As India goes through economic reform, we continue to see improving economic indices. And yet, the condition of farmers continues to worsen. For a variety of reasons – from the perspective of nation building as well as considerations of rights and justice – it is important to analyze the impact of these trends.

Indications are that farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their livelihoods. Farmer suicides at about 15000 per year, during each of the last three years, largely owing to increasing debts, form one set of indicators. Sale of entire villages in the heartland of Punjab – the epitome of success of Indian farming – owing to the inability of farmers in sustaining their livelihoods is another indicator.

The government has reacted with superficial measures at best, primarily by increasing credits to certain farming communities. As Dr. Sunilam – farmer leader and MLA in Chattisgarh – points out, when livelihoods are becoming increasingly difficult, increasing credit will only create greater indebtedness. Policies that empower farmers to sustain their livelihoods are necessary.

Current agricultural policies, with an eye on increasing GDP, are short sighted at best. They are being made to increase markets and market value of products primarily by servicing large market players – large corporations and multi-nationals. Deregulation of seeds hit the Indian farmer hard while allowing multinationals into the market.

More significantly, under the WTO regime and pressure from global financial institutions, the government has ended a variety of support prices, or brought them down significantly. At the same time, these farmers compete with large American and European multinationals supported by billions of dollars in subsidies.

About 600 million Indians are farmers, 80% of whom are marginal and small farmers. In India, that means land holdings of half a hectare or less. These policies including the ending of social lending responsibility of banks, deregulation of seeds, competition with highly subsidized international corporations and falling water levels have hit them hard. As a result, they are unable to sustain themselves through farming.

If even one tenth that population migrates to the cities, urban economies will collapse. 2003 already saw the collapse of the labour market in Andhra Pradesh owing to extraordinarily large migration from Orissa. In addition, the urban infrastructure cannot deal with such large migration volumes. It will lead to larger slums. The other option available to the farmers is death.

There are humongous national implications that our political leadership is unwilling to acknowledge or deal with. Such a large population that cannot sustain itself will cause political and social instability. The costs will be much higher that the gains from current GDP growth.

But even worse is the ethical perspective of these policies. The process of colonization – in Asian and Africa – were wrought by limiting the access of local communities to their own resources as well as local markets. This limited their ability to trade and to support themselves, forcing them to depend on the colonizing forces and subsequently be controlled and exploited by them.

The current policies, under whatever name and however justified, are doing exactly the same. With irresponsible water policies, undemocratic trade policies, and marginalization of their roles in local markets – under whatever name, and however justified – small farming communities around the world are less able to access resources and markets to sustain their livelihoods and are increasingly exploited.

While the European and American small farmers are badly affected, they are much better off than their third world brethren. The latter are today vulnerable to increased exploitation – and indeed they are being exploited.

For most part, the farming community is demanding that the government move agriculture out of the WTO agreements – and with enough reason.

With the voice of the farmer playing a decreasing role in evolution of policies in India – financial, trade, energy, water or even agricultural – the problem becomes increasing acute; For we do not even hear their pain any longer. In a democracy, that becomes problematic. When it is a problem that affects 600 million, it is a recipe for disaster.

Increasing GDP or not.

Related Links
The Death of a Farmer
Population Growth and the Logic of Water Pricing
Where are 50 million farmers?
The Branding of India
The Recipe for Creating Slums