Punjab Agriculture Crisis is Worsening

Lovepreet Singh was a young farmer with a lot of dreams. Knowing well that he inherited an outstanding loan of Rs 8 lakh he still wanted to give farming a try. But unable to pay back the loan, he finally ended his life. He was only 22-year-old.

The suicide by Lovepreet Singh of Barnala district sent shockwaves in Punjab. In three generations, the family had lost five members to farm distress. A year and a half ago, his father, Kulwant Singh, had ended his life by hanging himself just a day before the state government launched the first phase of the farm loan waiver. His grandfather too had earlier committed suicide. “We had taken around 8-acres of land on lease at the rate of Rs 50,000 per acre annual rent but due to the hail storm in 2017 our wheat crop got damaged. We could never recover from that, “his mother Harnail Kaur told the media. 

This is probably the first instance when members of three generations of a farm family had borne the brunt of continuing indebtedness. Earlier, there were cases when a father or mother and his or her son had committed suicide but the fact that the economic crisis is being passed on from a farmer to his next two generations clearly shows how deep-rooted the malaise is. This remains me of yet another tragedy when a farmer Jaswant Singh had tied his five year old son to his waist and jumped into the canal. He left behind a note saying that he knows it is unfair to take his son along to the watery grave but he knows for sure that his son wouldn’t be able to pay back the Rs 10-lakh outstanding loan he carried.   

Despite the farm loan waiver launched by Capt Amarinder Singh’s government, under which Rs 2-lakh outstanding for a farmer from a cooperative bank is written off, the spate of suicides continues unabated. This year alone, between the months of January and July, 645 farmers had taken the fatal route to escape the humiliation that comes along with indebtedness. With private money lenders, banks and agents of micro-finance institutes (MFIs) as well as the Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFC) breathing down their necks, farmers are increasingly being driven to commit suicide. According to data compiled by the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), between April 1, 2017 and August 31, 2019, a total of 1,280 farmers and farm workers had committed suicide.

The fact that Punjab, the bread basket of the country, has turned into a hotbed of farmer suicides over the years, is certainly not without reasons that are unknown. With Rs 4,609-crore of farmers bad loans having been written-off since the Congress government launched the loan waiver scheme, a total of 5,61,886 indebted farmers have benefitted so far. With the possibility of more bad loans being waved off in future diminishing, there is little possibility of the benefit being extended to more farmers. But at the same time there is no denying that the government has in fact gone back on its electoral promise of waiving all outstanding farm loans taken from cooperative, nationalised, private banks as well as from private money lenders. This would have entailed an expenditure of close to Rs 90,000-crore, which the state government said it didn’t have.  

If the death toll so far in 2019 is any pointer, on an average three farmers are committing suicides every day. The continuing tragedy on the farm is happening at a time when Punjab on the other hand has been bestowed with Krishi Karman Award for being the best performing state in rice production in 2017-18. Punjab has been the top contributor of rice to the central pool since 2009-10, except for 2010-11 when Andhra Pradesh had left Punjab behind. In case of wheat, Punjab has retained the top position in contributions to the national pool since 2008-09, providing on an average 37.83 per cent of the total contribution to the food reserves. With such a high contribution of wheat and rice to the central pool, and with 98 per cent cultivable area under assured irrigation, the rigid dichotomy between increased crop productivity and worsening agrarian distress remains rather unexplained.

Now take a look at the three criteria specified for Krishi Karman Award – first is for achieving high production for which 55 marks are kept; secondly, 30 marks are assigned for the special initiatives taken for achieving record output; and finally, 15 marks are reserved for expenditure under foodgrain development schemes – and the reasons for the continuing crisis in agriculture becomes crystal clear. If only the package was redesigned keeping at least 50 per cent marks for the welfare of the farmers growing these crops, the policy planning focus would have shifted to ensuring a decent and sustainable livelihood for the farming community in distress.

The thrust of the state policies have so far remained on increasing foodgrain production at whatever cost without caring for the farmer who toils endlessly to produce the record harvest. According to studies, Punjab tops the global productivity in cereal crops – wheat, rice and maize, and yet has turned into a graveyard for farmers. Take another example. To fight the menace of stubble burning, Punjab has formed 6,400 farmer groups to provide those with machines as well as to educate them on why not to burn the paddy stubble after harvest. Teams of experts comprising scientists from the Punjab Agricultural University and the state department of agriculture will be interacting with these farmer groups.

To sell the highly subsidised machines, 6,400 farmers groups have been formed. I don’t understand why similar groups cannot be created to address the worsening agrarian crisis? Why regular camps and interactive sessions cannot be held with farmers in small groups, learning from them the reasons which lead to farm suicides? Why can’t these suggestions be collated and then action taken reports is filed? Why should the state government only swing into action when farm machinery has to be sold and keep quiet to address the bigger humanitarian task? #

Worsening agrarian crisis. Deccan Herald. Sept 25, 2019. 

https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/main-article/worsening-agrarian-crisis-763727.html

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With high productivity, assured irrigation, a higher MSP and loan waivers in progress, why are Punjab farmers dying?

