Opinion - News Analysis   

Villages for sale, rural despair growing

Devinder Sharma

THE TALLY is growing. First it was confined to the frontline agricultural State of Punjab. But now the ultimate symbol of growing rural despair — putting villages up for sale — has spread to central India. Dorli, a sleepy village in Maharashtra's Wardha district, has sounded the bugle.

Six villages in Punjab are already up for grabs: Bhutal Kalan and Bhutal Khor in Sangrur district; Malsinghwala in Mansa district; and Harkishanpura, Mandikhurd, and Ramanwas in Bhatinda district. The decision to put up the village for sale comes at a time when the latest National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data reveal that more than 40 per cent of the farmers are keen on quitting agriculture.

Signalling the collapse of the first Green Revolution, the growing rural despair is indicative of the entire farming equation going wrong. With intensive farming systems destroying the natural resource base of agriculture — soil gasping for breath, groundwater mined to unsustainable limits, and pesticides having contaminated the environment — most farmers continue to slide into indebtedness, with a large number ending up selling their kidneys or taking their own lives.

Unable to understand the reasons behind the unprecedented agrarian crisis, the Government is desperately trying to push in a second Green Revolution. The "New Deal for Rural India," as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dubs it, is being launched at the behest of the United States. It is strikingly similar to Vision 2020 that N. Chandrababu Naidu, as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, had unsuccessfully applied.

In the U.S., which is marketing the second Green Revolution, the industrial-farming systems survive on massive farm subsidies. Despite more than $75 billion being provided every year in farm support, farmers have preferred to exit agriculture. Remove these subsidies, and American agriculture will most likely collapse like the proverbial house of cards. In any case, American farmers too are abandoning agriculture. In 2002, there were some 900,000 farmers. By 2004, in two years time, the number had come down to 700,000.

Faulty model

In the European Union, the picture is no better. Such an alarming situation exists despite the availability of direct subsidies to farmers. With rural infrastructure in place and the supply chain system linked to retail business in operation, there is no reason why agriculture should still be a losing proposition. Without even questioning the merit and economics of an agribusiness model that displaces farmers, India is aggressively adopting it. The objective is clear: farmers must get out of agriculture. Unfortunately, what is not being understood is that unlike America and Europe, it is not possible to provide alternative means of employment to those Indian masses being pushed out of agriculture.

We cannot blindly ape the American model without worrying about the socio-economic consequences. Following the World Bank model for agriculture, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh had pumped in huge amounts of money to push in an industry-driven agriculture that not only accentuated the crisis leading to an environmental catastrophe but also destroyed rural livelihoods.

Regardless, 16 States have expressed willingness to amend the Agricultural Produce Marketing Act thereby not only initiating contract farming but allowing the farmers to sell directly to private companies. What makes contract farming questionable is the highly intensive cropping pattern that requires nearly 15 to 20 times more intake of chemical inputs. The more the chemical inputs, the more is the water requirement making contract farming unsustainable. It renders the land unfertile in 4 to 5 years thereby adding on to the farmer's woes.

What is urgently needed is a policy framework that rejuvenates the natural resource base thereby providing sustainable livelihoods. Otherwise more and more villages will be put on sale.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst.)

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