Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reviewed the situation on farmer suicides on August 31st during his visit to Mumbai and attempted to work out comprehensive strategies to combat the problem. But all if was more of the same. More aid packages or a true solid plan.
Trade liberalization and globalization now has our farmers competing in a global market whose complexities befuddle even the most educated among them. With the opening of India's agricultural sector, international agri-business giants now get to sell genetically modified seeds with promises of high yielding crops. The modified seeds are often twice as expensive as the traditional ones and require costly pesticides and fertilizers to sustain their growth. Farmers have abandoned the traditional growing methods and seeds for the new branded ones, accepting the high costs as a measure towards eventual profits. (The acreage that is now being cultivated with modified seeds has increased more dramatically in the areas of farmer suicides) As such farms have flocked to money-lenders and banks taking advantage of the easily available credit with varying rates of interest. The local money-lenders often work on a set of rules that are unfairly aggressive and intimidating but with interest rates lower than most banks they remain the more attractive option. With the huge investment required for producing the crops most farmers forgo purchasing crop insurance. At the mercy of climate, health, world economy and new seeds the farmers find themselves precariously poised at the edge of loan default. A drought, crop failure, fluctuating prices or a health crisis can singularly precipitate a financial debacle. Unfortunately the last decade has been unfairly cruel and farmers are facing a plurality of these triggers. The seeds have not served them as well as expected, climatic changes have contributed to droughts and decreasing water-levels and farm subsidies by the western governments to their own farmers (esp USA) have created steep drop in the prices of popular crops like Cotton and Soya. With more than 20,000 suicides, is there a solution?
Ajay Shah,a Senior Fellow at National Institute for Public Finance and Policy, in an article for the Business Standard; "Making sense of farmer suicides (2006)", seems to accept the complexity of the agriculture business (mostly cotton cultivation) and suggests "a shift from small farmer-entrepreneurs to sophisticated organisation structures" where farmers become employees rather than owners. He cites the need for capital, equity, know-how and expertise in dealing with the new challenges as the basis for his suggestion. In his piece he directs blame toward inadequate and improper policies and markets dealing with cotton. A critic of the method of debt forgiveness, he also believes the government's and media's response is exaggerated in light of other forms of mortality claiming an equal if not larger toll on life. While the numbers might not be staggering in comparison, the fact that this is a recent phenomenon with an alarmingly increasing rate affords it the attention it is getting. I am a bit uncomfortable with blanket corporatization of agriculture and would rather see a scenario developed where the farmer are able to and have the opportunity to make an informed choice between being an employer or an employee.
Vandana Shiva, a strong anti-globalization advocate, would not accept anything less than a farmer's right and ability to exist as a self-employed professional. Her prescription includes a return to organic farming or traditional methods of cultivation, ending seed monopoly of the MNC's, fighting for an end to unfair farm subsidies in the west, rewriting the rules of trade in agriculture and appropriate credit opportunities. Shiva is a bit ambitious in her designs. With India reshaping itself for a global presence, a roll back of free market reforms does not seem feasible or likely. But she does have a lot of valid suggestions that might show a lot of merit in their implementation.
It seems that a more favorable cotton policy as advocated by Shah, along with appropriate credit counseling and education, price control of seeds and auxiliary farming needs, use of tested and more dependable crop and seed varieties, more effective anti-dumping laws, provision or help towards purchasing of crop insurance, an informed opportunity to be a part of a corporate structure and psychological counseling for distressed farmers might be a multi-pronged response and attempt to solve the situation.
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