Dr. Ravinder Singh Rana
Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had said long back — ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’. The Lokniti-CSDS survey shows that the Kisan has very little to cheer about. Around half of the farmers surveyed said the overall condition of farmers in the country is bad while only 15 per cent said farmers are doing well. What is a more worrying trend is that although 83 per cent of the farmers consider agriculture to be their main occupation, 32 per cent of the farmers are forced to do work other than farming for additional household income. More heart-wrenching is the finding that in the past one year approximately one in every 10 farmers said that their family had to remain without food on a number of occasions. Add to this the fact that 67 per cent of the women interviewed said that the income from agriculture is not sufficient to fulfill the needs of their family as opposed to only 20 per cent who found it to be sufficient.Thanks to the expansion of Green Revolution to east India, the country’s food grain production is estimated to be 263 million tons compared to 255.36 million tons in 2012-13. Farming may be supporting India’s growth rate and feeding the nation, but it is no longer sufficient to support the basic needs of the majority of India’s farmers. So it isn’t surprising that the survey also found that 76 per cent would prefer to do some other work rather than farming. Most significantly, 61 per cent of the sampled farmers would quit farming if they get an employment opportunity in a city and only 20 per cent young people said they would continue farming. As many as 60 percent of the sample said they want their children to migrate to settle in the city.
This is not a overnight trend. Often neglected by the government, the distress on the Indian farm sector is finally showing up in survey results. A BBC story Is India in the throes of ‘distress migration’? published on 27 September 2011 pointed to the fact that 31.16 per cent of Indians lived in urban areas, which was up from 27.81 per cent in 2001. This is a clear indication that India is witnessing a major exodus from rural to urban areas thereby also putting pressure on the urban infrastructure. The government apathy to this sector is unfathomable as Indian economy is hardly in a position to foot the import bill for food grains — or to accommodate this vast migration in its cities.
Falling market prices of food products, the avatar of the middlemen, weather challenges, outdated methods of farming, high cost of production and often low yields and poor income have plagued the country’s farming sector. What is evident that showcase government programs have failed to help farmers on the ground. Despite expensive advertisements on TV and print, awareness about pro-farmer facilities like the Kisan Call Centre or the minimum support price on raw produce, the actual impact is poor. While 70 percent of the farmers surveyed never dialed to a Kisan Call Centre, 62 per cent has no idea that they are eligible for a minimum price.
As with other Central schemes, implementation is the culprit. As per the survey, most respondents felt only rich farmers got the benefits of government schemes and policies related to farming. Only a paltry 10 percent believe that poor and small farmers have got the benefit from farmer related schemes.
In olden days, agricultural technique was eco-friendly but didn’t yield high crop comparing now. Anyway, that is enough for those people as there was less population. Those farmers are seen as god but now it is in contrast.Only governments are respecting farmers and that too only for those belong to their state or country. Even, farmer’s families don’t give respect if they have low income or if their crop failed. Some parents resisting their children in choosing agriculture as their career field due to their disrespectful towards farmers but they don’t understand that without farmer, it is impossible to survive in this world. It is horrible to see that even farmer don’t prefer to his see his son as farmer due to influence of this society.
Now days, many farmers left their farming work and went to some nearby industries. Also, some committed suicide and the reason is that their crops are failed due to unavailable of water sources. There is another case also that some farmers who have few acres do some research on their own and finding new techniques so that they can achieve maximum crop yield. These farmers arrange private water sources and also earn more. These farmers are selfless as they also publish about their work with no charge. Anyway, some are eco-friendly and some not.If we focus deeply in it, day by day farmers are discouraging by this helpless society and we can understand that farmer’s conditions are based on their experience and also on their determination. However, it shame to see that states of our country act as envy countries for lending their water sources for agriculture.In India, we are following many modern techniques to increase crop’s yields. Either it is eco-friendly or not, we continue giving importance to improve the crop yield as to withstand the increasing population. Therefore, we lost the uniqueness of olden day’s agriculture as these modern techniques reduce the strength of the crops and also reduce land’s fertility.
Anyway, these farming techniques are necessary as day by day farming lands are converting into apartments and factories. Actually, everything is happening in contrast as for increasing population, we must increase the agricultural land but instead we are decreasing it and that result in using modern techniques without considering whether it is eco-friendly or not. And, these farming techniques give more profit only if we done more investment.Some of the farming techniques found by farmers on their own researches is spreading in newspaper and in internet for encouraging other farmers to continue it and earn more but we forget that many villages have no internet facilities and many farmers don’t know to read. So, the awareness is lacking. Our government should appoint some persons to spread awareness about these profitable techniques to uneducated farmers. Some are non-eco-friendly but still we continue. We must understand that anything which is non-eco-friendly may be profitable for time being but not ever lasting. It may result in danger in future. I myself is practical in this regard that farming is not profitable as input rates are high than outputs and govt. should take steps on war footing to save farmers from their distress.
(The author is Assistant Professor at GDC Reasi)
