Industrialized Agriculture and an Indian Ideological Shift in the Market

In the midst of a fierce war in 1965, the then Indian premier, Shastri said “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan!” (Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer!). It was the truth for the India of then, an agricultural economy, protected by its brave hearts. To a great extent, half of that remains the reality in India after 55 years. While we are still protected by the world’s 4^th most powerful military, we are no longer an agricultural economy. That said, the new age “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan!” (add science) almost entirely ignores the farmer in the middle.

Half of the Indian population depends on agriculture, a sector which contributes a little over 15% of the GDP. While these numbers are almost opposite in the modern IT and Engineering Services sector in India (about 60% contribution to GDP with a little over 20% of India's working population employed in it), one can see how the economic disparity takes shape. While the world sees a highly efficient ITES industry, where each Indian employee, who can be considered a cheap skilled labour delivers the work of almost 3 such employees on the pay grade, what an average Indian farmer delivers is 3 times less than what they should be, and so it earns equally less.

It is not easy for any government to change the face of agriculture in India, as ultimately, there’s always the face of the farmer to make promises and win the votes. The rural India may be literate, but it is highly uneducated, to be blunt on the facts. We know our culture and traditions to the core, but those beliefs which are considered education in the villages, do not feed a family. We cannot move a farmer from the fields to the industry, but we can merge the industry with the farm. When I say this, I do not mean setting up factories where agricultural land now exists, but to change the face of agriculture without the dependence on the government.

One may want a phone or a car, but everyone Needs food!

The biggest reason, Indian agriculture remains far behind, is the lack of investment, both from the government and the private investors. The reason behind this, is simple. You can predict the deliverables in a flashy start-up or a billion earning MNC to the last bill, but you cannot predict how the rains will be next year. Food is a need for all and the demand may falter for software and sophisticated hardware, it’ll only increase for food. The point of me writing this, is ultimately to open the minds of the common investor to look at agriculture with opportunity.

Most farmers in India are involved in grain production, and a major section of the Indian agriculture is water intense crops, mainly rice, which requires flooding of the farmland. Much this water, eventually leeches down the soil or evaporates, which infers, a very less amount of it is really needed by the plant. Here’s where hydroponic farms come into the picture. A simulated environment, where water flows in tubes through multi-storey support structure, such that the leached water can be re-used and very less evaporation occurs. Such a farm can co-exist with an aquarium or fishery where the water is re-fertilized with rich fish waste and supplied to the crops, a set-up known as aquaponic farming.

We are looking at hitting two birds with the same stone when we talk about this. On one hand we are talking about predictable, assured produce without any artificial growth modifiers, while on the other hand, we see up to 6 times the produce for the same land use, thanks to the multi-storey vertical farming architecture. Hydroponics and aquaponics, however, required a large initial investment. This is where the private investors come into the picture. Industrial scale agriculture can attract lucrative investment with the above methods. Then again, no great task is accomplished easily, there’s a need to put in effort in the initial days of this shift, and also to develop a co-operative structure, similar to Amul and other dairy co-ops running in the country, to share the resources among small farmers and also the profits, for generations to come in their family. It will eventually give a margin to the farmers to try something other than the usual grain farming, to the more profitable exotic fruits and vegetables.

The new black gold, or should I say, ethanol economy

Although it looks highly profitable, hydroponics and aquaponics should not be considered as a one-size-fits-all solution. We’ll need our farmlands, wherever the soil conditions are suitable, to produce crops that can eventually fuel our economy. The world is in a bad shape in terms of environment, degraded to a nearly poisonous atmosphere and depleted natural resources, due to the greed of a few. While battery technology looks remote, most Indians living with electric range anxiety, and the charging time, we can shift focus to a better substitute to petroleum. I take example from Brazil while bringing this to you, a country while switched to a nearly 100% alcohol driven automobiles during the oil crisis. Alcohol production depends, not on African or Arabian oil fields, but on the farmers growing sugarcane, for molasses are the major component in alcohol production. Ethanol can also be produced by fermenting grains such as rice, corn, wheat and barley. Rice is a surplus in India, and even today we stock enough to feed us for a few years.

Alcohol is a great anti-knocking agent in petroleum when blended (great substitute for lead) and with the recent advancement, a vehicle can run on 100% ethanol (as recently showcased by Indian motorcycle manufacturer, TVS). It does reduce but not entirely eliminate carbon emission, however, economically and geo-politically, it reduces our dependence on heavy crude oil imports, which can instead go to local farmers. This, when coupled with modern farming, has the potential to make sugarcane (a large Indian farm export of about $1 Billion) a commodity similar to crude oil. A supply-demand chain maintained in home. The objective, again is a steady flow of investment into the agricultural sector.

The Great Indian Mind

At this point, we can talk about the “Great Indian Mind”, fueled by need, driven by our long-standing traditions, ethics and intuition. When I earlier said, our beliefs do not feed a family, they do keep us together, and together, we are strong. A wedge was carved in between the Indian businesses and the farmers, thanks to our bumpy political history. Today, we need them together, the smart Indian engineer on the fields with the Indian farmer, not worrying if their family will have food before sleeping, but ensuring the whole country wakes up the next day to become a superpower we dream of being.