Monday, January 25, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
[bku] 1 Farmer suicide every 30 minutes in Indi
Nearly 2 lakh farm suicides since 1997
P. Sainath
Over two-thirds in ‘suicide belt’ of five States, more than one-fifth in Maharashtra
MUMBAI: There were at least 16,196 farmers’ suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1997 to 199,132, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The share of the Big 5 States or ‘suicide belt’ in 2008 — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh — remained very high at 10,797, or 66.6 per cent of the total farm suicides in the country. This was marginally higher than it was in 2007 (66.2 per cent). Maharashtra remains the worst State in the nation for farm suicides with a total of 3802. (This is just 40 short of the combined total of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.) The all-India total of 16,196 represents a fall of 436 from 2007. But the broad trends of the past decade reflect no significant change. The national average for farm suicides since 2003 stays at roughly one every 30 minutes.
Within the Big 5, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh recorded higher numbers. The increase of 604 in these three States somewhat offset the dip in Maharashtra (436) and Karnataka (398). But a fall in suicide numbers in other States (for example, a decline of 412 in Kerala and 343 in West Bengal) means that the Big 5 marginally increased their two-thirds share of total farm suicides in 2008.
The NCRB data now cover all States for 12 years from 1997. In the first six years (1997-2002), the Big 5 witnessed 55,769 farmers’ suicides. From 2003 to 2008, they totalled 67,054, a rise of nearly 1900 a year on average.
Maharashtra has logged 41,404 farm suicides from 1997 (over a fifth of the national total) and 44,468 from 1995, the year when this State began recording farm data. No other State comes close. During 1997-2002, Maharashtra saw, on average, eight farmers kill themselves daily. The corresponding figure rose to 11 during 2003-2008. The rise was from an average of 2,833 farm suicides a year in the first period to an average of 4,067 in the next period.
Professor K. Nagaraj, an economist who has worked at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, says of the NCRB data: “There is hardly any decline in the suicide belt, though individual States may show variations across 12 years. If this is the state for 2008, the year of the Rs. 70,000 crore loan waiver and multiple farm packages, then 2009, a drought year, could show very disturbing figures. The underlying agrarian problems seem as acute as ever.”
P. Sainath
Over two-thirds in ‘suicide belt’ of five States, more than one-fifth in Maharashtra
MUMBAI: There were at least 16,196 farmers’ suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1997 to 199,132, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The share of the Big 5 States or ‘suicide belt’ in 2008 — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh — remained very high at 10,797, or 66.6 per cent of the total farm suicides in the country. This was marginally higher than it was in 2007 (66.2 per cent). Maharashtra remains the worst State in the nation for farm suicides with a total of 3802. (This is just 40 short of the combined total of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.) The all-India total of 16,196 represents a fall of 436 from 2007. But the broad trends of the past decade reflect no significant change. The national average for farm suicides since 2003 stays at roughly one every 30 minutes.
Within the Big 5, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh recorded higher numbers. The increase of 604 in these three States somewhat offset the dip in Maharashtra (436) and Karnataka (398). But a fall in suicide numbers in other States (for example, a decline of 412 in Kerala and 343 in West Bengal) means that the Big 5 marginally increased their two-thirds share of total farm suicides in 2008.
The NCRB data now cover all States for 12 years from 1997. In the first six years (1997-2002), the Big 5 witnessed 55,769 farmers’ suicides. From 2003 to 2008, they totalled 67,054, a rise of nearly 1900 a year on average.
Maharashtra has logged 41,404 farm suicides from 1997 (over a fifth of the national total) and 44,468 from 1995, the year when this State began recording farm data. No other State comes close. During 1997-2002, Maharashtra saw, on average, eight farmers kill themselves daily. The corresponding figure rose to 11 during 2003-2008. The rise was from an average of 2,833 farm suicides a year in the first period to an average of 4,067 in the next period.
Professor K. Nagaraj, an economist who has worked at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, says of the NCRB data: “There is hardly any decline in the suicide belt, though individual States may show variations across 12 years. If this is the state for 2008, the year of the Rs. 70,000 crore loan waiver and multiple farm packages, then 2009, a drought year, could show very disturbing figures. The underlying agrarian problems seem as acute as ever.”
