A Strategy For Real Agricultural Prosperity

Re: # 29
Very interesting. There were agricultural highs and lows among all empires and reflect the dynamism/efficiencies of good periods as under Akbar to the very corrupt and inneficient systems in the late Mughal period. Healthy trade and commerce also flowed easily in the better periods. It was paradoxically at the decadent periods that the art culture, buildings, music, poetry, etc., was most prolific.

But the much condemned land tax systems remained the basis for imperial revenues and remains even now an important lever for rural motivation that still has considerable relevance.

#29 Jang...

Yes, British people, to some extent, modernised Indian agriculture. Majority of the cash crops ( tea,coffee,rubber...), good irrigation system is their contribution.
But indian agriculture, as a science, declined/remained stagnant from the time of Kshana.

imo agriculture really did poorly during the medieval times thanks to lack of feudalism (the kind that existed in europe or japan). indian system the tax-collector did not own the land, the land was kinda owned by the village and plentifully available to who ever wished to till it. the problem was that the tax-collector would tax the tiller but there was little enterprenurial input. the european feudals e.g. actually owned the land and was keen to improve its yield..the indian tiller otoh often times found tilling to be a futile excercise in the view of heavy taxation and general robber-baron baditary. indeed the land under cultivation actually declined during aurangjeb and other mughal period..soldiering became the most sought after profession. mughal system of not allowing hereditary watans did not help..the mansabdar had little incentive to improve his mansab knowing that after his death the king would take it away. after british instituted feudalism along with irrigation, esp in panjab, the yields actually improved dramatically. similar dramatic growth was seen in tea, indigo, coffee plantations, opium as cash-crops.

so if you were to look at yield pimorvement alone, a feudal system seems to have given far better output.

Dear Pinku

This article has nothing to do with religion so lets keep it out of the way. Land Tax was undoubtedly an instrument of oppression as well as a means to control rural populations and to increase production in ALL old societies. It may not be very relevent in industrial economies today but I believe still has relevance in predominantly agrarian ones.

I know very little about Pakistan but have been told that many Pak farms are owned by big feudal lords who keep their workers in oppressive conditions. My questions to Pak interactors is... does any of the suggestions in this article have any relevance to them?

#26 Posted by muradbaig

murad baig,
my objectivity is not getting colored by any prejudice because the bias i show is to show your latent bias that i found in your earlier articles. It was to remind you that the same could have been said without mentioning Mughal and alluding that people were coming to India because Mughals made it that great. Now you know that 1800 years before mughals, India was still very wealthy and a huge empire, bigger than Mughal empire. And people are coming to India since ever. More greeks, persians, arabs and europeans have written about India then Indians have written about them. History doesn't show that India was impressed by outsiders but it does show that others were impressed by Indian culture, wisdom and wealth since very ancient times. Columbus and Magellan were neither first nor last to attempt that. All this happened because India was not a desert, because in India life was easy and you can think of some better things that surviving somehow, you had that luxury and add to that the benefit of a evolving religion/culture that never asked anybody to stop thinking anything.


About Chanakaya and land tax etc:
Chanakya not only gave guildelines for how to rule properly but also practically created the largest empire India has seen. I don't need to reject old ideas to accept better any ideas of today. You siply need to use the better one. I know that most of your suggestion are in line with what Chanakya says about how to manage land and agriculture.
I don't know how you get 33% figure, though, for Ashoka's time; was it maximum or was it a fixed tax for all land types. Chanakya menstions a varied type of land tax. In any case it was during the times of CHandragupta and Chanakya when those principles are suposed to have been applied first.

Chanakya wrote perhaps one of the best material on how to rule a kingdom as a good king (+good human being). But for most of his excellent ideas, we already have even better ideas. Also, our context is different, we have global economy that depends on so many other industris besides agriculture sector.

So using CHanakya word-to-word is like using Kuran's Sharia law in today's word. CHanakya still has given more resonable ideas but they are not that valid in current context.

You accept that majority of employment will be given by services/infrastructure projects in near future. You are right in saying that for next 2-3 decades many people will still survivie on agriculture employment, but that doesn't mean that we can concentrate on that to make drastic changes in agriculture or overall economic orientation.


