Caste still bleeds small land holders

PUNE: The failure of the monsoon tolive up to its promise so far this year is giving rise to a sense of deja vuamong farmers in many parts of the state, notably those in Vidarbha andMarathwada regions, which face the prospect of a fourth consecutive year ofdrought.Analyses of suicides by farmers in Vidarbha in 2002 by theGokhale institute of politics and economics (Gipe) here has revealed that "cropfailure and indebtedness" were the primary causes that drove lower- andmiddle-caste farmers to take the extreme step.While Yavatmal andWardha districts accounted for 14 suicides each in 2002, Amravati saw 10 similarincidents and Nagpur reported four such deaths. The spate of farmer suicidesthis year, too, has occurred in the same region.According to thestudy, large and medium farm owners, who mostly belonged to higher castes,committed suicide due to a variety of socio-economic reasons independent ofagriculture. In the case of lower-caste farmers, however, their crop loss andindebtedness has been attributed largely to "the caste-based social isolation inrural society".These are observations made in the study, ''Marketimperfections and farmers'' distress in Maharashtra'', by scholars B.B. Mohantyand Sangeeta Shroff of Gipe''s agro-economic research centre. The study wasundertaken at the instance of the Union agriculture ministry and was completedin October 2003.According to the scholars, since agriculture in thestate is mainly rain-fed, the shortfall in precipitation this year is likely toaggravate the hardships of neo-farmers, especially those from the scheduledcastes with small land holdings. Both Shroff and Mohanty have blamed the socialisolation of marginalised farmers and lack of proper state intervention for theacute hardships faced by them. The situation is likely to be compounded bydelayed rains this year, the researchers told TNN."Around 66% of thefarmers who committed suicide in 1997, and 35% of those in 2003 belonged to thescheduled castes. All of them were landless labourers encouraged to becomefarmers by the state in the recent past," Mohanty said.However,their lack of expertise and experience in handling drought situations, andrefusal of co-operation from higher strata of society, drove them todesperation, he noted.Shroff noted that marginalised farmers,especially the neo-farmers who come from the landless Scheduled Caste community,suffer the most in such situations. "Loans to farmers linked to the size oftheir land holdings is faulty, because farmers with large lands are benefited,while the small farmer does not get enough to meet production costs," shepointed out."If, due to any reason, the small farmer cannot repaydebts, the co-operative does not entertain him again, which leads to suicides,"Mohanty explained. Moreover, government loans are not available to farmers whohave defaulted earlier.Shroff also pointed to government subsidiesand welfare schemes being rendered ineffective due to malpractices by governmentofficials, pesticide dealers, farmers and members of co-operatives. "Due to thegovernment''s failure to intervene in crop markets like onion and cotton, andinefficiency in handling the sugarcane market, the state government has not onlydriven its coffers into deficit, but also driven farmers to suicide," shesaid.Shroff and Mohanty deplored the excessive reliance on cashcrops — cotton, sugarcane and onion — and said it was leading tolosses to farmers and the state exchequer.