WHEN the scientific controversy about the level of pesticides in bottled aerated drinks first broke out a few years back there were some who suggested that beyond the immediate issue of a few multinationals exploiting groundwater was the larger case and research question of how pesticides have contributed to the pollution of groundwater sources in India. Clearly there seemed a strong case for a detailed investigation into non point sources of pollution and the agricultural practices that led to the crisis in the first place.

Wasn’t the ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) in part responsible for having vigorously pursued a policy that has made India one of the largest consumers of pesticides and fertilisers today? Why was it that there was no response from the agricultural research establishment? The pesticide residue in the bottled drinks case is but an example of the continued isolation of the agricultural research establishment from broader societal concerns. This is not because of bad science per se, but because existing institutional mechanisms have prevented the scientists from a more open and synergistic engagement of science and technology with society.

Let us for instance take the recent annual report (2006-07) of the Directorate of Agricultural Research or DARE of the premier agency, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The report lists out in great detail the achievements of the research establishment in various areas, yet there is surprisingly no mention of the broader context of which R&D is a part. There is no mention of an agricultural crisis, farmer suicides, distress or debt at a time when these have assumed alarming proportions with an official acceptance in Parliament of over 150,000 farmers committing suicide in the last decade.

Thus when there are repeated calls for a second or ever green revolution, one wonders if the agricultural establishment is tuned to respond to complex changes affecting world agriculture and the concomitant response of the farming community. A vibrant scientific community should, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and there were a few Indian agricultural scientists in these institutions as well, be pro-active in anticipating the challenges through their scientific work and set the agenda for policy-makers. However, the official reports of the agricultural establishment on coping with complex challenges such as the agriculturl crisis or climate change are not very encouraging.

 

An overview of the year 2008 suggests a troubling insulation of the Indian agricultural research establishment from the global debates on agriculture. As if to remind us of the importance of food and agriculture – food before finance – the world had to come to terms with a global food crisis at the beginning of 2008. Even as the reasons for the crisis – the increased demand from the middle classes of emerging economies such as China and India or the bio-fuel focus of western nations – are being debated, there is little denying that there are new driving forces in global agriculture. Climate change, high energy prices, income growth, globalization and urbanization are transforming food consumption, production and markets. The increased leverage of private sector through large food retailers has profound implications for food and nutrition security of many of the world’s poor. The wheat scam where large quantities of wheat were imported at prices higher than what Indian farmers could have supplied is but one example of India’s uneasy integration with the global situation.

 

What might be the consequences of these new drivers to the nation’s food security given the large scale distress of the farming community? How vulnerable is Indian agriculture to high energy prices and increased stress due to climate change? What should be the research paradigm that can prepare the farming community to meet the challenges of 21st century agriculture? Should the research community closely align its objectives and research priorities with the global agribusiness companies that are keen to set research agendas or should Indian scientists chart an alternate path that envisions a new role for public interest agriculture? What should be the contours of such agriculture and what alliances should the research community be seeking in shaping them? Is industry the only partner that ICAR needs to engage with, as the Mashelkar-Barwale Committee for ICAR reorganization suggests, or should it also be looking to the farming community and other organizations working closely with them? How often has the scientific community deliberated on such questions or concerns in recent times and how might it be enabled to do so?

The year 2008 seem to invite us repeatedly to engage with such questions. The farming community was in the news when the Union budget was announced and for a change agriculture was discussed due to the farm package announced by the government, ostensibly to stem the agricultural crisis and provide succour to (some privileged) farmers. Historic inequities of regional imbalances meant that those who had no institutional credit could not access this credit. Nevertheless, it does appear that the need for a newer paradigm for agricultural research, whether to understand the global food crisis or the Indian agricultural distress, has never been seriously addressed. Responses have invariably been techno-managerial.

 

The report of the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development) released in April 2008, provided a golden opportunity to engage with larger questions on agricultural research. The report with contributions from 400 experts on science, technology and development was reviewed by 64 governments, India being one of the 58 that endorsed the summary. The report called for a radical change in modern agriculture to meet the food security and livelihood needs of the poor and hungry.