At a farm widow congregation in Punjab 

A day after the massive farmer protest in New Delhi, hundreds of farmer widows had assembled at Mansa in Punjab. I sat there listening to the heart-rending testimonies of several farm widows, among the hundreds who had assembled at Mansa. In the land of Green Revolution, to see and meet hundreds of farm widows was not so easy. As they stood to narrate their painful stories, more often than not they just stood in front of the mike, said a few words and wept. The silence that followed said everything.

There is hardly a day when I don’t find news reports of farmers committing suicide. A study conducted jointly by the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; Punjabi University, Patiala; and the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar had in a house-to-house survey put the alarming death toll figures at 16,600 in the 17 year period, between the year 2000 and 2017. In other words, roughly 1,000 farmers and farm workers have taken the extreme step of ending their life every year in the agriculture frontline State. As the serial death dance on the farm continues unabated, another study by the Punjabi University estimates that one in every three farmers in Punjab is living below the poverty line.

As the widows narrated their agony and enormous struggle, as to how they were coping with the huge void left behind by the only bread-earner in their family, I sat wondering why had Punjab, often called as the food bowl of the country, turned into a hotbed of farmer suicides. Why nearly 98 per cent of the rural household were in debt, and 94 per cent of these households had reported more monthly expenditure as compared to their gross incomes. In other words, the rural households in progressive Punjab were living in debt. To live in perpetual indebtedness, and that to year after year, generation after generation, is the worst humiliation that any human being can suffer. Former Prime Minister Charan Singh had rightly remarked that a farmer is born in debt and dies in debt. What he did not say was that living in indebtedness all through your life is akin to living in hell.  

 

Listening to the farm widows, I tried to put the puzzle in place. If providing an assured Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops, writing-off of outstanding farm loans, and expanding the irrigation network is primarily the recipe for ensuring farm prosperity then Punjab already has these in place. With 98 per cent assured irrigation, meaning that every farm gets an assured irrigation supply, and with the highest productivity of cereal crops – wheat, rice and maize – in the world, why is it that hundreds of farmers are still forced to commit suicide every year? If productivity and irrigation were the answer to the prevailing agrarian crisis then there is no reason why Punjab farmers should be dying. This only shows that the reasons behind the terrible agrarian crisis that prevail lie much beyond crop productivity and irrigation.  

On top of it, Punjab has a very extensive and elaborate system of procurement of food crops. With a huge network of APMC mandis and purchase centres, Punjab has the best infrastructure for procurement of crops in the country. It also has a vast network of rural roads linking the mandiswith the villages. With mandis and rural link roads in place, whatever stocks are brought to these purchase centres and if it meets the quality specifications are purchase at the fixed support price. Over 98 per cent of the wheat and paddy that is brought to the mandis by farmers is purchased at the fixed price. Farmers are able to sell their produce at the officially declared Minimum Support price, which is much higher than the prevailing market prices. That’s the reason why truckloads of paddy are illegally transported all the way from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to be sold in Punjab mandis.

In addition, Punjab has also announced a farm loan waiver for a maximum of Rs 2-lakh per small and marginal farmer. Although the electoral promise was to waive all kinds of outstanding loans drawn on cooperative, private and nationalised banks, the State has so far promised to waive roughly about Rs 9,000-crore of farm loans of small and marginal farmers. Of which, approximately Rs 1,000-crore worth of farm loans have been waived off so far. In Maharashtra, against the initial estimate of Rs 34-lakh worth of farm loans to be waived, an estimated Rs 14-lakh crore is now planned to be struck out. Similarly, in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan where only a fraction of the promised loan amount is being actually waived. The problem is that despite the election promises the State governments do not have the resources to provide for writing-off the entire outstanding farm loans.

Each of the farm widows reeled out an amount of farm loan, varying between Rs 2-lakh to Rs 12-lakh that their deceased husbands left behind. And that made me wonder how come the economic situation had reached such a despicable levels despite Punjab offering the best of rural infrastructure, irrigation and technological advance.

Punjab, therefore offers an excellent case study to understand, re-strategise and formulate a set of agricultural reforms that are more meaningful and effective. A set of reforms that actually go beyond the rhetoric and lay out a roadmap for the future where the society doesn’t have to treat the small and marginal farmers as a national burden. Instead of treating them as abandoned people, the challenge should be to ensure how the rural masses base could benefit from as well as become part of economic growth. That’s why I have always been saying that the time has come to move away from price policy to income policy. The need is to provide farmers with an assured monthly income, which is not only WTO compatible but also provides economic security to farmers. The demand should be to convert the CACP into a Commission for Farmers Income and Welfare with the mandate to assure a monthly living income of at least Rs 18,000 per farm family. That will be the beginning of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vilas. It’s time to think again. #

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