Distress cattle sale rampant in Jhabua

Distress cattle sale rampant in Jhabua
Mahim Pratap Singh
Drought, increased reliance on cash crops and lack of fodder are the primary reasons

Jhabua (M.P.): A combination of drought, increased reliance on technology-intensive cash crops and lack of fodder has resulted in Jhabua farmers selling off their cattle, most of which are smuggled to Gujarat, according to sources.
The weekly cattle haat in Raipuriya block reveals a disturbing pattern of cattle sale that is actually a self-perpetuating vicious cycle involving changing agricultural practices.
These haats have been a common part of rural life in Jhabua. However, the reasons for selling cattle have changed from being primarily exchange or upgrade-based in the past to being distress-based now.
Extensive use of herbicides in this region has resulted in a steep decline in fodder cultivation alongside the main crop. This, coupled with a shift to non-fodder cash crops such as tomato and chilli, means there is nothing to feed the cattle with.
The only option is to sell them. And since most of them are largely malnourished, they fetch less than encouraging prices in the market.
Also, the current crop trends in the region require the farmers to hire tractors and threshers, often forcing them to sell off their bulls and other cattle. This means they lose out on a crucial livestock product — cow dung — which is used both as cooking fuel and organic manure.
As a result, farmers have to grow cotton (especially MCH-1) in the lean January-February season as cotton stems serve as cooking fuel to make up for the shortage of cow dung. This has further resulted in an increased BT cotton cultivation in the area.
Also, a shift to chemical fertilizers becomes inevitable since there is no organic manure.
Asked why they were selling off cattle, all except one cited maintenance reasons. “What do we feed them with, there is no fodder. The common grazing land has been encroached upon and they are growing strange plants on it,” said Likhmi, a woman selling goats.
S.K. Dhuriya, Assistant Veterinary Doctor, Petlawad, agrees that there has been a decline in cattle population, but disagrees with distress being the cause.
“There has been a decline primarily because of the use of grazing lands for agriculture,” he says. “Also, people have fewer but better cattle now than before.”
The village commons, used for community cattle grazing, has increasingly been taken up by the State government for growing Jatropha, the much-hyped “bio-diesel” plant. Rows of Jatropha plants can be seen dotting grazing lands and “protected” forest lands.
At the same time, while the number of cattle has declined, meat production in Madhya Pradesh has increased consistently, from 10,200 tonnes in 2001-02 to 23,300 tonnes in 2008-09, according to data from the MP economic survey.
Dalaals flourish
The distress cattle sale in the region has spelled good business for a lot of middlemen, called dalaals.
When approached, these dalaals offered any number of any cattle for sale secretly. “People are ready to sell, but since the markets are down, nobody is willing to pay a good price. If you are willing to pay up, I can get you any number of buffaloes,” said a dalaal.
“Some of them are also sent to Delhi. But we have to be very careful, as VHP men are constantly on the lookout for us,” he said.
Sources said that while some of the cattle are bought off within the village, most of them are smuggled to slaughterhouses across the border to Gujarat.
The district police, however, are reticent in admitting this.
“I don’t believe there is any organised illegal cattle trade in this region, but there have been some incidents and we have intercepted vehicles carrying animals to Gujarat from time to time,” says Abhay Singh, Jhabua SP.

Jhabua on its way to becoming Vidarbha-II?

Jhabua on its way to becoming Vidarbha-II?

Mahim Pratap Singh

If it does not rain over the next week, farmers of Petlawad tehsil and its neighbouring regions in Jhabua might have to go the same way as their brethren in Vidarbha did.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan recently declared Jhabua, along with 36 other districts, drought-hit.
The agricultural apparatus in Jhabua is choking under the same processes that led to the ‘Vidarbha catastrophe.’
These include a shift from pulses, coarse grain and oilseed dominated organic and semi-organic farming to a high-input cash cropping system, a vicious debt-cycle with a simultaneous decline in cattle population and an agricultural landscape dotted with BT cotton crop.
Add to this, “a good drought” looming large and the result will mean small and marginal farmers running short of options in the event of a crop failure.
Failure of BT cotton crop
“Like most other farmers, I opted for BT-1 and BT-2, the latter I still grow,” says Mangal, a farmer from Thikariya village, “The companies promised a 25 quintals output. I managed 3 quintals. Others had much less. It didn’t even cover the production costs.”
By the time the farmers learnt that all was not hunky dory with this much advertised “white gold,” they were knee-deep in debt, as almost the entire agricultural production process in this region runs on non-institutional credit.
The only option they had, in order to pay their debts, was to move to other water-intensive cash crops such as tomato, chilli and soyabean along with BT-2. However, by this time, the region, like the rest of the State, was reeling under water and power crises. When the BT revolution practically failed and some farmers decided to question the multi-national corporations that sold it, they were offered bribes and issued threats.
“Officials from a major multi-national seed firm [Monsanto] came to my house and offered me a bike, and then Rs.70,000 to keep quiet,” says Ranchhod Laal, a farmer from Timariya village.
The debt process
Seeds, pesticides and chemical fertilizers are usually provided by local shopkeepers on credit through middlemen who have mushroomed in these times of agricultural crisis.
“Ninety nine per cent of our transactions are on credit,” says Mukesh Chaudhary, owner of a pesticide shop. “Sales have increased since 1999. People buy more fertilizers to get a larger produce from their small land holdings,” he adds.
Farmers in Jhabua use about 600 kg of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and other related products per hectare of land. Chaudhary puts this figure even higher, at 700-800 kg.
These products, however, come with a rider. They are provided at 200 to 300 per cent higher prices than the original cost, and at a compound interest of around 24 - 48 per cent annually, by either the shopkeeper or the local moneylender.
The estimated percentage of non-institutional debt is over 60 per cent of the total debt. Next, come loans from acquaintances, followed by cooperative societies and banks. The much celebrated Self Help Groups make up for the smallest percentage of loans availed by villagers in Jhabua.
So, when the State government waived a Rs. 60-crore loan taken by farmers here under an ill-designed and unsuccessful lift irrigation scheme, it hardly offered any respite, it was only 35 - 40 per cent of the debt the farmers were reeling under.
In Lalaroondi, where the combined annual income of all families of the village is Rs.5,02,997, the combined annual debt stands at Rs.16,07,200. For Kaajbi, these figures are Rs.13,93,234 and Rs.63,29,558 respectively. There are similar figures for other villages of the district. Per capita debt, at Rs.35,000 approximately, is the highest in Semlaapaara village.
‘Arrey, they are poor farmers’
Government officials, however, totally negate the living experiences of the farmers.
“No no, what are you talking about?” asks Sunil Dube, DDA, Jhabua district. “Farmers still grow traditional crops like urad. They do not have money to buy chemical fertilizers and cash crop seeds,” he contends.
But do they buy these on credit? Dube does not think so. “ Arrey, they are poor farmers. Who will give them credit? They are not even creditworthy,” he says with conviction.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government, in its Assembly election manifesto, dedicated an entire page promising to make Madhya Pradesh an “organic state.” Almost a year later, these promises have translated merely into half-hearted training programmes.
“When the government promoted GM farming and chemical pesticides, did it reduce its efforts to training programs only?” asks Nilesh Desai, a local activist leading the fight against the proliferation of GM farming. “Government officials still keep visiting local farmers, encouraging them to take to cash-cropping,” he says.