As we step into 2025, we must resolve and set our agri-policies in favour of farmers and recognise the constraints. Karnataka’s agricultural sector had rough sailing recently, with a growth rate (rate of decline?) in GSDP from the crop economy reported in the Economic Survey as -1.7% (2022-23) and -5.6% (2023-24).
The methodology of reporting our Economic Survey of 2023-24 and the YoY growth of the agricultural sector, which depends every year on the monsoon, needs a change. It is pretty clear that in the coming year, we must either firmly provide stimulus to the primary sector or be ready for 65 lakh cultivators under severe distress.
Historically, Karnataka’s economy is relatively buoyant and has emerged like a phoenix from severe shocks over the years despite frequent visitations of droughts, a large share of rainfed areas, low availability of irrigation and the absence of a long-term policy perspective, the state’s agricultural economy has shown significant suppleness over the years.
The state had its GSDP originating from the primary sector at Rs 1,063 crore in 1970-71, which has reached Rs 3,14,733 crore in 2023-24, an increase of Rs 313,637 crores clocking an average increment of Rs 5,800 crore per year. In this process, the share of agriculture has waned from 52.72 per cent in 1970-71 to 12.58 per cent in 2023-24. Indeed, this is a relative share decline against the hefty increase in the share of the services sector. But complacency need not overtake abandoning our efforts towards a firm policy.
The task
The first macro-policy task ahead of the state government is to accelerate with an engine of growth that would ensure sustained growth. Karnataka’s first Agriculture Policy came in 1995 and then in 2006, which ended its life in 2016, and the copies were sent to the cellar of one of the Soudhas. No effort towards setting agricultural policy was attempted after that. Last year’s economic survey craftily avoided providing any path towards policy. Therefore, a few crucial apparatuses could be genuinely taken up to reset the clock and prevent farm distress.
This should follow the setting up policy machinery for agriculture and allied sectors to ward off recurrent distress. The distress in the state was quite visible in the farmers’ suicides, which were 922 in 2022-23 and went up the following year to 1061.
Another manifestation is that the cultivators (main + marginal) are leaving cultivation as their profession to seek shelter in the compound of skyscrapers or under the gigantic flyovers. Between 2001 and 2011, in the population census, cultivators decreased from 68.84 lakh to 65.81 lakh, marking a reduction of 3 lakh cultivators, and that distress would have doubled by now.
This red warning should have been highlighted in our economic survey. The policy frame needs to address the urgent crisis. The next priority is to manage our cropping pattern (area allocated to crops). The area under total cereals was 59.71 lakh hectares in 1970-71 and declined by 9 lakh hectares by 2023-24, where a significant decline comes from lessening the area under wheat, jowar, bajra, and ragi.
The area under pulses has increased, but that under cotton and groundnut has reduced by 8.94 lakh hectares between 1970-71 and 2023-24. Now, the challenge is, with a 7.24 crore population and 143.68 lakh tonne of food grains, how will Karnataka manage its food economy without heavy dependence on other states? This is a warning bell that should be heard loud and clear. That requires the population to shift the food consumption basket or source it outside the state. It is high time we pay attention to food grains in a technology mission mode.
Besides these, the usual irritants are: saving the farmer from the clutches of middlemen both in the input and product markets, and the state takes complete control of the agricultural sector as given in the 7th Schedule of the Constitution. Market efficiency and price insurance mechanism must be implemented through the recently created State Agricultural Prices Commission.
As Rabindranath Tagore said, let the farmer “wake up into that heaven of freedom” where the clutches of price dictators /state in the input and produce markets operate strongly.