Part II of sainath's speech on The farm crisis: whyhave over one lakh farmers killed themselves in thepast decade?
PART II of Sainath's speech:
Right now, as I speak to you, there is a second sadpart ?V we are in the spraying season. There arethree seasons when suicides shoot up. It is notcommon across the year. In some months it is verylow. In the spike seasons they are very high. Thefirst spike comes in the credit season when the farmergoes out in April-May, looking for the money to buy their inputs for the new season, trying to get thatRs. 8,000/- or whatever amount it is. I have coveredfarmers who have committed suicides because they couldnot get Rs. 8,000/- at a decent rate of interest in2003 and in early 2004. Then, I have gone back to myhouse as an urban middle class professional and got aletter from a bank, offering me a loan to buy aMercedes Benz at six per cent rate of interest with nocollateral required. What kind of justice is there inthat society? Where is the humanity, where is thecompassion and, above all, where is our sense ofoutrage? Where is the outrage about this, that I can buy a Mercedes Benz for six per cent rate of interestwithout collateral whereas a farmer who could buy aproductive investment like a tractor is bankrupted bythe terms of loan? There is no fairness in the systemat all.
Credit expansion -- to whose benefit?
The indebtedness of Indian peasants, as I said, hasdoubled and I gave you the figures from some of themajor States. We have been told repeatedly that thereis a massive credit expansion and indeed there is. Ican assure you that it is not going to the farmer. Some of you know very well as to which cooperatives itgoes to and who runs what. All these things are verywell known. What has happened to the creditexpansion? How do you expand credit when you haveclosed 3,500 banks in the rural areas? Rural areashave witnessed the closure of over 3,000 banks between1993 and 2002. And more since then. Private banks areonly now beginning to come in. It was only thenationalised banks which worked in the rural areas. There expansion of food production associated with the'Green Revolution' would actually not have taken placewithout the banks being there and providing the creditfor the farmer to do that. Banks have systemically withdrawn from credit and bank branches have closed down in thousands.
There has been a diversion of credit to the uppermiddle classes, the consumption of all of us in thecities indeed. The so-called Gramina Banks areplaying with tens of crores of rupees in the MumbaiStock Exchange! The undermining and re-defining ofwhat we call priority sector lending has a lot to dowith it. We redefine it. Under agricultural loan, you can buy a Qualis or Tavera or Scorpio or other luxuryvehicle -- as an agricultural loan! Whilenon-agricultural loans go to farmers who paynon-agricultural rates of interest, non-farmers arebuying Taveras or Hero Hondas and Qualis with'agricultural loans' and this at reduced rates ofinterest. This is a very widely documented thing andI could place everything before you. It is also veryimportant in the whole crisis. Agriculture is not an island: Do not disconnectfarming from the rest of what is happening. The cost of living expenses have simply exploded across thisnation. Today, health is the second fastest growingcomponent of rural family debt. Health is the secondfastest growing component because we have the sixthmost privatised health system in the world. If you look at the NSS data, it suggests that nearly one inevery five Indians, nearly two hundred million humanbeings, no longer seek medical attention of any kindbecause they cannot afford it. This is not because of accessibility or distance. It is because they cannot afford it. The same nation boasts of boosting'medical tourism.' But that is the situation.
The farmer is hit on all fronts. The situation offarm labour is even worse. The landless labourers'plight is even worse, but he is not tied to the land(except where bonded). So, the entire series ofprocesses is buffeting the farmers in every case. Last year, Andhra Pradesh started jailing elderlyfarmers who were unable to ay their debts. Now, the APGovernment has called a halt to it. They were put injails for debt. Seventy-four- years orseventy-five- year-old farmers were put in jails, butthat is now being stopped.
India pioneered the concept of 'social banking.' Itwas a Gandhian idea. It was recognised that therewere some operations, some classes of people, who youadvanced loans without expectations of huge profits.Like marginal or subsistence farmers. We havewithdrawn from that idea of social banking. We alltalk about moneylenders. One of the things which I want to tell you is that the face of the moneylenderhas completely changed.
The new moneylenders of the countryside:
Please do not focus too much on your village sahucar. Sure, he is an exploitative creature. He is also avery pathetic creature in the new dispensation. Awhole new class of moneylenders have come to thecountryside. The village sahucar, the small sahucaris committing suicide because his clients arebankrupt. Some clients have migrated and they haverun away and nobody is repaying his debt. Who thenare the new moneylenders? They are input dealers, thepeople who sell seeds and who sell pesticides, fertiliser and other inputs to the farmer.
The people who own the shops that are selling the seeds are millionaires now. When you come topesticides, input costs have simply exploded. Let megive you an idea to prove how major it is. When wespoke about interest waiver, I begged at that time:"Do not do the interest waiver. It will be thecooperative banks that will benefit. If you want to doa waiver, do a loan waiver." After all, we havewaived loans of thousands of crores of rupees for ahandful of industrialists.
A non-performing Who's Who:
Look at your Non-performing assets (NPA) list. It isa "Who's Who" of the Indian industry. Running to tensof thousands of crores. But we could not waive theloan of Rs.25,000 per Vidharbha farmer which wouldhave wiped out 80 per cent of their bank debt. Ibegged at that time when the 'relief package' wasbeing formulated. I said: "It is more packing thanpackage." I said that the cooperative banks wouldtake the money. Indeed, the cooperative banks are, forthe first time in 10 years, on a hiring spree becausethey have so much money. They have got a Rs.712 croregift!
We also gave a moratorium of two years instead ofgiving a loan waiver. What is the result? The two-yearmoratorium comes to an end in March 2008. With theexisting loan plus the pending loan plus the currentloan, the farmer is in for a gigantic shock in March2008. There is no chance of repaying. But we did notdo that. Only in the case of Tamil Nadu, there was amajor waiver. You can reason out why Tamil Nadu wasgiven that privilege. I am very happy that they weregiven that privilege and I just hope that thatprivilege would be extended to all the others and theother Governments do the same.
Input costs now killing:
Input costs have gone up to a point where there is noreturn. If you look at cash crops, you can find it. Iwill just take input cost in respect of seeds. Takethe case of di-ammonia phosphate (DAP). One bag of DAPcost Rs.120 in 1991. It costs four times as much now. Seeds were available at Rs.7 a kilogram of localvariety. I mean, in Vidharbha, local cotton seeds wereavailable for Rs.7 per kilo. You could get the bill(for transactions of that time) even now. Just Rs. 7for a whole kilo. It was Rs.1800 for the BT cotton seed (per 450 gram packet) in 2004 before the AndhraPradesh Government took Monsanto to court. It got theprice dropped down to Rs.725. I give full credit tothe Government of Andhra Pradesh for having taken thataction. Today, the utility prices have gone up;electricity prices have gone up and the farmer isbuffeted by the entire series of price shocks. At thesame time, the output prices have crashed. The littledistrict of Wayanad in Kerala lost Rs.6,000 crore on two products of coffee and pepperwhich are not doing that badly at the global level. Injust four or five years, they lost that much.Somebody else is making the money because they havebeen locked into a trade where the Spices Board, allour institutions, are operating on behalf of theprivate corporations and not on behalf of the farmers.
When I went to the Coffee Board in Wayanad, Kerala,they were very nice to me. The moment I entered theiroffice, the Coffee Board people offered me a cup oftea! That is how they promote coffee. The farmers inthis part of Kerala are growing the coffee. Coffeedoes not grow in most Western climates. Your farmer isgrowing coffee and he gets pathetically less than 10per cent of the turnover of what goes on at the globallevel. In 2001-02, thousands of people were beguiledinto growing Vanilla. Why? It fetched Rs.4300 akilogram at the time - at the start. This is alsoone of the tricks of the corporate farming andcontract farming. It fetched Rs.4300, per kg meaningthereby $100 per kg of Vanilla. That was the price thefarmer got. I do not know what is the exact pricetoday. I think it is around Rs.86 a kg. It is not afluctuation. That is an annihilation. This volatilityhas killed them. However, we have chained our farmersto all these things. Are there solutions tothese problems? Yes, I have not covered a lot ofissues. I can take the questions from you on that.
We can turn it around:
For one thing, I would appeal to you to read thereports of the National Commission on Farmers. Thereis something very important about the reports of theNCF. They have wide acceptance. Almost every majorfarm union in this country has supported it regardlessof party ?V whether it is the Congress or theCommunist or the BJP or the Dravidian parties. Acrossthe political spectrum, people have supported therecommendations of the NCF. Then, what prevents usfrom moving ahead on at least the majorrecommendations? What prevents us from creating aPrice Stabilisation Fund for important agriculturalcommodities the way we have it for petroleum. We do have a Price Stabilisation Fund in the case ofpetroleum. The State kicks in when the price becomesunbearable and withdraws when it stabilises. Whatstops us from using social banking techniques?
There is a rule, a law in this country that 1 per centof all loans (at 4 per cent interest only) has to goto the poorest of the poor. Over the last 10 years, wehave not even fulfilled that one per cent, accordingto the bank unions of this country. The industrywideaverage is 0.25 per cent! We have given no protectionto the farmers against dumping and the Westernsubsidies. We have not sought the revival of theagricultural universities as the National Commissionhas appealed for. We could do a five-year creditcycle. You can give the farmer a loan over afive-year cycle instead of making him go back on hisknees to the corrupt bank manager every six months, every season. In five years, you will have two goodyears, two bad years and one neutral year. So you might manage.
There are many such recommendations which we coulduse. They are really very sincere ones. As I said, itis not politically difficult to get them accepted.They have been accepted across the farming politicalspectrum. You are talking about 600 million peoplehere. There are three broad principles which are onthe larger canvass.
?? First, do not treat agriculture as a headacheor a cancer. It is not. It is central to thelivelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. Wehave to approach it with reverence for what itrepresents.
?? Second, declare agriculture as a publicservice and treat it as such. Those who work inagriculture, they lose out a lot. Average incomes inagriculture are much lower than any other sector. Letthem be compensated for the food they put on ourtable. They lose out a lot. Those remaining in thesector should be compensated by society.
?? Third, let us end the hypocrisy of subsidies.There is no part on the globe where agriculture existswithout State subsidies, without State intervention. In fact, the richer the country, the greater the subsidies -- but they are not going to the farmers -- they are going to the corporations. What we give our farmers does not even qualify for subsidy but aspathetic life supports. Let us not remove them. Let us honour those who put food on our table.
I just want to tell you one thing. Many causes have been advanced why farmers are killing themselves. One is, they are killing themselves to get compensation. This disgusting explanation is in voguein Maharashtra. I do not know what to say about it. What do you do with Rs. one lakh? Do you have a wildparty when you are dead? Another thing is they are called mentally unstable. Well, I might be mentallyunstable and depressed if three people in my familyhave killed themselves and one is starving. However,the Government in its wisdom last year constituted amano vaigyanik dal ( A team of medical experts).Psychiatrists, psychologists, some very good people,very fine people, highly qualified intellectuals, weresent to the villages to find out why the farmers arekilling themselves. They did a lot of research andstudies. Finally, one old farmer got up and addressedthese top doctors from top institutions. He saidtypically in the Indian fashion: "Such an honour to have such big people come to my small village. I honour you. I touch your feet. You have asked us so many questions. You have given us such good advice. You have asked us this question: Do you drink too much? Doyou fight with your wife? You have given us goodadvice. You have said: Do not drink too much. Do not fight with your wife. Do yoga. Remove your stress." He said: "Ask us one more question. Ask us why the farmers of this country, who place the nation's foodon its table, are starving?" There was total silence.One of the doctors told a journalist much later: "Weshut up. There was nothing to say. We had all theanswers but he had the right question."
By P. Sainath
ENDS
Showing posts with label Matters of Farmers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matters of Farmers. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Thursday, 10 January 2008
The farm crisis: why have over one lakh farmers killed themselves in the past decade?
Ist Part
We, as a nation, are in the worst agrarian crisis infour decades. It is impossible to cover such a largeissue in full. So I am going to be dealing with it infragments today. I would like to stress that thecrisis is so deep, so advanced that: firstly, no State, nobody, is exempt from this and it is not tobe seen as the crisis of one State or one Governmentor one Party. It is a national crisis and we need torespond to it as such. It is a huge thing. In thatcrisis, the suicides are merely, however tragic, justa symptom and not the disease. They are aconsequence, not the process.
Millions of livelihoods have been damaged ordestroyed in the last 15 years as a result of thiscrisis. But you will know, if you look at your media,that it is only in the last three or four years thatwe widely used the word 'farm crisis' or the 'agrariancrisis.' Earlier, there was a complete denial of anycrisis. At least today it is established that there is one.
We can sum it up in one sentence -- the processdriving this crisis: the predatory commercialisationof the countryside (int he words of Prof. K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies –MIDS). The reduction of all human values to exchangevalue. As this process unleashes itself across agrarian India, millions of livelihoods have collapsed. Lakhs of people are migrating towardscities and towns in search of jobs that are not there. They move towards a status which is neither `worker'nor `farmer.' Many will end up as domestic labour, like over a lakh girls from Jharkhand in this city of Delhi working as domestic servants.
World-wide crisis of small-holder farms:
However, having said that, I want to say that thecrisis is by no means restricted to India. It is aworld-wide crisis of small holder farming. Small,family farms are getting wiped out across the planetand it has been happening for 20-30 years. It is justthat this has been very intense in India in the last15 years. Otherwise, the farm suicides have causedmajor concern in Korea. Nepal and Sri Lanka have highrates of farm suicides. In Africa, Burkina Faso, Malietc. have had high rates of farmers' suicides as thecotton product there gets wiped out by the UnitedStates and EU subsidies.
Incidentally, suicide rates among farmers in theUnited States Midwest and other rural regions havealso been extremely high from time to time. In fact,in the eighties, suicide rates amongst farmers inOklahoma, for instance, were more than twice thenational suicide rate for men in the United States --and it is rare that rural suicides are higher thanurban. I spent time last year on American farms andcould see how they're going down.
We are witnessing in many ways the decline and deathof the small holder farm. It is very important thatwe do something about it because we are the largestnation of small holder farms where the farmer ownsthat land. We are also probably the largest body offarm labourers and landless workers. If you look,there is a lesson to be learnt as to what has gone on in the United States.
In the 1930s, there were six million family farms inthe United States. At that time when India was just adecade or so away from gaining Independence, over aquarter of the American population lived and worked onthose six million farms. Today, the US has morepeople in prison than on farms. It has 2.1 millionpeople in prison and less than that on its 700,000 family farms.
We are being pushed towards corporate farming:
So what is this process driving towards? In two words:It is driving us towards corporate farming. That isthe big coming picture of agriculture in India andacross the planet. We have been pushed towardscorporate farming, a process by which farming is takenout of the hands of the farmers and positioned in thehands of the corporates. That is exactly whathappened in the United States and that is what exactlyhappened in a large number of other countries. Thisprocess is not being achieved with guns, tanks,bulldozers and lathis. It is done by making farmingunviable for the millions of small family farmholders, by just making it so impossible for you tosurvive in the structures that exist. But there is acontext to this that I am absolutely going to insiston framing that context. All these unfold in thecontext of the fastest growing inequality that Indiahas seen in her history as an independent nation. Andunderstand this, when inequality deepens in society,the farm sector takes the biggest hit.
In any case,it is a disadvantaged sector. So when inequalitywidens, the farm sector takes a hit. Devastating growth of inequality in India:
Ø Fourth rank in Dollar Billionaires: In Indiain 2007, I am sure you all will be very thrilled toknow, we have the fourth highest number of dollar-billionaires in the planet. We are ahead of allcountries in the number of billionaires except theUnited States, Germany and Russia. Incidentally, ourbillionaires are richer than those of Germany andRussia in terms of net asset worth. You can look upall these numbers on The World's Billionaires atwww.forbes.com – the Oracle of global billionaires.
Ø 126 th in Human Development: We have thesecond richest billionaires in the world in dollarsand we have the fourth largest number of billionairesin the planet. But we are 126 th in humandevelopment. The same nation that has ranks fourth inbillionaires is 126th in human development. What doesit mean to be 126th ? It means that it is better tobe a poor person in Bolivia (the poorest nation inSouth America) or Guatemala or Gabon. They are aheadof us in the UN's Human Development Index. You canget all these figures in the Parliament Library fromthe United Nations Human Development Reports of thelast 10 or 15 years.
Ø 836 million live on less than Rs. 20 a day: Weare the emerging 'tiger economy.' But life expectancyin our nation is lower than it is in Bolivia,Kazakhstan and Mongolia. We have 100,000 dollarmillionaires, out of whom 25,000 reside in my city ofMumbai, I am proud to say. Yet, 836 million people inour nation exist on less than Rs. 20/- a day accordingto the Government of India. There is no such thing asIndian reality. There are Indian realities . Thereis a multiplicity of realities.
Ø Slowing down of infant death rate decline: Thegrowth rate of our country is indeed the envy of many.But the rate of decline of infant mortality actuallyslowed down in this country in the last 15 years. Thelargest number of infant deaths 2.5 million takesplace in this country, followed by China.
Ø CEO's salaries set all time records: ChiefExecutive Officer 'packages' grew like never before inthe last ten years. Indeed, the Prime Minister ofthis country felt constrained to make some remarksabout the salaries of CEOs. You can remember the kindof pasting he came in for in the media as a result ofhaving dared to question that maybe a CEO could liveon a million less a year, or whatever it was. Butwhile CEOs salaries have gone through the roof, farmincomes have collapsed.
Ø Appalling MPCE of farm households: Accordingto the National Sample Survey, the average monthly percapita expenditure (MPCE) of the Indian farm household(across zamindars and your half acre wallas), is Rs.503.
