Memorandum of Shiromani Akali Dal( Amritsar ) to the Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture Mr. Sharad Pawar at New Delhi on 13th, March 2008
We wish to bring to your notice some issues pertaining to agriculture in Punjab . In particular we wish to present the status of suicide cases of Agriculturists, the case of the small landholder, the current Minimum Support Price for Wheat, the lack of insurance for crops damaged by frost, and the loan waiver sanctioned by your government.
SUICIDE CASES
Suicides by farmers and labourers unable to manage to make ends meet has been a phenomenon that has been documented in the state of Punjab . The figures for suicides in Punjab by various investigating bodies is given below.
INVESTIGATING BODY SUICIDES SUICIDE SUICIDES PERIOD PER ANNUM
Punjab Government Status Report 2,116 1988-2004 124.47
2000
Punjab Farmers Commission 2006 2,000
Punjab Revenue Department Report 132 2002-2006 26.4
2007
Punjab Police Report 2007 7 2000-2006 1
Movement Against State Repression 1,508 1988-2007 75.4 (Moonak Sub-Division, Dist. Sangrur)
Movement Against State Repression
Projected figure for Punjab 3,000
The wide variety of figures is a reflection of different views of the situation. The Punjab Government has not acknowledged the seriousness of the farmers plight because it did not have the financial resources, as per the unitary Constitution of India, to tackle this problem given its recurrent financial doldrums. The neglect of the Government of Punjab in investigating and reporting the suicides to the Government of India has resulted in Punjab not being included in the Rs. 4,000 Crore package to aid suicide effected families handed to the Southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. Punjab has been using the figures provided by the Police and Revenue departments, which do not reflect the reality of suicide on the ground.
As the report of the of the Police Department indicate the figures can be as low as one suicide per annum (suicides may not be reported to the Police due to the legal proceedings involved), versus the findings of the NGO Movement Against State Repression (MASR) which has documented the suicide cases by asking Gram Panchayat's to provide signed lists of suicides in their village. We have supplied a photocopy of the signed lists of suicides by 91 Gram Panchayat's as collected by Sardar Inderjit Singh Jaijee, convenor of the MASR, in Sub-Division Moonak of District Sangrur. From its casework the MASR has made projections of the number of suicides in Punjab to be in the neighbourhood of 3,000 per annum. We believe this to be an accurate reflection of the reality of the Punjab farmer and labourer.
Honourable minister, if 3,000 agriculturalists in Punjab are committing suicide per annum, surely there is something amiss in the state of Agriculture in Punjab . The fields of Punjab have been presented to the world as the wonders created by the green revolution. It is this national image of "agricultural success story" that is not allowing the facts of the distressed state of Punjab Agriculture to emerge. If it is conceded that the Punjabi farmer and labourer are desperate, it must mean that agriculture all over India has collapsed. It is the confluence of the State Governments inability to financially handle the consequences of admitting the desperation of the agriculturalist and a similar ambivalence of the Union Government that is ignoring this malady.
Thus far in the case of suicides the violence emerging from the failure of Agriculture is manifesting itself on the body of the farmer and labourer. This memorandum wishes to explain to your office that the desperation of agriculturalist's can turn hostile to the state, as in the case of land acquisition by the Amarinder Government for the private Trident group in the villages of Fatehgarh Channa, Sanghera and Dhaula etc. in district Barnala, before Nandigram, the latent desperation of the farming community has posed a potent law and order problem, to ignore the history of this discontent is an act of malfeasance. The forcible land acquisitions have created a class of land colonizers, land sharks who are in collusion with politions.
BURDEN ON THE FARMER
According to the 1991 census farmers with land holdings of five acres or less in Punjab numbered five lakhs, in the 2001 census the number was down to three lakhs. While the population of the state has grown, two lakh farmers with small land holdings have been driven out of their profession. There are a number of reasons for this which include.
