A Development Agenda !

The number of people below poverty line has come down but the number of those vulnerable to poverty has increased.  The progress made on achieving millennium development goal can still be potentially reversed if planned investment is not made sufficiently for food security and adaptation to climate change, and climate smart agriculture.  

There is an opportunity to recast policy directions and priorities as well as the existing regional cooperation mechanism in coping with multiple challenges of balanced and sustainable development.  Right perspective, ensuring environmental and social sustainability, cost-effective financing for technologies and trade are the cornerstone for increasing agriculture production and productivity.  

Exploring policy options and adopting suitable approaches for food and nutrition security, energy security and adaptation to climate change needs to be translated into planned interventions in education, health and agriculture development.  The downstream consequences of financial crunch should not negatively impact to these three primary areas of interventions.  

What is needed is effective social protection measures to protect the poor and the vulnerable groups, particularly small farmers, women and children when nothing more can be done.  It must be backed by a comprehensive framework encompassing sustainable agriculture and forestry, climate change adaptation and mitigation, social protection and well functioning market.

The developing nations are yet to benefit sufficiently from North-South technology transfer, exchange of information, experiences on development policies and governance, organizational structures, enabling regulatory framework, networking and consultations.  The development planning and policies are yet to be businesslike.  

The goal of achieving food security and sustainable agriculture require enhanced investment in agriculture sector and it should encompass public and private sector partnership to increase productivity and promote efficient and sustainable food-production, post-harvest practices and loss reduction, marketing and trade.  The great Indian scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan says, “If agriculture fail, nothing will succeed.”

There needs to be an enabling policy environment to promote and encourage the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices.  Research and development on sustainable agriculture including its climate adaptation and mitigation, along with sharing of experience and transfer of best practices should be ushered at all time. 

 

Adoption of technologies and enterprises in agriculture sector is determined by the prices paid to the farmers.  The prices paid to the farmers should reflect the incentives needed for them to remain engaged in agriculture production.  The credit linked back ended capital support for agriculture enterprises has been very successful elsewhere.  Vocational training, business incubation, credit-linked back ended capital support, technical support, product price and marketing needs to be packaged as one integrated program which ensures high adoption rate, synergies, sufficient safety net and confidence.  The primary cause of not being successful is the lack of integration, coherence and concerted effort.  

Agriculture development cannot be looked at too simplistically.  It embraces the whole life system indeed.  Investment on effective food storage facilities and its network at national level, food bank, crop and livestock insurances are only few to name to cope up with climate change and as disaster mitigation strategies.  

Efficient water use in agriculture holds the key success.  Agriculture cannot continue with the primitive wasteful irrigation system.  More advanced micro-irrigation for horticultural crop with inbuilt integrated fertigation system is the need of the hour.  Likewise modern nurseries at national and local levels should be making available and enabling farmers to plant the right kinds of planting materials.  Without these interventions the horticulture could potentially be a history.  In rural setting, transition technologies such as bio-gas at household level are needed and not necessarily the large technology initiatives.  Public-private cooperation in these areas of intervention is vital.  Without the one another is disabled.  

If farmers on the two sides of a international boundary have to compete, the level playing fields have to be understood and equalized or else one will destabilize the other superficially.  The one at losing end has no option to forgo production unless the level playing field is equalized.  A thorough understanding, coordinated response and comprehensive framework for action are needed for not letting rural livelihood security to suffer.