Page 74 - EducationWorld October 2020

Special Report

abling the Green Revolution of the
1970s when India surprised the world
and successfully began the process of
making the country self-sufficient in
foodgrains production. But after that,
they focused for too long on developing
different strains of rice and wheat and
did insufficient research in less water-
intensive crops such as sorghum and
millets. Moreover after the food crisis
was over, ICAR and most state govern-
ment universities began to experience
government funding shortages which
private sector companies have not been
able to bridge. Since then, ICAR and
the universities have gradually lost
their dynamism of the Green Revolu-
tion years , their interface and com-
munication with the public has become
poor and their extension services, i.e Distressed farmer: 116 suicides per day
farm and field visits, have declined,”
says Dr. Arindam Banerjee, an canker on my orchard farm. But they Clearly the stark reality is that there
alumnus of Presidency College, and demanded a sum of Rs.3,000 per visit, is a massive crisis in Indian agricul-
JNU, Delhi, and currently associate which I could ill-afford, because of the ture — 116 farmers take their own lives
professor of agriculture economics at chronically low prices for horticulture every day countrywide — because of
Ambedkar University, Delhi. produce mandated by strong cartels unremunerative prices for agri produce
B of ICAR and the country’s recalls Anil Thakore, a highly-qual- such as motorable roads, warehousing
and total lack of rural infrastructure
within APMC centres in Bangalore,”
ANERJEE’S ASSESSMENT
ified alumnus of the Royal College of
and cold-chain facilities, logistics and
71 agriculture universities
is couched in measured Agriculture, Cirencester (UK) and Col- downstream food processing industry.
But this reality doesn’t seem to have
lege of Tropical Agriculture, University
academic language. Yet the plain truth of West Indies, who tried to profitably made any impact in the Punjab Agri-
as your correspondent discovered manage a 20-acre dairy and horticul- culture University (estb.1963) which
while trying to reach ICAR director- ture farm on the outskirts of Bangalore sprawls over 494 hectares (ha) in Lud-
general Trilochan Mohapatra and vice from 1974-1982 before giving up farm- hiana and 1,793 ha off-campus (annual
chancellors of several government agri ing in India as “an inherently unviable budget: unknown). On the university’s
universities is that they have evolved proposition”. website, vice chancellor Dr. Baldev
into typical bureaucratic government PAU VC Dhillon: crisis indifference Singh Dhillon is described as an
organisations with no concept of pub- “internationally acclaimed scientist in
lic accountability. All attempts to in- the field of plant breeding and genetic
terview them telephonically or to get resources” under whose watch “the
them to reply to written questions were state achieved the highest productiv-
blocked by retinues of timorous per- ity (>12 mt/ha) in 2017-18”. Neverthe-
sonal assistants and secretaries. less, this worthy couldn’t find the time
“Despite their huge budgets funded to respond to a written questionnaire
by the public, agriculture universities despite over a dozen calls and emails
are highly structured government bu- addressed to him in the public interest.
reaucracies with strong kiss-up-kick- Nevertheless, ICAR and its affiliated
down cultures. Their officials and agriculture universities have their de-
faculty are not interested in extension fenders. According to Harish Damo-
work and have no time for the pub- daran, national rural affairs and agri-
lic. I remember making a request to culture editor of the Indian Express,
officials of the ICAR-Institute of Hor- although their “communications and
ticulture Research, Bangalore, for an public interface could be better”, the
extension officer to examine a guava contribution of ICAR and India’s agri-

74 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2020