1. Sustaining Agriculture in Odisha
Ramanjaneyulu

2. Intensive Agriculture
• Economic Crisis
– Increasing costs of cultivation and decreasing returns
– Reducing public support and increasing indebtedness
• Ecological Crisis
– is highly LINEAR, whereas traditionally agriculture was highly CYCLICAL.
– is based on maximizing the output of a narrow range of species leading to
monoculture of crops and varieties
– is based on capital depletion and massive additions of external inputs (e.g.
energy, water, chemicals)
– views the farm as a factory with “inputs” (such as pesticides, feed, fertilizer, and
fuel) and “outputs” (grain, cotton, chicken, and so forth)
– never cared about the externalities
• Socio-political crisis
– Increasing tenancy, land use shift
– Increasing farmers suicides, 2,70,940 in last 15 yr
– Huge migration

3. Irrigation and fertilizer based production
Source: Government of India, 2009; RBI, 2009.

4. Fertilizer issues
• The higher and imbalance use of chemical fertilizers threatened the
soil health
• Fertilizer use efficiency less than 50%
• Factor productivity of fertilizer coming down
• Fertilizer production largely dependent on Petroleum products and
prices fluctuate with them
• Phosphotic and Potash reserves coming down
• Nutrient response drastically declined
Period Response (kg/kg NPK)
V FYP 15.0
Now 6.5
• During 1961-2006 globally 8 fold increase in use of
agrochemicals, but increase in grain yield only 1.5 times

5. Fertilizer use in Odisha
800.00
700.00
600.00
500.00
Axis Title
400.00
300.00
200.00
100.00
0.00
N ('000 t) P ('000 t) K ('000 t) Total ('000 t) kg/ha

6. Fertiliser use in India: FAI, September 2012
State Kg/ha
Andhra Pradesh 252.8
Punjab 237.3
Tamil Nadu 211.0
Haryana 196.6
Utter Pradesh 179.0
Bihar 173.5
West Bengal 172.0
Gujarat 167.6
Maharashtra 150.0
Odisha 99.30
Madhya Pradesh 90.4
Rajasthan 57.4
Nagaland 3.2
Arunachal Pradesh 3.0
National Average 145.0

7. Consumption of Fertilizer by Land Holding
Cost of Fertilizer per Acre (Rs.’00)
16
Cost of fertiliser per acre
14
12
10
(Rs.'00)
Farmer Land
8 Holding
6
4 Cost of Fertilizer
(Rs.'00)
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Source: Fertilizer Association of India, 2007
Size of Land Holding (Acres)
Higher dependence on chemical fertilizers by small/marginal
farmers – higher risk

8. 2008
2012
(‘000 crore)

9. Soil Organic matter
 The soil organic matter has declined from about 1.43 and 1.21 % in
red and black soils in the 1950’s to about 0.80 to 0.86 percent
respectively at present.
 Soil organic matter performs Hydrological, Biological and Nutrient
related functions, which are both interrelated and distinct.
 The OM helps tide over dry spells and in reducing runoff. Soil
moisture and organic matter is essential even for improving the
efficiency of biofertilisers and chemical nutrients.

10. Pesticides poisoning past, present and future
• Acute poisoning effects
• Agriculture workers killed
• Chronic poisoning effects
• Children growth effected
• Effect on reproductive health
• Pesticides increased costs of cultivations
• Rs. 1000 to 15000/acre
• Ecological Disturbances
• Beneficials killed, pest shifts
• Pest resistances, pest resurgences
• Poisoning of resources
• Soils
• Water
• Milk
• Food (NIN study found18 pesticides
found in Vegetables in
Hyderabad, 2012)

11. Pesticide use in Odisha
1800.00
1600.00
1400.00
1200.00
1000.00
800.00
600.00 M. Tons
400.00
200.00
0.00

12. Life in queues 2011

13. Life in queues 2012

14. Depleting natural resources
• Increasing dark zones due
to groundwater depletion
• 30 % of soils are reported
to be saline by the recent
study by ministry of
environment

15. Ecological Foot Prints
Each ha of paddy yields @ 30 bags/acre and 75 5625 kg/ha grain
kg/bag
In terms of rice 70 % milling 3938 kg/ha
Water requirement 2000 mm (2 m) crop water 20000 cu m water
requirement x10000 sq m. Which is equal to 5.078
cu.m/kg rice (5078 litres/kg
rice)
Each family consuming monthly 30 152340 Litres of water per
kg rice month per family
This is equivalent to
Each family consumes water @ 300 litres/day and for 30 9000 litres
directly at around days
Water consumption by way of 16.93 times higher than the
rice is water we consume directly

16. Risky weather variations
• 2/3 of cultivated area is drought prone in Odisha.
• 15 districts including river deltas are flood prone
• 7 districts along the 450 km coastal line prone to
frequent storms, cyclones and sea water ingression
• In the last 150 years there were 100 climate related
disasters
• During the last century, Odisha faced:
– 49 years floods,
– 30 years droughts, and
– 11 years cyclones

17. Agro-Ecological Approaches
• Holistic understanding of the ecological and
biological processes (Gestalt approach)
• Harnessing the synergy of biodiversity,
ecological balance, high energy efficiency,
• Need a new science to under stand
technologies and not a new technology with old
science

18. Crop productivity vs land productivity
• Productivity is narrowly understood as crop
productivity in a monoculture situation, and
• Often compared with western developed
countries which have
– advantage of long day light,
– higher diurnal variation of temperature
– monoculture to suit mechanisation due to labor
shortage
– limited by only one crop season
• cannot be compared with tropical climate which
is rich in diversity and three crop seasons.

