There is a story of the agricultural sector beyond slogans: the story is real because it is affecting the distribution of money in the rural sector as well as the cropping pattern. It goes somewhat like the following narrative:
Following the market pattern, productivity of the soil and the nature of the irrigation pattern, there can be a switch from cereal cultivation to cash crop cultivation and vice versa. At a micro level, it may not appear to be a very significant switch, whether from cereal to cash crop or cash crop to cereal. However, as the skill changes, the switch becomes a significant factor in the economy. This is so because availability and utilisation pattern of the cereal and the cash crop are not interchangeable.
Illustratively, rice or pulses are cereals, whereas sugarcane or spices are examples of cash crops. Both, cereals and cash crop cultivation have their exclusive skill profiles. As such, the switch from one to the other has a double edged potential and very often affects the overall supply situation. Magnify the scale, and the problem becomes enormous.
Yet another element in the sequence is ‘livelihood’, which in certain cases is dependent on support services like carpentry, blacksmithing, electrical maintenance, and more. This sector may be called the tertiary sector. A shift from cereals to cash crops or vice versa can cause significant shakeups. A shift from growing crops to rendering services in the tertiary sector can cause convulsions in the professional equilibrium. The return on effort in the tertiary sector is significantly higher and more enduring. The income from cultivation, whether cash crops or cereals, is lower, and hence the takers are fewer.
As already mentioned above, the return from cash crop cultivation is higher and richer than the return from cereal cultivation. Hence, the hierarchy of the pull factor for eligible youth seeking livelihood, is dominated by the tertiary sector, followed by livelihood in the cultivation of cash crops, followed by seeking livelihood in the cultivation of cereals. Such a demand side may not necessarily be in sync with requirements of a balanced economy.
Indeed, the realities of the national economy would also vary from region to region. In certain regions, there may be a shortage of cash crops of a certain variety, while in another region there may be a shortage of certain types of cereals.Net-net, there may be an overall shortage of takers in the tertiary sector. This is where the buck stops, and considered intervention becomes necessary. The logic of the market need not necessarily overlap with the logic of the economic needs. A given region may be short on agricultural products but may have an adequate supply of manpower in the tertiary sector. Clearly, the numerical imbalance will create further maldistribution of numbers across sectors with shortages in one segment and surpluses in another.
This cannot be handled at the central level or, at times, even at the state level. This has to be handled at the local level through thought through policy and regulation. Such interventions at the local level with policy perspective are an uncommon phenomenon. There is a need to put this in position.
The result is twists and turns from the supply side to the demand side, with little resonance in social reality. One family with three earning adults may succumb to the economy pressures, if each of the three adults has different earnings because of the choices of the segment. This can range from producing cereal crops to cash crops to work in the tertiary sector. This kind of economic transience would result in unplanned migrations. The result can be manifold including decrease in the value of land, thereby causing reverberations in the social fabric at the local level.
The outcome is obvious: there is a serious possibility of distortion in the local economy, disturbing the economic viability or indeed the health of the social economic systems at a local level. This is a situation that cannot be ignored. Such a situation requires long-term patience sustained thinking with action in operational terms.
It would require effective local-level research analysis leading to a package of responses. These responses could be in the form of market facilities, subsidised rates of procurement, or even the setting up of a cooperative to determine and control the supply chain requirement.
However, before any or all of this can happen, a consensus will have to be created for this kind of proposition. This would need support at the local level. The local educational institution and the administration heads would need to work together for this proposition. They would need to be far-sighted and responsible enough to design and implement it from concept to commissioning. Significant effort is needed, there is very little option.
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