DR BANARSI LAL
Agriculture is the most important sector in the Indian economy. This sector contributes immensely to employment, foreign exchange, food and many other sectors. Agricultural sector is the basic catalyst and accelerator of growth and development of the industrial and services sectors. It is no longer possible to mitigate the needs of the increasing population and to achieve the food security objectives by expanding the areas under agriculture. But this problem can be solved by increasing the agricultural productivity by utilizing the yield increasing modern technologies. Agricultural research and technological improvements are therefore crucial to increase agricultural production and productivity and thus can reduce the poverty and meet the demands of food without irreversible degradation of natural resources. Modern technologies play a crucial role in agricultural production and productivity. Technological uses are influenced by the technical trainings, meetings, campaigns, demonstrations, trials, oral transmission and credibility on technician and belief level on technology. Adoption of new technologies varies differently for the progressive, young and educated farmers.
Generally the farmers are having positive perception of technologies but they face lot of problems in technology adoption due to lack of capital, guidelines and compensation policy. State and Central Governments are providing facilities to the farmers in increasing their crops yields through the use of various technologies and schemes. An increase in agricultural productivity is a prevailing motive for the Indian farmers and a driving force in India’s agricultural policy.
The success of modern technologies can be obtained by knowing how to apply fertilizers, pesticides and take care of plant for its healthy growth. A farming system is the result of a complex interaction of a number of interdependent components such as soil, water, crops, livestock, labour and other resources within an environmental setting. The total environment can be divided into two elements: technology and human. Technology determines the type and physical potential of different enterprises and includes the physical and biological factors that can be modified. The human element is characterized by exogenous and endogenous factors which can be controlled by the farm household. It is the household which ultimately decides whether to adopt a new technology or not. The decision of use of technologies is dependent on how farmers perceive the technology.
After independence, India has made tremendous progress in agricultural development. There has been substantial increase in available food-grain per capita. Before mid 1960s, India relied on imports and food aid to meet domestic requirements. Severe drought in 1965-66 compelled India to reform its agricultural methods. India adopted significant technological reforms and focused on the food grain self-sufficiency. This ushered in India’s Green Revolution. Superior high yielding and disease resistant wheat varieties in combination with better farming practices to improve production and productivity were adopted. A hectare of Indian wheat farm that produced an average of 0.8 tons in 1948 produced 4.7 tons of wheat in 1975 from the same piece of land. Such fast growth in farm productivity enabled India to become self-sufficient in the food grains. By 2000, Indian farmers adopted wheat varieties capable of yielding 6 tons of wheat per hectare. With Green Revolution success in wheat and rice was exceptionally obtained. Benefits of improved farming technologies now largely depend on whether India develops infrastructure such as reliable irrigation network, electricity production, flood control systems, transportation facilities and competitive buyers of produce from the Indian farmer. Agronomically the package of technologies may seem attractive but the farmer may not accept due to the financial risk.
The provision of appropriate credit facilities may sufficiently reduce the risk element to make the package more attractive. The reasons for poor adoption of modern technologies are as :(1)If the farmers are illiterate or less educated. (2) If the technology is new to the farmers then generally they will not believe on it. (3)They might not have seen the demonstration fields of the technology. (4) Worry of low yield (5) Old age farmers do not believe on new technology and only believe in their past experience (6) Old behaviour of cultivation practices embedded in farmers mind for a long period (7) Large land holding farmers think that if the yield is lost due to the use of new technologies in larger area, the amount of loss will be greater. (8) Lack of capital (9) Lack of skilled labour.
Generally numerous factors have been identified for the use of modern technology in agriculture. The results of agricultural research include high yielding crop varieties, better livestock breeding practices, more effective fertilizers and pesticides and better farm management practices etc. Agricultural research and development are required to increase the production and productivity. Education also speeds the rate of adoption of new technologies by farmers. Farmers who have more education may be better able to assess the merits of technology and can successfully adopt the new technology for their benefits. A large share of agricultural research expenditures is devoted in the maintenance of research. Educated farmers can gain technology skills through education to solve their field problems. Education is thus an investment in human capital analogous to a farmer’s investment in physical capital. Education hastens the rate of development of new system.
It is also kept in mind that required input for the technology is available or not. There is need to look into the societal and cultural standards in which the technology operates. Collective technologies are more easily adopted as collective action reduces transaction cost. Affordability of the technology is an important indicator for their wider use as cost is the major factor in encouraging or discouraging the application of appropriate technology in developing economies. In India labour is relatively cheaper than capital and thus, labour-intensive technologies are less costly. It is an important factor to find out how smoothly technology works in the local production system and the supportive system that explains to what degree is the technology system dependent or system independent. This indicates the need for understanding two types of risk i.e. the internal and external risk. Although analysis of risk is necessary before applying new technology, it is almost impossible to remove all risks. If the chosen device is static it will relatively reflect the short-lived solutions to a much larger problem. The technology, which supports the continuation of development by enhancing capability to expand, can be expected to compete at the regional, national and international level. A significant positive relationship between infrastructure and Indian agricultural productivity is essential to boost agricultural productivity. Improved road connectivity can reduce the farmers’ cost of acquiring agricultural production inputs and of transporting outputs to market.
It has been observed that the process of adoption of new agricultural technologies in India specially in some states has been slow and interrupted mainly due to constraints like lack of capital, low price of agricultural produce, insufficient cold storage facilities, transportation facilities, mandis, high rental charges of implements and machines inadequate institutional credit, lack of soil and water testing facilities, inadequate irrigation facilities and high cost of agro-inputs. Performance of the technologies can be explained on the basis of their success and failure stories.
The performance can also be assessed on the basis of percentage of population adopting to a particular technology. Modern technologies are helpful in improving the crops yields, protecting crops against diseases and pests, making livestock healthy, designing the best methods of crops storage and even helping in predicting the climate conducive for agricultural practices. The use of modern agricultural equipments and machineries help in making agricultural practices easy for the farmer. In the developing countries like India agricultural mechanization is the order of the day. Promotion of technology with social wisdom can help in preventing migration of youth from rural to urban areas, mitigate the adverse impact of climate change and revive agriculture for sustainability of India’s growth.
(The writer is Sr. Scientist & Head of KVK, Reasi SKUAST-J).
