Punjab legislative committee prescriptions may help fix some problems ailing the state's agriculture sector

Among the committee's critical observation was that the state had not implemented the crop diversification sub-scheme effectively. (Representative image)

The March 2023 report of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha committee on agriculture and allied activities in the state constituted in last May points to the much-needed legislative oversight of the executive decisions and their implementation for them to make a difference and bring back the focus on design and execution improvements in such steps. The committee was set up to assess the functioning of various government departments and agencies and the implementation issues on the ground. It has made many noteworthy recommendations but also fails to give logical reasoning for some other suggestions and ignores some ground realities.

Among its critical observation was that the state had not implemented the crop diversification sub-scheme effectively due to delay in the release of funds or lack of contribution of the state's share in the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY). The committee had some sharp words for the bureaucracy. It said that there was a lack of awareness and commitment among departmental officials to benefit from central schemes, which led to the lapsing of funds. It recommends the creation of an inter-departmental working group to study such schemes carefully and has called for disciplinary action against concerned officials if their negligence had prevented the benefits from such schemes from reaching farmers.

Boosting and Sustaining Agri Economy

The recommendations about introducing a third crop as a gap crop for increasing farmer income is well placed as cropping intensity of just 200 percent in a state like Punjab is no big achievement. The recommendation on some kind of zoning for proper demand-supply management of various crop produce in the state is in line with the Planned Production and Marketing (PPM) programmes adopted by many countries while promoting new crops. Further, the committee recommends an organic farming policy for the state under which provisions for organic produce marketing by such farmers in cities and towns can be made.

Its recommendation for more localised crop Package of Practices (PoPs) and advisories such that they are relevant for farmers in each district is a welcome suggestion. The committee wants the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) to make its research more relevant for farmers and to recommend only active ingredients of chemical pesticides and not brands in its PoPs. It has also urged PAU to focus more on the marketing aspects of new crops rather than production practices and technologies.

The recommendation to restrict the sale of subsidised urea and
diammonium phosphate (DAP) to a certain number of bags per acre to ensure that all farmers get adequate access to such inputs at right time is well considered. It cites the case of land-based public purchase of farm produce at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to move ahead on this. The recommendation to convert all the agricultural tubewells into solar tubewells makes sense as it can save the state Rs 8,000 crore in power subsidy. It will also benefit farmers as they can sell surplus solar power to the government. Such policies are already in place in states like Gujarat.

Inadequate Logic

Interestingly, the committee recommends the introduction of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for the cotton crop but it is not clear why it has not recommended crop insurance for all crops and allied activities or why it has recommended making it compulsory only for cotton farmers. Its recommendation on making crop insurance applicable at the individual farm level is impractical as such micro-level insurance is difficult to implement. The suggestion that crop insurance should be mandatory for farmers is not democratic, as farmers should have the right to accept or reject it, especially when the Union government’s PMFBY scheme has been made voluntary for farmers. Having said that, the committee recognises that since PMFBY is a Union government scheme, the state government can only suggest some improvements in this policy.

On the input quality side, it recommends holding manufacturing or marketing companies equally responsible for poor quality or spurious input supply, and not just the dealer of an input. However, it fails to mention that input quality is the subject of various Union Bills such as the Seeds Bill, and the Pesticides Bill which have been pending enactment for many years now.

Similarly, the recommendations about declaring seed as an essential commodity and that the state should have its own Seeds Act do not seem well placed. There is no discussion of water-saving technologies like micro-irrigation which is much needed and is subsidised by the Union government. The committee has recommended increasing the low-interest Cash Credit Limit (CCL) for farmers from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. But, this can be problematic as liberal low-interest credit to farmers can lead to a rise in indebtedness among farmers.

While recommending that government should take the help of non-government organisations (NGOs) to make farmers aware of government schemes for agriculture, the committee did not recognise that there were not many NGOs in the agricultural sector of the state which can be roped in for this purpose. On organic farming policy, it mixes up organic farming with natural farming when it recommends that the farmers of the state should be exposed to organic farming practices in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh because these two states are promoting natural farming which has no global recognition, and not organic farming.

Missing Blocks

While discussing the details of agricultural markets regulated and promoted by the Punjab Mandi Board, the report fails to even mention the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act under which all channels of procurement from farmers are regulated. Given the fact that the outgoing government had repealed the amended APMC Act and the Contract Farming Act, 2013, one wonders how various new channels like direct purchase by food supermarkets and other buyers and contract farming by processing or/and exporting companies are operating in the state. The report has no mention of the working of Apni Mandis which are relevant platforms for the direct selling of horticultural produce by farmers. It recommends that there should be a high-level committee of government and sector stakeholders to help farmers resolve their conflicts with contracting agencies. It is important to note that there are already Union government guidelines on contract farming in broiler poultry which can be adopted in the state with suitable modifications. More importantly, why not adapt the Union government’s Model Contract Farming Act of 2018?

It fails to acknowledge the existence of cooperatives and farmer-producer companies (FPCs) which are being promoted as farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) by the Union government with large allocations and that Punjab has many such entities while recommending crop insurance and MSP for horticultural crops and pulses and the creation of processing and marketing infrastructure. There is already a provision of MSP for pulses as part of the Union government’s procurement system. Moong was procured for the first time in the state under this provision during the last season, although it was only a small proportion of total production. Here, the committee should have recommended a Deficiency Price Payment (DPP) against the declared MSP for such crops if the market prices fall below the MSP. Further, a much-needed mechanism of warehouse receipts to get farmers out of situations of interlocked credit/input and output markets does not even find a mention in the report.

The report does not acknowledge the State Farmers and Farm Workers Commission for preparing agricultural policy drafts at least twice during the last 10 years nor does it question its composition. The Commission has five members besides the chairperson. Three of five members are ex-officio including two vice-chancellors and two serving/retired government officials, and there is a position for a representative of farm workers which has been never filled since the commission was made a statutory body in 2017 during the previous Congress regime.

Sukhpal Singh is Professor at IIM, Ahmedabad. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.