Four farmer suicides in 2 days:NGO

Four farmer suicides in 2 days: NGO

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Nagpur: Four Vidarbha farmers have committed suicide in two days,says an NGO.Three victims are from the cotton-growing Amravati district and one from the paddy belt of Bhandara,Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) said on Saturday.
They were identified as Anil Tandilkar of Ukapati village,Subhash Kasdekar of Ranamalur,Ramesh Jumade of Achalpur (all three in Amravati ) and Anandrao Khande of Tawashi in Bhandara district.
The piling of NPAs (nonperforming assets) of defaulting sugar factories of western Maharashtra led to the staterun Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank to go bankrupt last month.This is a major hurdle in crop loan disbursement to suicide-prone farmers in Vidarbha as NABARD has suspended agriculture credit for want of counter-guarantee by the state administration,a source said.

Statistics

Farmers in India became the centre of considerable concern in the 1990s when the journalist P Sainath highlighted the large number of suicides among them. Official reports initially denied the farmer suicides but as more and more information came to light the government began to accept that farmers in India were under considerable stress. On figures there was much debate since the issue was so emotive. The government tried to underplay the cases of farmer deaths, intellectual supporters of the farmers preferred to inflate them. More than 17,500 farmers a year killed themselves between 2002 and 2006, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics.[2] Others traced the increase in farmer suicides to the early 1990s.[3] It was said, a comprehensive all-India study is still awaited, that most suicides occurred in states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab.[4][5][6][7][8] The situation was grim enough to force at least the Maharashtra government to set up a dedicated office to deal with farmers distress.[9]

In 2006, the state of Maharashtra, with 4,453 farmers’ suicides accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total of 17,060, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB also stated that there were at least 16,196 farmers' suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1997 to 199,132.[10] According to another study by the Bureau, while the number of farm suicides increased since 2001, the number of farmers has fallen, as thousands abandoning agriculture in distress.[11] According to government data, over 5,000 farmers committed suicide in 2005-2009 in Maharashtra, while 1,313 cases reported by Andhra Pradesh between 2005 and 2007. In Karnataka the number stood at 1,003, since 2005-06 till August 2009. In the last four years, cases in Kerala were about 905, Gujarat 387, Punjab 75 and Tamil Nadu 26.[12] In April 2009, the state of Chattisgarh reported 1,500 farmers committed suicide due to debt and crop failure.[13] At least 17,368 Indian farmers killed themselves in 2009, the worst figure for farm suicides in six years, according to data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).[14]
[edit] History

In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. One of the major reporters of these suicides was the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, P. Sainath. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh.[15] In the beginning it was believed that most of the suicides were happening among the cotton growers, especially those from Vidarbha.[16] A look at the figures given out by the State Crime Records Bureau, however, was sufficient to indicate that it was not just the cotton farmer but farmers as a professional category were suffering, irrespective of their holding size.[17] Moreover, it was not just the farmers from Vidarbha but all over Maharashtra who showed a significantly high suicide rate.[18][19] The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm related distress in general. Subsequently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs.110 billion (about $2.4 billion) to be spent by the government in Vidarbha. The families of farmers who had committed suicide were also offered an ex gratia grant to the tune of Rs.100,000 (about $2,000) by the government. This figure kept on varying, depending on how much criticism the government was facing from the media and the opposition parties for being uncaring towards the farmers' plight. Such a high figure was ironic considering that the net average income of a family of farmers in this region was approximately Rs.2700 (about $60) per acre per annum. The economic plight of the farmer might be illustrated with the fact that a farmer having as much as 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land, and hence considered a well-off farmer, had an income of just a little more than what he would have earned were he to merely get the legal minimum wage for all of the 365 days of the year. Little wonder that despite government efforts at pumping in more money into the suicide belt the suicide epidemic among farmers remained unabated through 2006-07. The problems of the farmers were quite comprehensive. There was little credit available. What was available was very costly. There was no advice on how best to conduct agriculture operations. Income through farming was not enough to meet even the minimum needs of a farming family. Support systems like free health facilities from the government were virtually non-existent. Traditionally support systems in the villages of India had been provided by the government. However, due to a variety of reasons the government had either withdrawn itself from its supportive role or plain simple misgovernance had allowed facilities in the villages to wither away.[20]
[edit] Causes
Cotton balls ready to harvest in Vidarbha region. This is the main Cash-Crop in this region

In the initial years when farmers distress came to attract public attention it was said that indebtedness through use of Bt Cotton were the main cause for farmers suicide. Here it is important to notice that in the context of Indian history [21] the moneylender is considered to be a particularly evil person and the farmer an unwitting subject of his machinations. Moreover, in recent times there has been a considerable ideologically driven movement against the use of Bt crops. As a result the initial causes indebtedness and Bt Cotton were easily accepted to be the causes of farm suicides.

