Farmers in West Bengal, particularly in the border districts of Murshidabad and Nadia, are transitioning from wheat cultivation to more lucrative crops such as bananas, lentils, and maize. This development highlights the growing importance of crop diversification within modern agriculture as a strategy to enhance resilience and economic stability.
FACTORS THAT PROPELLED CROP DIVERSIFICATION IN WEST BENGAL:
Economic Viability and Market Demand: Farmers are seeking crops that offer higher profitability. Wheat, while a staple, has not been as economically viable due to static market prices and high water consumption. In contrast, crops like bananas, lentils, and maize have seen increasing demand and can often fetch higher prices, especially during certain seasons or in response to market trends.
Disease Pressure: Since wheat blast was first identified in Bangladesh and West Bengal in 2016, the disease's proliferation has resulted in limitations on wheat cultivation. This has compelled farmers to switch to crops that are less susceptible to diseases.
Climate Change and Weather Extremes: Increased unseasonal weather events have negatively impacted wheat yields. Crops such as maize and some pulses are more resilient, offering more reliable productivity.
Water Use and Environmental Concerns: The water-intensive nature of wheat farming and declining water tables have driven a shift towards less water-dependent crops, aligning with sustainable and eco-friendly farming trends.
Government Policies and Support: Recognizing the challenges faced by wheat farmers, the West Bengal government has backed the cultivation of alternative crops with measures such as introducing new hybrid seeds, enhancing market access, and offering direct subsidies for diversifying crop production.
Adaptation to Local Conditions: Alternative crops like bananas, lentils, and maize may be better suited to the local soil and climatic conditions of Murshidabad and Nadia districts.
Risk Management: Diversifying crop production helps spread economic and environmental risks. If one crop fails due to disease, weather, or market fluctuations, farmers can still rely on others for income. This approach is crucial in regions prone to agricultural uncertainties.
WHAT IS CROP DIVERSIFICATION?
Crop diversification refers to the addition of new crops or cropping systems to agricultural production on a particular farm, taking into account the different returns from value-added crops with complementary marketing opportunities.
Diversification can be accomplished by adding a new crop species or variety or by changing the cropping system currently in use. Commonly, it can mean adding more crops to an existing rotation. Diversification can also be implemented to replace low-value commodities with high-value commodities, such as vegetables and fruits.
WHY CROP DIVERSIFICATION?
Higher income and reduced risk for the farmers:
Crop diversification by introducing a greater range of varieties makes sure that farmers are not dependent on a single crop to generate their income.
When farmers only cultivate one crop type, they are exposed to high risks in the event of unforeseen climate events that could severely impact agricultural production, such as the emergence of pests and the sudden onset of frost or drought.
Also, the Committee on Doubling Farmers Income has suggested that shifting some areas from staple cereals to high-value produce can lead to a sizable increase in the returns for farmers.
Food and nutritional security:
As a large section of India's population suffers from malnutrition, including crops like pulses, millets (or ‘nutri cereals’), oilseeds, horticulture, and vegetable crops can improve the nutritional quality of the food basket.
Crop diversification allows farmers to grow surpluses as well as diverse products, which will greatly contribute to the nutritional and food security of the nation.
Depletion of groundwater resources:
As the Economic Survey 2021–22 mentioned, the existing cropping pattern is skewed towards the cultivation of sugarcane, paddy, and wheat, which has led to the depletion of fresh groundwater resources at an alarming rate in many parts of our country.
Helps in reviving soil health:
Following the same cropping pattern, like wheat and rice after the green revolution, for a longer period of time has extracted specific nutrients from the soil, resulting in a deficiency in those nutrients along with a declining population of microfauna in the soil.
Thus, breaking the mono-cropping pattern through the introduction of diverse crops and cropping patterns helps in reviving soil health.
For instance, the introduction of legumes, which have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in rice-wheat monocropping regions, would help sustain soil fertility.
Diverse agronomic benefits:
Production of diverse crops on the same land can produce many agronomic benefits in pest management by breaking insect and disease cycles, reducing weeds and soil erosion, and conserving soil moisture.
