OneBrickOneVoice
17th May 2007, 23:22
I haven't read this article yet but it looks pretty interesting so I thought I'd post it and see what people think before I read it.
India: Farmer Suicides and Globalization (http://www.aworldtowin.org/wordpress/?p=162)
14 May 2007. A World to Win News Service. Crop failure and the inability to pay back loans due to high interest rates from moneylenders have led Indian peasants to commit suicide at an alarming and rapidly growing rate. Official statistics cite 25,000 such deaths during the last decade, but they are understated due to police harassment when families report a suicide. In the state of Maharashtra alone, 900 peasants, mainly cotton farmers, killed themselves during the last half of 2006. Most often these farmers reach for the most available method of death – drinking the very lethal pesticides they use in their fields. For every suicide there are many more peasants gripped by a severe state of economic hopelessness.
The following two articles explaining the role of globalized capital, international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the Indian government in this criminal situation are abridged from People’s March magazine, September 2004 and April 2005. Signed by M. Sunil and Dr Gupta, respectively, they are particularly relevant on the eve of the G8 summit conference in Germany (6-8 June), where the world’s imperialist powers will meet to plan how to further bleed the world’s peoples, including the peasants of India.
GROWING SUICIDE DEATHS: CHILLING DEPTH OF THE AGRARIAN CRISIS
Thousands of peasants have committed suicide. These painful incidents are still continuing and spreading throughout rural India. To cover up these horrible incidents, the unabashed local state governments (irrespective of their party affiliation) have fabricated so many stories. But this phenomenon is too conspicuous to conceal. And these governments had to recognise the grim reality and adopt some remedial measures. Even after declaration of these measures, suicide deaths by farmers have been continuing. This ever-increasing number of farmers’ suicides only indicates the depth of misery and desperation gripping rural India.
Since the implementation of India’s “economic reforms” programme in the 1990s, farming has become a money-losing proposition for an increasing number of peasants, leading to crushing burdens of debt. Among the states were suicides have been especially widespread are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, as well as Punjab, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and others.
These harrowing tales of peasants’ suicide are the immediate outcome of the economic reforms programme which helped the MNCs (multinational corporations) to further their penetration into the rural economy. The ruthless exploitation of MNCs and that of rural exploiting classes have been intensifying. Consequently the plight of the vast majority of the peasants is becoming more and more miserable.
Joblessness, indebtedness, hunger, malnutrition and desperation stalk the countryside of India. Professor Utsa Patnaik pointed out that the average family of four members of this country was absorbing 93 kg less food grains in 2000-2001 than 1997-’98. It means that there was a fall in average daily intake by 64 grams per head or a fall in calorie intake by 256 calories from food grains (which accounts for 65 to 75 percent of the food budget of the poor). This abysmal low level of consumption is only comparable to that of the appalling Bengal famine of 1943. She further stated, “Since the richest one-sixth to one-fifth of the population, mainly urban, has been improving and diversifying diets, the nutritional decline for the poorest three-fifths of the population, mainly rural, has been much greater than the average fall indicates” (Frontline, March 12, ’04). In fact, poor and landless peasants and wage-labourers, i.e., more than 60% of the peasants, have been suffering from hunger, malnutrition and starvation. This massive reduction in food grains absorption is the outcome of an economic reform programme which has further intensified the persisting crisis of the agrarian economy entailing more and more decline in purchasing power of the rural people. The meagre employment provisions have also been curtailed. The cultivation has become uneconomic. The vast majority of the farmers, particularly small and marginal farmers and tenant cultivators have to depend more and more on private moneylenders for loans at an exorbitant rate of interest. The deeply indebted peasants could not pay back their loans. They became desperate and took their own lives. What are those policies that have affected the peasants so adversely?