Friday, December 11, 2009
Tikait compliments Nishank
Highest SAP for Cane
BKU’s Tikait compliments Nishank
Dehradun, December 9
Mahendra Singh Tikait, leader of the BKU, today met Uttarakhand CM Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and complimented him for announcing the highest SAP of sugarcane. The Chief Minister reiterated his resolve to work for the benefit of sugarcane farmers, sugarcane cooperative societies as well as the sugar mills for the overall development of the state.
Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Mahendra Singh Tikait during a meeting with Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in Dehradun on Wednesday. A Tribune photograph
BKU’s Tikait compliments Nishank
Dehradun, December 9
Mahendra Singh Tikait, leader of the BKU, today met Uttarakhand CM Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and complimented him for announcing the highest SAP of sugarcane. The Chief Minister reiterated his resolve to work for the benefit of sugarcane farmers, sugarcane cooperative societies as well as the sugar mills for the overall development of the state.
Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Mahendra Singh Tikait during a meeting with Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in Dehradun on Wednesday. A Tribune photograph
Friday, November 27, 2009
sugar can price issue
Sugar mills in India’s top cane-producing region have offered higher prices to growers, raising the hopes that protesting farmers would start selling cane helping shares of sugar companies rise.
The Uttar Pradesh sugar mills have agreed to pay Rs 25 a quintal as incentive to farmers over and above the state advised price (SAP) of Rs 165-170. Farmers in the country’s second biggest sugar producing state had been demanding a price of Rs 280 a quintal. Given the current realization of Rs 3,200-3,300 a quintal in sugar, mills will make decent profits even after paying Rs 190-195 for every quintal of sugarcane.
“After discussing the issue with cane societies, we decided to offer Rs 190 a quintal for the common variety and Rs 195 for the early variety. 47 mills are crushing cane today in western UP against 39 mills a year earlier,” C B Patodia, president of the UP Sugar Mills Association and advisor to the Birla Group of Sugar Companies said. However, the cane farmers’ leaders are unrelenting on the issue and have demanded that UP millers pay at least on a par with the neighbouring states such as Haryana and Uttarakhand.
“The cane millers in these two states are paying between Rs 210-220 a quintal. We have been demanding the cane price of Rs 280 a quintal, but at least the price level being paid in Haryana and Uttarakhand for cane should be offered,” Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) spokesperson Rakesh Tikait told Business Standard.
He informed BKU was on with its ‘Lucknow march’ programme on December 1 to press for better cane price.
“We will congregate in Lucknow on December 1 and press for a meeting with UP chief minister Mayawati on the issue,” he asserted.
Earlier this month, the mills had offered to pay Rs 180-185 a quintal while the farmers insisted on Rs 280. All through, farmers withheld supplies, delaying the crushing season in the state which normally starts after Diwali in late-October.
Subsequently, the row boiled into a major controversy, with political parties joining the issue, forcing the Centre to call an all-party-meeting to discuss the pricing issue among other things. The beginning of crushing may bring some cheer on the wheat front as farmers would now harvest the cane crop and vacate the field for the sowing of the food grain crop.
Stormy protests by farmers had disrupted parliament last week and delayed cane crushing in the northern Uttar Pradesh state, which could have further squeezed supplies in the world’s biggest consumer of the sweetener.
Sugar scarcity in India, which imported 5 million tonnes in 2009-10, has helped New York sugar futures rise the highest in nearly three decades. Shares of sugar firms such as Bajaj Hindusthan, Oudh Sugar, Dhampur Sugars, Triveni Industries, Balrampur Chini and Simbhaoli Sugars were up 3-5 per cent at 0830 GMT, outperforming the benchmark index that was up 0.5 per cent.
Last week, thousands of farmers protested against low state-set sugarcane price and forced adjournment on the first day of parliament. Growers have threatened another protest in the state capital of Uttar Pradesh from November 26, if their demand for higher price was not resolved.
India, the world’s top sugar consumer, faces a big shortage of the sweetener as the cane crop contracts for a second year, after farmers switched to better-paying crops last year and then the weakest monsoon in 37 years hit the crop this year.
