Globalisation, agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicides
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Dear Members,
We are committed for the welfare of our country. And therefore it is our responsibility to have a handle on our all developmental models and find out the solution by contemplation. The following article shows many new innovative ideas which need to think for implementation. One of them is to use of coarse cereals for the extensive mid-day meal programme as it was done in the case of Mandua (finger millet) for Uttarakhand. It will create the demand of coarse cereals as well as solve the problem of over utilization of water and soil degradation. It will also lessen the burden of the particular state which is being laden on other states at present. The solution of the indebtedness and suicides also lies on the cooperative models. Many good points are reviewed in the following article which is high-quality inputs for our policy makers and government implementing agency.
Dr.Y.C.Zala,
Economist
Globalisation, agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicides
Sanjeev Chopra, 11 December 2007, Tuesday
Rather than blaming the WTO and other external agencies, let’s do an honest stocktaking, and we will find that the answers are all within. Reason is lack of political will and the commitment among the political parties so the power base remains undisturbed
I HAVE with me a paper with the above title, which was discussed by the Centre for Rural Studies at LBSNAA (Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration) last week. The paper by Dr KG Iyer, formerly professor of sociology at the Punjab University, Chandigarh, makes a scathing attack on globalisation and suggests that all the problems confronting the farm sector today can be linked to WTO and globalisation. While I am no avid supporter of everything that WTO stands for – one must point out that a more nuanced approach is in order – for many problems that confront agriculture in India can be traced to constraints in the operational aspects of India’s agricultural policy and bottlenecks in our own infrastructure.
Let us examine each of the issues that has been pointed out, and I leave it to the readers to decide whether we should lay all the blame on the WTO, or should we, as a mature nation, learn to bear responsibility for our own actions. The first relates to overuse of ground water in Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The overuse of water is not a post-WTO phenomenon. It can be traced to the Green Revolution technologies, which the country followed in the seventies and the eighties when the national objective of self-sufficiency in foodgrains was the overriding theme of public policy in the country. When Punjab and Haryana started growing coarser varieties of rice to meet the requirements of the deficit states, instead of Basmati and other traditional crops (which were more suited to the agro climatic conditions), water table came down. The fact that the crisis peaked at the time when India joined the WTO does not make ‘globalisation’ responsible for this. The strategy of crop diversification was thought of by the Punjab Agricultural University around the same time, and it has met with partial success: and the reason why it has not done so well is more on account of our failure to make the agri-business sector more vibrant, rather than the lack of it.
The second point that the paper seeks to make out is the non-availability of seeds on account of the entry of private seed producers in the country. As mentioned earlier in these columns, the state seed corporations and the state farms corporation of India are not in a position to meet the seed requirements and if the private producers supplement these, where is the problem? In fact, competition in every sector is good – and the agriculture sector is no exception. If there is a nexus between the moneylenders and the seed suppliers, the reason is that our cooperatives and regional rural banks have not been up to the mark. If after sixty years of Independence we are not in a position to give a Kisan Credit Card to every farmer, if the nationalised insurance companies are not in a position to make viable crop insurance packages, should we hold any external agency responsible, or should we strengthen our own monitoring mechanisms?
In the next paragraph, concerns are raised about mono cropping culture, and the decline of production of course cereals. What prevents us from using coarse cereals for the extensive mid-day meal programme as was done in the case of Mandua (finger millet) for Uttarakhand? The only difference was that here in this state, chief secretary, Dr RS Tolia was working consciously towards finding a ‘sustainable market’ for organic mandua, and found it right here. Creative interventions such as these can be made all over the country. Let each rain-fed agriculture district decide that it will utilise its own coarse cereals for the mid-day meal programme, and one will see markets grow and evolve. The problem then is with the governments of Andhra, Maharashtra and Karnataka than with the WTO.
Yes, there is an ecological crisis on Indian farms because we have failed to establish soil-testing labs, our command area corporations do not work, our irrigation potential is criminally under-utilised, and there is lack of professional advice on fertiliser application. The solutions are again local – they lie in integrated pest management, vermicomposting, organic fertilisers and better appreciation of the integrated farm management system, rather than on crop specific strategies.
As regards the indebtedness of Indian farmer, one only has to search through classics like Malcolm Darling’s “The Punjab Peasantry in Prosperity and Debt” and the later work by MS Gill on the same subject. The question to ask is: is the farmer more indebted to non-institutional sources today than he was in the seventies and the eighties? Let some empirical studies be done before we come out with assertions that reinforce pre-conceived notions of what globalisation has done to agriculture. Again, let us understand that the higher transaction costs in agriculture are the consequence of our failure to make the revenue department ‘service-oriented’, rather than rent–seeking, agriculture and horticultural department more ‘knowledge than subsidy driven’ and the ARD (Agri-rural Development) and dairy department more farmer-oriented than ‘employee centric’. Other than in the milk sheds of Anand (Gujarat), the farmer has to take the cattle for insemination, rather than the veterinary field assistant coming to the farmer with his insemination kit.
As regards the question of land reforms, and pauperisation of peasantry, and the failure to do anything substantial about it, the reason is lack of political will, and the commitment among mainstream political parties who do not wish to disturb the power base in the rural areas. That is why the very heavy injection of funds towards the rural employment programmes so that a major turmoil is avoided.
Last, but not the least the paper talks about lack of regulatory regime for agri inputs. Let us do something about it. We are a sovereign nation, and if we can have a telecom regulator and a banking ombudsman, we can create similar institutions for the agri sector.
As a nation, we must learn to own up our failures, and take steps to rectify them, rather than look to excuses for non-performance. There will always be a valid explanation for why things are not happening; the challenge is to overcome these difficulties. If there is no rapport between the district agricultural officer and the district agri marketing officer, if the APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee) reforms are not being legislated – who is to blame? If CACP (Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices) feels that the farmer should be satisfied with a 15 to 20 per cent return on his effort, it is our problem. If fertiliser is not available to the farmer at MRP and he has to pay a premium even on fertiliser distributed by the cooperatives, it is our failure.
If soil tests are not being done, and there is an over application of fertiliser, it is again our problem. If the extension officers of agriculture are expected to do electoral roll revision, adult literacy programmes, mobilise people for pulse polio and every campaign that the district administration wants them to – it is our failure.
If the principal agriculture officers are not in a position to access information on the net, it is again our problem. Rather than blame the WTO and other external agencies, lets do an honest stocktaking, and we will find that the answers are all within. As Confucius had once said, “ the best fertiliser for a field is the farmer’s footsteps.” Lets talk to the farmer, understand him, find out what he wants, and deliver him his requirements, rather than any pious homilies.
