The silver spoon

AN ASSESSMENT was made by theFood and Agriculture Organization(FAO) recently on several Asia-Pacific countries. Despite threedecades of impressive economicgrowth when food production doubled in this region, hunger, malnutrition and related cases claim several thousand lives everyday. It alsoreveals that although India couldgenerate more than 80 per centgrowth in food production duringthe past decades from 10 per cent ofits regions blessed with excellentirrigation facilities, a repetition ofthe miracle is impossible.

The investment in irrigation,dams and water distribution structures has shrunken over the years.There has been salinity devastationin irrigation farmlands due to poorand lack ofwater managementinvestment in drainage.

According to John Dixon of FAO), the incidence of land andforest degradation and poverty are particularly acute in rain-fed areas, which have benefited less from rural developmentefforts than the irrigated areas.

It is projected that by AD 2025, per capita cropland available in Asia will be less than 0.1 ha. As the development of irrigated cereal production appears bleak, attention should begiven to integrated intensive farming systems (IIFS) in bothirrigated and rain-fed areas.

Since agriculture is still the major provider of both foodand jobs for rural households in the Asia-Pacific region, in thecontext of a shrinking resource base, agriculture can be sustained only by producing more food, fuelwood, fodder, fibreand other commodities from less land, less water and lessenergy. A study conducted by the mss Foundation of Madras,points out the need for extending support to small-farm agriculture for intensifying farming systems through appropriateservice package based on field research, backed by properpublic policies. The study also calls for maximising net incomeper unit of land, water and energy and not merely the output.

The accomplishment of Indian agriculture during thepost-independent era is a saga of success. The country hascrossed the food grain production limit by 189 million tormes.India has accomplished self-sufficiency in food followed bybuilding up huge buffer grain stocks and has also emerged as a'grain power'. While all these accolades are being showered onIndia, it must also be accepted that the country still has thelargest working population who live below the poverty line.

Indian agriculture is dominatedby farmers owning sub-marginal,marginal, small and medium holdings which account for over 70 percent of the arable lands. Besides, thelandless agricultural labour toodepend on this sector for their existence. But the country has failed tobuild up livelihood security to thisvast majority of its population.

With the rapid decline in percapita land and water availabilityand swelling rural workforce, economically-sound IIFS becomesessential for safeguarding nationalfood security as well as for buildingup livelihood security. IIFS studiesare currently receiving keen attention in the Asia-Pacific region asthe most promising super highwayto economic improvements for therural sector.

FAO, collaborating with the MSSFoundation, had conducted a fiveday workshop on IIFS at Madras in 1995. M S Swaminathan,director of the institute, in his introduction to the exhaustiveIndian case study report presented in the FAO meet on IIFS, saysthat "the most urgent need of small-farm agriculture is theintensification and diversification of farming systems so thatagriculture helps to provide not only more food, but also moreskilled jobs and income. For this purpose, intensificationshould be done in such a manner that ecological foundationsessential for sustainable agricultural advances get strengthened and not eroded.Therefore, comprehensive case studiesadopted in different countries under the FAO project shouldinterest and benefit policymakers, extension workers, creditand financial institutions, and agricultural scientists andscholars."

The meet observed that the vast majority of the ruralhouseholds in Asia have only limited access to bio-physicaland financial resources, while human resources are relativelyabundant. Maximising benefits from given resource endowments through value addition leads to better livelihood security and thereby, food security.

It has been planned to intensify efforts to identify successful and sustainable IFFS models from every agro-ecologicalzone by focussing on indigenous knowledge, study and analysis/assess, and tests with farmers using multi-diseiplinaryteams and extend the knowledge base to the masses. It wassuggested that the IIFS required a new approach to its extension, like using model IIFS farms as demonstration centres andthe hub of local extension activities, and using IIFS farmers asextension agents.