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What a cheque for Rs.23 says about the state of the Indian farmer -Sayantan Bera
-Livemint.com

The money came from the Centre, which in April revised the amount farmers get as relief for crop damage

New Delhi: Two weeks before 2015 ended, 50-year-old Sukhrani received a new year’s gift from the Uttar Pradesh government. The local revenue officer visited her village in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh to hand out cheques to families whose winter crop was damaged due to unseasonal rains between February and April of 2015. Sukhrani received one too, for the little over half an acre of land registered in her name. The cheque was for a princely sum of Rs.23.

Compared to this, a visit to the bank in the block headquarters of Naraini costs Rs.50 in a teen-paiya-wali (three-wheeler) auto, said 55-year-old Rameswar, Sukhrani’s husband. “Those who bribed the lekhpal (revenue officer) got between Rs.2,000 and Rs.3,000, but I didn’t have even Rs.100 to spare,” Rameswar said. “My children work as daily wagers at the sahukar’s (moneylender) in exchange for food. When namak-roti (salt and flat bread) is difficult to arrange how can I pay Rs.1,000 the lekhpal asked for?” he asked.

As it turns out, the state hand-out was not that measly. The family received Rs.1,500 in July, a few months after their arhar (pigeon-pea) and jowar (sorghum) crop was damaged by untimely rains and hailstorms. The lekhpal was only settling the balance, as any diligent officer would.

It’s another matter that Rs.1,500 was not enough to clear the fields to sow the next crop, the Kharif, which too failed.

The money came from the Centre, which in April revised the amount farmers get as relief for crop damage. It was raised by 50% which Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed a landmark decision.

This means Sukhrani would have received Rs.1,000 or so, normally. And Rs.16, after 8 months.

Sukhrani and Rameswar are not isolated cases. Farmers in 15 states bore the brunt of unseasonal rains in 2015, which led to a 7% dip in wheat production in 2014-15 (compared to the previous year) and damaged the pulses crop, whose production fell by nearly 2 million tonnes.

What’s worse, freak rains were preceded by a drought in 2014, when the June to September south-west monsoon recorded a deficit of 12%, and was followed by another drought in 2015 which saw a 14% deficit in rainfall and as many as 10 states, including Uttar Pradesh, declaring a drought and seeking over Rs.38,000 crore in relief from the Centre.

And if three crop losses weren’t enough, farmers across India are staring at a subdued Rabi (winter) crop for which planting is nearing an end. For instance, Sukhrani’s family has left their land fallow since it never rained after August 2015. Crops like wheat and chana (chickpeas) are otherwise planted with the residual moisture after Kharif crops are harvested, especially for farmers with little or no access to irrigation facilities.

Overall, the numbers released by the farm ministry shows that till 1 January, winter crops have been planted in 54 million hectares, 6.2% lower than the normal area of 57.7 million hectares sown by this time of the year. While sowing of wheat is lower by 5.6%, and the shortfall in area under pulses is nearly 7%, sowing of oilseeds, for which India is heavily dependent on imports, shows a lag of nearly 12%.

After August and September 2015, rains were deficient; it didn’t rain at all for most of India. The result is a 23% deficit in the October to December north-east monsoon. In 2014 too, the north-east monsoon was deficient. This means four consecutive monsoon failures: south-west monsoon in 2014 and 2015, and north-east monsoon in the same years.

Little can be expected of the wheat crop in rain-fed areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh (from where Sukhrani belongs), Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, says T. Haque, director of Delhi-based Council for Social Development and former head of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices.

Besides, a warmer winter this time means the wheat will mature early and yield less, he adds. This would also mean the fourth consecutive crop failure and worsening rural distress for most of Indian farmers. “This in an unprecedented event,” continues Haque, “Last time two consecutive crops failed was between 1965 and 1967.”

Sadly, he says, relief for crop damage continues to be low and most farmers receive a measly sum after months. For instance, the first farmers affected by the drought during the 2015 Kharif crop season is yet to receive any relief.

What’s more, the Centre has been dragging its feet on the proposed crop insurance scheme that is slated to be better and cheaper for farmers, Haque said.

In the absence of any institutional support, farmers like Sukhrani continue to suffer. While coverage under existing crop insurance schemes is less than 10% of all farm holdings, less than half of India’s farmlands have access to irrigation. Repeated weather woes, therefore, have proven disastrous.

In Maharashtra alone, 2,234 farmers committed suicide between January and September (2015), revealed a Right to Information response from the state revenue department. According to Rythu Swarajya Vedika, an umbrella organization of non-governmental organisations in Telangana that collects data on farm suicides, 1,866 farmers killed themselves from June 2014 till date. Karnataka reported 516 farm suicides in 2015 (till mid-October), according to data provided by the Congress, the ruling party in the state.

In the chronically drought-hit Bundelkhand region, home to Sukhrani, hundreds of farmers have committed suicide in the past year. There isn’t a number yet. Those who are yet to take the extreme step are surviving on a meagre diet in conditions that resembles more a famine than a drought, found a recent survey by Swaraj Abhiyan, a political movement on farmers’ issues.

We buy grains mixed with chaff and add wild leaves to the dough to make up for lack of wheat, Rameswar said, adding it’s only one meal a day that they can afford.