Page 75 - EducationWorld October 2020

culture universities to the national de- pertinent to note that 65 percent of
velopment effort has been “greater than rural India is rain-dependent with
the IITs and IIMs combined”. “Over the farmers receiving only 30-35 days of
past seven decades despite not being rainfall on average. The causes of rural
well-funded, they have not only made distress are policy failures, especially
the ship-to-mouth India of the 1960s in irrigation and beyond the remit of
which was faced with the real prospect India’s agriculture universities,” argues
of mass starvation, self-sufficient in Chandrakanth.
food grains and horticulture produce, While there is undoubtedly consid-
they have also developed a large num- erable merit in the arguments advanced
ber of seeds and strains suitable for all by Damodaran and Chandrakanth
soils and terrains. The primary duty that India’s 71 universities under the
of faculty in these institutions is to ICAR umbrella have substantially
teach and research which they have contributed towards transforming the
discharged admirably. Although all ship-to-mouth Indian economy of the
the universities offer extension ser- 1960s into a food surplus nation, it’s
vices, it’s not the duty of scientists to also arguable that they haven’t suffi-
provide field services. Transferring lab Chandrakanth: hostile markets ciently discharged their advisory role
research to farmers’ fields is the job of in policy formulation. Admittedly, the
agriculture ministries of the states. For which continue to do excellent teach- teaching and research record of these
the widespread distress, farm suicides ing and research. Indeed thanks to the academies is commendable, but over
and low productivity and prices of farm new strains of rice evolved by them, the years India’s agriculture universi-
produce, the fault is of government pol- India is currently the world’s #1 high- ties have transformed into giant white
icies not universities,” says Damoda- quality rice exporting country,” says collar bureaucracies with discernible
ran, who has 29 years of experience at Chandrakanth. aversion to extension work.
PTI, Hindu Business Line and Indian With reference to the low per- According to some agriculture econ-
Express. hectare yields of Indian farmers and omists, the universities’ extension work
A ICAR and state agricul- Chandrakanth has ready explanation. of the Green Revolution has suffered
which was exemplary in the heyday
widespread poverty in rural India,

SPIRITED DEFENCE OF
According to him, per-hectare league
because of the abolition in the new
ture universities is also
advanced by Dr. M.G. tables don’t reveal the ground reality millennium of the cadre of university
gram sevaks engaged in extension and
that India’s farmers grow and harvest
Chandrakanth, an alum of the Uni- two-three crops per year on the same handholding last mile duties in farm-
versity of Agriculture Sciences (UAS), land and that per-hectare usage of fer- ers’ fields. With the autonomy of ICAR
Bangalore, and University of California tilisers and pesticides is substantially and state universities wholly eroded by
at Berkeley, former professor of agri- lower than in most countries. “The successive governments at the Centre
cultural economics at UAS and former prime causes of rural poverty in In- and in the states, this “big mistake” of
director (2016-20) of the Institute for dia are hostile cartelised markets, too institutional interference went unpro-
Social and Economic Change, Banga- many intermediaries and poor credit tested. Since then, ICAR’s 101 institutes
lore (ISEC, estb.1972). dispensation forcing dependence on and the country’s 71 state agriculture
“For the younger generation it’s im- usurious money-lenders, inadequate universities have transformed into is-
possible to imagine the food insecurity storage and cold chains which force lands of teaching and research excel-
that the country was suffering in the distress selling. All these are policy- lence increasingly isolated from their
early years of the Green Revolution. related problems totally unrelated to rural communities.
Under the leadership of great scientists our agriculture universities. It’s also Against the backdrop of Parlia-
including Union agriculture minister ment having enacted three reportedly
C. Subramaniam, M.S. Swaminathan, Over the years India’s revolutionary Acts which promise to
American agronomist Norman Borlaug revolutionise Indian agriculture, in the
and Dr. M. Mahadevappa working in agri universities have pages following we present interviews
ICAR and state agriculture universi- transformed into giant with leaders of three of India’s most
ties, the production of food grains respected agriculture universities in
was raised from 50 million tonnes in white collar bureaucracies the hope that they will shed light on the
1950 to 300 million tonnes currently, with aversion to extension root causes of the prolonged malaise
a monumental national effort cen- work in rural India, which grudgingly hosts
tred in India’s agriculture universities two-thirds of the country’s population.

OCTOBER 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 75