Chattisgarh: No Longer a Rice Bowl?
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Chattisgarh was called the rice bowl of Madhya Pradesh. However, though high yielding varieties have been introduced in the area, there is not much increase in productivity and in some cases, the HYVs prove no better than the traditional varieties. There is also the additional disadvantage of vulnerability to pesticides demanding more fertilizers, increasing the production cost. On the other hand the state plans to focus on horticulture to boost the cash strapped economy. Mumbai based freelance journalist Meena Menon looks at the rice bowl in present times and relates it to Dr. Richharia's pioneering work in rice research. Bansi Yadav is perhaps a typical farmer in Chhattisgarh. He owns two acres and grows high yielding varieties (HYV) of rice. The returns are very less and almost always he has to buy rice to meet his consumption needs. Like most farmers he is in debt and works for daily wages. Many years ago he used to grow a local variety called Gurmatia with fairly good results.” I cannot get the seeds of Gurmatia. I have to depend on what the government gives us. 'Paddy is poverty'! Chhattisgarh has often been dubbed rice bowl of Madhya Pradesh. Yet productivity is not very high and after the formation of the new Chhattisgarh state, the chief minister Ajit Jogi has been making repeated statements that ‘paddy is poverty’. There is going to be a new thrust on horticulture if the scientists at the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University (IGAU) at Labhandi, near Raipur, have their way. The state will no longer be a rice bowl but a fruit bowl according to a senior scientist. The vice- chancellor of IGAU, Dr V K Patil, has proposed a plan to cover 5.5 lakh hectare of the state with horticulture crops and this, he said, will generate jobs for 25 lakh people. Horticulture is the agriculture of the future, he stated at a recent seminar at IGAU. At present, Chhattisgarh has 62,000 hectares under horticulture, which was a very small area, he said. The Food Insecurity Atlas of India prepared by the UN World Food Programme and the Chennai-based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation has identified Chhattisgarh along with Jharkhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Orissa as among the most food insecure states in the country. What happened to this region with its vast genetic diversity in rice? Stagnated yield An IGAU report said, rice is the main crop of Chhattisgarh and it is grown on 39.91 lakh hectares and covers 77 percent of the net sown area. Rice is mainly grown under rain fed conditions and the main source of irrigation is canals fed by major, minor and medium irrigation projects, which are also dependent on rains. Government officials informed, rice productivity was 1.4 tonnes per hectare the reason being inadequate irrigation. However, according to the University, rice production in Chhattisgarh had increased and this was due to increased acreage under HYVs, increased use of fertilisers and improved production technology. Despite this, average yields remain at 1.6 tonnes per hectare. Compare this to the 1960s when the yield was around one tonne with low fertiliser inputs and no institutional support. IGAU holds farmers responsible for the situation as they were slow to adopt rice varieties developed and recommended by scientists and launched a Farmers Participatory Breeding Programme in 1998 in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Chhattisgarh suffers from lack of irrigation and periodic droughts while the average rainfall is 1400 mm. Migration is the norm and the majority of farmers have very small landholdings. An effort, unnoticed It is ironic that Madhya Pradesh produced a top class rice scientist whose plan for increasing rice production was never put into practice. Few know about the path breaking contributions made in rice research by Dr R H Richharia whose career was jeopardised more than once by the government’s whims and policies. Dr Richharia who was director of the Central Rice Research Institute, (CRRI) Cuttack, had developed clonal propagation of rice. In this method, indigenous varieties could be improved to instill hybrid vigour in them. According to him each region had varieties, which were suited to the soil, climate and other variations of the area and this was the key to increasing rice production. In a paper delivered at a conference on The Crisis in Modern Science in November, 1986, in Malaysia, Dr Richharia said, he was convinced that rice productivity in India which had reached a high pitch in ancient times, can be restored by not replacing the existing cultivars which had descended from their original stock passing through many generations in its home environment. It was possible for rice breeders to select resistant high yielding varieties, he said. However, he added, ”... But pressure was brought about by the World Bank to close the activities of this Institute (MPRRI) in lieu of offering a substantial financial assistance as I had refused to pass on the entire rice germplasm to IRRI without studying it. In his book, ”Our strategy on the Rice Production Front in Madhya Pradesh,” he had written that with lower doses of fertilisers and without plant protection measures, the adapted indigenous varieties yield better or remain at par with the dwarf varieties, grown with high doses of fertilisers and without plant protection measures.”  