Ø Miserable expenditure patterns: Out of thatRs. 503, 55 per cent or more is spent on food, 18 percent on fuel, clothing and footwear leaving preciouslittle to be spent on education and health. What isspent on health is twice that of what is spent oneducation because we now have the 6 th most privatisedhealth system in the world. Therefore, the MPCE showsRs.34 as expenditure on health as against Rs.17 oneducation. Rs.17 a month on education means 50 paisea day on education. That is the spending of the Indianfarm household. That is the national average. I willcome to state-wise figures a little later.
Ø Incidentally, we are very proud to tell youthat labour productivity in the decade of the reformswent up to 84 per cent according to the ILO. The sameILO report informs me that while labour productivity went up to 84 per cent, the real wages of labour inmanufacturing declined by 22 per cent (at a time whenCEO salaries were going through the roof). So, in thelast 15 years, we have seen the unprecedentedprosperity of the top of our population. And at thesame time, the net per capita availability offoodgrain actually declined for over a decade. Ø Rising hunger at the bottom: The State of foodinsecurity in the world report of the FAO of theUnited Nations shows us that from 1995-97 to1999-2001, India added more newly hungry millions thanthe rest of the world taken together. Hunger grew at atime when it declined in Ethiopia. A new restaurantopens everyday in some city of this country but asProf Utsa Patnaik, our leading agricultural economistpoints out, the average rural family is consuming 100kgs less than it did 10 years ago. The availabilitysituation figure is one placed every year inParliament in the Economic Survey which gives the netper capita availability (NPCA) of foodgrain containedin Table 1.17 (S-21). You get the numbers all the wayfrom 1951. You can see how it has declined in thelast 15 years. The NPCA was 510 in 1991, on the cuspof the reforms. That fell to 437 grams by 2003. The2005 provisional figure was 422 grams. There may be aslight rise in one or another year, but the overalltrend has been that of a clear decline over 15 years. A fall of 70-80 grams sounds trivial -- until youmultiply it by 365 days and then again by one billionIndians. Then you can see how gigantic the decline is. Since those at the top are eating much better thanever before, it raises the question of what on earththe bottom 40 per cent are eating?
Ø Two-nation theory passé. Its Two Planets now: Today, for the top 5 per cent of the Indianpopulation, the benchmarks are Western Europe, theUSA, Japan and Australia. For the bottom 40 per cent,the benchmarks are the Sub-Saharan Africa (some ofwhose nations) are ahead of us in literacy.
Ø Indebtedness has doubled in the past decade:The NSSO's 59th round tells us that while 26 per centof farm households were in debt in 1991, that figurewent up to over 48 per cent – almost double by 2003. There have been huge migrations, as I said, as aresult of this chaos and collapse of incomes,explosions of cost of living. Why is this framework ofinequality so important to our understanding? We aregetting further and further into the divide. What do Imean by predatory commercialisation of thecountryside? I will come to that soon. But manythings have happened. Policy-driven devastation of agriculture: One is that as every Minister and every PrimeMinister admits, public investment in agriculture hasdeclined very sharply to the point of collapse over aperiod of 10-15 years. It is one of the things thatthe Government now feels that it is trying to reverse. Our foremost agricultural economist, Dr. Utsa Patnaik shows us that while total development expenditure as ashare of GDP was fourteen and a half per cent in1989-90, it was 5.9 per cent by 2005. That is acollapse of Rs.30,000 crore per year or an incomeloss of Rs.120,000 crore. I have often felt it'ssimpler to send out the Air Force and bomb thevillages It would probably cause less lasting damagethan that withdrawal of investment costs us! There has been a crash in employment. Only the requirement of the last year and a half hassomewhat (but far from adequately) been met by theNREGP, a programme which I am very supportive of. Thathas not opened up anywhere as much as it should. I hope it deepens and grows because it is a vital programme for the crisis in the countryside. It is oneof the great things that we have done in the last two years. But very far from enough.
SEZs but no land reforms:
Another problem is the rack renting of tenants. Inthe Andhra Pradesh suicides, you will find that manyof those (in some regions) who have committed suicidewere actually tenant farmers. Out of the 28 bags ofpaddy they harvested, they parted with 25 bags as thetenancy or lease rate. If there is a cyclone or damageor anything else, incidentally, the reparations andthe compensation go to the absentee landlords. We haveno tenancy reforms. It seems appalling to me that wecan clear an SEZ in six months but we cannot do landreforms in 60 years across this country! Except inthree states.
Rigging costs in agriculture:
Another issue is the exploding cost of agriculture, aprocess quite heavily controlled and rigged. Yetanother one is the exploitative internationalagreements that we have entered into that areseverely damaging to the interests of our farmers.Yet another aspect is the crashing output prices asglobal corporations have taken control of trade inagriculture commodities and rig prices. Even whenWhile the coffee prices boom in the West, the men andwomen who grow coffee in Kerala commit suicide,especially between 2000 and 2003. The suicides are appalling. How many suicides havebeen there? I do not want to get into the numbersgame. We are coming with a very major story on thatin The Hindu in a while. I won't pre-empt it. However,you were given last year, I believe, a figure ofover one lakh suicides since 1993. That is ahorrifying figure in 10 years. Yet, you will find itwrong. It is not true. For several reasons. I found that four years have been included in the number forwhich firm data on farm suicides do not exist. Youbring down the average by bringing farm suicides inyears which are irrelevant! We only started collecting farm suicide data from 1995in the National Crime Records Bureau. Any new systemof reporting takes time. Most States do not reportproperly for the first two years. It takes time forthe States to get into the mode of reporting data.Real or stable data started from around 1997. So, theover one lakh suicides that you are looking at are notfrom 1993 to 2003 but they are from 1997 to 2003. Thatis an appalling figure. It is still a hugeunder-estimate for a variety of reasons which I willcome to. Suicide figures misleading and confusing: But what is important is that the numbers are not thecrucial issue . I think even the figure of over onelakh is appalling enough. What is frightening isthat if you look at the data, two-thirds of thesuicides are occurring in half-a-dozen States thataccount for just about one-third of the country'spopulation . Most of the suicides are occurring incash-crop areas. The number of food crop farmerscommitting suicide is less as compared to those incash crops. For the last 15 years, we have drivenpeople towards cash crops. We have told them toexport. Exports lead to growth. Regardless of the factwho is in power, we have pushed them towards cash cropand now we are paying the price of that movement. Wehave locked them into volatility of global pricescontrolled by rapacious corporations. It is often doneby corporations whom your farmers cannot see, who arenot accountable to your people. The other frightening thing is that thefive or six States are also, in a sense, contiguous.There are other States which are pretty bad. These arethe worst states. Maharashtra is the worst. Some ofthese States are showing an ascending trend. Someshow a descending trend. What is frightening is thatin some of the States showing an ascending trend,their numbers might double in six years. Zero farm suicides in Vidharbha? Farmer suicides in Vidharbha stopped entirely inAugust because the news came in July that the PrimeMinister was to visit them. So, people thoughtfullystopped committing suicide. There was not a singlesuicide in Vidharbha in August. In official count, atleast. They knew the Prime Minister was coming.Everybody said: "We will not commit suicide till heleaves." This is a nation deluding itself. It does nothelp you. I am not trying to point at one ChiefMinister or one party Government. It is a nationalcrisis. The more honest we are with ourselves, thebetter positioned we are to sort it out. What do the figures actually suggest? If we projectfurther the figures of the National Crimes RecordBureau, it is closer to about one-and-a-half lakh suicides in the 1997-2005 period. And that excludeseight categories of people because, for instance, inthis country whatever you do, whatever laws you pass,our machinery will not accept women as farmersbecause there is no land in their name, there are noproperty rights for them. Many suicides not recorded as farm suicides : In Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, 45 per centof farm suicides in 2001-02 were women farmers. Manyof the households in Anantapur rural areas arewomen-headed since the men have migrated. There aremuch larger numbers. Even nationally, 19 per cent ornearly one-fifth households in this country arewomen-headed. But we do not count women as farmers. Wecount them as the wives of farmers. So, it iscounted as a suicide but not as a farmer's suicide. Of course, farm labourer suicides will never becounted in the list of farm suicides, so that bringsit down further. Incidentally, countless eldest sons have not beencounted as farmers committing suicide because, in ourtraditional society, the land remains in the name ofthe aged-old father, who may be 75-80, until he dies.So, the elder son may be 50 or 51. He is running thefarm. He faces the pressure. He cracks and killshimself. The tehsildar says that this man is not afarmer because there is no farm in his name. InYavatmal district last month, every single claim ofsuicide was rejected by a six-member 'independent'Committee consisting of top Government officers in thedistrict plus two non-officials chosen by thegovernment! Many of these cases were rejected on the basis thatthere is no land in those names. The guy was theeldest son, he was running it and looking afterperhaps even three family units. But the land was notin his name. How do we accept him as a farmer? Thatis the criteria. I could go on about that. If youdie and if you are found to be in debt, that debt hasto be a bank debt. If it is a private money lenderdebt, it is not accepted. The Committee in Yavatmalwill not accept it. They will ask: what is therecord on that? There is no document to show it. Inthis way, thousands of people have been kept on thelist of suicides but not in the list of farmerssuicides. There is also misclassification. There are migrantfarmers who are not counted in it. People leave theplace and kill themselves in the city. I do not evenwant to conjecture what the real figure would be. Itis impossible physically. Secondly, I think thenumber (the official count, however flawed) isappalling enough to move this nation. It should movethis nation. If we have only these Governmentnumbers, I will accept them at face value. If you canaccept that it is a horrible figure, we should movethe nation forward. Common factors across regions: What is common in these areas where the crisis istaking place? Cash crop, high water stress, hugeindebtedness way above the national average. If youmake a map of indebtedness of India and the map of allsuicides, they will converge very neatly. Thehighest number of indebted households in the countryis in Andhra Pradesh which is at 82 per cent, Keralahas 64 per cent and Karnataka has 62 per cent of allfarm households in debt. The list is endless. You cansee how the suicide map matches that of indebtednesswhich is one of the important single major causes. I would like to say that almost every suicide has amultiplicity of causes, not just one. What we do inrecording them, though, is to record the last cause. I am indebted. My son drops out of college. I amunable to get my daughter married and I am humiliatedby the money lender every day when I go to the market.My crop collapses and the bank refuses to give me aloan. I go home getting drunk. I fight with my wifeand then commit suicide. The next day, it isrecorded that the reason for the suicide is that hehad a fight with his wife and, so, he killed himself. The last cause gets recorded. That is natural and thatis how it is structured. But it conceals more than ittells. The other common thing in the suicide-hit regions iswithdrawal of bank credit. Agriculture tends to bemore deregulated in these areas as in parts ofVidharbha and Maharashtra. You have a very highcultivation cost. That too, is common in these areas. Extremely high cultivation costs. In Vidharbha,in 1991, it cost Rs. 2500 to cultivate an acre ofcotton. Today it costs over Rs. 13,000 per acre usingthe new BT brand. You are talking about a 500 percent increase in the cultivation cost per acre. It iskilling. It cannot be borne. If you want to understand how gigantic input costsare, if you want to understand how massive is theindustry for seeds which we have left open to ahandful of corporations to control and loot, see whatis happening in Andhra Pradesh. You would understandhow major a cost it is. Andhra Pradesh, my own home State, is so proud of itssoftware exports. But, the seed and other input industry of Andhra Pradesh is worth more than AP'ssoftware exports. That is how big, how huge, the seedindustry is. People in this country spend more onseed than AP earns exporting software. We are running after software markets overseas,which is fine, but while allowing the seed market tobe taken away absolutely by a bunch of corporations.Which is not fine at all. That is how I said that weare moving already, at this level, towards corporatefarming. Farm incomes have collapsed: Look at income. Income collapse was a major part ofthe crisis. In several regions, farm incomes havesimply collapsed. The national average monthly percapita expenditure (MPCE) of the Indian farmhousehold, as I told you, was Rs. 503. It is prettyclose to the below poverty figure of Rs. 425 or so ofrural India. Six States on an average have been belowthe poverty line It is below Rs. 425 figure. Five orsix States exist in the country like that. There are many households existing on a monthly percapita expenditure of Rs. 225. This is according tothe National Sample Survey Organisation. The percapita monthly expenditure is Rs. 225 which translatesinto Rs. 8 a day. In that, you are going to manageyour food, clothing, footwear, education, health andtransport. What does it leave for any kind of life? You are always in debt. 55 per cent has gone tofood, 18 per cent to fuel, footwear and clothing. Inall these areas, you will find a very high proportionof school and college dropouts. People with B.Sc.degrees have dropped out to work as farm labourers onthe family farm in order to get it somehow going,while our Agricultural Universities have simply takenup the job of doing research for other parties likeprivate corporations but not for our farmers anymore. Elite view of the rural crisis: How do the elites look at the crisis at the bottom? Let me quote from a leading economic newspaper of ourcountry. One of its commentators says this with somedisappointment. "The bottom 400 million are adisappointment. " Why? They do not buy enough. I donot know what they will buy with Rs. 8 as per capitaexpenditure. She says that they do not buy enough. But they have a responsibility. "It is a difficultmarket to tap," the commentator concludes. The Vidharbha crisis: What about Vidharbha from where so much of reportinghas been done on the suicides in the last few years? As Mrs. Alva has said, what you see in the media isvery little. Dozens of local journalists have keptthis issue alive. They have to be given credit forit. How many suicides have there been in Vidharbha? Have they declined? According to one section of themedia, they have stopped. The government has in factput out several sets of figures over time which arequite contradictory. The Government has not put itsname or signature to any figure of decline at thehighest level. Why? It is because the Governmentwill be in serious trouble. There is an order from the Nagpur Bench of the HighCourt that the State Government must maintain awebsite with all the figures. It is in response to apublic interest litigation. If you look at theGovernment website, you do not need to read any of thereports. The figures in the website are so obsceneand what do they do to bring a decline? Let me tellyou the actual number from the Commissioner ofAmravati's own report and how these are thenpresented. In Vidharbha, the number of total suicides , not thefarming suicides , in six districts was not 1500. Since 2001, in the crisis years, it was not 2000, itwas not 1300 and it was not 1700. The police stationsrecord it as 15,980 for the six districts. Not allof these are farm suicides . But here is the fun. From 15,980, they will bring it down to 578 orwhatever figure is finally arrived at. We can bringthis down. Incidentally, these are 100 per cent ruraldistricts. But the final tabulation shows that lessthan 20 per cent of these 15,000 suicides werefarmers -- in 100 per cent rural districts! It isa mystery then, who those committing suicide were andare. These were not industrial districts. If just2939 were farmers, that is less than 20 per cent of15,980, then who were they? It almost as if onlyfarmers were doing well! Indeed, very well. Everybodyelse is committing suicide. Largest state distress survey ever: I give full credit to the Maharashtra Government forone thing. They did the biggest study on farminghouseholds in the state. It is only that peopleshould take some time to read that study. It willjust chill you to the marrow of your bones. Thanks tothe Prime Minister's visit due to which everybody gotbusy. They surveyed every one of the 17.64 lakhhouseholds (nearly ten million human beings). Everysingle farm household was surveyed in the sixdistricts of Vidharbha the government believes areaffected. (In all, Vidharbha has 11 districts.) Whatdoes that figure show? These are figures based on thesurvey which appear in the report of the Commissionerof Amravati (which document I have promised to giveyou.) Five of the six affected districts come underthe Commissioner of Amravati. But the data he isciting includes even the sixth, that is Wardhadistrict. It (Amravati Commissioner' s report) says that: Ø close to 75 per cent of the farm households inthese nearly two million households (17.64 lakh) arein distress.