who's the con man?

the uid attracts the worst kind of casteist prejudices:

For a moment let us imagine the state pays 5,000 rupees as subsidy to an under privileged farmer to buy fertilizer. What is the guarantee that when he has that money he is going to spend it on buying fertilizers? Can he not use that money to buy something else, like a mobile phone maybe watch a film or have a bottle of nice whiskey for a change?

why does the government subsidize the purchase of fertilizer by the farmer?

if the writer had asked himself that question first he wouldn't be raising the kind of doubts that a jailer presented with a convict reform project probably would.

the government wants to support the farmer because agriculture isn't very profitable (except, it doesn't use those exact honest words) and it doesn't want the farmer to get even lower returns (or suffer losses, which is more likely) on account of increased costs. that's the honourable part of the government's intentions.

but even then, if there is a con man, or a party with less honorable intentions, among the two-- the government and the farmer-- it is the government and not the farmer. why? because the government's goal is to keep production going, to get grain from the farms. it manages to squeeze some production out of the farmer even when he suffers losses individually. heads, the government wins and tails, the farmer loses.

so it's the farmer who should be asking all those questions: do these kind of policy makers (in the government) and consumers (like the writer) who question my integrity deserve my respect, leave alone the labour and resources i've invested in my farm?

no mantras or miracles will work here

had started on this draft in march 2010:

here, at the Indian Farmers' website, you'll find this article (word document): 'Status Paper on Rice'. on page 13 and 14, you'll find a detailed breakdown of all the costs involved in producing rice. and the concluding part says:

YIELD, COST OF CULTIVATION PER QUINTAL AND INCOME

(a) Cost of cultivation per acre Rs. 25000/-

(b) Average yield of paddy per acre is 25 quintals (35 bags)

(c) Cost of cultivation per Quintal (Rs. 25000¬ /25) = Rs. 1000/-

(d) MSP fixed for paddy per quintal is Rs. 745 (for the year 2007-08)

(e) Total gross income (Rs.745 X 25 quintals) =Rs.18,625/-

(f) Estimated loss per acre to the farmer (Rs.25,000 – Rs.18,625/-) = Rs 6,375/-(g) MSP to be fixed as per Prof. M.S. Swaminathan Commission

recommendation should be Rs.1,500 per quintal (Cost of cultivation + add minimum 50% of cost of cultivation i.e. Rs.1000+500=Rs.1,500)

those are average costs for producing rice across andhra pradesh in the year 2008-09. also note that the m.s.swaminathan commission's recommendation for increasing the minimum support price upto rs.1500 (or, Cost of cultivation + add minimum 50% of cost of cultivation), made in 2007, has not been adopted until now.

illusory potential

1) the m.s.p. for rice in the current year is rs. 950 for common variety and rs.980 for higher grade plus an 'incentive bonus' of rs.50 (which is temporary and could be withdrawn next year). so how much could a farmer producing 25 quintals an acre, earn per acre now? nothing. the costs (rs.25,000 per acre) would equal the returns (rs.1,000 x 25 quintals). which means the majority (60% of all farmers) of farmers in the state of andhra pradesh, or the marginal farmers (average landholding size: around an acre), would earn nothing.

2) less than 20% of farmers in andhra pradesh own 3.5 acres or more each. and those are 1995-96 estimates when average landholding size was 1.36 hectares, or 3.35 acres. in 2005-06, it was 1.20 hectares or 2.96 acres. the average income of the average paddy farmer* now would be around zero, if the m.s.p., remains at around rs.1,000 (at an average productivity rate of 25 quintals an acre), because the costs (rs. 25,000 per acre x 2.96 or 3 acres) would equal the returns (rs. 1,000 per quintal x 25 quintals per acre x 3 acres).

3) what if the m.s.p were increased to rs. 1,500? the average paddy farmer with a landholding of 2.96 acres would make around (rs. 1,500 per quintal x 25 quintals per acre x 3 acres) rs. 1,12,500 which would yield him a net income of (rs. 1,12, 500 minus costs of rs.75,000) of rs. 37, 500. the per capita income of his family members (assuming a family size of 5) would be around rs. 7,500, or less than one-third the per capita income of rs. 23,729 (in 2004-05, at current prices) of the state.

4) who would benefit if support prices are increased to the level suggested by swaminathan? less than 6% of the state's paddy farmers, or those who own more than 10 acres each. each farmer who owns more than 10 acres, would earn an income of around rs. 1,25,000 (rs.37,500 per acre x 10 acres minus costs of rs.25,000 per acre x 10 acres). the per capita income in his family would be around rs.25,000 or slightly more than the state average.

5) how about the majority, or the marginal farmers? the marginal paddy farmer would make around rs.37,500 (rs.1,500 per quintal x 25 quintals) and earn an income rs. 12,500 (rs. 37,500 minus costs of rs. 25,000 an acre). that means per capita income of each member of his family will be rs. 2,500, or slightly more than one-tenth the per capita income in the state.

