I am finding it quite difficult to come up with recommendations for the government to intervene in the rice sector, as market forces are the main players in the decision-making, process of all stakeholders.
Apparently, it seems that rice farmers never had it so good. No government support for the last couple of years has come and even then the prices that the market has offered them have been rewarding for their hard work.
In fact, now that rice farming is stretching out into non-traditional areas due to high returns and cash payments received by the farmers. The above trend may end up in a collapse of prices at harvest time.
The above scenario has come about with a very heavy price, water tables have drastically fallen and soils have been degraded due to salts pumped out from ground water. Weeds have increased exponentially due to monotonous paddy/wheat rotation.
Organic matter has further gone down as farmers are forced to grow the same crops each year due to favourable returns of paddy/wheat as compared to multiple cropping with legumes - oilseeds and green manuring crops to increase the organic matter in the soil.
Acreage has to be taken out of paddy/wheat rotation to be replaced by alternate crops like's pulses and oilseeds. Sugarcane like paddy is a water guzzler and the increase in acreage in them must definitely be discouraged. We are an arid country but not behaving like one. Any future planning has to keep this fundamental fact in mind before going for long term strategies.
The emerging issue is to produce crops from saline water and degraded soils. A lot of public research is required in this direction to come up varieties that perform under the above conditions. The public sector seed research has to be further strengthened and I believe it is the best public sector investment, which has and will give good returns to the agricultural sector.
In agriculture, everything revolves around seed. The government is rightly focusing on seed. It is a fact that yields can be increased by at least 20% by using healthy seed. In addition to better vigour, plants from healthy seed are better resistant to pest and disease. The seed policy has to be liberalised, but that does not mean handing over the business to global agribusiness. The pesticide fiasco is an eye-opener for the government. What it means is to support the indigenous public, and private sector seed industry. The commercialisation of basic seed to the certified stage is best done by the private sector.
Private seed companies should be encouraged to grow certified seed. The government should create an enabling environment for small start-up seed companies and assist them through their growing pangs. Seed certification procedure needs to be simplified in order to shorten the time period of certification.
The government should focus on producing basic seed on a large scale for varieties that are being commercially grown on farmers' field. For, an improved variety is useless unless its seed reaches the farmers in sufficient quantity, and has high quality and purity. At present the breeders at research facilities are only focusing on coming out with a new variety every year, and they totally ignore further production of breeder seed for established certified varieties.
The ground reality is that the research people are now almost cut off from the farmers resulting in their not getting the desired feedback from the ultimate users of their hard work. The extension department needs a new vision as the farmer has graduated from their earlier course of agro chemical usage. Farmer's issues and concerns are totally different. In my eyes, our farmers are basically small agribusiness concerns and their horizon is beyond the farm date.
For example, in rice, the most important decision the farmer has to make is to know not only that the seed being planted is healthy, full of vigour and free of disease but what will be the market of that particular variety at harvest time. Furthermore how does it fit in my cropping pattern? For cotton, the government has a support price but for rice none, therefore for the rice farmer, his computer scans the markets beyond the farm and even beyond the boundaries of the country before he decides on the seed to be planted. As a rule of thumb, the shrewd farmers always plant the variety , which is opposed by the government.
The above dismal picture of a research and extension department can immediately change if they pool their resources in improving the quality of farmer-saved seed. To graduate from an ordinary farmer to a seed farmer requires skills, supervision well beyond those needed for normal farming: On farm-training to achieve minimum standard of varietal purity by rouging; knowledge of when and how to harvest the seed crop is a must.
I believe in Indonesia there is a FAO-sponsored farmer's field school and farmer's sons are taught IPM methods of pest control. The programme should also be introduced in Pakistan with the incorporation of seed production methods. Seed and agro chemical testing laboratories, combined with training centres, should be set up in the production areas. I feel if, every year, a large percentage of farmer's saved seed quality is improved it will bring a far greater positive impact than any other intervention.
The government should seriously look into the revival of old varieties with consumer's acceptance which are discarded due to low yields as compared to the new varieties.
In seed one of the quality parameters is vigour. This is the key to the success of the above concept but with a slight change. Policies have to be made which encourage young people to adopt farming as a profession. Unfortunately the perception in the minds of the general public is that farmers are mostly feudal or farming is practised by people who could not make it in other fields. The government has to make an endeavour to change the above perception and improve the image of the farmer. The farming cannot be left totally to market forces, institutional safety nets have to be in place and it has to be made profitable and prestigious in order to attract the younger generation into farming.
Healthy seed used by young farmers with vigour and supported by the government in the form of research and extension will only bring about the desired result in agriculture.