Ø It says that 4,31,000 households, if you takethe rural households having five to six people in eachhousehold, are in "maximum distress." That is theword of the Government. The other category is "mediumdistress." I have no idea what that means. But itadmits 75 per cent of the households are in distressof one kind or the other. Ø Astonishingly, over three lakh families arehaving severe problems on the marriage of daughterswhich is a big cause in several suicides. Over threelakh farmers are not able to get one or more daughtersmarried. This is an explosive situation. Ø The Government's own study shows thatindebtedness was also a factor in 93 per cent of thesuicides that it looked at. Ø Last year suicides were supposed to havedeclined after the package. Last year the policestation records show 2,832 suicides as against 2,425in 2005. It is an increase of 407, which is a verysignificant increase. Because that's an increase ofover 60 suicides per district in each of the sixdistricts in just one year. And there's a lot more in similar vein. How do they then make out a 'decline'? I think it isthe Indian national genius of handling numbers. Ijust love numbers. The first category (police stationrecords) states 2,832 suicides last year. The secondcolumn says, out of these "farmers' suicides" from2,832 it falls to 800-odd. The third column sayssuicides by "farmers' relatives" as if others on farmare not farmers. That becomes 1600. So, suicide byfarmers is different from suicides in farminghouseholds!. Then comes "cases under inquiry." Then, other tables which list cases due to "agrariandistress." With each column the number comes down. The final column is the masterpiece. It does notexist anywhere in the planet. We have a column called"eligible suicides", like eligible bachelors orbrides, etc. It means those suicides where thefamilies are deemed by government to be eligible forcompensation. So, from 2,832 it comes down to 578 inthe last column. It is this last figure of 'eligible'suicides that is put out by officials as the suicidesfigure! This month (August was the month just concluded) we donot have suicides at all because if you let ourmathematicians pursue it further, they will redefinesuicides out of existence. But the total number keepsincreasing. You can see it. This year when therewere no suicides, or suicides were in steep decline,there were 700 plus suicides according to theGovernment of Maharashtra website. Why does not theGovernment put its signature to the number? It isbecause that website is maintained under the courtorder. Then you are running into serious problems ifyou contradict your own data. We can play games withthat endlessly. Misery in the households: I'd like to narrate three personal episodes from theaffected households. For me the most painful thing isthat second and third suicides are happening in thesame households. In the 700 (suicide-hit) householdsthat I have gone to and seen over the years, the mosthurting thing is that when you are leaving thehousehold, when you make eye contact with the lady ofthe house or the eldest daughter, you know – do notask me how I know – that she is also planning to takeher life. You know that for all your boastfulnessabout the might of the Press and the power of the pen,I cannot do a damn thing to stop them because that ishow we are today as a society. That is the mostpainful thing for me. I've started avoiding that eyecontact because I do not want to see in the person'seyes that she is also going to take her life. When ayoung widow takes her life, she might kill her girlchild also because she does not want that child forcedinto prostitution. Last year, when Prime Minister came, there was totalchaos because everybody was kept on notice, becausethe Prime Minister was really worried about what wasgoing on. He took a trip which was not reallyscheduled. One month before he came there, I was inthe house of Gosavi Pawar. This was a very differentkind of Pawar, a less privileged Pawar, an adivasiPawar and not to be confused with more the illustriousPawars. Gosavi Pawar was from a Banjara family. Theclan is so poor. Incidentally, that day I was sitting in his house Ihad also read about the wedding of daughter of India'srichest man, Lakshmi Mittal at a cost of 60 milliondollars or pounds. It is obscene in whichevercurrency it is translated. Poor man, Mr. Mittal, hecould not get a wedding hall in Paris! It is verydifficult to get one there in that season. So, hehired the Palace of Versailles and held the weddingthere. But in the house of Gosavi Pawar, the clan isso very poor. They had come all over the country forthe wedding and decided to have three weddings at thesame time in order to afford them. They decided tohave three weddings at the same time because peoplehad come from different regions and states. They hadall gathered there. Gosavi Pawar, the patriarch ofthat clan, was unable to raise the money required forthe sarees for those weddings. Humiliated by themoneylender, by the bank manager, and others, GosaviPawar took his life. I saw two things. One that depressed me enormouslyand one that inspired me about the poor people of thiscountry. One that depressed me enormously is the poorhousehold had three weddings and a funeral on the sameday, because they could not cancel the wedding. Itwould have bankrupted the clan had they gone back toRajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka or wherever and comeagain. So, they held the weddings. The brides andbridegrooms wept. The most heart- breaking moment waswhen the wedding procession went out and on thehighway met the funeral procession. Dr. Swaminathanwould remember that when he came to Yavatmal heencountered a similar situation, when suicides werebeing brought to the hospitals even as the NationalCommission on Farmers (NCF) team were holdingdiscussions with the Government officials. So, thewedding procession ran into the funeral procession ofGosavi Pawar. Then, people who were carrying his bodyran into the fields and hid so that they would notcast a bad omen on the wedding. But there was also something very inspiring. Some ofthe poorest people on planet Earth made those weddingshappen. Everybody contributed Rs. 5, quarter kilo of wheat, half a kilo of rice, one sheaf of banana, acoconut, whatever they could. They held thoseweddings. They did not have the resources to do it, Iam afraid, in the Palace of Versailles. But they heldthose weddings by community action, by public action. I felt so proud at that moment that our people showedthe decency and dignity that the elite have socompletely forgotten. When governments cheat on poll promises: Coming back to 'eligible suicides' in Vidharbha, thereis nothing that prevents the Government of Maharashtrafrom implementing its poll promise of Rs. 2700 perquintal of cotton. What did they do after coming topower? I am not singling out one Government. Let memake it very clear agriculture is in desperate shapeacross the country. All Governments are culpable. Everybody is fragile. No State is exempt. But inthis particular case, they made a promise of Rs. 2700rupees, but they lowered it by Rs. 500. They withdrewRs. 500 of the so-called 'advance bonus' payment. With that, it removed Rs. 1200 crores from thefarmers. After removing Rs. 1200 crores from thefarmers, the Chief Minister announced a package of Rs.1,075 crores. A package of Rs. 1,075 crore is beinggiven to people from whom you have taken away Rs. 1200crore! US-EU subsidies destroy cotton prices: At the same time, the US, the European Union weredrowning their cotton growers in subsidies. Cottongrowers of the US are not small farmers, they arecorporations. How many cotton growers do we have inMaharashtra? It is in millions. How many cottongrowers are there in US? It is 20,000. When weremoved Rs. 1200 crore from our farmers, how much didthe US give to its corporations? On a crop value of 3.9 billion dollars, the UnitedStates gave its cotton growers a subsidy of 4.7billion dollars. It destroyed the bottom of theinternational cotton market. The cotton price at theNew York exchange ruled at 90 to 100 cents in 1994-95fell to around 40 cents and from that date suicidesbegan all over the world as prices crashed and farmersran up horrible losses. In Burkina Faso, hundreds of cotton farmers killedthemselves. In July 2003, the Presidents of BurkinaFaso and Mali wrote an article in New York Times,"Your Farm Subsidies are Strangling Us". We were notable to take action against such subsidies, them. While our duties on cotton are 10 per cent, if youare a Mumbai textile magnate, then you do not pay eventhat ten per cent. You get it waived in lieu ofexport of garments. Incidentally, if I am a Mumbaitextile magnate, I can even get the cotton freebecause private corporations dumping cotton in India would give me six months' credit. In six monthscredit, I can run the entire cycle from cotton tocotton garment. So, I am essentially getting an interest-free loanfrom you which I return in six months and I have madehuge profits. All these games are played around thelives of millions of people. Role of the media: For me the saddest thing is your (Mrs. Alva's) commenton the media. As a journalist, I totally endorse this.The saddest thing last year that happened was whenless than six 'national' journalists were covering thesuicides in Vidharbha. Five hundred and twelveaccredited journalists were fighting for space tocover the Lakme India Fashion Week. In that FashionWeek programme, the models were displaying cottongarments while the men and women who grew the cottonwere killing themselves at a distance of one hour'sflight from Nagpur in the Vidharbha region. The ironyof it should have been a news story, but nobody didthat story except one or two journalists locally. We withdrew the money of the advance bonus of Rs. 500a quintal at the time when the US and EU wereincreasing their subsidies. I went last year to US andvisited American farms. Including corporate styledairies. The subsidy per cow every day is twice yourNational Rural Employment Guarantee Programme minimumwage. It is around three dollars per cow which is Rs.120. Double your National Rural Employment GuaranteeProgramme wage which is Rs. 60. That is why myfriend, Vijay Jawandia from Wardha, put it sobeautifully in a television interview. He was asked –Jawandia saab what is the dream of the Indian farmer?He said the dream of the Indian farmer is to be bornas an American cow because they are getting threetimes the support that we do. We have locked thefarmer into global price shocks while removingwhatever safety nets they had. We have not been ableto fight the EU-US cotton subsidies. Seed companies are being allowed to run riot: We have deregulated agriculture to an extent where thequality of seed has now been graded much lower. Inthe sense, when you bought a bag of seed, on the backof seed, it will be stamped – 85 per cent germinationrate guaranteed. That is now 60 per cent. It meansif a village buys 10,000 bags of seed, they are payingfor 10,000 bags, but they are getting 6,000 bagsbecause we have lowered the standards through MOUswith companies. The seed industry, as I said earlier,is bigger than software exports. The agriculturaluniversities have collapsed. The extension machinery,as the Government of India itself says, is in a stateof complete disrepair. At the time the advance bonuswas withdrawn, we begged the government: Please do notdo this as suicides could double. We were wrong. Insome places, they tripled. We begged - do not dothis, do not do this, do not remove this, it willreally kill these people who are in a very precariousstage. Vidharbha Vs. Mumbai: Incidentally, by the end of 2005, there was a uniqueG.O. in Maharashtra. I do not know if you are aware ofit. In Maharashtra, it has 14 hours' or 15 hours'power cut whereas the best localities of Mumbai havenever a problem of power cut, not even for one minute.The beautiful people cannot be subjected to powercuts. Incidentally, a 15-minute power cut in Mumbaiwould give two hours of power to all the 11 districtsof Vidharbha, but the children of Vidharbha were notgiven that concession even during the exams. That iswhy Vidharbha's performance in HSC exams will alwaysbe worse, though the topper is from Vidharbha. Soalongside the withdrawal of the bonus, a new G.O.came. We have exemptions for power cuts. Do you knowwhat was exempted in the new GO of 2005? Post-mortemcentres were exempted from power cuts because so manypeople were being wielded in for post-mortem. Theyexempted post mortem centres from power cuts alongwith Armed Forces, Police Stations, Fire Brigade etc.
By P. Sainath
Rural Affairs Editor,
The Hindu
We, as a nation, are in the worst agrarian crisis infour decades. It is impossible to cover such a largeissue in full. So I am going to be dealing with it infragments today. I would like to stress that thecrisis is so deep, so advanced that: firstly, no State, nobody, is exempt from this and it is not tobe seen as the crisis of one State or one Governmentor one Party. It is a national crisis and we need torespond to it as such. It is a huge thing. In thatcrisis, the suicides are merely, however tragic, justa symptom and not the disease. They are aconsequence, not the process.
Millions of livelihoods have been damaged ordestroyed in the last 15 years as a result of thiscrisis. But you will know, if you look at your media,that it is only in the last three or four years thatwe widely used the word 'farm crisis' or the 'agrariancrisis.' Earlier, there was a complete denial of anycrisis. At least today it is established that there is one.
We can sum it up in one sentence -- the processdriving this crisis: the predatory commercialisationof the countryside (int he words of Prof. K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies –MIDS). The reduction of all human values to exchangevalue. As this process unleashes itself across agrarian India, millions of livelihoods have collapsed. Lakhs of people are migrating towardscities and towns in search of jobs that are not there. They move towards a status which is neither `worker'nor `farmer.' Many will end up as domestic labour, like over a lakh girls from Jharkhand in this city of Delhi working as domestic servants.
World-wide crisis of small-holder farms:
However, having said that, I want to say that thecrisis is by no means restricted to India. It is aworld-wide crisis of small holder farming. Small,family farms are getting wiped out across the planetand it has been happening for 20-30 years. It is justthat this has been very intense in India in the last15 years. Otherwise, the farm suicides have causedmajor concern in Korea. Nepal and Sri Lanka have highrates of farm suicides. In Africa, Burkina Faso, Malietc. have had high rates of farmers' suicides as thecotton product there gets wiped out by the UnitedStates and EU subsidies.
Incidentally, suicide rates among farmers in theUnited States Midwest and other rural regions havealso been extremely high from time to time. In fact,in the eighties, suicide rates amongst farmers inOklahoma, for instance, were more than twice thenational suicide rate for men in the United States --and it is rare that rural suicides are higher thanurban. I spent time last year on American farms andcould see how they're going down.
We are witnessing in many ways the decline and deathof the small holder farm. It is very important thatwe do something about it because we are the largestnation of small holder farms where the farmer ownsthat land. We are also probably the largest body offarm labourers and landless workers. If you look,there is a lesson to be learnt as to what has gone on in the United States.
In the 1930s, there were six million family farms inthe United States. At that time when India was just adecade or so away from gaining Independence, over aquarter of the American population lived and worked onthose six million farms. Today, the US has morepeople in prison than on farms. It has 2.1 millionpeople in prison and less than that on its 700,000 family farms.
We are being pushed towards corporate farming:
So what is this process driving towards? In two words:It is driving us towards corporate farming. That isthe big coming picture of agriculture in India andacross the planet. We have been pushed towardscorporate farming, a process by which farming is takenout of the hands of the farmers and positioned in thehands of the corporates. That is exactly whathappened in the United States and that is what exactlyhappened in a large number of other countries. Thisprocess is not being achieved with guns, tanks,bulldozers and lathis. It is done by making farmingunviable for the millions of small family farmholders, by just making it so impossible for you tosurvive in the structures that exist. But there is acontext to this that I am absolutely going to insiston framing that context. All these unfold in thecontext of the fastest growing inequality that Indiahas seen in her history as an independent nation. Andunderstand this, when inequality deepens in society,the farm sector takes the biggest hit.
In any case,it is a disadvantaged sector. So when inequalitywidens, the farm sector takes a hit. Devastating growth of inequality in India:
Ø Fourth rank in Dollar Billionaires: In Indiain 2007, I am sure you all will be very thrilled toknow, we have the fourth highest number of dollar-billionaires in the planet. We are ahead of allcountries in the number of billionaires except theUnited States, Germany and Russia. Incidentally, ourbillionaires are richer than those of Germany andRussia in terms of net asset worth. You can look upall these numbers on The World's Billionaires atwww.forbes.com – the Oracle of global billionaires.
Ø 126 th in Human Development: We have thesecond richest billionaires in the world in dollarsand we have the fourth largest number of billionairesin the planet. But we are 126 th in humandevelopment. The same nation that has ranks fourth inbillionaires is 126th in human development. What doesit mean to be 126th ? It means that it is better tobe a poor person in Bolivia (the poorest nation inSouth America) or Guatemala or Gabon. They are aheadof us in the UN's Human Development Index. You canget all these figures in the Parliament Library fromthe United Nations Human Development Reports of thelast 10 or 15 years.
Ø 836 million live on less than Rs. 20 a day: Weare the emerging 'tiger economy.' But life expectancyin our nation is lower than it is in Bolivia,Kazakhstan and Mongolia. We have 100,000 dollarmillionaires, out of whom 25,000 reside in my city ofMumbai, I am proud to say. Yet, 836 million people inour nation exist on less than Rs. 20/- a day accordingto the Government of India. There is no such thing asIndian reality. There are Indian realities . Thereis a multiplicity of realities.
Ø Slowing down of infant death rate decline: Thegrowth rate of our country is indeed the envy of many.But the rate of decline of infant mortality actuallyslowed down in this country in the last 15 years. Thelargest number of infant deaths 2.5 million takesplace in this country, followed by China.
Ø CEO's salaries set all time records: ChiefExecutive Officer 'packages' grew like never before inthe last ten years. Indeed, the Prime Minister ofthis country felt constrained to make some remarksabout the salaries of CEOs. You can remember the kindof pasting he came in for in the media as a result ofhaving dared to question that maybe a CEO could liveon a million less a year, or whatever it was. Butwhile CEOs salaries have gone through the roof, farmincomes have collapsed.
Ø Appalling MPCE of farm households: Accordingto the National Sample Survey, the average monthly percapita expenditure (MPCE) of the Indian farm household(across zamindars and your half acre wallas), is Rs.503.
Ø Miserable expenditure patterns: Out of thatRs. 503, 55 per cent or more is spent on food, 18 percent on fuel, clothing and footwear leaving preciouslittle to be spent on education and health. What isspent on health is twice that of what is spent oneducation because we now have the 6 th most privatisedhealth system in the world. Therefore, the MPCE showsRs.34 as expenditure on health as against Rs.17 oneducation. Rs.17 a month on education means 50 paisea day on education. That is the spending of the Indianfarm household. That is the national average. I willcome to state-wise figures a little later.
Ø Incidentally, we are very proud to tell youthat labour productivity in the decade of the reformswent up to 84 per cent according to the ILO. The sameILO report informs me that while labour productivity went up to 84 per cent, the real wages of labour inmanufacturing declined by 22 per cent (at a time whenCEO salaries were going through the roof). So, in thelast 15 years, we have seen the unprecedentedprosperity of the top of our population. And at thesame time, the net per capita availability offoodgrain actually declined for over a decade. Ø Rising hunger at the bottom: The State of foodinsecurity in the world report of the FAO of theUnited Nations shows us that from 1995-97 to1999-2001, India added more newly hungry millions thanthe rest of the world taken together. Hunger grew at atime when it declined in Ethiopia. A new restaurantopens everyday in some city of this country but asProf Utsa Patnaik, our leading agricultural economistpoints out, the average rural family is consuming 100kgs less than it did 10 years ago. The availabilitysituation figure is one placed every year inParliament in the Economic Survey which gives the netper capita availability (NPCA) of foodgrain containedin Table 1.17 (S-21). You get the numbers all the wayfrom 1951. You can see how it has declined in thelast 15 years. The NPCA was 510 in 1991, on the cuspof the reforms. That fell to 437 grams by 2003. The2005 provisional figure was 422 grams. There may be aslight rise in one or another year, but the overalltrend has been that of a clear decline over 15 years. A fall of 70-80 grams sounds trivial -- until youmultiply it by 365 days and then again by one billionIndians. Then you can see how gigantic the decline is. Since those at the top are eating much better thanever before, it raises the question of what on earththe bottom 40 per cent are eating?
Ø Two-nation theory passé. Its Two Planets now: Today, for the top 5 per cent of the Indianpopulation, the benchmarks are Western Europe, theUSA, Japan and Australia. For the bottom 40 per cent,the benchmarks are the Sub-Saharan Africa (some ofwhose nations) are ahead of us in literacy.
Ø Indebtedness has doubled in the past decade:The NSSO's 59th round tells us that while 26 per centof farm households were in debt in 1991, that figurewent up to over 48 per cent – almost double by 2003. There have been huge migrations, as I said, as aresult of this chaos and collapse of incomes,explosions of cost of living. Why is this framework ofinequality so important to our understanding? We aregetting further and further into the divide. What do Imean by predatory commercialisation of thecountryside? I will come to that soon. But manythings have happened. Policy-driven devastation of agriculture: One is that as every Minister and every PrimeMinister admits, public investment in agriculture hasdeclined very sharply to the point of collapse over aperiod of 10-15 years. It is one of the things thatthe Government now feels that it is trying to reverse. Our foremost agricultural economist, Dr. Utsa Patnaik shows us that while total development expenditure as ashare of GDP was fourteen and a half per cent in1989-90, it was 5.9 per cent by 2005. That is acollapse of Rs.30,000 crore per year or an incomeloss of Rs.120,000 crore. I have often felt it'ssimpler to send out the Air Force and bomb thevillages It would probably cause less lasting damagethan that withdrawal of investment costs us! There has been a crash in employment. Only the requirement of the last year and a half hassomewhat (but far from adequately) been met by theNREGP, a programme which I am very supportive of. Thathas not opened up anywhere as much as it should. I hope it deepens and grows because it is a vital programme for the crisis in the countryside. It is oneof the great things that we have done in the last two years. But very far from enough.
