Chapter-III: Rice Production in Assam
3.7: Constraints on Growth of Rice Production in Assam
3.7.2: Input Constraints of Rice Production in Assam
If one has to consider the fertility of the land and the abundance of water in the state, the two most important components for rice production, Assam should have been one of the better-developed states in the country. Yet in all the key inputs of rice production, such as irrigation, levels of mechanization, market access, credit, extension of technical knowhow, price or connectivity of rural areas, the state today lags behind the rest of the country (Borah et al., 2001). Following section has discussed about the status of basic input supply and support services for rice production in the state.
Use of Quality Paddy Seeds:
Non-availability of quality seeds is a perennial problem particularly of paddy in the state.
It was observed that the HYV programme in Assam failed because of inadequate supply of improved seeds and other supporting inputs (Das, 1984). The long and time- consuming process of supply and hence untimely distibution of seed has been the retrograde factor, which discourage farmers to adopt modern varieties. Traditionally, in Assam, cultivators preserve a portion of their crop to be use as seeds for the next sowing.
But agriculture of Assam faced the problem of availability of certified seeds (presently, seed rate of paddy in Assam is 40 kg/ha) and so the Seed Replacement Rate48 in the state stands at a very low level. Seed replacement area of rice in Assam was 30 lakh hectares and SRR was 50 percent and seed replaced by 0.72 lakh MT in 2011-12.
Table-3.18: Season wise availability of Quality Seeds of Paddy in the state (in ‟000 quintal)
Season Kharif season Rabi season
Year 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Quantity 148.69 833.77 417.8 680.94 8.456 76.24 165.00 200.00 Source: Directorate of Agriculture, Assam
Fertilizer Use in Rice Production:
In Assam, annual fertilizer consumption is very low (58.5kg/ha) as compared to national average (128.5kg/ha) in 2012-13 and it is one of the important reason for low rice productivity in the state (Economic Survey, Assam, 2014-15). Among the rice varieties, as expected, fertilizer application is more in modern varieties than in traditional one.
48 Seed Replacement Rate is the percentage of area sown out of total area of crop planted in the season by using certified/quality seeds other than the farm saved seed. Since certified seeds are better in productivity, the SRR is directly proportional to productivity. Thus, higher the SRR, higher is production as well as productivity
(http://www.gktoday.in/blog/seed-replacement-rate/,accessed on 27-12-2015)
Bhowmick et al., (2005) observed that about 26kg/ha of NPK was applied to traditional varieties as compared to 69kg/ha for modern varieties in Nagaon district, whereas, it was 15kg/ha and 67kg/ha respectively in Golaghat district in Assam. In TE-2010-11, Punjab uses 157.8kg/ha of Nitrogen (N), 49.1kg/ha of Phosphate (P) and 41.2kg/ha of Potassium (K) or total NPK use was 198.2kg/ha in non-Basmati paddy (Raju et al., 2015) while Assam uses only 74.58kg/ha of total NPK in 2011-12. Among six agro-climatic zones in Assam, fertilizer consumption is highest in CBVZ (123.50kg/ha) followed by LBVZ (85.81kg/ha), BVZ (58.18kg/ha), UBVZ (49.09kg/ha), NBPZ (29.90kg/ha) and lowest in Hill Zone (7.66kg/ha); while in all Assam it was 64.45kg/ha in 2006-07 (Statistical Hand Book Assam; Mandal, 2011).
Table-3.19: Trend of Fertilizer Consumption in Rice Cultivation in Assam and India: (in kg/ha):
Year N P K Total NPK consumption
in Assam
Total NPK consumption in all India
1970-71 1.69 0.71 0.52 2.92 13.67
1980-81 2.1 0.3 0.4 2.8 31.9
1990-91 5.6 2.2 2.7 10.5 67.5
2000-01 18.4 9.1 7.7 35.2 88.93
2005-06 23.25 13.93 12.08 49.26 105.5
2006-07 26.95 13.41 13.13 53.49 111.80
2008-09 29.32 13.4 15.08 57.80 127.2
2011-12 40.86 13.28 20.45 74.58 141.30
2013-14 36.24 9.99 19.18 65.41 -
N: Nitrogenous; P: Phosphatic; K: Potassic.
Source: (i) Rice Knowledge Management Portal (RKMP), Hyderabad; (ii) Statistical Hand Book, Assam, 2014.
