Farmers in Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh: Farmers do not enjoy freedom

Sachin Kumar Jain

After 60 years of independence 3.2 million farmers of Madhya Pradesh do not enjoy freedom. They live in indebtedness and devoting their lives not only to the money lenders but also to their own government to pay off their loans. Agriculture, in a real sense, has been the life-line for Madhya Pradesh. Some years ago when college students wrote an essay on the state they began with the sentence Madhya Pradesh is an agricultural state. Three-fourth of the population here is dependent on agriculture or agro related activities for its livelihood and it is this uniformity that keeps society threaded together.
Today agriculture is no more a simple means of livelihood anymore, but has become a task full of challenge and risk. A latest survey by the National Sample Survey Organization on the indebtedness of farmers shows that of the 6.4 million farmers in Madhya Pradesh 3.2 million are in debt. On an average each farmer in M.P. is under a debt of Rs.14,128. And because of the bank formalities and the inhuman recovery processes his trust in the government’s financial institutions has gone down. It is worth noting that even today 40 % of the loans in this ‘agricultural state’ are taken by farmers from non-governmental sources. Unfortunately for last one and half decade agriculture community has faced opposition of state and ruthlessness towards them. What to expect more from the state when even they do not have any plan to make farmers free from loans.
Reviewing the status of agriculture sector we reaches to a conclusion that even in the 60 years of independence we could not priorities and define the concept of development according to the social needs. We find that at present since the government has accepted a policy of economic liberalization and following the Global economy, instead of internalizing local economy and considering agriculture in a sensitive manner it is being treated as another element of the open market. The farmer himself is now a consumer in the market instead of a producer. We can consider for our reference the budget speech of the finance minister of Madhya Pradesh for the year 2006-2007, in which he said that “the importance of expensive inputs for increasing production has gone up in the sector of agriculture, but instability of outputs is also increasing due to the vagaries of the climate. Due to globalization of the economy, where on the one hand new possibilities of development have opened up, we are also faced with new challenges.” He does nor answers that who will directly face the challenges and with whom state will stand for. Undoubtedly changing cropping pattern, Mechanization and entry of Multinational companies in Agriculture sector have become new challenges for farmers after Monsoon. Madhya Pradesh is one of those few states who have welcomed contract forming and that is why 5 big multinational companies are now have stared deciding what will be produced in MP!!
Various analyses shows that in 1960-61 the contribution of agriculture in the state’s gross domestic product was 59.9 percent, and at that point 79.3 percent of the population was dependent upon agriculture. We find that whereas by 2001 the contribution of agriculture to the gross house-hold product has come down to 25.8 percent (that is a decrease by 32 percent), even now 72.9 percent of the population is dependent upon it. That is a decrease by only 8.6 percent. In M.P. between 1960 and 1980 the rate of growth in agriculture remained at 1 percent, whereas the average growth rate of agriculture in the country was 2 percent, which was twice that of the state.
The tenth plan period is on and it is the state’s target to increase the food production to 17.850 million tons per year during this period. In 2003-04 the production level was 15.872 million tons. Similarly, the government had set a target of increase of 13.95 million tons in the production of coarse grain, and a target of 3.896 million tons in the production of pulses. However, when we analyze the policies on a practical plane we come to two conclusions. The first is that the government is not really promoting food production. It actually wants that farmers take up cash and market crops such as BT cotton, Tomato and Soyabean along with Jatropha for meeting special consumer class needs of diesel. This will be economically profitable for the government. At the same time, at a policy level, the government is agreeing to Contract Farming (anubandh kheti) in the production of food, vegetables and fruits. Private companies are considering entry into the farming sector. The two issues are linked to each other. The farmer should earn money and then go to the market to buy grains. But perhaps it will be a catastrophe to forget the truth that we are trying to break down food security and the production cycle to increase the flow of money in the market.
Increase in the state’s population has been accompanied by an increase in the need for food, but the food production is going down. Since 1960-61 the food production in Madhya Pradesh is constantly falling within the total production. Whereas the food production in 1960-61 was 63.6 % of the total farm produce, it has come down to 48.4 % at present. During the same period non-food products have gone up from 14.3% to 27.9%. Within grains there has been a big fall in the production of wheat and maize (bajra). And the production of soyabean that was zero percent in 1960-61 has gone up to 17.6 % of the food crop in 2002-03. It essentially shows that farmers have no possible support from the State for duo-protection, protection of farmers and the agro-economy. Now it has been decided that State will provided low interest loans (@7%) as shown in various publicity hoardings but the system is not ready to permit them to implement such promises.