SEZs but no land reforms:
Another problem is the rack renting of tenants. Inthe Andhra Pradesh suicides, you will find that manyof those (in some regions) who have committed suicidewere actually tenant farmers. Out of the 28 bags ofpaddy they harvested, they parted with 25 bags as thetenancy or lease rate. If there is a cyclone or damageor anything else, incidentally, the reparations andthe compensation go to the absentee landlords. We haveno tenancy reforms. It seems appalling to me that wecan clear an SEZ in six months but we cannot do landreforms in 60 years across this country! Except inthree states.
Rigging costs in agriculture:
Another issue is the exploding cost of agriculture, aprocess quite heavily controlled and rigged. Yetanother one is the exploitative internationalagreements that we have entered into that areseverely damaging to the interests of our farmers.Yet another aspect is the crashing output prices asglobal corporations have taken control of trade inagriculture commodities and rig prices. Even whenWhile the coffee prices boom in the West, the men andwomen who grow coffee in Kerala commit suicide,especially between 2000 and 2003. The suicides are appalling. How many suicides havebeen there? I do not want to get into the numbersgame. We are coming with a very major story on thatin The Hindu in a while. I won't pre-empt it. However,you were given last year, I believe, a figure ofover one lakh suicides since 1993. That is ahorrifying figure in 10 years. Yet, you will find itwrong. It is not true. For several reasons. I found that four years have been included in the number forwhich firm data on farm suicides do not exist. Youbring down the average by bringing farm suicides inyears which are irrelevant! We only started collecting farm suicide data from 1995in the National Crime Records Bureau. Any new systemof reporting takes time. Most States do not reportproperly for the first two years. It takes time forthe States to get into the mode of reporting data.Real or stable data started from around 1997. So, theover one lakh suicides that you are looking at are notfrom 1993 to 2003 but they are from 1997 to 2003. Thatis an appalling figure. It is still a hugeunder-estimate for a variety of reasons which I willcome to. Suicide figures misleading and confusing: But what is important is that the numbers are not thecrucial issue . I think even the figure of over onelakh is appalling enough. What is frightening isthat if you look at the data, two-thirds of thesuicides are occurring in half-a-dozen States thataccount for just about one-third of the country'spopulation . Most of the suicides are occurring incash-crop areas. The number of food crop farmerscommitting suicide is less as compared to those incash crops. For the last 15 years, we have drivenpeople towards cash crops. We have told them toexport. Exports lead to growth. Regardless of the factwho is in power, we have pushed them towards cash cropand now we are paying the price of that movement. Wehave locked them into volatility of global pricescontrolled by rapacious corporations. It is often doneby corporations whom your farmers cannot see, who arenot accountable to your people. The other frightening thing is that thefive or six States are also, in a sense, contiguous.There are other States which are pretty bad. These arethe worst states. Maharashtra is the worst. Some ofthese States are showing an ascending trend. Someshow a descending trend. What is frightening is thatin some of the States showing an ascending trend,their numbers might double in six years. Zero farm suicides in Vidharbha? Farmer suicides in Vidharbha stopped entirely inAugust because the news came in July that the PrimeMinister was to visit them. So, people thoughtfullystopped committing suicide. There was not a singlesuicide in Vidharbha in August. In official count, atleast. They knew the Prime Minister was coming.Everybody said: "We will not commit suicide till heleaves." This is a nation deluding itself. It does nothelp you. I am not trying to point at one ChiefMinister or one party Government. It is a nationalcrisis. The more honest we are with ourselves, thebetter positioned we are to sort it out. What do the figures actually suggest? If we projectfurther the figures of the National Crimes RecordBureau, it is closer to about one-and-a-half lakh suicides in the 1997-2005 period. And that excludeseight categories of people because, for instance, inthis country whatever you do, whatever laws you pass,our machinery will not accept women as farmersbecause there is no land in their name, there are noproperty rights for them. Many suicides not recorded as farm suicides : In Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, 45 per centof farm suicides in 2001-02 were women farmers. Manyof the households in Anantapur rural areas arewomen-headed since the men have migrated. There aremuch larger numbers. Even nationally, 19 per cent ornearly one-fifth households in this country arewomen-headed. But we do not count women as farmers. Wecount them as the wives of farmers. So, it iscounted as a suicide but not as a farmer's suicide. Of course, farm labourer suicides will never becounted in the list of farm suicides, so that bringsit down further. Incidentally, countless eldest sons have not beencounted as farmers committing suicide because, in ourtraditional society, the land remains in the name ofthe aged-old father, who may be 75-80, until he dies.So, the elder son may be 50 or 51. He is running thefarm. He faces the pressure. He cracks and killshimself. The tehsildar says that this man is not afarmer because there is no farm in his name. InYavatmal district last month, every single claim ofsuicide was rejected by a six-member 'independent'Committee consisting of top Government officers in thedistrict plus two non-officials chosen by thegovernment! Many of these cases were rejected on the basis thatthere is no land in those names. The guy was theeldest son, he was running it and looking afterperhaps even three family units. But the land was notin his name. How do we accept him as a farmer? Thatis the criteria. I could go on about that. If youdie and if you are found to be in debt, that debt hasto be a bank debt. If it is a private money lenderdebt, it is not accepted. The Committee in Yavatmalwill not accept it. They will ask: what is therecord on that? There is no document to show it. Inthis way, thousands of people have been kept on thelist of suicides but not in the list of farmerssuicides. There is also misclassification. There are migrantfarmers who are not counted in it. People leave theplace and kill themselves in the city. I do not evenwant to conjecture what the real figure would be. Itis impossible physically. Secondly, I think thenumber (the official count, however flawed) isappalling enough to move this nation. It should movethis nation. If we have only these Governmentnumbers, I will accept them at face value. If you canaccept that it is a horrible figure, we should movethe nation forward. Common factors across regions: What is common in these areas where the crisis istaking place? Cash crop, high water stress, hugeindebtedness way above the national average. If youmake a map of indebtedness of India and the map of allsuicides, they will converge very neatly. Thehighest number of indebted households in the countryis in Andhra Pradesh which is at 82 per cent, Keralahas 64 per cent and Karnataka has 62 per cent of allfarm households in debt. The list is endless. You cansee how the suicide map matches that of indebtednesswhich is one of the important single major causes. I would like to say that almost every suicide has amultiplicity of causes, not just one. What we do inrecording them, though, is to record the last cause. I am indebted. My son drops out of college. I amunable to get my daughter married and I am humiliatedby the money lender every day when I go to the market.My crop collapses and the bank refuses to give me aloan. I go home getting drunk. I fight with my wifeand then commit suicide. The next day, it isrecorded that the reason for the suicide is that hehad a fight with his wife and, so, he killed himself. The last cause gets recorded. That is natural and thatis how it is structured. But it conceals more than ittells. The other common thing in the suicide-hit regions iswithdrawal of bank credit. Agriculture tends to bemore deregulated in these areas as in parts ofVidharbha and Maharashtra. You have a very highcultivation cost. That too, is common in these areas. Extremely high cultivation costs. In Vidharbha,in 1991, it cost Rs. 2500 to cultivate an acre ofcotton. Today it costs over Rs. 13,000 per acre usingthe new BT brand. You are talking about a 500 percent increase in the cultivation cost per acre. It iskilling. It cannot be borne. If you want to understand how gigantic input costsare, if you want to understand how massive is theindustry for seeds which we have left open to ahandful of corporations to control and loot, see whatis happening in Andhra Pradesh. You would understandhow major a cost it is. Andhra Pradesh, my own home State, is so proud of itssoftware exports. But, the seed and other input industry of Andhra Pradesh is worth more than AP'ssoftware exports. That is how big, how huge, the seedindustry is. People in this country spend more onseed than AP earns exporting software. We are running after software markets overseas,which is fine, but while allowing the seed market tobe taken away absolutely by a bunch of corporations.Which is not fine at all. That is how I said that weare moving already, at this level, towards corporatefarming. Farm incomes have collapsed: Look at income. Income collapse was a major part ofthe crisis. In several regions, farm incomes havesimply collapsed. The national average monthly percapita expenditure (MPCE) of the Indian farmhousehold, as I told you, was Rs. 503. It is prettyclose to the below poverty figure of Rs. 425 or so ofrural India. Six States on an average have been belowthe poverty line It is below Rs. 425 figure. Five orsix States exist in the country like that. There are many households existing on a monthly percapita expenditure of Rs. 225. This is according tothe National Sample Survey Organisation. The percapita monthly expenditure is Rs. 225 which translatesinto Rs. 8 a day. In that, you are going to manageyour food, clothing, footwear, education, health andtransport. What does it leave for any kind of life? You are always in debt. 55 per cent has gone tofood, 18 per cent to fuel, footwear and clothing. Inall these areas, you will find a very high proportionof school and college dropouts. People with B.Sc.degrees have dropped out to work as farm labourers onthe family farm in order to get it somehow going,while our Agricultural Universities have simply takenup the job of doing research for other parties likeprivate corporations but not for our farmers anymore. Elite view of the rural crisis: How do the elites look at the crisis at the bottom? Let me quote from a leading economic newspaper of ourcountry. One of its commentators says this with somedisappointment. "The bottom 400 million are adisappointment. " Why? They do not buy enough. I donot know what they will buy with Rs. 8 as per capitaexpenditure. She says that they do not buy enough. But they have a responsibility. "It is a difficultmarket to tap," the commentator concludes. The Vidharbha crisis: What about Vidharbha from where so much of reportinghas been done on the suicides in the last few years? As Mrs. Alva has said, what you see in the media isvery little. Dozens of local journalists have keptthis issue alive. They have to be given credit forit. How many suicides have there been in Vidharbha? Have they declined? According to one section of themedia, they have stopped. The government has in factput out several sets of figures over time which arequite contradictory. The Government has not put itsname or signature to any figure of decline at thehighest level. Why? It is because the Governmentwill be in serious trouble. There is an order from the Nagpur Bench of the HighCourt that the State Government must maintain awebsite with all the figures. It is in response to apublic interest litigation. If you look at theGovernment website, you do not need to read any of thereports. The figures in the website are so obsceneand what do they do to bring a decline? Let me tellyou the actual number from the Commissioner ofAmravati's own report and how these are thenpresented. In Vidharbha, the number of total suicides , not thefarming suicides , in six districts was not 1500. Since 2001, in the crisis years, it was not 2000, itwas not 1300 and it was not 1700. The police stationsrecord it as 15,980 for the six districts. Not allof these are farm suicides . But here is the fun. From 15,980, they will bring it down to 578 orwhatever figure is finally arrived at. We can bringthis down. Incidentally, these are 100 per cent ruraldistricts. But the final tabulation shows that lessthan 20 per cent of these 15,000 suicides werefarmers -- in 100 per cent rural districts! It isa mystery then, who those committing suicide were andare. These were not industrial districts. If just2939 were farmers, that is less than 20 per cent of15,980, then who were they? It almost as if onlyfarmers were doing well! Indeed, very well. Everybodyelse is committing suicide. Largest state distress survey ever: I give full credit to the Maharashtra Government forone thing. They did the biggest study on farminghouseholds in the state. It is only that peopleshould take some time to read that study. It willjust chill you to the marrow of your bones. Thanks tothe Prime Minister's visit due to which everybody gotbusy. They surveyed every one of the 17.64 lakhhouseholds (nearly ten million human beings). Everysingle farm household was surveyed in the sixdistricts of Vidharbha the government believes areaffected. (In all, Vidharbha has 11 districts.) Whatdoes that figure show? These are figures based on thesurvey which appear in the report of the Commissionerof Amravati (which document I have promised to giveyou.) Five of the six affected districts come underthe Commissioner of Amravati. But the data he isciting includes even the sixth, that is Wardhadistrict. It (Amravati Commissioner' s report) says that: Ø close to 75 per cent of the farm households inthese nearly two million households (17.64 lakh) arein distress.Ø It says that 4,31,000 households, if you takethe rural households having five to six people in eachhousehold, are in "maximum distress." That is theword of the Government. The other category is "mediumdistress." I have no idea what that means. But itadmits 75 per cent of the households are in distressof one kind or the other. Ø Astonishingly, over three lakh families arehaving severe problems on the marriage of daughterswhich is a big cause in several suicides. Over threelakh farmers are not able to get one or more daughtersmarried. This is an explosive situation. Ø The Government's own study shows thatindebtedness was also a factor in 93 per cent of thesuicides that it looked at. Ø Last year suicides were supposed to havedeclined after the package. Last year the policestation records show 2,832 suicides as against 2,425in 2005. It is an increase of 407, which is a verysignificant increase. Because that's an increase ofover 60 suicides per district in each of the sixdistricts in just one year. And there's a lot more in similar vein. How do they then make out a 'decline'? I think it isthe Indian national genius of handling numbers. Ijust love numbers. The first category (police stationrecords) states 2,832 suicides last year. The secondcolumn says, out of these "farmers' suicides" from2,832 it falls to 800-odd. The third column sayssuicides by "farmers' relatives" as if others on farmare not farmers. That becomes 1600. So, suicide byfarmers is different from suicides in farminghouseholds!. Then comes "cases under inquiry." Then, other tables which list cases due to "agrariandistress." With each column the number comes down. The final column is the masterpiece. It does notexist anywhere in the planet. We have a column called"eligible suicides", like eligible bachelors orbrides, etc. It means those suicides where thefamilies are deemed by government to be eligible forcompensation. So, from 2,832 it comes down to 578 inthe last column. It is this last figure of 'eligible'suicides that is put out by officials as the suicidesfigure! This month (August was the month just concluded) we donot have suicides at all because if you let ourmathematicians pursue it further, they will redefinesuicides out of existence. But the total number keepsincreasing. You can see it. This year when therewere no suicides, or suicides were in steep decline,there were 700 plus suicides according to theGovernment of Maharashtra website. Why does not theGovernment put its signature to the number? It isbecause that website is maintained under the courtorder. Then you are running into serious problems ifyou contradict your own data. We can play games withthat endlessly. Misery in the households: I'd like to narrate three personal episodes from theaffected households. For me the most painful thing isthat second and third suicides are happening in thesame households. In the 700 (suicide-hit) householdsthat I have gone to and seen over the years, the mosthurting thing is that when you are leaving thehousehold, when you make eye contact with the lady ofthe house or the eldest daughter, you know – do notask me how I know – that she is also planning to takeher life. You know that for all your boastfulnessabout the might of the Press and the power of the pen,I cannot do a damn thing to stop them because that ishow we are today as a society. That is the mostpainful thing for me. I've started avoiding that eyecontact because I do not want to see in the person'seyes that she is also going to take her life. When ayoung widow takes her life, she might kill her girlchild also because she does not want that child forcedinto prostitution. Last year, when Prime Minister came, there was totalchaos because everybody was kept on notice, becausethe Prime Minister was really worried about what wasgoing on. He took a trip which was not reallyscheduled. One month before he came there, I was inthe house of Gosavi Pawar. This was a very differentkind of Pawar, a less privileged Pawar, an adivasiPawar and not to be confused with more the illustriousPawars. Gosavi Pawar was from a Banjara family. Theclan is so poor. Incidentally, that day I was sitting in his house Ihad also read about the wedding of daughter of India'srichest man, Lakshmi Mittal at a cost of 60 milliondollars or pounds. It is obscene in whichevercurrency it is translated. Poor man, Mr. Mittal, hecould not get a wedding hall in Paris! It is verydifficult to get one there in that season. So, hehired the Palace of Versailles and held the weddingthere. But in the house of Gosavi Pawar, the clan isso very poor. They had come all over the country forthe wedding and decided to have three weddings at thesame time in order to afford them. They decided tohave three weddings at the same time because peoplehad come from different regions and states. They hadall gathered there. Gosavi Pawar, the patriarch ofthat clan, was unable to raise the money required forthe sarees for those weddings. Humiliated by themoneylender, by the bank manager, and others, GosaviPawar took his life. I saw two things. One that depressed me enormouslyand one that inspired me about the poor people of thiscountry. One that depressed me enormously is the poorhousehold had three weddings and a funeral on the sameday, because they could not cancel the wedding. Itwould have bankrupted the clan had they gone back toRajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka or wherever and comeagain. So, they held the weddings. The brides andbridegrooms wept. The most heart- breaking moment waswhen the wedding procession went out and on thehighway met the funeral procession. Dr. Swaminathanwould remember that when he came to Yavatmal heencountered a similar situation, when suicides werebeing brought to the hospitals even as the NationalCommission on Farmers (NCF) team were holdingdiscussions with the Government officials. So, thewedding procession ran into the funeral procession ofGosavi Pawar. Then, people who were carrying his bodyran into the fields and hid so that they would notcast a bad omen on the wedding. But there was also something very inspiring. Some ofthe poorest people on planet Earth made those weddingshappen. Everybody contributed Rs. 5, quarter kilo of wheat, half a kilo of rice, one sheaf of banana, acoconut, whatever they could. They held thoseweddings. They did not have the resources to do it, Iam afraid, in the Palace of Versailles. But they heldthose weddings by community action, by public action. I felt so proud at that moment that our people showedthe decency and dignity that the elite have socompletely forgotten. When governments cheat on poll promises: Coming back to 'eligible suicides' in Vidharbha, thereis nothing that prevents the Government of Maharashtrafrom implementing its poll promise of Rs. 2700 perquintal of cotton. What did they do after coming topower? I am not singling out one Government. Let memake it very clear agriculture is in desperate shapeacross the country. All Governments are culpable. Everybody is fragile. No State is exempt. But inthis particular case, they made a promise of Rs. 2700rupees, but they lowered it by Rs. 500. They withdrewRs. 500 of the so-called 'advance bonus' payment. With that, it removed Rs. 1200 crores from thefarmers. After removing Rs. 1200 crores from thefarmers, the Chief Minister announced a package of Rs.1,075 crores. A package of Rs. 1,075 crore is beinggiven to people from whom you have taken away Rs. 1200crore! US-EU subsidies destroy cotton prices: At the same time, the US, the European Union weredrowning their cotton growers in subsidies. Cottongrowers of the US are not small farmers, they arecorporations. How many cotton growers do we have inMaharashtra? It is in millions. How many cottongrowers are there in US? It is 20,000. When weremoved Rs. 1200 crore from our farmers, how much didthe US give to its corporations? On a crop value of 3.9 billion dollars, the UnitedStates gave its cotton growers a subsidy of 4.7billion dollars. It destroyed the bottom of theinternational cotton market. The cotton price at theNew York exchange ruled at 90 to 100 cents in 1994-95fell to around 40 cents and from that date suicidesbegan all over the world as prices crashed and farmersran up horrible losses. In Burkina Faso, hundreds of cotton farmers killedthemselves. In July 2003, the Presidents of BurkinaFaso and Mali wrote an article in New York Times,"Your Farm Subsidies are Strangling Us". We were notable to take action against such subsidies, them. While our duties on cotton are 10 per cent, if youare a Mumbai textile magnate, then you do not pay eventhat ten per cent. You get it waived in lieu ofexport of garments. Incidentally, if I am a Mumbaitextile magnate, I can even get the cotton freebecause private corporations dumping cotton in India would give me six months' credit. In six monthscredit, I can run the entire cycle from cotton tocotton garment. So, I am essentially getting an interest-free loanfrom you which I return in six months and I have madehuge profits. All these games are played around thelives of millions of people. Role of the media: For me the saddest thing is your (Mrs. Alva's) commenton the media. As a journalist, I totally endorse this.The saddest thing last year that happened was whenless than six 'national' journalists were covering thesuicides in Vidharbha. Five hundred and twelveaccredited journalists were fighting for space tocover the Lakme India Fashion Week. In that FashionWeek programme, the models were displaying cottongarments while the men and women who grew the cottonwere killing themselves at a distance of one hour'sflight from Nagpur in the Vidharbha region. The ironyof it should have been a news story, but nobody didthat story except one or two journalists locally. We withdrew the money of the advance bonus of Rs. 500a quintal at the time when the US and EU wereincreasing their subsidies. I went last year to US andvisited American farms. Including corporate styledairies. The subsidy per cow every day is twice yourNational Rural Employment Guarantee Programme minimumwage. It is around three dollars per cow which is Rs.120. Double your National Rural Employment GuaranteeProgramme wage which is Rs. 60. That is why myfriend, Vijay Jawandia from Wardha, put it sobeautifully in a television interview. He was asked –Jawandia saab what is the dream of the Indian farmer?He said the dream of the Indian farmer is to be bornas an American cow because they are getting threetimes the support that we do. We have locked thefarmer into global price shocks while removingwhatever safety nets they had. We have not been ableto fight the EU-US cotton subsidies. Seed companies are being allowed to run riot: We have deregulated agriculture to an extent where thequality of seed has now been graded much lower. Inthe sense, when you bought a bag of seed, on the backof seed, it will be stamped – 85 per cent germinationrate guaranteed. That is now 60 per cent. It meansif a village buys 10,000 bags of seed, they are payingfor 10,000 bags, but they are getting 6,000 bagsbecause we have lowered the standards through MOUswith companies. The seed industry, as I said earlier,is bigger than software exports. The agriculturaluniversities have collapsed. The extension machinery,as the Government of India itself says, is in a stateof complete disrepair. At the time the advance bonuswas withdrawn, we begged the government: Please do notdo this as suicides could double. We were wrong. Insome places, they tripled. We begged - do not dothis, do not do this, do not remove this, it willreally kill these people who are in a very precariousstage. Vidharbha Vs. Mumbai: Incidentally, by the end of 2005, there was a uniqueG.O. in Maharashtra. I do not know if you are aware ofit. In Maharashtra, it has 14 hours' or 15 hours'power cut whereas the best localities of Mumbai havenever a problem of power cut, not even for one minute.The beautiful people cannot be subjected to powercuts. Incidentally, a 15-minute power cut in Mumbaiwould give two hours of power to all the 11 districtsof Vidharbha, but the children of Vidharbha were notgiven that concession even during the exams. That iswhy Vidharbha's performance in HSC exams will alwaysbe worse, though the topper is from Vidharbha. Soalongside the withdrawal of the bonus, a new G.O.came. We have exemptions for power cuts. Do you knowwhat was exempted in the new GO of 2005? Post-mortemcentres were exempted from power cuts because so manypeople were being wielded in for post-mortem. Theyexempted post mortem centres from power cuts alongwith Armed Forces, Police Stations, Fire Brigade etc.
