The Union Budget of 2018 has created scope of agriculture development by allocating more financial resources and adopting other farmer-friendly financial policy-related decisions in areas of minimum support price (MSP), market, credit, irrigation and tax for farmer producer organisations. It is said that many of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) headed by MS Swaminathan have been considered by the Union Government, especially the rate of MSP which should be 50% more than the weighted average cost of production though there has been controversy over the production cost-calculation formula, A2, A2+Fl and C2, defined by the commission for agricultural costs and prices.
However, implementation of land reforms was one of the NCF’s major recommendations in the context of the ongoing agrarian distress in the country, but no attempt has been made by the Central Government to address this issue of land ownership. It is said in the NCF report that land reforms are essential to ensure access of a major section of farmers, especially landless sharecroppers, Dalit and Adivasi farmers and small and marginal landholders to land for both crop and livestock. Studies have established that the inequality in land ownership has been impacting the status of food and nutrition security for a long time. The benefit to farmers in the budget is most welcome, but the reality is that all farmers are not equal in social, educational and land owning status; and all farmers do not enjoy equal access to State assistances. There are vulnerable farmers, especially the landless farmers and the farmers of marginalised communities who are in need of affirmative action by the State so that spending of public finance can reach the real farmers.
The NSS report 1991-92 says the share of bottom 50% of rural households (12%) are landless; and 40% having sub-marginal holdings below one acre) own only 3% of the country’s total land whereas the top 10% above five acres owned about 55% of land. The huge inequality in productive assets ownership has many ramifications over social, political and economic life of the country; and it is very much linked to the continued agrarian crisis which is manifested in its worst form by way of distress migration, hunger and malnutrition and farmer suicide. There has been growing challenges of inequality in access to assets and opportunities that deprive a major producer class from their basic human and Constitutional rights in spite of Constitutional governance. Not just production, but the agriculture sector must follow the principles of equity in resource allocation.
In the context of Odisha, there are landless sharecroppers cultivating land of absentee land owners and privileged land owners those who cannot cultivate. Tribal and Dalit farmers without records of right over the land have been cultivating for generations. And also, small and marginal farmers having very minimal holdings and livestock farmers are not going to be benefited out of the Union Budget because of their informal status as farmers. A majority of the informal sharecroppers are illiterate, unorganised having no access to formal institutional credit, having no bank accounts and formal identity as farmers. The recent cases of suicide, it was revealed that most of the farmers who committed suicide are sharecroppers and deprived of institutional credit and access to compensations of the Government and insurance companies to meet the crop loss. The new trend shows a shift of sharecropping due to entry of corporate and contract farming where the absentee land owners prefer to lend their land to companies for contract farming which assures guaranteed higher return, rather than giving it to the land less poor sharecroppers who have no resources to invest over the land except their physical labour. This process has encouraged concentration of productive assets in the hands of a few and has deprived many poor households of owning land; and they are ultimately prohibited from productive engagement. The monopolisation of production will have a domination impact over agriculture produce market and pave the way of dependency of more numbers of poor people on food subsidy schemes of the Government out of public finance.
Record of right over land is considered as the basis of a farmer’s identity and access to any kind of Government subsidy scheme considering the importance of the issues the NCF has recommended for distribution of ceiling-surplus land and wasteland among the landless farmers. The land distribution process in Odisha has been suffering from historical limitations and betrayal over rights because of lack of political will, the bureaucracy’s apathy and legal hurdles created by former Zemindars and kings in the absence of an informed powerful social movement of the landless poor for demand of land. As a result of this, which there are thousands of acres of ceiling-surplus land, wasteland and Bhoodan land with the Government and powerful social groups without being distributed among the deserving farmers. The issue of land distribution has been considered as less relevant in the post-globalisation phase. A majority of people, mostly agricultural workers, Dalits and Adivasis and OBCs, still largely depending on agriculture for survival and employment in nonagricultural sector has not been adequately provided alternative employment to the surplus labour in agriculture. The development of industry and manufacturing sector continues to be backward due to lack of State investment in building public infrastructure.
In the framework of land reforms, the NCF has also recommended that the prime agricultural land and forest must not be diverted to the corporate sector for nonagricultural purpose. But there has been no attempt to impose any form of restriction over the nonagricultural use of land. The huge diversion has been restricting the access of marginal farmers to common property resources, forest, grazing land, pastures, water bodies and other forms of bio-resources for agriculture-based livelihood. During last fifty years, due to involuntary displacement, many farmers have become marginalised and further pushed into the periphery after losing traditional access to common property resources. The issue of marginalised farmers and their vulnerability has not been sufficiently discussed in public domain and remains in the sideline of policymaking bodies.
The Government has almost no initiative for creation of new land for agriculture and forestry purposes by reclamation of wasteland, specially the mined-out land in the mining areas of the State. Also, thousands of acres of land have become wasteland because of deforestation and soil erosion. These categories of land can be developed for their productive use by distributing/leasing to landless farmers for integrated agriculture, animal husbandry, fish farming, herbal garden and agro forestry to generate employment and boost growth by using existing agricultural technologies where there are lots of scope of involvement of upcoming farmers. The production of milk, meat, egg, fruits and vegetables and fish in the State can be improved to meet the growing demand of the domestic market and for export. This will bring food and nutritional security of the rural households engaged in agriculture.
The agriculture sector in Odisha still continues as backward in many respects in terms of production and management due to poor land development and lack of supportive infrastructure such as irrigation, electricity, communication and transportation. The social and educational conditions of the marginal farmers have not changed; and their political mobilisation has not taken place due to a number of factors that include land ownership as one of the major concern. land being a State subject, it is the duty of the State Government to implement land reforms, especially land distribution, to ensure asset equality, agriculture production and growth to build an inclusive Odisha.
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