'Land Grab Act’ and the Endangered
Species called ‘Farmers’ written on 23.4.2015
Let
industries stand by. They can take care of themselves.
Save
the ‘Anna Dhaathaa’ from extinction first.
Yes,
‘Land Grab Act’ is more like it. May be the Congress party can lend a name in
line with many programs named after leaders – national or otherwise. After the
sons and daughters of the dynasty, it is turn of the son in law to lend his
name to the ‘Land Grab Act’. The whole spectrum of opposition is on the streets
pretending to protest the act after leading the way – all the way – for such an
act in the past half century and more. Not to be left out is the Aam Admi Party
turned Aam party [just like any other party] after jettisoning some adhmi’s
recently. The political animals grab every issue, event and opportunity only to
twist it to their own political advantage. One wonders if any of these animals
even have the basic understanding of the actual problems confronting the stake
holders – the farmers. Listening to them, only reminds us of the ‘Elephant and
Six Blind Men’.
Farmers
have been dying all around like worms and moths, sprayed with the pesticide of
anti farmer policies since 1991, triggered by PVN and MMS. The scheme appears
to be to drive the farmer to dire straits and grab his land too and build
memorials [call them industries] on them for the farmer. Their standard refrain
is ‘we don’t have a magic wand’ to solve this problem or that. ‘Dear Nethaji! You
don’t need a magic wand, but just a heart that beats in resonance with the
victims to understand any problem and solve it. You should only remember you
cannot annihilate the farmers and live eating sand and stone or even meat alone
without masala’.
The
misadventures of economic reforms have driven the rural populace to penury and
agriculture has become a quagmire. The suicide by over 400,000 farmers in the
past 25 years, since the introduction of the so-called reforms and as a
consequence of it, is testimony to the great knowledge of economics of our
netha’s. No amount of development of the 400 million middle and upper class can
justify the suicide by 4 lakh farmers. We cannot develop a section of the
population on the dead bodies of our anna dhaathaa. The paradigm shift
in the attitude to agriculture has resulted in the disaster of farmers
committing suicide in such huge numbers that we may as well call it ‘genocide’.
Even the terrorists and insurgents killing a few hundred innocents a year in
sporadic strikes look benign in comparison to the insensitive rulers killing
some 16000 farmers a year, year after year, for the past 25 years and still
sitting pretty without any tangible action. The ‘Liberalisation, Privatisation,
Globalisation’ – LPG for short – regime has widened the rural – urban divide in
to a ‘Gash’ and in these 24 odd years it has deepened further in to a ‘Gorge’.
It has added another name to the list of endangered species, ‘The farmers’. Now
we need to ‘re-farm’ to correct the blunder of the ‘reform’.
The
basic problem is that the farmer does not get for his produce, even a price
that can recover his expenses and costs, leave alone a remunerative price. The
MSP for paddy, wheat etc. is much below the cost of production – cultivation.
The price he gets for vegetables is less than the cost of even plucking the
fruits. While, the farmer does not get a return to justify his continuing in
the farm business (in fact, he does not find justification to even continue
living), the middlemen, the wholesale dealers, retail dealer and often the
black marketers, make merry of every situation – a bumper crop or a failed
crop.
The
farmer must get his due. Farm produce – rice, wheat, maize, pulses, oil seeds,
sugar cane, cotton, vegetables etc. should be awarded a Fair Remunerative Price
(FRP) and not just a Minimum Support Price (MSP). Is there any industry in the
world selling its produce for minimum support price? Then, why MSP for farm
produce? Why not FRP?
If
alone the farmer gets a meaning full return, he will come out of the debt trap
and he will not only re invest in the next crop, he will also invest the
surplus funds to expand his farming activities as well as diversify in to food processing
and other related activities. Food production will multiply manifold and we can
literally feed the world. This will immediately vastly improve the rural
employment potential, utilization of wasteland and the rural economy, obviate
the rural employment guarantee scheme and erase the poverty line, leading
further to an all round development of the rural areas. The improved rural
economy will boost the market for the industrial products too. The market for
industrial products will explode, not just expand, leading to the urban and
national economy improving in leaps and bounds. The improvement in the urban
employment potential will be a by-product. Thus there will be a chain reaction
leading to elimination of unemployment and under nourishment. The vastly
improved rural and urban employment potential will even obviate a major
headache in governance – caste/community based reservations. Further the
improved economic condition of the villages will lead to their demanding and
getting better roads, water supply, power, schools, hospitals and what not? The
farmer will willingly pay for all these developments and the government will
find their demand justifiable.
Where
to get from the additional resources for increasing the farm output? Use of
chemical fertilizers and pesticides is anyway getting reduced with the growing
awareness of their harmful effects. Farmyard manure and compost do not need any
inputs from outside the farm. With the improvement in the awareness level of
the farmers and willingness to adopt scientific methods they will automatically
adopt less water intensive farming practices as well as take more
responsibility in collecting and storing rainwater.
