Farmers distress and Agrarian crisis in India

(Gurjot Singh, 2019POL1008)

Internal Assesment
Biswaranjan Mohanty Sir

Since 2001, every half hour one farmer has committed suicide in India. Official data, on average, shows
that nearly 16,000 farmers committed suicide every year in India since last decade or so. According to
the latest census, which was taken in 2011, it reported that nationwide rate of farmers committed
suicide was 16.3 per 100,000 farmers. This was slightly higher than the 15.7 per 100,000 farmers who
had committed suicide per 100,000 in 2001. The Economic Survey 2017-18, which were released in
Parliament on Monday ahead of the Union Budget, 2018 had key implications for agriculture sector
which employs more than 50 per cent of the total workforce in India and contributes around 17-18 per
cent to the country’s GDP. However, this other fact is that farmer population falls by 9 million in 10 years.
It has declined from nearly 50% in 1951 to 24% in 2011, which means the number of farmers has come
down by half. Total cultivators in rural areas have declined from 40% in 2001 to 33% in 2011.
Genderwise, females have moved away more sharply than their male counterparts from being
cultivators. Their percentage has fallen from 37% in 2001 to 29% in 2011. Journalist P Sainath says there
are 95.8 million cultivators for whom farming is their main occupation, which is less than 8% of the
population. In another statement by Devendra Sharma, agricultural researcher and policy commentator
stated that “unlike the US, in India when the family owns a piece of land everyone works on the farm. So
if we make a rough calculation of say 90 million households engaged in agriculture and multiply it with 5
(the average Indian family size) the number you get pretty much is equivalent to 53%”. If we add the
number of cultivators and agricultural labourers, it would be around 263 million or 22% of the
population (1.2 billion). Then where does the common perception of 53% of the population is involved in
agriculture come from? It needs to be remembered that over 600 million Indians dependent on
agriculture are not farmers. They are deployed in an array of related activities including fisheries. And
this confusion is widespread and innocent. Unfortunately, current situation and circumstances are such
that they are being forced to commit suicide because, in the year 2017, there are some 216 districts in
the country faced drought-like situation because of deficient rainfall. In and almost all the state
conditions of farmers are deteriorating day by day the price of all the major agrarian commodities have
collapsed. It is to be noticed that even in Punjab (agriculture rich farmer) reports of farmer suicide
noticed where it is hardly expected. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna has clearly failed and many
others have clearly ended up just on paper. In such a situation the farmers have no option but to unite
for the struggle. However, the situation of farmer was quite good before liberalization policy
implemented in India. To know the farmer situation in India, we have to trace back the farmer history
since independence. During British India, most of the fertile land was occupied by the zamindars. Farmer
has to pay tax for cultivation on zamindars land. Huge taxes made the worst condition of farmer and
were not able to run their family due to this borrows money from zamindar as debt was common in
India. Due to high rate of interest, they have to borrow another loan to pay their earlier debt which
resulted bonded labour practice in India on agriculture land. British administration made series of
changes in the commercialisation of agriculture to earn more profit which mostly for the privileged class
to acquire more land and increase more taxes on their farmer. Privileged class were able to expand
production because of having large share on landholding and their economic position but small
landowner or poor farmers were unable to compete them because of having a very small land share and
poor economic conditions which deteriorated the conditions of farmers in the Country. After Indian
Independence several initiated were taken to improve the agriculture production in which the green
revolution began in the 1960s, to introduce high yielding variety (HYV) technology to increase production
through use of water-seed-fertilise including land and crop based subsidy or credit. In the first phase of
green revolution was limited to water-rich regions and given especially for wheat and rice etc. In the
second phaseof green revolution, the 1980s included non-food crops including cash crop like cotton. HYV
technology, production and distribution of seeds, fertilizer and other equipment were undertaken by the
government with some supporting institutions. The initiation of programme like green revolution helped
a lot for lower-caste farmer who worked under the upper caste landholder. The new provisions under
green revolution fulfil their long-cherished desires as availability of land at low-cost credit, HYV seeds,
etc that provided higher profit to them. The agricultural revolution was introduced spelt prosperity for
the farmers, and true, efforts were made to expand irrigation, but the programme only accepted a
limited number of states, “the area under irrigation did not increase substantially and cultivation of high
value crops like cotton was left to the vagaries of monsoon.” And the other side the new HYV seeds
require high doses of pesticides, fertilisers and other inputs, which resulted higher cost in cultivation.
Most of the farmer was not updated with the information of credit policy on changing market situation
or agriculture extension at the time of submission of their application. First-generation of farmer did not
face any problem with their modern agriculture technique as they have some experience or policy were
note hidden. However, in recent most of the credit scheme policies were framed for the farmer, they
were not aware and even did not have a bit of knowledge about market situation. And even in most of
the case interference of market agents, traders, input dealers and institutional finance including lack of
crucial services information about insurance, warehousing, post-harvest processing, and export made
more complicated to get all sort of benefits which were brought for the purpose. Due to that risks and
uncertainty increased with modern agriculture techniques after the liberalisation, privatisation and
globalization policy were initiated in 1990s reform. In 1992 under the financial reforms recommendation
of the Narasimha Committee “targeted priority lending” or “directed credit” implemented in agriculture
sector because earlier farmers are required to depend on moneylenders/ private shopkeepers, who
usually charge exorbitant rates of interest, for a timely agriculturalinput requirement. However, public
sector was unable to supply the varieties of HYV seeds as per the demand. Thus, the private sector
gradually emerges as dominant supplier and in the 1980s in the seed market. Since 1991, 100 % foreign
equity was allowed in the seed industry. Later in 2006 public sector share were reduces to 42 per cent
and private sector increased to 58 per cent. This later impacted the prices of HYV seeds became high due
to private monopoly and public sector interference were reduced. The share of private sector investment
in agriculture, which was 54% in 1980-81, gradually increased to 80% in 2003-04. Even government
declared minimum support prices were increased but it did not benefit the farmers as these prices are
meant to compensate as the cost of production which became too high in the absence of public
investments in HYV seeds.

