Section I - The crisis in Agriculture

The Crisis in Agriculture is many folds:

•We have 65% of the population dependent on agriculture but we have less than 2% public funding in the agriculture sector

•Yields are declining because of soil deterioration due to “Green Revolution”. Excessive chemicals and pesticides used in the conventional methods as prescribed by the "Green Revolution". In the 1950's Green Revolution had its relevance when the soils still had fertility and there was water table. But now it has outlived its utility

• There is an overdraw of groundwater by tubewells owned by big farmers who are able to create irrigation facility. These farmers, as long as there is water available in the tubewell, do unsustainable cultivation in the form of growing Paddy, Sugarcane, Banana and such other water intensive crops in dry areas!!

• Land degradation and salinity due to water logging and poor drainage because of the big irrigation dams resulting in thousands of acres of land lost in states like Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh

• Lack of crop rotation and mono-cropping has increased the risks of pest attacks and soil degradation resulting in the usage of more fertilisers and chemicals

• Small and marginal Farmers are not able to afford the cost of fertilizers, petroleum fuels & energy at commercial rates. They are heavily indebted due to crop failures resulting from pest attacks & vagaries of climate. Most of these small and marginal farmers are also dry land farmers with no irrigation facility and hence the heavy dependency on Monsoon

• Cost of local labour is not found to be affordable by land-owners taking up plantation programs for production of wood bamboo & oil seeds. Thus there is severe deficit of biomass needed to provide inputs for agriculture, infrastructure development & energy generation

• The Dependancy on an external grid Energy supply with all its irregularity and unpredictive nature

• Farmers not credit-worthy anymore. They are heavily indebted due to the high input costs of fertilisers, energy, seeds, pesticides etc.,

• The withdrawal of the Government from the Public Distribution system and the lack of proper Market access and suitable incentive price to the farmers leaving them to the vagaries of middlemen and corporate sharks and their hoarding tendency

• Over the 1990s, the growth rate of foodgrain production dropped to 1.75 per cent per annum, which was lower than the population growth rate of 1.9 per cent and the first time since 1950s!! and hence India is busy importing wheat from other countries at a rate higher than the Minimum Support Prices paid to the Farmers in India

• A study by CSE shows Indians have an unacceptable level of pesticide content in their blood because of the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in conventional farming

• If one is a small (landholding less than 6-10 acres) or a marginal ( less than 2 acres) dryland farmer (one without any access to irrigation and only rainfed) because of the high Input costs and insufficient returns, s/he would do subsistence farming in a minimal area to take care of the foodgrains for the year and leave the rest unutilised or barren. Also if s/he has a little access to irrigation s/he would do farming in just about an area which would take this little irrigation and leave out the rest. Alternatively they would lease out / sublet the land to a resource poor farmer ( either landless or one who has less than 1 acre of land) and come to an agreement with him / her to get enough foodgrains for the year and leave the rest to him/her.

As a result of all these, farmer suicides are happening at an alarming rate and there is a huge lack of confidence in doing agriculture as a vocation in the rural areas..........