More detailed research by various investigators like Raj Patel,[2] Nagraj,[18][19] Meeta and Rajivlochan,[22] identified a variety of causes. India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; moreover, a downturn in the urban economy was pushing a large number of distressed non-farmers to try their hand at cultivation; the farmer was also caught in a Scissors Crisis; in the absence of any responsible counselling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became an option for them [23]

Research has also pointed to a certain types of technological change as having played an instrumental role in the problem. One study from the Punjab showed dramatic misuse of agricultural chemicals in farmer households in the absence of any guidance on how to correctly use these deadly chemicals and linked it to the rise in farm suicides wherever farm chemicals were in widespread use.[24] Important research in Andhra Pradesh showed the very rapid change in seed and pesticide products to have caused "deskilling" in the cotton sector[25].
[edit] Responses to Farmers suicides

Vidarbha was in the media for a spate of farmer suicides in recent years ostensibly because of the falling Minimum Support Price for cotton. The problem is complex and root causes include lopsided policies of the World Trade Organisation and developed nations' subsidies to their cotton farmers which make Vidarbha's cotton uncompetitive in world markets. Consequently Vidarbha is plagued by high rates of school drop outs, penniless widows left in the wake of suicides, loan sharks and exploitation of the vulnerable groups.[26]

The Indian government had promised to increase the minimum rate for cotton by approximately Rs 100 ($2) but reneged on its promise by reducing the Minimum Support Price further. This resulted in more suicides as farmers were ashamed to default on debt payments to loan sharks. "In 2006, 1,044 suicides were reported in Vidarbha alone - that's one suicide every eight hours."[27]

In April 2007 an NGO named Green Earth Social Development Consulting brought out a report after doing an audit of the state and central government relief packages in Vidarbha. The report's conclusions were:

Farmers' demands were not taken into count while preparing the relief package. Neither were civil society organisations, local government bodies, panchayats etc. consulted.
The relief packages were mostly amalgamations of exiting schemes. Apart from the farmer helpline and the direct financial assistance, there was scarcely anything new being offered. Pumping extra funds into additional schemes shows that no new idea was applied to solve a situation where existing measures had obviously failed.
The farmer helpline did not give any substantial help to farmers except in Karnataka.
The basis for selection of beneficiaries under the assistance scheme was not well-defined. Also, type of assistance to be given led to problems like a farmer needing a pair of bullocks getting a pump set and vice versa (or a farmer who has no access to water sources being given pump sets)
Awareness regarding the package was also fairly low.

The report concluded quite alarmingly that the loan burden of the farmers would double in 2008.

To attract attention a variety of catch phrases were coined such as ‘SEZ’ or (Farmers) ‘Special Elimination Zone’ states.[28]

The government set up a dedicated group to deal with farm distress in 2006 known as the Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission, based in Amravati [9] A group to study the Farmers Suicides was also constituted by the Government of Karnataka under the Chairmanship of Dr Veeresh, Former Vice Chancellor of Agricultural University and Prof Deshpande as member.[29]
[edit] India Budget 2011 helped Suicide

A sericulturist and his wife committed suicide at their village in Malavalli taluk of Mandya district on 4-Mar-2011 night, triggering speculation that the tragic turn of events was a fallout of the collapse in the cocoon price in the market. While Swami Gowda (35) was found hanging at the farm, his wife Indramma (28) of Valageredoddi hanged herself at their residence. Swami Gowda had invested a lot of money and had pledged his wife's jewellery to fund farming activity. It was stated that Swami Gowda was anticipating Rs. 350 a kg of cocoon which, however, collapsed and the market price was pegged around Rs.120 a kg.