6) what if every paddy farmer in the state managed to double the yield: from 25 quintals an acre to 50 quintals an acre? let's assume he doesn't have to incur any new capital costs and input costs to increase the yield by such magnitude, and he's able to manage the feat by sheer good luck. how much will the marginal farmer be able to make in the new scenario? his income from each acre will be (rs.1,500 x 50 quintals = rs.75,000 minus costs of rs 25,000= 50,000). which means per capita incomes in his family would be less than half the state average. how much will the average paddy farmer (landholding: 2.96 or 3 acres) make? rs.1,50,000 (rs. 1,500 per quintal x 50 quintals per acre x 3 acres minus costs of rs. 25,000 per acre x 3 acres). which means per capita income of his family would rise above the state average by around 25%.

but that would depend on three miracles happening simultaneously:

i) m.s.p. going up by more than 50% in one year. average annual growth in m.s.p in the last two decades has been less than 10%.

ii) average yield per acre going up by more than 100% in one year. average annual growth rate in yield in the past four decades has been much lower than 2%. 

iii) there would be no need for fresh capital investment and also no increase in input costs.

even if all those three miracles do happen, simultaneously, over 60% of the farmers in the state (the marginal farmers) would still earn incomes of around rs.50,000 which would still mean per capita incomes in their families would still be less than half the state average. and the small farmers, another 20%, would be earning significantly more. the medium farmers, another 15%, would be doing even better. which means 60% of the paddy farmers in andhra pradesh wouldn't benefit much even from the miraculous scenario which offers i) a 50% increase in minimum support prices immediately and ii) doubling of yields iii) and a zero percent increase in input costs.

is there really a point in further speculating on what would the farmers earn if the minimum support prices were doubled to rs.2,000?
----------------------------------------------------

as i mentioned earlier, i wrote that draft over an year ago. now, minimum support prices have gone up slightly: rs.1,030 for grade 'a' variety and rs.1,000 for other varieties. which means the conclusions i'd drawn on all the  6 scenarios presented still hold true. and only scenarios (1) and (2) reflect the current reality as you know. (3), (4), (5) and (6) represent hypothetical scenarios. pipe-dreams which rest on miracles.

there are a couple of things one needs to know to understand how these farmers survive if the returns are so low or non-existent: the total estimate of costs listed in the status paper also includes a 'land lease' component: rs.7,000 for an acre. this is what the owner-cultivator would save, but the tenant farmer would be deprived even of that. also, a certain percentage of the farmers also go in for a second crop. but that wouldn't make a great difference in their incomes, i think, because most of the costs would have to be incurred again.

the high priests of 'food security' aren't thinking about all that i guess. as i said in my previous post, there seems to be a strong belief among them that these are manageable problems. that a few wise interventions like increasing support prices, subsidies and agricultural extension etc would improve productivity, which is a primary concern for them, and also somehow give the farmer greater returns.. from sainath to jayathi ghosh, everyone's been reeling out those mantras. but the stupid shudras have a saying: mantraalaku chintakaayalu raalavu. which means, roughly: the tamarind tree wouldn't shed its fruits for mantras.

from swaminathan to sainath, they've been spouting these mantras for many years now. i don't doubt their sympathy for the farmers. but i'm convinced, seven years after the congress was re-elected promising succour for the farmers (one of its main election planks) and seven more years of unabated chanting of mantras, that they probably think of the farmer as some kind of a lifeless cog in a vast system of machinery that's not working as per their grand designs. the cog's problems matter only so far as they affect the working of the machinery.

lastly, according to some latest observations in the media, the costs of cultivating each acre have gone upto rs.30,000. even if all those estimates are wrong by even a significant percentage, say 20 or 30 or even 50, i don't see how it will change that overall inexorable reality. 

right to overrule

The "Right to Food Campaign" is an informal network of organisations and individuals committed to the realisation of the right to food in India. We consider that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger and undernutrition. Realising this right requires not only equitable and sustainable food systems, but also entitlements relating to livelihood security such as the right to work, land reform and social security. We consider that the primary responsibility for guaranteeing these entitlements rests with the state. Lack of financial resources cannot be accepted as an excuse for abdicating this responsibility. In the present context, where people's basic needs are not a political priority, state intervention itself depends on effective popular organisation. We are committed to fostering this process through all democratic means. [emphasis mine]

that's the foundation statement of the right to food campaign.please check the highlighted line again: don't our elections produce 'popular' governments? if elected governments don't represent 'popular' organisations, who does?

the barely concealed contempt for india's politics, democracy and the ordinary indian who considers himself a participant in both can also be noticed in the dazzling rhetoric of other 'right to..' campaigners. indian politics can't handle this serious stuff, so here's what the indian state, through its 'civil', hence neutral and untainted by the filth of politics, bureaucracy needs to do to deliver these 'rights'. in effect, what the campaigners want the state to do is to overrule the the 'politics' of the elected government.   

and they've been succeeding. the nac is filled with these campaigners, and the nac, of course, talks to sonia gandhi more often than the elected government does. and why does the elected government have to consult with sonia gandhi? because sonia gandhi is the party. if she didn't nominate every one of the 'elected' lawmakers (down to panchayat sarpanches and even ward members, sometimes) and if her endorsement wasn't required for the 'election' of the lowliest official in her party across the country, you could have said: the congress is bigger than sonia gandhi.

