To Prevent Farmer Suicides, Make Crop Insurance Mandatory

Will a step such as mandatory crop insurance prevent farmer suicides in the state of Odisha, asks MA Kharbala Swain.

More than a hundred farmers have committed suicide in Odisha this year due to drought caused by rain deficit. Media and the Opposition parties describe it as a farm and debt related phenomena while the state government has attributed the deaths to family disputes, influence of liquor and mental instability.

Around 3,600 farmers have committed suicide in the last 15 years. Usually it’s the cash crop farmers who generally take huge loans for investment and commit suicide after failing to repay it. However, in Odisha this year, it’s the paddy crop farmers who have taken the extreme step. The amounts borrowed vary from Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000. True, the loan amount may seem too paltry to prompt anybody to commit suicide but so is the meagre margin of profit expected from the paddy crop.

Preventing Farmer Suicides

• Drought is not the only cause for farmer suicides; high costs of fertilisers, developed seeds, pesticides and labour leave farmers with paltry profits
  
• While MSP on paddy is Rs 1, 510 per quintal, the production cost is around Rs 22, 000 per acre, farmers say
  
• Peasant leaders demand a price of Rs 3,000 per quintal
  
• The inability of the farmer to market his paddy is another problem
  
• Private money lenders charging excessive rates of interest, up to 60 per cent a year causes excessive mental strain
  

Drought Not the Only Reason

Peasant leaders claim farmers would have committed suicide even if there was sufficient rainfall. They argue, with the high costs of fertilisers, developed seeds, pesticides and labour, farmers are hardly left with any profit per acre of paddy cultivation. While the minimum support price (MSP) is Rs 1,510 per quintal, the production cost is around Rs 22,000 per acre they claim. They demand a price of Rs 3,000 per quintal so that the farmers would be left with adequate profit margin.

The perception that the farmers’ suicides take place only in non-irrigated areas is not true. Most such cases are reported from the Bargarh district, which is thoroughly irrigated by Hirakud canals and is thus treated as the ‘Rice Bowl’ of Odisha. Of the 30 million tonnes of paddy procured by the government of Odisha last year, 25 per cent came only from Bargarh district. So, it is a misconception to treat drought as the only cause of farmers’ suicides.

Need for Crop Diversification

The inability of the farmer to market his paddy is another problem. The liberal grant of Re 1 a kg rice scheme for BPL and non-BPL families makes the rice availability adequate in the market. Thus purchase of paddy from the farmers is not a dire necessity now for local traders.

Hence, the crop diversification is a huge necessity now in Odisha just like Kerala, if the farmer is to be paid a good profit. The Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) is now to be developed as a consultancy for farmers. They must advise the farmers on what to grow, how to grow and when to grow, by closely following the market price. Steps must be taken for the initiation of the 11 rapid irrigation projects sanctioned by the government of India since 2006. Six other such projects, on which work is progressing at a slow pace must be hastened.

Making Crop Insurance Mandatory

A major reason for suicide is the heavy debt burden due to crop loss caused by flood, cyclone, rain deficit, untimely rain, pest infestation. Government loans don’t put huge pressure on farmers but private money lenders charging excessive rates of interest, up to 60 per cent a year that causes excessive mental strain. These days a very unfortunate usury system is there in the shape of the Women Self Help Group (SHG)s, who instead of making productive use of the bank loan have emerged as an exploitative system of excessive interest rate from the farmers. So humiliating are their methods of repayment that at times it leaves no dignified way of escape for the farmer. This unethical way must be brought to an end.

Many farmers committing suicide are sharecroppers, who are not land owners. They have no legal access to farm loans disbursed by the government. No government relief packages are available at the time of crop loss. Though the Orissa Land Reforms Act and the OE Acts of the ’60s provides rights to the sharecroppers, no land owner came forward to recognise his sharecropper due to the fear of losing the right over his land.

An amendment may be made to those laws so that the sharecropper gets access to bank loans and government relief while the land owner retains the right over his land. The best way to save farmers from crop failure is to make crop insurance mandatory for each farmer. Initially the crop failure was related to the entire block, later it has been brought down to gram panchayat level. Now, it could further be brought down to the individual farmer. Fifty per cent of the premium may be paid by the government while the 50 per cent may be paid by the farmer. If the government could distribute cheap rice, umbrella, food etc. what stops it from bearing a 50 per cent premium?

(The writer is a former MP from Odisha.)