By P. Sainath
Rural Affairs Editor,
The Hindu
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Seeds Of Distress: Story Of Cotton Seed Growers In AP
Distress in Cotton cultivation is extended its boundaries and reached to Cotton seed production. The area under Cotton seed production is on a shrinking trend. This can be attributed to the exploitive nature of companies. Farmer both as a consumer and producer of seed is exploited by the seed companies. Farmer as a consumer of seed has to pay more price and inturn he is getting less price for his seeds. To get maximum yields companies promoting input intensive methods in seed production. These methods increases cost of cultivation and made seed production labor intensive activity. After a tedious work cotton growers getting very little profits which lead the farmers into distress.
Hybrid cottonseed production is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh which alone account for 62% of the total seed production in India. Within AP, nearly 90% of seed production is concentrated in Mahaboobnagar and Kurnool districts. Area under cotton seed production in these two districts is around 14,000 acres. Though seed production is carried out in most of the mandals in these districts there is high concentration of seed production in Gadwal, Dharur, Maldakal, Gattu, Iza, Atmakur, Jadcharla in Mahaboobnagar and Allagadda, Nandhyala, Sanjamala, Koillkuntla, banaganapalli, Uyyalawada, Emmiganur, Mantralayam, Kodumur mandals in Kurnool districts.
The other districts where cottonseed production is carried out are Randareddy in Telangana and West Godavary, Krishna, and Vijayanagaram in Coastal Andhra region and Kadapa in Rayalaseema. The basic reason for concentration of seed production in this region is availability of cheap labour and also suitability of climatic conditions.
Monsanto, JK seeds, Rasi seeds, Krishidhan, Ankur, Nandi, Nuzuveedu seeds etc are the major players in Cotton seed production. According to one seed organiser (middleman between Seed Company and farmer) there are around 10 companies involved in Cotton seed production. Companies develop their seed programmes prior to the season based on their market analysis. These seed companies work with seed organizers for implementing their seed programme. There is no direct link between seed companies and farmers, but the companies will make an agreement with farmer for supply of the predetermined quantity of seed. This agreement is made between company, seed organiser and seed grower.
Seed production activities broadly can be divided into three stages. Farmer's responsibility is to submit the seeds which are passed all the GOT tests. The first stage includes production at farmer's field, second stage includes the processing at ginning mills and the third stage includes seed treatment with chemicals and packing. Farmer is involved up-to the second stage and third stage will be done by the companies themselves. All the costs involved up-to second stage will be bared by the farmers.
In many places seed production activities begin in the month of April and ends in December. These activities will be beginning with making a contract with the seed organizer for producing certain quantity of seed of a particular company. Farmers are generally not aware of the variety of seed which he is going to produce and even he is not aware whether it is a breeder seed or foundation seed or it is Bt or Non-Bt seed. This contact is made between the farmer, seed organizer and the company. Usually after signing the contract seed organizer will supply the money to the farmer as advance (credit @2% interest) for inputs. This advance will vary from Rs.20, 000/- to Rs.40, 000/- depend on the trust between farmer and seed organizer. There are no formal bond papers etc for this credit. This system is entirely depending on faith.
Seeds will be supplied by the seed organizer on cost basis to the farmer. Cost of a packet of foundation seed of 450grs packet is around Rs.2000/-. Seed rate is 900grs (two packets). Male lines and female lines were sown separately. In case of Bt certain companies are keeping male lines as Bt and female lines as Non-Bt and others are using vice versa.
In the entire seed production "seed organiser" plays a vital role. The basic qualification to become a seed organiser is to supply the required credit to the farmers. This amount ranges from Rs.20, 000/- to Rs 40, 000/- . Some times, small companies will supply the money to seed organizers. The interest rates are fixed and from the company to seed organiser and it is 1% and from seed organiser to seed grower it is 2%.
The entire credit system runs on the basis of trust. There are no bond papers between any one of them. The amount of credit is depends on the trust between the seed organiser and seed grower. Each seed grower has dealings with 4-5 companies. There are around 200-250 seed organizers in both these districts. Most of the time seed organisers are not disclosing any details of the seed to the growers.
In addition to the credit supply, seed organisers also give extension support to the growers. Under each organizer there are 3-4 people for monitoring the fields. Companies pay the organisers for monitoring; this payment varies from company to company and ranges from Rs.1/- to Rs. 5/- per packet of seed produced. This means on average he will get around Rs.400/- to Rs.2000/- per acre (by assuming average yield is 400packets/acre). In addition to the supervision costs he will also get Rs.20/packet as commission.
Extension support provided by the seed organizer is basically about spraying of pesticides and fertilizers. They always suggest farmer to use more and more fertilizers and pesticides. Interestingly most of the seed organizers also have fertilizer and pesticide shops. This extension support increases the cost of cultivation and ultimately pushes the farmer into distress.
In addition to the seed organisers extension support, some companies also organizing trainings for farmers to get maximum yields and in all these trainings they advocate dumping of fertilizers and pesticides. One example for this is Monsanto's -Target 400. Farmers who followed these practices and using more and more inputs to get higher yields, ends at higher cost of cultivation and distress among the seed growers.
The entire seed production activities are labor and input intensive. It needs around 620 labor days spread across 120 days of seed production. Out of this 620 labor days 300 are for crossing. Labor costs accounts for Rs.50, 000/- per acre. To achieve higher yields farmers usually apply more fertilizers than commercial Cotton cultivation. Around 15- 20 bags of fertilizers, which includes Urea, DAP, Potash and other fertilizers are also applied. Proportion of DAP and Potash is more when compared to Urea. These costs accounts for Rs.7, 000/- per acre. Farmers use more pesticides to avoid any damage to the bolls and seeds. They use all kinds of pesticides and all most all stages of crop growth. The cost of pesticides accounts for Rs.10, 000/-. The total cost of seed production varies between Rs.80, 000/- to Rs.85, 000/-.
Scarcity of labor, increased labor costs and child labor are the major concerns in cotton seed production. Migrations of labor to work at constructions of irrigation projects and to urban areas are the major factor for scarcity of labor. Due to NREGP and the intense agriculture activities, as a result of timely rains are responsible for increased labor costs. According to U.Venkatesh of Bingidoddi "farmers don't have any other option but to withdraw from seed production as the cost of seed production increased tremendously due to labor costs".
Engaging child labor is still continuing even though companies are giving incentives for the farmers who avoid child labor in their fields. Companies paying only Rs.15/- per packet in the name of incentive, which is insufficient to meet the additional costs bared by the farmer for hiring adult labor. This incentive accounts for Rs.6000/ - (if the farmer gets a yield of 400 packets) but the additional cost incurred by the farmer for hiring adult labor for crossing is around Rs.21, 000/-. According to U.Venkatesh of Bingidoddi "companies are forcing farmer to use adult labor by sending NGO people and police, but they are not paying the required amounts for hiring adult labor, this effort is pushing the farmers into more troubles rather than resolving the issue".
After harvesting, farmers dry the fiber for one week to ten days. Farmers are allotted specific dates by the organizer to take their produce to the ginning mills. Few companies have their own ginning mills but most of the companies depend on the private ginning mills. In ginning mills processing is done by ginning, delinting, cleaning, GOT and treatment. The entire cost incurred at this stage will bared by the farmer. Farmer presence is must for the entire process. Farmer has to pay Rs750/- per quintal as the service charge to ginning mill, Rs 400/- as wages. The total costs accounts for Rs. 1150/- per quintal. If farmer has a yield of 8quintols he has to pay Rs.9, 200/- .Companies will pay the amount to the farmer only after passing all the tests and it will take two to three months time. Up-to this time farmer has to pay the interest to the seed organizer. The interest amount may reach a minimum of Rs.4, 000/- per acre.
Farmers who are producing cotton seeds are spending around Rs. 85,000/- per acre and in turn they are getting Rs.96, 000/- (if they get 400 packets per acre) which mans a net income of Rs.11, 000/-. If we look at the total economics of seed production it is clearly visible that companies exploiting the farmer at all the stages. Companies supply the foundation seed not only at a higher rate but also at low quantity packets. Farmer has to supply 750gr packets at a cost of Rs.240/- but the companies will sold the seeds at Rs. 800/- per packet of 450grs. According to U.Venkatesh of Bingidoddi "there is not much change in the price paid by the companies to the farmers in last ten years, but the selling price of companies was hiked many times".
The economics of Bt Cotton seed production is also the same as Non Bt cotton seed production even though companies promoting Bt Cotton is more profitable. According to the seed growers even though Boll worm incidence was reduced, other minor pests particularly sucking pests incidence was increased and the costs was increased at the same proportion.
The more dangerous trend in Cotton seed production is the encroachment of Bt seed production, which leads to termination of the farmer's rights on seed. One can visualize easily that with in a very short span of time extinction of all other varieties and hybrids. In the entire Cotton seed production belt of Andhra Pradesh, not even a single acre is under hybrids or verities other than Bt Cotton. This has serious implications on erosion of varieties, farmer's knowledge on breeding methods and economics. Loss of rights on seed means loss of Rs.11, 00 crores (share of cotton seed industry in India).
In these two districts we met many farmers and all of them explained their problems in detail. All of them expressed their desire to withdraw from the seed production. Some farmers are not able to with draw from seed production due to their debt trap. It is very clear from the study that there is an urgent need for shift to farmer centric seed production from company centric seed production.
By K. Jayaram
(K.Jayaram, is an agriculture economist working with Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad based NGO, working for sustainable agriculture. The author can be contacted at jayaramcsa@gmail.com)
Hybrid cottonseed production is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh which alone account for 62% of the total seed production in India. Within AP, nearly 90% of seed production is concentrated in Mahaboobnagar and Kurnool districts. Area under cotton seed production in these two districts is around 14,000 acres. Though seed production is carried out in most of the mandals in these districts there is high concentration of seed production in Gadwal, Dharur, Maldakal, Gattu, Iza, Atmakur, Jadcharla in Mahaboobnagar and Allagadda, Nandhyala, Sanjamala, Koillkuntla, banaganapalli, Uyyalawada, Emmiganur, Mantralayam, Kodumur mandals in Kurnool districts.
The other districts where cottonseed production is carried out are Randareddy in Telangana and West Godavary, Krishna, and Vijayanagaram in Coastal Andhra region and Kadapa in Rayalaseema. The basic reason for concentration of seed production in this region is availability of cheap labour and also suitability of climatic conditions.
Monsanto, JK seeds, Rasi seeds, Krishidhan, Ankur, Nandi, Nuzuveedu seeds etc are the major players in Cotton seed production. According to one seed organiser (middleman between Seed Company and farmer) there are around 10 companies involved in Cotton seed production. Companies develop their seed programmes prior to the season based on their market analysis. These seed companies work with seed organizers for implementing their seed programme. There is no direct link between seed companies and farmers, but the companies will make an agreement with farmer for supply of the predetermined quantity of seed. This agreement is made between company, seed organiser and seed grower.
Seed production activities broadly can be divided into three stages. Farmer's responsibility is to submit the seeds which are passed all the GOT tests. The first stage includes production at farmer's field, second stage includes the processing at ginning mills and the third stage includes seed treatment with chemicals and packing. Farmer is involved up-to the second stage and third stage will be done by the companies themselves. All the costs involved up-to second stage will be bared by the farmers.
In many places seed production activities begin in the month of April and ends in December. These activities will be beginning with making a contract with the seed organizer for producing certain quantity of seed of a particular company. Farmers are generally not aware of the variety of seed which he is going to produce and even he is not aware whether it is a breeder seed or foundation seed or it is Bt or Non-Bt seed. This contact is made between the farmer, seed organizer and the company. Usually after signing the contract seed organizer will supply the money to the farmer as advance (credit @2% interest) for inputs. This advance will vary from Rs.20, 000/- to Rs.40, 000/- depend on the trust between farmer and seed organizer. There are no formal bond papers etc for this credit. This system is entirely depending on faith.
Seeds will be supplied by the seed organizer on cost basis to the farmer. Cost of a packet of foundation seed of 450grs packet is around Rs.2000/-. Seed rate is 900grs (two packets). Male lines and female lines were sown separately. In case of Bt certain companies are keeping male lines as Bt and female lines as Non-Bt and others are using vice versa.
In the entire seed production "seed organiser" plays a vital role. The basic qualification to become a seed organiser is to supply the required credit to the farmers. This amount ranges from Rs.20, 000/- to Rs 40, 000/- . Some times, small companies will supply the money to seed organizers. The interest rates are fixed and from the company to seed organiser and it is 1% and from seed organiser to seed grower it is 2%.
