Post-Mortem Report of a Farmer

There are several cases of farmers committing suicide makes news now and then. But, We (Like me, many others) being in city, these news make hardly  any impact on us and make us understand the seriousness of the matter. It had least impact on me until I heard news of suicide in my own village. 

Post economic reforms in 1991-92, we have been divided in two parts, one urban India and another Rural India. It is tough to understand each other’s problems unless wearing each other’s shoes. I enquired about the suicide when I been to my native. It was Shivanna who passed away.

Shivanna, was a small scale farmer, native of my village. He was working as paid labour in our fields for more than 3 years. Last few years ago, he left the job to start cultivation in his own 3 acers of land. He started farming with all his interest and did all possible and required investment. But, He could make very less for his pocket due to low rain that year. So, he had to borrow for next year’s cultivation. Initially, he borrowed from relatives, then at last from local money lenders. In between his elder daughter’s marriage added heavily to his financially deteriorating condition.  With reducing yield year by year the debt kept on increasing. At last when he could not find any way out he resorted to suicide.

This might look an usual scribbled patho story. Yes, it is! But, under this same grave yard more than 2 lakh (2,00,000) people lost their lives in just less than 2 decades. When you compare this with the people died for our independence is approximately 7 lakhs (7,00,000) in 150-200 years under foreign rule, then it  appears more shocking. 

Though the visible story of each of them looks similar but, reasons behind them are very alarming. Then I started looking into the post-mortem report (Reasons for Suicide) of similar deaths in last few years and started looking for available literatures, facts and numbers over the internet and other sources. Here is a synopsis of the same.

Before we start going point by point there is one common and major change which caused the drastic disaster in the farmers' condition today and continuously deteriorating their financial condition.

GATT/WTO

1^st January, 1995, it is the date on which, India signed a WTO’s (World Trade Organization) GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) agreement though there was huge protest in whole country against it. Many so called intellectual people were requesting the government that if this is so inevitable then at least re-read and re-write (customize) the clauses of this treaty to suite our national conditions. But, the then government over ruled all such public interest requests and signed it. Since then till date it changed the way of farming and agriculture sector on a larger scale in India. There are around 157 countries who signed this treaty so far. This list includes all, developed, developing and under developed countries. 

GATT has introduced a new concept of multilateral trading. Before this, there was only bilateral (where only 2 parties/countries involved) trading happening. Multilateral here means, any country can sell any (agricultural) product in any of those countries who are part of GATT agreement. Multilateral trade agreements are between many nations at one time. To the opposing people in India, government said the agricultural growth in India will grow from 4.8% in 1995 to 14% in next 5 -10 years.  But after 15 years it is between 4.0% and 5.0%. 

There were hardly any farmers in India who used to resort to suicide before 1995, but, it kept increasing year by year. More than 17,500 farmers killed themselves between 2002 and 2006. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) stated that there were at least 16,196 farmers' suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1995 to 2,70,940. Maharashtra top’s the list followed by other states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgadh and Madhya Pradesh. These numbers raise a question does Human (especially farmers’) Life has any value or not in India?

     (Source : The Hindu New Paper)

There was a committee formed to study the impact of economic reforms (in a decade after reforms being implemented) in India under the chairmanship of Shri. Arjun Sengupta. This committee submitted its report in August 2007. 

It revealed an alarming situation that an unbelievable 836 million people, or 77% of the population, require assistance. The Planning Commission must ensure proper monitoring of funds and schemes to help these disadvantaged groups. The NSS data divides the poor into six groups. Those who are extremely poor, whose average per capita consumption income is Rs 9 per day; those who are above the poverty line, earning Rs 12 per day; the marginally poor, earning Rs 15; the vulnerable, earning above Rs 15 but less than Rs 20; the middle income, earning Rs 37; and the high income, earning above Rs 93 per day. (Collected from Arjun Sengupta interview published on net)

This is the impact of GATT and economic reforms after 12-15 years. It is evident through this report that the so called reforms added more per cent of people to below poverty line. To our fate agriculture sector falls under this 77% section.

Here is a small though a comprehensive study on farmers’ condition in today’s India and reasons contributing to their deteriorating condition and at last their suicide. :(

Subsidies

In India, there are no subsidies (not considerable) given to farmers and agricultural produces. Due to WTO Multilateral trade agreement, many foreign countries began selling their agricultural produce (as well as other finished products like, clothes, household products, etc) at cheaper rate compared to Indian substitutes. This is possible for them, because, in their countries, their government pays huge subsidies on seeds and plants, on fertilizers and pays subsidies on crops and buy’s them from farmers at higher (double, triple) rate than the actual cost of production. This leaves handsome money in farmers’ pocket. On the other hand those countries export their goods to the buying country with no or lower export duties. Even Indian government has a reduced import duty on these stuffs. With subsidized rates and no export and lesser import duties duties their produces will be available on cheap rates. Indian farmers do not enjoy any of these supports.

Foreign Entrant 

After welcoming multilateral trading through WTO, many countries started exporting their products to Indian market. We could have observed that American Apples, Australian Bananas, US cotton, Burma’s daals, south eastern Asian country’s palm oil, many others alike, in our markets now-a-days. It is all made possible through free trade. On the other hand our exports are reducing due to high prices caused by no subsidy, high export duty, and high import duty from the importing countries.