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People hate if a company is managing a big farm-land, but that is the optimum way of doing it. A company needs profit and it has to do some work to generate it. So it is ok if reliance or some other company creates large farm-lands and makes best use of it, what state or India need to ensure is that they (companies) then give away a good share of profits back to people, in the form of tax or whatever. So there is no need to give land back to small farmers and create lot of mess, adopt these small farmers or laborers give them jobs, give them much more money then they ethmselves can generate and use land and resources properly.

In socialist ways it is done by state, but in capatilsit ways it is done by companies, you can hjave a mix of two, or whatever. Don't use shortcuts, but find right solutions and improve lives of people. 100 years from now when people will be far more mature you can give land to anybody you want (and they won't take it, because land by then will be ruled by so many regulations because of scarcity that you will be able to own it only if you can use it properly).

Create better laws to get money back to poor people and use capitalist ways to optimize production or usage of anything. But first get rid of terrorism, separatism and other such stupid hinderances. Economy is not a reason behind them, it is stupidity/ego/power-struggle and lies.

I am very happy that there have mostly been such positive and intelligent responses to this article. But most of them reflect the `conventional wisdom’ based on the knowledge that India achieved its `Green Revolution’ with huge government efforts to improve irrigation, high yielding variety wheat and rice seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, finance, tractors, crop insurance, assured procurement prices, farmer education, etc. But while these have worked to provide more food for the cities they only affected about 20% of India’s districts so the development has been skewed and ignored many other crops and regions. So I would like to elaborate on some of the interacts:

1. Pinku, please do not allow your religious prejudices to colour your objectivity. The land tax system perfected by the Sultanate, Afghans, Mughals and British was based on earlier indigenous systems first recorded in Kautalyas Arthashastra (3rd century BC). Massive forest clearance, land development and a 33% land tax revolutionized Ashoka’s agriculture and led to the development of India’s first empire. Similar land tax systems were the foundation for ALL subsequent Indian rulers from the Cholas, Pandyans, Satvahanas, Rashtrakutas, Palas and others.

2. The central point of my article is that farming (especially in a hot country) is a very arduous, boring and risky business in which farmers only produce as much as their situations compel them to produce. If they achieve this they are reluctant to put in the huge extra effort of planting another crop or planting on more land. So much of India’s huge land resources are not properly exploited.

3. My numbers on farm sizes are based on Government statistics. After the disastrous land ceiling laws of 1972 many figures were falsified so that very few really big farms are now on record. But the land surrendered was less than half of one of India’s 450 districts so the big (and often absentee) landlords are alive and well. They squat on the best of India’s agricultural land. With their huge political clout they have abolished land tax in many states or reduced them in others and gifted themselves generous subsidies on fertilizers, fuel and finance, etc., to make it possible to prosper with even less production or productivity.

4. These powerful `Kulaks’ want to perpetuate India’s poverty to ensure a ready supply of cheap labour. When a district gets more prosperous, the income quickly triggers a demand for local services, industry and commerce and the farm workers quickly migrate to nearby towns for better jobs as carpenters, masons, electricians, cooks, etc,. or for employment in local tea shops, industries, commercial business, etc. This quickly leads to a huge economic and social transformation.

5. It is correct that employment in India will steadily move from agriculture towards more industry and services but this will need about two generations before rural people will be fit for urban jobs. This is not helped by the outdated and hopelessly managed education available through some 2 million government schools in rural India. When village boys get some education they want to leave the drudgery of rural life and move to the glamour of city life that they imagine from TV and cinema. They often despise their elders and old values and become unfit for either town or country and drift into low grade urban jobs or to petty crime.

6. The `Green Revolution’ has served its purpose. It has focused on wheat and rice grown in just 20% of India’s districts with the neglect of coarse grains, fruits and vegetablles. If millets and barley were sold at prices subsidized by a `water demand tax’ on water demanding crops like rice and sugar cane, there would be increased demand moving income to many dry land and hill districts.

7. Motivating these `Kulaks’ to produce more needs both a stick and a carrot so that farmers are compelled to produce more and are then rewarded for their efforts. An intelligent land tax system (with tax in kind) that exempts small cultivators and adjusts to times of flood or drought has been proved over time in most countries of the world to be a powerful motivator. Even the Meiji emperors of Japan doubled land tax from time to time to force their farmers to produce more for the state.

