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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Why Odisha’s farmers are taking their lives -Biswajit Padhi

Why Odisha’s farmers are taking their lives -Biswajit Padhi

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published Published on Dec 15, 2015   modified Modified on Dec 15, 2015
-Civil Society Online

Bhubaneswar: Laxman Goud, a 35-year-old farmer in Thakurpalli village in Komna block of Nuapada district of Odisha, used to lead a very simple life. He was a devoted follower of Mahima Dharma, a subaltern religion practised by underprivileged castes in Odisha. One morning, he took his life in desperation. He couldn’t repay Rs 19,000 he had borrowed from a local moneylender at 36 per cent interest.

Goud had invested the money in growing paddy on his field of 1.77 acres and on another two acres he had taken on a sharecropping basis. Lack of rain turned his fields to dust. All that he was able to harvest was 13 kg of paddy.

His wife, Kunti, said that he had been very worried. His mother, Ila, was too grief-stricken to speak. His 13-year-old son, Khileswar’s future is uncertain. He will probably drop out of school and go to work.

Odisha has been in the news recently  for farmer suicides. There isn’t an exact tally of how many farmers have died but the local media estimates it to be between 50 and 80. The BJP, the main opposition party in the state, alleges it is higher.

“As many as 93 farmers took their lives in the past three months,” claims Jadumani Panigrahi, General Secretary of the BJP’s Kisan Morcha.

Reimati Majhi, a 28-year-old woman from Dhamanapada village in Nuapada district, will go down in history. She is perhaps the first woman farmer to kill herself. Her husband had gone to Surat to work as a labourer but returned penniless. Reimati’s crop on her three-acre paddy field shrivelled and died. A loan from a local moneylender, which she could not repay, was the last straw on her back.

Most suicides are being reported from western Odisha, which doesn’t have much irrigation, but they are occurring in irrigated areas as well.

Odisha, despite being a mineral-rich state, continues to be an agrarian economy. Almost 70 per cent of the population depends on agriculture and allied activities. Yet the agriculture sector’s contribution to the state’s GDP is declining. It fell from 13.7 per cent in 2013-14 to 12.33 per cent in 2014-15.  

A sign of things to come is Jharsuguda district with its many industries.  It has recorded the highest per capita income in the state. And the services sector now contributes more than 50 per cent of the state’s GDP.

“It is ironical that the state has been able to address unpredictable disasters like cyclones, but fails to address seasons of drought which are quite predictable and many times man-made,” remarks Pradeep Mohanty, a local journalist.   

Odisha has about 64.09 hectares of farmland and around 41.16 per cent of this land is under cultivation. Most of it (40.17 lakh hectares) is acidic. A smaller percentage of land suffers from flooding, salinity or water-logging.

The state has as many as 10 different agro-climatic zones with rainfall that varies from region to region. Western Odisha gets 1,200 to 1,400 mm of rain in 30 to 40 days whereas the coastal districts get heavy rain in 60 to 70 days.

Farmers in coastal areas struggle with waterlogging while western Odisha fights frequent drought. North Odisha battles floods and in the hilly south tribals continue to practise shifting cultivation.

“In such a diverse agro-climatic region, one policy or programme can’t meet the needs of the people,” says Pradip Dutta, Director of Radio Kisan, a community radio that popularises agriculture.

Yet, successive governments have been unable to design strategies that would meet the diverse needs of farmers in different regions of the state. Even agricultural scientists have failed. A premier institute like the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Cuttack has erred in its research.

CRRI has invented more than 60 varieties of paddy. “Yet more than 80 per cent of its inventions are for irrigated areas in a state where 70 to 80 per cent of farmers depend on rain-fed agriculture,” says Professor J.K. Ray, an eminent agricultural scientist who too has invented a paddy variety for irrigated areas.

Farming practices continue to be traditional. Low seed replacement, low fertiliser consumption and low level of mechanisation are some of the major reasons why farmers in Odisha earn so little and end up spending so much.

Around 83 per cent of farmers are small and marginal, with the average  land holding being just 1.25 hectares. “The increasing cost of production and frequent labour rate revisions have been pushing farmers to the brink of pauperism,” says Birendra Pradhan, a farmer in Nuapada district.