If we look at the graph of import – export, export might look increasing year-by year, but, on the other hand imports are also increasing. Export quantities might look increasing, but, one of the important reasons for it is devaluation of Indian Rupee against US Dollar. Due to which, in reality we have to sell more quantity to earn single dollar. The middlemen started buying high quantity of foreign produce from different countries, than buying from local farmers, due to lower prices and high profit margins. This is one of the major depressing setback to on farmer's side.

Seeds Patenting 

India is a source of different types of seeds available in the world, from 1000s of years. Each seed used to have hundreds of varieties. Now-a-days we could observe many of them vanished from our markets, with the flow of time and only few varieties are left to see. As water, as air, seeds were never sold and bought in this country. I do remember in my village people used to help each other by exchanging the seeds. But now, things have changed, every exchange has a price associated according to market rates.

There is no patent of seeds system in India. Everyone feels, God is the owner of the seeds and he distributes them. But, now the patenting seeds have started in western world. Many of our seeds are getting patented in US and other parts of the world. The company, which has the patent, can only sell those seeds. Anyone else sells them is subject to the court of law. If the company is serious then they can lodge even a case against the seller. This will pledge our sovereignty and lead to monopoly of the company, adding higher cost to farming. This is a dangerous progress. We (our government) should intervene (fight a legal case– if required) against patenting of seeds.

Competition

The lesser price produces from outside is giving a tough competition to locally produced food stuffs. It is harming the local market. There is less demand for local produces due to higher cost of production. This trend is forcing the farmers to either resort to modern farming or to concentrate mainly on economical crops. This leads to reduction in area of cultivation. On national forum it is not a healthy growth.

For e.g.

1 KG daal produced in India might cost us Rs. 70-80, whereas imported daal costs Rs. 40-50 / per K.G. So there is less demand for local produce from middlemen, so is from end customer. This in long run leads to imbalance between import and exports causing export deficiency and trade debts.

Genetically Modified (GM) 

The term GM foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used to refer to seeds or crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques. These plants have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content.

GM/BT Effect 

The introduction of GM seeds slowly started killing the local seeds’ variants. The major examples of GM products are (BT Cotton, BT Brijol, BT Potato, BT Tomato, etc...). They give comparatively high yield, because, they are genetically modified. To make them Pest resistance, Disease Resistance, Drought Tolerance and Antisense Technology, bio technological methods are applied. To remove weeds cost-effectively, weed-killers are sprayed. In this process these BT seeds have become very dangerous; they started killing natural fertility of the soil. The BT cotton fields have become useless after few years. You could imagine that how dangerous they could be by knowing the fact that many cattle died just because of entering into these fields. 

The seeds selling companies have become monopoly and started selling seed bags at an increased price to exploit the need after killing local variants. Water scarcity increased after using GM/BT seeds; as such crops need more water. There are other effects of serious health issues as well on human and cattle bodies (causing issues like impotence). That is why lot of protests happening all over world against these GM and BT seeds.

Fertilization

Earlier Indian agriculture was an independent sector. Now, in modern (post 1995) days agriculture is becoming very much dependent sector. Where from seeding onwards till the harvesting lot of dependency has come. Now-a-days, a situation is such that without putting chemical fertilizers like, Urea, DAP, etc... No, average harvesting can be possible (or at least it is brought in our minds). The GM seeds, might give higher produce, but, they need lot of investment as well,  like, applying fertilizers, insecticides, availability of continuous water source, etc... 

The fertilizers prices have gone 3 to 4 times up within last 13-14 years, just by adding profit to the company’s profit sheet. It is nothing but, to make a little extra profit, one should bear lot of extra expenditures till the crop comes in hand. In such case, one crop fails then it is very tough for the farmer to overcome the debt and dare to try next crop.

Increased Farming Cost

Farming is not a common man’s (totally dependent on agriculture) cup of tea any more in India, today. Increased prices of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, left an average farmer always under debt state. Adding to it, speedy urbanization drew the labor force from fields to under construction building works in cities. The scarcity of labors in villages has turned the laborers to a very demanding one. A simple work also costs high today.

Other Points

Other than these major problems, there are many other small and big points causing to make farming toughest job

• Consistently failing crops, Uncertain weather conditions, Costly and less productive seeds, forced Chemical fertilizers usage, Electricity problems, Transportation problems, and Storage and Preservation problems.
• Inspection (Panchnama) by government officials after natural/man made calamity.
• No, support by government in handling inflation in the form of subsidies, higher import duties, no export duties, price fixing, handling the middlemen, direct buying, etc...
• No guarantee of rates of farm produce.
• No funding facilities, on loss of one crop, to venture for the next time cultivation.
• Insufficient and ineffective food processing facilities

Oooph! When we hear any suicide news of a farmer, we tell without a second thought that it is because of debt. Now, we know it is not only just debt it is far deep one. It’s deep-rooted with our policies. Poor farmer to feed us he is living foodless. 

The government and farmer’s unions should sit together and form a new policy though which a farmers come out of suicidal mentality and gets good amount of breathing space! What do you say brother?

O God let Shivanna’s soul rest in peace!

I made my true effort to bring (at least partial) reality to you all...! Hope it helped you in understanding our brothers’ helplessness.

Jay Jawaan, Jay Kisaan...!

-- K. Kalyan

 Sources:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article3595351.ece

http://www.aajeevika.in/studies/understanding-poverty/1-arjun-sengupta-paper.pdf