Farmer Suicides and Agrarian Distress

FC PROJECT- SEM II FARMERS SUICIDES AND AGRARIAN DISTRESS 1988 The peasants have started to curve the political muscles that their economic betterment has given them They have acquired the capacity to souse the kind of sustained struggle they have. It is going to be difficult to finish them because they command the vote banks in the countryside to which every party seeks access A new specter of peasant power is likely to haunt India in coming years. Editorial in Times of India, Feb 3 1988, sp atomic number 18-time activity sodbuster agitations for high prices and subsidies in Western Uttar Pradesh 005 culture in India today is an economic residue that generously accommodates non-achievers resigned to a life of sad satisfaction. The villager is as bloodless as the rude economy is lifeless. From rich to forgetful, the trend is to leave the village Dipankar Gupta, The Vanishing Village 2007 evaluate of out out process of market-gardening in the last decade have been poor and argon a major cause of agrarian distress. Farming is increasingly becoming an unviable activity. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India Introduction India is primarily an agricultural country. more(prenominal) than 60% of its population directly or indirectly depends on culture. Agriculture accounts for approximately 33% of Indias GDP. Agriculture in India is often imputed to frolic with monsoon. Farmers ar heavily dependent on the monsoons for their harvest. If the monsoons fail, they leave the farmer infra a heap of debt with no harvest, their sole(prenominal) source of income. Unable to stomach the heavy burden of debt, they see egotism-destruction as the de2003-2008. According to the view Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there have been nearly 2 hundred thousand farmer self-destructions since 1997.However, financial obligation is not the only reason for suicides. The suicides are a manifestation of the growing agrarian distress in India. It is clear from the live crisis, that the agrarian chase is marginalized in the home(a) policy agenda today. rural Crisis Falling productiveness Over the years the economy of India had underg oneness a geomorphologic transformation due to which the share of agriculture has been declining. However the workforce utilize in agriculture hasnt decreased. Accordingly, in 2004-05, the share of agriculture in GDP was 20. %, and yet the workforce employed in agriculture was stock-still 56. 5%. This structural dissimilarity means that there is a colossal difference in the productivity of workers in agriculture and in non-agriculture occupations, productivity of workers in agriculture being one fifth of those in non-agriculture. marginalization of peasantry This high burden of labour force has, in addition, been falling on a behind contracting cultivable flat coat sphere. Between 1960 and 2003, the human activity of holdings doub conduct from 51 zillion to 101 million, while the area operated decline d from 133 million hectares to 108 million hectares.This has led to a sharp decline in the fair size of the holding, leading to increasing number of subatomic and marginal farmers. Hence, the counterbalance of marginal landholders has change magnitude from 39. 1% in 1960-61 to 71% in 2003, and among them they only operate 22. 6% of the land. This continuing skewed pattern of land monomania reflects the lack of serious land reforms. Increasing marginalization forces the farmers into sharecropping and renting surplus land. This leads to difficulties like insecurity of lease, increasing cost and wretched returns from production, and difficulties in accessing credit.Declining growth pass judgment Growth rates of agriculture have been on the decline. The growth rate by GDP from agriculture shed from 3. 08% during 1980-81 to 1990-91, to 2. 57% during 1992-93 to 2005-06. This include a dip to 1. 3% in 1999-2000 and even a damaging growth of -2% in 2000-2001. Declining profitabili ty of agriculture The ratio of total prices acquire by the agricultural sector to the total prices paying by it to non-agricultural sectors is one of the important economic indicators to test whether agricultural sector as a whole has either gained or lost in the process of economic growth.Although the reforms in the 90s with policies such as devaluation of currency were expected to benefit agriculture and improve its sexual relation terms of trade (ToT), this has not really been sustained. The patronage and income ToT became favourable to agriculture from 1984-85 until 1996-97, but thereafter they more or less stagnated Likewise, the Input-Output set Parity (computed by comparing the index of prices paid for agricultural inputs with the index of prices received for the end products, has since 1994-95 remained lower than one hundred, indicating declining profitability of agriculture (Government Of India, 2008).Erosion of real incomes of farmers When the prices received by the fa rmers for their crops are compared with the prices they pay for consumer goods (i. e. , Consumer Price Index for unpolished Labour CPIAL), it is observed that farmers are facing an eating away of real incomes because the growth in aggregate price index for consumer goods has been higher than the growth in price index for agricultural commodities (Govt. of AP 2007).This has resulted in declining relative living standards of farmers, particularly for small and marginal farmers whose incomes are clearly inadequate to meet consumption expenditure. Slowdown of exports Exports flattened out after 1997 following the East Asian Crisis and the consequent sizeable deceleration in growth of international trade in agriculture. Simultaneously, international prices started falling for most commodities, make Indian exports uncompetitive. Cheap imports have been on the rise with the removal of decimal restrictions on agriculture by 2000. Changing cropping patternsWith the opening-up of the eco nomy, expectations of export opportunities and higher innovation prices for agricultural commodities led many farmers to move into cash crops, away from traditionalistic subsistence crops. Devaluation of the rupee make Indian exports cheaper and hence attractive on the cosmos market, and further encouraged cultivation of cash crops. On aggregate, the total area of the countrys farmland growing traditional grains declined by 18% in the decade after 1990-91, whereas areas growing non-food crops of cotton and sugarcane increased by 25% and 10% respectively.Declining irrigation Ironically, with a shift in