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"WHY else do you think people who barely get enough to eat, who don't even earn Rs.50 a day, have borrowed money to come for this rally?" asked D.P. Vishe, a farmer from Shahpur in Thane district, Maharashtra. "Because this is the only hope we have left. To come together and fight the injustices against farmers."
Vishe had come to participate in a rally that was part of the 31st All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) conference held at Nashik in Maharashtra. The conference had delegates from across the country. The languages were different, but they shared the same sorrows.
The farmer's dilemma was the priority issue at the Kisan Sabha meeting. Rural India is facing the worst agrarian crisis since Independence, the meeting noted. With globalisation, the government has withdrawn its responsibility towards rural development, land reforms and market regulation. Farmers have been left unprotected to face price collapses in a global market that is skewed against them and controlled by a handful of powerful multinational companies. The Kisan Sabha, the country's largest farmers' organisation (with 1.88 crore members), discussed ways to confront the farm crisis and prevent the mass suicides of peasants occurring in several parts of the country.
After liberalisation, growth of agricultural production and real income has fallen. The amount of foodgrains consumed per person has also declined from 177 kg to 155 kg, reaching the levels during the Bengal famine of the pre-Independence era. "Public development expenditure on rural development was 14.5 per cent of GDP [gross domestic product] in 1990. It was reduced to 5.9 per cent in 2001. This is why agricultural incomes have fallen by Rs.1,50,000 crores per annum," said K. Varadharajan, general secretary of the AIKS.
Incomes have plummeted and farmers are bankrupt because of the fall in the prices of farm products. This has led to suicides by cotton farmers in Maharashtra, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. Many pepper and coffee cultivators in Kerala's Wayanad district have also killed themselves after price collapses ruined them. "In a period of seven years after quantitative restrictions on imports were removed, India changed from being a net exporter of cotton to a net importer," Varadharajan pointed out.
"The prices of all cash crops have crashed - coffee, pepper, tea. Wayanad has mainly commercial crop cultivators who have invested a lot in their fields. When the prices crashed, they lost everything. That's why you see so many suicides. The government has not intervened to protect the farmer from these price slides," said George Mathew from Kollam in Kerala. Tea and coffee estates have shut down and plantation workers have no other employment. "The price of coffee beans fell from Rs.90-120 a kg in 1996 to Rs.11-20 today, but the price of coffee powder rose from Rs.450 a kg in 1999 to Rs.900-1,200 in 2002. Obviously, the international markets are manipulated. Indian farmers are doomed if they are exposed to this global market," said Krishna Prasad from Wayanad.
Vegetable prices too are very erratic and farmers have had to sell tomatoes or onions for as low as Re.1 per kg; some just dump them on the road rather than make the effort to sell them, according to a farmer from Maharashtra.
Farmers are also starved of credit and land. Institutional credit and land reforms are necessary to help farmers out of debt and poverty. "When I spoke to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he told me that all rural development efforts are cosmetic without land reforms," said Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, addressing a rally held on the sidelines of the conference. While the government has done nothing for land reforms, it is encouraging corporate farming and giving concessions and huge tracts of land to companies who own such farms. Many governments have also removed land ceiling limits, making way for corporate farming.
Farmers cultivating forest land are constantly threatened with eviction. They are not given title deeds for the land and their ownership is considered illegal. "We don't get bank loans because we don't have the land in our name," said Vishe. In Tripura too, the State Forest Department owns around 60 per cent of the land. "Farmers who have been cultivating such land for ages are told they are illegal owners and have been asked to leave," said Dr. Nilmoni Deb Barmani from Tripura.
Rural India is also facing an acute shortage of water and power. With privatisation, power tariffs have multiplied. Yet power supply is erratic even in the more developed States such as Maharashtra and Punjab. "Almost all of Punjab is irrigated, but we need 12 hours of continuous power supply for it to work," said Tarlochand Dhulay from Ludhiana. But many farmers are insecure because they have to rely entirely on rainfall. "We have three dams in our taluk, but we don't even get proper drinking water. All the water goes to Mumbai and to the nearby Coca-Cola factory," said Vishe.
Even Punjab, considered the granary of India, is facing a grave crisis. Farmers' suicides have been reported here too. "The minimum cost of producing one quintal of wheat is Rs.640. The market price is the same. So we are all running heavy losses," said Tarlochand Dhulay. "Production has reached a peak. Earlier, agricultural universities were coming up with new seeds and techniques but in the past 10 years, they have done nothing. People have to rely on private suppliers of seeds and other inputs." Moreover, the water level in the canals is falling by five feet every year.
The good news for the conference came from Rajasthan where the AIKS' huge protests for water and power forced the State government to concede the farmers' demands. "Two areas - Hanumangarh and Ganganagar - were part of the first phase of two irrigation projects. But the authorities bypassed the two and provided water to the cities. This destroyed the agricultural fortunes of everyone here - and hence people started migrating, and the markets collapsed. So AIKS along with other groups launched an agitation. We also started a parallel agitation against the 30 per cent hike in power tariff," said Sheopat Singh, an AIKS leader from Rajasthan. For eight days late last year, the Kisan Mazdoor Vyapari Sangh Samiti held a sit-down agitation in Jaipur. Farmers came with their tractors, food and cooking vessels, and refused to move out. All roads were blocked. Finally, the State government had to concede their demands.
"In Rajasthan, we have shown farmers a new way forward. You don't have to kill yourself. You just have to fight together," said Sheopat.
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