The Genesis and the Solution
Every
industrial product is ‘cost’, taking in to account, apart from the cost of
materials and labour, the rental values, interests on investments (not only
loans), overheads, stocking cost, marketing cost, provision to cover
rejections, wastages and loss in transit, after sales service liabilities,
warranty provisions, publicity and creation of brand image. The industrial
product is then priced adding a profit margin over the cost. Thus unless the
industrial unit is mismanaged, the industrial activity is assured of profitable
operation even for a mediocre performer.
Where
as in agriculture, rent for the land, return (interest) on investment, labour
put in by the owner of the farm and his family members – for cultivation,
supervision, guarding the crop from men and animals, reaping the yield,
packaging, shipping and selling the produce, go unaccounted. The cost of using
own cattle for ploughing (the cost of feeding, washing and maintaining the
cattle, as well as the replacement cost) the cost (value) of the farmyard
manure prepared from the cattle waste and other farm wastes are not accounted.
The water used from his well or the village tank goes unaccounted too. Further
not every crop yields a bumper harvest. Draughts, floods, pest infestations and
non-availability of inputs (seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, labour and water)
at the right time, make a good yield a rarity and bumper crops only a jackpot.
Even in a bumper harvest year, the prices fall and the net yield to the farmer
is only paltry.
In
fact, even a farm worker gets a decent wage in most of the places. His main
problem is only that he does not get anywhere near 250 days of work in a year
as an industrial worker does. On the other hand, the owner of a small holding,
is not able to recover even his own labour cost and not to speak of his family
members’. He actually works harder and for a longer duration in his own farm,
than when he goes out to another farm to work for wages. In effect, it appears
to be more rewarding to work as a farm worker than to cultivate his own land.
While
the situation is such in the farming sector, we have an example of what is right
at the other end – Milk. At the dawn of independence, we were importing Milk
products. But now we are No. 1 in milk production in the world. How did the
transformation take place? White revolution – the ‘Amul’ experiment of
establishing cooperative milk production and marketing society in Gujarat
became such a smashing success, that it got replicated in all other states too.
Today the producer gets a fair price for his produce, while the consumer gets
quality milk at a fair price too. The producers get well bread cattle, guidance
to rear the cattle and even financial assistance for buying the cattle and run
the dairy, from the federation. The federation then collects the milk from
various points at remunerative price (to the dairy farmer), processes it to
improve shelf life and convert it in to other dairy products, packages and
supplies to consumers through its own outlets at affordable prices. It is a
win-win situation. The rural economy as well as the nation’s economy has got a
big boost due to this, apart from the producer and the consumer benefiting
immensely.
This
success story of milk should be replicated for farm produce-cereals, pulses,
vegetables, oil seed, cane, spices etc. by forming a ‘Cooperative, Farm
Development, Produce Procurement and Marketing Federation’. As for the
logistics, we have in place a very well established network for agricultural
support. The ‘Departments of agriculture & horticulture’ along with the
‘Agricultural universities’ can take up the costing activity and establish the
remunerative prices as above, also advice the farmers on selection of more
suitable and profitable crop in each block and for each season. While the
federation can sanction loans, supply quality seeds, fertiliser etc., guide the
farmers to get best yield, collect the yield paying a remunerative support
price, process it for better shelf life and value addition, package it and sell
it through the federation’s own out lets as well as export whatever is
exportable.
This
will inevitably lead to the traders – wholesale and retail dealers – of agri/
horticultural products losing their business. That includes the FCI. But the
revitalized economy will easily absorb these people and their infrastructure.
The warehouses of the Food Corporation of India can be transferred or leased to
the federation and Civil Supplies Departments can procure from the federation
and meet the requirements of the BPL sections of the population. In fact the
implementation of the above scheme will automatically lead to shrinking of the
BPL population and the need to subsidise, as the rural economy will grow in
leaps and bounds. We may have to only maintain some level of subsidy for the
farm inputs keeping in mind the world market for our farm produce.
A
Government statistic said sometime back ‘as a result of the introduction of
reforms the GNP has been growing at about 9%, in-spite of the contribution of
the rural economy – farm economy – being very low at about 1.5 to 2% only and
that while the contribution of service sectors to GNP is 55% that of
agriculture is only 17%’. ‘What an absurdity?’ The contribution of farm
products to the GNP is many times higher than what is reported. The unjust low
valuation of farm produce relative to industrial products and other services
only makes it appear so low. If the farm produce, rural industrial produce and
rural services are given their due value taking the unsubsidised value
of the agricultural inputs and calculating the cost of cultivation the way
industrial products are cost and the dollar value is corrected to reflect its
true purchasing power (the Purchasing Power Parity – PPP – value of 1 USD is
only Rs 10 and not Rs 50 or 60), you may find a total reversal of the values of
contribution to GNP with the farm sector showing a much higher figure (may be
50 to 60%) while the services and export sector a much lower figure (say 10%
only). In fact if the above exercise is done, the result will drive the
government to correct the blunder of 1991 (reforms or deforms?) reverse the
disastrous course and look at economy in the right perspective.
K. Raja Rajan,
(A technologist by qualification,
farmer by option and Gandhian by conviction)
Cell; 94441 60839
Blog: Prithvi-mithra.blogspot.in
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