The Indian Union Government's move to reduce the duty on import of raw silk from 30 per cent to 5 per cent, as announced in 2011-12 Budget has come as a rude shock for the State's sericulture farmers who are already agitated over the steep fall in cocoon prices.The same open market policy followed by India which has foreign investors coming into IT industry in India and benefiting Indian IT Engineers is immensely killing farmers.

This is reckoned to be the first suicide of a sericulturist following the sudden crash in the prices of cocoon. Swami and Indramma are survived by three children. The Halguru police have registered a case and are investigating.
[edit] In popular culture

"Summer 2007" by producer Atul Pandey, focused on the issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, as did the 2009 Bollywood film Kissan.[30] Prior to this "The Dying Fields", a documentary directed by Fred de Sam Lazaro was aired in August, 2007 on Wide Angle (TV series).


In 2006, A documentary by Indian film maker Sumit Khanna titled "Mere Desh Ki Dharti" , did a comprehensive review of the way we grow our food. A well researched and indept understanding of the agrarian crisis, it won the national award for the best Investigative film.

In 2009, the International Museum of Women included an examination of the impact of farmers' suicides on the lives of the farmers' wives and children in their exhibition Economica: Women and the Global Economy. Their slideshow "Growing Debt" and accompanying essay by curator Masum Momaya entitled "Money of Her Own" showed how many widows were left with the burden of their husbands' debts, and were forced to work as indentured servants to repay the debt. The widows were also unlikely to remarry, because other men in the community were unwilling to take on the widows' debts for themselves.[31]

The 2010, award winning film Jhing Chik Jhing is based around the emotive issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. It looks at how the farmer has very little in his control and looks at the impact of indebtedness on his family.[32]
[edit] See also

Farmers Suicide in Western Orissa
Suicide in India
The Corporation - Explains the impact of commodification and patenting life forms on independent farmers.
P. Sainath, a journalist who covered the Covering farmers' suicides in India, later won the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award
Peepli Live (2010 film)
Kissan (2009 film)
Battle in Seattle, a 2007 film that quotes the Indian suicide statistic in the end credits)

[edit] References

^ [1]
^ a b Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved, Portobello Books, London, 2007
^ 1. Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune.
^ "Drought, debt lead to Indian farmers' suicides". Associated Press. Auhust 28, 2009.
^ "Spate of farmers' suicides in India worrying WHO". The Hindu. Oct 15, 2006.
^ Waldman, Amy (June 6, 2004). "Debts and Drought Drive India's Farmers to Despair". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
^ Huggler, Justin (2 July 2004). "India acts over suicide crisis on farms". London: The Independent. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
^ Pinglay, Prachi (5 May 2008). "No let up in India farm suicides". BBC News.
^ a b VNSS Mission
^ India together
^ "Farm suicides worse after 2001 — study". The Hindu. Nov 13, 2007..
^ "Farmers’ suicides in India not due to Bt cotton: IFFRI". Mint (newspaper). Nov 11 2008.
^ "1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India". London: The Independent. 15 April 2009. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
^ The Hindu-December 2010 column
^ Rediff News
^ Planning Commission report
^ 1. Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune, pp. 11-13.
^ a b Macroscan reports
^ a b Nagraj, K. (2008) Farmers suicide in India: magnitudes, trends and spatial patterns
^ M Rajivlochan (2007) "Farmers and firefighters" in Indian Express, August 28, 2007, [2]
^ Dharma Kumar and Meghnad Desai ed. Cambridge Economic History of India vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, 1983
^ Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune, pp. 75-101.
^ Behere PB, Behere AP. Farmers' suicide in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state: A myth or reality?. Indian J Psychiatry [serial online] 2008 [cited 2009 Oct 23];50:124-7. Available from: http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/text.asp?2008/50/2/124/42401
^ Kaur, Raminderjeet, 2008. “Assessment of genetic damage in the workers occupationally exposed to various pesticides in selected districts of Punjab”, unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Human Biology, Punjabi University, Patiala.
^ Stone, Glenn Davis, 2007. "Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal." Current Anthropology 48:67-103
^ Deshpande and Arora. Agrarian Crisis and Farmer Suicides. Sage,. ISBN 978-81-321-0512-1(HB).
^ "The Dying Fields". Wide Angle (TV series). PBS. 2007.
^ "17,060 farm suicides in one year". The Hindu. Jan 31, 2008.
^ Deshpande(2002)
^ "Has Bollywood shut its eyes to movies on farmers?". The Economic Times. 29 Aug 2009.
^ "Marriage and Money". Economica: Women and the Global Economy. October 2009.
^ "Jhing Chik Jhing - a story of hope". January 2010.

