Institutional advice contrasts ground reality

The divergence between the official/scientific position and what happens on the ground is nowhere as blatant as in agriculture. To consistently disregard popular practice and wisdom would impoverish science. Clearly, there is the need to harmonise these two rationalities.

Recently, some of us at IKEA met cotton farmers in Bhatinda and Abohar, and also interviewed experts in Patiala and at the Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana and Abohar.

With the introduction of BT (bacillus thuringensis) cotton around 2002-03, and its official acceptance in 2005, the popularity of this cash crop has grown tremendously in Punjab. Not only is the yield reported to be almost three times greater than the hybrid variety sown earlier in Punjab but also there is a clear reduction in pesticide use. This is because BT cotton was designed to be resistant to the American bollworm, the pest cotton farmers fear the most.

Farmers used to spray pesticides every three-to-four days. However, with the introduction of BT cotton in 2004, only about seven sprays were required for the entire season — four for tobacco larvae and three for thrip worm.

The Tata Rallis India wholesale dealer in the Chandigarh grain market estimates that this has reduced the sale of pesticides by over 30% in the past three years. This has led many farmers in Punjab to conclude that a powerful anti-pesticide lobby had held back the introduction of BT cotton for all these years.

A cotton farmer would like his fields to be rainfed, but that is a very chancy source of water. Irrigation water is never enough, and the general estimate is that the water from canals serves about one-fifth to one-eighth of a farmer’s holding. The sub-soil water is saline and brackish for the most part and used very sparingly when nothing else is available. Farmers, therefore, wait till the crop manifests clear signs of thirst before irrigating the fields.

Though cotton is not a thirsty crop, it needs water in a calibrated fashion during certain periods and in fixed amounts — about six times during the entire season. If farmers’ turn for canal water coincides with rain, they worry that the water in the field would damage the crop by rising to the level of its leaves. On such rare occasions, they either forego their turn with the canal water, or divert the water to their paddy fields.

This is where the two rationalities — that of the farmers and that of official institutions — are in conflict. Agricultural scientists advise that cotton should not be grown with thirsty crops like paddy.

Not only does the consequent humidity spoil the prospects of cotton flowering, the pests from these other crops can also mutate and attack the cotton plants. However, there were just two among more than a hundred farmers we interviewed, who grew only cotton in their fields during the season.

Farmers cultivate paddy alongside as a fall-back option. They also point out that as the cotton plant can be damaged by excess water, they need an outlet if heavy rains coincide with the release of canal water. In this connection, the paddy crop is clearly very useful, as cotton fields cannot carry the extra water load. Further, ground water, saline though it is, can still be used for paddy, but cannot be chanced with cotton, except in grave emergencies.

Institutional advice on pesticide meets with the same fate. According to experts in Punjab Agricultural University, farmers should first wait and make sure that the plant is unable to spontaneously fight infestations before spraying pesticides. Further, specific pesticides should be used against specific pests.

Wherever we went, we found farmers using a cocktail of pesticides. Farmers find it both time-consuming and impractical to analyse every pest that attacks the cotton plant before deciding on which pesticide to spray.

Overkill prevails over recommended caution. Farmers are also advised to spray pesticides only after half the leaf is covered with honey-dew and when there are more than two larvae on a leaf. This is what integrated pest management, or IPM, is all about. Farmers believe that it is far too risky to wait once a larva or honey dew first appears on a leaf. They must act quickly because past experience has taught them that a little delay can have devastating consequences.

Farm experts and seed companies advise that while growing BT cotton, at least 20% of the land should be devoted to non-BT varieties to enhance BT cotton resistance against pests and make the designated pesticides more effective. But farmers find this a waste of their meagre holdings. They prefer to take full advantage of the bounty of BT now and not worry about the future in the present.

For these reasons, farmers would rather trust their neighbours and other prosperous farmers and not agricultural scientists, government officials and expert NGOs. They also have great faith in the middleman, or the artiya, because he is often a successful farmer himself, and has supplied them with seeds and pesticides that have worked. Some artiyas also publish bulletins and newsletters to disseminate knowledge among their clients. Agricultural universities, extension workers and farmers’ field schools also put out information along these lines, yet cultivators trust the fellow-farmer artiya more.

We did not hear of farmers complaining against artiyas. Many said that artiyas gave them timely loans, besides advice, and also helped them to sell their cotton. The whole system operates on an informal basis where trust is the key factor. Scientific establishments and official institutions have failed to generate this trust among Punjab farmer, as they ignore the live context in which cotton cultivation takes place.

Small farmers operate on a rationality that privileges immediate need and do not operate in ideal, or laboratory conditions. They dare not think of the long, or even longish, term. This is the source of the divergence between these two kinds of logic. The point then is: can these two differing perspective be harmonised? Perhaps, the initiative should come from the universities and official agencies, as the trust of the cotton farmers must first be won.

(The author is with the Social Initiative Decision of IKEA)