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By N P Chekkutty According to the Economic Review 2007, the rate of farmer suicides in Kerala has fallen dramatically, largely on account of the debt relief commission set up by the government. But the story is different on the ground, where price fluctuations, pest attacks and unsustainable agricultural practices continue to push farmers over the edge
The Economic Review 2007, released during the budget session of the state legislature, by the Kerala State Planning Board, makes the claim that Kerala’s GSDP increased in real terms by 8.1% in 2006-07, which is marginally higher than the previous year’s 8%. The document says: “What was notable in Kerala during 2007 was that the high growth rate came together with reduced rural distress. The most significant reflection of this was that peasant suicides came to an end in the second half of 2007, Kerala being the first major suicide-affected state to have put an end to this tragic phenomenon.” The review looks at the first year of the Left Democratic Front government, led by V S Achuthanandan, which came to power in May 2006. Kerala witnessed a spate of farmer suicides in previous years; according to official figures there were as many as 179 cases reported from the tiny district of Wayanad alone, between 2002 and 2006. Two other major districts affected were Palakkad and Kasargode. Therefore, the main priority of the government when it took over was to find a solution to the widespread farmer distress. One of the first steps it took was to set up a statutory agricultural debt relief commission, a six-member body with members drawn from farmer organisations, legislative assembly members, judicial officers, etc, empowered to look into complaints and find redress with the resources made available in the state budget. The Economic Review notes: “Of greater significance is the setting up of a statutory debt relief commission by the state government which brought substantial hope to the distressed peasantry with its formation.” The commission did indeed give rise to a lot of hope among poor farmers who were burdened by mounting debts; in the first few months itself it received over 4.76 lakh complaints from all over the state. But the claim that the government was able to put an end to farmer suicides was farfetched, as, even during the summer of 2008, suicides were reported from Kuttanadu, known as the rice bowl of Kerala. What is distressing about the Kuttanadu suicides is that while farmer suicides were thus far confined to the hill regions, it was spreading to new areas. (As I write this, a report is coming in from Kasargode that, on July 25, 2008, two farmers committed suicide as they were unable to get assistance under any government-sponsored scheme.) With a view to monitoring the functioning of the agricultural debt relief commission, this correspondent and journalist K P Vijayakumar spent a few weeks studying the commission during November-December 2007 when it held its first sittings. We also checked back with the situation on the ground, looking at specific cases in order to try and locate what was going wrong in the lives of farmers who were forced to appeal to the commission. What we witnessed was a sad spectacle as the commission struggled with limited funds, too few staff, countless technical and administrative hurdles and hundreds of highly-strung poor peasants waiting to air their grievances wherever they went. The commission was empowered to write off 75% of the loans amounting to Rs 50,000 taken from cooperative banks, which they had to compensate from funds promised through budgetary provisions. However, it had no authority to provide relief on loans got from nationalised or private scheduled banks. A large proportion of agricultural loans were taken from commercial banks and private moneylenders, as farmers had borrowed from every available source. Here are a few cases we studied whilst observing the commission’s proceedings, talking to distressed farmers who came to present their grievances, and visiting some of their homes and villages to examine the actual state of affairs that had put them in such distress. The debt relief commission conducted a series of sittings at the government guest house, Kalpetta, the headquarters of Wayanad, known as the district with the greatest number of farmer suicides between 2002 and 2007. The sittings were held in the last week of November and first week of December 2007. Annamma Mathai, a 65-year-old woman from Pulpally panchayat in Wayanad, whose husband had died two years ago leaving her 2.05 acres of land and a huge debt, arrived in town on the evening of November 29. She had received a letter from the commission asking her to be present the next day. Annamma planted ginger and pepper on her small plot of land, which normally fetched her reasonable returns -- enough to keep the family going but with no savings for seasonal price fluctuations. Then Annamma’s pepper vines were struck by a fast-spreading disease that wiped out the plants. Her husband Mathai took a loan of Rs 25,000 from the Nadavayal branch of South Malabar Gramin Bank to revive his farming operations. But he was unable to repay the loan. After his death, the total amount owed to the