The Hindu Business Line : Help came… but he is as miserable now, if not more

A year ago: On July 14, 2006, Business Line published this picture of a small farmer of Kadlabad village in Bidar district, Karnataka, with his son and daughter-in-law, pulling the plough, trying to stand in for the bullocks that he does not have. - Rishikesh Bahadur Desai

Rishikesh Bahadur Desai

Bidar (Karnataka), Aug 11 About a year ago when the media reported prominently the plight of poor farmer Bheemrao Manigempure, the State Government was stirred into action. It provided him with two bullocks at subsidised prices. At a function got up to hand over the bullocks, the local MLA, Mr Prakash Khandre, praised the media for opening his eyes.

Such publicity might have brought the poor farmer fame, but not happiness. He is just as miserable now as when he was yoking himself to the plough earlier as his financial worries are far from over.

His predicament has its roots in the ‘50 per cent cattle subsidy scheme’ for small and marginal farmers. The government had fixed the price of a pair of bullocks at Rs 20,000. But the market price of a single bullock in Karnataka was around Rs 14,000-16,000. That meant Bheemrao was straight away in debt for the uncovered deficit under the programme that was meant to effect a fundamental transformation in his life. And two crop seasons saw him owe the official financial system Rs 30,000.

Low yields have pushed him further into an unending cycle of loan and interest payments. He has since taken another loan of Rs 10,000 from a family friend to pay for his contribution under the scheme. “I have less than two acres of land. It is not easy for me to repay such a huge loan of Rs 40,000 along with interest… I would have been happier if the government waived off all my loans,” he says.

“We feel the very structure of the scheme is faulty,” says the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha district secretary, Mr Veerbhushan Nandagave. Bheemrao and hundreds of other farmers who have got bullocks are not eligible for claiming bullock carts. Usually rich farmers keep carts. Poorer ones cannot afford them. They hire them from time to time. The government seems to believe that those who have bullocks do not need carts and vice versa.

The State government’s Ettu -Bandi (bullock cart) scheme aims at providing bullocks or carts to small and marginal farmers at affordable costs. Farmers who obtain bullocks are not eligible to claim carts.

A small farmer is one who has between 2.5 and 5 acres of land. A marginal farmer lives on the boundary line of being a farmer and a seasonal agriculture labourer. He has less than 2.5 acres and such a small piece of property does not yield enough to support his family through the year.

‘ ‘It is OK to assume that a farmer who takes a cart may not need bullocks. But how can the government assume that a farmer who takes bullocks does not need a cart,’ Mr Nandagave wonders.

When contacted, the State Agriculture Minister, Mr Bandeppa Kashempur, said he was willing to reconsider provisions of the scheme if farmers’ organisations were keen on it.

It is another matter that a cart might not have made any difference to Bheemrao’s fundamentally unviable nature of dry land agriculture. A good monsoon – and that is not often the case – provides just about enough to eat and not much else.

This year, Bheemrao Manigempure has sown green gram and black gram in his fields. “Rains have been good and I will be happy if I recover the cost of cultivation,” he says. His wish had better come true. Because he has a bigger loan to repay now.

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