Anju Agnihotri Chaba: Debts due to poor income, suicides, high interest loans — Punjab farmers don’t paint a rosy picture
If Punjab’s farmers are so prosperous then why are they leaving farming? Twelve per cent farmers have left farming and the number of small and marginal farmers has come down from five lakh in 1991 to three lakh in 2001...they have either migrated to urban areas/overseas to become labourers or sold their lands.... 9,300 farmers and 7,300 farm labourers died by suicide in 17 years in Punjab out of which 88 per cent farm suicides occurred due to heavy debt while 77 per cent of them were the small and marginal farmers... Banks charge 13% interest on loans for tractors, 4 % for cars...
Punjab farmers, who have been at the helm of the agitation
at Delhi borders against the Centre’s farm laws — which entered its 50th day
Friday — have been called a “pampered lot” and a “major beneficiary of the MSP
regime”. It has been claimed that Punjab farmers’ income is highest among the
states as the purchase of their wheat and paddy is the government’s responsibility
at a fixed MSP. Based on recent studies and surveys, farm experts present an
altogether different picture in a discussion with The Indian Express
According to Professor Sukhpal Singh, principal economist, Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana, 89 per cent farmers in Punjab are under debt. “There is no doubt that the average farm size and income of Punjab’s farmers is higher than their counterparts in other states and our wheat and paddy are also commercial crops because of government purchase. But it is not sufficient as to meet the agriculture and non-agriculture needs of farmers of the state,” he said. “If Punjab’s farmers are so prosperous then why are they leaving farming? Twelve per cent farmers have left farming and the number of small and marginal farmers has come down from five lakh in 1991 to three lakh in 2001,” said Prof Singh, adding they have either migrated to urban areas/overseas to become labourers or sold their lands.
He said that “liberalisation, privatisation and
globalisation policies led to privatisation and commercialisation of the
service sector including education, health, transport, and other daily use
goods which cannot be fulfilled with farm income”. There is no major source of
other employment in the state where on an average six industrial units closed
between 2007 and 2015 (18,700 industrial units closed in a span of 8 years),
while to support small and marginal farmers, employment in other sectors for
family members was a must.
Discussion
on Indian Agriculture and the ongoing Kisan agitation
