Policies that created the crisis have not changed: P Sainath on farmer suicides

India Today

Senior journalist-cum-agriculture expert P Sainath discusses the ongoing crisis of farmer suicides in Maharashtra, with the state government admitting to 767 such deaths in the Vidarbha region within the first three months of the year.

Transcript

00:00and since we are talking about farmer suicides who better to give us a sense of the issue than

00:12someone who spent a lifetime covering it max essay award winner and senior journalist p

00:17syna joins me appreciate you're joining us assina it almost seems like every year we come once a

00:24year to talk about farm suicides the latest reason being the maharashtra assembly the government of

00:29maharashtra admitting that 767 farmer suicides took place in the first three months of the year

00:36in just the vidarbha region are we simply replaying this story without any solutions because

00:44year after year for more than two decades governments have changed but farm suicides in maharashtra

00:50continue well you know the policies that lead to the suicides the policies that create the crisis

01:02in the first place have not changed they're being practiced on steroids now the nda following the upa so

01:11it it is going to get worse but i'd like to i'd like to clarify one thing here rajdeep i mean

01:18um that is that the farm suicides are the most tragic face of the agrarian crisis however they are not the

01:30crisis suicides are the outcome of the crisis not its origin they are its context not its cause the

01:39policies that have driven them for 30 years now have intensified particularly in the last 10 years

01:48and so you shouldn't be too surprised you should be horrified by what's happening can you can you be a

01:56little bit more specific sainat when you said the ups policies have now been taken forward by the nda on

02:03steroids b can you be more specific because when i look at the numbers clearly in the upa years also

02:09when they ruled maharashtra they ruled india farm suicides were at a very high level so it's not as if

02:15there's been a major increase it's just that it's been sustained over more than 20 years

02:21i covered those rising numbers as you know i'm also saying that making these comparisons and saying

02:34it was a lot like the bjp has apparently attempted to do to say it was a lot worse under the upa

02:41this is something like going home with your report card and saying daddy you must be delighted to know i

02:47wasn't at the bottom of the class i was second you know it it seems a very pointless kind of response

02:57when i say that you had when i say that you had policies taken forward one was the huge credit crisis

03:07caused by the diversion of credit from agriculturist to every business in your home state of maharashtra

03:15rajdeep the the uh the bar plan potential linked credit plan for agriculture and rural

03:2853 percent of it rajdeep goes to mumbai city where are the farmers in mumbai city there are no farmers

03:36or contract numbers there are farmers of contracts that's what mumbai city has so if it's not going to

03:42with the bulk of agricultural credit going to non-farmers you are telling me that 53 percent

03:50of nabard loans meant for agriculture are going to

03:56so-called farmers in and around mumbai am i correct

04:02that's right but it's not nabard loans nabard creates a potential linked credit black plan for

04:09states and all the banks all the banks tend to follow exactly that pattern laid out and not only

04:18are they being 53 percent of over 50 percent being dispersed in mumbai rajdeep they're being dispersed in

04:25urban and metro branches you know metro branch would be malabar hill or i don't know when you last met a

04:32small farmer in malabar hill or cup parade bandra these are metro branches and a huge sums of money

04:41they are going to agri business and the nabard does not deny that there is this uh dispersal in mumbai

04:49they don't disperse they don't contest that they've been defended

04:53it sign up many of the problems have been well identified for the crisis of agriculture disparities

05:01in the way water is distributed some areas are water guzzlers like sugar farms other areas in

05:08vidarbha marathwada for example in maharashtra don't get enough water there is the high costs of seeds of

05:14fertilizers and of course now there is climate change so there's a sense that the problems have

05:20been well documented the solutions seem not to be found is there a silver bullet out there something

05:26that would ensure that the number of farm suicides are gradually reduced over time there are lots of

05:34solutions and they can be practiced if you want to it's a question of whether you support those policies

05:42the entire direction of our agricultural policy has been handing over

05:47farming from family farms to corporate farms to corporate for uh to corporate control and that

05:57is a picture over the world it's not just maharashtra maharashtra is the worst in the suicides however

06:05what you've said is correct on four counts i mean input costs in that region of vidarbha you know you

06:12could cultivate an unirrigated acre of cotton for 2500 rupees 4 000 rupees in 1993 in

06:242001 2013 it was costing unirrigated acre was 15 000 acre rupees today and unirrigated acre is around

06:3520 000 rupees irrigated acre of cotton the input costs are way beyond 45 000 rupees so that also connects up

06:45with seeds the policies of seeds on allowing giant companies to rip off the farmers with seeds that

06:54simply nowhere you know actually aggravated the water problem that they were supposed to solve and yes

07:01climate change is a serious factor but all these are things that you can respond to with policies

07:10aimed at farmers not at corporates that is something you could do you know because

07:15sainat last year while covering the elections in amravati i met farm widows uh whose husbands had

07:21committed suicide because they couldn't pay as little as a lakh and 20 to a bank some of them had attempted

07:27cotton a decade ago it was seen as white gold at the time then moved to soya bean and then found it

07:33was even difficult with soya bean to to make enough money it wasn't remunerative enough so you seem to

07:39be you know they all seem to be caught in a vicious debt trap how do you get out of the debt trap is the

07:45question how are you going to emerge out of a out of a debt trap you've tried uh different crops they

07:50haven't worked in the area i come back to it is there a serious long-term solution should it be just

07:58uh is there a policy solution out there many there are many first i think you ought to return to ag i

08:06mean you ought to return and build agro ecological approaches to farming you know you don't grow paddy in

08:14bar mail do you but we do grow sugar cane in in in drought prone areas it's not a wise thing to do

08:22but there are but there's a lot more than that the fact is first and foremost who are you trying to

08:29benefit rajdi farmers populations are plummeting all over the world you may in your great grandchildren

08:38may live in a world without farmers the u.s percentage is one percent eu had germany had more farmers

08:46than the eu today okay 40 50 years ago we are and now you've got robotics and ai coming into the

08:55picture we are that is i'm saying that right the agrarian crisis is no longer an agrarian crisis

09:03it went from there to being a societal crisis it is now a civilizational crisis with one of the most

09:11important classes in human history let me leave it there peace interestingly today when the bjp hit

09:18back at the congress party they also quoted numbers of peace sainat along with the ncrb so take that as a

09:25compliment and let me let me leave it there but i as always thank you very much for joining me

09:32and sharing your wisdom with such passion peace sainat on india's continuing farm suicide crisis

09:38thank you very much

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