India’s farm crisis requires a well-crafted strategy, not knee-jerk reactions or quick-fix solutions
As Delhi chokes on smog, the spotlight has once again been put on the farmers of the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana and their practice of burning farm stubble during the post-harvest season.
Faced with the prospect of employing scarce and costly labour to dispose the stubble, or purchasing an expensive machine to do the same job, or the unpleasant but effective alternative of burning what is left in their fields after the harvest, farmers seem to be preferring the last option for a quick and dirty end to the agricultural season. While Delhi’s residents seethe in anger at such a practice, it is worth considering the intense margin pressures that have led farmers to adopt such a practice in the first place.
As the chart below shows, farm costs have been rising over the past few years, and labour costs have seen the sharpest rise over the past decade. In the early years of the past decade, the combination of favourable weather, a global commodity boom, and high minimum support prices for rice and wheat ensured that farmers producing food grains could absorb the rising costs, and pay more for the labour they employed. But with these tailwinds turning into headwinds for Indian farmers over the past few years, it has become increasingly difficult to bear the escalating labour costs.
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