cropping patterns towards more water intensive cash crops, the aggregate net irrigated area remained moribund (GoI 2007). State governments have grossly neglected investment in scratch irrigation infrastructure. Consequently there has been an increase in private investment in exploiting ground-water sources (mainly bore wells), which have been growing relative to canal and tank irr igation. This has led to overexploitation of ground water and a falling water table, forcing farmers to enhance their wells every few years, which is expensive.Disappearing institutions The gradual weakening of state-support has excessively lead to dormancy of several state-run corporations, which used to provide support to the little farmer. In AP, among these were the AP State Agro Development Corporation (APSADC) which manufactured and distributed agricultural machinery, tools and inputs at subsidized rates, and AP State Seeds Development Corporation (APSSDC) which produced its own seed, sold it. Agricultural Extension Service was also downsized. Credit squeezeThe farmers perhaps most acutely feel the withdrawal of the state in the decline in institutional credit support. With agriculture becoming increasingly commercialized and costs of cultivation rising, most farmers look for external sources of credit. Institutional credit comes in the form of loans from commercial, co-ope rative, and regional rural banks. The nationalization of main banks in 1969 compulsory them to prioritize lending to agriculture, with tight interest-rate controls. But this came to an abrupt end with the Narasimham military commission on Banking Reforms post-1991.Through various redefinitions of what constituted priority lending, the committee slowly squeezed credit lines to farmers. In AP the proportion of bank lending to agriculture fell from 43% in 1998 to 26. 7% in 2003, covering only tercet of the credit needs of the farmers. Even mandates of special lending to SCs, STs and very small farmers were revoked to pursue commercial viability and aggressive loan recovery. Tenant cultivators with insufficient titles are altogether denied access to formal credit.With this drying up of formal credit, the farmers are left hand with no choice than to depend on promiscuous sources for credit. An NSSO survey in 2004 revealed that 68. 6% of the total loans taken by farmers in AP are fro m the informal credit market. This credit typically comes at usurious interest rates (anything between 36% and 100% compound), and worse, from the same entrepreneur who is selling the farmer the seeds and fertilizers. This stranglehold of the trader-moneylender has become the root of much exploitation and misery.Credit from these agents is virtually never in cash form. It is inputs (his own brand of seeds, fertilizers) issued against the future output whose price, invariably low and exploitative, is fixed by the agent himself. Farmer suicides Causes and Statistics The drying up of institutional credit and exploitative informal credit traps in the spirit of rising costs and declining profitability have led to pervasive indebtedness among farmers. The Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers in the 59th round of NSS in 2003 revealed that nearly half the farmers in the country were indebted.The incidence was higher in states with input-intensive agriculture like Punjab, Haryana, Mahara shtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, and was highest at 82% in Andhra Pradesh (GoI 2007). The cotton tap is where the suicides are taking place on a very, very large scale. It is the suicide belt of India. The share of the Big 5 States or suicide belt in 2008 Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh remained very high at 10,797, or 66. 6 per cent of the total farm suicides in the country.According to a study by the government of Maharashtra, almost 6 in 10 of those who drink down themselves had debts between $110 and $550. Indebtedness, along with the constellation of input and output risks clear up above has been putting the farmer under sustained duress. A tragical manifestation of this has been the phenomenon of suicides among desperate farmers. Since 1995, farmer suicides have been reported regularly from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Goa and S ikkim.A Durkheimian study of the suicides concludes that the marginalization of the rural sector in the national policy agenda which prioritizes rapid economic growth is leaving rural producers with a feeling of socio-economic estrangement from the community, and that the suicides were an effect of individualization of this estrangement. After suicide Farms are confiscated due to inability to pay back high interest loans. Corrupt moneylenders harass the families. Widows are burdened with the new responsibility as the sole breadwinner. Children sometimes lose both parents to suicide, forcing their education to a alt, peculiarly if they have to work in order to provide for their needs. Economic packages are provided to the farmers. But due to corruption the help never reaches the family. Conclusion and Recommendations all(prenominal) over the world the impact of an industrial approach to boosting crop yields has bare(a) many small farmers of their self-sufficiency and thrown them into despair. A few recommendations are as follows ?Input costs should be reduced. ?Markets must(prenominal) be made available for agricultural produce. ?A good market price must be provided for agricultural products. For farmers, credit should be made available at low interest rates. ?The extension system should be revived to do work problems in the field. ?There should be a proper system to embrace the issue of water scarcity. ?Adequate water for irrigation should be provided. ?Conserve Agro Bio -Diversity in Gene and Seed banks. ?Increase budget outlay for Agriculture in every Five Year plan of the Government of India. ?Agricultural land should not be given to SEZ. ?The use of Genetically Modified Seeds should be stopped and organic agricultural practices encouraged. Farmers Rights law to be implemented immediately. ?Investments should be made to restore soil health. 2007 The problem cannot be solved by economic packages alone. What is needed is social and spiritual intervent ions so that the farmers realize that suicide is not the way out they should understand that they need to develop self confidence. The future generation should have the mental strength to face lifes challenges. Amma REFERENCES http//agrariancrisis. in/ http//wikipedia. org/ http//www. councilforresponsiblegenetics. org/