Economic reform policies devastate the rural economy
Since the mid-90s both central and state governments have been implementing reform policies dictated by the IMF, World Bank and other associated organizations. At the time of introduction of these policies the governments depicted a rosy picture of future prosperity. The stark reality shattered the myth and exposed the pro-imperialist character of reforms. These policies have further intensified the exploitation and rendered inhuman sufferings to farmers. Faithfully toeing to these policies:
(i) Governments curtailed subsidies on seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, electricity etc. These vital inputs of agriculture were handed over to private agents. Governments did not introduce any system to control the quality of these inputs. This was to accommodate the free play of market forces. It is proper to say that the government opened wide the domestic market for the free play of the MNCs which control the international market of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides. Private agents took the opportunity and supplied spurious seeds and pesticides. Consequently the prices of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides increased and yield per hectare decreased. In 90s the rate of agricultural growth has declined even below that of population growth for the first time in 30 years.
(ii) Governments drastically reduced the amount of rural credit at a low rate of interest from banks and other institutions. This policy virtually compelled the farmers to depend on private moneylenders for loans at an exorbitant rate of interest. Generally, the interest rate per year is not less than 60% and there is no upper limit as such. It is even 120% and more.
(iii) Governments continue to hike power tariffs according to loan conditions taken from the World Bank and its associated organizations. As a part of the Structural Adjustment Programme, the reorganization of the power sector has been undertaken. This process is going on throughout the country to fulfil the aim and objectives of the loan, i.e. division of the power sector into generation, transmission and distribution segments. This is for the purpose of corporatisation and then privatization. As a result of this process the power tariffs have been increasing. On November 30, 2002, the power tariffs have been increased in Madhya Pradesh by as much as 800 percent! The vast majority of the farmers in Madhya Pradesh could not pay their dues. 6 lakh (1 lakh is 100,000) power connections out of total 12 lakh connections used for the purpose of energising irrigation were severed. Madhya Pradesh government took a loan of $350 million in 2000 from the Asian Development Bank with the condition for restructuring of the power sector. Karnataka government took loans from the World Bank. One of the conditions was power sector reforms which resulted in a huge increase in power tariffs. The same situation exists in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, West Bengal and other states. In every state the peasants suffer from increased rates of power tariffs which further increased their production costs.
(iv) Following the conditions of imperialists-controlled WTO (World Trade Organization) the government of India completely opened up the domestic market of agricultural and agro-based products to world markets. It removed quantitative restrictions on imports of those products. The tariffs on imports have also been reduced persistently. These measures were adopted when the world market of agri-commodities was facing the problem of depressed demand due to deep crisis of the world economy. Moreover, the imperialist governments of the OECD countries spent huge amounts on agricultural subsidies. These resulted in the fall of prices of agri-commodities in the world market. As a consequence of the exposure of the domestic market before the international market controlled by the MNCs, the imported cheaper agri-commodities flooded the domestic market. These government policies have compelled the farmers of the country to compete with cheaper foreign agri-commodities when they have to spend more and more for ever-increasing cost of agriculture inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, electricity etc. Increasing cost of inputs, decline in growth rates and lower prices of outputs have most adversely affected the farmers, particularly those who produce crops like cotton, chilli, sugarcane, jute, tea, coffee, oilseed, wheat and stone fruits (almonds, apricots, peaches, plums, etc). Due to the above policies of exploitation by imperialist forces and that of private money-lenders, landlords, and hoarders indebtedness, desperation, destitution and starvation has intensified for the vast majority of rural people, particularly the small and marginal peasants and tenant cultivators. Thousands of peasants’ suicide deaths are the culmination of this horrible plight of the peasants.
IMPERIALISM, LIBERALISATION AND THE DEVASTATION OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE
Liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, (LPG) have brought above vast changes in the world economy. After the WTO (World Trade Organization) replaced the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) in 1995, the WTO’s more stringent and devastating rules are meant to string together all the economies under imperialist hegemony, in the guise of globalisation. The victims of these imperialist-controlled rules are invariably and basically the agrarian third world countries. India, a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, with three fourths of the population living on agricultural production, has been passing through a dangerous phase, faithfully submitting to the WTO, World Bank and the TNCs (Trans National Agro Food Corporations). In India it is clear that poor peasants continue to remain outside the fold of the banking system in the post-reform period. In fact the growth rate of agricultural credit for small and marginal farmers declined in the 1990s as compared with the 1980s, the RBI Report on Currency and Finance 2000-01 published in 2002 states. But in this reform period the big farmers did not find disfavour from the banks as the RBI Report in 2002 clearly observes. This lack of credit facilities from banks has thrown the poor and marginal peasants to the clutches of usurers and traders cum moneylenders. The large numbers of suicides by peasants are the consequence of this menacing situation. The brunt of the burden of the liberalisation policy is basically borne by the poor and landless peasants.
