| Issue 21 Vol I, August 15, 2006 | Archive |
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Diversification Debate
Some facts: In the next ten years, marginal farmers owning one hectare or less would disappear and be part of the large army of unemployed. In 1971, there were 14 lakh strong farming families. By 1995-96 the number of had fallen down by one lakh. Next decade saw another three lakh out. Now the momentum of the farmers moving away from their age-old work has gained speed. In another decade may see the number dwindle to just at one third of 1971. Similar would be the fate of those owning up to two hectares in ten years later or so. Medium landowners shall suffer the same fate, but marginally. Those who now own large [4 to-10 hectares] and extra large holdings [above 10 hectares] could survive. It is no wonder that the National Sample Survey has said that 38 per cent of the farmers wish to bid good bye to ancestral profession of farming as it was no longer sustainable. The current unprecedented rise in land prices is a ready excuse to sell these uneconomic land holdings. Shall diversification help? This crisis not one related to what farmers produce and how they produce, though one need not minismise their importance. But what happens to their produce? What the farmers get for their produce and how and in whose favour the state intervenes? Remember the tragedy of grape growing farmers in the Malwa and vegetable growers in Doaba. Grape vines had to be uprooted and they had to plough back the potatoes and destroy tomato crops. The tragedy of cotton growers in the Malwa is too deep for tears. Largest number of suicides has occurred here. This happened as there was no institutional arrangement to support the diversification like the MSP and government buying. The cotton growers in Vidharbha have been committing suicides and despite prime minister’s visit and package of relief, their desperation has not lessened. The number of suicides since the Prime Minister left Vidharbha on July 1 is over 100. Before the high profile visit that was billed to be panacea for all the ills, 101 farmers took their lives in 49 days. The same number killed themselves in 33 days after the visit ended. The rate of suicides rose to one every eight hours. July saw an eight-fold increase in such deaths as compared to the same period last year, according to the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a diligent institution working for the farmers. We have reports in the newspapers about this desperation leading to more suicides. Shall it help if they adopt another cash crop, say sugar cane or potatoes or brinjals or tomatoes? Will the debt burden be less? Is it not true that Indian farmers in worse of days of famines were not committing suicides at this scale? In 1925 Malcolm Darling L had stated that the Indian farmers are born in debt, live under debt and bequeath debt to their progeny? Were they then committing suicides at this scale like now in Andhra, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala besides Punjab? If farmers in Punjab and they do not mind, shift to floriculture, holitcultre and vegetable growing and any other fancy items, shall they get out of their indebtedness and be prosperous. Les us not forget many farmers, particularly close to the cities and towns do grow vegetables and fruit and make money, but only sometimes. Remember they have been ploughing back potatoes and have brought tractor loads of tomatoes to the streets of Jalandhar to dump. Is it not a fact that the middlemen in this case the agents for the fruit and vegetables make double or even triple the money which these growers make from their produce. Is not a fact that artiyas in Punjab during these years of Green Revolution have grown filthily rich, charging 24 to 36 per cent interests on the loans to the farmers? According to one estimate nearly half of the land in the prosperous Punjab is mortgaged to these artiyas. India requires food grains and it is no longer self sufficient as proclaimed by some experts. Despite the so called over flowing stocks, the per capita intake of calories per person is as good as for the vast section of sub Sahara Africa. There are 25 crore people below the poverty line who desperately require an efficient Public Distribution System to feed themselves. Five million children and an equal number of lactating mothers die of malnutrition each year. Look at the UNICEF figures. Food grain production worldwide except in case of paddy is on decline and as per the latest FAO reports. Food habits as one Canadian institute estimated are changing worldwide to more grains and less of meat. Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh are still the major contributors to country’s buffer and ensure that they are no famines and political independence is preserved. Hunger and deprivation are hostile to sovereignty. This is a question of one ruminative price, one of marketing and running the system efficiently. Big firms are among the gainers in the distress sales. Farmers point out that neither state nor central packages touch the issue of price. Cotton prices have been devastated both by State policy and worldwide by American and European Union subsidies to their producers running to billions of dollars each year. In India we can not view our agriculture policies and practices in isolation. Government escapes its responsibility by putting the blame on the farmers that they suffer as they do not diversity and were not these very people who are telling them to diversify or suffer death, telling them to grow paddy and wheat? They are clear that larger issues are driving the farm deaths than those addressed by short-term "packages." They are also clear that lakhs of family units that have seen no suicides and are almost as badly off as the thousands that have resorted to desperate step of suicide. If anything, they see the sharp rise in the number of farmers killing themselves as proof of how irrelevant these temporary packages are. Here www.southasiapost.org is initiating a debate with three articles. The first is by economist professor H.S.Shergill from the Panjab University who has recently published a detailed study, Diversification of Cropping Pattern, a Re-examination. Reactions have been on the set lines and some known politicians have hurled invectives without caring to read it. A sign of our times! Second article is by another important economist, Dr. Joginder Singh, a former professor from the Punjab Agriculture University Ludhiana and third article is contributed by the www.southasiapost.org itself. This is only to have a sensible debate for informed public opinion. |
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THE
drumming and the big noise to tell the farmers in Punjab to diversify their
cropping rotation from wheat and paddy to who knows what shows at one level
a clumsy attempt to wish away the deepening agrarian crisis and at another
level it demonstrates paucity of ideas and make alternative choices. Are
Punjab farmers so knave that they can not think of alternatives to this
“harmful rotation” and require well paid experts to harangue them not to sow
paddy and wheat? It is insulting if nothing else to the good common sense of
hardy Punjabi peasants. Is it not a fact that they have tried very hard to
grow vegetables and fruit but many a time with worst results?