---------------------

that was a draft i had worked on 7 months ago. a couple of days ago, i see that sonia gandhi is not just congress party, or the government. she is god. food and consumer affairs minister k.v.thomas says:

“The draft Bill is ready now. I don’t say it is in line with NAC or not. But it is in line with what is in the mind of Madam Sonia Gandhi,” he said.
“The principle of Sonia Gandhi is that every citizen of the country should get legal cover toward a certain quantity of nutritious food, not simply foodgrains,” he shared.

in the 7 months since i started on this post, the priests of civil society have moved much closer to god, through the lokpal coup d'etat, pushing parliament into more 'ineffectiveness'. this current move shows utter contempt for not just parliament, elected through popular vote, but also ignores totally a majority of those who participate in the popular vote-- cultivators and workers. one wonders if god, while nodding her assent to all the sanctimonious mumbo-jumbo her civil society priests were chanting before her, had thought even a little about the answers they didn't have?

* who shall pay for the increased procurement? the fci procures, and if it pays a higher msp to the farmer, the govt will have to dole out a greater amount by way of subsidies to the pds. in balancing these two actions, will the farmer always not get paid less to keep the subsidies lower? or will the msp not be a function of the pds prices, always? should cultivators and workers continue to pay with stagnation and death for the food security of the urban middle classes?
* wheat and rice, the brahmin grains, will drive this increased procurement, as always. what about the farmers who produce less brahminical cereals like jowar, bajra etc?
* will surpluses continue to be procured from 3-4 states? wouldn't that destroy any incentive for food security in the majority of states, like it has done in all these years?
* shouldn't food security be a concern of the states, primarily, regions within the states, and districts within regions and blocks within districts and villages within blocks to be more meaningful?
* rice is a water-guzzler and has taken away a much needed resource from millions and millions of ordinary citizens, especially in northwest india, a region which never produced rice in much quantity before the so-called green revolution.. who will pay for this water, which means thirst, hardship, lack of basic sanitation.. dry toilets and again stagnation, caste and much more?
* there is increased competition among many states to build costly but ineffective irrigation systems to tap water to grow rice and other such crops.. who will pay for all the bad blood among states and regions? for the ecological disasters and the adivasi displacements? does india need more rice, at such heavy costs?

questions. one can think of many more questions, but the priests know better, i guess.  

civil society and political society

a very interesting paper(pdf), by partha chatterjee- a key formulation in the paper 'is a split in the field of the political between a domain of properly constituted civil society and a more ill-defined and contingently activated domain of political society'. an excerpt:

Let me summarise my main argument. With the continuing rapid growth of the Indian economy, the hegemonic hold of corporate capital over the domain of civil society is likely to continue. This will inevitably mean continued primitive accumulation. That is to say, there will be more and more primary producers, i e, peasants, artisans and petty manufacturers, who will lose their means of production. But most of these victims of primitive accumulation are unlikely to be absorbed in the new growth sectors of the economy. They will be marginalised and rendered useless as far as the sectors dominated by corporate capital are concerned. But the passive revolution under conditions of electoral democracy makes it unacceptable and illegitimate for the government to leave these marginalised populations without the means of labour to simply fend for themselves. That carries the risk of turning them into the “dangerous classes”. Hence, a whole series of governmental policies are being, and will be, devised to reverse the effects of primitive accumulation. This is the field in which peasant societies are having to redefine their relations with both the state and with capital. Thus far, it appears that whereas many new practices have been developed by peasants, using the mechanisms of democratic politics, to claim and negotiate benefits from the state, their ability to deal with the world of capital is still unsure and inadequate. This is where the further development of peasant activities as non-corporate capital, seeking to ensure the livelihood needs of peasants while operating within the circuits of capital, will define the future of peasant society in India. As far as I can see, peasant society will certainly survive in India in the 21st century, but only by accommodating a substantial non-agricultural component within the village. Further, I think there will be major overlaps and continuities in emerging cultural practices between rural villages and small towns and urban areas, with the urban elements gaining predominance.

should read it again. [thanks, rama].

who benefits from food security?

definitely not the farmers in the country.

look at this scenario: the goi buys a quintal of milled rice at rs.1270 (assuming an m.s.p. of rs. 850 for paddy) in punjab. and sells it to food deficit states in the north east (say, mizoram) at rs. 565 a quintal. the mizo government sells it at fair price shops, adding (or deducting, actually) its own subsidy at rs. 5 per kg (or rs. 500 per quintal) to the poor. a subsidy of (rs. 1270 minus rs. 500) rs. 770 per quintal (or rs. 7.70 per kg)- the poor in mizoram should be happy, right? the poor in mizoram should be happier than that: because the subsidy isn't just rs. 770 per quintal (or rs. 7.70 per kg). it's much more than that.

according to an estimate, the goi (through fci) spends around rs. 760 on carrying and handling every quintal of rice. that's on an average. now, the distance between punjab and the northeast is much more than what could be considered average- wouldn't the costs be much higher? say, rs. 1200? wouldn't that mean that the total subsidy actually comes to, something like, rs. 1970 (or, rounding off, rs. 2000) per every quintal of rice?

now, what should actually cost the wholesale trader, not even the consumer, in mizoram rs. 2500 or more (per quintal, or, rs 25. per kg) is sold at rs. 500 (or one fifth the actual cost, not the price) to the poor in mizoram.

let's leave the poor alone (for this post) and consider the poor mizo farmer. would he be happy with this situation? if there weren't any pds (or msp mechanism operating) in mizoram, rice would probably be selling at rs. 40 a kg at retail stores in the state. and taking into account all other costs, the mizo farmer would probably be making rs. 20 a kg (or, rs. 2000 a quintal of paddy, at worst) instead of the rs. 850 (at best) a quintal he makes now.

