Friend or foe?

EVERY year I wait just like the rest of the villagers for the south-west monsoon though it almost always bypasses us but not without teasing us with little drizzles. Tired of waiting for the rains, coconut trees on my farm stretch their many arms in the noon sun. In the words of one of our women workers, rain is like mother's milk for the trees and no amount of irrigation can compensate for it. Cotton, sesame, groundnut and jowar were planted by my neighbours in April during the first summer showers. Older farmers can predict the onset of rains pretty accurately and have a healthy disrespect for the weather forecasts made on the radio. They prefer to believe in their own predictions, wavering in their beliefs only when the rains don't come as expected. When the June rain fails and the crops start drying up, farmers console themselves by recalling a myth about a promise made in the distant past by the rain brothers named Dodda Hosaba and Chikka Hosaba. When the older of the brothers (Dodda Hosaba) fails to rain in the last week of June farmers put all their faith in the younger brother who has a reputation for turning up on time. Disappointment sets in when the younger brother also lets them down. Chikka Hosaba came to the surrounding villages this time end of July with a bang in some places and with a whimper in others; but he was too late to be of any help.

The heavy April summer showers we had received were due to a depression in the Bay of Bengal and I tried to warn some of my neighbours that it might be wise not to sow. Studies done of rainfall patterns over a decade in Karnataka show that the monsoon patterns have changed and the monsoons have been consistently delayed. Agricultural scientists use this evidence to suggest to farmers that they should change the cropping cycles but that is of no help to the poor marginal farmer in dry districts. The monsoon was expected to set in late this year as reported in the newspapers. The farmers anyway sowed because the only alternative to not sowing was to leave the land fallow and that was unthinkable for it was only the idlers who did not cultivate their fields. Three months later, when the early kharif crop had dried up with no harvest worth the name, farmers waited for the last of the south-west monsoon to plant rice and ragi seedlings hoping they would be nurtured by the north-east monsoon.

For the marginal farmers cultivating rain fed food crops, this year the government of Karnataka has initiated a scheme of crop insurance to help them, from loss due to scanty rainfall and pest attack. The premium amount is to be shared by the farmer, central government and the state government. The scheme covers growers of ragi, jowar, groundnut and thuvar dal in the Mysore district. Farmers growing cotton are not covered under the scheme since it is considered a commercial crop though many marginal farmers have grown cotton and lost very badly due to insufficient rainfall. Crop insurance was being done in the last days of July at a time when the farmers were harvesting whatever was left. The crops should have ideally been insured at the beginning of the cultivation season in April so that in the event of a drought the insurance claims could have been of help to the farmer to tide over not only the immediate financial requirement but also cover expenses of cultivation of the second crop due to begin in early August. Officials of the agriculture department give a very "convincing" answer that the scheme is still very new and it will take time for the department to streamline all its activities. Most farmers were happy to have their crops insured whether early or late because the insurance amount for jowar at Rs. 2700 per acre and Rs. 4000 for groundnut if paid to them after official assessment of loss, is more than what they would have earned even when the rainfall was normal. Farmers owning more than two acres did not come forward to insure all their lands under jowar, ragi and groundnut because they had to pay a premium ranging from Rs. 70 - Rs. 100 per acre depending on the crops they cultivated. With no assurance from authorities that their claims will be accepted many thought a bird in hand was worth two in the bush and did not want to waste money on paying premiums.

Raitha Samparka Kendra (farmer contact centres) are set up in 745 hoblis of the State by the government in co-operation with the Zilla Panchayats to help farmers with advice regarding choice of crops to grow, use of fertilizers (read as chemical fertilizers), improved, certified seeds (read as hybrid varieties and perhaps surreptitiously GM seeds) at subsidised rates. The centres are to help farmers in case of pest attack and are to keep records of crop estimates. The centre located in Yelwal caters to about 49 settlements of farmers in 37 revenue villages with no one knowing the exact number of farmers living in the villages but even by a conservative estimate the number would be a few thousands. As of July 31 the very last date to file the applications for crop insurance only about 700 farmers had submitted applications. In the nearby Erappana koppalu, a settlement of 90 households, not even ten farmers knew about the scheme and in Karakanahalli village not even one had made any claims; both the villages are just one kilometre away from the Raitha Samparka Kendra. Farmers complained bitterly about the lack of publicity for the scheme but officials insisted there had been enough publicity over the radio and announcements had been made in the newspapers. Farmers coming from a distance of 10-15 miles were turned away by officials for various reasons such as for not bringing with them all the necessary records and for not having on record the kind of information that the officials required. Those who managed to obtain information about the scheme were the ones who frequented Yelwal. For most others, this being harvest season (even if it be harvesting the dried up, stunted crops), they are busy and preparing for the next cultivation season. Those who were able to apply, paid the premium amount for which no receipts were given. Officials could not tell them when they would be able to get the insurance, if at all the inspection team accepted their claims. It was not clear how the inspection team would assess the damage or failure of crops when farmers are already harvesting their meagre harvests.

