India ranks third in global cotton production after the United States and China. With 8 to 9 million hectares of cotton produce each year, India accounts for approximately 25 per cent of the world's total cotton area, and 16 pc of global cotton production.
Most of the cotton in India is grown under rain-fed conditions, and only about a third is grown under irrigation. Cotton as a cash crop is important as it contributes around 30 pc of agriculture's contribution to the gross domestic product.
While agriculture gives positive growth, cotton production in the Vidarbha region shows a down trend.
According to Kishor Tiwari, who has been voicing the plight of the cotton farmers of Vidarbha through the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, the trouble started in Vidarbha with liberalisation.
"From 1995 onwards, the prices of seeds and pesticides increased four times, but the price of raw cotton at the national and international level went down by 30 per cent," he says. "There was a time a farmer would spend only Rs 500 per acre and would get back Rs 5,000 in income. Today, the farmer spends Rs 10,000 per acre, but he gets back only Rs 7,000 back. So, debt starts mounting. The plight of Vidarbha's cotton farmers is because of the 'globalisation of the cotton economy'. The national sample survey says the farmers of Vidarbha earn Rs 472 a month which is much below the poverty line."
Professor K Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, an agrarian issues expert, explained the reason why cash crops had been failing, endangering the livelihood of lakhs of farmers all over India, much more in the Vidarbha region.
"Agriculture in India was dependent on State support, which was not just subsidies; it took the form of tremendous amount of extension services which were built over a period of time, like soil and water management, timely credit, provision of inputs such as seeds, fertilisers and imparting knowledge," he said. "In the name of liberalisation, State support was withdrawn completely and the vacant space has been occupied by the private sector in an unregulated manner."
Image: Cotton farmer Vithoba Shate from Yavatmal in Maharashtra committed suicide by drinking pesticide, leaving behind his 75-year-old father Ragoba Shate, mother and wife. Photograph: Sebastian D'Souza/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: 'TN farmers are in a better situation'
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