In the words of the chairman, Professor Bob Watson, ‘Business as usual is not an option.’ The report suggested that without a radical shift from existing focus on production alone policies, nations will continue to undermine the agricultural capital, making it impossible to meet future demands with a rapidly degraded environment. The report called for a more holistic agricultural policy that would also be equitable, a policy that would recognize the inescapable inter-connectedness of agriculture’s different roles and functions.

The report, however, generated no discussion in India. One is reminded of the embarrassment caused when George Bush visited an agricultural university at the time of signing the Indo-US knowledge initiative on agriculture and scientists interviewed by a news channel said they knew nothing about this deal. Evidently the Indo-US knowledge initiative was never discussed amongst scientists and so perhaps it is no surprise that the IAASTD report too was not. Yet the question remains: Is the Indian research establishment aware of the challenges to address the knowledge dimensions of this new holistic agriculture? What could be done to make this happen? Unlike the IAASTD report which seeks to make connections, the Indian agricultural system, it appears, is content with over-specialization and remains bounded by disciplinary silos on the one hand and a total separation of agricultural research from extension and policy and developmental concerns on the other.

 

Strangely, the connections that the research establishment failed to establish, were inadvertently made through an innocuous advertisement issued by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers before the start of the 2008 kharif season. Directed at the farming community with a bold faced headline, ‘Dear Farmers Are you Aware?’ the advertisement extolled the great role played by the government in not hiking the price of urea in the four years of its tenure. The advert had inadvertently indicated the consequences or burden of the current agricultural paradigm based on fossil fuels. With increasing oil prices the minister admitted that the total subsidy on chemical fertilisers by the central government was increasing at a rapid rate and in the last four years had gone up from Rs 15,779 crore to Rs 1,19,772 crore, an increase of over 650%! Maintaining Indian agriculture at its current levels in the current system is well nigh impossible if the government has to increase the fertiliser consumption rates of those areas that missed out on the green revolution.

The signs of this stress have long been evident with most farms experiencing stagnating productivity and poor soil health. But now these environment debates are translating into a new politics with fertiliser riots being reported in many parts of the country and states like Orissa complaining about not receiving their share of fertilisers as they move closer to the national average. A more pertinent question might have been, ‘Dear researchers, are you aware of the implications of the current agricultural paradigm?

 

The mismatch between ground realities and what the agricultural research establishment produces is evident if one looks at the social science section of DARE’s annual report 2006-07 (social science in Indian agricultural research parlance unfortunately translates as agricultural economics alone!). The report, for instance, estimates possible demand for urea in 2011, assuming constant real prices of urea between the decade of 1992-2002, an assumption completely out of sync with the high and fluctuating global oil prices in recent times! Even if one assumes that the farmer could source urea at the same price as four years back, who actually manages access to urea has become a new concern.

The favoured political solution to the financial crisis of fertiliser subsidy has been to curtail urea supply unmindful of the fact that in the agricultural season this has resulted in fertiliser riots in several parts of the country. Overall, the cost of accessing agricultural inputs for most small and marginal farmers has increased at a far more rapid rate than what researchers had estimated and is often the cause of distress and suicides.

 

The growing complexity of the agricultural scenario requires a greater sensitivity and nimbleness of the agricultural system than it seems to possess. An agricultural system in denial will only delay the inevitable changes that are sweeping the world agricultural scenario. Unfortunately, even the limited autonomy of the research establishment to respond to and suggest solutions seems to have been seriously compromised through several deals such as the Indo-US knowledge initiative on agriculture that have been inked in recent times. Even though India has faced serious difficulties with the WTO rounds due to the intransigence of countries like USA, it continues to sign deals on knowledge initiatives with the same old forces that the IAASTD report suggests are in need of a new paradigm.