why should he be happy?

who pays for your food security?

murli deora says the country's oil companies will lose rs.2,25,000 crores in revenues if they continue to sell petrol & diesel at last week's prices. hence the hike. to save the oil companies. but there is a lot of merit in the argument of the left: the government doesn't need to raise the prices, it just needs to reduce the duties and taxes. one might think that the government and the left have different objectives: the government wishes to save the oil companies while the left is concerned about the consumer. one's wrong.

both of them wish to save those who work in the oil companies and those who buy their products: the brahminized classes. in real terms, neither is exploited because losses do not mean layoffs for the first category of the brahminized classes and higher costs do not mean lower subsidies for the consuming category. a majority of the motorized vehicle owners in the country work in the organized sector or are self-employed professionals or are businessmen selling goods and services to the other two classes of people or are those fortunate farmers whose efficiency is rewarded by the government through, for instance, loans and loan waivers. all those classes have the freedom to raise the prices of the goods and services they produce and sell: so, they can take the extra cost. so, who actually pays for their oil security? those who do not have the freedom to raise the prices of goods and services they sell, but still have to pay extra for the goods and services sold by the first classes of people (the brahminized classes). who pays for your oil security? the same folks who pay for your food security. like maize farmers, for instance.

the world's open only for iitians etc

the united states has diverted around 30 million tonnes of its maize/corn production this year to ethanol production. that's around 5% of the world maize output, and a much larger percentage of the tradeable maize surpluses in the world. the world needs those 30 million tonnes to feed millions of non-americans and also americans (each of whom would be paying $47 extra because of the increase in corn prices): who'll step in and produce and supply those 30 million tonnes?

indian farmers can fill a significant portion of that shortfall in the short term of 1-2 years and, perhaps, more than half of the gap in 4-5 years. but the indian government won't allow them to do it.

if prices go up, the government imposes a ban on exports thereby controlling the maize farmer's returns. this is what happened in april this year.

if the domestic market expands because of the entry of new, large users, the government threatens controls on sale of maize to these new users. this happened, again, in april this year. and again, the maize farmer paid the price for your food security.

who's the maize farmer?

you should recognize him from this recent post. maize is mostly grown in the arid, rainfed regions of india. which means large parts of central and peninsular india: the regions with the most inter-state and intra-state migrations. yes, places like mahbubnagar (check this page). though maize is the third most widely grown cereal in the country, it doesn't rate the same attention from the government as wheat and rice. the fci is not so interested in procuring the grain or storing it for distribution via the pds. less than 20% of maize farmers have access to regular irrigation- no state government is overly concerned about improving that situation. but the indian state does expect a heavy price from the mostly lower caste maize farmer for being a citizen of this country.

it expects him to pay a price that it has never asked any graduate from the iits or iims or the innumerable less well-known engineering and medical colleges and universities in the country to pay: to sell his labour and his future at a certain price and place, to certain parties. no questions asked.

i don't really know how to end this post: the ironies are too overwhelmingly large and i don't think they need to be pointed out again.

60,000 crores: missing the woods

a report in the times of india, hyderabad, a couple of days ago says:

Even as bankers wait for detailed guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the loan waiver scheme, their preliminary assessment is that the real beneficiaries would only be the wilful defaulters and not the disciplined farmers. In Andhra Pradesh, bankers estimate the wilful defaulters to be not more than 10 lakhs at the most.

10 lakhs in andhra pradesh. how many farmers would that mean, across india? at best, 8 million? that means i was a little optimistic in this post, in which i'd mentioned 10 million possible beneficiaries. the report goes on to say:

Bankers say there are about 1.15 crore farmers in the state. Of these, about 90 lakh are small and marginal farmers, including about 20 lakh tenant farmers. The tenant farmers have never tapped banks, not surprising because they work on an oral tenancy without any written agreement with landlords. The 70 lakh "real" farmers, bankers say, have been making use of the banking sector but a majority of them are disciplined and repay loans on time. This is also to avail loans for the next crop.

here, the reporter seems a little optimistic: if 70 lakh small and marginal farmers were able to access institutional credit in andhra pradesh, so many thousands wouldn't have committed suicide in the last fifteen years. this rediff report from punjab says:

Indeed, according to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, nearly 80 per cent of the farmers in 1 million holdings in Punjab will be outside the ambit of the biggest loan waiver in Indian fiscal history.

Business Standard spoke to 25 farmers in three villages in Sangrur and found that just 4 out of 25 farmers benefit from the waiver.

if only 20% of farmers (or 2 lakh farmers) in punjab would benefit from this waiver, the less said about the rest of the country the better- even the figure of 8 million sounds very, very optimistic now. because, in terms of access to bank credit punjabi famers have always been the most fortunate. institutional credit met 60% or more of their needs until a few years ago- famers in most other states, on an average, cannot access more than a fifth of their credit needs from banks.

i met five small famers from the prosperous samalkot area in east godavari district, in coastal andhra, yesterday. access to bank credit in that paddy-growing, canal irrigated region has always been better than in most other regions in the state. but i was told that none of the five famers i met would benefit from this waiver. because none of them are defaulters. and they had stopped going to co-operative banks more than a decade ago because most of them had stopped lending to ordinary famers. most of the debtors on their books are famers of course. but a majority of the farmer-borrowers don't know that the co-operative banks had lent them money.

will the suicides stop?

