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Opinion
Agriculture Policy
for Energy Security
by
Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi
 After nearly two years and about Rs. 1.5 crores expenditure, the
National Commission on Farmers (NCF) has put out a document outlining a
policy for farmers, which leaves much to be desired. Even the Ministry
of agriculture, which set up the commission, has recently remarked that
no worthwhile recommendations have come out of the commission’s report.
In fact the most important recommendation of the commission is to set up
some more commissions and committees! The NCF is a shining example of
what Albert Einstein once said, "Existing problems cannot be solved by
the level of thinking that created them".
What the NCF and the planners who sit in Delhi forget is that farming is
presently non-remunerative. This is because of the policy of low support
price for farm produce by the government of India, which is the biggest
buyer of agricultural commodities. Thus no amount of soft financial
packages will prevent the farmers’ suicides or help the marginal
farmers. These are all short-term solutions. There is a Chinese saying
"You can feed a farmer for a short time by supplying him fish, but if
you teach him how to catch fish he will feed himself the rest of his
life". Thus if we create a long term agricultural policy which brings in
wealth to the countryside, then automatically the farmers’ lot will
become better. Such an agricultural policy should help the marginal
farmers as much as the big farmers.
The only way in which farming can become remunerative is when it is tied
up very closely to the industry. This can happen when farms also produce
energy besides food. Three types of fuels can be produced easily via
agriculture – liquid fuels like ethanol or biodiesel; gaseous fuels like
methane; and electricity. When the major demands of fuel and electricity
of the country are met by the farm then wealth will automatically flow
into rural areas.
The ethanol liquid fuel can be produced from agricultural crops like
sweet sorghum, sugarbeet, sugarcane etc. while biodiesel can be produced
from a horde of oil producing crops like Jatropha, Karanja, Castor etc.
Estimates are that agriculture-based liquid fuel industry can be of an
order of about Rs. 40-50,000 crores/year thereby providing increasing
wealth to farmers.
In any agriculture only 25-40% of the produce is food. Rest 60-75% are
the agricultural residues. These residues can produce both electricity
(via biomass-based power plants) and ethanol fuel (via enzymatic
hydrolysis process). Any marginal farm can produce agricultural residues
even if the main food crop fails. On an average a farmer can get an
extra income of Rs. 2000-4000/acre from the residues alone if they are
used for producing energy. This income can give him benefits even in
case of a distress sale of his crop.
Today about 600 million tons/year of agricultural residues are produced
in India. Most of these residues are burnt in the fields as a solution
to the waste disposal problem. This not only wastes the precious
resource but also produces tremendous air pollution. Theoretically these
residues can produce ~ 80,000 MW of power year round. This is around 60%
of the total installed electricity capacity of India. Part of these
agricultural residues can also be used via the methane (biogas) route to
produce fertilizer for the crops and gaseous fuel to either run rural
transport, irrigation pumpsets or be used as cooking gas. The production
of electricity via residues will require an investment of about Rs.
160,000 crores. However it will bring about 10 times more money to rural
areas in terms of revenues from electricity generation. Besides it can
potentially create almost 120 million extra jobs in rural areas.
As the industrial demand for fuels and electricity increases, we might
see large tracts of farmland coming under fuel crops and food production
may suffer. Thus there is a need to debate the food vs. fuel issues.
Consequently R&D needs to be done on crops which produce both fuel and
food from the same piece of land. Sweet sorghum is one such crop.
Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) pioneered the development
of this crop in India. Sweet sorghum produces food (jowar grain) from
its earhead, fuel from its stem (the sweet juice can be fermented to
produce ethanol) and bagasse and leaves make an excellent fodder for
animals or they can also be used as fuel in power plants. Similarly if
the agricultural residues can be broken down by suitable enzymes to
produce ethanol then both food and fuel can be produced from all food
crops.
A policy has to be made by the Government of India that by 2015 AD
around 80% of all our liquid fuel and 30-40% of all our electricity will
have to be produced from renewables especially biomass. This will result
in tremendous growth in the farm sector and can provide a solution to
the problems of the marginal farmers. In recent times alcohol economy in
Brazil and biogas economy in Europe has brought prosperity to farmers in
these countries.
When farms start supplying energy besides food it will generate
additional wealth for the 65% of the population who live in rural areas.
Production of energy from agriculture will be a single most important
step in bringing prosperity to rural India as well as energy security to
the country.
July 30, 2006
Image under license with
Gettyimages.com
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