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Normal monsoon may not lead to higher farm incomes

The challenge therefore is to stop hiding behind the normal monsoon predictions but take appropriate steps urgently to enhance farm incomes

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Devinder Sharma
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That there is a positive correlation between rainfall, food production and economic growth is well known. While the prediction of a normal rainfall certainly provides a feel good factor for the economy, the averages hides the shortfall in rains that a significant proportion of the country has to undergo.

This year too, a pause in monsoon rains, coming after an early onset of monsoon, has resulted in more than 20% decline in sowing of kharif crops by June end. In some crops like pulses, cotton, oilseeds and coarse cereals, the shortfall in sowings is as high as 30% to 45%.

According to Down to Earth magazine, a month after the onset of monsoon, as many as 290 districts – more than 42% of the country – have received deficient and largely deficient rainfall by June end. As there is still time for sowings to pick up if rains behave normally in the days ahead therefore it is too early to come to a conclusion as to what impact the monsoon will eventually leave behind on total kharif production. But the slowdown in monsoon over large parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Haryana as well as in some areas of Madhya Pradesh in the first week of July is certainly a cause for worry. 

A good monsoon certainly reduces the misery that a farm family has to undergo at times of a drought, but the buoyancy that a normal monsoon brings to the industry for example has never been witnessed in agriculture. Despite a bountiful monsoon for two years in a row and a record production that followed; farmers’ protests across the country have grown. With prices of farm products crashing across board, ruling 15% to 40% below the Minimum Support Price (MSP), farmers’ anger had poured onto the streets. There have been innumerable incidents of dumping of agricultural commodities like tomato, potato and onion on the highways. Prices of almost all other crops – cotton, soybean, mustard, pulses, sunflower, and millets had slumped thereby aggravating farm anger. 

Even if the prediction of a normal monsoon for the third year in a row comes true there is no guarantee that it will result in higher farm incomes. Considering that the real income of farmers for the five years, between 2011-12 and 2015-16, had remained almost frozen, with an average increase of barely 0.44% every year, and knowing how depressed farm prices had remained in the past two years of normal monsoon, I don’t expect any quantum jump in farm incomes this year. In fact, several studies show that irrespective of whether rains have been normal or deficit, real farm incomes have remained frozen for at least two decades now. Otherwise I see no reason why the average income of a farming family in 17 States of India, which is roughly half the country, should be stagnating at a paltry Rs 20,000 a year.

This is primarily because to keep food inflation low the entire burden has been conveniently passed on to farmers. A recent OECD-ICRIER study has endorsed what was known all these years. Consumers have paid 25% less on almost all commodities, and farm prices have remained depressed by 14% every year. In other words, agriculture has been deliberately kept impoverished. The challenge therefore is to stop hiding behind the normal monsoon predictions but take appropriate steps urgently to enhance farm incomes. Time has come to provide assured monthly income to farmers. After all, in a year of good monsoon, there is no reason why farm incomes should remain subdued. 

TRYST WITH MONSOON

A good monsoon certainly reduces the misery that a farm family has to undergo at times of a drought, but the buoyancy that a normal monsoon brings has never been witnessed in agriculture. Despite a bountiful monsoon, farmers’ protests have grown in the country

The author is the founder of Kisan Ekta, an union of 65 farming organisations in the country

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