Fifty percent Madhya Pradesh farmers in debt

Bhopal, Sep 4 - Half the farmers in Madhya Pradesh - where more than 75 percent of the population is dependent on agriculture - are in debt, says new data.

'Of the 6.4 million farmers in the state 3.2 million are in debt,' says the latest survey of the National Sample Survey Organization on the indebtedness of farmers here. The report cites loss of trust in the government's financial institutions as the main reason for the high incidence of debt.

The allegedly inhuman recovery processes and the host of formalities required to obtain loans lead more than 40 percent of agriculturalists to non-government agencies for credit at much higher rates.

'On an average, each farmer is under a debt of Rs.14,128,' says the survey.

Even as the farmers fall deeper into the debt trap, there are other problems that plague the farming community.

The contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product has come down drastically from 59.9 percent in 1960-61 to about 25.8 percent in 2001. At the same time the state's population dependent on agriculture has remained more or less the same - at 72.9 percent in 2001 and 79.3 percent in 1960-61.

Food production in comparison to the total farm produce has consistently come down from 63.6 percent of the total production in 1960-61 to 48.4 percent in 2001. The production of non-food products has gone up from 14.3 percent to 27.9 percent in the period.

Food crops ensure food security for farmers and the investment is also lower compared to non-food crops. Cash crops often lead to lower soil productivity, say activists.

'This shows the government is not really interested in promoting food production and it actually wants farmers to take up cash crops such as cotton and soyabean along with jatropha for meeting the upper-middle class needs of diesel. This will be economically profitable for the government also,' claims Sachin Jain of the Right to Food campaign.

The state intends to raise food production by more than 17.8 million tonnes per year. But farmers are still struggling with low quality seeds, lack of proper knowledge of the market and adequate compensation in times of national calamities or diseases.

'In the last three years, low quality and duplicate seeds have spoilt the livelihood of thousands of farmers as they do not get adequate protection from the government,' said Jain.

Compensation from the government to farmers too is very poor, say activists.

(c) Indo-Asian News Service

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