By: Vijay Kumar Verma ( Editor-ICN Group )
SHIMLA: Farmers since times immemorial have not only been the source of crops to feed the subjects but also source of revenue to the rulers through taxes (lagaan). Neither were there any subsidies in the historical times nor any other benefits to help the farmers.
From those days of lagaan to the present times of umpteen doles, the plight of farmers does not seem to have changed much going by the statistics of their endless suffering. It is a proven fact that enough is never enough for anyone.
Strange are the ways of adversities. While almost 70 percent of the country’s population lives in villages, the successive governments over 70 year of independence have hardly come up with any long term strategies to nurse the wounds of poor farmers who continue to end their lives to draw attention of the governance.
It is all the more unfortunate that the political parties are always there to encash on the tragedies rather than sorting out the issues. Their objectives are short lived with little concern of the families who are left behind to fend for themselves.
Fueling the fire instead of dousing it is what the parties end up doing. The assessed losses such disruptions cause to the system, the huge expenses the parties incur to flame such fires is much higher than the loss the farmers have to bear.
When the prices of essential commodities increase, there is uproar on the streets followed by those in the assemblies and both the houses of parliament for the cause of poor people, and when the prices of these commodities fall, there is again uproar on losses caused to the farming community. The basic fact remains that the opposition is there for the sake of opposition and not for any constructive results.
According to statistics, 70 percent of India’s population lives in about 6.4 lac villages almost one third of which have a population of less than 500. But it may sound more interesting that only 5 percent of the farming community own one third of the land holdings while 95 percent of farmers own the remaining 67 percent. Still more interesting is the fact that the number of marginal land holdings accounting for less than one hectare of land is on the increase resulting in further division of land holdings.
The economies of scale indicate that the cost of farming operations per acre decrease in larger land holdings and increase in small and marginal holdings. This is an obvious indication of the reduced margins or income of majority of farmers.
According to an analysis, the cost of farming wheat on a piece of one acre of land comes to about Rs.16,000 (on ploughing of land, on watering, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, etc) while the value of produce derived from the crop grown over a period of 6 months is just Rs.26,000 that too if all other factors are conducive.
Imagine the average income of just Rs.1500 a month a marginalised farmer makes to manage his family. Unfortunately the number of such poor farmers and those with no land holding is a whopping 50 percent of the country’s rural population.
(To Be Continued…..)
