When it comes to farmers’ suicide in Odisha, year 2015 was the worst ever in recent half a decade (since 2009) as suicides by farmers have clocked a stupendous 2,660-per cent rise last year.
In what could be termed as a startling disclosure, a comprehensive report with the State Agriculture Department shows that a high of around 138 farmers committed suicide in 2015 against a mere five in 2014. And, interestingly, the report did admit that the suicides were due to various reasons, including agrarian, that encompass factors like indebtedness and crop loss. Significantly, the report mentions that in 2014, only five farmers had committed suicide owing to agrarian reasons.
Moreover, the rise in suicides in 2015 is the highest-ever in a single year since 1999 despite the practice in previous years of clubbing suicide by sharecroppers as farm labourers.
In this horrifying backdrop, the shadow of the nagging farm suicides still looms large on the State this monsoon as well. The reason: Almost all the suicide hotspots in the State have recorded deficient to severely deficient (scanty) rains during the first month of 2016 cultivation season (June -August). And July is the key month to decide the fate of farmers in Odisha this year.
Districts that turned farm suicide hotspots last year like Balangir, Bargarh, Angul, Dhenkanal, Baleswar, Deogarh, Kalahandi, Jharsuguda, Subarnapur, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Nayagrah and Nuapada have again recorded deficient-to-scanty rainfall during June 2016. Till the end of July first week, the situation on the ground has not shown much improvement.
And, curiously, ground reports from the districts suggest no contingency agriculture plan in place till date as the Government is hinging its hope on IMD prediction of bountiful rain in July. While the Government is living in ‘hope’, farmers live in ‘despair’.
Sample this. Post drought, spines of farmers are already broken. last year, the State Government distributed compensation worth Rs 6,800 per hectare, which then boiled down to a paltry assistance of Rs 2,720 for a paddy farmer with an acre of land. But for cultivating an acre land, the expenses he incurred totalled to over Rs 14,000 in the 2014-15 Kharif season. The result: Those who actually have availed the compensation could retrieve only around 19 per cent of his expenses towards cultivation.
With no money in hand, late rains could push the farmers towards private moneylenders. The reason: Experts at the Orissa University for Agriculture Technology (OUAT) observed that while inputs like seeds, fertilisers and pesticides form around 15 per cent of the farm operational cost, human and bullock labour expenses consume over 74 per cent of the expenses. late rush for liquid money could push farmers to moneylenders, they reasoned.
National Sample Survey Organisation data show the precariousness of the State’s marginal/small farmers tilling one to two acre of land as their average loan outstanding is over Rs 33,700. And the NSSO also reveals that the amount sharecroppers give out as lease rent amount to over 10 per cent of their farmer’s farm expenses every month.