Cooperation in agriculture

By P.R. Sarkar
If the spirit of cooperation is followed, those commodities which are essential for supplying the minimum requirements such as food, clothing, housing, education and medical treatment will have to be cooperatively produced. Food is the most important commodity, and because of the importance of food, agriculture is the most important sector of the economy. It is generally the case that the staple food of a country is also its main food crop. In Bengal, for example, the main food is rice and so paddy is the main crop. Similarly, the main crop in the Punjab is wheat, in Ireland potato, and in Scotland rye, oats and barley.

For the proper reorganization and maximum utilization of agricultural land, the cooperative system is most preferable. The fertility of the soil depends upon the natural terrain of the countryside, and the size of a harvest depends largely upon the water content of the soil. High land will not generally produce very much, even if it is fertile, but it is often possible to produce good crops on less fertile soil at lower levels because water usually accumulates there. Even on relatively flat land, agricultural plots should be arranged depending upon the level of the field in relation to the flow of water, or water should be channelized from upper levels to lower levels. Cooperatives will follow such an arrangement.

Land is extremely important in the psychology of farmers because they are very attached to their land. Farmers may give away hundreds of kilos of produce, but they would never voluntarily give away even a few square meters of their land. Suppose many small farmers own a total of 200 acres. If they form a cooperative and keep a record of their shares based on the size of their individual holdings, a sense of ownership is maintained. If all the land is on the same level then the boundaries between the small plots can be broken down, increasing the area of arable land. In such a system the psychology of the farmers will not be affected and they will not feel any insecurity. They will be able to increase the area of land under production by clearing away the boundaries, which needlessly divide the land into many individual holdings, and by scientifically cultivating infertile land. Farmers who own only several square meters of land cannot keep bullocks and a plough. They have to give their land to someone who can cultivate it, as in the sharecropping system. If they do give their land to a sharecropper, they rarely get anything in return. This predicament arises because the size of the land is so small. If cultivation is done on a cooperative basis many small plots can be merged into one large plot. This will be of great collective benefit to the farmers. In India in the time of Akbar a system was in vogue whereby boundaries were constructed around plots of land. Akbar introduced a new system in which the northern and western boundaries of each plot were owned by the owner of that plot. When cooperatives remove boundaries to form larger areas of agricultural land, the land occupied by the northern and western boundaries of each plot should revert to the owner of that plot.

Today for the cultivation of land farmers need things such as fertilizer, a tractor and irrigation water. Animal fertilizers are insufficient -- farmers need chemical fertilizers. But wherever chemical fertilizers are used intensively, the land becomes infertile and useless after some time. Chemical fertilizers eventually destroy the vital energy of the land and it becomes lifeless, like cement. Intensive research should be conducted on how to use chemical fertilizers in agriculture without any ill effects on the land. In the system of individual farming it is not possible to escape the ill effects of chemical fertilizers. However, in the cooperative system there is great scope for agricultural research and development to discover new ways to better utilize and prolong the vitality of land. The benefit of a cooperative is that it combines the wealth and resources of many individuals and harnesses them in a united way. There was a time when farmers used to leave their land unused for a year after several years of continuous cultivation, but this is not possible today. So it is necessary to adopt a system whereby either chemical fertilizers will be used which will not decrease soil fertility, or high yields will be achieved without using chemical fertilizers at all. I am confident that this will be achieved in the very near future.

Agriculture should have the same status as industry. This policy is not followed in many undeveloped and developing countries today, and can best be implemented through the cooperative system. For example, the apple orchards of Himachal Pradesh should function as cooperatives rather than private farms, and so should the packaging industry for apple transportation and marketing. The processing and packaging of apples should be regarded as part of the farming industry. Those employed in agriculture should get bonuses in the same way as those employed in industry. Thus, farmers or agricultural cooperatives should organize the whole agricultural sector of the economy on the basis of industry.

18 February 1988, Calcutta
Prout in a nutshell 14

Copyright Ananda Marga Publications 2003
Published with permission