bank had reached Rs 42,000, leaving Annamma with no way out of the debt trap. Annamma was the 52nd person in the queue. After waiting a few hours on an empty stomach -- she had had no breakfast -- she was ushered into the presence of the commission. Her files were examined and, after consultations with bank officials, the commission gave its verdict: interest and penalty interest would be waived, but Annamma would have to pay back the principal amount. Annamma was speechless. After a few minutes she managed to say through her tears: “Sir, where do I find the money? I have nothing…” Moments later, she was seen moving out of the building, her head low, her frail figure swaying like a reed in the strong Wayanad wind blowing outside. Many farmers who attended the commission meeting were smallholder farmers whose loans had become too heavy to bear. Why had they not repaid their loans? Expert studies by various agencies conclude that non-remunerative agricultural practices, repeated price fluctuations in the market that leave farmers with no savings, heavy debts arising out of weddings, pest attacks, medical expenses, etc, are major reasons for the mounting debts. One of the villages we visited was Poozhithode, a small hamlet in ward four of the eastern hill panchayat of Chakkittappara, in Kozhikode district. The village is practically inaccessible; there are no roads and one has to walk three kilometres to get there. Here we met Vettappala Chinnamma, a 68-year-old woman who lives in a dilapidated two-storey building with her sister. Chinnamma and her family came to this remote village, almost 50 years ago, from Ranni in south Kerala in search of a better life. There was abundant land and it was cheap. Her father converted 5.5 acres of forestland into farmland on which they planted arecanut. Arecanut is a popular spice used in a number of products. It depends solely on global conditions. There was a time when it fetched a very good price, but recently prices have fallen drastically putting hundreds of farmers in distress. Chinnamma’s two-member family had around 3,500 arecanut palms. When disease struck, they had no resources to look after the palms, and with no income from the land they were on the brink of starvation. The disease destroyed all the palms, turning the fields into an arecanut graveyard. Once disease strikes, the only way out is to replant the palms. That takes a number of years and a lot of investment. Chinnamma had land but no resources to replant the palms. She managed to survive thanks to the Pubic Distribution System (PDS) that is still widespread and quite effective in Kerala. Her ration card entries reveal the story of how misfortune took control of her life: till May/June 2007 she did not lift any rice from the PDS outlet. But from July to November, at the time of our visit, when her plants died, she was getting five kilos of rice every month. Poovathumalil Kuttappan, an active CPM worker, has five acres of land on which he grew 3,000 arecanut palms. Disease destroyed his entire plantation. He made an effort to revive his fortunes by taking loans from various sources to replant the trees. He took Rs 15,160 from the Chakkittappara Service Cooperative Bank and Rs 85,000 from the Union Bank of India, and was facing recovery proceedings from both. Poozhithode is a classic case of an entire village going to the dogs. It has 88 hectares of land and is inhabited by as many as 29 peasant families with small and medium landholdings. In the last week of November 2007, only six families remained in the village; the rest had left in search of a better livelihood. It was not lack of hard work, or physical resources, or land that had made their lives unbearable and had forced them to move from the place they had lived in for generations. It was the unpredictability of a farmer’s life, the total absence of any social security cover even as they depend solely on the vagaries of a global market, an equally unpredictable climate, and spreading plant disease. Farmers complained that plant disease was becoming more and more frequent; many suspect this could be the impact of changing climate patterns, irregular rainfall and excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser and pesticides. While disease and poor prices have destroyed livelihoods on the arecanut plantations, it was a global drop in prices that brought hardship to villages in Wayanad where coffee is grown. In the first week of December we visited Kambalakkadu, a small town that smells strongly of coffee and is renowned for its coffee market, to get an idea of what was going wrong. We met Sarojini, a worker in a coffee plantation in Kozhinjakkadu, Kaniyampatta panchayat. She lives in a small hut with her two children; her husband abandoned her two years ago. She had received Rs 60 for a day’s work in the plantation, and four idlis, three of which she had saved for her children. The plantation was going through bad times. There were no permanent workers there any more; Sarojini got work only three days a week. In a way she was lucky compared to the adivasi women who get only Rs 50 a day, if indeed they are given work. The present economics of coffee production is hopeless for small and medium growers, says James, a small coffee grower. Coffee