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More farmers' suicides in Andhra Pradesh

Successive crop failures and mounting debts are driving groundnut growers in the drought-prone Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh to despair. An alarming situation grips Anantapur district with some hapless farmers resorting to suicide to put an end to their misery and penury.

In the last fortnight, a dozen farmers and four girls belonging to farmers' families have ended their lives by consuming pesticides meant to drive away pests from the groundnut crop.

However, the state government has failed to respond to the emerging crisis. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has refused to sanction ex-gratia (of Rs 100,000 each) to the victims' families arguing that it would induce more farmers to commit suicide.

Communist Party of India-Marxist state secretary B V Raghavulu insists that since the state government is responsible for the plight of the farmers, it must pay ex-gratia to the victims' families. "The response of the chief minister to this man-made disaster is callous," he says and points out that groundnut crop worth Rs 8 billion has already been devastated by the pest attacks in Anantapur district alone.

Raghavulu points out that groundnut crop was sown over 1.9 million acres in Anantapur district during the current kharif season. After three years of crop failures due to successive droughts, farmers saw an opportunity to recoup their losses by going in for a bumper crop this year amidst initial signs of a good monsoon.

"The government messed up things by dealing with successive droughts in an ad hoc manner. Farmers did not have seeds owing to crop failure and the government did not procure them. Seeds were purchased from Karnataka at the last minute. The JL-24 variety of seeds was procured and supplied to the farmers. However, it is not resistant to pests and scientists discourage its use. The calamity afflicting Anantapur farmers is the result of this bungling," the CPI-M leader explains.

Farmers' bodies say that the half of area under groundnut crop in Anantapur district has been severely affected by bud necrosis, a viral disease caused by a pest known as thrips (insect vector).

Agriculture Minister Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao claims that the state government has been doing its utmost for the farmers. It, he says, provided the highest input subsidy of Rs 1 billion to them earlier this year. Moreover, farmers who suffered losses last year due to drought were provided compensation under the crop insurance scheme.

However, left leaders dispute the minister's claims. According to them, only 40 out of 63 mandals in Anantapur district are covered under crop insurance. Moreover, the method of calculating the losses is defective. The compensation works out to Rs 250 per acre whereas the investment works out to Rs 2,500 per crop season.

Incidentally, it is the first time suicides by farmers are being reported from Anantapur district. Earlier, in 1998, as many as 159 farmers, mostly cotton growers, had ended their lives in Warangal and other districts in Telangana region due to failure of their crop and burdensome debts.

"The farmers are upset by the crop failure. The government's indifference has made them desperate," explains Raghavulu.

District authorities and agricultural officials did not recognise the disease in the initial stages. When they did, it was too late to save the crop. The curative measures initiated by the authorities have turned out to be worse than the disease.

The government despatched 600,000 litres of monocrotophos pesticide to to tackle the viral disease. However, scientists from Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University have opined that it would not be effective since the crop was already damaged beyond redemption.

Environmentalists and other agriculture scientists contend that monocrotophos is an extremely toxic pesticide banned in many countries, including the United States, Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Its use, they said, would prove counterproductive.

The environmentalists say that spraying of monocrotophos would leave toxic residue in the air, on crops, fodder and in water bodies, thereby causing health hazards to human beings and cattle.

Undeterred, the government is going ahead with the distribution of monocrotophos to individual farmers. Ironically, the pesticide is coming in handy for the desperate farmers to end their lives.

The opposition parties have asked the government to come to the rescue of the affected farmers. First and foremost, they demand payment of ex-gratia of Rs 100,000 each to the families of farmers who committed suicide. Secondly, they want it to revise the compensation rate to Rs 2,500 per acre, write off farmers' crop debts and reschedule their long-term debts.

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