The entire credit system runs on the basis of trust. There are no bond papers between any one of them. The amount of credit is depends on the trust between the seed organiser and seed grower. Each seed grower has dealings with 4-5 companies. There are around 200-250 seed organizers in both these districts. Most of the time seed organisers are not disclosing any details of the seed to the growers.
In addition to the credit supply, seed organisers also give extension support to the growers. Under each organizer there are 3-4 people for monitoring the fields. Companies pay the organisers for monitoring; this payment varies from company to company and ranges from Rs.1/- to Rs. 5/- per packet of seed produced. This means on average he will get around Rs.400/- to Rs.2000/- per acre (by assuming average yield is 400packets/acre). In addition to the supervision costs he will also get Rs.20/packet as commission.
Extension support provided by the seed organizer is basically about spraying of pesticides and fertilizers. They always suggest farmer to use more and more fertilizers and pesticides. Interestingly most of the seed organizers also have fertilizer and pesticide shops. This extension support increases the cost of cultivation and ultimately pushes the farmer into distress.
In addition to the seed organisers extension support, some companies also organizing trainings for farmers to get maximum yields and in all these trainings they advocate dumping of fertilizers and pesticides. One example for this is Monsanto's -Target 400. Farmers who followed these practices and using more and more inputs to get higher yields, ends at higher cost of cultivation and distress among the seed growers.
The entire seed production activities are labor and input intensive. It needs around 620 labor days spread across 120 days of seed production. Out of this 620 labor days 300 are for crossing. Labor costs accounts for Rs.50, 000/- per acre. To achieve higher yields farmers usually apply more fertilizers than commercial Cotton cultivation. Around 15- 20 bags of fertilizers, which includes Urea, DAP, Potash and other fertilizers are also applied. Proportion of DAP and Potash is more when compared to Urea. These costs accounts for Rs.7, 000/- per acre. Farmers use more pesticides to avoid any damage to the bolls and seeds. They use all kinds of pesticides and all most all stages of crop growth. The cost of pesticides accounts for Rs.10, 000/-. The total cost of seed production varies between Rs.80, 000/- to Rs.85, 000/-.
Scarcity of labor, increased labor costs and child labor are the major concerns in cotton seed production. Migrations of labor to work at constructions of irrigation projects and to urban areas are the major factor for scarcity of labor. Due to NREGP and the intense agriculture activities, as a result of timely rains are responsible for increased labor costs. According to U.Venkatesh of Bingidoddi "farmers don't have any other option but to withdraw from seed production as the cost of seed production increased tremendously due to labor costs".
Engaging child labor is still continuing even though companies are giving incentives for the farmers who avoid child labor in their fields. Companies paying only Rs.15/- per packet in the name of incentive, which is insufficient to meet the additional costs bared by the farmer for hiring adult labor. This incentive accounts for Rs.6000/ - (if the farmer gets a yield of 400 packets) but the additional cost incurred by the farmer for hiring adult labor for crossing is around Rs.21, 000/-. According to U.Venkatesh of Bingidoddi "companies are forcing farmer to use adult labor by sending NGO people and police, but they are not paying the required amounts for hiring adult labor, this effort is pushing the farmers into more troubles rather than resolving the issue".
After harvesting, farmers dry the fiber for one week to ten days. Farmers are allotted specific dates by the organizer to take their produce to the ginning mills. Few companies have their own ginning mills but most of the companies depend on the private ginning mills. In ginning mills processing is done by ginning, delinting, cleaning, GOT and treatment. The entire cost incurred at this stage will bared by the farmer. Farmer presence is must for the entire process. Farmer has to pay Rs750/- per quintal as the service charge to ginning mill, Rs 400/- as wages. The total costs accounts for Rs. 1150/- per quintal. If farmer has a yield of 8quintols he has to pay Rs.9, 200/- .Companies will pay the amount to the farmer only after passing all the tests and it will take two to three months time. Up-to this time farmer has to pay the interest to the seed organizer. The interest amount may reach a minimum of Rs.4, 000/- per acre.
Farmers who are producing cotton seeds are spending around Rs. 85,000/- per acre and in turn they are getting Rs.96, 000/- (if they get 400 packets per acre) which mans a net income of Rs.11, 000/-. If we look at the total economics of seed production it is clearly visible that companies exploiting the farmer at all the stages. Companies supply the foundation seed not only at a higher rate but also at low quantity packets. Farmer has to supply 750gr packets at a cost of Rs.240/- but the companies will sold the seeds at Rs. 800/- per packet of 450grs. According to U.Venkatesh of Bingidoddi "there is not much change in the price paid by the companies to the farmers in last ten years, but the selling price of companies was hiked many times".
The economics of Bt Cotton seed production is also the same as Non Bt cotton seed production even though companies promoting Bt Cotton is more profitable. According to the seed growers even though Boll worm incidence was reduced, other minor pests particularly sucking pests incidence was increased and the costs was increased at the same proportion.
The more dangerous trend in Cotton seed production is the encroachment of Bt seed production, which leads to termination of the farmer's rights on seed. One can visualize easily that with in a very short span of time extinction of all other varieties and hybrids. In the entire Cotton seed production belt of Andhra Pradesh, not even a single acre is under hybrids or verities other than Bt Cotton. This has serious implications on erosion of varieties, farmer's knowledge on breeding methods and economics. Loss of rights on seed means loss of Rs.11, 00 crores (share of cotton seed industry in India).
In these two districts we met many farmers and all of them explained their problems in detail. All of them expressed their desire to withdraw from the seed production. Some farmers are not able to with draw from seed production due to their debt trap. It is very clear from the study that there is an urgent need for shift to farmer centric seed production from company centric seed production.
By K. Jayaram
(K.Jayaram, is an agriculture economist working with Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad based NGO, working for sustainable agriculture. The author can be contacted at jayaramcsa@gmail.com)
Monday, 9 July 2007
Indian farmer suicides spiral despite cash plans
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Hundreds of farmers unable to repay crop loans killed themselves in India's richest state in the past year, despite a multi-million dollar cash plan to improve their lot, activists said on Friday.
The spate of suicides in Maharashtra since last July touched 1,132, they said, highlighting the failure of highly publicised efforts by New Delhi to ease the financial burden of cotton farmers.
Debt-ridden farmers have been committing suicide in four Indian states and government statistics have recorded more than 4,500 deaths in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala in the past six years.
Activists and farmers' groups say the figure is at least five times more.
They say the "accumulated distress" of the cotton growers of Maharashtra was the highest because of $400 million in one-time grants, interest waivers and debt restructuring announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year had not been properly implemented.
"Even crop seeds promised were never given," said Kishor Tiwari, head of Vidharba Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmers' lobby.
"The money lies unutilised because of a callous bureaucracy. There are at least 1.2 million farmers under distress now."
STILL DYING
Most of India's farming community is poverty-stricken and many farmers borrow -- often amounts that would only buy a few drinks in an upmarket London or New York pub -- from the village moneylender at rates as high as 10 percent a month.
Their debts soar when crops fail due to poor rains or when prices tumble.
Those borrowing privately are not eligible for government relief. Even those who borrow from banks, including state-run rural banks, often have to pay bribes for their loans.
Agriculture supports 600 million of India's 1.1 billion people, but contributes only a fifth of gross domestic product and accounts for only 12 percent of bank credit.
A Maharashtra government Web site said 454 farmers had killed themselves between January and May this year.
Officials said the relief plan was starting to benefit farmers, but more time was needed.
"Suicides have come down by 50 percent in the last one year," said Ramesh Kumar, a top Maharashtra relief official.
But activists said the government was playing down the crisis which the special relief package had not been able to deal with.
"Just go and see if there has been any change in their lot. They are still dying," said Sharad Joshi, chief of Shetkari Sangathan, a powerful farmers' group.
By Krittivas Mukherjee
=========================================================
The spate of suicides in Maharashtra since last July touched 1,132, they said, highlighting the failure of highly publicised efforts by New Delhi to ease the financial burden of cotton farmers.
Debt-ridden farmers have been committing suicide in four Indian states and government statistics have recorded more than 4,500 deaths in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala in the past six years.
Activists and farmers' groups say the figure is at least five times more.
They say the "accumulated distress" of the cotton growers of Maharashtra was the highest because of $400 million in one-time grants, interest waivers and debt restructuring announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year had not been properly implemented.
"Even crop seeds promised were never given," said Kishor Tiwari, head of Vidharba Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmers' lobby.
"The money lies unutilised because of a callous bureaucracy. There are at least 1.2 million farmers under distress now."
STILL DYING
Most of India's farming community is poverty-stricken and many farmers borrow -- often amounts that would only buy a few drinks in an upmarket London or New York pub -- from the village moneylender at rates as high as 10 percent a month.
Their debts soar when crops fail due to poor rains or when prices tumble.
Those borrowing privately are not eligible for government relief. Even those who borrow from banks, including state-run rural banks, often have to pay bribes for their loans.
Agriculture supports 600 million of India's 1.1 billion people, but contributes only a fifth of gross domestic product and accounts for only 12 percent of bank credit.
A Maharashtra government Web site said 454 farmers had killed themselves between January and May this year.
Officials said the relief plan was starting to benefit farmers, but more time was needed.
"Suicides have come down by 50 percent in the last one year," said Ramesh Kumar, a top Maharashtra relief official.
But activists said the government was playing down the crisis which the special relief package had not been able to deal with.
"Just go and see if there has been any change in their lot. They are still dying," said Sharad Joshi, chief of Shetkari Sangathan, a powerful farmers' group.
By Krittivas Mukherjee
=========================================================
Thursday, 5 July 2007
Displacing farmers: India Will Have 400 million Agricultural Refugees
It was on the cards. With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announcing theformation of a new rehabilitation policy for farmers displaced from land acquisitions, it is now official -- farmers have to quitagriculture.Ever since the Congress-led UPA Coalition assumed power after an angryrural protest vote threw out the erstwhile BJP-led NDA combination in May 2004, the Prime Minister had initiated a plethora of new policiesfor the spread of industrialization. After having laid the policyframework that allows private control over community resources - water,biodiversity, forests, seeds, agriculture markets, and mineralresources -- the UPA government finally looked at the possibility ofdivesting the poor people of their only economic security - a meagrepiece of land holding. "Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is an idea whose time has come," the PrimeMinister had said at an award ceremony in Mumbai sometimes back.Supported by all political parties, including the Left Front, he hasactually officiated a nationwide campaign to displace farmers. Almost500 special economic zones are being carved out (see The New Maharajasof India). What is however less known is that successive government'sare actually following a policy prescription that had been laid out by the World Bank as early as in 1995.A former vice-president of the World Bank and a former chairman ofConsultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), abody that governs the 16 international agricultural research centers, Dr Ismail Serageldin, had forewarned a number of years ago. At aconference organised by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation inChennai a few years back, he quoted the World Bank to say that thenumber of people estimated to migrate from rural to urban India by the year 2015 is expected to be equal to twice the combined population ofUK, France and Germany.The combined population of UK, France and Germany is 200 million. TheWorld Bank had therefore estimated that some 400 million people would be willingly or unwillingly moving from the rural to urban centres by2015. Subsequent studies have shown that massive distress migrationwill result in the years to come. For instance, 70 per cent of TamilNadu, 65 per cent of Punjab, and nearly 55 per cent of Uttar Pradesh is expected to migrate to urban centres by the year 2020.These 400 million displaced will constitute the new class of migrants -agricultural refugees.Acerbating the crisis are the policy initiatives that promotes privatization of natural resources, take over of farm land, integratingIndian agriculture with the global economy, and moving farmers out ofagriculture - in essence the hallmark of the neo-liberal economicgrowth model.Agricultural reforms that are being introduced in the name ofincreasing food production and minimising the price risks that thefarmers continue to be faced with, are actually aimed at destroying the production capacity of the farm lands and would lead to furthermarginalisation of the farming communities. Encouraging contractfarming, future trading in agriculture commodities, land leasing,forming land-sharing companies, direct procurement of farm commodities by amending the APMC Act will only drive out a majority of farmers outof subsistence agriculture.Although the land holding size is diminishing, the answer does not liein allowing the private companies to replace farmers. Somehow the entire effort of the policy makers is to establish that Indianagriculture has become a burden on the nation and the sooner thecountry offloads the farming class the better it will be for economicgrowth.Contract farming therefore has become the new agricultural mantra. Notrealising that private companies enter agriculture with the specificobjective of garnering more profits from the same piece of land. Thesecompanies, if the global experience is any indication, bank upon stillmore intensive farming practices, drain the soil of nutrients and suckground water in a couple of years, and render the fertile lands almostbarren after four to five years. It has been estimated that the cropsthat are contracted by the private companies require on an average 20times more chemical inputs and water than the staple foods.Sugarcane farmers, for instance, who follow a system of cane bonding with the mills, actually were drawing 240 cm of water every year, whichis three times more than what wheat and rice requires on an average.Rose cultivation, introduced a few years back, requires 212 inches ofgroundwater consumption in every acre. Contract farming will thereforefurther exploit whatever remains of the ground water resources. Thesecompanies would then hand over the barren and unproductive land to thefarmers who leased them, and would move to another fertile piece ofland. This has been the global experience so far.Allowing direct procurement of farm commodities, setting up specialmarkets for the private companies to mop up the produce, and to set up land share companies, are all directed at the uncontrolled entry of themultinational corporations in the farm sector. Coupled with theintroduction of the genetically modified crops, and the unlimitedcredit support for the agribusiness companies, the focus is to strengthen the ability of the companies to take over the food chain.I have always warned that agribusiness companies in reality hatefarmers. Nowhere in the world have they worked in tandem with farmers.Even in North America and Europe, agribusiness companies have pushedfarmers out of agriculture. As a result, only 7,00,000 farming familiesare left on the farm in the United States. Despite massive subsidies inEuropean Union, one farmer quits agriculture every minute. Knowing wellthat the markets will displace farmers, the same agricultureprescription is being applied in India.A Planning Commission study has shown that 73 per cent of the cultivable land in the country is owned by 23.6 per cent of thepopulation. With more and more farmers being displaced through landacquisitions, either for SEZ or for food processing and technologyparks or for real estate purposes, land is further getting accumulated in the hands of the elite and resourceful. With chief ministers actingas property dealers, farmers are being lured to divest control overcultivable land. Food security and food self-sufficiency is no longerthe country's political priority.The government has very conveniently taken refuge behind an NSSO studythat says some 40 per cent of the farmers have expressed the desire toquit farming. After all, what the government is facilitating is to make it easier for the farmers to abandon their land. It believes that arehabilitation policy for the farmers therefore is the need of thehour. What is however not being seen through is that an agrarianeconomy like India cannot afford large-scale displacement of farmers. It will lead to social unrest the kind of which has not been witnessed.What India needs desperately is a policy paradigm that restores pridein agriculture, stops take-over of agricultural lands, and ensuressustainable livelihoods for 600 million farmers.
By Devinder Sharma
(Devinder Sharma is a food and agriculture policy analyst. He can becontacted at dsharma@ndf.vsnl.net.in)
By Devinder Sharma
(Devinder Sharma is a food and agriculture policy analyst. He can becontacted at dsharma@ndf.vsnl.net.in)
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER
Ref-Vidarbha Farm Crisis Dated-30/06/2007
VIDARBHA FARM CRISIS SCENARIO AFTER ONE YEAR PRIME MINISTER PACKAGE- DEAR PRIME MINISTERJI : PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES
TO,
DR. MANMOHAN SINGHJI,
HON.BLE PRIME MINISTER,
PMO,NEW DELIHI-110011
REF- 1120 VIDARBHA FARMERS SUICIDES AS RELIEF PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES.
Dear sir,
Now it's after one year that you visited west vidarbha to under stand the Agrarian crisis in which more than 5000 farmers suicides reported since 2002 ,In fact before your visit Dr.S.W.Swaminathan as Chairman of National Commission for farmers NCF visited vidarbha in the month October-2005 then in the months of march-2006 team of expert from Planning Commission visited the vidarbha ,vidarbha farm crisis is the part of Indian Agararian crisis in which farmers are killing themselves and as per official record since 1995 more than 1,00,000(one lac)farmers mostly cotton growers or coffee growers are the main victims of economical collapse of rural system after we opted open trade and free economy ,your vidarbha visit was part of relief exercise to address this national issue of farmers suicides and experts have already prepared the relief package before your visit to vidarbha and you announced it on 1 st July 2006 ,we protested the relief package as our main demand of debt waiver and income base solution for the cash crop of the cotton farmers was missing but farmers but it was shown the dustbin .
Now we are informed that you are reviewing the relief package that you announced year before on 1 st july 2006 and we want update some of the facts to support our claim that relief package has been failed to address the basic issues of rural crisis in west vidarbha.
1.Record 1120 farmers suicides in last one year ,here is chronological account of farm suicides in vidarbha month wise and district wise
MONTH DISTRICT
FARM SUICIDES FARM SUICIDES
JULY-2006 YAVATMAL
90 283
AUGUST-2006 AMARAVATI
111 180
SEPTEMBER-2006 AKOLA
124 131
OCTOBER-2006 WASHIM
112 151
NOVEMBER-2006 BULDHANA
107 145
DECEMBER-2006 WARDHA
105 104
JAN-2007 NAGPUR
70 27
FEB-2007 BHANDARA
86 32
MARCH-2007 CHANDRAPUR
82 41
APRIL-2007 GADCHIROLI
90 12
MAY-2007 GONDIA
79 14
JUNE-2007
64
TOTAL TOTAL
1120 1120
Farm suicide is not the any way indicator of vidarbha agrarian crisis but we would like to draw your attention to Survey Report dated 15 th June, 2006 conducted by the Government of Maharashtra's Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swawlamban Mission at Amravati in connection with the Farmers' plight.
