By K.N.Kumar
I went through the vision 2050 of the ICAR, a well-written 46-page document, to find if any emphasis had been laid on regionally focussed research, but I couldn’t find any. Not a single sentence about the NER in that document, but since it is a general vision document, one does not need to read much into it. But its overall emphasis on food grain production heavily favouring two crops – Rice & Wheat surprised me. The collective memory of the country of the days of the ship to mouth (PL-480 funds of USA) when the country waited for the next ship for its food grains has long faded. Things have changed since. We are a different and more confident country now, but it appears the ICAR cannot shake off the memory of the past. As someone said, ‘cages are made of thoughts, not steel’.
ICAR may have indoctrinated itself into believing that Rice and Wheat are the only crops India needed and became a predominantly Rice and Wheat-centric research body sometime during the sixties and continues to be so, decades later. This obsession with the Rice & Wheat system can be gauged by the fact that nearly 25% of the scientists within the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) work in Rice or Wheat. Contrast this with only 40 scientists working for the Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad – the organization of the ICAR that exclusively works on the Millets. A quick retort from the ICAR would be that these two are our main food crops, so if you want food security, we have no option but to continue to work on Rice and Wheat. Right? Wrong, in the present context.
Only four crops contribute to 60% of the world’s food– Rice, Wheat, Maize and Soybean. Since the 1900s, about 75% of crop diversity has been lost forever from the farmers’ fields. Whatever has happened to the nutritionally dense Millets, our pre-eminent food before the green revolution? It is not always about production or productivity; it is also about nutritional security. Ignoring other food crops, especially Millets, that were our staple and nutritious diet across the country, including the NER, was a mistake. The scientists very well knew that millets were C4, and therefore, climate-friendly, water-efficient, and suitable for semi-arid and rain-fed tracts of the country. The decline of Millets corresponds with the Green revolution – between 1966-2006, the millet area in the country came down by 44%. The area under Millets was 53.35 lakh hectares in 1955, which came down to 6.82 lakh hectares by 2013-14. Likewise, the millet production came down from 20.7 lakh tonnes to 4.29 lakh tonnes, and in the process, the food habits of the people of the country have changed drastically toward the gluten-rich C3 plants like Rice & Wheat. The rats that chase only cheese die of obesity!
Be that as it may, I am convinced that Food security is not the same as Farmer security, evidenced by the fact that about 3 lakh farmers committed suicides in one decade even as the food grain stocks at the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) are bursting at the seams. The FCI has a stock of more than 77 million tonnes of food grains, 3.6 times the mandatory stock requirement. We have become a food secure but farmer-insecure nation. There appears to be an inverse correlation between Food Security and Farmer security. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution meanwhile has revealed that more than 38,000 M.T.s of food grains have rotted over the last five years.
I keep thinking that the temptation to promote Rice in the NER will be far more than any other because it is a water-rich region. In a situation of such surpluses, would it not be correct for the ICAR to make some firm decision to cut down its work on Rice & Wheat and instead move toward crops with potential for value addition and exports for the NER? Of course, it will seem like a horrible thought for many and may even be opposed vehemently. But the ICAR should not be enslaved by false narratives that may be slaying us as a country and instead re-prioritize its research, localize it, do market-centred research, and make it all farmer-centric.
So here is my sense of what should be the way forward to the ICAR over the next three decades. Call it ICAR’s vision for the NER, if you will. I will list five crops/trees that can change the game for the NER – (1) Chilli (2) Jackfruit (3) Turmeric (4) Ginger and (5) Buckwheat. Each of these crops deserves a National Research Centre located within the NER. A land with so much biodiversity and traditionally organic for the most part deserves far more NRCs than what it currently has. It is, in fact, strange that not a single commodity centric research centre in crop sciences has not been established in the region despite the impression that they have given the country better results.
An NRC for Chillis: Although North-eastern India is rich in the genetic diversity of Capsicum species, there is hardly any worthwhile research to improve the chilli landraces of NE India. The scope for discovering more pharmacological applications and improving the capsaicin content is high. The demand for value-added chilli products like powder, colour oleoresins and pungent oleoresins is very high. So, an exclusive NRC on Chillies will help, and I think Manipur or Nagaland would be highly appropriate states for such an NRC.
An NRC for the Jackfruit: Jackfruit is the least demanding and the most neglected fruit of the region. 75% of our Jackfruit is wasted, meaning a vast economic opportunity waiting to be explored and exploited. We have a million trees in our state, that is Rs.500 crore economy. It is drought-resistant and is naturally organic because no fertilizers and pesticides are ever used. Therefore, it has the texture of meat and is increasingly being added to the vegan diet as a meat substitute, an emerging economic opportunity. Globally, a vegan revolution is sweeping; the USA has seen a 600% increase in the Vegan population in the last three years.
An NRC for Turmeric: Post the launching of the Lakadong Mission in 2018 in Meghalaya, the number of new farmers has gone up by 7000, the number of SHGs exclusively cultivating the Lakadong variety is now 129, the additional area brought under Lakadong is now 1075 hectares, and the total production has now crossed 14,000 M.T.s. We did the profiling of Lakadong Turmeric for curcumin in 38 villages and discovered a considerable variation in the curcumin content – from a low of 2.5% to a high of 12%. If the ICAR had researched to identify the factors that contributed to enhancing the curcumin content, it would have given our farmers an extra edge. If an NRC is established exclusively for Turmeric in the West Jaintia Hills, the heart of the turmeric land, it will take us to the next level.
An NRC for Ginger: About 36% of the total Ginger of the country is produced in the Northeast. Assam is at the top, and Meghalaya is the sixth-largest producer. Since Ginger is a shade-loving plant, the possibility of expanding the area is high in the region as an inter-crop or as a pure crop in the hills. In addition, Ginger is highly amenable for value addition. However, the local market is not large enough to absorb the green Ginger so converting a part of produce into low volume, high-value products is essential to remunerate the farmers. Therefore, an NRC for Ginger in Assam, the largest producer of Ginger in the country with close to 1.5 lakh tonnes every year, will be a significant move forward.
An NRC for Buckwheat: One of the exciting things that happened to us over the last two years is our successful experimentation with Buckwheat in Meghalaya. There are two problems concerning Buckwheat (1) the absence of frost-tolerant varieties and (2) the absence of appropriate technology for milling/dehulling. I wrote a letter to the D.G. ICAR two years ago to help us by developing a small-scale buckwheat dehulling machine. I am yet to receive an acknowledgement, what to speak of the machine. I think Meghalaya will be an excellent location for establishing an NRC for Buckwheat. The Japanese have an insatiable demand for Buckwheat and our farmers will benefit immensely through exports.
In its vision 2050, the ICAR commits “to transform itself into an organization engaged fully with the farmers, industry, entrepreneurs, and consumers at large”. If the ICAR does not match its words with deeds by making a specific and actionable blueprint for the NER, it will become irrelevant for the region and the cost to the nation will be irredeemable. A behemoth must guard itself against becoming a Dinosaur. Otherwise, questions about its relevance will continue getting asked.
(The writer is Chairman, Meghalaya Farmers’ Empowerment Council)