 364 kgs/ha which is on an average 2.5 times the individual use in the four countries under the study.
What do the Observations Indicate?
India has small average size of the land holding and the cereal yield in India is much lower than the other countries it is compared with in the table. China is another country with even smaller average size of the land holdings but manages to have more than double the yield as compared to India. This indicates a need to study the agriculture systems in China and the lessons that India can derive out of it.
A caveat is in place here. Chinese agriculture systems show an extremely high use of fertilisers compared to the other countries. Introspection on results from the multiple long-term fertiliser trials in rice-wheat systems have revealed gradual deterioration of soil health and thus long-term productivity due to overuse and imbalanced use of synthetic fertilisers (Roy, Chattopadhyay, & Tirado , 2009). Increasing the use of fertilisers, which are energy intensive in their production shall also pressurise the energy systems in the usual scenario.
Observations from USA, Brazil and France also show yields double than that in India with almost the same amount of fertilisers used. All these three nations have much consolidated land holding, the size of which is more than 50 times that in India. This gives an indication of crop yields being directly proportional to the size of the land holding.An important learning from this exercise is the possibility of consolidation of land holding in India for increasing the agriculture yield. After further study on the models across the globe and if proven that large tracts of land result in higher yields, it would be useful to look at different models for land consolidation across the globe contract farming, community based models of resource pooling, collective farming are some such popular models.
With the rate at which Indias population is growing and a similar increase in the small land holding character of the Indian farming systems, it is important to acknowledge this trend and its potential consequences on the agriculture yield while determining models around agriculture systems in India for food security. q
Anshul S Bhamra
abhamra@devalt.org
Endnotes
1 It is assuming that the agriculture contribution to GDP is largely shared as incomes amongst the population dependent on agriculture, a huge disparity can be seen amongst the five countries under the study.