The infrastructural facilities generally provided by the state are now on the decline due to a fund crunch and the free market policy. The power sector has now gone in for privatisation through the latest reforms in the power sector. The EXIM policy for the import of agricultural commodities has been bidden adieu even much before the WTO stipulated period. For primary commodities, Indian producers and consumers are now directly facing the onslaught of the international market, controlled by the imperialist countries. Banks have already closed the doors for the marginal and poor peasants. The altered priority of the banking sector has slashed down direct advances to agriculture made by commercial and cooperative banks. All this has emboldened and encouraged the enhanced role of the private moneylenders in the rural areas. Even traders are now playing the role of moneylenders via supplying inputs, equipments, etc. To add salt to the injuries, multinational and private companies have directly entered the market to provide seeds (on many occasions, spurious ones) with the rapidly reducing subsidies by the governments. Now, not only agricultural lands are gifted away to the industrialists, native and foreign, a definite pressure is being exerted to remove land ceiling and tenancy regulations. The corporate sector and TNCs have already made significant moves to enable them to make inroads into direct firm operations. The West Bengal “Left” government have already started moving to that end.
India has been thrown back to the age of direct colonial rule in many respects by the structural adjustment programme and the WTO trade regime by which the surplus extraction and utilisation are mediated by imperialist capital. Debt continues as a legacy. Even after suicide by peasants in large numbers, loans from the private moneylenders and also banks haunt their successors who are forced to bear the burden of the dead men. Since the Indian government decided to pursue the aggressive liberalisation policy, in Vidarbha (Mahrashtra), crops loans sanctioned by banks cover barely 70% of the input costs, say district officials. Farmers claim that in Vidarbha, another place for farmers’ suicide, bank credit provides for only 15% of their needs. They rely on moneylenders and traders for the rest, who charge interest at rates varying between 30 and 120 per cent a year, which is enough to kill any hope of the peasant to generate a surplus. The Vidarbha farmers mainly grow cotton, soybeans and jowar (sorghum) during the kharif (autumn harvest) season. Still most crops depend on the monsoon, irrigation providing for only 15% of Maharashtra’s gross cropped area, as against the national average of 32.9% in 1989-90 (Frontline, August 13, 2004). The policy of liberalisation, geared more towards creating a pan-Indian primary commodity market with a unified price, in alignment with global prices, have already worked dangerously against farmers in the states.
In Andhra Pradesh, an unsustainable cash crop like cotton was introduced by cajoling the farmers into producing it about a decade ago and soon they faced odds in producing paddy (rice). It costs 16% higher to produce cotton in A.P. than in Gujarat; similarly the cost of groundnut production which was also introduced in AP is 38% higher compared to that in Gujarat. Such crops have caused further uncertainly in the lives of farmers. Here too, with a stress on market-based agriculture, about 8 to 9 lakh pump sets were installed. But under the TDP (Telugu Desam Party) regime in A.P., the power tariff was also increased and power was irregular, creating havoc not only for the standing crops, but also for the motors. Now the cropping patterns have been changed. The commercialisation of agriculture, with the change in cropping patterns, compelled the peasants to depend on the market, ultimately controlled by international capital.
The state did not come up to purchase the produce in any significant way, leaving farmers in the lurch. This was also one of the main reasons behind farmers’ suicides.
