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Indian agriculture has been going through a serious crisis since
1990s, driving farmers to the point of ending their lives — the number of such
cases is disturbingly high. What could be the factors responsible for it — poor
returns, indebtedness, increased cultivation cost, inadequate institutional
credit, imperfect market condition, or any other? This volume discusses these
issues comprehensively.
Burning issues
There are, in all, 19 articles, including the ‘introduction' and
the one where the editors spell out the ‘way forward', as they see it. Apart
from providing a synoptic account of the essays that follow, the introductory
piece sharply brings out the burning issues affecting Indian agriculture. While
some of the essays are State-specific, some others analyse the agrarian
structures, globalisation-linked issues, and agricultural indebtedness. The
behavioural and other dimensions of the crisis are also examined.
There are three essays dealing with the changing agrarian
structures and their impact on agrarian crisis. In his essay on
“contextualizing the agrarian suicides”, A.R. Vasavi blames the crisis on the
green revolution, a line of argument that seems to be far off the mark. Modern
farm practices have been in vogue for over four decades now, but there have
been no cases of farmer suicides until early 1990s.
Agrarian crisis showed up in mid-1990s, closely following the
introduction of economic reforms. Deshpande and Shah, who have clearly brought
out the various issues that arose from globalisation, do not take a definitive
stand on the role of globalisation in triggering the agrarian crisis. In
Sidhu's opinion, the root cause for the crisis lay within the economy, not in
any external factor. This seems to be the correct assessment, given that crop
cultivation yielded low financial returns even in the pre-globalisation period.
While the agrarian crisis has been fairly widespread in the
country, the phenomenon of ‘farmer suicide' figured mostly in Punjab, Maharashtra , Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. Essays based
on the situation in Andhra Pradesh identified increasing dependence on
commercial crops, reliance on cost-intensive groundwater irrigation and
informal credit, and price volatility as the major causes for the farmers'
distress.
There is a general perception that farmers in Punjab
are affluent. Statistics given in the three Punjab-specific papers hardly
support it. They essentially argue that the increase in cultivation cost and
the decline in net income are the main causes for the farming community's
distress. The story of Karnataka farmers seems to be no different. The plight
of cotton cultivators in the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra
— the State where the incidence of farmer suicides has been rather high — is
highlighted in another essay.
A section of the policymakers seem to believe that farmer suicides
can be averted by stepping up the supply of institutional credit. Some of the
essays in this volume also reflect this line of thinking. There is no denying
that adequate supply of institutional credit is necessary for sustainable
farming. But that in itself is not sufficient for resolving the present crisis.
In the absence of effective measures to make farming a profitable enterprise,
any increase in the flow of credit will only plunge the farmers deeper into
indebtedness and heighten their misery.
Options
Increased indebtedness is a consequence of the agrarian crisis,
which is attributable mainly to the sharp decline in the profitability of
farming. It follows, therefore, that no effort that seeks to address the
question of indebtedness without tackling the crucial issue of profitability
will yield the desired result of giving a boost to the farm sector.
In their paper on “way forward”, Deshpande and Saroj Arora,
editors of the volume, discuss the pros and cons of various options and suggest
what needs to be done for ending the present agrarian crisis. Overall, this
well-edited and well-organised volume has plenty of material relating to
agriculture in general and the agrarian crisis in particular. Researchers and
policymakers are sure to find it immensely useful.
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