The more diverse a farming system is with plants, animals, and soil-borne organisms, the more varied the population of beneficial pest-fighting microbes in the soil.
Access to international markets:
Crop diversification can enable farmers to gain access to national and international markets with new products, including diverse food crops with surplus productionand medicinal plants.
GOVERNMENT INITATIVES:
Crop Diversification Programme (CDP):
The Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW) has been implementing the Crop Diversification Programme (CDP), a sub-scheme of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), in the Original Green Revolution States viz; Haryana, Punjab, and Western Uttar Pradesh since 2013-14 to divert the area of water-intensive paddy crops to alternative crops like pulses, oilseeds, coarse cereals, nutri cereals, cotton, etc.
National Food Security Mission (NFSM) and Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH):
Government of India is also supplementing the efforts of state governments to encourage diversified production of crops such as pulses, coarse cereals, nutri cereals, cotton & oilseeds under National Food Security Mission (NFSM) and horticultural crops under Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH).
Minimum Support Prices (MSP):
The government has, through the MSP regime, been providing a price signal for crop diversification towards the production of oilseed, and the differential remuneration is aimed at encouraging crop diversification.
International Year of Millets:
With the aim to create awareness and increase production & consumption of millets, United Nations, at the behest of the Government of India, declared 2023 the International Year of Millets. India plans to increase production and promote millets, which have many benefits, as an alternative to much-in-demand food grains.
CHALLENGES:
Inadequate infrastructure:
Lack of quality infrastructure like rural roads, power, transport, communications, etc., as well as inadequate post-harvest technologies and inadequate infrastructure for post-harvest handling of perishable horticultural produce, would be a challenge to the proper implementation of crop diversification strategy.
Risk of poor economic returns:
Farmers may face poor economic returns if crops are not selected based on a market assessment. For example, drought-tolerant crop varieties like millets may fetch a low market price if there is not sufficient demand.
Reduction in budgetary allocation:
The allocation for agriculture in the union budget has been declining in recent years: from 3.78% of the total budget share in 2021-22 to 3.36% in 2022-23, and 2.78 % in 2023-24.
Inadequate supply of seeds:
The country faces the challenge of an inadequate supply of quality seeds, especially those of millets, pulses, vegetables, etc.
For instance, on India's request, the United Nations announced 2023 as the 'International Year of the Millet, but ironically, India faces a shortage of quality millet seeds that may slow down its plan to increase production and promote it as an alternative to much-in-demand food grains.
Inadequate human resources:
Inadequately trained human resources, together with persistent and large-scale illiteracy among farmers.
Uncertainties in agriculture:
Indian agriculture is vulnerable to various factors like erratic monsoon, MSP regime, buffer stock levels and government policies on imports.
WAY FORWARD:
Consumers must drive the change.
People must ensure that they continue to broaden the palate beyond the staple meals to drive demand for all foods: indigenous grains, pulses, millets, fruits, local green leafy vegetables, etc.
For instance, the past few years have shown a promising trend of people returning to millets in their diet. This will not only encourage our farmers to cultivate varied crops but also increase the nutrient value of our food.
Promote traditional system of agriculture:
The traditional pattern of agriculture in India has a wider crop diversity, is more stable, and is pro-nature.
For instance, in the Garhwal Himalayan region of India, Barahnaja is a crop diversification system for cultivating 12 crops in a year. ‘Barah anaaj’ literally means ‘12 foodgrains’ and is the traditional heritage of the area.
Agroforestry:
Agroforestry plays a significant role in sustaining crop diversification. Agroforestry is a land-use system that includes trees, crops, and/or livestock in a spatial and temporal manner, balancing both ecological and economic interactions of biotic and abiotic components.
Agroforestry can generate food, feed, fruits, fiber, fuel, fodder, fish, flavor, fragrance, floss, gum, and resins, as well as other non-wood products for food and nutritional security.
PRACTICE QUESTION:
Q. “Crop diversification, if adopted by the country, can be a win-win situation that will benefit the producer, consumer, and environment”. Discuss. (15 marks, 250 words)
