TAMIL NADU: 'Marginal farmers situation worsening'

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/marginal-farmers-situation-worsening/245228.html

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai, on February 5, 2011:

CHENNAI: Issuing an early warning about the worsening situation of marginal farmers in the State, the Tamil Nadu Farmers Party, on Friday, warned that the farmers in the State were passing through a difficult phase and the situation would get much worse, even driving them to commit suicide, if the summer rains failed.

Speaking to reporters here, K Ramarajan, state president, said that marginal farmers in the state who were already affected by dearth of hands for work in the fields, due to the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and the emergence of women self-help groups, were now suffering more due to the heavy floods caused a few months ago.

The state government did not adequately compensate the marginal farmers who lost their crops during the floods, he said.

Most of these marginal farmers now have borrowed huge sums from lenders with a hope to repay it during the next harvest, the party state president said.

"If the next harvest also fails, due to poor rain or for any other reason, just think about the state of the mind of marginal farmers. The situation would be explosive, much worse than what it is in Maharashtra," he warned.

According to an estimate, marginal farmers were spending Rs 30,000 per acre to grow crops like cotton, chilies, paddy and corn but the yield for most part remained the same or lower in money terms.

The Tamil Nadu Farmers Party has about two lakh members, with a majority of them from Perambalaur, Tiruchy, Tanjavur, Pudukottai, Tirunelveli, Sivagangai, Ramanathapuram, Erode, Coimbatore, Theni and Villupuram districts.