Even the government-declared proposals prove to be an eyewash. For instance, the Chandrababu Naidu government in AP did announce a debt relief package after the wave of suicides in 1997-98. However, by the end of 1998, the institutions rescheduled the loans to the extent of only Rs. 182 crore (1 crore is 10,000,000) against a target of more than Rs. 700 crore. Moreover, the large-scale dependence on private moneylenders in this semi-feudal system is not getting reduced, but is rising alarmingly. This shows how usurious capital holds sway in the neo-liberal regime dictated by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc. – an example of how imperialist sponsored “modern development” fosters backward institutions and relations of production.
The crushing burdens on peasants
The increasing strain made by the falling output prices and the rising input prices along with the almost negative monetary backing by the banks and such organisations, the peasants are forced to alienate their lands and many are forced to commit suicide. Growing landlessness has become the order of the day. Even a section of the rich peasants is ruined. Many cultivating households are thrown to the labour market. With the existing agricultural labourers, the situation leads to further shrinkage of job opportunities and decline in real earnings. It is the agricultural labourers who bear the worst burnt of the severe crisis in agriculture. Most of the 11 crore agricultural labourers, mostly comprised of Dalits and tribals, have now been facing extreme economic problems to meet the basic requirements of life.
Yet the changes at the corridors of power have not brought about tangible improvement in the cotton belts in India. The lowering of water level, drought, increasing input prices and declining subsidies have thrown the cotton belts in India into a deep crisis. The cotton farmers’ suicides are still on. While this backward semi-feudal, semi-colonial India is devotedly tied to the WTO norms, the US in complete disregard of WTO norms and rules has enhanced its cotton subsidies to $3 billion a year. This imperialist big power is surreptitiously aiming to reduce the world cotton prices and dump cotton in the markets regardless of the distressing condition of the cotton-growing third world countries. The US has now nearly 6 million bales more than the requirements of the world. This position enables it to exercise its leverage in controlling and pushing out countries like India in the international trade. The US subsidy system is based on direct payments and this enables the farmers to sell cotton in world markets at prices far below the cost of production. Thus the cotton-growing peasants are left to the mercy of the moneylenders and controllers of the international market.
TNCs make inroads
Transnational Agro Food corporations have emerged in the agricultural sector to loot and tightly bind the Indian agriculture-based economy. For intensive farming small holdings are not profitable for TNCs. Now they are pressuring the government for the lifting of the land ceilings acts as well as the conglomeration of small holdings. The Maharashtra government has already decided to grant exemption in the Landholding Act to trusts, companies and cooperatives for horticultural purposes. Fallow or waste land can now be purchased by them and cultivable lands can be taken on lease. This process is already underway in Orissa, the southern states and also in the “Left” ruled West Bengal as per the advice of the Mc Kinsey consultancy firm (an American company that preaches commercialisation of agriculture).
As a part of this process contract farming has entered the scene. Under such system the concerned company provides seeds, fertilisers, technology, credit and also farm equipments to the farmers. The peasants are commissioned to produce and supply specific products, in fixed quantities, maintaining a specific quality, in a pre-fixed time frame and price. HLL, Pepsi and Nijjar have taken up tomato production in Punjab, Markfed entered in Punjab to produce mustard crops, potato cultivation has been taken up by McDonalds, wheat by Rallis and HLL in Madhya Pradesh, etc.
The TNCs were already in the field to control seeds. Though state seed corporations set up their units under the World Bank-backed seed projects, the private sector entered the seed industry since the early 1970s. In the year 1987 the MRTP and Fera Companies were invited to manufacture seeds. In the same year itself import of seeds was introduced in the Open General Licence category. And then through the TRIPs regulations of the WTO, the TNC seed companies invaded the country as powerful agents to control the seed industry in India. Simultaneously agro processing industries which operated in the small-scale industry sector have been allowed to be sucked by the TNCs and big corporations. This will naturally alter the land use and cropping pattern in Indian agriculture. Such opening up of the agricultural sector to the TNCs and big corporations have already impacted on the cropping pattern, causing further decline in employment growth. The capital intensive and import-based agricultural activity has naturally started displacing peasants from land and agriculture on an increasing scale. These are the direct results of the ruthless inroads of the globalisation process in Indian agriculture.