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Vidarbha's Dying Fields And Farmer's Suicides

By Vikram Jadav

03 May, 2011
The Verdict Weekly

While the government of India and Maharashtra, led-by Congress, which
claims itself as a party of aam aadmi and one of the world’s fastest
growing economies, only images of this new prosperity have reached the
impoverished rural areas where two thirds of India’s 1.1 billion
people live. Left behind by India’s soaring economic boom is Vidarbha,
a region of hilly forests in the middle of India. It used to be known
as India’s cotton belt – but now captures headlines as its suicide
belt - that’s an average one suicide every eight hours. Vidarbha
farmers face a grim reality of crop failures, sinking global cotton
prices and crushing debts. Farmers in default at the bank frequently
resort to illegal moneylenders who charge up to 100 per cent interest.
And, the government safety net – that once kept cotton prices closer
to the cost of production – has all but disappeared. Under India’s new
free trade policies, Vidarbha’s 3.2 million cotton farmers – most of
them small landholders – must compete in a global market that includes
formidable, often subsidized rivals, including American cotton
farmers.

At a moment when India is enjoying record economic growth, Vidarbha’s
four million cotton farmers who have been left behind, struggling to
survive on less than Rs 100 a day. Kishor Tiwari, former businessman
turned farmer advocate, whose tiny office in the heart of Vidarbha,
the cotton-growing region, functions as the archive and watchdog for
the suicide epidemic; traveling salesmen hawking genetically modified
- and costly - cotton seeds that require irrigation that few Vidarbha
farmers have; the last rites of a farmer who couldn’t pay his debts; a
tour of the poison ward at the local hospital, where beds are always
filled; and even Rahul Gandhi, the prime minister in waiting pays a
visit during the election ‘season’ whom the farming widows beseech for
help in convincing the government to forgive their debts.

The farmers of Vidarbha are the target of the government, politicians
and bureaucrats, for the reason they don’t know. On the event of
International Labour Day and Maharashtra Day on May 1, 2011, over 300
cotton farmers went on a day-long hunger strike in Vidarbha demanding
the lifting of the ban on cotton exports.

Speaking to THE VERDICT over telephone, Kishore Tiwari, president of
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), which is spearheading the
agitation, said that the prices of cotton and pulses (tur dal) have
fallen by more than 50 per cent in the last month due to what he said
“anti-farmer export-import policies” of the centre.

“The present ban on cotton exports is to protect the textile lobby of
south India which is very close to some central ministers like Textile
Minister Dayanidhi Maran. This is responsible for the crises,
including falling prices, gripping cotton farmers in Vidarbha,” Tiwari
alleged.

Moreover, he claimed that some bureaucrats were influenced by strong
lobbying by the textile mill owners who wanted cheap raw material to
increase their profit margins. Tiwari said that he has written to
union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma taking strong objections to his
statement that there is no immediate proposal to raise export quota
for cotton. It may be recalled that during December 2010, citing the
upward trend in cotton and yarn prices, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M
Karunanidhi urged Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to suspend cotton
exports and cap cotton yarn exports as well as levy an export duty on
it with immediate effect. In a letter to Manmohan Singh, a copy of
which was released to the media, Karunanidhi - referring to the
central government’s permission to export 55 lakh bales from November
onwards - said: “Between last week of September 2010 and the last week
of November 2010, cotton prices have increased almost by 20 percent.
Further hectic buying indulged in by the exporters of cotton has
resulted in arrivals to the market being woefully inadequate to meet
the domestic consumption”.

