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COVER STORY: AGRICULTURE
The Rot In Farming Spreads...
Falling prices and stagnating production are brewing
an unparalleled crisis in farmlands across the country
By
Rohit Saran
Debt is all I reap
with every crop," laments Jawala Singh, a small farmer from Ludhiana.
"I don't know how to run my family with a three-digit income,"
complains H. Devraj, a tea grower from Ooty. "I haven't added a brick
to my property since 1991," rues Jagdish Chaudhary, a mustard farmer
from Jaipur. Tragic as they are, such voices can be heard in the fields
across the country today.
Debt-ridden farmers in Andhra Pradesh are being
forced to sell farms. Some have even committed suicide. In cyclone-ravaged
Orissa, farmers can't find takers for their paddy because rice from Punjab
has flooded the state. Tea growers in Tamil Nadu are selling their produce
way below cost. Coconut farmers in Kerala are dumping unsold stocks on
roadsides.
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| Pigs feast on potatoes dumped on the road in Farrukkhabad |
Unfolding in the past few months is the largest
and most enigmatic agriculture crisis faced by independent India. Largest,
because it engulfs every state from Punjab to Kerala, and Gujarat to Assam,
afflicting every crop from foodgrains to oilseeds to fruits. Enigmatic,
because it is a crisis that has built up amidst an unprecedented 12 successive
normal monsoons and is marked by falling (or stagnating) output and falling
prices.
In essence, the crisis is nothing more than
a noble vision gone horribly wrong. In the early 1990s, the problem with
Indian agriculture was diagnosed as rising farm subsidies and (as a result
of that) falling investment. The solution: improve returns from agriculture
so that farmers' dependence on subsidies is reduced. The funds released
from subsidies could then be ploughed back into agriculture. Consequently,
the minimum support price of wheat was doubled while that of rice was
raised by 110 per cent between 1991-92 and 1999-2000.
That made foodgrain cultivation more rewarding
but didn't help reduce the subsidies. On the contrary, subsidies ballooned
from Rs 15,000 crore in 1991-92 to Rs 23,500 crore in 1999-2000, while
investment in agriculture plunged from Rs 7,300 crore to Rs 4,700 crore
in the same period.
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Comparisons with
countries with highest productivity Figures are kg per hectare |
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Per capita daily
food consumption in grams |
To compound the crisis, higher foodgrain prices
lured farmers to shift from oilseeds to wheat and paddy, which were already
in excess. The result: India imports 40 per cent of its oilseeds requirements,
even as it sits on 45 million tonnes of foodgrains, notwithstanding the
fact that 53 per cent of Indian children and at least 30 per cent adults
are malnourished. Reasons Sharad Joshi, veteran farmer leader and chairman
of the government's task force on agriculture: "We have solved the
problem of availability, but not of access. From ship-to-mouth existence
in the 1960s, we have graduated to soil-to-mouth existence today."
Government controls have prevented the development
of private trade in agriculture commodities. Says Abhijit Sen, chairman
of the committee on food supply management: "Worse than low prices
is the uncertainty the farmer is living in. He doesn't know what to grow,
and if to grow." Experts advocate improvement in crop productivity
to bring down cultivation costs. Before that, India needs to invest in
post-harvest infrastructure so that it can use what it grows. Joshi hopes
that the present crisis, and the impending WTO obligations will force
agriculture reforms. Only such reforms must begin with what he calls the
"de-stateisation" of agriculture. For the crisis is almost entirely
government engineered.
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