The Uttar Pradesh sugar mills have agreed to pay Rs 25 a quintal as incentive to farmers over and above the state advised price (SAP) of Rs 165-170. Farmers in the country’s second biggest sugar producing state had been demanding a price of Rs 280 a quintal. Given the current realization of Rs 3,200-3,300 a quintal in sugar, mills will make decent profits even after paying Rs 190-195 for every quintal of sugarcane.
“After discussing the issue with cane societies, we decided to offer Rs 190 a quintal for the common variety and Rs 195 for the early variety. 47 mills are crushing cane today in western UP against 39 mills a year earlier,” C B Patodia, president of the UP Sugar Mills Association and advisor to the Birla Group of Sugar Companies said. However, the cane farmers’ leaders are unrelenting on the issue and have demanded that UP millers pay at least on a par with the neighbouring states such as Haryana and Uttarakhand.
“The cane millers in these two states are paying between Rs 210-220 a quintal. We have been demanding the cane price of Rs 280 a quintal, but at least the price level being paid in Haryana and Uttarakhand for cane should be offered,” Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) spokesperson Rakesh Tikait told Business Standard.
He informed BKU was on with its ‘Lucknow march’ programme on December 1 to press for better cane price.
“We will congregate in Lucknow on December 1 and press for a meeting with UP chief minister Mayawati on the issue,” he asserted.
Earlier this month, the mills had offered to pay Rs 180-185 a quintal while the farmers insisted on Rs 280. All through, farmers withheld supplies, delaying the crushing season in the state which normally starts after Diwali in late-October.
Subsequently, the row boiled into a major controversy, with political parties joining the issue, forcing the Centre to call an all-party-meeting to discuss the pricing issue among other things. The beginning of crushing may bring some cheer on the wheat front as farmers would now harvest the cane crop and vacate the field for the sowing of the food grain crop.
Stormy protests by farmers had disrupted parliament last week and delayed cane crushing in the northern Uttar Pradesh state, which could have further squeezed supplies in the world’s biggest consumer of the sweetener.
Sugar scarcity in India, which imported 5 million tonnes in 2009-10, has helped New York sugar futures rise the highest in nearly three decades. Shares of sugar firms such as Bajaj Hindusthan, Oudh Sugar, Dhampur Sugars, Triveni Industries, Balrampur Chini and Simbhaoli Sugars were up 3-5 per cent at 0830 GMT, outperforming the benchmark index that was up 0.5 per cent.
Last week, thousands of farmers protested against low state-set sugarcane price and forced adjournment on the first day of parliament. Growers have threatened another protest in the state capital of Uttar Pradesh from November 26, if their demand for higher price was not resolved.
India, the world’s top sugar consumer, faces a big shortage of the sweetener as the cane crop contracts for a second year, after farmers switched to better-paying crops last year and then the weakest monsoon in 37 years hit the crop this year.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Farmer: Come up and let the world listen you
If there is one principal lesson farmers can draw from history, it is the following: that, when farmers are not strong, many sections and sectors of the society are ready not only to tell the farmers what they should do,
but even worse, to speak on their behalf.
This historical recurrence is often all in good faith. Most ministries, political parties, associations, promotional non-governmental organizations as well as development agencies and most experts have indeed committed
this sin, often in an unaware fashion. Indeed, many a political party has set up campaign sub-committees to get farmers’ votes. Many a non-governmental organization, whether from the north or the south, but with no mandate from farmers, have stood up in international meetings to voice, in often fascinating detail, the farmers’ plight.
Questions remain on whether farmers’ voice is such a sought-after commodity after all, and whether the society would like farmers to speak. Indeed the lack of farmers’ voice is often unnoticed, precisely because of the enthusiasm with which other people are ready to speak on behalf of farmers. Similarly, during periods when farmers do speak, farmers’ voice is more readily seen as something of a "problem". Irrespective of its desirability, the lack of an effective farmers’ voice is indeed an impediment to agricultural and rural development. Whether it be the development of agriculture or of rural society or the protection of environment, farmers play a vital role. A two-way dialogue therefore needs to be established between farmers, and other actors which determine the political, economic, legal as well as technological framework within which farmers operate.
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