I do not claim to have all the answers but I do suggest that a radical strategy as has transformed rural China needs to be seriously considered for all poor agrarian countries of Africa and Asia. Land owners will strongly resist it but rural India will quickly benefit.

Nkg moshai,

I will reply to you in details, bit rushed for time. Also I suggest you check out Vengy.

A happy I -day to you.

Regards

#23 contd...
Majumder

Indian farmers do not have adequate knowledge in following areas...

1) Crop rotation
2) Soil Structure
3) Seed Preservation
4) Knowledge of Market
5) Water Management

In Bengal the common problem I have witnessed is from potato growers (same for Chilli growers in my native place).
They don't know how much price they will get. Sometimes,good harvesting becomes curse.


Gujrat and Rajasthan is doing well in Agriculture due to imported method and equipment from Israel....

Re: # 20
Majumder....
Expertise....
If we have shifted farm equipment manufacturing from small iron smiths to large corporates, with structural knowledge in related domain, why not farmers?

In India, who are farmers?
Most of the illetrate villagers, those who have no other option than sticking to it. Indian farmers are still in 11th/12th century, except using some modern equipments and chemicals, which we got it from USA (during green revolution). We have to bring these illiterate people from 11th/12th century to 21st century...

Nkg,

#21

Well said. We should seriously consider natural and organic farming.

Regards

Re: # 4
Partha...
Subsidy and improper knowledge is basically creating trouble for Indian farmers. Punjab will be barren land, unless and until they mend their ways.

Circular,

Drive down input costs - seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, water and land prices

There is another approach being discussed, do away with inputs altogether. No fertiliser, pesticides, seeds saved by farmers themselves, water by water harvesting, self-owned land of the peasant.

Nkg moshai,

Agricultural productivity does not depend upon any specific strategy or small/big/cooperative...

So what does it depend on, environmental factors (soil, climate) being same.

Regards

Small farms are not always very productive. Land reforms in WB has created very small farmers (holding less than 1 acre) and resultant increase in input cost....

At one point co-operative movement was craze and still in Maharashtra, the sugercane farmers follow it...

This urdoooo/moslem is back with another load of sh**...

Agricultural productivity does not depend upon any specific strategy or small/big/cooperative...

I think the comments are going over well-trodden ground. Many of the answers are already out there, the problem is with implementation.

Apply basic economic principles -
1. private ownership enhances productivity and profit maximization

2. For lowest product prices, reduce costs at all intermediate stages through economic strategies - economies of scale, elimination of unnecessary stages, productivity improvements

3. Drive down input costs - seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, water and land prices

4. Build infrastructure - road, water, power, education, machinery sales, service and repairs, health services and such

5. Device policies for optimum size for cultivation - it takes the same tractor, water pump access road etc. to service 1 hectare as it takes for 10 hectares.

6. Make taxes efficient and leak-proof : a sales tax on final product is probably ideal. A tax on "expected productivity" is probably among the worst that can be devised.

7. Enable information access: Educate and train farmers with capable extension workers. Provide meterological and other technical info. Some farms in the west are so advanced the farmers have computer controlled irrigation systems that they program based on inputs from moisutre and pH sensors linked to their computer. The farmers are more like information workers. They study agricultural reports, meterological reports, environmental reports, market reports such as current and futures prices and develop strategies based on these for optimal use of water, reducing slinity, deciding on which crops to grow and such.

Anilji,

Well written.

In pre-industrial times of course the bulk of wealth came from agriculture, naturally so did tax revenues. Taxation during much of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal era (and possibly much of the Hindoo kingdoms too although records are scanty) was oppresive and largely supported wars and from a utilitarian POV useless buildings. In fact if Muslim kings have to held up as an example of using tax revenues gainfully, it is Sher Shah Suri and also Firuz Shah Tughluq.

I dont understand why land has to be taxed heavily (except for conversuion to non-agri purposes) when there are large exemptions to non-agri incomes as well.

Your suggestion that small farms are more productive (eg USA/Gujarat) is also very apt. I suggest, since you are already in the agribusiness) if you have time you also read up on folks like Fukuoka, Subhash Balekar (zero budget farming) and Permaculture. These systems may be more apt from tropical countries with large populations, scanty land and cheap labour (like India).

Regards