India: Farmer Suicides and Globalization (http://www.aworldtowin.org/wordpress/?p=162)
14 May 2007. A World to Win News Service. Crop failure and the inability to pay back loans due to high interest rates from moneylenders have led Indian peasants to commit suicide at an alarming and rapidly growing rate. Official statistics cite 25,000 such deaths during the last decade, but they are understated due to police harassment when families report a suicide. In the state of Maharashtra alone, 900 peasants, mainly cotton farmers, killed themselves during the last half of 2006. Most often these farmers reach for the most available method of death – drinking the very lethal pesticides they use in their fields. For every suicide there are many more peasants gripped by a severe state of economic hopelessness.
The following two articles explaining the role of globalized capital, international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the Indian government in this criminal situation are abridged from People’s March magazine, September 2004 and April 2005. Signed by M. Sunil and Dr Gupta, respectively, they are particularly relevant on the eve of the G8 summit conference in Germany (6-8 June), where the world’s imperialist powers will meet to plan how to further bleed the world’s peoples, including the peasants of India.
GROWING SUICIDE DEATHS: CHILLING DEPTH OF THE AGRARIAN CRISIS
Thousands of peasants have committed suicide. These painful incidents are still continuing and spreading throughout rural India. To cover up these horrible incidents, the unabashed local state governments (irrespective of their party affiliation) have fabricated so many stories. But this phenomenon is too conspicuous to conceal. And these governments had to recognise the grim reality and adopt some remedial measures. Even after declaration of these measures, suicide deaths by farmers have been continuing. This ever-increasing number of farmers’ suicides only indicates the depth of misery and desperation gripping rural India.
Since the implementation of India’s “economic reforms” programme in the 1990s, farming has become a money-losing proposition for an increasing number of peasants, leading to crushing burdens of debt. Among the states were suicides have been especially widespread are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, as well as Punjab, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and others.
These harrowing tales of peasants’ suicide are the immediate outcome of the economic reforms programme which helped the MNCs (multinational corporations) to further their penetration into the rural economy. The ruthless exploitation of MNCs and that of rural exploiting classes have been intensifying. Consequently the plight of the vast majority of the peasants is becoming more and more miserable.
Joblessness, indebtedness, hunger, malnutrition and desperation stalk the countryside of India. Professor Utsa Patnaik pointed out that the average family of four members of this country was absorbing 93 kg less food grains in 2000-2001 than 1997-’98. It means that there was a fall in average daily intake by 64 grams per head or a fall in calorie intake by 256 calories from food grains (which accounts for 65 to 75 percent of the food budget of the poor). This abysmal low level of consumption is only comparable to that of the appalling Bengal famine of 1943. She further stated, “Since the richest one-sixth to one-fifth of the population, mainly urban, has been improving and diversifying diets, the nutritional decline for the poorest three-fifths of the population, mainly rural, has been much greater than the average fall indicates” (Frontline, March 12, ’04). In fact, poor and landless peasants and wage-labourers, i.e., more than 60% of the peasants, have been suffering from hunger, malnutrition and starvation. This massive reduction in food grains absorption is the outcome of an economic reform programme which has further intensified the persisting crisis of the agrarian economy entailing more and more decline in purchasing power of the rural people. The meagre employment provisions have also been curtailed. The cultivation has become uneconomic. The vast majority of the farmers, particularly small and marginal farmers and tenant cultivators have to depend more and more on private moneylenders for loans at an exorbitant rate of interest. The deeply indebted peasants could not pay back their loans. They became desperate and took their own lives. What are those policies that have affected the peasants so adversely?