Fig.3.10: Trend of Fertilizer Consumption in Rice Cultivation in Assam and India
Historically Assam used lesser amount of fertilizer in rice cultivation. Barua (1915), a leading nationalist and scholar of Assam of the 19th century remarks that “the people of Assam did neither use fertilizer nor artificially irrigate their fields for the improvement of the fertility of the soil. Chemical fertilizer was hardly used in Assam, natural vegetation and soil fertility made the use of manure in Assam”. The Katha Guru Charit and early British records mention how weeds had been burnt to clear the land by depositing ashes for Ahu rice and mustard cultivation. The most common class of manure was cow-dung,
0 50 100 150 200 250
Total NPK consumption in all India
Total NPK consumption in Assam
which was generally used to manure growing seedling for transplanted rice.
“Shahibuddin Talish, a foreign visitor during Ahom regime noted in 1662 that here (i.e., in Assam) the soil is fertile, and whatever is planted grows well” (Sarkar, 1915). As pointed out by Robinson (1841), the sense of temporary ownership of lands did not encourage the people to use manure and to improve its qualities. Indeed, cultivation solely depended on what amount of fertility the soil naturally possessed. John M‟ Cosh has noticed that the Assamese prepared a well manured garden land to sow seeds to obtain healthy seedlings (Gogoi Nath, 2002).
Irrigation in Rice Cultivation:
Rice is a proliferate user of water, consuming half of all fresh water resources. Water needs of rice are two to four times more than that of the other crops of the same duration (Devi and Ponnarasi, 2009). Now-a-days farmers of the state are cultivating modern and high yielding variety of rice besides its traditional varieties. Thus, irrigation is a must for higher production. But the fact is that the irrigation facility in the state is very poor in comparison to high rice producing state of the country as well as national average. In 1970-71, net area irrigated as percentage of net sown area in Assam was 7.92 percent compared to 38.4 percent in all India and yield of cereals per hectare was 993kg against 1123kg in all India. During 2008-09, percentage coverage of irrigated area under rice in the state was 5.3 compared to 99.9 in Haryana, 99.5 in Punjab, 96.8 in Andhra Pradesh, 93.3 in Tamil Nadu and 58.7 in all India (Economic Survey, 2014-15). The gross and net area under irrigation in Assam was 15 percent and 20.7 percent respectively in 2011 (Govt. of India, 2012). In 2013-14, gross and net irrigated area in the state stood at 186806 hectares and 161398 hectares respectively and about 30 percent of net cropped area is covered by assured irrigation facility (Economic Survey, Assam, 2014-15).
Table-3.20: Crop & Season wise Rice Area Irrigated in Assam from 2007-08 to 2013-14 (P):(in hectare)
Years Kharif Crop Season Rabi& Pre-Kharif Crop Season Grand
Total Regular
Ahu
Sali Traditional
Sali HYV
Bao Rice
Total Early Ahu
Ahu HYV
Boro Rice
Total
2007-08 - - - - 74463 - - - 14808 89271
2008-09 - - - - 75677 - - - 19994 95671
2009-10 459.0 117949 29366 0 14779 8412.2 5903.2 6769.6 21085 16884 2010-11 616.3 90407 11600 15 108185 11766 1066 4410 17242 125427 2011-12 419.5 93735 34594 5 132529 10530 1326 6515 18371 150900 2012-13 684 116949 33991 668 152292 9744 4651 7321 21716 174008 2013-14 608 125778 32816 55 159257 12123 6870 10365 29358 188615 Source: (i) Statistical Hand Book Assam, Various Issues, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Govt. of Assam; (ii) Calculation by the Author.
Although the facility of irrigating crop land is still poor in the state, the practice of irrigation is not a new one. The system of irrigation for rice culture was prevalent in some form among people of Assam since early times that were evidenced by some contemporary foreign accounts. Yuwan Chwang, the Chinese pilgrim, who visited the kingdom of Kamrupa in the middle of the 7th century noted in his account that water led from the rivers or from banked-up lakes flowed round the towns. Another pilgrim, Minhas Uddin Siraj refers to opening up of water dykes at the time of need. Ralph Fitch, the English traveller, who visited the Koch kingdom (then lower Assam) during the second half of the 16th century, observed that the people used to inundate lands by damming the streams above knee deep. The Katha Guru Charit records how the Bhuyans of Assam built embankments on the rivers Tembuwani and Magurijan for protection of crops and houses. Among the indigenous tribes, the Kacharies in the thirteenth century knew how to irrigate lands. It is found that they used to make dams across the hill streams several miles above the point at which the water-supply is required and then led the stored up water to the rice fields through a network of „dung‟ or „dong‟ or „Jan‟ up channels (irrigation channels).49Under conditions of dung irrigation of the Bodo- Kacharis, Ahu was also transplanted. The Meches, a Bodo-Kachari tribe of Assam- Bengal border, were reported in 1875 to go in for artificial irrigation in a surprising manner. Even today, in Boro-Kachari areas, several villages often combine to construct dongs up to several miles long. It was only during the Ahom rule in Assam for long six hundred years (1228-1826) that irrigation and flood control work were undertaken as a state policy so that the flat level lands opened up for rice cultivation. King Suhungmung became known as Dihingia Raja for his building an embankment on the Dihing River, the largest of the southern tributaries of the Brahmaputra (Gogoi Nath, 2002). In respect of irrigation, the Ahoms had a definite superiority over their neighbours, Boro-Kacharis and other tribes. Thus, irrigation system was less in lower Assam due to exclusion from Ahom rule (Guha, 2015).
