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The Consultation has moved up gear and is totally absorbing. Many of us want to move to the phase of discussing what DFID and others should do but I think the moderators are right in letting the debate carry on at a wider level for at least another week. There appears to be consensus that the focus of development aid has to be the small farmer and although there are many indicators that can be used for whether help is getting through and without in any way diminishing nutrition and others I still favour farm gate income as a useful bottom line measurement of what farmers are doing and what they should be doing and what can be done. However, we are dealing with a wide category of countries and even regions within countries where small farmers face different predicaments. These and ground realities have to be taken into account when discussing Michel Lipton's Plan A which no one appears to differ with. Milind Murugkar raises points I am familiar with regarding the regulatory system in India and the factors in the global system on cereals that can raise local prices but lower international ones. This impact is reduced by the fact that prosperity allows developing local consumption of cereals. Food security as a global focus has justified promotion of staple production and stocks in India at least are now more than adequate but may still need to be strengthened further in other countries to the degree to which it is wise to look at security as an autarkic process. This should allow measures to increase productivity, as I have stated earlier in areas in Cambodia where only one rice crop gives less than a tonne while 4 is normal in Punjab and 5 in China. Within that sort of range, increasing rice productivity in Cambodia through irrigation and seeding can produce substantial gains. These gains can me improved on by applying lessons learnt in the Philippines among others of allowing more on farm or near farm primary processing through farmer support groups to avoid using the dreaded cooperative word. This can raise farm gate income from $60 per ton to over $100 or $150. It is an area where small farmers can be greatly assisted. Food security is only a minimum demand. What the farmers need is an increase in their living standards, a better life in accord with a lot of different indicators. This requires attention to maximising potential farm gate returns perhaps even as an approach to subsistence farming. It also requires consideration to a basket of crops and activities they can be producing. Not only by rotation. But they can also for example have livestock, fruit trees, vegetables and can even use farm borders for crops such as lemongrass for the sake of illustration. A rice/wheat focus has landed Punjab in a mess because it greatly depleted water resources. There is also a finite earnings ceiling which is kept low by the fact that nearly every country in the world protects its farmers. There is little prospect for a change in regulatory policy in India for price support, input subsidy or central purchasing and distribution when farmers will determine who wins the election and the case for support is in any case very strong since farmers are not receiving an equitable return from national economic growth and instead have been providing cheap food for the increasingly prosperous urban markets. Of course, you can and should reduce costs of the operations by bringing in the private sector. What the Indian Government wants to do is to encourage diversification and parallel distribution which is lucrative enough to tempt farmers even in competition with support prices. Not impossible if you stick to looking at farm gate income. And possible with small farmers if you accept appropriate measures to aggregate production. This strategy requires looking at higher value diversification and generating enough critical mass to justify private sector investment in agro processing and superior distribution and retail systems. I believe that the Indian Government is correct in wanting this. That those who persevere with blanket criticisms of minimum support prices, central purchasing to feed poor, compensation for excise on fertiliser production costs and subsidised water are wrong, particularly in a world where it is easier to spot the one or two countries that do no intervene than the ones which do. We need to revisit our attitudes on these things because a lot of the doctrinaire opposition is frankly humbug that is so distant from ground reality that it is annoying. There will come a day hopefully when farmers are rich enough not to need support but it is not here. At present, we all gain in different ways by giving that support. A far more important focus is going to be on mechanisms to get help through to the small farmers. Wanting to give help is not enough. Very little of the massive credit arranged in India or access to water and technical help is getting through to farmers, especially the smaller ones. We have to look at how to encourage domestic markets to be supplied with better quality larger range of foodstuffs and for more of the rewards to be kept by the farmers. We also have to look at ways in which rising global trade can be used to help raise production and distribution. All over the world, consumers want more of most things right through the year. Best wishes, Vinay Chand, 230, Finchley Road, London NW3 6DJ, UK Tel: 44-20-7794 5977 Fax: 44-20-7431 5715 <address removed><mailto:<address removed>>
Please visit dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org.