what is corporate farming? discuss in brief is it a solution to farmer's sucides?
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Answer:
According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, in 2014, a total of 1,31,666 persons committed suicide in India. Of them, 5,650 or 4.29 per cent, were farmers. Of these, 64.5 per cent were marginal and small farmers.
The Bureau also reported that 25.6 per cent of farmers’ suicides were due to ‘bankruptcy and indebtedness’. According to the Niti Aayog head Arvind Panagaria, who conducted a survey in 2008, 20.35 per cent of these suicides were due to ‘drinking and gambling’, 16.81 per cent due to failure of crops, 2.65 per cent due to indebtedness and fall in agricultural prices each.
The remaining 57.54 per cent were due to other reasons like discord in the family etc. In 2014, 4,400 farmers committed suicide due to drinking and gambling and 1,250 due to failure of crops and fall in agricultural prices while 3,672 farmers who committed suicide were marginal and small farmers.
Suicides committed by farmers due to drinking, gambling and family discords
etc, cannot be termed as agriculture related though persons committing suicides were farmers. But suicides due to failure of crops and fall in agricultural prices are farmer-specific.
Farmers are distressed because of three reasons: their landholdings are uneconomic and unviable; failure of crops due to floods and draughts; and fall in agricultural prices. After Independence, the number of marginal and small land holdings has increased due to land reforms. For example, when land reforms were implemented in Karnataka in 1971, the number of land holdings with less than two hectares was 29,22,000. By 2011, it was 59,87,000.
According to the Department of Agriculture in Karnataka, the size of the land holding should be 2.56 hectares to be economically viable. The average size of land holdings of these marginal and small farmers also increased, though marginally, from 0.60 in 1971 to 0.81 in 2011, still leaving the holding economically unviable. It was quite natural that the number of suicides by these farmers also increased.
To alleviate the problems of the marginal and small farmers, some people have suggested providing them with improved inputs. But the proper solution to the problem lies in encouraging cooperative farming. If farmers can pool their land by forming a cooperative, then the problem of unviability of the small holdings can be overcome as they will get the benefit of economies of scale. While a single small farmer cannot on his own dig a borewell or buy a tractor, a cooperative farm can easily do so. This may also to a great extent help the small farmers in overcoming the problem of fall in prices of agricultural produce.
While a single small farmer may not have the capacity to store his produce and sell it only when he gets a better price and, hence, has to opt for distress sale, a farming cooperative can create such storing capacity and sustain itself when the agricultural prices fall. It is only then that a small land holding can become economically viable and prevent the losses.
Since a farming cooperative with large tracts of land in its possession can go for multiple cropping, even if the prices of one or two of its produces fall, no member will be ruined because he will be sharing the profits earned by the cooperative from other produces.
Agricultural prices
Failure of crops, which accounts for 16.81 per cent of the suicides committed by farmer, happens mostly due to floods or droughts which are natural phenomena. While crop insurance can be an answer to floods, irrigation could be the answer to droughts.
Explanation: