Sharad Pawar, agriculture minister. More agony, less ecstacy.
Pawar’s Report Card
The Negatives
- Per capita availability of cereals and pulses has fallen in last eight years
- No improvement in irrigation, 60% of agriculture still dependent on monsoons
- Farmers growing cereals, sugarcane, oilseeds and pulses assured higher MSP, but majority don't benefit
- Production up, but not productivity. Farmer suicides are on the rise.
- Poor market advisory on exports being misused to buy cheaply from farmers and make profits overseas
- Pawar referred to as “sugar minister” for promoting sugar industry interests
- Big push to private seed companies is raising farm input costs with little hope of recouping expenses
The Positives
- Pushed the boom in horticulture, fisheries, poultry. Has helped Indian farm sector chalk higher growth.
- Has ensured higher production in cotton, milk, fruits and vegetables
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Union agriculture minister Sharad
Pawar is trying to re-establish his ‘farmer-friendly’ politician image
but it’s been hard going with the flip-flop on commodity exports and
rising farmer suicides. In April, he wrote to the prime minister
criticising the government’s export policies for being “against the
interests of the farming community”. This raised many eyebrows. For it
is exactly the same charge farmers’ groups have been levelling against
Pawar and other central ministers for their decision to ban cotton
exports, leading to a market glut and crashing prices. A spate of
suicides followed in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha, including five on May 1.
Since January, over 320 farmers have committed suicide in Vidarbha
alone.
The flip-flop on cotton and sugar exports led to hundreds of
Maharashtra farmers hitting the streets in protest. Sensing the mood,
the National Congress Party chief, a key man in the UPA set-up, rushed
to contain the damage by announcing a major farmer rally on May 16
against government policies. Then, after getting the government to open
up sugar exports for all—reversing a policy he had himself put in place
while holding the food ministry portfolio—Pawar called off the rally.
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“Pawar has to take the blame for farmer suicides in Vidarbha...he promoted cotton, a water-intensive crop, on dry land.”Kishore Tiwari, Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti |
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If
all this seems a bit rich, remember it comes from a man who has been
India’s longest-serving agriculture minister. For all the sobriquets
thrust upon him—broadly pointing to an uncommon mix of political
astuteness and administrative command—he is often mockingly referred to
as “sugar minister” (for promoting the sugar industry’s interests) or
even “cricket minister” (given his engagement with the game as ex-BCCI
boss and current International Cricket Council president). Eight years
then is as good a time to gauge the performance of Pawar the minister,
particularly since his beat affects 60 per cent of India’s population.
Despite repeated requests, Sharad Pawar did not speak to Outlook for
this story.
The scenario now is in sharp contrast to ’04 when the UPA swept to
power and Pawar opted to lead the agriculture and food ministries.
Hardly anyone then questioned the decision. Sompal Singh Shastri,
agriculture expert and a former Union minister, recounts how through
technology inputs and the right kind of policies (like the concept of
adequate finance), Pawar as Maharashtra CM had helped the farmers,
particularly in horticulture. “I had hoped he would lend the same kind
of leadership throughout India but it did not happen, which was a huge
disappointment,” says Shastri, who admits to have often said as much to
Pawar, a close friend.
There are many agri experts and scientists who share the
disappointment that Pawar, a practical farmer very knowledgeable on
agriculture issues and a heavyweight politician, failed to deliver on
the need to raise investments in agriculture, which still remain
abysmally inadequate. “Economic reforms have remained confined to
providing more space and incentives to the corporate sector while
agriculture has been wholly neglected. The most glaring proof— the
agriculture marketing system is still mired in many restrictions,” adds
Shastri.
Gone to seed Grieving family of a cotton farmer who committed suicide in Vidarbha. (Photograph by Atul Loke)
Public investment in agriculture in the last eight years has been
just 0.6 per cent of GDP. Irrigation infrastructure too is abysmal.
While foodgrains production has gone up, per capita availability of
cereals and pulses has fallen steadily in the last eight years. Food
inflation has been high through his tenure, attracting a lot of flak
(and prompting Pawar to relinquish the food ministry in 2011). Worse,
the lot of farmers has not improved. Over 80 per cent of farmers have
less than one hectare of land, and more than 60 per cent of them are in
debt, says nsso data.
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“As Union agri minister, Pawar has been a huge disappointment. Economic reforms have neglected agriculture.”Sompal Singh Shastri, Ex-Union minister, agri expert |
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Nationwide,
there were over 2.6 lakh farmer suicides between 1995 and 2010
—tellingly, 1.18 lakh suicides took place between 2004-10. While Pawar’s
native place Baramati (described by noted agriculture scientist M.S.
Swaminathan as a “symbol of resurgent agriculture” and “a mini-Israel”)
is held up as an example of a successful agri-business model, the nearby
Vidarbha region lays claim to the maximum number of suicides. Every day
on an average, 2-3 farmers commit suicide in drought-prone Vidarbha.
“If anybody has to be blamed for the spate of farmer suicides in
Vidarbha, it is Pawar—he promoted a water-intensive crop like cotton in
the dry land. He also forced Mahabeej, a state government seeds
organisation, to become an agent of MNCs,” says Kishore Tiwari of the
Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS). By pushing hybrid seeds, farmer input
costs went up. Tiwari alleges ministerial attention to the region has
been scant and that promised relief is yet to materialise.
Journalist P. Sainath, a strong critic of India’s agriculture
policies, says it would be wrong to hold any individual responsible for
the wave of suicides over the last 15 years. “It is a matter of policy,
not an individual. All these are essentially the outcome of a policy
regime that is devastating to small farmers and geared towards corporate
interests,” Sainath says. He, however, points out that Pawar has sat on
the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers “for five out
of eight years as agriculture minister without implementing or
promoting discussions in Parliament. This is a panel he set up but they
possibly did not give the recommendations he wanted”.
Perish policy Rotting foodgrains at an FCI godown in Fatehgarh Sahib dist, Punjab. (Photograph by Prabhjot Singh Gill)
Swaminathan, who was that commission’s chairman, describes Pawar’s
tenure as a period “marked with both ecstasy and agony”. On the plus
side, Swaminathan puts the success of farmers producing more than
hundred million tonnes of rice, innovative schemes like the National
Horticulture Mission and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. On the flip
side, the RS member points to the farmer suicides, high food inflation,
and enormous wastage of cereals and other perishable commodities due to a
mismatch between production and post-harvest technologies and storage
capacity.
“Coordination
between the commerce and agriculture ministries has also been weak,
with the result that food inflation stays high. Our export-import
policies have not had the interests of producers and consumers as the
bottomline,” says Swaminathan. This holds true even now when agri
production data swings from one extreme to another. Typically, after
farmers have sold off stocks in distress, prices suddenly rise (for
reasons unstated), giving the industry a reason to push for exports to
calm domestic markets.
At present, the same thing is happening with cotton, when for reasons
unknown an export ban was imposed despite market knowledge of a bumper
crop and global prices ruling high. The recent reversal of the decision
has brought no relief to distressed farmers with different arms of the
commerce ministry giving conflicting signals. And it’s just not cotton.
Even in the case of sugar and wheat, we have witnessed India pushing
exports with subsidy followed by imports with subsidy. In 2007, we saw
wheat exports being pushed, only to import again at exorbitant prices to
calm domestic prices and bridge a possible shortfall.
“Before Pawar became the minister, he always came out as someone who
understood the needs of agriculture and farmers. This was particularly
felt during India’s negotiations with the wto. But there is a
disconnect, as he is only talking about the agriculture business,
whether it is pesticides, fertilisers, seeds, GM (genetically modified)
crops or so on,” says Devinder Sharma, an agriculture expert. To be
fair, Pawar makes no bones about his interest in commercial farming, be
it contract farming or GM crops.
His views are in tune with government policy, which is pushing Indian
farmers to take up large-scale farming in Africa, even as fertile land
gets diverted within the country for real estate and industrial
development. The irony is that while Pawar’s tenure has seen agriculture
production set new records for most commodities, “one also has to admit
that there is no commodity that India has not had to import during his
tenure as food minister”, says Prof Sudhir Panwar of Kisan Jagriti
Manch. For all his shrewd, strategist image, there are too many such
omissions in the career of Sharad Pawar, agriculture minister.
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