But in economics, you always have to live with a trade-off. Disconcertingly though, during the period of green revolution and till now, rainfed areas -- constituting nearly two-thirds of cultivated areas in a country like India -- continue to be bypassed in terms of investment, innovation and institutional developments. Whereas these areas embrace most of the poor people with great potentials. Rainfed areas were thus left behind the burner. Inequality in income and other indicators increased between rainfed and irrigated regions. But empirical evidences tend to show that the rate of return on investment in rainfed areas surpassed that of irrigated areas for High Value Agricultural Crops. Furthermore, rainfed areas retain certain sustainable features which are unlikely to be in evidence in irrigated areas. Special mention may be made of the green agriculture.

However, once in the back seat, the rainfed agriculture came to attract the attention of the researchers in recent times. The recently held international conference on “Public-Private Partnership for Harnessing the Potential of Rainfed Agriculture” is a pointer to this effect. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), The Federation of Indian Council of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) jointly organised the conference in New Delhi. Perhaps, the purpose was to help change the traditional mind-set and set the stage for a broad-based agricultural growth in the economy. For example, to attain a growth rate of 8 per cent in the economy, the Indian agriculture must grow at no less than 4 per cent per annum and that is difficult to be derived from irrigated agriculture alone. Besides, the irrigated areas have already been on the fence of falling productivity.

Readers might note that the very title of the conference suggests that three P's -- Public-Private Partnership (PPP) -- might help a broad-based agricultural growth so much needed to raise the over all economic growth to a higher pace. But Joachim von Braun -- the DG of IFPRI -- placed two more additional P's to call it a “Pro-Poor Public-Private Partnership” in harnessing the potentials of rainfed agriculture. Perhaps he rightly assumed that all that glitters is not gold; and so all that is growth may not help poverty reduction. Partnership of any kind should not part with the poor. However, in the face of paucity of space, I shall concentrate on few of the “success” stories pertaining to such partnership discussed in the conference

Mangoes in Mali
Karl M Rich and Clare Narrod of IFPRI presented a case study on how such public-private partnership helped mango growers in Mali overcome some of the obstacles they faced. Historically and elsewhere, mango growers of Mali found their markets fail frequently. The reasons are, for example, information asymmetrics, organisational failures, high transaction costs and regulatory failures. The most hardly hit segments of the farms in such failures are the small holders, especially, those producing perishable products. According to the researchers, a partnership could (a) allow actors to pool resources and risks in investment to create mutual benefits and (b) combine the efficiencies of the private sector with the social equity aspects of public intervention and remedy market failures that cannot be undertaken by public or private sectors.

The supply chain bedeviled with low productivity and high post-harvest losses, poor logistic and marketing capabilities and limited value addition led Mali mango growers mourn over the meager money they received in exchange. However, the partnership established between government, traders, farmers, and village leaders in technology transfer, organisation, training, marketing, quality control and other facilities went a long way in mitigating the menace in the supply chain to a large extent. Ipso facto, as a result of the improved supply chain, mango growers in Mali witnessed a 5-fold increase in export volume in 2 years, a reduction of shipping times by half, diversification of exports, 25 per cent increase in farm gate prices and employment generation in packing houses. It means that chain-wide partnerships in Mali were crucial to address market failures and integrate small-holders. Rich and Narrod also narrated how such a partnership also worked well in Thailand.

Sour grapes turned sweet
Not very long ago, sweet grapes of India appeared sour to the growers, especially to small ones. Mr Sopan Kanchan is the chairman of the association of the grape producers called MAHAGRAPES who eloquently narrated the thick and thin journey which grape producers undertook in the past. At the beginning of export business, some of their assignments were refused on the plea of poor quality. Neither technology nor testing facilities were available to make grapes grow well. Many growers groaned due to the lack of infrastructural facilities and thus had to quit business. But Kanchan et al were determined to turn sour grapes sweet for farmers.

The farmers' association started dialogues with government and private sectors about their problems. Thanks to the sponsors, Kanchan and his associates traveled to Spain and other grape growing countries to know about the technology of harvesting and storage. They also came to know about how to build watersheds in drought zones to cultivate grape. Grapes are now grown widely in rainfed and in irrigated areas. Public and private partnerships paved ways for a better future as far as export of grapes are concerned. There has been a rise in export volumes over the years, an increase in prices of grapes and betterment of the livelihoods of the grape growers.

Barind-barriers
Dr Anisur Rahman of PRAN posited the potentials that Barind tract has now assumed than ever before. Once known as a pocket of poverty owing to the lack of irrigation facilities, agriculture in Barind tract reportedly has been on a good gear. The investments made by the government in irrigation facilities are now contributing to crop diversification. Private agro-processors like PRAN and others are approaching farmers for contract growing, particularly in the production of perishables. Some of the export quality rice is also being grown in the Barind tract. As a result of public investments, private investments are crowding in Barind tract.

Creating many cases
Just few of the case studies have been presented so far for the sake of sending the message that Public- Private Partnership could pave ways for poverty reduction. If targeted as pro-poor, the partnership would serve sustainably. The moot question, however, is why such partnership works effectively in some pockets while others fail to follow the suit? What agro-ecological and socio-economic parameters account for the differentials? These case studies should be the basis of researches in scaling up operations. One should draw upon the case studies and try to replicate them or dig out the causes of the differentials. By and large -- a la Isher Alhluwalia -- the rainfed areas warrant urgent attention from policy makers on the following grounds: (a) enormous potentiality even with constraints; (b) ground water poses a problem but water preservation and conservation can boost rainfed areas with HVA; (c) majority of the poor live in those areas and (c) rainfed areas are fertile grounds for green agriculture especially high value agriculture.

Permit partnership
Public sector investment is needed in those areas to crowd in private investment. A wave of second green revolution should be set in the motion soon to see that development of rainfed areas help balanced growth of agriculture in every country. But not by public sector alone. According to Ashok Gulati of IFPRI, the very success in food grain production over the last few decades and the changing pattern of food habits call for a change of polices in agriculture where rainfed areas should be rewarded with investment, technology and researches. With the realities on ground and the realisation in mind, one would expect that the responses should be as quick as possible.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.