60,000 crores: relief for the farmers or the banks?
for the banks, of course. they are sitting on non-productive, soon-to-become-non-productive and long-rotting agricultural credit worth 1,00,000 crores.

this will help 3 crore small and marginal farmers in the country.
oh really? find me 3 crore small and marginal farmers who got institutional credit in the first place, in the last three years or any three years before that. the prime minister himself said not more than 14 days ago:

We are also looking into the credit needs of farmers.We cannot have a situation where 80% of our agricultural sector is outside the formal financial system and suffers from excessive burden of indebtedness.

the total number of all agricultural holdings (large, medium, semi-medium, marginal etc.,) in india was around 120 million, approximately, a few years ago. which doesn't mean we have 120 million farmers in the country. the number of active farmers in the country ranges from 60 million to 100 million, according to various estimates. it's most probably closer to 80 million. but, for the sake of argument, if we assume each of those 120 million or more holdings equals one farmer, only 20%, according to the prime minister, of those 120 million landholders ever gets institutional credit in india- which means not more than 24 million farmers. or more exactly, 24 million landholders. i repeat, where did chidambaram find 30 million agricultural customers for indian banks? and how many of those were actually small and marginal farmers?

well, a substantial number of small and marginal farmers would get relief, anyway.
at best, not more than 10 million small landholders, not farmers, would benefit from this largesse. it doesn't matter how many large farmers benefit from it- they're not killing themselves anyway. mostly.

why?
85% of indian holdings, or 100 million holdings, fall in the small and marginal category. average sizes being two acres and half acre respectively (both are slightly optimistic estimates). there are around 20 million medium and large landholdings in the country (average sizes: 10 acres and 40 acres, respectively). if you were a banker, who'd you treat with more respect- the small guys or those with not less than ten acres each? you can totally rule out the 80 million marginal farmers (with holdings less than half acre each), i think. how many of the 24-25 million farmers who get credit from banks would be small and marginal farmers? .4-5 million (after taking care of the 20 million medium and large farmers)? slightly more- say, 10 million? 13 million? 13 million sounds impossible, doesn't it? considering, that would mean more than half of the 24-25 million agricultural customers of banks are small and marginal farmers. so, even 10 million is a very, very optimistic figure. and most of them wouldn't fall in the suicidal farmer category.

it wouldn't benefit any farmers in distress?
let's talk of farmer p.c.chettiar. he works in the finance ministry in delhi but holds 4 acres in the cauvery delta region. his brother p.d.chettiar, who owns race horses and runs hotels in chennai, owns the adjacent plot of four acres. another brother, p.e.chettiar, whose interest is racing cars and lives in milan also owns four acres. yet another brother, p.f.chettiar, who's an assistant commissioner of police in madurai also has another 4 acres to his name. the last brother, p.g.chettiar, who also owns 4 acres actually looks after agricultural operations in all the twenty five acres all the brothers together own. and all 5 of these small farmers would benefit from this relief offered by chidambaram. that's one kind of farmers this measure would benefit- the absentee farmer from the regions with a long history of access to irrigation. like two-three districts in coastal andhra and western maharashtra, several districts in punjab, haryana, western uttar pradesh and west bengal etc., regions which grow sugarcane, paddy, wheat and other commercially profitable crops. the more prosperous sections of farmers in these regions would benefit.

who wouldn't benefit?
farmers in most of india. in the rainfed, arid regions which constitute 70% of all arable area in india. like vidarbha, telangana, rayalaseema, many parts of karnataka, madhya pradesh, gujarat, rajasthan etc., and also marginal farmers from all over india, including the prosperous, irrigated regions like punjab, coastal andhra etc., i had mentioned earlier.

would the suicides stop?
no. 90% of the farmers who are committing suicide do not receive any institutional credit. if some of them ever did, they do not receive it now. most of their credit needs are met by private moneylenders.

then who'd benefit from this measure?
like i said, prosperous upper caste farmers from the irrigated regions of the country. and upper caste run banks which 'can clean up their books now', as chidambaram says, of some bad credit which would have been written off anyway, in due course. they would receive around 20,000 crores each year as additional capital from the government and this would enable them to lend an additional 2,00,000 each year as credit, hopefully, to more upper caste customers working in the organized sector looking to buy new cars, homes or holidays.

as i said in this post, budgets are mostly about dressing up sectarian interests in widely acceptable, egalitarian garb.

prof. gadde swarup's comments

professor gadde swarup, in an interesting comment on my previous post , says:

Caste questions and farmers' problems seem to be two different problems. The first may be solved in a few hundred years but it seems to me that the second may not be solvable. In any case, may be it is simpler to discuss the problems seperately.

please note two things:

1. my previous post was not about caste. it doesn't even mention caste, or any variant, or any term derived from caste. not even in the tags. am i being slotted away?

2. the scale applied, not consciously i am sure, to measure the problems (the caste problem and farmers' problem): i feel it is inappropriate. i think the act of measurement itself is wrong- caste is being slotted away.