Rising consumerism puts pressure on farmers to spend on marriages and family functions. In the absence of good government schools and healthcare, they send their children to private schools and use private hospitals, adding to their cost of living.

Farmers are also beginning to use high-yielding varieties of seeds, fertilisers and insecticides that are adding to input costs. There is no certainty that the money the farmer invests will fetch him lucrative returns. Meanwhile, commercial farming is yet to pick up.

These are the reasons why farmers even in irrigated areas where they are assured of returns on their crops, are committing suicide, says Lingaraj Pradhan, a member of the Aam Aadmi Party, who is from Bargarh district of western Odisha.

The state has an attractive agricultural policy but on paper, allege critics. “The problem is there is no convergence with other programmes to maximise benefits to farmers,” says Panigrahi.

In western Odisha ponds on cultivable land are a necessity. Yet these were badly dug under MGNREGA. A scheme that subsidised sinking of borewells and provision of free electricity has come a cropper. Farmers say they don’t get regular power supply so they can’t pump water from the borewell for their fields.

Farmers who were promised compensation for destruction of their crops caused by Cyclone Phailin two years ago are yet to receive money.

Despite an active credit policy, institutional credit to farmers is still a mirage. AV Swamy, a Rajya Sabha MP, has been advocating that all farmers should be able to get credit at just 2 per cent interest since agriculture provides the maximum employment.

Currently, sharecroppers are left out of institutional credit schemes. But it is sharecroppers who mostly get into debt with local moneylenders.

The Odisha government claims that credit flow for agriculture rose to Rs 10,454 crore in 2012-13 from Rs 1,316 crore in 2003-04. But it isn’t vulnerable farmers who are accessing this money.

The share of irrigation for farmers such as ponds, canals and lift irrigation schemes has been steadily dwindling. According to government estimates around 51 per cent of land (33.12 lakh hectares) is covered by irrigation during the kharif season and 25 per cent (16.19 lakh hectares) is provided irrigation during the rabi season.

In fact, irrigation cover could be less than official estimates, says Arun Mishra, a local political leader, because of improper management of canals and lift irrigation points.

“The present system of irrigation through major and minor projects and lift irrigation will never be able to cover all the cultivable land in the state,” says Jagadish Pradhan of Sahabhagi Vikash Abhiyan, an NGO working with farmers for two decades.

Pradhan advocates open wells dug every five acres at a cost of Rs 22,000 crore. He feels it is possible to build such a network of ponds in five years with MGNREGA money.

Another serious issue is lack of crop diversification and promotion of cash crops. Rice is still Odisha’s major crop, grown on 80 per cent of farmland followed by pulses at 10 per cent.

As a result, the state is perennially short of vegetables and fruits. Take potatoes. The state needs nine to 10 lakh metric tonnes of potatoes annually. But less than one per cent of cultivable land is devoted to growing potatoes. So potatoes are imported from West Bengal.

Districts in western Odisha like Bolangir, Kalahandi and Nuapada produce huge quantities of onions. But due to lack of storage facilities the onions sell at very low prices and end up benefitting middlemen who export them to other parts of the country. Horticulture too continues to lag behind.

With its huge coastline, Odisha could have been an exporter of fish.  Instead, it imports fish as well as poultry from Andhra Pradesh.

The tribal-dominated Nabrangpur district is one of the biggest producers of maize. But it doesn’t have any processing unit so gullible farmers get exploited by traders.

The government announced compensation of Rs 2,720 per acre  to drought-affected farmers. This is inadequate, say activists. “The input costs alone are Rs 15,000 per acre,” claims Amitabh Patra, an activist.

Ashok Sahu, former Director-General of Police and a BJP leader, has been recommending free seeds and crop insurance for farmers with the government picking up 50 per cent of the cost.

A crisis over the survival of farmers and shortage of food is staring India in the face. Unless agriculture is given a new lease of life, food prices will continue to rise and India will pay more and more for imported food.

Civil Society Online, December, 2015, http://www.civilsocietyonline.com/pages/Details.aspx?831


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