Mounting Sucides:
Urgent Need
To Save Wayanad Farmers
By P Krishnaprasad
19 July, 2004
People's Democracy
In
the recent years, Wayanad, a tiny hill district in Kerala famous for
its spices and coffee plantations, has been in the news for the widespread
suicides by distressed farmers - a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly
commonplace in rural India as a result of implementation of free market
economic policies.
During the last
three years, from May 2001 to June 2004, 94 farmers committed suicide
in Wayanad, 24 of them in the last six months alone, trapped in a vicious
cycle of mounting loan liabilities. This fact brings to the fore the
magnitude of the economic collapse that prevails in the district, which
is no less serious and meriting attention than that of the state of
Andhra Pradesh, where, for instance, 51 people committed suicide in
one of its worst affected district, Kurnool, in the last six years as
compared to the 94 in Wayanad in the last three years alone.
The farmer's suicides
are not limited to Wayanad alone. According to a recent study, 871 farmers
have committed suicide in the entire state of Kerala from May 2001 to
December 2003. The paddy cultivators of Palghat and Alleppy are facing
a very miserable economic crisis.
The last few years
have witnessed a steady crash in the prices of the main agricultural
produces of the district. The persistent droughts in the last three
years have only added to the misery of the farmers. The gravity of the
situation is evident from the fact that the entire district was declared
as drought affected by the central government in 2003 and two villages
were brought under the Annavari Relief Project that mandates the government
to make compulsory distribution of all essentials, including water and
food, for the sustenance of the people.
THE BACKGROUND
This tiny district
located in the high ranges of Kerala has a population of about 7 lakh,
of which 90 per cent depend upon agriculture for sustenance. There are
40,129 farmers, 74,813 agricultural labourers, and 17,413 plantation
labourers in the district. Another 37,267 people earn their livelihood
from animal husbandry and forest produce. (Source: District Project
- Draft Document, Wayanad, 2001, Govt. of Kerala). The district has
highest tribal population - about 1.25 lakh -constituting 17 per cent
of the total population. The major crops grown here are coffee, pepper,
tea, cardamom, arecanut, etc. These are perennial cash crops.
Unrestrained imports
and changes in tariff regimes brought in by the liberal economic reforms
have led to a drastic drop in agricultural prices over the last few
years. The crops grown by Wayanad farmers have been the worst hit. The
peasants are finding it difficult to recover even the production expenses.
The price of pepper per quintal has come down from Rs 27,000 in 1998
to Rs 6,500 in 2002 and that of coffee beans from Rs 11,000 in 1997
to Rs 2,200 in 2001. The changes in the price of raw coffee and pepper
during the period 1998-2003 are as follows.
Year Raw coffee
Pepper
Rs/kilo Rs/kilo
1998-99 67.00 210.00
1999-00 40.00 220.00
2000-01 21.00 110.00
2001-02 18.00 65.00
2002-03 16.00 70.00
Taking the 1999
market rate as the base, the coffee and pepper cultivators of Wayanad
alone are suffering a loss of Rs 639 crore per year (Rs 224 crore loss
from coffee and Rs 415 crore loss from pepper). The losses due to falling
prices of tea, cardamom, and arecanut, etc. are in addition to this.
Apart from this
price crash, the severe fall in production due to persisting drought
conditions over the last four years and frequent disease outbreaks were
other factors which led to severe loss of income for farmers of Wayanad.
This has forced them into vicious debt traps and the consequent suicides.
It is to be noted that being perennial crops, coffee and pepper need
to be replanted once they are damaged and they may take up to 4 or 6
years to start yielding.
In such a situation
the attitude of the public financial institutions towards the farming
community has been inhuman. These institutions that had extracted 15.5
to 17.5 per cent interest on the loans of farmers during the 1993-2002
period are not taking any steps to help the farming community, which
is currently facing severe economic crisis. Instead, the banks are proceeding
to confiscate the land and homes of the farmers, thus forcing them to
seek escape in death. In 1992, at an all India level, the banks have
disbursed 68 per cent i.e., Rs 17,835 crore out of Rs 26,211 crore they
received from farmers as deposits. But in 2002, only 44 per cent i.e.,
Rs 47,430 crore out of Rs 1,08,253 crore deposits has been distributed
to farmers. In Wayanad district the existing overdue amount as on March
31, 2004 is Rs 133 crore. The loan disbursed in the agricultural sector
in the current financial year is Rs 430 crore. This is a glaring example
of the anti-farmer policy pursued by the public financial institutions
in our country at the behest of the then NDA government. In comparison,
the loan liabilities of big industrialists and business houses - to
the tune of a whopping Rs 1,40,000 crore - have been listed as non-performing
assets (NPAs) and virtually been written off by the same public financial
institutions.