(please also read prof. swarup's second comment explaining his first). moving on to the suggestion at the end: In any case, may be it is simpler to discuss the problems seperately. i hadn't discussed caste in my previous post, but i admit it was on my mind: the two issues can't be separated. ask p.sainath:

Typically, the forward caste will till at the head of the water, the middle caste will till in the middle water, and the tail water will be left to the lower caste and the Dalits. Now in Rajasthan this problem does not arise, since there is no water, no river in the border areas. So how is the positioning of the Dalit basti determined in Rajasthan? In all other parts of the country where the river water runs north to south, the Dalit basti will be in the south. Why is it on the east and northeast there? This happens because Dalits work on leather, which stinks and our sacred nostrils cannot be offended by this menial activity, so we place them outside, so the smell of carcasses and tanning does not enter the village.

that was an extract from an interview with sainath that i had quoted in this post. i'd also referred to other articles in that post to make my point that caste does play a role in the making of policy (and its implementation ) that impacts agriculture and rural india: the clear bias towards famers with larger holdings, easier access to irrigation, inputs, extension and market support and generally all other public goods/services (read: upper caste) is clearly evident, though couched in much egalitarian phraseology. i'd also written on how large irrigation projects benefit mostly a small section of rural india (around 10-20%) in one of my posts on otherindia (now dead?).

two: in my recent series of posts on agriculture (please check this post for links to other posts in the series) and elsewhere (check tags: agriculture, famers etc) i'd pointed out , directly and not so directly, how policy on agriculture is very narrowly framed in india. to sum up, roughly, it has two components: 1. food security. 2. through support to the productive category of famers i'd referred to in the previous paragraph. it doesn't support farmers, broadly, or rual india, broadly. policy is definitely not framed from a holistic point of view- the productive farmers are agriculture are rural india. i'd referred to this paternalistic attitude of policy makers in this post and also in the post on otherindia i'd referred to earlier (here's a link to a link to the post and here's the title of the post: 'bottled up in agriculture'.. i don't know whether it's cached somewhere. i didn't cross-post it here).

three: most of the farmers who have committed suicide are obcs and dalits. sainath had mentioned this somewhere, and other journalists have talked about it. but not explicitly or in depth. they wanted to keep things simpler, i guess.

p.s: on being slotted away, there is an interesting post on the issue on 'double consciousness' (thanks, jack)..

why most indian states should seriously think of seceding from india

THE Green revolution from the late sixties onwards, owing to its markedly greater success in Northern and North western India compared to other parts of the country, had led to increase in the regional concentration of foodgrains output, to a degree of which few are aware. Over a decade ago we had worked out the changing structure of the various regions' contribution to aggregate food output in India for the period 1960-61 to 1987-88 and presented the summarised data in the form of snapshots of three sub-periods, in Table 1. This shows a marked, indeed dramatic shift. Total food output in the regions considered rose by 82 per cent from the early sixties to the mid-eighties. Accounting for just around a quarter (26 per cent) of total food output during 1959-60 to 1961-62 (taking the average of the three years), North and North-Western India had increased its share to two-fifths (39.8 per cent) by the mid-eighties, taking the triennial average for 1983-84 to 1985-86. All other regions of India showed a greater or lesser decline: Eastern India from 23.2 per cent to 20.2 per cent, South India from 21.5 per cent to to 17 per cent and West-central India from 29.1 per cent to 23.1 per cent. Of the addition to grain output during this period, which was 65 million tonnes, nearly 37 million tonnes or over half came came from North India alone.

read ms.utsa patnaik's glib explanation of how this severely distorted growth has been good for india- read and understand that the grotesque edifice of food security in india has been built and rests on growth in a few states in the north and north-west and the concomitant decline in food production across the majority of states! food security at the national level sorely depends on food insecurity in most of the states!

and that is exactly the point i've been trying to make in this series [ (1), (2) and (3) ] of posts. i'd outlined how difficult it is for most indian states to think of producing enough food for all the residents living in any given state. it's not possible because a) the country already produces enough food for everyone, and b) the government distributes surpluses from a few states in all the deficit states so that the total market for local farmers in any given state stands diminished. why should farmers use 100% of the resources at their disposal to produce enough food for 80-90% of the consumption needs in any particular state? any producer would produce only as much as his market demands- in deficit states in india, the government of india ensures that the deficit (5-70% of total consumption needs, across various states) is bridged by bringing in surplus grain from punjab and a couple of other states. so where can the farmers in that state sell their produce if they produce enough for 100% of the consumption needs in that particular state? they can't a) sell in their own state all their produce because the grain sold through the pds takes away 5-70% of their market- their produce can't compete with pds grain on price, and b) they can't sell in other states, because of increased transactional costs, trade restrictions and because their grain, in all probability, would be costlier than grain from surplus states like punjab which have over the years achieved certain economies of scale (i shall touch upon these reasons again, later).

in the final analysis, what the governnment of india does in all the deficit states is to follow precisely the kind of ugly, neo-imperialist strategy that patnaik and sainath and many like them accuse the e.u., and the u.s., of adopting in most of the third world- dumping cheap, subsidized produce and driving the local farmers to suicide.

to survive, any food-deficit indian state needs to produce enough food for all the citizens in that state - it is also necessary for the overall development of the economy of that state that agriculture, and farmers, should be able to grow. that isn't possible for most indian states as long as they remain indian states.

older posts in this series: [1], [2], [3].

