Global Issues
INDIA: More Suicides Than Reforms
Five years ago, Pulparambil Varghese began cultivating ginger on 1.37 acres of land he owned in Thrikkeppatta village near Kalpetta town in Wayanad district of the southern Indian state of Kerala. Over the years, he borrowed 300,000 rupees (5,700 dollars) from banks and private financial institutions.
Unable to make the holding pay, or to repay the loans, 48- year-old Varghese committed suicide. His was one of six farmer suicides in the backward district Wayanad since the beginning of this year. The return of acute agrarian distress has claimed the lives of 13 farmers in the state in the month of November alone due to financial problems, according to data collected by farmers’ organisations.
The high suicide rate is all the more worrying because it has occurred in a state that tops the national human development index for achieving the highest literacy rate, for having good quality health services, and for the consumption expenditure of people.
Agriculture was badly affected in Kerala in the period 2000— 2007. Unofficial figures put the number of farmer suicides in the state at 11,516 between 1997 and 2005. Other figures quoted by some experts put the number of farmer suicides around 1,800 between 2000 and 2007. The agriculture sector overall in India is doing poorly, with several states reporting suicides by indebted farmers in the last 15 years or so.
K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai, in a study report titled ‘Farmers’ Suicide in India: Magnitudes, Trends and Spatial Patterns’, stated: 'In the 10-year period between 1997 and 2006, as many as 166,304 farmers committed suicide in India. If we consider the 12- year period from 1995 to 2006, the figure is close to 200,000.'
Almost 90 percent of the farmer suicides in Kerala between 2000-2007 were reported from Wayanad district, which is particularly susceptible because a large number of people here depend on agriculture for a living. One major reason for the high farmer suicide rate is the crash in prices of locally grown crops such as coffee, pepper, ginger, and areca nut, and diseases that killed off the crop.
The state government has now partially admitted that the farming community in Wayanad is in distress. A high-level official team headed by additional chief secretary K. Jayakumar, which inquired into the rising number of farmer suicides, has said that the agrarian crisis is severe. Analysing the return of agrarian distress in Kerala, Dr S. Mohanakumar, associate professor at the Institute of Development Studies in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and researcher in agrarian distress, told IPS that there was a huge gap between income earned from agriculture and the input costs incurred by farmers.
'Low income from products, rising price of fertilisers and high interest rates are suffocating farmers. There is no alternative and so they take the extreme step,' Dr Mohanakumar said. Dubai-based accountant Ramesh Ramachandran, who recently abandoned ginger cultivation in Pulppaly in Wayanad district, said there had been a major shift in farm crops from coffee and pepper to ginger and banana in the past ten years following depreciation in the market price of the first two crops. However, today, ginger too is not profitable because of its decreasing market value.
On Nov. 16, chief minister of Kerala Oommen Chandy announced a one-year moratorium on repayment of loans taken by farmers from government agencies, in the wake of increased farmer suicides. He said the government would also examine the role and interest structure of credit agencies lending money to farmers.
The difficulty in getting credit is one the main reasons for agrarian distress. Banks are not willing to extend credit to farmers and methods of loan recovery by banking and non- banking institutions have come in for considerable criticism. Adding to the problem is the sharp fall in the price of agriculture produce. Government agencies that are unable to procure agriculture produce at a remunerative price for farmers.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service