Events & Issues
New
Delhi, 1 February 2016
Need New Economic Movement
WILL FARMERS GET JUSTICE?
By Moin
Qazi
The agricultural sector is still India's largest
employer as 58 per cent rural households depend on it for their livelihood. And
yet, since the early 1990s the country has seen a spate of farmers' committing suicides,
nearly 300,000 have taken their own lives until 2014. Shockingly,
over 14,000 killed themselves in 2011alone, 47 per cent higher than the
national average of all deaths caused by suicides.
Stories
from across semi-arid rural India, be it Rajasthan, Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh reflect a
now-recurring narrative of an agrarian crisis replete with crop failure, topped
by people moving out of farming due to increasing systemic vulnerability to
climatic and non-climatic risks. Only farmers with
irrigation infrastructure, access to wells, engines to pump water and pipes to
channel it can weather dry spells.
Undeniably, there is a growing desperation in rural India which is
manifesting in various ways ---- from farmers suicides across the dry-lands to violence in tribal-dominated areas and sporadic riots.
These incidents are symptomatic of a deeper problem: One
of shrinking work options and the undermining of existing farm-based livelihoods
by erosive policies and rapid natural resource degradation.
Notably, these farmers and their
families are victims of India’s
longstanding agrarian crisis. Compounded by economic reforms which
have opened Indian agriculture to the global market leading to increased costs
while reducing yields and profits for farmers, to the point of their great
financial and emotional distress.
As a result, smallholder farmers are
often trapped in a cycle of debt. During a bad year, money from the
sale of cotton crop might not cover even the initial cost of inputs, let
alone suffice in paying the usurious interest on loans or provide adequate food
and necessities for the family.
Often the only way out is to take
more loans and buy more inputs, which in turn leads to even greater
debt. Thus, indebtedness is a major and proximate cause of farmers’ suicides.
Notably,
among the serious issues faced by Indian agriculture: One, over 55 per cent are
dependent on agriculture but contribute only 14 per cent to the GDP. Two, more
than 80% are marginal and small farmers who have fragmented landholding and
inadequate irrigation making it difficult for them to sustain farming.
Three,
there is lack of institutional credit as nearly 40 per cent of all loans come
from informal sources. Consequently, marginal landholding households suffer the
most with only 15 per cent credit coming from institutional sources like
Government, cooperatives and banks. For households with over 10 hectares land
the ratio is 79 per cent.
Last,
there is uncertainty about output which is due to weather and lack of market
linkages, appropriate application of fertilisers, agrochemicals etc. Moreover, World Bank data shows that only 35 per cent of agricultural
land is irrigated, thus over huge 65 per cent farming depends on rain, on which
the Government has no control.
Besides, small and marginal farmers also do not have access
to institutional credit as most depend on village moneylenders who provide crop
loans and pre-harvest consumption loans. The superior bargaining power of these
traders and middlemen means that prices received by farmers are low.
Alongside, higher farm labour input prices, depleting ground
water resources and higher generator prices add to their woes. Subsidies, once a linchpin of India’s economic
policy have dried up wherein the farmers now need to either compete or go
under. To compete, many have turned to high-cost seeds, fertilizers and
pesticides, which now line the shelves of even tiny village shops.
Environmental activist Vandana Shiva believes
genetically-modified seeds, specifically, those sold by agricultural behemoth
Monsanto, are driving farmers to lose control of their own farming practices.
She claims the company’s proprietary policies which forbids farmers from planting, selling or
accidentally growing seeds from its patented crops increases frustrations and pushes
farmers to the brink. Shiva and others of her ilk dub Monsanto seeds as
“suicide seeds.”
A Syracuse University’s
professor contends that farmer suicides should be attributed not only to
agricultural practices but also financial ones. He notes, farmer suicides were
concentrated in five of India’s
28 States, primarily those which offered the least institutional credit to
farmers, forcing them to take private loans at interest rates, as high as 45
per cent
Importantly, there is glib talks on
restoring soil quality, rationalisation of aquifer use, protecting forests as
catchment areas or securing land and livelihood of the tribal poor. Forget the
so-called green concerns often ridiculed as Luddites’ fad, there is no
gainsaying the big thrust on agriculture rings astoundingly hollow.
The suicidal fertiliser subsidies
continue, encouraging farmers to use chemical fertilisers in larger quantities
thereby triggering rapid soil degradation. There is no talk or funds yet to try
natural alternatives to revive the dying fields.
Thanks to Monsanto taking over the
seed market, other cotton seed varieties have died on the vine and are hardly
available anymore in cotton growing regions like Maharashtra’s
Vidarbha and other regions.
Significantly, we must keep in mind
that farmers have been growing cotton for centuries and were always able to eke
out a living with conventional seeds, which are suited to the region and don’t
need much water, because there isn’t any.
However, it is erroneous to assume that farmers are passive victims of a hostile system. Agriculturists
across India
use ingenuity to exploit the politico-legal institutional landscape,
negotiating a fast-changing environmental and climatic landscape on one hand
and the eroding socio-cultural base and changing aspirations on the other.
They use experience and indigenous
knowledge systems, local safety nets as well as available State-sponsored
subsidies and ICT-based weather forecasts to manage risks and meet personal
goals. They do this in spite of relief packages and loan waivers,
not as a result of them.
And herein lies the opportunity, our policies miss out
on: Boosting this ingenuity with a robust policy architecture to enable them adapting
to current and emerging problems in rural India.
Recall, Nehru said in 1947, “Everything can wait, but not
agriculture.” Indeed the First Five Year Plan focused on agriculture. Now,
after 66 years, things are not what was dreamt by the first Prime Minister. The
benefits of addressing the problem were understood long ago.
An old Thirukkural quotation poetically illustrates:
“Tireless farmers, learned men and honest traders constitute a country. Wealth,
large and enviable, and produce free of pests make up a country. The hallmark
of an ideal land is where people voluntarily pay all taxes.” India needs an
economic movement that starts in villages, not one that by-passes them! ----
INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
|