Editorial 1 : The Growth Drivers
Context: Lessons from recent farm sector buoyancy
Agriculture Growth
- India’s annual agriculture growth averaged 3.7% during the 10 years that ended 2023-24.
- This was better than the 3.5% during the previous 10 years that ended 2013-14.
- Which in turn, was higher than the 2.9% average of the preceding two decades.
- This growth pick-up belies the general perception of a sector steeped in crisis.
Livestock and Fisheries
- Much of the farm sector buoyancy of the recent period has come from the livestock and fisheries subsectors.
- These registered an average year-on-year output growth of 5.8% and 9.1% respectively during 2014-15 to 2022-23.
- Crops subsector, which is normally associated with agriculture, grew by just 2.3%.
Crops Subsector
- There is a divergence between horticulture and non-horticulture crops.
- Horticulture crops production rose at an average annual rate of 3.9% during 2014-15 to 2022-23. The same for non-horticulture or field crops was just 1.6%.
- The benefits of minimum support price (MSP) and other government intervention measures are directed mostly to field crops, especially rice and wheat.
Livestock, Fisheries and Horticulture
- The agriculture growth drivers are farming of animals, fish, vegetables and fruit.
- The support that milk, poultry meat, eggs, fish and horticulture crops receive comes largely from the market.
- Their growth is demand-led, with Indians increasingly consuming foods rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals.
Agricultural Growth in States
- The states that have posted the highest agricultural growth in recent times i.e. Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat are the ones shown to have diversified most into livestock, aqua and horticulture farming.
- Punjab and Haryana being more or less cereals- and field crops-focused posted low growth in agriculture.
Inference: The farmers are better off when they produce what the market wants and they should be enabled to do so.
Way Forward
- Replace MSP and crop-specific support with per-acre transfers assuring farmers of a minimum income that induces them to be more risk-taking and market-oriented.
- The government can do more to facilitate the provision of access to credit, insurance and technology instead of meddling with markets and distorting farmers’ planting or rearing decisions.
Editorial 2 : A Nobel Lesson
Context: Peace Prize, a Nobel lesson in a time of war
Nobel Peace Prize 2024
- The Nobel Peace Prize, 2024, has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japan based organisation that has, since its founding in 1956 has worked for survivors of nuclear bombs in 1945.
- Nihon Hidankyo preserves testimonies and memories of the survivors (called Hibakusha) of the only two nuclear weapon attacks in human history at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- It has been a consistent and vocal advocate for nuclear disarmament and a ban on atomic weapons.
- Context of Prize: Two on-going wars in the world.
World War II
- The devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Holocaust were the twin horrors that proved humanity’s ability to perpetrate the worst suffering on itself.
- They also became the basis of morality between and within nation-states, exemplified in some senses by UN charters and powerful slogans like nuclear taboo and never forget.
The On-going Wars
- There is a new set of people suffering, what is bound to be generational trauma.
- Thousands including children are being killed.
- Unlike the Holocaust, or the nuclear explosions, the wars and killings of today are visible globally, the victims showing the world their suffering in real-time.
- The logic of security, borders, power, strategic interest and amoral realpolitik is trumping over the moral power of witnessing and remembering.
Current Situation
- The principal actors in both Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine are not talking to each other.
- Organisations meant to provide the framework for peace and negotiation have failed to reflect a changing global order.
Way Forward: The work of groups like Nihon Hidankyo is important, and its values must be imbibed in those who have their hands on the button i.e. who command the engines of war.