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Farmers in distress

The report of the Swaminathan Commission on Farmers begins by stating: "This report is designed to serve as a wake-up call on the nation on the deteriorating farm conditions.

Farmers in distress


D.R. Chaudhry

The report of the Swaminathan Commission on Farmers begins by stating: "This report is designed to serve as a wake-up call on the nation on the deteriorating farm conditions." The very phrase "wake-up call' implies that agriculture is in serious crisis and if a proper strategy is not evolved to deal with it, the outcome can be disastrous.
The report refers to the decline in agriculture growth, the average farm size getting smaller, growing indebtedness of farmers, a poor marketing structure, the support system like research and extension being inadequate, inputs getting costlier and remunerative marketing being poor which all make agriculture a losing concern.
The findings from a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in late 2013 among 5,480 farmers across 18 states reveal that 47 per cent farmers believe that that their overall condition was bad; 62 per cent were willing to leave farming if there was an option; 37 per cent would not like their children to be farmers. Their disillusionment is driven largely by economic considerations and not a dislike for their occupation.
According to the Agriculture Census 2010-11 of Haryana, small, semi-medium, medium and large holdings have been defined with an average size of 0.46, 2.87, 6.0 and 17.95 hectares respectively. The marginal and small farmers constituted 67.55 per cent of the total while those semi-medium and medium constituted 29.6 per cent. Large farmers constituted only 2.84 per cent of the total. Thus, Haryana agriculture is dominated by marginal and small farmers.
In Haryana the urban population in 2001 was 28.92 per cent of the total which increased to 34.90 per cent in 2011 while the rural population decreased from 71.08 per cent  to 65.10 per cent during the same period. This shows an incursion of residential, industrial and recreation centres in the agricultural land. Haryana surrounds Delhi from three sides and a good deal of agricultural land in the districts in the National Capital Region has been usurped by builders and property dealers. Now the process has reached up to  Mewat, Palwal, Panipat and Karnal districts.   As a consequence marginal and small peasants are being displaced in large numbers.
With the advent of the Green Revolution in the seventies of the last century, dwarf varieties of wheat and rice were introduced  which required more water, use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. This led to increased production and economic betterment of the well-to-do farmers. However, there is a dark aspect of the development as well. Integrated nutrient management and integrated pest management constitute an integral part of the new development. It was the job of Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar, and the Agriculture Department of the Haryana government. They have miserably failed in the task. Big companies dealing in fertilisers, seeds and pesticides launched a massive campaign to sell their products resulting in an inordinate use of these inputs in agriculture. Lack of co-relationship between the minimum support price and the cost of inputs made farming a losing concern. This has led to indebtedness of farmers to commission agents and banks.
The worst consequence of the Green Revolution has been the terrific pollution of water and air in Haryana and Punjab, leading to the spread of cancer and other diseases. An excessive use of water has led to salinity and water-logging in several districts of Haryana.
Peasant indebtedness is an important dimension of the agricultural crisis of Haryana. According to the estimate of a high-level committee set up by the Central government to study the problem of agricultural debt, nearly 45 per cent of the farmers in Haryana are heavily dependent on money-lenders for short-term loans  at exorbitant rates of interest ranging between 24 per cent and 36 per cent. The commission agents constitute the bulk of these money-lenders, who buy agricultural produce from farmers and supply them numerous inputs like seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. Both ways there is a good deal of cheating.
Haryana agriculture -- a model for the Green Revolution -- has run into a rough weather. It has not happened all of a sudden. Since necessary steps were not taken to offset them, disastrous consequences were inevitable. Dr M.S. Swaminathan forewarned as early as 1968: "Intensive cultivation of land without conservation of soil fertility and soil structure would lead ultimately to the springing of deserts. Irrigation without arrangements for drainage would result in soil getting alkaline or saline. The indiscriminate use of pesticides, fungicide and herbicide could….lead  to an increase in the incidence of cancer and other diseases through the toxic residue present in the grains or other edible parts."
A plan to diversify agriculture and promote related fields like dairying, poultry, fisheries, horticulture and agro-industries could have been formulated to deal with the situation. The small land holdings in Haryana could have proved ideal in this respect. However, not enough of this kind has been done and as a consequence, small-scale farming has reached a dead end.
Delhi is a vast market for agricultural and dairy products. However, no imaginative  use of proximity has been made. Delhi gets a big share of milk supply from distant places like Bikaner and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan but the Haryana share is just  a trickle. Haryana is known for its excellent breeds of milch cattle and has a potential for unleashing a White Revolution on the pattern of Gujarat. However, no serious effort has been made in this direction.
Various official reports like the one by the Steering Committee of Agriculture and another committee of the Planning Commission  have lamented the damage being done to the soil, water and environment by agriculture as is practised now. Organic farming provides an alternative paradigm. An FAO conclave in 2007 concluded that "organic farming has the potential to secure a global food supply, but with reduced environmental impacts." A report of the Task Force on Organic Farming submitted to the Government of India in 2001 had suggested that "all the state governments may be advised to consider experimentation and demonstrations on government farms on a 50:50 basis on organic farming."
Organic farming should become an integral part of the Agriculture Department as well as agriculture university/research organisations. Regular training programmes for the promotion of local resource-based organic farming  should be provided to farmers adopting organic farming and they should be provided as much support and subsidy as is provided to other farmers.
Besides the above paradigmatic shift in agriculture, some more steps are needed. Only low productivity land should be diverted to non-agricultural uses as against the present policy of acquiring multi-crop fertile land. Subsidies in agriculture are mostly misdirected and should be given to farmers through direct transfers.
These days all the farmers' bodies in the country have one common demand that the Swaminathan report  should be implemented. The BJP made this promise in the election manifesto and this helped it garner the support of a big chunk of farmers in the Lok Sabha polls. Now it is maintaining a studied silence on it.  It can ignore farmers only at its peril.  

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