EVEN while strongly protesting the anti-farmer policies of the national governments and leading struggles from time to time, Kerala Karshaka Sangham had long been facilitating agricultural development in the state in different ways. Over the years, this approach of creative interference has resulted in several innovative initiatives like people’s programmes for vegetable production, establishment of market facilities and creation of farmer collectives throughout the state.  These efforts have not only helped farmers evolve new models of collective action, but have also taken the organisation much nearer to the farming community. However, it has to be admitted that these efforts have not been scaled up and sustained as anticipated, in spite of the best efforts made by the organisation. The new circumstances emanating from Covid-19 pandemic have made it necessary to recommence these attempts with great vigour.

The disruptions due to Covid-19 pandemic have called for intensive efforts to diversify the livelihood options of the people of Kerala by promoting income bearing activities and attracting investment to enable growth. Considering this, the LDF government has underlined the importance of recovering the economy and attaining sustainable growth during the 14th five-year plan period. This has also figured prominently in the manifesto of the LDF. But the state is severely constrained by the resource crunch caused by unilateral decisions of the central government to reduce assistance to states and decline in economic growth due to the ill effects of the pandemic.

In agriculture and allied sectors, this implies enhancing production and productivity of crops, increasing the income of producers and generating as many employment opportunities as possible in the primary sector. In a bid to achieve this, the LDF government has proposed to foster collectivisation and aggregation of production, value addition and entrepreneurship development based on these activities.

It was in this backdrop Kerala Karshaka Sangham (KKS) organised a state level workshop at EMS Academy at Thiruvananthapuram on August 16-17, 2022 to discuss new ways of supporting the drive to revive agriculture in the state. The workshop was attended by leaders of Karshaka Sangham, experts on agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, dairy, co-operatives and local governance and scientists from universities and research institutes. The workshop deliberated on innovative methods of harnessing resources, organising producers, inducing new technologies in production process and how these activities could be spearheaded by Karshaka Sangham as a movement across the state. 

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member S Ramachandran Pillai inaugurated the workshop and presented a comprehensive review of agriculture and allied sectors in the state and explained the importance of these sectors in building up the New Kerala envisioned by the LDF.  He explained at length the challenges faced by the state and the role of Karshaka Sangham in addressing them. He also outlined the overall programme for the future. M Vijayakumar and Valsan Panoli, KKS state president and general secretary respectively steered the proceedings. Professor VK Ramachandran, member, State Planning Board emphasised the need to seek technology-based solutions to problems encountered in agriculture and allied sectors.                      V Vasavan, minister for co-operation, KN Balagopal, finance minister, MV Govindan, minister for local governments and excise presented their perceptions and recommendations. Members of the State Planning Board, Professor R Ramakumar and Professor Jiju P Alex presented theme papers for discussion. Papers on specific themes on different sectors were presented by S S Nagesh, Professor PK Raveendran, Dr  EJ James, Dr Dileep Madhavan, Dr Suresh A, Dr Pradeepkumar T, Dr B Manojkumar, Dr A Prasad, K Dharmaraj and M Janardhanan. Representatives of Karshaka Sangham responded to the presentations from the perspective of the organisation.  The workshop was attended by representatives from all the 14 districts of the state. The deliberations of the workshop are summarised below:

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF AGRI & ALLIED SECTORS IN KERALA

The workshop observed that development of agriculture and allied sectors would be inevitable for the recovery of Kerala’s economy which has been heavily affected by the floods in 2018 and 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Economic Review of Kerala, growth in Gross State Value Added (at constant prices) has gone down to an all-time low of (-)8.16 per cent in 2020-21 compared to the growth rate of 2.19 per cent in 2019-20. The decline in Gross State Domestic Product growth was even more serious, with (-)9.20 per cent at constant prices and (-)3.01 per cent at current prices. The corresponding growth in 2019-20 was 2.22 per cent and 4.58 per cent respectively.

In fact, growth of agriculture and allied sectors, which contribute 9.38 per cent of the GDP of the state (as per quick estimates) has not been encouraging during the last several decades. Barring a slight increase in the previous year, the growth trends in all the previous decades had been low or even negative according to authentic sources. However, in spite of the low growth in production and area, there has been marginal increase in the productivity of some crops during the 13th Five Year Plan period. Still, it has not been impressive compared to the productivity of crops at the national and global levels. For instance, productivity of rice in the state is 3.06 t/ha which is much below the level of major producing states like Punjab (4.03 t/ha), Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (3.76 t/ha each). Similarly, productivity of coconut was also low with only 9175 nuts/ha, which is below that of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Production of vegetables is also not adequate, with just about 15.7 lakh tonnes which meets hardly 40 per cent of the requirement of Keralites. There is an increasing need to employ modern technologies and production techniques to cross this barrier.

Similarly, animal husbandry sector, which accounts for 26.67 per cent of the GSVA (at constant price) requires to be supported further to attain self-sufficiency in domestic production of animal products, thereby reducing the dependence on other states for our requirements. In this sector, meat production requires better infrastructure facilities, state of the art technologies, which call for significant investment.  Modern technologies in production, preservation, processing, value addition and consumer packaging have opened up new opportunities to the meat and poultry industry. It is observed that currently, value addition in meat sector is almost non-existent.  It is essential to tap the potential of rural entrepreneurship to popularise the establishment of larger commercially run dairy and poultry farms in Kerala. This would also benefit returnee Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs), unemployed youth and women.

