The best part about the book is its ambitious title, and the association of wealth creation with Agrarian India. Almost every other title on Indian agriculture uses terms like reforms, poverty, unrest, competition, discrimination, political economy etc. Moily’s book stands out with its bold commitment and assertion that if the Indian farmer gets the freedom to transact, and a favourable policy environment, s/he can be the harbinger of prosperity, income and employment generation, and capital formation in this sector. It is also interesting to note that this is the first title in his ‘unleashing India series’ and the reader can hope to have his vision about other sectors of the Indian economy as well.
In the Preface, Moily invokes Prometheus, and hails him as the ‘people’s revolutionary’ who stole fire from the gods for the larger good of humankind, Thereby setting the stage for man’s quest for a social order which is not pre-determined by fate, but dependent on his realistic assessment of possibilities and opportunities, and a commitment to overcome the challenges. Moily accepts globalisation and the new trading opportunities as a challenge and an opportunity to create new jobs in the manufacturing and services sector. He is clear that while agriculture must grow, and India must produce more food, fruits and fibre from less land, employment opportunities will have to be created in the non farm sector of India’s economy. He laments the slow pace of reform in India viz a viz China, Vietnam and the Asian Tigers and is clearly advocating a ‘market based reform in Indian agriculture’.
In the first chapter Agriculture –A retrospective overview, Moily shows the integral role played by agriculture in state formation and providing economic sustenance from the Indus Valley period. From the earliest times, the state encouraged irrigation structures to enhance agriculture production. However till the emergence of the East India Company as the dominant political force in the eighteenth century, trade and commerce in agriculture was essentially local. There was also the problem of logistics, and before the Ports in the Presidency town were linked to the hinterland with the rail network, cotton, jute, tea, groundnut, timber and wheat could not have become the dominant crops in several regions in the country. The market for these crops was essentially non-local. The insistence of the East India Company, and then the Raj to collect land revenue in cash was a departure from the Mughal, Maratha and Sikh kingdoms tradition of assigning ‘revenue rights’ over villages to their administrative officers and military commanders. Thus the ‘money –lenders’ institution also became entrenched in the agrarian economy and he played an important role in aggregating/consolidating the produce in agrarian India for exports. However as value addition was not being done at any stage, agribusiness entrepreneurship did not emerge. Moily takes the British government to task for abdicating their responsibility towards the peasants and farm workers during the Recession and Post WW II periods when agrarian economy was really depressed and lakhs died on account of famine which was caused, not by failure of production, but on account of abject poverty, and the lack of purchasing power in the hands of the primary producers.
The second chapter deals with Land Utilization, and is decidedly the most thought provoking. He argues that Indian agriculture must be prepared to produce more from less land, for land has to be released not only for industry, infrastructure, housing and urbanisation, but also for the enhanced forest cover that India must have to ensure long term stability of its eco-system. However this calls for both public investments in irrigation, three phase power connectivity for water pumps, soil and fertilizer testing facilities, and private investments in micro irrigation, sprinklers, power tillers, tractors, combine harvesters and farm equipment with liberal financial assistance. Moily suggests that as the net sown area will be limited to 150 million hectares by 2020 (as against 180 million hectares today) efforts will have to be made to ensure that extension services, credit and technologies will have to be geared to meet the 350-400 MMT of food and 200 MMT of fruits and vegetables that would eb required by that time. He calls for pro- active steps to bring down the barren and uncultivable lands, and converting them into forests, or at least pastures and cultivable wastelands. It must however be acknowledged that from 1962-63 to 99-2000, this area came down from 35.16 million hectares to 19.44 million hectares, and the trend rate of conversion is 0.4 % per anum means that another 5.8 million hectares can be diverted from this category: however given newer technologies of water management, this can probably be increased by a few percentile points.
By the third chapter ‘Agriculture Development in India’ one feels that the author is not keeping abreast of the latest developments. The flagship schemes of the Ministry of Agriculture, notably the RKVY (Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana), the National Food Security Mission etal are not mentioned, though the NHM does find an honourable mention. My impression is that the different chapters in the book were written before August 2007, and had the author mentioned the date of authorship, it would have been better. Many other recommendations like the need for Integrated Food Laws, and legal recognition to warehouse receipts have already seen the light of the day. Therefore while the book becomes a very important reference tool for what has happened in the past, and the long term projections, its major weakness lies in the realm of the contemporary. So many exciting things are happening in agriculture and rural development – from NREGA to weather based insurance, satellite imagery for crop assessment to infrastructure support for Agri Export zones, Loan waiver and web based Fertilizer monitoring system- and these have been missed out.
The fourth and the fifth chapters deal with livestock, fisheries, dairy co-operatives and the tasks ahead for Indian agriculture. The best part about these is that the author puts forth his views in a forthright manner, and commits himself to the reform process in agriculture – from APMC to encouraging the opening of the retail sector to fresh fruits and vegetables which many states governments, including those which bear allegiance to Mr Moily’s party are reluctant to accept. It is refreshing to see a mainstream politician take a considered position on a sector that is so vital to the National economy.
The last chapter is on the Doha Round, and in my view appears to have been added as an after thought. It is not intrinsic to the arguments, except that India can gain from the WTO by strengthening the competitive edge of its agriculture. It is a bit abrupt, and could have been avoided. Perhaps the reason for its inclusion is that the author needed to add a few more pages to his book!
In conclusion, it can be said that while agreeing with and supporting the general tenor of the book, it is his duty to mention that the editing work appears to have been done in haste. Spelling mistakes abound (pages 4/10/15/126) and in most cases, the syntax could have been improved with professional assistance. As mentioned earlier, many of the suggestions and recommendations are already in place, and therefore a book published in 2009 is not expected to make references to these as things that ought to be done! Rather it should acknowledge these as the first positive steps in the challenge of agrarian wealth creation…