Re: [nukkad] Farmers' suicide

[Rohit Zaveri <>]

India: 60.8% of 2.2 million sq km is the land unuder cultivation
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India's topographical surface area is 3.287 million Sq.Km. Perhaps
the WB report not only excludes Kashmir but also Jammu and
the whole of Himalayan terrain from the Indian territory !
About 150 million hectares of arable land is under regular
cultivation of which about 100 million is covered under some
sort of irrigation schemes. At the time of independence only
95 Mha of land was cultivated producing a harvest of 49 miilion
tonnes. Today 150 Mha of agricultural land produces a rich
harvest of 220 million tonnes. Evidently the per hectare yield
has improved substantially. However the tragic fact is that as
much as half the land mass under agrarian programme is
dependent on rains and this includes those tracts of fields which
have inadequate irrigation facilities. Agriculture employs the
biggest chunk of manpower, some 55% being directly employed
in this sector and other 5% are indirectly or partially or nominally
employed while contribution of agriculture in the GDP of Indian
economy is barely 26%. This share has dropped from 56% in
1947. Thus ours is no more an agrarian economy but can rightly
be called agro-industrial economy.
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US: 45% of 9.6 million sq km is the land under cultivation
Population is 300 million
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USA's land area is 9.372 million Sq.Km. but am unable to cite
the total area covered under farm land.
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My guesses: 40% of Indian population is directly engaged in farming
and 10% of US population is engaged directly in farming. I think the
percentage for India is higher and am almost sure that the percentage
for US is around 3% - but I am purposely underestimating and
overestimating respectively.
What we can get from this data is that theapprox land under
cultivation per person in India is approx 4500 sq metres and in the US
is 144000 sq metres.

Let us not worry about the exact numbers. What is revealing is that
the US farmer has approximately 30 times the land under cultivation as
compared to the Indian farmer. This number may be 40 times or 25 times
- but the real point is this.
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Point is true .......... though  figures appear a wild guesstimate, they are
not so important as far as conclusion is concerned. Agreeable.
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All other things being equal, after grossly over simplifying across
the board, the US farmer can make 30 times the amount of money that an
India farmer can.
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yes, by thumb rule reckoning.
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Of course, because of the efficiencies of using large machines, you
can expect the US farmer to be making at least 10 times more money
(scaling factor of 1 machine - 10 people after taking care of costs of
1 machine v/s 10 people). That makes it 300 times more money. Hence
more efficient. Hence more productive.
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Usage of large machines, heavy dosage of fertilizers, powerful pesticides,
sweet incentives, ample irrigation water, high efficiency of farm labour
etc. etc. produce a yield barely twice or thrice than otherwise. 300
times is bombastic !! Let us take wheat. India on an average reaps
3.0 - 3.2 metric tons of wheat per hectare of land whereas agriculturally
advanced countries like USA, Canada, Japan, Australia get a yield of
7.0-8.0 metric tons per hectare, not more. Our best lands in Punjab,
Haryana and western UP yield as high as 6 tons. Hopeless logic holds
no water.
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Looking through this general lens, you can see that, in general,
Indian farmers have smaller plots of land per head.
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In civil and agricultural engg. and in agronomy the technical term is
marginal holding.
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I am sure that if you take into account the larger tracts of land that are
professionally managed in Punjab and the more fertile parts of India,
the plots of land per farmer will be reduced even further.
Since I have used total population, this will skew things more in
favour of the US if we take into account the larger families in India
and look at land under cultivation per family.
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This point has logic but has no much bearing or relevance to ground
realities.
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Another thing to remember is that fertilizer use is higher in the US
and the number of crops per year that can be grown is higher in India.
Also, water availability is stupendously higher in the US, compared to
the Indian dependence on the monsoons.
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US is way ahead of India in hybrid seedlings, usage of fertilizers, 
pesticides,
irrigation potential, mechanical resources, agro-research and much more.
Add to this the fact that the land in USA is being tilled for only past 200
years whereas here we have been tilling the soil for more than 5,000
years. To replenish a worn out soil a much stronger dosage of manure is
needed. The REAL difference is our terrible summer. Our hot months
are from mid February till mid October with some intermittent relief
during rainy days. In the south there are only two climates, hot and hotter.
It is this temperature which remains in the upwards of +30 C and reaches
upto +45 C is the true VILLAIN of Indian agriculture. For a successful
farm production what is a MUST is the retention of moisture in top soil
and in sub-soil. Due to long, dry and merciless summers of the sub-
continent the soils turn arid and unless an assured, continuous and timely
flow of sweet water ( not salty ) is made available there is no way the
soil can be moistened. In the USA, Europe the summers are short and mild
and thus no evaporation losses are encountered from the soil strata. Even
if north America had less developed irrigation infrastructure they would
still do better than the tillers in India, Pakistan.
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If a farmer is able to turn around 2 crops a year from his tract of
land, and is fully dependent on both of them being successful in order
to survive till the next year, is setting himself up for a disaster. A
crop is bound to fail
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Why must ? This is crap.
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- and this will start the inevitable slide down
to the money-lender and usurious rates of interest. Once the farmer
borrows money from the money-lender, there is almost no way for him to
come out of debt - so high are the interest rates.
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This is true for the southern states as I learned from hundreds of my 
workers
in Dubai who hailed from the south, the worst situation being in Kerala.
In Gujarat as far as I know there is no factor of exorbitantly high rate of 
money
landings to farmers.
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People might talk about the whole thing being the fault of the
money-lender. Actually he isn't to blame. He is only charging enough
of an interest rate to counter the risks that he is taking. If a bank
were to come up with a model that would allow it to charge as per the
risks they were taking, I am sure their rates would be similar to that
of the money-lender. So asking banks to be more considerate is NOT the
correct solution.
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Correct analysis. The risk factor is tremendously high. Monsoon fails or
the farmer fails to yield good crop or dies or whatever the reason, the
money lenders sum is drowned. '' Come next year '' is the standard reply
slapped on his face. Ask my maternal uncle Bhupatmama why he quit
this business ...... if farmers can avail loans from kind hearted Jain 
banyas
they will not climb even one step of a bank where they have to grease the
palm of a brahmin headweight loan officer. My mama and many like
him foregave few lakhs of loan sums but never did the cruelty of usurping
their lands nor ever took any Kanbi ( farmer caste member ) to court.
Even today they hold him in high esteem, almost as bhagwan. But the
Khsatriya lenders ( who are themselves bigger land owners ) are very tough,
very cruel in recovery. Generally they have an eye on annexing the smaller
farmer's land and draught situation provides them with an opportunity.
The highest lending rates are in Kerala, about 8%-10% per month,
interest payable monthly. This amply explains dishonesty of people there.
And ...... if I want money for my business I can have Rs.50 lakhs at a
mere 1% per month interest rate, or at times even 10% per year !

Rohit Zaveri.










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