“Normally the period of 4-5 months after October witness a dip in
cotton prices owing to fresh arrivals in the market. However, this
year, the clearance given for exporting 55 lakh bales of cotton has
resulted in a hand to mouth situation by which virtually no cotton is
available in the market to build up cotton stocks,” he said.
According to him, competing countries like China maintain a stock to
use ratio of about 33 per cent as against India’s 17 per cent.
Referring to the rise in cotton yarn prices due to increase in cotton
exports, Karunanidhi has said yarn exports should be moderated so that
value addition is possible downstream, “…so as to enable higher
production of powerloom cloth, knitwear, handloom cloth, garments
etc.”

“The prices have plummeted to below Rs 4,500 a quintal during the last
fortnight from a high of Rs 7,000. The situation can be salvaged by
hiking the export quota to 15 million cotton bales from the existing
5.5 million,” alleged Tiwari.

He pointed out that the export restrictions are shocking, especially
when there is good demand for cotton in the global markets which the
country exploit and the farmers can made good their losses of the past
one decade.

“Floods have hit cotton crops in China and Pakistan while the crop
area was slashed the US. It is a rare chance for the country to export
cotton at very good prices. It is a mystery why the quota is not being
increased this year when last year 8.3 million cotton bales (each bale
at Rs 170 per kg) were exported,” Tiwari pointed out.
The others who participated in the hunger strike included leading farm
activists Kashinath Milmile, Ravindra Demapure, Rajendra Chawardol,
Suvidhi Surana, Jagmohan Bojoria,Vijay Kondawar, Mohan Jadhav, Letuji
Jughare, Chandrakant Patil, Tukaram Meshram, Mohan Mamiddwar and
Moreshwar Watile.

Meanwhile, on the occasion of the state celebrates its 51st year of
formation and winding up golden jubilee ceremonies, with much fanfare,
giving away awards and busy with felicitations and promises, attended
by senior people, including the Maharashtra Governor and Chief
Minister, the suicide rate in the backward Vidarbha region continued.
According to Kishore Tiwari, four debt-ridden farmers committed
suicide in the region in the first two days of May 2011.

Taking into account of these deaths, the toll has risen to 178 in the
year 2011. The figure for last year was 748. In month of April alone,
41 farmers ended their lives in the region, according to the
statistics compiled by the VJAS. Among the latest victims of the
agrarian crisis, two were from Yavatmal district known as epicentre of
the farmer suicides and one each from Buldhana and Amravati. The
victims were identified as Rajanna Kayapalliwar (45) of Salburdi,
Bhaurao Shendur (55) of Saikheda (both in Yavatmal district), Govind
Ghule (32) of Dhanora in Buldhana and Budharam Sonwane (76) of Amla in
Amravati district. All of them died after consuming pesticide, the
reports added.

Tiwari claimed that Bhaurao Shendur of Saikheda was the seventh victim
from the village. “Hit by the failure in farming and unable to repay
their loans, cotton farmers in these dry-lands seek escape in death,”
he said. He also alleged that the special relief packages from the
union and the state governments suffered from rampant corruption and
lack of coordination among the implementing agencies.

“The prices of cotton and pulses (tur dal) had fallen by more than 50
per cent in the last month due to ‘anti-farmer export-import policies’
of the UPA government at Centre. He also alleged that the agricultural
ministry led-by Sharad Pawar, is have their own hidden agenda and are
in hand-in-gloves with racketeers controlling the cotton and
food-grain market.

The government, especially Sharad Pawar, is much interested in the
‘rich man’s game’ (cricket), which is watched by the industrialists,
celebrities and rich politicians. They are not interested in the
enlistment of farmers in Maharashtra, who are forced to commit
suicide. They are interested in pouring money in to the valets of
cricketers, deliberately forgetting the poor farmers,” said Tiwari.
He also alleged that the Union Minister, who is instrumental in
raining money on the players, has done little to arrest the suicide of
the farmers by solving their problems.

“The money the government and industrialists spends on cricket is only
benefiting the players. It is not going to stop the farmers’ suicides,
it is not going to solve the fertilizer shortage in the state and it
will not solve the power and water shortage in the state,” added
Tiwari.

Vikram Jadav is a senior journalist, who keeps a tab on current
affairs, politics, and crime scenario in Maharashtra. He works for
Marathi daily Vruth Manus and Hindi tabloid Mumbai Sandhya and The
Verdict Weekly (English) which are circulated widely and read by the
mass. He can be contacted via email: vikrammanas@gmail.com