FARMER SUICIDES - NEEDS AAMIR's 'SATYAMEV JAYATE'!
By Ruma Dubey
A freak hailstorm hits parts of Maharashtra and acres and acres of winter crops – wheat, horsegram, jowar and chickpeas have been destroyed. Earlier bouts of unseasonal showers had damaged the soyabean crop. What is more shocking is that this large scale crop damage has led to a spate of farmer suicides - ‘official’ figure pegs the number at around 30 while those on the field say that this could be any where around 80-100. Some 16-20 lakh hectares of crop was damage – monetary damage is pegged at Rs.5000 crore and it has affected the livelihood of some four crore people.
Officially, the Govt recognizes a ‘farmer’ only when land is registered in his name but when majority of the poverty stricken farmers do not have any land in their name and then are forced to commit suicide, their name simply does not get added to the ‘official’ list. Thus the ‘official’ suicide numbers will always remain much lower, which in itself is pretty shocking.
For us sitting in the cool AC comfort of our homes, with markets hitting new highs, this situation is simply incomprehensible, beyond the realm of our understanding. We can empathise but are not able to understand what could possibly drive them to suicide. We understand that crops are destroyed but yet, how can farmers kill themselves for this? But therein lay our insensitivity to the problem. We probably need Aamir Khan to explain this to us on one of these Sundays. Or we will truly understand the significance of this occurrence when we go to buy fruits like pomegranates, grapes, mangos, sweet lime, watermelon, papaya and bananas; all which have been heavily damaged and will cost 25-30% more.
The farmer is essentially poor. This is on account of lower prices for crops and then more mouths to feed. They borrow heavily not just for seeds, buying tractors, cows, equipments, pesticides but also for their daughter’s marriage, birth/death in the family, festivals. Thus apart from farming needs, the farmer borrows heavily when he gives in to social pressure. He borrows, anticipating a good crop but when a freak downpour ruins his crops, he is so overwhelmed and smothered under the shroud of debt that left with no choice, pushed to the corner, he opts to kill himself and end all his misery.
Climate change is one of the biggest causes of increased farmer suicides but can that alone be the cause? It is one of the major causes for crop failure and that leads to the perpetuating cycle of debt. Lower procurement prices was a major issue but to some extent, Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) have kept track of inflation and risen accordingly though small and medium scale farmers, the ones who actually commit suicide are never benefitted. Cost of production has also risen dramatically and sometimes, the farmer just about manages to break even.
Nabard has presented a report on this social evil and presented a set of solutions from various well know organizations. Listed below are some of the suggestions to help mitigate this crisis.
i) Timely and adequate support by way of credit to farmers with focusing small and marginal farmers to have them modern equipment for improved agricultural productivity.
ii) To issue Kisan Credit Cards to all the eligible farmers to have them access to get ST, MT and LT loan from all the banks.
iii) To form the SHGs of Tenant farmers/ share croppers & agricultural workers and give them micro-credit through banks.
iv) Encourage the farmers to adopt allied activities like dairy, fishery, poultry etc. with farming activities.
v) Diversification/crop rotation in agricultural production in changed scenario.
vi) Adoption of upgraded technology inputs along with provision of infrastructure inputs like power at subsidized cost, supply of inputs like seeds, fertilizers, tractors and credit provision through all nationalized banks.
vii) Adoption of Non-Farm activities with allied agricultural activities.
viii) Arrangements of marketing /forward linkages /contract farming to sell their produce at remunerative prices.
Apart from all these, what really needs to be done is to ensure there is a very strong delivery system of credit, provide health insurance to farmers and ensure that rehabilitation package indeed reaches in full to the affected farmer, rather than he getting just a small percentage. People like Vijay Mallya dupe the system, swindle banks of crores of money and farmers, with debt of less than Rs.50,000 are forced to commit suicide. Surely there is something fundamentally wrong?
Farmers, just like those in defence services are providing a service on which our life depends; including the mudslinging petty politicians. Wish the media and the politicians pay more attention to these ground realities, rather than be focused only on who will win and who will lose though right now, we all are losers.