19. What is needed….
• Integrated farming systems integrating
livestock, trees etc
• Building soil organic matter
• Conserving moisture
• Rainwater harvesting
• Locally adopted crops and varieties
• Contingence planning
• Moving away from agro-chemical use

20. Sustainable Agriculture
In harmony with nature
• Local Resources: Seeds, soils, crops
• Making best use of natural cycles and processes
• Knowledge and skills of Ecological methods of farming like
Non Pesticidal Management, Soil health and Productivity, Seed
banks which reduce their
– Dependency, risks and costs
• What we need is
– Soil literacy
– Pest and disease literacy
– Weather literacy

21. Sustainable Agriculture-nested cycles

22. 22
Changing to multiple cropping systems

25. SPICES BASED CROPPING SYSTEMS

27. System of Rice Intensification
• System of Rice Intensification is a
cost effective and resource
efficient method of cultivation
• Extended to sugarcane, wheat,
ragi etc
27

28. Switching over to ecological farming practices
28

29. Community Managed Sustainable
Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh
 Basic Principles
 Regenerative, ecologically sound practices
 Organized communities planning,
implementing and managing the program
 Govt/ngos playing facilitating agency role
 2004-05 started with 225 acres in one dist and
reached 7 lakh acres in 2007-08 in 18 dist.
World Bank says this is a good tool for poverty
eradication and now promoted as part of
NRLM
 With 50 % development expenditure one can
double the incomes of the farmers
 A national program called Mahila Krishi
Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) is launched
based on this experiencce 2009

30. Farmers and area covered under CMSA
4000
3800
3500 3500
3000
2800
2500 2500
2000 2135 1997 2000 2000
1500 1394 1541 1381 1500
1300
1000 1000
700 600 1015
500 200
0.225 25 300
0 80
0.1 15
Acerage ('000 acres) Farmers ('000) Pesticide use (MT Active Ingradient)

31. Status of pesticide utilization in different states**
States/UTs 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-072007-08 2008-09 2009-10 kg/ha kg/ha
2000-01 2009-10
Punjab 7005 7200 7200 6780 6900 5610 5975 6080 5760 5810 0.98 0.82
Haryana 5025 5020 5012 47330 4520 4560 4600 4390 4288 4070 0.84 0.68
Andhra
Pradesh 4000 3850 3706 2034 2135 1997 1394 1541 1381 1015 0.34 0.09
Tamil Nadu 1668 1576 3346 1434 2466 2211 3940 2048 2317 2335 0.32 0.45
Gujarat 2822 4100 4500 4000 2900 2700 2670 2660 2650 2750 0.30 0.29
Kerala 754 1345 902 326 360 571 545 780 272.69 631 0.31 0.26
Karnataka 2020 2500 2700 1692 2200 1638 1362 1588 1675 1647 0.17 0.14
Orissa 1006 1018 1134 682 692 963 778 N/A 1155.75 1588 0.16 0.26
**Source: http://ppqs.gov.in/IpmPesticides.htm MT of active ingredient

32. Average Reduction in costs and net
additional income for different crops
Crops Reduction in cost Reduction in costs due to use Net additional
due to NPM (Rs) of organic fertilisers/manures income (Rs)
(Rs)
Paddy 940 1450 5590
Maize 1319 2357 5676
Cotton 1733 1968 5676
Chillies 1733 1968 7701
Groundnut 1021 3462 10483
Vegetables 1400 390 3790
3rd Party Evaluation of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) : Community Managed
Organic Farming implemented by SERP
Evaluation Team
Prof. R. Ratnakar, Director, Dr. M. Surya Mani, Professor, EXTENSION EDUCATION
INSTITUTE, (Southern Region), Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India

33. Way forward
• Moving from high external input agriculture to high internal input agriculture
• Information based to knowledge based extension
• Reducing the risks with uncertain weather conditions and degraded and
limited natural resources, by adopting agroecologically suitable cropping
patterns and production practices
• Diversifying the assets and income sources to sustain the livelihoods by
integrating livestock and horticulture into agriculture and promoting on-farm
and off-farm employment opportunities,
• Conserving and efficiently use the available natural resources like soil and
water, and promote biomass generation,
• Organizing farmers into institutions which can help them to have better
planning, greater control over their production, help to access resources and
support, improve food security and move up in the value chain,
• Recasting subsidies to support farmers own resources and labor
• Building livelihood security systems to withstand the natural disasters like
drought, floods and other climate uncertainties

34. www.csa-india.org
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www.agrariancrisis.in
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