Prof.(Dr.)R.D.Gupta
The farmers of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab are committing suicide because they cannot pay farm debts. It is attributed to crop losses and mismatching farm input cost and Minimum Support Price. Sangrur was the first belt of Punjab whence reports of such suicides emerged during the early 1990s, when the Green Revolution started petering out and the cost of inputs began shooting up. This as a result made farming sector unviable, especially for small and marginal farmers.
What hurt the farmers of Punjab the most, was that their prosperous land which got rendered scarred owing to emergence of monoculture i.e. growing of rice and wheat in the same field year after year after Green Revolution. It was due to increased use of chemical, fertilizers and pesticides, and excessive withdrawal of ground water by high yielding varieties of rice and wheat. At least two to three cases of farmers suicide are now reported almost daily due to deepening crises in the agricultural sector with the failure of cotton crop.
The previous 10 years survey report from 2001 to 2010, had recorded 6,926 cases of suicide in Punjab Agricultural Sector alone. Out of this, 3,954 were by farmers and 2,972 by landless labourers. The main cause to commit suicide by the farmers is debt. The largest number of such cases was from Sangrur (1135) followed by Mansa (1013) and Bathinda (827).
Recent surveys have reveated that the rate of farmers suicide is the highest in the agriculture sector across the world. Countries like US and UK have put in place round the clock helplines for the people with suicide tendencies. Many countries have created a number of teams of councillors to guide the peasants to tackle this problem. In Indian states like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana etc; although politicians have not done much so far to deal with farmers suicidal problem yet some of the following solid steps can be taken to pull the agricultural or farm sector out of this crisis.
Strategies
Amelioration of Rural infrastructure.
Since agriculture is the backbone of our economy, so we cannot grow until rural India grows. Emphasis must, therefore, be given to ameliorate rural infrastructure, so that there are better roads adequate storage and marketing facilities as well as network of agroindustries, which ensure that agricultural produce is processed easily and readily for the consumers there itself.
Solar Energy
Rural India should be made a hub of solar energy production and innovation. The Sun, infact, is the only primary source for the mother earth which is mainly tapped by the plants for use of other living beings including humans. Thus, another basic principle of alternative agriculture is to maximise the tapping of sun energy. For this purpose, the fields must not be left without crops or vegetative cover. Under vegetative cover trees with their deep roots should be preferred to grow as they will play an important role in providing nutrition to crops. They do so by bringing or transferring nutrients from the lower depth of soil, where they are generally available in abundance, but due to shallow rooted crops growth cannot make access for their availability. Hence, every acre (0.4 ha) of land must have 5 to 7 trees. Around these trees those crops should be grown which are shade tolerant.
Shunning of Monocropping
Monocropping i.e; growing of rice and wheat in the same field year after year has to be shunned like plague. It is because if we continue to grow same cropping pattern, it means these crops are repeatedly taking out the same set of nutrients in fixed ratio from the soil, and there is no simple method of chemically representing all of these. So, there has to be diversity in crop production. Mixed cropping with leguminous crops as one essential ingredient is advisable to follow. It is because these crops have atmospheric nitrogen fixing capacity which eventually becomes available to the growing plants. It is common experience that wheat grown in the fields where guar (cluster bean) had been planted earlier gives better results.
If afore said simple steps are taken, soil health will improve tremendously with healthy soil, crops if grown with good agronomic practices are likely to be resistant to pest and diseases. Moreover, mixed cropping will ensure that even if there is a pest/ disease attack, it does not go out of hand and only part of farmer’s crop is affected for which home remedies like Neem based preparations have been found to be effective in controlling most of the pest attacks.
Diversification of Agricultural Crops
According to father of Green Revolution Dr. M.S.Swaminathan, without intensification and diversification of agriculture, India will face a serious social upheaval because agriculture (including crop and animal husbandry, forestry, agroforestry, fisheries and agroindustry) creates jobs for more than 70 percent of the population.For poverty alleviation and rural development intensification and diversification of agriculture are extremely necessary. After a period of prosperity, the Green Revolution today stands for stagnation and environmental degradation. To intensification and diversification agriculture is the answer, which requires new policy, technology and markets. Diversified farming also means to grow a combination of enterprises such as food grain crops or pulses and oil seeds production of export oriented crops like cotton, sugarcane and basmati rice as well as live stock rearing, poultry farming and aquaculture etc. In diversified system of farming apart from growing food grain crops much emphasis is given to grow fruits, vegetables, flowers Crop diversification is thus, intended to give a wider choice in variety of crops production in a given area so as to expand production related activities on various crops and also to lessen risk due to drought. There are many other things like the right way of irrigating a tree or sowing rice like wheat or producing more rice with much less water. All these feats are required to be resorted under suitable guidance.
Stop Use Of Pestisides And Chemical Fertilizers.
The use of pesticides and Chemical fertilizers has to be stopped as they besides checking in sect, pests and diseases ,providing plant nutrients also kill beneficial living organisms of soil. To assist the process of regeneration of living organisms in soil, organic pesticides and simple preparation of animal dung and urine are required to be used. These simple preparation i.e. farm yard manure, compost and vermin compost inter traduce living organisms to the field where biomass is available for them to feed on and decopose.
Use of Crop waste as Mulch
Another important step of improving soil health is to use crop waste for mulching. For this purpose, we can use plant waste into small pieces and spread them all over the fields. Initially, it will provide cover to soil, retain moisture, reducing irrigation frequency and curb weed growth but as it decades, will also return plant nutrients to soil. Hence mulching is a multipurpose tool.
Crop Insurance Scheme
The new crop insurance scheme launched by the government requires to be encouraged and implemented vigorously. This will promote to adopt multiple cropping patterns by the farming community on large scale.
(The author is former ex-associate Dean Cum Chief Scientist KVK, SKAUST, Jammu)
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