Cultivating cereals is unprofitable for farmers across most states, according to government data. The startling revelation shows how the dynamics of agriculture has changed, even as political parties fight over a ?remunerative? minimum support price for crops like rice.
The worst return comes from rice cultivation, the largest sown crop across India and under the support-price regime for decades. Data on the net return for?or income earned by?rice farmers presented to Parliament shows they have suffered losses in all the major paddy producing states, except Andhra Pradesh.
The data for three crop years up to 2006-07 shows that paddy farmers in only eight of the 18 producing states, including Andhra Pradesh, have made consistent profits. These states are Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat as well as Himachal Pradesh.
The impact of these gains were more than offset by the losses made in important paddy growing regions like Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Jharkhand. Farmers made consistent losses in all the three years. Paddy farmers in another three states made losses in two of the three years, while in one state, the loss was confined to a single year.
The net return for farmers was calculated by deducting the cost of cultivation from the value of the gross product (the cereal and any by-products).
Though the scenario is a bit more optimistic in the case of wheat, the figures are bad for coarse cereals like jowar and bajra. All these crops fall under the minimum support-price system.
Paddy farmers who earned the highest net income a hectare in 2006-07 were those in Punjab (Rs 11,754), Gujarat (Rs 9,153), Haryana (Rs 8,978) and Karnataka (Rs 8,360).
The steepest losses a hectare of paddy cropped were in Maharashtra (Rs 6,247), Assam (Rs 3,484), Tamil Nadu (Rs 2,091) and Jharkhand (Rs 1,842).
In wheat, farmers fared better. In eight of the 12 states, viz, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, farmers have made consistent profits in all the three years up to 2006-07. The only farmers that made continuous losses were those in Jharkhand and West Bengal. The scenario was better in Chhattisgarh, where wheat farmers made losses for two years, and Uttarakhand, where losses were confined to just one year.
Wheat farmers who registered the highest net income a hectare were those from Rajasthan (Rs 15,780), Haryana (12,909), Punjab (11,265) and Gujarat (Rs 9,605). In contrast, wheat farmers who had negative income a hectare were those from Jharkhand (Rs 2,592) and West Bengal (Rs 2,444).
In the case of jowar, of the six states studied, farmers in Rajasthan made consistent profits in all three years. The worst-case scenario was for jowar farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, who made consistent losses in all the three years. Jowar farmers in Madhya Pradesh were able to limit their losses to two years and their peers in Maharashtra did better by restricting losses to just one year.
For bajra, too, the picture is similar. Farmers in Gujarat and Rajasthan made profits in all three years, but in states like Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, they made consistent losses.