Economic reform policies devastate the rural economy
Since the mid-90s both central and state governments have been implementing reform policies dictated by the IMF, World Bank and other associated organizations. At the time of introduction of these policies the governments depicted a rosy picture of future prosperity. The stark reality shattered the myth and exposed the pro-imperialist character of reforms. These policies have further intensified the exploitation and rendered inhuman sufferings to farmers. Faithfully toeing to these policies:
(i) Governments curtailed subsidies on seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, electricity etc. These vital inputs of agriculture were handed over to private agents. Governments did not introduce any system to control the quality of these inputs. This was to accommodate the free play of market forces. It is proper to say that the government opened wide the domestic market for the free play of the MNCs which control the international market of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides. Private agents took the opportunity and supplied spurious seeds and pesticides. Consequently the prices of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides increased and yield per hectare decreased. In 90s the rate of agricultural growth has declined even below that of population growth for the first time in 30 years.
(ii) Governments drastically reduced the amount of rural credit at a low rate of interest from banks and other institutions. This policy virtually compelled the farmers to depend on private moneylenders for loans at an exorbitant rate of interest. Generally, the interest rate per year is not less than 60% and there is no upper limit as such. It is even 120% and more.
(iii) Governments continue to hike power tariffs according to loan conditions taken from the World Bank and its associated organizations. As a part of the Structural Adjustment Programme, the reorganization of the power sector has been undertaken. This process is going on throughout the country to fulfil the aim and objectives of the loan, i.e. division of the power sector into generation, transmission and distribution segments. This is for the purpose of corporatisation and then privatization. As a result of this process the power tariffs have been increasing. On November 30, 2002, the power tariffs have been increased in Madhya Pradesh by as much as 800 percent! The vast majority of the farmers in Madhya Pradesh could not pay their dues. 6 lakh (1 lakh is 100,000) power connections out of total 12 lakh connections used for the purpose of energising irrigation were severed. Madhya Pradesh government took a loan of $350 million in 2000 from the Asian Development Bank with the condition for restructuring of the power sector. Karnataka government took loans from the World Bank. One of the conditions was power sector reforms which resulted in a huge increase in power tariffs. The same situation exists in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, West Bengal and other states. In every state the peasants suffer from increased rates of power tariffs which further increased their production costs.
(iv) Following the conditions of imperialists-controlled WTO (World Trade Organization) the government of India completely opened up the domestic market of agricultural and agro-based products to world markets. It removed quantitative restrictions on imports of those products. The tariffs on imports have also been reduced persistently. These measures were adopted when the world market of agri-commodities was facing the problem of depressed demand due to deep crisis of the world economy. Moreover, the imperialist governments of the OECD countries spent huge amounts on agricultural subsidies. These resulted in the fall of prices of agri-commodities in the world market. As a consequence of the exposure of the domestic market before the international market controlled by the MNCs, the imported cheaper agri-commodities flooded the domestic market. These government policies have compelled the farmers of the country to compete with cheaper foreign agri-commodities when they have to spend more and more for ever-increasing cost of agriculture inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, electricity etc. Increasing cost of inputs, decline in growth rates and lower prices of outputs have most adversely affected the farmers, particularly those who produce crops like cotton, chilli, sugarcane, jute, tea, coffee, oilseed, wheat and stone fruits (almonds, apricots, peaches, plums, etc). Due to the above policies of exploitation by imperialist forces and that of private money-lenders, landlords, and hoarders indebtedness, desperation, destitution and starvation has intensified for the vast majority of rural people, particularly the small and marginal peasants and tenant cultivators. Thousands of peasants’ suicide deaths are the culmination of this horrible plight of the peasants.
IMPERIALISM, LIBERALISATION AND THE DEVASTATION OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE
Liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, (LPG) have brought above vast changes in the world economy. After the WTO (World Trade Organization) replaced the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) in 1995, the WTO’s more stringent and devastating rules are meant to string together all the economies under imperialist hegemony, in the guise of globalisation. The victims of these imperialist-controlled rules are invariably and basically the agrarian third world countries. India, a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, with three fourths of the population living on agricultural production, has been passing through a dangerous phase, faithfully submitting to the WTO, World Bank and the TNCs (Trans National Agro Food Corporations). In India it is clear that poor peasants continue to remain outside the fold of the banking system in the post-reform period. In fact the growth rate of agricultural credit for small and marginal farmers declined in the 1990s as compared with the 1980s, the RBI Report on Currency and Finance 2000-01 published in 2002 states. But in this reform period the big farmers did not find disfavour from the banks as the RBI Report in 2002 clearly observes. This lack of credit facilities from banks has thrown the poor and marginal peasants to the clutches of usurers and traders cum moneylenders. The large numbers of suicides by peasants are the consequence of this menacing situation. The brunt of the burden of the liberalisation policy is basically borne by the poor and landless peasants.
