By Shahnoor Rahman,
Living in cities seldom we ponder about the conditions of those poor farmers who grow food grains for us, but they themselves often go hungry. We may be paying Rs 50 for the tomato and sometimes Rs 80 for the onion, but how much of it does actually go into the hands of those poor farmers?
Let’s explore the reality behind syndicatism based on the mercy of the dishonest politicians that has given rise to corrupt, dishonest middlemen, who gets away with the giant share of the profit – sometimes up to 80-90% of what we actually pay.
Poor farmers sometimes take loans from Mahajans, to invest in cultivation for seeds, fertilisers, irrigation, etc. and what he gets at the end is often the pittance, not sufficient to repay the loan even. For example, in Assam on an average a cultivator spends Rs 2756 per bigha of land whereas he gets Rs 2470 per year after year long hardworking and distress.
Agriculture is one oldest profession of mankind, still happens to be source of livelihood of 70% people of Assam although contributes 23.86% of state economy but feeds 3.11 crore of her people. It is, however, one of the most neglected and ignored sector, not only in Assam, but most of India.
Poorest of the people who are landless, illiterate and unfit for doing other works are mostly engaged in farming in cultivating nearly one-third of total land areas of Assam. Besides urbanisation, industrialisation and other factors, Assam has lost 4.27 lakh hectares out of 78.43 lakh hectares of land since 1950 by river erosion alone which is around 7.40% of total land of state.
There are instances of someone who was owner of 40- 50 bighas of agricultural land and had been producing 20- 30 quintals of rice per year in say Barpeta or Dhemaji districts, is now earning a living as a rickshaw puller in Guwahati or some other towns. Worse, he is required to pay land revenue taxes even though there is no land left for him to till.
None of the government schemes seems to reach them to promote cultivation, and that clearly has negative reflection on yield per year. Assam has an agricultural university in Jorhat with higher education facilities and research, beside separate state and central ministry of agriculture. But the poor farmers have so far failed to derive any benefits out of these.
Even after these shortcomings, with traditional methods when farmers grow crops, they do not get the adequate price, and this too is discouraging for them to remain engage with farming. Moreover, about 70% of the farmers are landless and hence most poor farmers are now migrating to urban centres in the state as well as to far of New Delhi, to work as daily wage labourers, where they often face discrimination and are labelled as illegal Bangladeshis.
There is another problem with for farmers in Assam in particular since about 70% of the farmers are landless,
As someone who himself belongs to a family of farmers, based on my experience at Sonapur village in Barpeta district, I can list out the problems face by poor farmers into three categories: pre-cultivation challenges, cultivation challenges and post-cultivation challenges.
1. Pre cultivation challenges: Failure of landless farmers to get a piece of land for cultivation as 70% of cultivators of Assam are landless. If they manage to get also, they have to pay at least Rs 1000- 2000 per year to land owner as rent per bigha of land annually which is indeed greatest challenge of farmer to manage and earn profit after cultivation.
2. Cultivation challenges: i. Preparation of land is indeed difficult in absence of subsidised irrigation facilities, tilling in absence of subsidised tractors, irregularities in weather conditions and flood and river erosion.
ii. Lack of high yield seeds or pest resistant variety of crops.
iii. No improved weedicides and environment friendly pesticides and farming practices.
iv. No scientific monitoring of crops and rearing practices.
v. Lack of training, education, scientific attitudes and motivation creation of Assam.
Soil erosion near the Nangalbhanga village
3. Post cultivation challenges: i. Mode of transportations of perishable crops are by manual method like on head and carts due to poor conditions of roads and non-availability of trucks and tractors for poor farmers due to which quality of these items deteriorate before even reaching the markets and farmers incur net loss.
ii. No minimum support price of crops fixed by Food Corporation of India for Assam where as it is fixed by FCI for Punjab. Due to lack of MS, a farmer in Assam is forced to turn to dishonest middlemen and their syndicates which is the main culprit for poor conditions of farmers in Assam at present.
iii. Only 11 FCI crop procurement centres in Assam which procures only 2.3 percentage of cereals produced in Assam. In Punjab there are one procurement centre for each 8-9 km of agricultural land area where up to 40% of cereals produced there at minimum support price due to which farmers hardly incur any loss.
iv. Cold storage and food processing industries are almost absent in Assam due to which majority of food products, in particular, are spoiled.
To change the situation drastically we need to over haul the complete system, from high yield crops, to subsidised facilities for cultivation, minimise the role of middlemen, and finally the farmers should get proper incentives for cultivation.
(Shahnoor Rahman is a final year MBBS student at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital.)