"We are helpless," says Kailash Kanse, Yavatmal's Assistant Commissioner of
Police (ACP). He summons a clerk and asks him to bring a file of farmer suicides in the district. He reads the figures aloud. In 2005, 92 farmers committed suicide. In 2006, the figure jumped to 196. He couldn't supply the number for 2007, but sources peg it at over 200. The sharp increase in the number of suicides after 2005 gives a clue. During the December 2005 winter session of the state assembly in Nagpur, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had announced the Rs one lakh relief for the families of farmers who committed suicide due to severe debt. "The CM's motive was noble, but it seems to have backfired," says a senior IAS officer who in the past was involved in relief and rehabilitation schemes for farmers in Vidarbha. He did not want to be identified.Villagers almost always know the real cause of a death in their neighbourhood. "But they don't protest because they think it is government money and that it is, after all, going to help a fellow villager," says Vinay Vairale, a documentary filmmaker who has researched the subject extensively in the Vidarbha region.
From ToI. (Hat tip to India Uncut.) I admit that as an outsider, the ag situation in India confuses the heck out of me. For every article I read which claims that there we are in the middle of an acute ag crisis and that farming is no longer profitable due to rising input prices and stagnant farm gate prices of pruduce there is another bemoaning the skyrocketing prices of food and other ag products. Unless farmers are taking a hit to productivity due to weather or some or some other shock (evidence of which is strikingly absent from most of the articles I read on this subject) why aren't rising retail prices translating in higher incomes for farmers? Cotton prices, for example, are through the roof. Why hasn't this translated in higher income for Vidharbha cotton farmers?
4 comments:
Which is why my own sense has always been that the best reactions may be oblique ones -- build universal access to comprehensive financial services; strengthen supply chains; strengthen civil society; etc. Then let the equilibrium re-establish itself, hopefully,at a better resting point.
There is also another little known factoid (CIRM may have better data on this): the actuarial price of rainfall risk in India is close to 10%. So your returns from farming have to cover all your costs plus 10% if you are to build capital from farm-income. This is one of the many reasons why rural banks see large non-performing asset portfolios -- they end up bearing all the rainfall risk (in addition to other risks).
Doug, Farmers are not involved in agri-commodity trading. One can certainly work towards this.
Completely agree with Nachiket, The most important fact is that farmers are vulnerable to weather, see its raining in north India, and be sure agri-prodcuts will be affected esp - wheat! we need insurance products for farm activities.
And, I have always said problem in Vidharbha, is not ubiquitious. Other regions of country are doing pretty well. So whenever it is Vidarbha we must be careful not to makea view of whole Indian agriculture industry (if I can call it industry now!!)
As far rising prices are concerned, read this http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Government_panic_stokes_inflation/articleshow/2929336.cms (the failure of agricultre in Australia part) This happens in global village.
Farmers are vulnerable to many things; weather, animals, moneylenders, traders and the government itself. Nobody is seeing the crisis in context. Where did the shift to cotton start? Have the policies changed? If so, what has their impact been on the farmers?
Why is it that farmers are not getting a good price for their crop? Raw cotton commands terrible prices, especially if there is a bumper crop all over the world. The value addition done in the ginning and spinning mill, converting the cotton into yarn, is where the money lies. Once you add value to your produce, you stand a better chance to earn a livelihood and not just subsistence.
Why can't they do this then? Well, Gandhi's concept of the self sustaining went out of the window a long time ago. When the British started forcing sowing cotton down the people's throats, they built mills near the ports. Value addition was taken away from the hands of those who had practised it traditionally.
Big business needs big margins to grow. So the guys at the top squeeze money out of those below them and it finally stops at the level of the farmer, the most insignificant of the lot.
This, in a nutshell is a mighty brief outline of the problem. Many details have been left out, some barely glossed over.
Please reply if it merits one.
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