The infrastructural facilities generally provided by the state are now on the decline due to a fund crunch and the free market policy. The power sector has now gone in for privatisation through the latest reforms in the power sector. The EXIM policy for the import of agricultural commodities has been bidden adieu even much before the WTO stipulated period. For primary commodities, Indian producers and consumers are now directly facing the onslaught of the international market, controlled by the imperialist countries. Banks have already closed the doors for the marginal and poor peasants. The altered priority of the banking sector has slashed down direct advances to agriculture made by commercial and cooperative banks. All this has emboldened and encouraged the enhanced role of the private moneylenders in the rural areas. Even traders are now playing the role of moneylenders via supplying inputs, equipments, etc. To add salt to the injuries, multinational and private companies have directly entered the market to provide seeds (on many occasions, spurious ones) with the rapidly reducing subsidies by the governments. Now, not only agricultural lands are gifted away to the industrialists, native and foreign, a definite pressure is being exerted to remove land ceiling and tenancy regulations. The corporate sector and TNCs have already made significant moves to enable them to make inroads into direct firm operations. The West Bengal “Left” government have already started moving to that end.
India has been thrown back to the age of direct colonial rule in many respects by the structural adjustment programme and the WTO trade regime by which the surplus extraction and utilisation are mediated by imperialist capital. Debt continues as a legacy. Even after suicide by peasants in large numbers, loans from the private moneylenders and also banks haunt their successors who are forced to bear the burden of the dead men. Since the Indian government decided to pursue the aggressive liberalisation policy, in Vidarbha (Mahrashtra), crops loans sanctioned by banks cover barely 70% of the input costs, say district officials. Farmers claim that in Vidarbha, another place for farmers’ suicide, bank credit provides for only 15% of their needs. They rely on moneylenders and traders for the rest, who charge interest at rates varying between 30 and 120 per cent a year, which is enough to kill any hope of the peasant to generate a surplus. The Vidarbha farmers mainly grow cotton, soybeans and jowar (sorghum) during the kharif (autumn harvest) season. Still most crops depend on the monsoon, irrigation providing for only 15% of Maharashtra’s gross cropped area, as against the national average of 32.9% in 1989-90 (Frontline, August 13, 2004). The policy of liberalisation, geared more towards creating a pan-Indian primary commodity market with a unified price, in alignment with global prices, have already worked dangerously against farmers in the states.
In Andhra Pradesh, an unsustainable cash crop like cotton was introduced by cajoling the farmers into producing it about a decade ago and soon they faced odds in producing paddy (rice). It costs 16% higher to produce cotton in A.P. than in Gujarat; similarly the cost of groundnut production which was also introduced in AP is 38% higher compared to that in Gujarat. Such crops have caused further uncertainly in the lives of farmers. Here too, with a stress on market-based agriculture, about 8 to 9 lakh pump sets were installed. But under the TDP (Telugu Desam Party) regime in A.P., the power tariff was also increased and power was irregular, creating havoc not only for the standing crops, but also for the motors. Now the cropping patterns have been changed. The commercialisation of agriculture, with the change in cropping patterns, compelled the peasants to depend on the market, ultimately controlled by international capital.
The state did not come up to purchase the produce in any significant way, leaving farmers in the lurch. This was also one of the main reasons behind farmers’ suicides.
