The article “Banks should lead the war on poverty” (Nov. 10) by eminent agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan was comprehensive. The increase in the number of suicides among farmers is an issue of grave concern. If farmers continue to take their lives and if the trend of giving up farm work continues, where will our huge population go for food? Farmers are unfortunate because they have no attractive future. Their dependence on pesticides and fertilizers has added to their indebtedness. For development and growth, we have to empower farmers and, as pointed out by Prof. Swaminathan, banks should play an important role towards achieving the end.
Parveen Kaswan,
Noida
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Prof. Swaminathan made worthwhile suggestions even while he was the Director-General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Agriculture Secretary, Government of India. But the factors that came in the way of implementing them then and hinder their implementation now are more or less the same at the field level. It was the lack of sufficient credit availability at reasonable interest rates and timely availability of the same from moneylenders then and banks now. The high risk involved in the recovery of loans extended to farmers due to uncertainty in agriculture operations is the root cause of high interest.
Neither appeals for corporate social responsibility nor a literacy movement to educate farmers will bring about any substantial attitudinal change among affluent corporates or orthodox farmers. While the corporates are concerned more with profits, the farmers are worried about the high cost of cultivation and cost of living. Unless structural and revolutionary changes are thought of with regard to agriculture holdings which are highly fragmented and corporatised for better bargaining power with the lending agencies, the betterment of farmers will remain an utopia.
K.M. Lakshmana Rao,
Visakhapatnam
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Prof. Swaminathan is right in saying that but for the nationalisation of banks, the wheat revolution would not have covered all farmers. It was the aggressive lending by public sector banks that changed the rural scenario.
Rural branches of nationalised banks have become part of social life in villages. As one who has been directly involved in agricultural financing through banks for long, I can say that banks benefited from agriculture finance. But with economic liberalisation, income recognition has become an important factor. The NPA aspect haunts banks. The entry of private banks also poses problems. The government should strengthen the cooperative sector by releasing it from the clutches of politics.
Karavadi Raghava Rao,
Vijayawada
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The State governments should distribute vegetables through farmers' markets in towns and cities. Pulse seed villages can be supervised by banks in coordination with the State agricultural universities or Central research institutes like ICRISAT. For perishable commodities like potato and onion, banks can finance post-harvest infrastructure units like cold storage warehouses.
Each member of the banking family under the corporate social responsibility programme can establish its own agricultural foundation (on the lines of Syndicate Bank's Agricultural Foundation established about 50 years ago) to reach villages through extension activities.
M.K. Kopalle,
Secunderabad
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