Fixed deposits of grain help villagers keep off debt

From the article in - The Hindu Business Line - Life supplement - Sarada Lahangir - Jan 26, 2012

In Koraput district, Orissa, half the population are tribals and working as agriculture labour.  Any mishap, a death, crop failure was leading to debt and bondage.  It was the initiative of a social activist Bidyut Mohanty who established a grain bank to help out the villagers.

Mohanty heads the NGO Society for Promoting Rural Education and Development (SPREAD) - and after consulting with the villagers,  set up the grain bank.  Each household contributed 3-5 kg of paddy and ragi. And the organisation contributed an equal or greater amount. 

Self Help groups managed the grain banks.  Excess stock was sold in the open market and the proceeds invested to earn interest. 

The villagers in two blocks, at present have contributed 33 quintals of paddy and 42.22 quintals of ragi, and SPREAD contributed 198 and 264 quintals respectively.  520 families received loans in the first year.Repayment is always after harvest when the farmers have a disposable income.  The villagers have been able to keep off debt. 

The grain bank has given the villagers a symbol of self-respect and community ownership and brought financial stability to many.  The World Food Bank has recognised the positive impact the grain bank has on ensuring food security and has set up more grain banks in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. 

Farmer in the News - Mr. R. Subbaian, of Kanakkan Thottam in Coimbatore district.

Excerpts from -The Hindu - January 19,2012 - M J Prabhu

Mr Subbian's field became polluted due to chemical waste seepage from dyeing factories into the river that flowed across his village.  Many farmers started selling their land and moving to cities, since the Government did not adopt any measure to stop the menace.

Mr Subbian stayed back.  He did some research on the crops that could be grown in the soil and heard of Alfalfa and decided to cultivate it.  He also took up multiple cropping to increase his income.  He did this to avoid risk of loss in case on failure of one crop.


The crops are grown organically since he did not have too much success with chemical farming.  He complains that the country is willing to import from the West and they dump us with their produce and are destroying livelihoods of the farmers here. 


He says green revolution is not just about fields turning green.  It should result in prosperity of the farmer.  Only then can it be accepted as a revolution.  The farmer remains poor throughout his life.but a rice mill owner flourishes as well as the cotton buyer.  


India he says no longer lives in the villages, it lives in cities and cramped towns. 

Mr. R. Subbaian at 4/5-A, Kanakkan thottam, A.G. Pudur (P.O), Irugur (via), Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu: 641-103, mobile: 0936-3228039, phone:0422-2627072

‘Food security legislation will add to farmers' woes'

The Hindu Business Line - January 23, 2012

The proposed National Food Security Act will add to the woes of the already suffering farmers of the country, unless the Union Government takes the necessary safeguards before formulating and implementing it, according to Dr Y. Sivaji, the honorary president of the AP Virginia Tobacco Growers' Association.

Dr Sivaji is one of the experts invited by the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, for pre-budget consultations earlier this month. He said he had submitted to the minister that the prime concern of the Union Government would be to rein in the fiscal deficit and therefore, it would tend to keep the foodgrain prices depressed, in view of the huge anticipated financial burden. This would work against the interests of farmers.

Further, he suggested that the loopholes in the present public distribution system should be plugged before implementing the proposed Act. “Never in the history of India have we produced so much foodgrain as we do now, if we consider just one aspect related to the sector. We are expected to record 240 million tonnes of foodgrain this crop year even as our warehouses are overflowing with previous years' stocks. Yet, farmers continue to end their lives in their hundreds, year after year and some of them choose to declare a crop holiday in some areas. The winds of liberalisation have not touched them. The tragedy is that the farm sector is booming even as farmers are sinking,” he observed in a written note to the Finance Minister.

He said the root problem lay in the farmers not getting remunerative prices for their produce. “The costs of production have been spiralling year after year because of the steep increase in prices of inputs and also wages in the wake of implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. But the MSP for many crops is not remunerative and farmers are not getting even the un-remunerative MSP. There is no institutional mechanism to ensure it,” he noted.

He noted that “the rhetoric of inclusive growth is a cruel joke, as the rural sector is badly neglected. We are sitting on a social volcano which may explode any time. I submit that the Government should not neglect agriculture since it provides livelihood to 63 per cent of our population besides providing food for the entire nation. It supplies raw materials to industry and provides a market for the industry and service sectors.”

REMEDIAL STEPS

He suggested some remedial steps including constituting of Commissions on Agricultural Costs and Prices at the State level, decentralisation of procurement, and linking the MSP to spiralling input costs as is done in Dearness Allowance calculation. The difference between the MSP and recommended cost of the State agencies should be met as bonus by the State Governments. The abolition of all curbs on the marketing of agriculture produce within or outside the country was of utmost importance, he added.

Conversion of crop loans into key (pledge) loans soon after harvesting, strengthening the Agricultural Insurance Corporation, and promoting the seed village concept were some of the other steps that he recommended.

He wanted NREGP implementation to be restricted to the non-agricultural season. Further, he sought FDI in agricultural processing industry, especially in the tobacco sector.He also wanted the development of a farmer's welfare index on the lines of the UNDP human development index.