The US was one of the three countries that did not endorse the report, bringing back memories of the same kind of self-interest that blocked the ratification of the Kyoto protocol. Why should a country such as India with a strong tradition of diversified agriculture that perhaps represents a solution to the crisis of climate change, and with proven scientific competence and a large indigenous scientific capability, align its agricultural research and policy closely with a country such as USA whose models of agricultural research and development seem out of place with the more complex livelihood related issues of agriculture in the third world? Clearly, a rethink is needed if the Indian agricultural establishment has to reposition itself as representing public interest. ICAR needs to radically revisit its models of change and stop resting on its past glory.

 

The innovation process favoured by the green revolution paradigm is the popular transfer of technology or linear or pipeline model. This model is premised on a clear separation of research and extension and places farmers and other actors such as civil society organizations and private sector actors at the end of the pipeline that would receive the research outputs for diffusion. Though this model has been successful in only a few instances, it has shaped most of the institutions of agricultural research not just in India but elsewhere. Possibly it served a purpose at the peak of the green revolution when increasing food supplies was the prime concern.

Today, agricultural research agencies across the world have been forced to incorporate other important aspects such as reducing poverty and inequity, improving livelihoods and ensuring environmental sustainability. The existing institutions and the transfer of technology model of innovation are clearly not suited for this larger mandate. Consequently, recent thinking on agriculture favours an innovation systems approach.

A managerial solution advanced in projects such as the National Agricultural Innovation Project or NAIP is to force the ICAR and its myriad organizations out of their isolation by suggesting that they seek partners beyond research and from other actors in the agricultural system. While this might be a good first step, it is far from adequate. A system does not become integrated by merely bringing diverse actors together. Much more needs to be done to get the actors to think and act systemically.

A systemic view on agriculture is not altogether new. The main proponents of this view have been outside the USA (mistakenly seen by agricultural technocrats as the only source of knowledge) – in Netherlands, Australia and from the organic farming movements in the UK and Europe. The Indian agricultural establishment has, however, historically not sought sufficient collaboration with these schools of thought. It is often forgotten that one of the founders of a more integrated view of agricultural science, Albert Howard, spent a fair amount of his time working on these ideas as an agricultural scientist in India and that too with the erstwhile ICAR.

A closer look at India’s agricultural history would reveal the presence of alternative scientific imaginations beyond the model postulated by post independence ICAR. Sam Higginbottom, who founded the Allahabad Agricultural University, had before independence initiated some pioneering work in agricultural research and education in an attempt to make the farmer more aware and empowered. He was even invited by Mahatma Gandhi to head the agricultural wing of the Congress, but could not take it up. Kumarappa too, as recent studies on his work reveal, had argued for a deeper study of soil systems before agreeing to a blanket application of inorganic fertilisers. Unfortunately, none of these alternative scientific imaginations form part of the pedagogy of Indian agricultural university education or research.

 

With debates on climate change intensifying it is critical that our agricultural scientists engage in a more serious rethinking of agricultural science and its relation to Indian society and the planet’s common future. So far the visions portrayed in documents and speeches of the leaders are replete with the rhetoric of the second and ever green revolutions that seem to overwhelmingly rely on the technological promises of new wonder seeds or new varieties, even though few assessments exist of the actual use of these technologies by farmers. The research centres continue to be judged by the number of varieties that their centre released even as there is disturbing silence on how many of these technologies remain unused and undemanded on the shelf. Worse, since the extension system is available as an easy scapegoat, there is little effort to critically interrogate the basic research itself.

 

Increasingly the autonomy of the scientific community on what to research has also been seriously compromised because of the race amongst universities to access research funds – public or private – in certain areas such as agricultural biotechnology. Those who are not part of this bandwagon or produce studies that question the veracity of some claims are sidelined and not allowed to express themselves. There seems, for instance, to be a sufficient difference of opinion amongst scientists, not activists, about the desirability of work on Bt brinjal, and yet this is being pushed.

A point of concern is the sheer absence of internal democracy in the functioning of the research agencies. The rigid hierarchy and lack of avenues for expression has increased levels of frustration amongst young researchers, many of whom are now seeking avenues outside the governmental agricultural research system. If the agricultural science and technology establishment needs to establish its links with the democratic aspirations of vast number of Indians, the policy-makers need to make the work environment more empowering for younger researchers.