malawi and more food for thought

Punjab State, with only 1.5 per cent geographical area of India, produces 21 per cent of wheat, 10 per cent rice and 12 per cent of cotton in the country. Now the cropping intensity of Punjab is more than 186 per cent, and the State, which has earned the name of ‘‘Food basket of country and granary of India’’ has been pooling 40-50 per cent of rice and 50-70 per cent of wheat for the last two decades, and compared to the world, it produces 1 per cent of rice, 2 per cent of wheat, and 2 per cent of cotton of the total world production.

that's from the national portal of india. the statistic not recorded in that paragraph is that the population of punjab is 24,358,999, or around 2.2 percent of india's population. does 2.2 percent of india consume 21 percent of the wheat and and 10 percent of the rice produced in the country? most of the wheat produced in the country is consumed within the country- which means punjab produces around 3-5 times more wheat than it requires. and perhaps as much as 9-10 times more rice than it actually needs. if you feel wheat and rice consumers need to be segregated- even then, we'd see that punjab produces 3-5 times more wheat than it requires, and anywhere between 10-20 times the rice it consumes. those are rough estimates, but one does get the picture that punjab is doing well in agriculture. perhaps, as well as malawi.

one would think all indian states should follow the example of punjab (or malawi). punjab produces such huge surpluses- most of its agricultural output is exported. i mean, sold to consumers in other states- either through through the government of india's pds or through private traders. what would happen to punjab's farmers if any of the other states in the country decide to follow malawi's example? if, say, rajasthan and madhya pradesh step up border restrictions and duties? try to discourage imports and subsidize local agriculture a lot more? close down all pds outlets in those states?

why should any state follow malawi's example and stop imports from punjab? the central government (and the punjab government) subsidizes both the production and wide distribution of food products from punjab across the country, especially in deficit states like madhya pradesh and rajasthan- why should those states give up subsidized lunches (like dweep argues in this post that i referred to in an earlier post)? two reasons:

one, subsidized lunches don't mean free lunches. the madhya pradeshis need money to buy those lunches. and to earn money, they need work. those who need these subsidized lunches the most aren't educated, skilled workers- so, where can they find the work? on farms, of course. and how can farmers offer them any work if they themselves have been deprived of sustainable livelihood because of cheap grain from punjab flooding the fair price shops and stores in madhya pradesh?

two, subsidized lunches may not mean the cheapest lunches. or the kind of lunches you prefer. look at this line (which is the last line in the paragraph i'd quoted from the national portal of india earlier):

Whereas, it consumes 8 per cent of total fertilizer consumption. In Punjab, per hectare consumption of fertilizer is 177 kg as compared to 90 kg at national level.

not just fertilizers, punjabi farmers invest a lot in higher labour costs, machinery, seed, pesticides etc., add to these, the cost of water sourced from canals running from large dams, or pumped up from tubewells. add to these, the cost of credit needed to make all those investments and foot those expenditures. add to these the financial costs- the cost of central government funds that are invested in buying wheat from punjabi farmers, storing it and transporting it to madhya pradeshi stores. add to these the cost of subsidies- those paid for by the central government and the punjab government to facilitate the supply of cheap inputs to the punjabi farmers and those paid for by the central government and the madhya pradesh government to keep the prices low for the madhya pradeshi consumers.

so, while the madhya pradeshi consumer is buying the subsidized lunches, he's also paying for the subsidies- either through taxes or through lower investment in development in madhya pradesh (wouldn't the government budget for development and infrastructure go down if the subsidy bill goes up?). now, we return to the original question- are subsidized lunches truly the cheapest lunches available?

there's also the question of whether they are the kind of lunches you prefer. vandana shiva says, at the beginning of the last century, the british had found at least 37 different varieties of wheat being grown in the country- there could actually have been many more. perhaps, if you travel through northern and other parts of india where wheat is a staple element in every day diet, you'd find a different variety of wheat being consumed after every 4-5 districts. if they'd a choice, wouldn't the madhya pradeshis prefer something they're used to, food grown in their own neighbourhood?

is it possible for madhya pradesh to step up its foodgrain production to completely meet all its needs? in theory, yes. on a larger level, india had done it earlier. from the mid-sixties, it'd reduced its dependence on imports, developed high-yield seeds, distributed them at little or no cost to farmers, supplied subsidized fertilizer, increased access to irrigation and credit.

is it practically possible? no, in my view. madhya pradesh produces around 6.5 to 7 million tonnes of wheat every year. punjab produces around 14-15 million tonnes. punjab consumes around 4.5-5 million tonnes of wheat every year. i am not sure about the consumption figures in madhya pradesh- but it has a population of 60 million, which is around two and a half times punjab's population, so i think it's reasonable to assume that it consumes twice as much wheat as punjab. which would mean around 9 to 10 million tonnes. which means madhya pradesh has to increase its production by anywhere between 2.5-3.5 million tonnes a year- or by 35-50% a year, approximately. its growth in wheat production for over a decade, by the way, has been less than half a percent a year. at that rate of production, it would reach the target of 9-10 million tonnes in another, say, 70-100 years. and would still remain a deficit state because its population would definitely have increased by more than 50% by then.

if madhya pradesh continues to maintain trade and other ties with the rest of india its goal of reaching self-sufficiency in wheat would never be met. why? because the governmment of india has given away the contract of producing a large portion of the country's wheat requirements, which includes a large portion of madhya pradesh's requirements, to punjab and a couple of other states. one needs to go back to the malawi example to understand this better.

a note: madhya pradesh isn't a food deficit state. it's a food deficit state only if we assume that wheat is the only staple cereal consumed in the state. but there are other wheat deficit (and rice deficit states) states in the country which would fit the description of the deficit state illustrated in my example - because punjab with only a small fraction of the country's wheat (and rice) consuming population has cornered a large share of the market for wheat (and rice). it's very tough for new producers to take away any market share from the punjabi farmers (the government of india ensures that by buying more than two-thirds of wheat and rice produced in punjab).

this brahmin journalist deserves a magsaysay

Faced with job quotas, companies could stop outsourcing and resume in-house operations. They can hire dalits and tribals as sweepers, canteen workers, drivers, chowkidars and so on.