Even the government-declared proposals prove to be an eyewash. For instance, the Chandrababu Naidu government in AP did announce a debt relief package after the wave of suicides in 1997-98. However, by the end of 1998, the institutions rescheduled the loans to the extent of only Rs. 182 crore (1 crore is 10,000,000) against a target of more than Rs. 700 crore. Moreover, the large-scale dependence on private moneylenders in this semi-feudal system is not getting reduced, but is rising alarmingly. This shows how usurious capital holds sway in the neo-liberal regime dictated by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc. – an example of how imperialist sponsored “modern development” fosters backward institutions and relations of production.
The crushing burdens on peasants
The increasing strain made by the falling output prices and the rising input prices along with the almost negative monetary backing by the banks and such organisations, the peasants are forced to alienate their lands and many are forced to commit suicide. Growing landlessness has become the order of the day. Even a section of the rich peasants is ruined. Many cultivating households are thrown to the labour market. With the existing agricultural labourers, the situation leads to further shrinkage of job opportunities and decline in real earnings. It is the agricultural labourers who bear the worst burnt of the severe crisis in agriculture. Most of the 11 crore agricultural labourers, mostly comprised of Dalits and tribals, have now been facing extreme economic problems to meet the basic requirements of life.
Yet the changes at the corridors of power have not brought about tangible improvement in the cotton belts in India. The lowering of water level, drought, increasing input prices and declining subsidies have thrown the cotton belts in India into a deep crisis. The cotton farmers’ suicides are still on. While this backward semi-feudal, semi-colonial India is devotedly tied to the WTO norms, the US in complete disregard of WTO norms and rules has enhanced its cotton subsidies to $3 billion a year. This imperialist big power is surreptitiously aiming to reduce the world cotton prices and dump cotton in the markets regardless of the distressing condition of the cotton-growing third world countries. The US has now nearly 6 million bales more than the requirements of the world. This position enables it to exercise its leverage in controlling and pushing out countries like India in the international trade. The US subsidy system is based on direct payments and this enables the farmers to sell cotton in world markets at prices far below the cost of production. Thus the cotton-growing peasants are left to the mercy of the moneylenders and controllers of the international market.
TNCs make inroads
Transnational Agro Food corporations have emerged in the agricultural sector to loot and tightly bind the Indian agriculture-based economy. For intensive farming small holdings are not profitable for TNCs. Now they are pressuring the government for the lifting of the land ceilings acts as well as the conglomeration of small holdings. The Maharashtra government has already decided to grant exemption in the Landholding Act to trusts, companies and cooperatives for horticultural purposes. Fallow or waste land can now be purchased by them and cultivable lands can be taken on lease. This process is already underway in Orissa, the southern states and also in the “Left” ruled West Bengal as per the advice of the Mc Kinsey consultancy firm (an American company that preaches commercialisation of agriculture).
As a part of this process contract farming has entered the scene. Under such system the concerned company provides seeds, fertilisers, technology, credit and also farm equipments to the farmers. The peasants are commissioned to produce and supply specific products, in fixed quantities, maintaining a specific quality, in a pre-fixed time frame and price. HLL, Pepsi and Nijjar have taken up tomato production in Punjab, Markfed entered in Punjab to produce mustard crops, potato cultivation has been taken up by McDonalds, wheat by Rallis and HLL in Madhya Pradesh, etc.
The TNCs were already in the field to control seeds. Though state seed corporations set up their units under the World Bank-backed seed projects, the private sector entered the seed industry since the early 1970s. In the year 1987 the MRTP and Fera Companies were invited to manufacture seeds. In the same year itself import of seeds was introduced in the Open General Licence category. And then through the TRIPs regulations of the WTO, the TNC seed companies invaded the country as powerful agents to control the seed industry in India. Simultaneously agro processing industries which operated in the small-scale industry sector have been allowed to be sucked by the TNCs and big corporations. This will naturally alter the land use and cropping pattern in Indian agriculture. Such opening up of the agricultural sector to the TNCs and big corporations have already impacted on the cropping pattern, causing further decline in employment growth. The capital intensive and import-based agricultural activity has naturally started displacing peasants from land and agriculture on an increasing scale. These are the direct results of the ruthless inroads of the globalisation process in Indian agriculture.