There is a need to move beyond the self-referential frame that the agricultural research system in India has developed. A recent manual of a state agricultural department outlining in great detail the tasks of all its staff is revealing. Of the innumerable tasks and interfaces that the department’s staff had listed there was hardly any mention of the farmer and the farming community! That a system should have no direct interface with one of its key stakeholders, its very reason for existence, is perhaps a measure of the beast of bureaucracy that these self-referential systems have become.

A recent assessment of the impact of agricultural research in India suggests that the average rate of return to investment in agricultural research is 70 per cent and that there has been no deceleration in the productivity and pay-offs of agricultural research. Yet, it is difficult to convince the larger public that it is safer to invest in agricultural research than the stock market. Clearly the norms of assessment of scientific research are in need of change. Economic impact assessment studies on agricultural R&D that unproblematically assume that investment in agricultural R&D is a ‘win-win’ option and is the largest contributor to agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) need serious revision.

 

To foreground only scientific publications and technologies as the sole contribution of agricultural scientists is not only to fall prey to reductionism but also seriously undermine the newer roles required for science and technology to meaningfully contribute to larger societal goals. Recent thinking on institutional learning and change (ILAC) amongst international agricultural research centres (www.cgiarilac.org) makes a strong case that these centres need to transform themselves into learning organizations in order to meet newer challenges. This needs a larger set of competencies beyond scientific or technical excellence.

 

Fortunately, we can see signs of renewal in places where communities are attempting to craft newer futures for themselves by rejecting an agricultural paradigm that is input-centric and based on newer seeds, irrigation water and chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and are instead exploring options by combining principles of traditional practices with newer discoveries in the sciences of entomology and soil systems. These have created newer possibilities among hitherto ignored or bypassed small and marginal farmers in rainfed conditions.

In recent times the System of Rice Intensification or SRI and Non-Pesticidal Management (NPM) have proved to be quite effective in climate-proofing agriculture and have reached substantial scale despite disinterest and opposition from the formal scientific research establishment. Both SRI and NPM have provided better returns to the farming community, even as they have enhanced soil fertility and offer tremendous possibilities for agricultural science as they are variety independent. They suggest newer research directions as well in the emerging field of soil systems, given the increasing realization that scientists in India and elsewhere have spent most of the last century studying phenomenon above the ground. The role of roots and soil biota and their dynamic interactions in soil systems are equally promising areas of investigation as the much hyped agricultural biotechnology. And yet, investments in these directions have been minuscule.

In both SRI and NPM greater progress was possible when there were scientists and policy actors within the system who were willing to accept this premise and collaborated with civil society and farmers to co-develop or co-create new knowledge. There is much to learn from these scientists who have been silently championing the cause of public interest in agricultural research and are working on these new frontiers in navigating complexity. Their stories have not been written and perhaps might never be. Yet it is likely that it is the work of these dissenting scientists, more than the numerous organizational reforms that ICAR periodically and fruitlessly engages in, that might provide more interesting responses to the challenges that Indian agriculture faces and is likely to face in the years to come.

 

To conclude one is reminded of the address of Richard Bawden to agricultural scientists on ‘systems thinking and practice in agriculture’ nearly two decades back. Making a plea for a more integrated and interconnected systems thinking in agriculture, Bawden suggested that the systemic paradigm calls for us to rethink our views of our world (and of the way its interrelated components are patterned) as well as our ways of viewing our world. If this rethinking is to push innovative and regenerative processes leading to large-scale improvements in the quality of relationships between people and their environments, it must come from a belief that new ways of knowing are crucial to produce new knowledge. He suggested that agricultural scientists must be prepared to critically question their beliefs about what they really think constitutes improvements to agriculture. They must be prepared to enter into debates about what should be as well as creating visions about what could be. They must learn how to come to terms with complexity and chaos and develop learning strategies that enable them to help others to deal with such dimensions.