· Essential inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, fuel, electricity and water are unavailable at the right time, are priced too high or are spurious.The sale price of crops are manipulated by the Union government which does not adjust prices to inflation, input costs or to rising international prices of crops such as wheat. The prices of grains, vegetables etc. also face the formidable import/export restrictions designed to ensure low remuneration to producers.
· Punjab has been turned into a producer of grain leaving it open to the risks involved in monoculture whether biological or financial in nature. Investment in the cold chain has not been made, thus impeding diversification into horticultural produce. The blue revolution or fishery has not been promoted.
· The locational advantage of Punjab as a trading hub for agricultural commodities and products into Pakistan , Afghanistan , Iran , Central Asia and the Middle East has not been realized due to continued hostile posturing and an arms race mentality towards Muslim countries.
· Secondary occupations such as Dairy farming, a mainstay of the small scale farmer, are no longer profitable since the costs of inputs such as cattle feed have risen from Rs. 800 to Rs. 1,300 in the last two weeks, whereas the sale price of milk has not risen as much. It is the same case with poultry.
· State water rights guaranteed by Riparian Law are trampled upon, water and power meant for the fields of Punjab is passed on to other non riparian entities.
· Subsidies earmarked for the agriculture sector are doled out to the Fertilizer, Pesticides and other industries or to millers etc. Even subsidies to farmers such as free power are mostly enjoyed by those farmers who have connections to the electricity grid in their fields. Most small farmers are compelled to use diesel engines at very high cost for irrigation.
· Cheap credit through banks and cooperatives is not available to the small farmer due to transactional costs involved in obtaining finance. Most farmers are beholden in debt to the informal sector which charges a much higher rate of interest.
· Due to the small land holdings enforced by the Land Ceilings Act, farmers are financially susceptible to any natural calamities to their crops or price shocks to their inputs or falling output prices.
· Even though the Union Government has been promising insurance coverage to farmers for the past three decades, nothing has come of it. It is noteworthy that insurance for industry exists.
· Rural primary and secondary education is non existent, thus the workforce for agriculture is not upgraded. Instead higher education is highly subsidized and promoted, even though the students from rural farmer and labourer backgrounds are not qualified to avail themselves a higher education.
· Even though small land owners are being driven out of business, land holdings are becoming smaller due to the hereditary passage of land which splits already small portions of holdings into smaller parcels which are even more financially unviable.
MINIMUM SUPPORT PRICE OF WHEAT
The present UPA government has announced the MSP for wheat at Rs. 1,000/Quintal. This is being touted as the largest increase for wheat MSP. However if one were to look at the MSP compared to the imported cost of Wheat the disparity between the price offered to the Punjab farmer through the MSP and the cost of wheat internationally is seen to be substantially lower.
EXTENT OF MARKET PRICE SUPPORT TO WHEAT IN PUNJAB
SOURCE: "IMPACT OF GATT ON PUNJAB AGRICULTURE," G.S. BHALLA, GURMAIL SINGH
Year
Import Price (Rs/Ton)
MSP (Rs/Ton)
Price Support
%age Support
Market Quantity of Wheat (000 Tons)
Extent of Support (Millions)
1981-82
2776.19
1300
-1476.19
-53.17
7271
-10733.38
1982-83
2625.90
1420
-1205.90
-45.92
7859
-9477.17
1983-84
2542.20
1510
-1032.20
-40.60
8118
-8379.40
1984-85
2841.68
1520
-1321.68
-46.51
8888
-11747.09
1985-86
2415.37
1570
-845.37
-35.00
9710
-8208.54
1986-87
4819.44
1620
-3199.44
-66.39
8174
-26152.22
1987-88
5026.12
1660
-3366.12
-66.97
9761
-32856.70
1988-89
2868.19
1730
-1138.19
-39.68
10195
-11603.85
1989-90
6029.45
1830
-4199.45
-69.65
10210
-42876.39
1990-91
4269.31
2150
-2118.31
-49.64
10634
-22536.74
1991-92
2189.59
2250
60.41
2.76
10762
650.13
1992-93
5202.92
2800
-2402.92
-46.18
10814
-25985.18
Sum Total of Support Rs - 2,09,906.53
As can be seen from the above The State of India has regularly and consistently appropriated a huge surplus from the wheat produced in Punjab . Even today the landed cost of Wheat in India is between Rs. 2,200 and Rs. 2,500 per quintal as you have discovered during your attempt to import wheat to replenish the buffer stocks. Once again the price differential will lead to a price support of -60%. You have announced that the no co-operative is allowed to enter the market to purchase wheat this year in another attempt to defraud the Punjab farmer from getting a price that is higher than the MSP. No exports will be permitted by you. The Punjab farmer will be left to pay huge bills for the exorbitant price of Fertilizers, Diesel, Pesticides, Herbicides, Water and other inputs. The Punjab farmer will have to repay loans to unauthorized moneylenders. The Punjab farmer will bear the brunt of the massive cold spell that has lead to frost damage to his crop leading to lower yields in Wheat.
