Not many years ago Baramati in western Maharashtra, 120 km from Pune, was a sleepy little village like any other typical Indian village - poor road connectivity and local infrastructure, little industrial activity and agriculture as the mainstay of the economy. With just 400 mm average annual rainfall, it was depending on the vagaries of the monsoon. There were few opportunities for employment. The social infrastructure in the form of housing, schools and hospitals was also poor.

In a recent visit I found Baramati a booming little town: agriculture is prosperous taking care of the livelihood of the majority of the population of around 70,000. There are three sugar mills in and around Baramati providing assured and remunerative incomes to thousands of farmers. The Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), with a dozens of qualified scientists, provides a range of technical support and services to the farmers on scientific agricultural practices.

There are a couple of large industrial units including an automobile plant of Piaggio, a modern dairy and food processing unit of Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Ltd, a multi national company that processes more than a million litres of milk a day to produce a vast range of dairy products for domestic consumption and exports besides fruit juices for Pepsico, Onjus….

Sprawling education complex

The most impressive of the changes is the sprawling educational campus of Vidya Pratishthan, a public trust. With dozens of aesthetically designed large buildings, the trust provides education from the primary school to arts, science, law, commerce and engineering education upto the graduate level. Over ten thousand students study in these institutions in salubrious settings in a campus spread over 107 acres . Hostel education is provided for around 4000 students and nearly a third of the students are women. Just think of a rural small town like Baramati providing such rich facilities, attracting students not merely from rural Maharashtra; the quality of equipment and facilities are so rich even students from Pune and Mumbai seek admission in the several colleges in this large campus!

Baramati is the constituency of Union minister of agriculture and cooperation, Sharad Pawar. With his involvement in active politics spread over four decades, Pawar had earlier served as the chief minister of Maharashtra and Union defence minister. Through various trusts promoted by his family, Pawar has transformed Baramati into a model town. The infrastructure in Baramati in the form of high quality roads and exposure to modern agricultural practices like drip and sprinkler irrigation should be the envy of any town or villae. Served by a canal and supplemented by a modest rainfall, Baramati is full of greenery.

Science, technology and aesthetics pervade Pawar's sprawling farm house. Spread over 50 acres, Govind Baug provides an excellent instance of integrated agriculture. A variety of crops - sugarcane, basmati rice, coconut, guava, grapes, sapota and other horticultural crops - are raised to high levels of productivity. There is also a cattle farm. There is a good mix of traditional and modern agriculture practices. Govind Baug produces around 400 tonnes of vermi-compost. After meeting its own requirements, half of this is made available for other farmers at a modest price of Rs.4/kg. Saste Shashikant, manager of the farm, pointed to very high levels of productivity of different crops raised. Sugarcane yield is 100 tonnes per acre, among the highest for farms in that region. The best practices developed and applied here are transferred to other farms in the neighbourhood.

The KVK is so active!

Another major landmark of Baramati is the extensive farm of the Agriculture Development Trust promoted by the Pawar family. Several experiments are conducted in agriculture and allied activities like sericulture. The vast acreage also attracts thousands through agri-tourism. The trust also houses the Krishi Vigyan Kendra established by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research for speedy transfer of technologies to the farmers' fields. Dr R.S. Jadhav, acting director and a specialist in animal management, silage making and fodder production, referred to the varied activities of the KVK. These include demonstration of latest agriculture technologies, testing and verifying the technologies with feedback from farms and fields, training on modern agriculture practices and taking care of extension services. Well-endowed with a rich infrastructure that include 50 acres of land fully under cultivation of crops relevant to the area, two green houses,farmers'hospitals,a meteorological unit, disease forecasting station, soil and water testing laboratories, agriculture market information centre, farm implements museum…

Baramati also houses one of India's most modern milk processing plants, Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Ltd., Vinit H. Shah, plant manager, explained the salient features of this modern dairy that processes over a million litres of milk every day. The client list is who's who in the dairy business of India and includes Amul, Britannia, Nestle… The products include milk powder, lactose and a range of milk protein components (supplied to the pharma industry), butter, cheese, ghee, chocolates… A separate juice line converts fruit concentrates into a variety of juices. The Tropicana brand of juices for Pepsico and the Onjus brand of juices are processed and packed here. Set up with an investment of around Rs.300 crore, the company produces annually products worth over Rs.800 crore. Demand for its products are so large that the company is getting ready for expansion into another new large site.

With these diverse activities Baramati offers full employment to its population in and around the town. The sophisticated range of activities also attracts talent from far and wide.

He triggered the horticulture revolution in Maharashtra

One should not be surprised though. It was the initiative of Sharad Pawar that triggered the horticultural revolution of Maharashtra in the 1990s. Pawar's contribution to the emergence of Maharashtra as a leading producer of sugarcane is well-known. The state has made excellent use of the employment guarantee scheme (it was pioneered by Maharashtra) to convert thousands of acres of dry land into vast orchards for different fruits. These crops have been selected to suit the agro climatic conditions and natural endowments of different parts of the state. Thus one could witness the focus on mandarin oranges in the Vidharbha region; delicious alphonso mangoes in the Konkan area (hordes of visitors flock to the region on imaginative agri-tourism promoted by the state and hundreds of these have also invested in mango orchards; a third of the area with rocky soil has been converted to mango orchards taking recourse to science and technology and have emerged profitable businesses); Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar regions have become famous for grapes; Jalgaon specialises in cavendish bananas. The state is also a leader in a variety of other fruit crops including pomegranates, sapota, guava, sitapal, strawberry…

Thus in just a little over a decade Maharashtra emerged the largest producer and exporter of fruits in the country. The area under horticulture has expanded over six times in this period.

Remember Maharashtra is much less endowed with water than Tamil Nadu? Against around 400 mm of average rainfall in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu gets around 950mm of rain. Against 45 per cent of Tamil Nadu having access to irrigation, Maharashtra has just around 14 per cent. But with its lack of focus in selecting crops suited to its agro climatic endowments and in specializing production of high value crops, agricultural growth in Tamil Nadu is low.

Pawar as minister of agriculture should endeavour to transfer the techniques of strident growth of agriculture in Maharashtra to other parts of the country. If only other small towns could emulate Baramati, India can vie with the US for its prosperous agriculture and agriculture-based economic growth.