Though irrigation practices in Assam is as old as exercising settled cultivation, however, in the post independence period not much emphasis was given to development of irrigation in the state even after launching Green Revolution in the country. No allotment of fund for irrigation was provided in the state‟s first two plans. Moreover,
49Normally the length of a jan is less than a kilometer and is only about 0.61-0.91 meter wide and about 0.33-0.45 meter deep. These jan or dong system of watering paddy land is not sufficient and is not available throughout the season (Assam State Gazetteer, 1999).
small farm size, fragmented landholding and lack of co-operation impeded irrigation development in the state. The spread of modern capital-intensive techniques of irrigation such as shallow or deep tubewell and low lift pump irrigation has tended to reverse the inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity. Sharma (1992) stated that because of fragmentation or the existence of a number of non-contiguous plots within the same holding, the viability in tube-well irrigation in Assam is falling far behind to Punjab and Haryana.
Moreover, there exists gap between irrigation potential created and actual utilization. Reasons of this gap are: (a) the shallow tube wells (STWs) installed long back (1993) are not effective; (ii) use of STWs/LLPs (low left points) has become crop specific and location specific; (iii) some schemes are not functioning due to damage of structures, lack of maintenance of old machineries and inadequate power availability, etc.; (iv) most of the schemes of minor irrigation in Assam (STWs and LLPs) are diesel operated and hence the cost of operation is high (Economic Survey, Assam, 2010-11).
Inadequate rural electrification is considered as one of the important impediment to accelerate the development of irrigation and agriculture. Farmers were also not interested to have electricity driven irrigation pumps (Saikia, 1988).
Investment and Credit in Rice Production:
The predominantly small farmer-oriented monocrop farming practice in Assam is required to be supported by enhanced public investment to ensure the availability of basic infrastructure, health care and education and training. Dhekial Phukan, a leading nationalist and scholar of Assam would not put much faith in a process of autonomous development. He looked forward to the Government as the appropriate agency for modernization. Evidences showed that a huge investment on the infrastructure development did not come from the private sources. A meagre per capita income of the majority of the farmers could not generate investible surplus in the hands of farmers.
Under-investment in agriculture resulted in the farm sector with a state of severe infirmity (Bhowmick, et al., 2005).
Capital investment of the low income households is predominantly of traditional nature, the major portion of investment being made in acquiring more land and on improvement on land. The moderate income households lay more emphasis on purchase of irrigation equipments and agricultural implements of traditional nature. The middle
income households allocate major portion of their capital investment only on two capital items - irrigation equipments and agricultural machineries and implements of both traditional and modern types. For the high income households, more than 70 percent of their capital items go for acquiring their own irrigation resources and implements and also for purchasing agricultural machinery (Ghosh, 2005).
Although credit is positively associated with the efficiency of both local variety (LV) and modern variety (MV), the institutional structure of credit is extremely weak in the state. In the wake of the monetization and merchant capital penetration in the late 19th century, the number of money-lenders and credit-advancing village shopkeepers increased. Out of the 9801 money-lenders and their dependents in the Province of Assam in 1891, 7902 were in the Surma Valley (presently in Bangladesh), 1793 in the Brahmaputra valley and 106 were in the hills districts (Guha, 2006). Exorbitant interest rates and heavy peasant indebtedness constituted a normal feature of Assam‟s rural economy. The usual rate of interest charged by moneylenders was not less than 36 percent per annum. The debtors had virtually no legislative protection against usurious practices. In medieval Assam, traditional slaves continued to work on the land of the lords as tenants. Taking a loan by mortgaging one‟s labour was common in pre-colonial times (Guha, 1977). In colonial period, merchant capital mainly by Marwari merchants played a significant role in Assam‟s agrarian economy. As the source of credit shifted towards commercial capital, agreements to sell the standing crop to the creditor at a pre- specified price became common (Das and Saikia, 2011). The peasantry was caught in a never-ending cycles of credit to meet land revenue demands. Though the Government and the Marwari merchants accumulated resources with surplus extracted from the peasant sector, neither of them however, did much to improve rice production (Guha, 2015).