As the public finance
institutions are hesitant to provide loans, the farmers are becoming
easy prey to ruthless private financial establishments or rapacious
moneylenders. The majority of those farmers who had committed suicide
in Wayanad had taken loans from these sources. While these private moneylenders,
who extract an interest between 50 and 550 per cent on their loans,
blatantly plunder the farmers, the government just acts as a mute spectator
and does not take any legal action against them. Under these oppressing
circumstances, all the farmers' organisations in the district are carrying
on with an agitation demanding that all debts of the farmers be written
off.
WIDESPREAD CRISIS
All sections of
the people, including agricultural labourers, traders, workers in the
service sector etc., have become victims of the crisis in the agricultural
sector. Families of agricultural labourers who have no work and wages
are facing starvation. Thousands of people are migrating to neighbouring
districts and states in search of livelihood. The welfare schemes for
the poor are not being implemented properly.
The plantation sector
is also facing a serious crisis. Dozens of big and medium estates are
currently under either formal lockout or illegal shutdown. The government
is not taking any initiative to intervene or force the management to
reopen such estates.
According to the
Kerala Tribal Land Distribution Act of 1999, one acre of land must be
given to each landless adivasi family, but the state government is showing
least interest in fulfilling this responsibility. Wayanad district has
the biggest adivasi population in the state and all adivasi organisations
are on agitation demanding distribution of land. About 3,000 tribal
families are continuing with their agitation by occupying nearly 5,000
acres of government land for the last one and half years under the aegis
of Adivasi Kshema Samithi in Wayanad.
Till not very long
ago, Wayanad had plenty of water. But today the entire region is facing
drought due to unchecked deforestation and large-scale conversion of
paddy fields into plantations. In 1982, there were 30,000 hectares of
paddy fields in Wayanad. It has shrunk by more than 76 per cent to 7,000
hectares in 1999. The ecosystem and environment of the district, which
is famous for its biodiversity, is greatly endangered today. The last
few years have seen severe droughts, hitherto unforeseen in the history
of Wayanad, with even wild animals dying for want of drinking water.
If the government does not give top priority to afforestation and protecting
paddy fields, the ecosystem and environment of Wayanad will perish.
CENTRE MUST ASSIST
Wayanad also makes
its own contribution to the economy of the nation. It is one of the
few districts in the country that produces the largest quantity of coffee.
Eighty per cent of coffee produced in Kerala is from Wayanad. During
the last 10 years, Wayanad has earned the country foreign exchange worth
Rs 4192.48 crore through the export of coffee alone: an average of Rs
381 crore per year. The foreign exchange earnings through pepper, tea,
cardamom, etc. were in addition to this. It is to be highlighted here
that as a district that produces mainly cash crops and earns a good
share of foreign exchange to the national exchequer, the state and central
governments have a special responsibility to protect the agro ecosystem
and economy of Wayanad. In the absence of such assistance, the farming
community will continue to suffer the unbearable burden of the present
economic crisis, resulting in many more suicide deaths. That is why
the CPI(M) and the All India Kisan Sabha are demanding the central government
to come out with a special package for Wayanad farmers by realising
the severity of the prevailing situation.
It is the state
government's responsibility to give special emphasis to promote industries
based on the agro produces in the district in the public and co-operative
sectors in order to ensure that farmers get better price for their produce
and people get consumer goods at reasonable prices. Though the prices
of agro produces have fallen, the multinational companies and the big
Indian companies manufacturing consumer goods using these produces have
not reduced prices. For instance, the price of coffee has come down
from Rs 110 to Rs 22 per kilo; yet the price of 'Nescafé' coffee
has remained at Rs 900 per kilo! Obviously, neither the cultivators
nor the consumers are getting any benefits from the free market policy
of economic reforms. This sort of rigorous exploitation by the imperialist
and domestic monopoly capitalist forces has arrested the development
of productive forces in our country, especially in the vast rural areas.
The people of Waynad
are on the path of struggle against the miserable conditions they are
facing. They have no option but to agitate against the policy of neo
liberal economic reforms that devastate the agricultural sector. But,
surely, Wayanad will not be alone. The entire rural India is confronting
a similar situation and the farming community will have to spearhead
a vibrant and massive agitation under the leadership of progressive
peasant movement to remedy the situation.