Why hasn’t Natural Farming taken off big time in Tamil Nadu?

About 10 years ago, I took a group of agricultural academics from Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU), delegated by the then Vice Chancellor to (then) Andhra Pradesh to visit the Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) programme. The visit was facilitated by the Rural Development Department of the Tamil Nadu government, through the newly formed State Rural Livelihood Mission (TNSRLM). The occasion was the opportunity presented by the newly created national programme called Mahila Kisan Sashaktikiran Pariyojana (MKSP), a programme which at its core understood the relationship between the role of women in farming and sustainable agriculture. The programme itself was an outcome of scaling up effort of CMSA at all India level and Mr. Vijay Kumar, the chief architect of the CMSA in Andhra Pradesh had just then joined as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in Delhi. 

At the end of the visit - all women TNAU serving academics – came up with some interesting insights – 

1. In Tamil Nadu, we (as in TNAU and the agriculture extension) do not work with the poor and marginal farmers and concentrate on the technology adopting ‘’progressive farmers’’.
2. We are thinking always on improving yield and not necessarily farmer’s self sufficiency.

This neatly summarized the academic orientation in the state excessively dominated by the TNAU with its multiple institutions and research areas. The inability of TNAU to envision and utilize the large political good will (at last for two decades now every political party has natural farming promotion as part of its manifesto in every election), to move into the natural farming space has been an albatross for the State considering the pre-eminent space TNAU is accorded in every agricultural dialogue. They have a permanent space in the State Planning Commission (SPC), they are the go-to organization for every agricultural solution and the first-choice vendor for all services for any department working on agriculture. If one organisation can be blamed for the failure of large scale systemic organic farming promotion in the state, the blame must be laid squarely on TNAU. 

It is obvious from the examples of Andhra Pradesh and other states that any large scale adoption of natural farming needs State patronage and somehow Tamil Nadu seems to be lacking on the same consistently despite having several legendary organic farming campaigners. Looking at the way the state policy has evolved in this space, I can add the following as well – 

3. Confused Political understanding – while the political parties have been largely favourable towards the sustainability and green movements (four of the last five Chief Ministers have gotten their domestic supply from organic farmers), the political interference as in nepotism and corruption, for any big fund allocated projects and being influenced by the chemical lobby has led to a lot of talk and very little funds allocation. 

4. Biased policy makers – when the new State Planning Commission (SPC) was constituted with two prominent organic farming promoting figures in the state with the new government in 2020, there was much hope.  However, the planning and policy making is dominated by a biased unsubstantiated discourse that dismisses ecological concerns and ideas as ‘elitist’. While this does not have any basis as indicated by the market spread of organic produce across tier-2 and tier-3 cities also in the state, the policy maker’s biased understanding is yet to be dented by the very visible market conditions. 

5. The bureaucratic identification with their departmental identities – while in AP, the rural development department under Vijaya Kumar, spearheaded CMSA and subsequently the Natural Farming initiative, in TN the rural development department lacked the leadership that can transcend the departmental boundary and think on agriculture as a rural livelihood challenge. Every project with any agricultural component has either been influenced by or directly hypothecated to the TNAU or its several institutions by the rural development department. 

6. The dominant technology obsession – as a state that has a large technological excellence, TN has been obsessed with policy making promoting high end technology solutions for every perceived challenge in any sphere of action. This is best represented by the Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Engineering and Horticulture in the State. They have continued to pursue a high investment technology centric solution approach at the cost of better returns for the farmers and often the same situation is used to justify newer technological interventions. Several agri-tech start-ups have come up in the state that is again dominated by the technology centric solution provision. 

7. Lack of coordination between Civil Society Organization (CSO) and Government – Very few productive engagements have come through.  I can state this further of lack of trust itself and it is based on three factors, viz.,

1. Since over two decades rural development and agriculture departments have been at loggerheads with the CSOs and the state has tended to look at them as competitors, contractors, vendors or service providers.  The know-all attitude of bureaucracy has meant that they look down upon any knowledge input unless it is from a foreigner or a foreign sounding grand idea (like the Israeli irrigation, American mechanization, etc.,). 
2. Because the natural farming sector is dominated by CSOs across the state who have diverse ideological and technical backgrounds, the government agencies have looked at them with suspicion and concern. The internal conflicts and competition amongst the CSOs too have contributed towards building an air of mistrust and amateurishness. Many of the CSOs lack trust on the State and often are given to rhetoric more than pragmatic approach. 
3. The mushrooming of ‘’project work’’ based Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) with political connections and patronage that cornered the funded projects with no commitment (including MKSP) and having nothing to showcase has also destroyed the credibility of the sector.

8. Un-Alignment Market Growth – while the market for naturally produced and traditional varieties has grown with a large-scale awareness since over two decades, thanks to the large impact of Nammalvar and subsequently by eminent campaigners like Prof. Sultan Ismail and Dr. Sivaraman, the market has grown only in the private sector with no relationship with the State machinery. This has ended up creating an unregulated market space that has several spurious claims and fly-by-night operators who have tried to profit from the hype. 

With all these factors in play, I do think there is scope for a large scale natural farming initiative in the state. In my next column I will outline the contours for the same. 

(to be continued) ...

This is the first part of a series of articles, the second one is here