As India goes through economic reform, and as our centers of growth – large cities – continue to be aggressively developed, there are 600 million farmers who are cut off from this process of growth and, some argue, even being severely affected by this process of ‘development’.

Who is the Indian farmer? And how has she/he been affected by the processes of economic liberalization and ‘development’?

The Indian farmer is not a monolithic, homogeneous entity. She could be a woman. Or a man. She could be a dalit, from a lower caste, or even a Brahmin. He could be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Sikh or a Jain.

But for most part, Indian farmers have very small land holdings. About 50 percent of all operational holdings in 1980 were less than one hectare in size. About 19 percent fell in the one-to-two hectare range, 16 percent in the two-to-four hectare range, and 11 percent in the four-to-ten hectare range. Only 4 percent of the working farms encompassed ten or more hectares. By 2001, land holdings had fallen to about half a hectare for 50% of Indian farmers.

Farming itself has become increasingly difficult. This is reflected in the increased farmer suicides – the recorded statistic is at 18000 suicides a year among farmers in India. More numerous stories detailing selling of kidneys and body parts are as horrific. Temporary and permanent migration away from farms has also grown.

Across India, rapidly dropping water levels have affected farming. Punjab – the center of India’s ‘Green Revolution’ is in a growing agricultural crisis. Sub-surface water levels have fallen over 40 feet. Water levels have fallen even in the Gangetic basin.

Chemical pollution of our fields and our water is high and rapidly increasing. Chemicals that are central components of pesticides and fertilizers have been found in the blood streams of a large number of farmers in farming communities. The land itself has been affected.

Even while Union Minister for Commerce, Mr Kamal Nath swears that India will not change policies under WTO in ways that hurt the Indian farmers, exactly that has been happening. Deregulation of the Seeds Act has resulted in a glut of spurious seeds with lower germination rates – often sold by multinational companies – that have affected yields significantly. For marginalized farmers with limited capacity for buying seeds, this has been a serious blow to their livelihoods.

Energy policies have affected even the richer farmers. With electricity being provided for a few hours, often in the middle of the night, irrigation has also become difficult. In addition, disinvestment policies have resulted in only very high interest loans available for Indian farmers. While loans in urban areas are available at 4-6%, with even incentives of one year without interest, loans to the agricultural community is available only at 15-25%. The absence of soft credit has made agriculture – a high risk effort under usual circumstances – even more difficult.

In addition, policies driven by WTO have been the death knell. While quantitative restrictions that protected the Indian farmers have been eliminated, the developed world continues to use huge tariffs to protect its own markets. Devinder Sharma points out :
United States, subsidy to a mere 90,000 farmers has increased by 700 times since 1996. In the past one year, the US has provided an additional US$26 billion to its farmers. In absolute terms, the farm support in the OECD countries increased by 8% to reach the staggering figure of US$363 billion in 1998.

In India, we are being told that our Aggregate Measure of Support (AMS) being negative, we can still raise our subsidies to farmers. In reality, India is committed to do away with agricultural subsidies under the Structural Adjustment Program of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In any case, India provides only $1 billion worth of indirect subsidies to 550 million farmers!

Over the last decade our agricultural imports have increased and our exports have not grown at the same rate.While we were told that WTO policies would increase cereal export, duties levied by the developed countries have prevented that. At the same time, opening the Indian markets to highly subsidized products from developed countries. Already, cheaper imports of skimmed milk powder, edible oils, sugar, tea, arecanut, apples, coconut, etc have flooded the market.

The Indian farmers have been set up to fail. And if our farmers – 600 million farmers – fail, there will be chaos in India.

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