Although I was visiting the area to get a feel for the site of the renewables project, I assisted on surveys that Gomukh was conducting for a soil conservation project.
A couple notes on background. Thanks to good soil, decent rainfall, and NGO assistance, much of rural Maharashtra, particularly close to Mumbai and Pune, is moderately well-off, particularly compared to rural areas in other states. (It is also thanks to a sugar boom in recent years, but we'll get to that later). In general, farmers were growing sugarcane or rice, had some livestock, and sold their produce to markets in Pune.
As we sat with some of these farmers, in their small but well maintained homes (side note- its amazing how much effort these families put into their homes. The ground is always swept clean and dung washed for sterilization, the bed is always made, the few pictures on the wall are straight...even when the area inside the house is too small to even stand upright, the pride with which they maintained their homes really struck me), I started to realize some of their severe budgetary issues. It's a life with no margin for error.
When we prodded further, we found that their income never seemed to match up with their spending, sometimes not by a long way. It seemed that many of these farmers were playing a game of juggling loans, going from a Union bank, to a rural commune, to a community savings group- attempting to make minimum repayments so that they did not default, but never quite staying afloat.
Often, in truly dire straits, these farmers would be forced to sell their soil- a fact that they admitted with their voices low, their heads bowed. I did not catch on at first but when I saw one of the farmers, Santosh, glance nervously at a picture of a god on the wall as he spoke about it, I that for a farmer, his soil is his mother; it is everything that has nurtured him and provides for him. Selling soil is a good way to make a quick buck, especially because the valley is close to Pune where the construction business is booming, and brickmakers are constantly looking for cheap and plentiful soil. So the bricklayers come into rural areas, carting away trucks of fertile topsoil, at hardly a pittance in comparison to its real rate. But for the farmers, this is big money.
This raises a number of questions- 1. How do you protect the farmer against a punishing sale like that, and 2. How do you prevent them from selling the soil in the first place, which is severely hurting the agriculture in the area, not to mention their own sense of self-respect?
The answers are difficult because, like I mentioned, of the margin of error. Running a constant deficit, if any of these farmers have a marriage, or a festival (often taking up about 30% of the annual budget), or in a worst case scenario- an injury..then the bills throw the budget into havoc. Then its time to start selling high value assets, such as soil, livestock and even trees. That was the problem that Ankush faced. He had a relatively balanced budget, but a motorcycle injury followed by what seemed like endless medical bills up nearly 70% of his annual income. This meant that in all honesty, there was absolutely zero savings for little Vikrant who was running around the hut as his mother tried to get pants on him. Forget savings, there would almost certainly be a pretty significant debt.
How did they get into this kind of budgetary crisis in the first place?
Well part of the problem..the majority of the problem, is planning.
You see, a while ago, sugarcane was seen as a huge cash crop in the state of Maharashtra. It was easy to grow, needed hardly any maintenance, and you could make a lot of money off of selling it to the sugar mills. Farmers unionized, ran their own sugar factories so that rates were equitable, the entire situation was relatively peachy.
Then a couple things happened. Firstly, the larger farmers began taking control of the unions and factories, leading to corruption, and crowding out of the smaller farmers. Then, the price of sugar fell, and fell hard.
Many farmers, whose plots were completely invested in sugarcane growth starte dmaking huge losses. But the cycle was created, many of these farmers had become used to an easier life- sugarcane does not require much hard work- so they had resorted to relaxing, often drinking. The huge government subsidies continued to encourage sugarcane planting, as it was a cash crop, but the system was stacked against it being profitable anymore.
Had some of these farmers diversified their crops, been able to watch prices, looked into rural savings accounts, and/or received subsidies for other crops, the situation may not have been the same.
Ironically, the second farmer we surveyed, who had a much smaller plot of land than the first one, and much fewer assets, actually had a balanced budget- not just because he seemed younger and more clever, but also because he was cultivating rice, a proven crop which is work intensive if you want high yields.
Man, life just isn't easy when you can't make a mistake.
-Nikhil
2 comments:
I am finally starting to understand what it is that you do, due to this article and the last email you sent me! And I thought you couldnt be descriptive :)
Do you think, and anyone can comment on this, that this lack of room for margin of error is something that we need focus on in the area of development? The obvious answer would be yes, but keep in mind that there are so many other issues in development. Do you think we need to focus on creating cushion for certain sectors - such as farmers?
Yeah, I thought about this a while, and I guess one way this cushion can be provided is through a more flexible banking system. The concept of microfinance was developed to provide people with capital on a smaller scale. However, there may also be a need for micro-social security, or micro-insurance; providing a safety net for contingency situations. Only problem is that contingencies (particularly medical) for farmers cost just as much as contingencies for the upper class...so the amount of money needed may not be so micro. That's where government subsidies come in. It may just be a question of providing better rural health services. At the end of the day, the best way to provide a cushion is by providing more avenues for income. So I'd say most strategies of development indirectly work towards creating a better cushion for those facing poverty.
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