In the post independence period especially after nationalization of banks institutional sources of credit have been extended. However, in comparison to developed states in India, the institutional structure of credit in the state was poor. For instance, amount of borrowing from institutional sources in Assam was Rs.148/ha in 1992 which was increased to Rs.716/ha in 2013 at 1993-94 prices. But during this period per hectare amount of borrowing from institutional sources in Tamil Nadu increased from Rs.2388 to Rs.10350, in Punjab from Rs.1398 to Rs.5414, in Himachal Pradesh from Rs.1121 to Rs.9167, in Tripura from Rs.895 to Rs.1410, in Maharashtra from Rs.721 to Rs.2066, in
West Bengal from Rs.641 to Rs.3285, in Haryana from Rs.578 to Rs.2552, in Gujarat from Rs.582 to Rs.1551, etc. And in all India level it has increased from Rs.545 to Rs.2926 per hectare. The compound annual growth rate of institutional borrowing and non-institutional borrowing in Assam were 7.4 percent and 2.1 percent compared to 7.9 percent and 7.0 percent respectively in India during 1992 to 2013 (48th & 70th Rounds, NSSO) (see appendix Table III.5). However, share in non-institutional credit (money lender) in Assam decreased from 55.9 percent in 2003 to 34.8 percent in 2013 against the increase in all India level from 67.3 percent to 69.0 percent during the period (59th & 70th Rounds, NSSO). Lapses of repayment of advances of bank credit also make scope to limit the institutional credit to farmers. Scheduled Commercial Banks‟ outstanding advance on paddy cultivation has increased from Rs.3455 crore in March, 2002 to Rs.13298 crore in October, 2011. In 2011-12, all together 378101 KCCs issued with credit limit sanctioned Rs.1315.38 crore. In 2012-13, 4.5 lakh KCC loan are targeted.
However, the scheme could not cover the targeted farmers in practice. This is attributed to low level of crop loans issued to farmers, poor financial position of the Co-operative Banks and RRBs in the region, lack of infrastructure facilities which are a hurdle in the way of augmenting credit facilities. Moreover, after the introduction of new prudential norms in the banking sector, banks have been hesitating to invest in the agricultural sector of the state (State Agriculture Policy, Assam).
Agricultural Extension Services in Rice Production:
Bhowmick et al., (2005) found that extension services had positive effect with the efficiencies of both local and modern varieties of rice, which were significant at one percent level and indicates that the involvement of extension advisers tends to increase the efficiency of rice production. Extension services can provide better management, information and proper resource utilization processes which are equally important along with investment in inputs and can help to increase the efficiency of farmers (Mishra, 2010).
Since April, 1985, the National Agricultural Extension Project-III has been introduced in the state. There is a need to motivate, mobilize and activate the extension programme for adoption of modern technology in every nook and corner of the state (Ahmed et al., 2011). Access to information and resources on credit, technology, market, etc. are also crucial for rice production in the state. Unfortunately, most of the farmers
derived required information on newer methods and innovative agricultural practices from their own experiences, relatives and neighbours. The availability of institutional sources has been negligible (Bhowmick et al., 2005).
Although the state have a well developed network of extension services, farmers are not getting the information regarding the development of the technologies and the solution of the field problems generously. It was reported that farmers rarely meet the extension workers in field and can consult their farm problems at proper time (Mandal, 2011; Goswami, 2012). However, in recent years some institutional set ups like Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA), a district level programme planning and decision making body, Farmers Training Institute, departmental extension training centres as well as the Assam Agricultural University and farmers‟ training for capacity building of the Field Management Committees (FMCs) through MANAGES, Hyderabad, etc. have been adopted to effect reforms in agriculture extension and to ensure effective participation of farmers in planning and resource allocation.
Field Management Committees (FMCs) in Assam:
People‟s participation is absolutely necessary for successful implementation of any programme. With this end in view the Agriculture Department, Assam started organizing a new social institution at grass root level called Field Management Committees (FMCs) or Pathar Parichalana Samittees (PPSs), an association of farmers at the field level in the early sixties. This is farmers‟ voluntary body consisting of 60-80 farmers living near a big cultivated field cultivating a contiguous area of 27 hectares to 134 hectares.These committees are registered by District Agricultural Officers and are functioning as an extension wing of the Agriculture Department. There are 25938 registered FMCs in Assam at village level having co-ordination bodies at Block, District and State level. But only 5 percent FMCs are actively working (Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Assam).
They carry out mainly the functions of motivation and liaise with the Agriculture Department. FMCs are projected as the hub of the future agricultural development activities in the state. However, it was found in our pilot survey that most of the FMCs in the study area in Bongaigaon are inactive, members are ignorant, no meeting is held regularly, government benefits are concentrated in a few members and departmental officials did not given due attention on their recommendations.