And that is what possibly many farmers in Chhattisgarh have discovered for themselves. HYV vs traditional variety Under the Intensive Agricultural District Programme, HYVs were first introduced in Raipur in 1966-67. The new variety, TN1, gave good yields compared to local varieties though it was a drought year. Farmers then took to its cultivation, according to a progress report on IADP in Raipur. Safri 17 was also popular due to its adaptability to local conditions and high yields. Of the total area of 3.8 million ha under rice, 30 to 40 percent is under HYVs- but since there was no survey it was only an estimate, he said.  In Raipur, which had more irrigation than other places in the state, HYVs occupied about 50 per cent of the area. There is evidence that some indigenous varieties of rice in the region are high yielding, some are even resistant to gall midge, which is major pest threatening rice. Some local dwarf varieties were also identified and tested by the MPRRI. But this vast repository of rice varieties seems to have been given the go by in the race for increased production and developing newer varieties of rice. The demand for food grains and other agricultural products will continue to grow by about 2.5 per cent per annum during the next 10-20 years. The ninth five-year plan estimates that about 230 million tonnes of food grain will be needed by 2002. Low productivity - who bears the blame? According to Rain fed Rice, a sourcebook of best practices and strategies in Eastern India, (IRRI) April, 2000, six states in eastern India-- Assam, Bihar, Orissa West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh account for about 63.3 per cent of the total rice cropped area in the country (26.8 million hectares out of 42.3 million hectares) but produce only 48 per cent of the total rice. Though the average yield of the rain fed ecosystem of eastern India is only about 1 tonne/ha (except for West Bengal), its potential is very high as seen from demonstration/on farm trials. Farmers realise only 50 per cent of it due to the non-availability of seed and other timely inputs. Referring to the loss of biodiversity, the book says that the rate of loss of diversity in rice has been slower in the rain fed than in irrigated ecosystem. Most modern varieties have been developed through hybridisation involving the single dwarfing gene source De geo woo gen (DGWG) which increases the plant’s vulnerability to pests and diseases, such as devastation by the brown plant hopper in Kerala in the late 70s and bacterial blight in Punjab in 1980. The sourcebook adds that in the past, varietal development has focused mainly on increasing yield. Lately the focus has widened to include resistance to major pests and diseases. Now quality is also being emphasised. Over the past 35 years, more than 512 high yielding varieties have been released in India. About 67 of these are on the national seed chain but only one third of these 67 have been widely adopted and popularised. However, it states that while modern HYVs have greater yield potential than traditional varieties they were more prone to risk in situations involving stress or epidemics. Traditional cultivars on the other hand, have the capacity to withstand stress and adverse environments. These varieties may have low to moderate yields under adverse conditions whereas modern varieties may fail completely. Horticulture – an unwise choice Dr R K Sahu, senior scientist and plant breeder at IGAU said, in the plains, farmers who had irrigation, preferred HYV but in the hills but in the tribal areas- it was still local varieties, which held sway. He also said that there was a yield plateau with traditional varieties and they cannot go beyond four tonnes per hectare. It is only the big farmers who can take to HYVs, for smaller farmers the risk is too big and they stick to Safri 17 or traditional varieties. In a zero fertiliser experiment on rice, Dr Sahu said he got a yield of 2.5 tonnes per hectare, which was very good and better than the average yield of rice. Rice is the crop for this region and only it can survive, he felt. The fields are bunded and the soils are not drained- all this including the topography is only suited for rice, he maintained. Still the state is looking towards horticulture. Can it be called a wise move or the one in haste? It is time a comprehensive evaluation is carried out on the effects of ‘modern’ techniques on agriculture in the context of the loss of biodiversity which is assuming critical proportions now more than ever before. Solutions cannot be found to the question of ensuring food self-sufficiency, by diverting to cash crops. The answers may lie in farmers’ fields rather than in some ‘hallowed’ research establishment. Meena Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. She may be contacted at: cats@bol.net.in

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