Land diversion makes case for intensive, modern farming

The Economic Times dt.27/11/2010

NEW DELHI: The acquisition of farm land for industrial and infrastructure use is beginning to show up in substantial numbers, indicating an urgent need to get more out of declining agricultural land to moderate the price pressure on food items.

Government data shows agricultural land has declined to 182.4 million hectare in 2007-08 from 183 million hectares in 2004-05 , a drop of nearly 600 thousand hectares, slightly less than that used for jute cultivation every year.
Land acquisition has increased for various non-agricultural needs such as special economic zones, urbanisation , power projects, roads and mining. As a result, the percent share of agricultural land has declined to 59.7% in 2007-08 from 59.9% in 2004-05 , the agriculture ministry said in response to a question in Parliament.

The impact of this diversion would depend on whether the land was yielding two crops or a single one.

India is already battling a double digit food inflation, which is now beginning to be blamed on structural reasons and not just temporary demand-supply mismatch because of one off reasons such as drought or floods. "Continued stickiness in Primary Articles is possibly due to the growing dominance of structural factors (rising incomes, changing dietary patterns towards protein-rich items, and stagnant yields),” said Citi economists Rohini Malkani and Anushka Shah in a recent research note.

Inflation in food articles has dropped to 10.15% for the week ended November 13 from over 20% at the beginning of the year, but a large part of the decline is because of the base effect, or rising inflation at the same time last year. However, farm experts are not perturbed by the diversion of farm land for other use, saying that the real issue is not land, but farm productivity.

“Over the years, agricultural area will come down as there are other uses where returns are more,” said PK Joshi, director, National Academy of Agricultural Research and Management , Hyderabad.
India has more agricultural land than China, but its farm output is much less because of a sharply lower per hectare yield for most crops, thanks to outdated agricultural practices, poor use of inputs and fragmented land that makes mechanisation difficult.

Independent estimates put India’s crop land at 170 million hectare as compared to 135 million hectare for China, but the latter manages to produce more from the smaller area it has under cultivation.
In 2008, for instance, China produced 112 million tonne of wheat, but India managed only 78.6 million tonne, says Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Similar differences exist in other farm produce as well. "We need to increase the cropping intensity, plot more shorter duration crops, and also target higher productivity. These will help compensate for the decline in land,” Mr Joshi said.