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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The crops of wrath -Harish Damodaran

The crops of wrath -Harish Damodaran

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published Published on Jun 12, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 12, 2017
-The Indian Express

Demonetisation may not have hit agriculture production but it is the cause for the current unrest

When demonetisation happened, many, including this writer, thought the decision, taken at the start of rabi plantings in November, would significantly impact farm production. We were proved wrong. Good monsoon rains, after successive drought years, besides the timely onset of winter conducive to germination, turned out to be strong motivations for farmers to sow, even if this entailed begging or borrowing. They successfully weathered the DeMo storm by simply replacing cash with deferred payments, for labour, purchase of seed, fertiliser and pesticides. Informal credit networks and “social capital” ensured that, at the end of the day, we had a bumper crop.

Where demonetisation did have an impact, however, was in the prices received during harvest: Potatoes in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh, fetched below Rs 350 per quintal this February, compared to Rs 600 or more last year. Moreover, while prices in 2016 had crossed Rs 1,100/quintal by mid-May, they are stuck even now at Rs 350-400. The same goes for rabi onions in Lasalgaon, Maharashtra, that traded at an average of Rs 450 per quintal in May, as against Rs 750-800 and Rs 1,200 in the same month of the preceding two years. Farmers, likewise, sold tomatoes at Kolar, Karnataka, in early May for Rs 300-400 per quintal, down from Rs 1,500-1,600 a year ago.

When was the last time we saw all three — potatoes, onions and tomatoes — wholesaling at less than Rs 5/kg, and even retail prices within Rs 20/kg? And this, in peak summer! The above “fire sales” — the evocative term used by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest bimonthly monetary policy review statement — has been repeated across a range of other crops too: Garlic and methi (fenugreek) seed prices at Mandsaur — the district in Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa region that’s become synonymous with the ongoing farmer unrest — averaged Rs 3,400 and Rs 3,100-3,200 per quintal in April, whereas these ruled at over Rs 4,100 and Rs 4,700-4,800 respectively during the same time last year. Farmers in Nashik, which has also witnessed large-scale street action, along with the rest of Western Maharashtra, had to dump Sonaka grapes at about Rs 12 per kg in March, having sold the same green seedless variety for Rs 45 or so last year.

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The Indian Express, 12 June, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-crops-of-wrath-demonetisation-4699598/


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