Failures of State in Agriculture

Laggardness of Finance and Market

            Land owners in India can be classified into marginal holders with less than a hectare, small holders with land between 1-4 hectares, medium holders with land between 4-10 hectares, and large holders with land more than 10 hectares.  Where the marginal holders are 59%, small holders are 32.3%, medium holders are 7.2% and large holders are 1.2% in 1990-91.  Most of the delta farmers perform subsistence farming except the rice and sugarcane which are sold in market after their own consumption. The farmers face yet another kind of ordeal while selling their products.  The minimum support price announced by the Government should meet their ability to survive to practice the agriculture.   For the rice crops the Government opens procurement places, but most of the farmers merely sell their products in nearby rice outlets. As most of the procurement places are too far from the cultivation only the big farmers can sell their products with high cost of transportation. 

            Large land holders with their huge agricultural products yielded from their land earn much more than small holders and marginal holders. The small and marginal holders who sell their meager quantity of products from in local market land after their own consumption. The big farmers receive various credits from the Government showing their large lands and they can survive even in any kind of haunting circumstances.  But the small farmer’s condition is highly pathetic. In some places in Tamilnadu the big farmers who bought tractors from the loans given by banks did not repay the loan as the Government had cancelled their agricultural loans sometimes back in 2000’s. So they got tractors free of cost. The small farmers received only subsidies for fertilizers and could buy some equipment with loans and credits. The maintenance of such equipment is a herculean task than practicing farming.  The growth of agriculture is deteriorating and now the condition of low production or zero production is being realized in many parts of the delta region. 

                                       Revolutionary Impacts and New Farming

           

The Revolution in agriculture once hailed as an important phenomenon in Indian agricultural practice is now considered as curse to the whole farming.  Chemical fertilizers eradicated farming in most parts of our country, including the flood prone area of Punjab and Haryana which experiences low production and water depletion.  Without any deep analysis the Government has let the foreign fertilizer manufacturing companies like Monsanto, Mahyco and various capitalist with the aim of making the third world countries depend on the developed western countries. The capitalists lobby the government of the developing countries, convincing them a huge return for making the agricultural land into their clinical laboratories for all their experiments.  Our country not only losing the valuable agricultural land to the capitalist outside but also large tracts of land are being given to the real estate monsters who constructs many buildings without realizing the importance of farming  and believing only in the own prosper.  The poor farmers were denied their right to hold agricultural land by removal of the article 31 from the constitution which entitled them the right to hold property. They are living in their own land as debtors and many people who practiced farming migrated to cities in search of alternative job for their sustenance.

            The chemical fertilizers not only made our land infertile but it has had serious health implications to the whole people in the society.  Whoever consumed these chemically fertilized food products are highly susceptible to several kind of new diseases like cancer, sterility and so many to count, which can be identified by the number of patients visiting the hospitals every day standing in a big queues. This enormous increase of patients is mainly due to intake of chemically contaminated food.  One has to clearly feel that many people in our society like the “Gypsy” community or the roaming “Kurava” tribes never approach hospital for treatment as they are devoid of all health issues, because they lead a natural way of life. Whereas we the people leading sophisticated and high standard of living in the developing society lead an artificial life which is highly mechanized.  Now the people realized a way to poise their life without disturbing the nature. It has been rightly called “Sustainable Development” which means not compromising the future need of our progeny leading a rational life with minimal use of natural resources.  Sustainability in farming is performed by Organic method of practicing it. 

Organic farming is a rational approach in farming in the 21^st century.  In the earlier Revolutionary way of agriculture we used chemical fertilizers thereby damaging the nature.  But the organic farming prohibits any form of chemical usage in the land.  The scientific method predominates the organic farming.  Instead of chemical fertilizers the organic farming uses earthworm and domestic made natural products like neem and its byproducts are used for the fertilization of land and crop.  In the organic farming there are some disadvantages that the cost of making fertilizers is expensive and the farmers need scientific knowledge about the land and the crop to be grown.  It cannot be practiced by small land holders who practicing subsistence farming.  Big farmers can practice the organic farming for their land with the credits they receive from the Government.  The organic farming unlike the chemical fertilized farming cannot give high yield spontaneously.  Its gestation period is too long, so small farmers have to incur the expense in the earlier time. So there is chance that they may still be apprehended to moneylenders or expecting loan from the government. The knowledge of organic farming is poor among the farmers at present though they are aware that the chemical fertilization has eradicated their farming but they are still reluctant to find alternative way may be in fear of huge economic burden or if any other farming practiced would require heavy investment.  This is the reason the organic farming is growing in a slow pace.  Nowadays people are aware of the organic farming but learning the skills in the organic farming is difficult task to them.  They are not guided properly by the government or they are illiterate to understand the organic farming or reluctant to search the organic farming practiced by few others due to their financial constraint.  Can the organic farming applied in the delta region and rejuvenate the lost fertile land is a highly debatable question.  To start organic farming in the delta region involves huge investment from the government, various agricultural officers in these districts should be informed of organic farming and camps should be conducted at all the blocks to villages.  Training should be imparted to all section of the farmers.  Propagation of organic farming and its benefit should be within the reach of all people.

            The application of chemical fertilizers in the delta region inhibits the habit of using fertilizers in an indiscriminate manner reduced the crop yield and fertility of the soil.  It has also made farmers highly debt.  Farmers who seeks loans and credits from the government has increased, but very few farmers are getting high loans and able to practice farming while the rest of the farmers are left to suffer. The repaying capability of loans by farmers is very low even among the large land holders. Farmers spending from their own pockets are loans made from private lenders leave them in condition as debtor forever and frustrated members commit suicide due to intense pressure from the money lenders and humiliation they face in the society.  Private companies mushroomed around the fertile regions of delta mainly to propel their economic growth in the pretext of improving the failed crop to high yield. Farmers who fall prey to the bait of the colourful advertisements face yet another economic loss.  The private company members do  unnatural way of passing the mineral to the crops and to the plants, thereby creating a stage where they alone the final Xavier to the crop. Making the farming highly technical oriented.  The anti -natural way of feeding the nutrients to the crop cannot be done for a longer period of time. 
The government should weed out these newly grown money minded people selling the bogus and useless products in an attractive manner also from dragging the farmers to debtor forever in life. No farmer has stopped using chemical fertilizers even after it proved to be failure to bring fruit. Farmers applying fertilizers again and again so as to increase production without realizing that their land had died already.  

           

The delta region once considered a flood prone area in the country nowadays can sustain any kind of flood as the ground water has been depleted and flood water will runoff quickly to sea and evaporate due to high temperature because of global warming. Rich land owners who are the main culprits of water depletion in the delta region. They make bore wells up to 500 feet beyond the previous level of 250 in search of good water sources. The governments free current to the big farmers help their greediness. The electric motors running continuously for several days sucks out water from very deep and the continuous usage of the chemical fertilizers requires more water and the evaporation and global temperature destroys the whole land impossible to live. The production even though is very less. People who are economically stronger makes bore’s one for their domestic purpose in their house premises and another one or two to their agricultural land for farming purpose.  With the large scale boring of land make the fertile region slowly turning to a dry land in future course of time if this process of indiscriminate boring continues soon the delta will turn into a desert and very few lands will remain fertile like the oasis in the desert.  The water scarcity during the summer season is severely felt by the people, rich people with their bore wells and tube wells meet their domestic need, but the poor people are left to roam with empty pot in search of water. The highly alarming news is there are many farmers who have applied for free electric current waiting for the Government approval if given current free to them surely the will be death blow to agriculture in the delta region once for all.