Sugarcane, Potatoes, Peas and other Horticulture Produce.
We also wish to bring your attention to the case of Sugarcane which as an industry has been steadily declining. The mills in Punjab have been bleeding, payments to farmers have been blocked and sugarcane is not being paid a remunerative price compared to the Paddy-Wheat cycle, Our mills need to be upgraded so that they are co-producing electricity and the current worries of global warming demand that ethanol be mandated for the petroleum industry as an additive.
This years winter crops specially Potatoes, peas and other horticultural produce has been severely damaged by frost. There has been no compensation for the farmers either through insurance or through the State or Union Government. We urge you to assess the damage to horticulture and compensate the farmers effected by the extreme cold and frost damage.
LOAN WAIVER
The loan waiver offered by your government does not offer full support to the Agriculturalist in Punjab . So far the details of the scheme have not been made clear from what is heard by the forms sent out to banks and co-operatives the loan waiver is for farmers who have less than 5 acres and have defaulted. This does not take into consideration the quality of land of farmers and it does not reflect the data on suicides obtained by us as a check on the suicidal tendency of the small farmer. We suggest that the loan waiver accommodate farmers with 10 acres and that it be extended to non defaulters and farm labourers as well, as the status of agriculturalists is extremely fragile.Bureucrats and the police have created a new class of criminals who coax poor farmers to sell their lands at throw away prices. This threat of land shark methods are leading to intimidation, murder, rapes and forceful acquisition of farm lands, especially in the vicinity of large cities such as Chandigarh .
Agrarian unrest due to the complete disconcern of the Union and State Governments is invariably going to lead to a left revolution and to our party’s mind, a Sikh independence movement as has been predicted by the Honourable Prime Minister Sardar Manmohan Singh in his letter to the S.G.P.C president. We have spelled out the true picture of the rural Punjab tragedy, it is neither being projected by the State Government nor heeded by the Union Government. Thus there will be no point in suppressing such a revolution by the armed strength of the state instead of addressing the problem right now through reforms, economic, social, political and constitutional.We wish to ask you to implement the following programs of Sir Chhotu Ram as well
Regulation of non- institutional loans:
Barely 30 % of loans are institutional, 70 % are non institutional in Punjab these should be settled for the farmers as well. We are heartened to see that you have already suggested that farmers should not repay unauthorized money lenders
Dam Do Pat:
No creditor may ask for more then twice the price of land from farmers.
Land Alienation Act
This law prior to independence should be re-introduced, it states that no man’s mean of livelihood should be taken away. We hope that you will come to the aid of Agriculture in Punjab .
- Simranjit Singh Mann, President, Shiromani Akali Dal( Amritsar )
- Bhai Ram Singh, General Secretary,
- Gursevak Singh Jawarke, General Secretary,
- Emaan Singh Mann, Senior Leader,
- Sansar Singh, State President, Delhi ,
- Gursharan Singh, Parliament Secretary.
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