Including seeds, price hike also noticed in power and other tariffs, as well as irrigation rate. Similarly,
government withdrawal of fertiliser subsidy and the cost of overall cultivation hike many times. All these
changes in the policy resulted the growth rates went down in yields. The overall share of agriculture in
real gross domestic product (GDP) fell from average as it was 3.5% per year for 1981-82 and 1996-97,
reduced to only 2% for 1997-98 and 2004-05. The consequence of economic liberalisation not only
lowered the prices of Indian agricultural products but also minimize the support price, lowered the
subsidies, credit and other facilities were removed by the government which were earlier to facilitate the
farmer and to help economically. Small landowner and poor Indian farmers were unable to compete for
foreign agriculture product which imported to India that increased the Indian farmer dependency on
subsidies. In some circumstance, if crop failed farmers totally dependent on the government to waive
their loans. If government unable to waive the loans of farmers, they have to borrow loan from other
sources in which many farmers borrow money from the private banks with a huge rate of interest.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) a total of 11,744 farmers ended their lives in
India in 2013, down from 13,754 farmers in 2012 in which most farm suicideshave been linked to debt. It
has been noticed that a sharp rise in input costs, water crises, price volatility and crop failure due to pest
attacks and disease. A total of 296,438 farmers have killed themselves in India since 1995. As many as
1,82,936 farmers have killed themselves between 1997 and 2007 (Govt. of India, 2008).1 With a total of
7,653 cases, five key states - Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and
Karnataka - still account for two-thirds of all farmer suicides in the country. In 2017 Centre tells Supreme
Court that over 12,000 farmer suicides per year. There are several cases on farmer suicide has been
noticed but the NCRB defines that a farmer/cultivator is one whose profession is farming and includes
those who cultivate their own land/leased land/other’s land with or without the assistance of
agricultural labourers. If we trace the farming suicides cases of people who have land on their names are
considered as farmers, according to several studies undertaken. There remains ambiguity in the
definition and classification of farmers, which further affects recognition of the female face in
agriculture. Historical Background While discussing historical background of agriculture situation
Mohanty stated that under the British India, most of the fertile lands occupied by zamindars. Farmer
have to pay huge tax on cultivating their (zamindars) land. Since the tax was quite high, so their
economic condition was very bad to run their family and they were bound to borrow money from
zamindar as debt. In most of the cases farmers were unable to pay the debt and became bonded labour.
Later, British administration brought a series of changes in the commercialisation of agriculture land and
expansion of the politico-legal system. The new land tenure provision enhanced the propensity to invest
more in land. Resulted the privileged class acquired more land. The cultivation area was increased and
more emphasis was made on to cultivate cash crops like cotton, sugar cane, jute, etc, to feed Britain’s
industrial demand. Cultivation of cash crops was largely profitable because of increasing demands in
both domestic and international markets. The rich upper caste zamindars were largely benefited from
this reform as they were able to expanded production because of having large share on landholding and
their economic position. But the other side small landowner or poor farmers were unable to compete
them because of have very small land share and poor economic conditions. Even in loss of these
commercial of cash crops due to weather and did not affect large land holder as they most of the loss
recovered from labourers to lowering the wages and increasing the price of their surplus food grain.
British introduced agrarian changes did not hurt upper caste system as they were also worked under
British a as intermediaries or engaged in money lending activities to control large land which were under
the control of British administration. Situation of small-scale farmer was even more frightening.
However, in the beginning of the 20th century some positive sign were noticed with “protest movements
by peasantry and the members of lower castes against the exploitative land, labour and credit relations
and rising economic inequality among the various castes (Mohanty2013).” Post-independence, new
government of India made special focus on agriculture and initiated several step to improve the
economic condition of rural society including to achieve agricultural growth and distributive justice.
“Keeping in view that large-scale unequal distribution of land, especially the landlessness of lower castes
and tribes, land reform became a part of the planning for a package of measures like abolition of
intermediaries, imposition of ceiling, distribution of ceiling surplus land, etc, which was introduced
invariably in all states.” Even after several programmes and policy, Indian government failed to achieve
the desired goal and even was not able to remove inequalities between small landowner and large land
owner. However, it makes some positive changes on groups of lower caste in few states such as West
Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.