Fields of play

Deliberating over the incidence of farmers’ suicides, the Organiser’s editorial takes a dig at Union agriculture...

Deliberating over the incidence of farmers’ suicides, the Organiser’s editorial takes a dig at Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar for his preoccupation with the BCCI: “We have a food minister who is more interested in cricket than food security. The ministry of agriculture and food has never been so uncared for as under the UPA”.

It criticises the government’s policy on special economic zones and cautions against blindly following the western economic model. A ‘bigger tragedy’ is diversion of land under foodgrain cultivation to non-agricultural activities and diversification into more paying high value crops. Growth will come a cropper if the farm and farmer fail, it says.

For the few

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi says in an article that the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver announced by the UPA government recently may benefit some people but it has left out a large mass of poor people. Besides, there are many other discrepancies in the waiver scheme, he says.

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In many rain-fed regions, holdings are large because of low productivity. In Bundelkhand, Vidarbha, various places in Andhra Pradesh, the holdings in low productivity areas vary from 3 to 10 or more acres. Average holdings in Vidarbha are 7.5 acres. In Vidarbha alone about 50 per cent farmers are above the limit of the loan waiver scheme. In all such locations of low productivity, a large number of farmers — though holding 10 acres but still very poor — will be left out of this scheme, he says.

By contrast in west Maharashtra the land is highly productive, well irrigated and farmers with less than two hectares but cultivating, say grapes, are rich and receive individual loans worth Rs 80,000 per acre. They also receive loans for drip irrigation. The sugarcane growers have an average crop loan of Rs 13,000 per acre while the cotton growers in Vidarbha get loans at a rate of Rs 4,400 per acre.

Obviously richer farmers will get a larger amount waived off while the poor ones will either be out of the scheme or have a very small loan amount waived, says Joshi.

So gimmicky

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar also points out several flaws in the farm loan waiver. Though the government boasts of Rs 2.30 lakh crore of agricultural credit, the reach of institutional credit is limited — a mere 36 per cent of the farming community. Others borrow from money lenders. This class is not covered by the loan waiver, says Javadekar.

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He calls the loan waiver scheme “a political exercise in desperation”. Sloganeering without sufficient financial provision is not sound economics or ethical, he says. The three-year provision is not only a means of buying time, but also a political “gimmick”. The budget is an annual exercise but this three-year spread is binding future governments while trying to usurp political mileage instantly, says Javadekar.

According to him, a farmer needs eight things which are, assumed remunerative prices, control on input costs, storage and credit facility, institutional credit, efficient market linkages, loans at a low rate of interest, heavy public investment in irrigation and research besides comprehensive farm income guarantee insurance scheme.