2.Sir, it is evident from the Survey Document that the farmers ' in extreme distress' as mentioned in the column 9 of the Survey Chart are 4,34,291 and the farmers families suffering from serious illness are 92,456.
Relief package failed to address the basic issue of vidarbha farmers that is credit and cost
RELIEF PACKAGE FAILURE DETAILS
1
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.710 CRORE TO THE BANK AS INTEREST WAIVER THAT HAS DRASTICALLY REDUCED NPA OF BANKS.
DISBUSEMENT - ADDITIONAL RS.840 CRORE CROP LOAN GIVEN TO THE COTTON FARMERS.
RESULT - THIS YEAR DEBT AMOUNT INCREASE AS NABARD FAILED INCREASE CROP LOAN CREDIT. TILL DATE ONLY 2LACS FARMERS HAVE BEEN GIVEN FRESH CROP LOAN AS AGAINST 8 LACS LAST YEAR.
2.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.2460 CRORE FOR MAJOR AND MICRO IRRIGATION PURPOSE
DISBUSEMENT - ONLY RS.231 CRORE RELEASED ON PAPER
RESULT - NO SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN AREA UNDER IRRIGATION IN FACT IT WAS ONLY 12000 ACRE AGAINST 80000 ACRE IN LAST RUBY SEASON
3
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS. 90 CRORE AID FOR OTGANAIC FARMING
DISBUSEMENT - NIL AMOUNT WAS GIVEN BY THE STATE
RESULT - AREA UNDER B.T. COTTON DOUBLE IN THIS SEASON
4.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RELIEF WIDOWS
DISBUSEMENT - PMO FAILED TO MONITOR THIS AID TOO
RESULT - OUT OF 120 SUICIDES 890 CASES WERE REJECTED BY ADMINISTRATION.
The detailed survey was conducted by the said Government Controlled Mission at Amravati under the guidance of Divisional Commissioner at Amravati, in the 8351 Villages of 6 Districts of Vidarbha comprising of Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Washim & Wardha in which 17,64,438 families were surveyed by the Mission.
On the basis of the in-depth study and analysis conducted by our organization, out of such a huge numbers of families from those surveyed villages, we would like to draw your immediate attention towards the column No. 8 & 9 pertaining to the farmers in extreme distress and farmers with serious illness as stated above. Hon'ble Sir, in majority of cases of farmers suicides, we came to know that there is no food or medicine available to them and this plight has continued to result the extreme step of suicide by the said farmer and / or its family members. Now, it is imperative on the part of the Union of India and State of Maharashtra that this known factors / points are to be attended to immediately so that these two class of farmers families i.e. the Farmers in Extreme Distress and Farmers Suffering from Serious Illness need to be attended immediately to remediate the plight of such farmers on the verge of committing suicides.
Farmers in Extreme Distress –
Identified Families : 4,34,291.
CAUSES IDENTIFIED :
After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we came to know that there was no food even sufficient for 2 days in the houses of such farmers. These unfortunate facts of non-availability of Food or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The Union of India through State of Maharashtra is providing food grain at the subsidized rate to the BPL families amongst the farm / landless labours. In order to stop the indirect hunger and starvation of these 4,34,291 Identified 'Families in Extreme Distress', most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless labourers (Col No. 9 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide 25 Kg of Food grain per month at the subsidized price @ Rs. 3 – 5 per kg under the PDS and/or any other special scheme to be announced at least for a period of 18 months now onwards. This will immediately result in providing direct food help to the 4,34,291 Identified Families in Extreme Distress and the indirect starvation of such families can be stopped so that the ultimate effect which is leading to the unfortunate suicide of the farmer family can be stopped, once the hunger and the indirect starvation of such families is attended to.
As per Maharashtra govt. official report that more than
95 000 farmers families suffering from serious illness and when we visited families and After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we also came to know that there was no medicine in the houses of such farmers where the family members are seriously ill or suffering from such diseases. The non-availability of medicine or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect sufferings due to illness, hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The State is providing medical / health services to BPL families at the subsidized rate amongst the farm / landless laborers. In order to stop the indirect plight due to serious illness coupled with hunger and starvation of these around 95,000 Identified Farmers Families with Serious Illness, most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless laborers (Col No. 8 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide Special BPL / Health Cards to such families so that they get the subsidized health care in Government run hospitals at par with the landless laborers or BPL families. This will immediately help in providing direct health care to the 92,456 Identified Families with Serious Illness and in Extreme Distress and which can help to stop the unfortunate suicide of the farmer families with serious illness.
FARMERS WANTS RURAL SYSTEM RESTORATION
Drop in income and sudden increase in input cost of cultivation couple with high cost being paid to health care ,education and maintaining daily livelihood has very difficult to farming society. farmers needs restoration civil and social system in order that they need profitable farming couple with free health care and education.
dear prime minister you are kindly requested to look in to these aspects and arrange to provide the relief address .
thanking you,
yours faith fully
Kishor tiwari
President
Vidarbha jna andolan samiti
vidarbha@gmail.com
andolan.blogspot.com
contact-094222108846
VIDARBHA FARM CRISIS SCENARIO AFTER ONE YEAR PRIME MINISTER PACKAGE- DEAR PRIME MINISTERJI : PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES
TO,
DR. MANMOHAN SINGHJI,
HON.BLE PRIME MINISTER,
PMO,NEW DELIHI-110011
REF- 1120 VIDARBHA FARMERS SUICIDES AS RELIEF PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES.
Dear sir,
Now it's after one year that you visited west vidarbha to under stand the Agrarian crisis in which more than 5000 farmers suicides reported since 2002 ,In fact before your visit Dr.S.W.Swaminathan as Chairman of National Commission for farmers NCF visited vidarbha in the month October-2005 then in the months of march-2006 team of expert from Planning Commission visited the vidarbha ,vidarbha farm crisis is the part of Indian Agararian crisis in which farmers are killing themselves and as per official record since 1995 more than 1,00,000(one lac)farmers mostly cotton growers or coffee growers are the main victims of economical collapse of rural system after we opted open trade and free economy ,your vidarbha visit was part of relief exercise to address this national issue of farmers suicides and experts have already prepared the relief package before your visit to vidarbha and you announced it on 1 st July 2006 ,we protested the relief package as our main demand of debt waiver and income base solution for the cash crop of the cotton farmers was missing but farmers but it was shown the dustbin .
Now we are informed that you are reviewing the relief package that you announced year before on 1 st july 2006 and we want update some of the facts to support our claim that relief package has been failed to address the basic issues of rural crisis in west vidarbha.
1.Record 1120 farmers suicides in last one year ,here is chronological account of farm suicides in vidarbha month wise and district wise
MONTH DISTRICT
FARM SUICIDES FARM SUICIDES
JULY-2006 YAVATMAL
90 283
AUGUST-2006 AMARAVATI
111 180
SEPTEMBER-2006 AKOLA
124 131
OCTOBER-2006 WASHIM
112 151
NOVEMBER-2006 BULDHANA
107 145
DECEMBER-2006 WARDHA
105 104
JAN-2007 NAGPUR
70 27
FEB-2007 BHANDARA
86 32
MARCH-2007 CHANDRAPUR
82 41
APRIL-2007 GADCHIROLI
90 12
MAY-2007 GONDIA
79 14
JUNE-2007
64
TOTAL TOTAL
1120 1120
Farm suicide is not the any way indicator of vidarbha agrarian crisis but we would like to draw your attention to Survey Report dated 15 th June, 2006 conducted by the Government of Maharashtra's Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swawlamban Mission at Amravati in connection with the Farmers' plight.
2.Sir, it is evident from the Survey Document that the farmers ' in extreme distress' as mentioned in the column 9 of the Survey Chart are 4,34,291 and the farmers families suffering from serious illness are 92,456.
Relief package failed to address the basic issue of vidarbha farmers that is credit and cost
RELIEF PACKAGE FAILURE DETAILS
1
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.710 CRORE TO THE BANK AS INTEREST WAIVER THAT HAS DRASTICALLY REDUCED NPA OF BANKS.
DISBUSEMENT - ADDITIONAL RS.840 CRORE CROP LOAN GIVEN TO THE COTTON FARMERS.
RESULT - THIS YEAR DEBT AMOUNT INCREASE AS NABARD FAILED INCREASE CROP LOAN CREDIT. TILL DATE ONLY 2LACS FARMERS HAVE BEEN GIVEN FRESH CROP LOAN AS AGAINST 8 LACS LAST YEAR.
2.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.2460 CRORE FOR MAJOR AND MICRO IRRIGATION PURPOSE
DISBUSEMENT - ONLY RS.231 CRORE RELEASED ON PAPER
RESULT - NO SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN AREA UNDER IRRIGATION IN FACT IT WAS ONLY 12000 ACRE AGAINST 80000 ACRE IN LAST RUBY SEASON
3
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS. 90 CRORE AID FOR OTGANAIC FARMING
DISBUSEMENT - NIL AMOUNT WAS GIVEN BY THE STATE
RESULT - AREA UNDER B.T. COTTON DOUBLE IN THIS SEASON
4.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RELIEF WIDOWS
DISBUSEMENT - PMO FAILED TO MONITOR THIS AID TOO
RESULT - OUT OF 120 SUICIDES 890 CASES WERE REJECTED BY ADMINISTRATION.
The detailed survey was conducted by the said Government Controlled Mission at Amravati under the guidance of Divisional Commissioner at Amravati, in the 8351 Villages of 6 Districts of Vidarbha comprising of Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Washim & Wardha in which 17,64,438 families were surveyed by the Mission.
On the basis of the in-depth study and analysis conducted by our organization, out of such a huge numbers of families from those surveyed villages, we would like to draw your immediate attention towards the column No. 8 & 9 pertaining to the farmers in extreme distress and farmers with serious illness as stated above. Hon'ble Sir, in majority of cases of farmers suicides, we came to know that there is no food or medicine available to them and this plight has continued to result the extreme step of suicide by the said farmer and / or its family members. Now, it is imperative on the part of the Union of India and State of Maharashtra that this known factors / points are to be attended to immediately so that these two class of farmers families i.e. the Farmers in Extreme Distress and Farmers Suffering from Serious Illness need to be attended immediately to remediate the plight of such farmers on the verge of committing suicides.
Farmers in Extreme Distress –
Identified Families : 4,34,291.
CAUSES IDENTIFIED :
After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we came to know that there was no food even sufficient for 2 days in the houses of such farmers. These unfortunate facts of non-availability of Food or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The Union of India through State of Maharashtra is providing food grain at the subsidized rate to the BPL families amongst the farm / landless labours. In order to stop the indirect hunger and starvation of these 4,34,291 Identified 'Families in Extreme Distress', most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless labourers (Col No. 9 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide 25 Kg of Food grain per month at the subsidized price @ Rs. 3 – 5 per kg under the PDS and/or any other special scheme to be announced at least for a period of 18 months now onwards. This will immediately result in providing direct food help to the 4,34,291 Identified Families in Extreme Distress and the indirect starvation of such families can be stopped so that the ultimate effect which is leading to the unfortunate suicide of the farmer family can be stopped, once the hunger and the indirect starvation of such families is attended to.
As per Maharashtra govt. official report that more than
95 000 farmers families suffering from serious illness and when we visited families and After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we also came to know that there was no medicine in the houses of such farmers where the family members are seriously ill or suffering from such diseases. The non-availability of medicine or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect sufferings due to illness, hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The State is providing medical / health services to BPL families at the subsidized rate amongst the farm / landless laborers. In order to stop the indirect plight due to serious illness coupled with hunger and starvation of these around 95,000 Identified Farmers Families with Serious Illness, most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless laborers (Col No. 8 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide Special BPL / Health Cards to such families so that they get the subsidized health care in Government run hospitals at par with the landless laborers or BPL families. This will immediately help in providing direct health care to the 92,456 Identified Families with Serious Illness and in Extreme Distress and which can help to stop the unfortunate suicide of the farmer families with serious illness.
FARMERS WANTS RURAL SYSTEM RESTORATION
Drop in income and sudden increase in input cost of cultivation couple with high cost being paid to health care ,education and maintaining daily livelihood has very difficult to farming society. farmers needs restoration civil and social system in order that they need profitable farming couple with free health care and education.
dear prime minister you are kindly requested to look in to these aspects and arrange to provide the relief address .
thanking you,
yours faith fully
Kishor tiwari
President
Vidarbha jna andolan samiti
vidarbha@gmail.com
andolan.blogspot.com
contact-094222108846
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Around the Globe, Farmers Losing Ground
WASHINGTON - In 1938, Walter Lowdermilk, a senior official in the Soil Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, traveled abroad to look at lands that had been cultivated for thousands of years, seeking to learn how these older civilisations had coped with soil erosion.
He found that some had managed their land well, maintaining its fertility over long stretches of history, and were thriving. Others had failed to do so and left only remnants of their illustrious pasts.
In a section of his report entitled “The Hundred Dead Cities,” he described a site in northern Syria, near Aleppo, where ancient buildings were still standing in stark isolated relief, but they were on bare rock. During the seventh century, the thriving region had been invaded, initially by a Persian army and later by nomads out of the Arabian Desert. In the process, soil and water conservation practices used for centuries were abandoned.
Lowdermilk noted, “Here erosion had done its worst… if the soils had remained, even though the cities were destroyed and the populations dispersed, the area might be re-peopled again and the cities rebuilt, but now that the soils are gone, all is gone.”
Now fast forward to a trip in 2002 by a United Nations team to assess the food situation in Lesotho, a small country of 2 million people imbedded within South Africa. Their finding was straightforward: “Agriculture in Lesotho faces a catastrophic future; crop production is declining and could cease altogether over large tracts of the country if steps are not taken to reverse soil erosion, degradation, and the decline in soil fertility.”
Michael Grunwald reports in the Washington Post that nearly half of the children under five in Lesotho are stunted physically. “Many,” he says, “are too weak to walk to school.”
Whether the land is in northern Syria, Lesotho, or elsewhere, the health of the people living on it cannot be separated from the health of the land itself. A large share of the world’s 852 million hungry people live on land with soils worn thin by erosion.
The thin layer of topsoil that covers the planet’s land surface is the foundation of civilisation. This soil, measured in inches over much of the earth, was formed over long stretches of geological time as new soil formation exceeded the natural rate of erosion. As soil accumulated over the eons, it provided a medium in which plants could grow. In turn, plants protect the soil from erosion. Human activity is disrupting this relationship.
Sometime within the last century, soil erosion began to exceed new soil formation in large areas. Perhaps a third or more of all cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming, thereby reducing the land’s inherent productivity. Today the foundation of civilisation is crumbling. The seeds of collapse of some early civilisations, such as the Mayans, may have originated in soil erosion that undermined the food supply.
The accelerating soil erosion over the last century can be seen in the dust bowls that form as vegetation is destroyed and wind erosion soars out of control. Among those that stand out are the Dust Bowl in the U.S. Great Plains during the 1930s, the dust bowls in the Soviet Virgin Lands in the 1960s, the huge one that is forming today in northwest China, and the one taking shape in the Sahelian region of Africa.
Each of these is associated with a familiar pattern of overgrazing, deforestation, and agricultural expansion onto marginal land, followed by retrenchment as the soil begins to disappear.
Twentieth-century population growth pushed agriculture onto highly vulnerable land in many countries. The overplowing of the U.S. Great Plains during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, led to the 1930s Dust Bowl. This was a tragic era in U.S. history, one that forced hundreds of thousands of farm families to leave the Great Plains. Many migrated to California in search of a new life, a move immortalised in John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath”.
Three decades later, history repeated itself in the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands Project between 1954 and 1960 centred on plowing an area of grassland for wheat that was larger than the wheatland in Canada and Australia combined. Initially this resulted in an impressive expansion in Soviet grain production, but the success was short-lived as a dust bowl developed there as well.
Kazakhstan, at the centre of this Virgin Lands Project, saw its grainland area peak at just over 25 million hectares (44 millions acres) around 1980, then shrink to 14 million hectares today. Even on the remaining land, however, the average wheat yield is scarcely one tonne per hectare, a far cry from the nearly eight tonnes per hectare that farmers get in France, Western Europe’s leading wheat producer.
A similar situation exists in Mongolia, where over the last 20 years half the wheatland has been abandoned and wheat yields have also fallen by half, shrinking the harvest by three fourths. Mongolia — a country almost three times the size of France with a population of 2.6 million — is now forced to import nearly 60 percent of its wheat.
Dust storms originating in the new dust bowls are now faithfully recorded in satellite images. In early January 2005, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released images of a vast dust storm moving westward out of central Africa. This vast cloud of tan-coloured dust stretched over some 5,300 kilometres. NASA noted that if the storm were relocated to the United States, it would cover the country and extend into the oceans on both coasts.
Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, reports that Saharan dust storms — once rare — are now commonplace. He estimates they have increased 10-fold during the last half-century. Among the countries in the region most affected by topsoil loss from wind erosion are Niger, Chad, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, and Burkino Faso. In Mauritania, in Africa’s far west, the number of dust storms jumped from two a year in the early 1960s to 80 a year today.
The Bodélé Depression in Chad is the source of an estimated 1.3 billion tons of wind-borne soil a year, up 10-fold from 1947 when measurements began. The 2 to 3 billion tons of fine soil particles that leave Africa each year in dust storms are slowly draining the continent of its fertility and, hence, its biological productivity. In addition, dust storms leaving Africa travel westward across the Atlantic, depositing so much dust in the Caribbean that they cloud the water and damage coral reefs there.