prices are falling and cultivation costs growing. He had three acres of coffee plantation but had to sell 35 cents of land to meet his needs. His family of four survives on the coffee that’s grown on the remaining 2.65 acres of land. Last year, James’ total yield was 30 bags of coffee, each bag containing roughly 54 kg of beans. Processed, it would yield 30 kg of coffee kernel per bag, which would fetch Rs 70 per kg. Considering the expenses James incurs in maintaining the plants -- including manual work, fertiliser, etc -- that works out to a loss of around Rs 60,000 per acre. At the same time, Nescafe Classic coffee is sold at Rs 68 per 50 gram pouch, at retail outlets. The government policy of coffee procurement monopoly for the Coffee Board did a lot of damage to coffee growers, as the prices the Board offered are low compared to the open market. After a series of agitations, coffee growers were allowed to sell in the open market which helped them when prices were high. In fact, in 1994-95, local prices touched a record of Rs 120 per kg, although it subsequently fell sharply. During 2002-03, it touched the lowest benchmark of Rs 15. Last year it stood at Rs 70, way below the boom period price. A third major crop that we examined during the study was pepper, a spice grown widely in Wayanad. Pepper is historically known as ‘black gold’ because of the huge demand it enjoys in the world market. Pulpally, known as the base of Pazhassi Raja who resisted the British East India Company in the 18th century in a series of heroic battles, has been the centre of the pepper trade and was a prosperous area until a few years ago when the plants were struck by disease even as prices began to crash. In the best times there were as many as 540 Mahindra jeeps in this small village: one of the largest congregations of such vehicles in any small village in India! But in the past five years, Pulpally had seen as many as 124 farmer suicides -- the largest number in any village in Kerala. It’s a double tragedy: crashing prices combined with the sudden spread of new diseases that have destroyed not only the pepper vines but also supporting plants like murikku, a local softwood tree that bears bright red flowers in summer. Pepper can be replanted easily, but without the supporting plant it cannot survive. Efforts by the state, central government and farm officials to revive pepper cultivation in Pulpally have still to yield results. The sudden decline into destitution and despair has had a tremendous psychological impact on the people of the village. Local doctors say there has been a sharp increase in psychological disorders. Many men have migrated, leaving behind their land, in search of jobs in Karnataka, while women end up in the sweatshops of Tirupur and other places. What we saw in the villages, in the last weeks of 2007, was dramatically different from what is described in Economic Review 2007. Although the government’s efforts have indeed raised the hopes of the farmers of Kerala, the limitations imposed by the commission’s restricted operations have put the brakes on their effectiveness. In order to help distressed farmers, the government decided to waive debts of up to Rs 100,000, in the case of farmers who have committed suicide. Families that were left without any means of subsistence after the death of the breadwinner were given some assistance. The central government’s announcement in the 2008 budget on taking over loans for agricultural purposes from nationalised and scheduled commercial banks has also helped ease the situation somewhat. The Economic Review reveals that as many as 248 loans, with liabilities of up to Rs 100,000, taken by farmers who had committed suicide were written off by commercial banks; the total amount was to the tune of Rs 76.67 lakh. In addition, cooperative banks wrote off 487 loans of deceased farmers, worth around Rs 153.26 lakh, by May 31, 2007. The total number of loans taken over in both categories amounted to 885, involving an amount of Rs 2.30 crore. Compared to the gloomy days of the recent past, things do seem to be looking up. A number of factors have helped the situation. First, there has been a small improvement in world market prices for a variety of cash crops. Secondly, the debt relief efforts of the state and central government agencies appear to have eased the mass despair. This year there has also been a substantial increase in paddy procurement prices, from Rs 6.30 to Rs 9. And, finally, implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has at least partially been effective in the poorest districts of the state. But these are temporary and piecemeal measures whose effects can be wiped off once prices dip again and the official aid programmes are withdrawn. What we urgently need is a long-term strategy to ensure regular, remunerative prices for farmers, a social security net for those who are faced with a sudden reversal of fortunes owing to over-dependence on global markets, and an effective, farm-based science and technology development programme that will help address the widespread problems of disease, erratic climatic conditions, changing farm practices, etc. (N P Chekkutty is a journalist based in Kerala) InfoChange News & Features, August 2008 |