Most farmers did not have bank accounts in the local Canara Bank, the only bank catering to about 40 villages in the vicinity. The premiums in favour of the General Insurance Company was to be made at the bank and the insurance money if and when it was paid was to be remitted to the accounts of farmers. As such the Canara Bank was entrusted with the responsibility of registering claims. The officials at the Raitha Samparka Kendra blamed the Canara Bank which had been instructed a month ago by the government to attend to the work as a national priority. Bank officials blame the Raitha Samparka Kendra equipped with a staff of two officers, four agricultural assistants and one office assistant for not giving enough publicity for the scheme. The bank claims to be understaffed due to pressure on its older employees to "opt" for "voluntary" retirement and cite this as main reason for their inability to cope with this extra work even if it be "national priority". According to them, in addition to their regular bank work they have already been burdened with responsibilities of implementing various NABARD sponsored rural credit schemes for farmers. Further, they claim that branches catering to a rural population have the task of dealing with an illiterate population that needs assistance to even fill up simple forms. Listening to all the reasons given by the staff, my mind wanders to the past, the compelling reasons for Mrs. Indira Gandhi's government to nationalise the banks, forcing them to open branches in rural areas. If given a choice private banks would not want to cater to a rural population. The impact of privatisation of the banking sector on rural areas can well be imagined if mergers of various branches of the "nationalised" banks in rural areas are to take place. Banks eager to cut down their establishment costs can find a way out by merging their rural branches even if it means the rural people have to commute long distances to access banking facilities. Loan recovery in rural areas from farmers being problematic for the banks, it will not be surprising if the banks do not want to cater to rural areas unless the rural areas are rich plantation areas such as the coffee and pepper growing Kodagu district. Banks in this district during the boom in coffee prices vied with each other to lend to the planter community, literally coaxing them to take loans for both productive as well as unproductive investments. The planters, unable to now pay back the loans, will be paying interests on loans for years to come, particularly if the coffee prices are as low as they are now.

The procedure for applying for crop insurance is simple as far as the government is concerned. Most farmers do not have separate pattas in their names though the land itself has been partitioned among brothers and are individually cultivated. Every year such farmers cultivating their fields have to obtain RTC (Record of Tenancy Certificate ) from the village accountant if they want to borrow from banks or prove their credit worthiness to any institution from which they take credit. The farmer might grow three types of crops on his two acre plot but the village accountant for the sake of convenience, to save time when he has too many RTCs to write, or out of sheer laziness, might just enter the name of two crops on the RTC. If for example, jowar was omitted and the farmer actually had grown jowar in addition to cotton and sesame, he could not apply because jowar was not entered in the RTC. Many farmers do not obtain RTCs every year from the village accountant if they had no intention of taking loans from banks. Considering that a majority of farmers borrowed from the village money lender who did not ask for RTCs to be produced to loan them money, not many farmers had RTCs with them.

A keen observer of rural life is forced to ask if the government is serious in implementing the various schemes to really benefit farmers. As has been the experience in the past, the governments initiate schemes under pressure from opposition parties and farmers' parties that politicise issues sometimes only to embarrass governments in power. The Karnataka government has requested the centre to come to its aid in tackling the drought situation and has requested for no less than Rs. 900 crores. If the experience of Yelwal hobli is anything to go by, one can imagine how many farmers will actually benefit by the schemes hurriedly put together by the government without any planning. Efforts by the government to decentralise the working of the agricultural department to make it more efficient will succeed only with the co-operation of the panchayats and citizens groups if any in the locality. Otherwise the 745 Raitha Samparka Kendras set up by the State under the Raitha Mitra Yojane (friends of the farmers scheme) will actually become the enemy of the farmer. The existence of the centres and expenditure on them will anyway be justified by the State as long as they push chemical pesticides and hybrid seeds at subsidised rates to farmers - subsidies to benefit not the farmer but the fertilizer industry and pesticide manufacturer.

PUSHPA SURENDRA

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