In the fisheries sector, Kerala faces a deficit of 2-2.5 lakh tonnes of fish, and aquaculture is seen as a sunrise sector in food security. The great potential in this sector has not been fully utilised as yet. Kerala will have to focus on seed production, inland aquaculture development, aquaculture extension service, aquatic animal health management, reservoir fisheries, ornamental and recreational fisheries, research along with thrust on marine fisheries and fishers’ welfare. There is huge opportunity for inland and brackish aquaculture development in the state. It is estimated that Kerala has 8171 ha of freshwater ponds, 49718 ha freshwater fields, 2303 ha of brackish water ponds, and 5178 ha of brackish water fields which may be used for conventional farm-based aquaculture. Fishery development in Kerala has been below potential for decades, when the solutions are clearly at hand. An important constraint to the growth of inland fisheries is the availability of adequate fish seeds. Focusing on ensuring investment in the reservoir fisheries sector will ensure revenue growth in the sector.

ON STAGNATION IN PRODUCTION

The workshop critically evaluated the current situation to suggest appropriate measures to be taken at different levels to salvage agriculture and allied sectors in Kerala from an imminent debacle. According to experts who spoke on various topics, decline in the contribution of agriculture and allied sectors to the GDP and the increasing shift of people engaged in farming to other sectors could be attributed to a wide range of reasons. Though problems of unstable prices, market volatility and stiff competition due to neoliberal policies and subsequent international agreements have largely contributed to the crisis in agriculture in Kerala as in any other part of the country, there are certain serious issues unique to the state. Most importantly, Kerala’s agricultural production is predominantly small farmer oriented, which implies that increase in overall production would be possible only if there is substantial increase in production from unit area. Moreover, there has to be multiple measures to increase profitability. Production in small scale units has to be made sustainable by adopting appropriate institutional arrangements and management strategies for aggregation of produce, post-harvest handling, value addition and marketing. A close look at the development strategy adopted in agriculture shows that these prerequisites have not been pursued consistently with the long-term objective of sustainable development.

The workshop also observed that this lesser growth has happened in spite of the enhanced public investment in agriculture and allied sectors, proliferation of schemes and programmes and mandatory allotment to the local self-governments to invest in the productive sector. In fact, Kerala had embarked on democratic decentralisation 25 years ago with the intention, among other prime objectives, to activate the productive forces at the grassroots level and enable sustainable growth. These efforts notwithstanding, development in agriculture had been low, while there had been phenomenal advancement in infrastructure and service sectors. More strikingly, the huge potential of the network of co-operatives has been only partially tapped to develop agriculture and allied activities. This unique possibility is yet to be utilised fully, by providing adequate and timely credit support to producers, organising producers, instituting mechanism for better value and supply chain management and establishing facilities for marketing.

The workshop expressed concern over the fact that Kerala, with the richest bio diversity – which includes terrestrial as well as marine – in the country and bountiful natural resources had not been able to make any headway in production-oriented growth in the primary sector. Instead, it has shown declining tendencies all these years due to lack of imaginative application of science and technology and the failure to make institutional changes to improve production, productivity and value chain management. This has severely constrained our attempts to convert the rich biological wealth into income for people. It was further observed that Kerala has got to learn a lot from the experiences of several south east Asian countries, which have similar agro-ecological and socio-political features.

FUTURE PROGRAMMES

The workshop decided to strengthen the attempts to organise small producers and peasants to take up cultivation, post-harvest handling and aggregation collectively, to address the problem of economies of scale. This would be done by forming clusters of producers at the micro level and providing them with organisational support. The clusters of producers will be federated at the next level. In this process, the primary                co-operative societies would be encouraged to provide focused credit support to producers. The co-operatives would also help procure agriculture produce by establishing state of art procurement centres. The production plan will be scientifically reoriented with realistic estimation of production potential of crops in a given area, soil fertility status, irrigation potential etc. The farmer collectives will be encouraged to follow scientific procedures and protocols of production, post-harvest handling and value addition. Karshaka Sangham will also try to organise farmer producer organisations and companies at places with good potential. The organisation will also promote integrated farming with diverse crops and enterprises. Producers will be organised to formulate enterprises for value addition of fish, meat, and milk. At the local level, Karshaka Sangham will also organise Karshaka Karma Samithies to assist farming by providing trained labourers and farm machines. The existing facilities for mechanisation will be strengthened with the help of co-operatives. Networks of farmer collectives for production and distribution of inputs including bio fertilizers will be facilitated by the organisation.

The workshop also proposed to engage with the local self-governments to prepare futuristic development projects on agriculture, animal production, fisheries, dairy farming, and other sectors so as to accelerate local economic development. The campaign to foster micro enterprises by small producers will be duly supported locally. Karshaka Sangham will encourage efforts by various agencies to provide employment to the rural youth and help them work in a coordinated manner. The workshop turned out to be a great success as it drew out a feasible master plan and road map to accelerate growth in agriculture in the state. Karshaka Sangham proposes to start the programme by preparing activity schedules in each locality, with the support of Party activists and functionaries.