Kerala - Kozhikode   

Highlighting a human tragedy

Special Correspondent

KOZHIKODE: K.K.N. Kurup, historian, who has been conducting studies on problems in Wayanad's farm sector, has said that the district deserves special attention from planners, the Government and social activists in view of a crisis in agriculture and the debt trap into which many farmers has fallen.

Dr. Kurup, a former Vice-Chancellor of Calicut University, has found in the course of a study, which focussed on peasant families at Seetha Mount in Mullankolli, near Pulpalli, that indebtedness among the farming community, particularly those who own less than one acre of land, was responsible for a large number of the suicides in Wayanad.

It has been found that out of 200 families who belonged to the group having less than one acre, 122 had borrowed Rs. 32,84,800 for agriculture, house construction, and education by January 1 this year from nationalised and cooperative banks. Some of them had also taken loans from moneylenders. The interest rates varied from 12 to 18 per cent.

This group spent Rs. 6,56,000 on agriculture, but their income from farming was only Rs. 3,64,000. Out of these 200 families, 14 members had committed suicide since 2003.

In the group, the members of which own one to two acres of land each, the difference between expenditure incurred for agriculture and the income is not that high. In this group, which consisted of 45 families, three members had committed suicide.

In the third category of farmers in the region which consists of those who own more than two acres (there are only 33 families), the difference between loan amounts and income from farms is much less. Only two suicides were reported from this group.

Dr. Kurup says the group of farmers whose holding is less than one acre each deserves special Government attention in the form of social security. At a convention organised at Kenichira in January attended by families in which farmers had committed suicide, a demand was made that interest rate for farm loans, now fixed at 14 per cent, be lowered since the lending banks got funds from cooperative banks and NABARD at much lower rates.

`Importing trouble'

Highlighting problems facing farmers because of new Government policies, Dr. Kurup said that under the new import policy, pepper from Vietnam was imported to Colombo and from there to Kochi. The Kochi market, after mixing it with Wayanad pepper of high quality, exported it to other countries. "Thus, farmers in Wayanad get reduced prices for their commodity. Same thing happens in the case of other cash crops also and its victims are farmers," he said.

State intervention to safeguard the interests of farmers was absolutely necessary to prevent their pauperisation and suicide.

The allocation for agriculture should get top priority in Wayanad where four lakh families were dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, Dr. Kurup remarked.

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