In China, plowing excesses became common in several provinces as agriculture pushed northward and westward into the pastoral zone between 1987 and 1996. In Inner Mongolia (Nei Monggol), for example, the cultivated area increased by 1.1 million hectares, or 22 percent, during this period. Other provinces that expanded their cultivated area by 3 percent or more during this nine-year span include Heilongjiang, Hunan, Tibet (Xizang), Qinghai, and Xinjiang.
Severe wind erosion of soil on this newly plowed land made it clear that its only sustainable use was controlled grazing. As a result, Chinese agriculture is now engaged in a strategic withdrawal in these provinces, pulling back to land that can sustain crop production.
Water erosion also takes a toll on soils. This can be seen in the silting of reservoirs and in muddy, silt-laden rivers flowing into the sea. Pakistan’s two large reservoirs, Mangla and Tarbela, which store Indus River water for the country’s vast irrigation network, are losing roughly 1 percent of their storage capacity each year as they fill with silt from deforested watersheds.
Ethiopia, a mountainous country with highly erodible soils on steeply sloping land, is losing an estimated 1 billion tons of topsoil a year, washed away by rain. This is one reason Ethiopia always seems to be on the verge of famine, never able to accumulate enough grain reserves to provide a meaningful measure of food security.
Fortunately there are ways to conserve and rebuild soils. These will be discussed in the next Earth Policy Institute Book Byte.
By Lester Brown
(Lester Brown is founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute. This article originally appeared on earthpolicy.org).
He found that some had managed their land well, maintaining its fertility over long stretches of history, and were thriving. Others had failed to do so and left only remnants of their illustrious pasts.
In a section of his report entitled “The Hundred Dead Cities,” he described a site in northern Syria, near Aleppo, where ancient buildings were still standing in stark isolated relief, but they were on bare rock. During the seventh century, the thriving region had been invaded, initially by a Persian army and later by nomads out of the Arabian Desert. In the process, soil and water conservation practices used for centuries were abandoned.
Lowdermilk noted, “Here erosion had done its worst… if the soils had remained, even though the cities were destroyed and the populations dispersed, the area might be re-peopled again and the cities rebuilt, but now that the soils are gone, all is gone.”
Now fast forward to a trip in 2002 by a United Nations team to assess the food situation in Lesotho, a small country of 2 million people imbedded within South Africa. Their finding was straightforward: “Agriculture in Lesotho faces a catastrophic future; crop production is declining and could cease altogether over large tracts of the country if steps are not taken to reverse soil erosion, degradation, and the decline in soil fertility.”
Michael Grunwald reports in the Washington Post that nearly half of the children under five in Lesotho are stunted physically. “Many,” he says, “are too weak to walk to school.”
Whether the land is in northern Syria, Lesotho, or elsewhere, the health of the people living on it cannot be separated from the health of the land itself. A large share of the world’s 852 million hungry people live on land with soils worn thin by erosion.
The thin layer of topsoil that covers the planet’s land surface is the foundation of civilisation. This soil, measured in inches over much of the earth, was formed over long stretches of geological time as new soil formation exceeded the natural rate of erosion. As soil accumulated over the eons, it provided a medium in which plants could grow. In turn, plants protect the soil from erosion. Human activity is disrupting this relationship.
Sometime within the last century, soil erosion began to exceed new soil formation in large areas. Perhaps a third or more of all cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming, thereby reducing the land’s inherent productivity. Today the foundation of civilisation is crumbling. The seeds of collapse of some early civilisations, such as the Mayans, may have originated in soil erosion that undermined the food supply.
The accelerating soil erosion over the last century can be seen in the dust bowls that form as vegetation is destroyed and wind erosion soars out of control. Among those that stand out are the Dust Bowl in the U.S. Great Plains during the 1930s, the dust bowls in the Soviet Virgin Lands in the 1960s, the huge one that is forming today in northwest China, and the one taking shape in the Sahelian region of Africa.
Each of these is associated with a familiar pattern of overgrazing, deforestation, and agricultural expansion onto marginal land, followed by retrenchment as the soil begins to disappear.
Twentieth-century population growth pushed agriculture onto highly vulnerable land in many countries. The overplowing of the U.S. Great Plains during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, led to the 1930s Dust Bowl. This was a tragic era in U.S. history, one that forced hundreds of thousands of farm families to leave the Great Plains. Many migrated to California in search of a new life, a move immortalised in John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath”.
Three decades later, history repeated itself in the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands Project between 1954 and 1960 centred on plowing an area of grassland for wheat that was larger than the wheatland in Canada and Australia combined. Initially this resulted in an impressive expansion in Soviet grain production, but the success was short-lived as a dust bowl developed there as well.
Kazakhstan, at the centre of this Virgin Lands Project, saw its grainland area peak at just over 25 million hectares (44 millions acres) around 1980, then shrink to 14 million hectares today. Even on the remaining land, however, the average wheat yield is scarcely one tonne per hectare, a far cry from the nearly eight tonnes per hectare that farmers get in France, Western Europe’s leading wheat producer.
A similar situation exists in Mongolia, where over the last 20 years half the wheatland has been abandoned and wheat yields have also fallen by half, shrinking the harvest by three fourths. Mongolia — a country almost three times the size of France with a population of 2.6 million — is now forced to import nearly 60 percent of its wheat.
Dust storms originating in the new dust bowls are now faithfully recorded in satellite images. In early January 2005, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released images of a vast dust storm moving westward out of central Africa. This vast cloud of tan-coloured dust stretched over some 5,300 kilometres. NASA noted that if the storm were relocated to the United States, it would cover the country and extend into the oceans on both coasts.
Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, reports that Saharan dust storms — once rare — are now commonplace. He estimates they have increased 10-fold during the last half-century. Among the countries in the region most affected by topsoil loss from wind erosion are Niger, Chad, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, and Burkino Faso. In Mauritania, in Africa’s far west, the number of dust storms jumped from two a year in the early 1960s to 80 a year today.
The Bodélé Depression in Chad is the source of an estimated 1.3 billion tons of wind-borne soil a year, up 10-fold from 1947 when measurements began. The 2 to 3 billion tons of fine soil particles that leave Africa each year in dust storms are slowly draining the continent of its fertility and, hence, its biological productivity. In addition, dust storms leaving Africa travel westward across the Atlantic, depositing so much dust in the Caribbean that they cloud the water and damage coral reefs there.
In China, plowing excesses became common in several provinces as agriculture pushed northward and westward into the pastoral zone between 1987 and 1996. In Inner Mongolia (Nei Monggol), for example, the cultivated area increased by 1.1 million hectares, or 22 percent, during this period. Other provinces that expanded their cultivated area by 3 percent or more during this nine-year span include Heilongjiang, Hunan, Tibet (Xizang), Qinghai, and Xinjiang.
Severe wind erosion of soil on this newly plowed land made it clear that its only sustainable use was controlled grazing. As a result, Chinese agriculture is now engaged in a strategic withdrawal in these provinces, pulling back to land that can sustain crop production.
Water erosion also takes a toll on soils. This can be seen in the silting of reservoirs and in muddy, silt-laden rivers flowing into the sea. Pakistan’s two large reservoirs, Mangla and Tarbela, which store Indus River water for the country’s vast irrigation network, are losing roughly 1 percent of their storage capacity each year as they fill with silt from deforested watersheds.
Ethiopia, a mountainous country with highly erodible soils on steeply sloping land, is losing an estimated 1 billion tons of topsoil a year, washed away by rain. This is one reason Ethiopia always seems to be on the verge of famine, never able to accumulate enough grain reserves to provide a meaningful measure of food security.
Fortunately there are ways to conserve and rebuild soils. These will be discussed in the next Earth Policy Institute Book Byte.
By Lester Brown
(Lester Brown is founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute. This article originally appeared on earthpolicy.org).
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
In Yavatmal, life goes on
"THE BANK recovery teams have stopped coming to my home," Saraswati Amberwar told us in Yavatmal. She lives not far from where President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will visit on June 15. Her husband Ramdas was the first farm suicide case in Vidharbha to be highlighted in the media, way back in 1998. Since then she has faced years of pressure from his creditors to repay his loans. So it was surprising that the bank recovery men had let up.
"Kishor Bhau gave me a letter which I showed them the last time they were here," she says. "After that, they stopped coming." Even stranger. Kishor Tiwari is the president of the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) and the region's foremost agitator on farm issues. Hardly a friend of the banks, given the countless times he has gheraoed and badgered them on farm loan problems. So what did his letter say?
Roughly translated, it read: "Dear Recovery Officers, Ramdas has appeared before me more than once from Heaven. He says: `I have the money and am waiting to repay you.' Please rush your team to Heaven. Yours sincerely, Kishor Tiwari." After that, says Saraswati, the team never showed up again.
Mr. Tiwari's open letter this week to President Kalam is more polite. It begs him to "spare a few minutes to meet the unfortunate widows of farmers either at Yavatmal or Wardha."
Those and Nagpur are the places the President will touch during his day-long visit. His trip takes him to an event at Amolakchand College in Yavatmal. Also to the Mahatma Gandhi Hindi International University in Wardha. It does not so far include any agrarian distress-related meetings.
Issue of cotton prices
Yavatmal, where the President's main function is, remains one of the most dismal parts of Vidharbha, the region hardest hit by the farm crisis. "This year alone, there have been 428 farmers' suicides in Vidharbha," points out Mr. Tiwari. "Unless urgent action is taken on cotton price, on debt and credit $B!=(B it will be our worst year ever." And that would be something. The Government officially admits to 1,296 farm suicides due to the "agrarian distress" last year. It records a further 1,348 farm suicides in the same six districts the same year, but denies they were due to agrarian distress.
Yavatmal is one of six districts in this region that together have seen more than 6,000 farm suicides since 2001. Saraswati is among more than 100,000 women across the country who have lost their husbands to suicides driven by the agrarian crisis since the mid-1990s. There are hundreds like her in Yavatmal alone. But her home has seen many VIP visits over the years, including that of Narayan Rane when he was Revenue Minister in the Shiv Sena Government. The compensation of Rs.1 lakh she got was long ago wiped out by debt.
"We're spending Rs.30,000 on my daughter Meenakshi's illness," she says. (Another daughter died in 2004.) "We've sold off several acres and some cattle over these years to cope. But farming gets costlier and more difficult." Yet she sees few options and keeps at it, hoping things will turn around.
In Pisgaon village of the same district Varsha Rasse grabs any work she gets, no matter how poorly paid it is. For two seasons her husband Maruti had leased out their eight acres B throwing in his own labour as part of the deal. "He had to get his sisters married," neighbours told us, "and farming was collapsing." Then, with his own cultivation hit by excessive rains, Rasse committed suicide in 2004. His debt remains a problem for Varsha and their son and daughter are both under five years of age.
"They work harder and harder, and might produce more, but it only gets worse," says Vijay Jawandia, the region's foremost intellectual on agriculture. "All these farmers are fighting impossible odds. The most basic issues have not been touched. They are widows because of indebtedness. The cost of living is rising, so are farming costs. Only their income goes down."
"The Prime Minister's package helped some get fresh loans, but they got no help with the old ones. So now their debt has doubled. The central issue of price has never been addressed by the government. Nor has the issue of huge subsidies in the West for cotton producers there. So prices collapsed and these farmers cannot recover the cost of production. The new debt destroys their creditworthiness. So the banks will not touch them this season. Which pushes them back to moneylenders."
Annapurna Suroshe would agree with him. "We've paid off all our debts from the compensation," she says in Nageshwadi village, "but it doesn't end." It hasn't for her, with two boys and a girl to put through school. When the lease ends on the four acres her husband Rameshwar let out before killing himself last year, she wants to cultivate them herself. "I might as well put in my labour on our own land."
Meanwhile, she's trying to run things from the Rs.25 a full day's labour now fetches her.
Mangalabai Mokhadkar in Rampur $B!=(B from the only Brahmin farm household seeing such a suicide $B!=(B has held out longer. In the nine years since her husband Prabhakarrao committed suicide, she's got three of her eight daughters married. Some were married before his death. "No dowry," she makes a point of telling us. Though each wedding set her back by around Rs.40,000. She has not taken a paisa from her sons-in-law. "They took no dowry, how can I do that?" She's also managed to educate the girls. "All of them are matric pass or fail," she says. "Three completed their schooling after he died."
After years of leasing them out, "we will farm our seven acres ourselves this year." But Mangalabai knows the risks. "Look at our village. All families here are in the same boat. Unless something changes in farming, we'll all sink."
"This is the situation in Yavatmal and other districts," says Mr. Tiwari, "these widows are farmers who represent the true picture."
As Mr. Tiwari's letter to President Kalam also says: "We strongly feel that it all is not well in Vidharbha and therefore, it's not the right time for any cultural or dancing session inauguration ...We would be highly obliged if you could spare a few minutes to meet the unfortunate widows."
(This district, which President Kalam visits on June 15, has a higher concentration of families of farmers who killed themselves than most others in the country. )
P. Sainath
Courtsey The Hindu
"Kishor Bhau gave me a letter which I showed them the last time they were here," she says. "After that, they stopped coming." Even stranger. Kishor Tiwari is the president of the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) and the region's foremost agitator on farm issues. Hardly a friend of the banks, given the countless times he has gheraoed and badgered them on farm loan problems. So what did his letter say?
Roughly translated, it read: "Dear Recovery Officers, Ramdas has appeared before me more than once from Heaven. He says: `I have the money and am waiting to repay you.' Please rush your team to Heaven. Yours sincerely, Kishor Tiwari." After that, says Saraswati, the team never showed up again.
Mr. Tiwari's open letter this week to President Kalam is more polite. It begs him to "spare a few minutes to meet the unfortunate widows of farmers either at Yavatmal or Wardha."
Those and Nagpur are the places the President will touch during his day-long visit. His trip takes him to an event at Amolakchand College in Yavatmal. Also to the Mahatma Gandhi Hindi International University in Wardha. It does not so far include any agrarian distress-related meetings.
Issue of cotton prices
Yavatmal, where the President's main function is, remains one of the most dismal parts of Vidharbha, the region hardest hit by the farm crisis. "This year alone, there have been 428 farmers' suicides in Vidharbha," points out Mr. Tiwari. "Unless urgent action is taken on cotton price, on debt and credit $B!=(B it will be our worst year ever." And that would be something. The Government officially admits to 1,296 farm suicides due to the "agrarian distress" last year. It records a further 1,348 farm suicides in the same six districts the same year, but denies they were due to agrarian distress.
Yavatmal is one of six districts in this region that together have seen more than 6,000 farm suicides since 2001. Saraswati is among more than 100,000 women across the country who have lost their husbands to suicides driven by the agrarian crisis since the mid-1990s. There are hundreds like her in Yavatmal alone. But her home has seen many VIP visits over the years, including that of Narayan Rane when he was Revenue Minister in the Shiv Sena Government. The compensation of Rs.1 lakh she got was long ago wiped out by debt.
"We're spending Rs.30,000 on my daughter Meenakshi's illness," she says. (Another daughter died in 2004.) "We've sold off several acres and some cattle over these years to cope. But farming gets costlier and more difficult." Yet she sees few options and keeps at it, hoping things will turn around.
In Pisgaon village of the same district Varsha Rasse grabs any work she gets, no matter how poorly paid it is. For two seasons her husband Maruti had leased out their eight acres B throwing in his own labour as part of the deal. "He had to get his sisters married," neighbours told us, "and farming was collapsing." Then, with his own cultivation hit by excessive rains, Rasse committed suicide in 2004. His debt remains a problem for Varsha and their son and daughter are both under five years of age.
"They work harder and harder, and might produce more, but it only gets worse," says Vijay Jawandia, the region's foremost intellectual on agriculture. "All these farmers are fighting impossible odds. The most basic issues have not been touched. They are widows because of indebtedness. The cost of living is rising, so are farming costs. Only their income goes down."
"The Prime Minister's package helped some get fresh loans, but they got no help with the old ones. So now their debt has doubled. The central issue of price has never been addressed by the government. Nor has the issue of huge subsidies in the West for cotton producers there. So prices collapsed and these farmers cannot recover the cost of production. The new debt destroys their creditworthiness. So the banks will not touch them this season. Which pushes them back to moneylenders."
Annapurna Suroshe would agree with him. "We've paid off all our debts from the compensation," she says in Nageshwadi village, "but it doesn't end." It hasn't for her, with two boys and a girl to put through school. When the lease ends on the four acres her husband Rameshwar let out before killing himself last year, she wants to cultivate them herself. "I might as well put in my labour on our own land."
Meanwhile, she's trying to run things from the Rs.25 a full day's labour now fetches her.
Mangalabai Mokhadkar in Rampur $B!=(B from the only Brahmin farm household seeing such a suicide $B!=(B has held out longer. In the nine years since her husband Prabhakarrao committed suicide, she's got three of her eight daughters married. Some were married before his death. "No dowry," she makes a point of telling us. Though each wedding set her back by around Rs.40,000. She has not taken a paisa from her sons-in-law. "They took no dowry, how can I do that?" She's also managed to educate the girls. "All of them are matric pass or fail," she says. "Three completed their schooling after he died."
After years of leasing them out, "we will farm our seven acres ourselves this year." But Mangalabai knows the risks. "Look at our village. All families here are in the same boat. Unless something changes in farming, we'll all sink."
"This is the situation in Yavatmal and other districts," says Mr. Tiwari, "these widows are farmers who represent the true picture."
As Mr. Tiwari's letter to President Kalam also says: "We strongly feel that it all is not well in Vidharbha and therefore, it's not the right time for any cultural or dancing session inauguration ...We would be highly obliged if you could spare a few minutes to meet the unfortunate widows."
(This district, which President Kalam visits on June 15, has a higher concentration of families of farmers who killed themselves than most others in the country. )
P. Sainath
Courtsey The Hindu
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