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An undercurrent of subdued optimism is emerging in Indian agriculture. The bottoming of the commodity cycle is over. In spices, castor, kharif pulses and oilseeds, prices are good.

An undercurrent of subdued optimism is emerging in Indian agriculture. The bottoming of the commodity cycle is over. In spices, castor, kharif pulses and oilseeds, prices are good. In Gujarat, till now cotton prices have also held. In spite of imports, local fruits are doing well. Banana, chikoo, anaar, aamla and custard apples are fetching good prices, the latter three being dry area crops. There was some damage due to the floods this year, but paddy has recovered.

In Gujarat, paddy is cultivated in areas where they get water from the Sardar Sarovar dam. Hardly anybody is worried about what the government8217;s policies on the purchase of paddy. Many farmers sold the average variety of paddy the Gujarat or IR variety to traders and millers at around Rs 130 per kutcha maund around 20 seers. In some cases the harvest is late, because the original plants were washed away and replantation had to be done.

The farmer is not too distressed on account of lower yield of late paddy as the price is good. Crops like isabgol, saunf, jeera from north Gujarat and dhauli musli from south are on a rollercoaster. Of these, the white muesli has been introduced on a larger scale in recent times in Gujarat with special efforts by NABARD and at a farmgate price of around Rs 600 per kg.

Having drunk the waters of the Sabarmati, when it was still flowing in Ahmedabad, I always believe the dictum of the Gujarati Jagat Sheths that good years are the ones in which we should build up our strengths and reserves. Incidentally, agriculture is reportedly recovering in most Asian countries.

Earlier this year, based on the data of the early part of the decade, an official report said 8220;profitability of agricultural production has declined8221;. Vietnamese officials Son, Que, Dieu and Trang and the Australian Beresford said: 8220;The highest rates of food poverty are in the more remote, mountainous areas, while the largest absolute numbers are in the densely populated north-central coast region. This pattern is also reflected in the distribution of poverty more broadly defined. Dramatic reduction, from 58 per cent in 1993, to 29 per cent in 2002, has been accompanied by a widening urban-rural gap and uneven distribution across the country. 8220;

Income diversification, which presents the best possibilities for many farmers to obtain higher incomes, has proceeded slowly while due to the collapse of coffee prices and out-migration, the per capita incomes of some regions actually fell during 1998-2002. Sounds like the approach paper to our Plan. A recent FAO report showed that the growth of crop economies on an average slowed down by around 43 per cent in the major Asian economies after the Asian melt down. But Vietnamese agriculture is now on the rebound as is the case in many Asian economies.

This is not quite the time to get stuck in the debates of a philosophical nature, but to make a solid effort to put the agrarian economy on a higher long term growth path.