They can open holiday homes for officers in the hills, employing tribals. This will enable them to fulfil job quotas without affecting management or factory quality.

Many dalits and tribals may find this quite acceptable, because they will move from the unorganised to the organised sector.

Third tactic: Convert officers, technicians and skilled workers into consultants. Top staff need not be salaried employees. They can equally be consultants on contract. Consultants get no provident fund or leave travel benefits.

i'd call that an honest, heartfelt expression of self-interest. and this? well, that is more like all the outrage, indignation, handwringing and breastbeating that was probably on display here, all through last week. or like this display of aforementioned theatrics:

Land has a great deal to do with both economic and social status. Let's look at who are the poor in India. Of the Indian poor, 40 per cent are landless agricultural labourers; 45 per cent are small or marginal farmers. (60 per cent of Indian farmers own less than an acre of land). This means that 85 per cent of the poor are either landless or marginal farmers. It's in the first category that you will find dalits in large numbers.

how would you characterize someone who, after more than one decade of writing passionately about the injustices being perpetrated on rural india, admits in a moment of rare honesty (albeit in a circuitous manner) that that he hasn't exactly been advocating the cause of the weakest in indian society all that while but raising concerns about the interests of india's upper caste farmers (who benefits the most from india's agricultural subsidies, support prices and public investments in such areas as irrigation anyway)? sainath's friend jean dreze is less circuitous about acknowledging that support prices etc., do not benefit lower caste farmers:

There are two answers to this question. One is that the poorer sections of the farming community benefit very little, if at all, from price support measures. Consider for instance small farmers in, say, Orissa or Jharkhand or Chhatisgarh. These farmers typically sell little grain, if any, on the market; instead, they tend to combine subsistence farming with labour migration and other income-earning activities that allow them to buy non-food commodities.Hence, higher food prices do not help them.

dreze also thinks the pds is a scam but we know sainath's views on that - he believes the pds 'has wilted under policies clearly aimed at dismantling it'.. who does sainath speak for? does he speak for the dalits and the lower castes?

Typically, the forward caste will till at the head of the water, the middle caste will till in the middle water, and the tail water will be left to the lower caste and the Dalits. Now in Rajasthan this problem does not arise, since there is no water, no river in the border areas. So how is the positioning of the Dalit basti determined in Rajasthan? In all other parts of the country where the river water runs north to south, the Dalit basti will be in the south. Why is it on the east and northeast there? This happens because Dalits work on leather, which stinks and our sacred nostrils cannot be offended by this menial activity, so we place them outside, so the smell of carcasses and tanning does not enter the village.

he speaks for the farmers and he speaks for the dalits and the lower castes. but the good book says: no one can serve two masters. if sainath is concerned about farmers who place 'food on our table' he can't be speaking for '85 per cent of the poor (who) are either landless or marginal farmers'. who does sainath speak for? or, let me rephrase the question: who has he (and the whole army of born again pro-farmer advocates among the indignant classes that the last one decade had spawned) served? institutional credit for farmers has more than doubled, from around 80, 000 crores to 2,00,000 crores, since the last three years. investment in irrigation has gone up everywhere- andhra pradesh, maharashtra and karnataka together, for instance, have spent more than 100,000 crores (maybe more) on irrigation in the last 3-10 years and will be spending more in the near future.. and the central government has just raised the support price of wheat to rs.1000 a quintal etc., etc., have the suicides stopped? oh..those were mostly misguided obc, dalit farmers who shouldn't have tried to 'place food on our table' by trying to compete with those who'd be served everything- water, subsidies, credit, price support- first. why couldn't they remain content with the nregs?

finally, who has he served? my magsaysay goes to aiyar for being more honest. and less theatrical.

(read also: brahmin journalist bags magsaysay award)

a dole, in other words

Citing the reasons of ‘price rise’ and ‘globalisation and liberalisation’, the Left-backed UPA government has spelled out terms of references for the sixth pay commission. Nearly 42 lakh central government employees and two crore state government employees will receive a salary bonanza that will cost the state exchequer more than Rs 1,00,000 crore a year. However, for the 11 crore farming families, all that is being promised is more credit—doubling farm credit in the next three years.

What remains unexplained is that why is the farmer expected to live on credit while the rest of the society is blessed with a fixed monthly income?

great idea, in my view. like i had said earlier, a fixed monthly dole for all rural families would be much more efficient than a hundered different varieties of schemes and price support mechanisms. but what'd all the babus do? where'd they go, is the next question. and most of the 'voulntary' sector, and the 'alleviate poverty' brigade, and the 'globalized dissenters'?