The NITI Aayog report on land leasing and proposed Model Agriculture land leasing Act, 2016 to permit and facilitate leasing of agricultural land is being followed by the States. While it is required to enact legislation to protect the interest of sharecroppers but the law is being seen as an attempt to liberalize lease system in the interest of the private companies interested in agriculture.
In case of Odisha, there has been continuous demand from all quarters to protect the sharecroppers in distress. Though nearly 70 per cent of the cultivation is done by sharecropping through private verbal negotiations in Odisha, but officially this is not recorded by the Government because the Odisha land Reforms Act 1960 and subsequent amendments restrict land leasing and encourages cultivation by land owners. It only allows the disable Raiyat and privileged Raiyat who cannot cultivate but lease their land out for cultivation. The land owners have been carrying the feeling of losing land ownership in case of official lease agreement with sharecroppers.
land ownership has been affecting agriculture production due to lack of willingness of sharecroppers to invest in land and agriculture related expenses for short term benefit and in an informal condition.
They are mostly landless and marginal farmers belonging to Dalit, Adivasi and socially and educationally backward communities with restricted access to formal credit system. Usually, there has been a tendency with land owners/absentee landlords to invest in land development and agriculture by leaving the whole burden to the sharecroppers. So, it is required to bring necessary change in the OlR Act to allow lease by land owners and ensure identification of sharecroppers through a legal process to create scope for availing all kinds of benefits provided by the Government to the farmers such as lower interest credit, agriculture input subside, support price, insurance and compensation due to crop loss. It is a fact that the sharecroppers have been denied their rights for a long time and in recent years hundreds of sharecroppers committed suicide due to crop loss. The issues of drought in the absence of irrigation and debt in very higher rate of interest by private money lenders are the most important reasons of farmer distress. The myriad Government schemes available for farmers are inaccessible to the sharecroppers in the absence of their legal identity as farmers without land ownership. It has been demanded that without affecting the legal status of the land owners, the benefits for the farmers should reach to the sharecroppers which will prevent distress among sharecroppers and boost agricultural production. But the recent move of the Government of Odisha to facilitate land leasing for agricultural purpose is going to further weaken the position of small land holders and sharecroppers in the absence of protective clause for the sharecroppers and restriction on lease to private companies interested in agriculture. It is being apprehend that taking this legal advantage of unrestricted lease, the private companies will take the advantage by offering attractive return to land owners and the poor sharecroppers may get out of the agricultural land lease market in near future. Many people have seen this move of the Government is not to help the sharecroppers but in the plea of helping the sharecroppers it is actually to facilitate entry of private players in agriculture by making available land for corporate to do farming by availing all agriculture subsides.
The non-availability of land for small holders and sharecroppers will have an adverse impact on them as agriculture is their primary occupation. The withdrawal of large number of families from agriculture production will also impact rural food security as the dependency on food market will increase with joining of small producers as consumers. It will increase marginalization and pave the way towards distress migration from rural areas to slums in search of livelihood. It will encourage lease by small holders to big land owners or towards disposal of small holdings.
It has been observed that the task of land reform, especially distribution of ceiling surplus land, Bhoodan land and other categories land demarcated for distribution among landless poor and SC and STs has remained an unfinished task and the State Government is not initiating any step in that direction; rather the available land for distribution has been given to the private mining and industry though the land was collected by payment of compensation and many people voluntarily contributed to Bhoodan for distribution. The State Government has dismantled the Bhoodan Jangya Samiti with its merger in Revenue Department and the surplus land still remains without distribution. The record of rights of Adivasies, Dalits and other landless poor over the land they are in possession of since generations have not been settled under OGlS and OPlE Act. On the other hand, the Government has brought Odisha land Grabbing Prohibition law to evict the poor people occupying Government land for housing and agriculture purpose. This law is going to affect landless poor staying over the Government land for generations. Forest Rights Act (FRA) has not been implemented to the desired extent for individual and community rights over forest land. In order to make the land acquisition easier, the Revenue Department has given instruction for direct purchase of private land through bilateral negotiation for infrastructure and industrial projects. Private companies purchasing less than 50 acres in urban area and 200 acres in rural areas need not to follow RFCTlARR Act 2013. The Odisha Development Authorities Act 1982 has been amended in 2015 to allow land polling schemes for use of agricultural land for other purpose. The Government has been engaged in building land bank to reserve land for private companies. So, all these initiatives by the Government show a proactive role to facilitate land for private companies without any concern for poor using the land for generations. While the Government is denying land rights of landless poor and at the same time it is facilitating the land acquisition process for private companies by removing possible legal barriers. It is expected that the new law in the process may not serve much the interest of the landless sharecroppers.
land being a State subject, the guideline by NITI Ayog should be used considering the Odisha specific situation because a vast majority of people depend on agriculture for survival. A majority of the farmers have small holdings and they are mostly engaged in sharecropping as dignified occupation. A majority of rural households are Adivasies and Dalits who are historically deprived of rights over land due to lack of political will. Administrative apathy has deliberately denied RoR and in the ongoing process there is no hope for land distribution. The ongoing development process has contributed to their marginalization by alienating land and forest with them. land being a productive assert, a source of livelihood, employment and social security, there should be land bank at Panchayat level to make available land for sharecroppers, landless agricultural labourers, small and marginal farmers with priority to SCs and STs and women farmers for purely agricultural purpose. The cooperatives of agricultural labourers and small holder farmers and sharecroppers should be encouraged with all kinds of support for agricultural production. Therefore it is expected that the agricultural land lease act should have specific clauses that ensure availability of land for sharecroppers and the lease to private companies for agriculture purpose should be restricted. Or else, in the name of protection of sharecroppers, the interest of the private companies will be served.
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