Create off-farm jobs to reduce agri stress: Bharat Krishak Samaj chairman

Ajay Vir Jakhar, chairman of the Bharat Krishak Samaj, has studied the issues around India’s farm sector extensively. In this interview to Aditi Phadnis, he explains the rationale behind loan waivers, the importance of equitable distribution of resources, livelihood challenges before farmers, how climate change will affect Indian farming in the future and the solutions the government should think about, on the ground. Edited excerpts:

While the government has denied it is going to waive farm loans, it is clearly under a lot pressure to do something on farm debt; and the Congress governments have already done so. Why a demand of farm loan waiver now?
 

Demand for farm loan waiver is a direct consequences of the distress on the farms, but is sought to be justified by evolving narratives. The common conversation in the countryside is: Government is allowing businessmen who owe billions of rupees to banks to flee abroad and is waiving loans amounting to trillions of rupees of a select few businessmen. Additionally, trillions are being spent on building statues and on government advertisements. The impression is gaining ground that the government works for the benefit of a few, and loan waiver is better utilisation of resources. 

After the acceptance of the 7th pay commission, the cost to the exchequer could be over Rs 1 trillion annually and the average increase in the combined benefits of each government employee is approximately Rs 100,000 per year. Considering the average annual farmer income is only Rs 75,000 per year, such monstrosity shouldn’t have been allowed.It’s ridiculous that the same academics who justified the 7th pay commission as an economic stimulus, now term a farm loan waiver as a waste of money. A reversal of the 7th pay commission can make available enough funds to finance all agriculture infrastructure projects in the country in perpetuity. 

What is the quantum of funds required for a farm loan waiver?
 

Depending on the fine print of a proposed waiver, the amount will differ. A Punjab style Rs 200,000 farm loan waiver for small and marginal farmers seems will be replicated by MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Politics is seldom a source of profound change, more often a response to it. Now, if Narendra Modi was to succumb to the challenge posed by Rahul Gandhi, the one-time cost of a similar countrywide waiver will be upwards of Rs 3.5 trillion. We strongly advocate convening of village Gram Sabha as mandatory part of the process to ensure the genuinely distressed aren’t deprived of relief and we exclude the better off.

But after the re-election of the government in Telangana, a cash transfer also is being talked about?

The narrative has already shifted from low commodity prices and absence of MSP and C2+50 per cent calculation, to a farm loan waiver and cash transfers. Now that elections are over, it’s unlikely Telangana will continue with the scheme in its present form.But, a Telangana type Rs 8,000 per acre cash transfer to all farmers irrespective of landholding size when extrapolated over all of India will amount a recurring expense of about Rs 3.2 trillion, which is far less than the cost of implementation of 7th pay commission by all the states, which is inevitable over time. 

Explain the increasing number of farmers agitations and the politics behind them?
 

Farmer distress has increased due to many reasons like low international commodity prices, back to back drought, demonetisation-induced slowdown and ineffectually designed policies among other factors. The situation was ripe for the picking and even though there may be disagreements on some of the demands and proposed solutions, the commendable work done by P Sainath, Vijoo Krishnan, Kavitha Kurugranthi, Devender Sharma, Yogender Yadav and others for galvanising the farmer movements must be recognised unreservedly. The number of farmer protests are directly proportional to farm distress. Consequently, BJP has lost over 2/3rd of the rural seats in the 3 states. There is a vacuum of farmer leadership in the political parties. Farmers applaud Rahul Gandhi for fulfilling his promise of a crop loan waiver, but the Congress, to politically harvest the distress, needs to do more than just waive farmer loans. The recently concluded elections can’t be inferred to show it will happen by itself in 2019 — the vote may split. 

What are the greatest challenges to farmer livelihoods today?
 

In order of gravity, I would rate the challenges as failure of administrative governance, lack of political will, climate change and international trade ecosystem. Those governing us lack the capacity to make better informed decisions. In 1877 Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina: “Bureaucracy is the soul of Russia, while agriculture just fills its stomach”. 141 years later, one could say the same for India. Though politicians realise policies are flawed, they lack the will to take politically difficult decisions to allow social audits, to make policies to account for better resource utilisation and environmental impact. While climate change now seems irreversible, India’s response to globalisation and signing of proposed trade treaties like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is guided by vested interests.
 

You say climate change seems irreversible, how is Indian agriculture responding?
 

The system is good at holding conferences but is not preparing for climate change. Universities continued focus on monoculture and cereals and lack of original fundamental research is failing farmers. There are approximately 40 per cent research staff vacancies in agriculture research institutions. Our R&D budget is 0.4 per cent of agri-GDP, while in China, Brazil, USA and other developed nations it hovers around an average of 2-3 per cent. What is more, our cow politics and energy subsidy designs add to climate change.

In the states, public farm extension for crops is pathetic and extension for animal husbandry is virtually absent. Fifty per cent of the sanctioned farm extension posts are not filled. Worse, the available staff is engaged in work unrelated to farm extension for over 40 per cent of the time, pushing farmers to be dependent on shopkeepers for advice. The Central government laws do not allow for enforcement of regulation in the states and the agriculture ministry has been sitting on these crucial acts for years. When farmers use spurious and substandard inputs, they are economically ruined, go into debt and are driven to committing suicide in thousands every year.

What about GM crops?
 

There is a tendency to overestimate impact of technological revolutions in the short term, while we are unable to do a long term ecological impact assessment.A perfect example is the link of the fossil fuel economy and climate change. That apart, we need to expand conversations from agriculture production to food systems. For example, Indian farmers suffer from imports of cheap subsidized commodities. The US is pressurising India to open livestock feed imports of corn and soya bean. Now, if India doesn’t allow cultivation of GM corn and soya, we can safely use that as a non-tariff barrier to stop such imports and ensure remunerative prices for Indian farmers. Consolidation and financialisation of the food systems poses an existential threat to farmer livelihoods everywhere.

You talk of governance failures, what are the solutions?
 

There can be no perfect answers. The odds are stacked against us, and the lack of political will and quality of governance makes the task more challenging. After RBI, the government is set to appoint another retired IAS officer to head the Agriculture Scientific Selection Board this month. The agriculture sector has been literally run into the ground in recent years. To reverse the state of the rural economy, we have been demanding a farmer’s commission to review government programmes that impact farmer livelihoods at the centre and in the states.

A postscript ?
 

The solutions to the rural crisis is not on the farms but in the air-conditioned hallways in Delhi and the state capitals. The failure of governance can be summed up in words of Victor Hugo in Les Misérables, “in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness”. In finality, the top priority has to be creation of off-farm jobs to reduce the stress on the farms. If we aren’t able to do that, irrespective of what is achieved, we will fail to improve farmer livelihoods.