DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Images of thousands of farmers flocking to tractors in India’s capital and carrying banners to defraud potentially devastating changes in agricultural policy may be a world away, but the protests in New Delhi raise issues originated in the United States. and led to dramatic change in rural America.
Indian farmers leave their homes to march through New Delhi in a desperate attempt to end the repeal of laws they believe will force the guaranteed prices to sell them to powerful corporations rather than market authorities. Despite decades of economic growth, up to half of India’s population relies on growing crops on small parcels of land, usually less than 3 hectares, and farmers are worried that they will be forced to cultivate their land without guaranteed prices. sell and lose their livelihood.
The dispute raises not only questions about agriculture but also about the dwindling population in rural India where small communities are already struggling to survive – a problem that is reflected in parts of the US
“These protests went far beyond the bills because they led to a greater discussion about the soul of rural India, which is very well known to those in the Midwest,” said Andrew Flachs, an anthropology professor at the Purdue University, said. studied the experiences of cotton farmers in India in detail. “We’re always talking about the spirit of American agriculture and the soul of America in the countryside, and that’s turned into a conversation with the same dynamics in India.”
The images of farmers marching through New Delhi are reminiscent of similar scenes in Washington, DC, during the farming crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when hundreds of trucks and tractors flooded the National Mall. Thousands of farmers lost their land, in part due to government policies that caused rising interest rates as demand for their products plunged, leading to declining land values.
In Iowa – one of the worst affected states – there were about 500 farm auctions a year in 1983 when families had no choice but to sell.
Decades later, those memories remain fresh for Rick Juchems, whose parents had to sell their 640-acre farm in Iowa. Just as feared by those protesting in India, American farmers lost their livelihood and sense of identity.
“We were just trying to stay alive,” said Juchems, who was able to continue farming thanks to his in-laws. “You work for it your whole life and then it’s gone.”
Rural economies in the Middle East that have been deteriorating for decades have been devastated by the farming crisis. But although many surviving farmers emerged more prosperous, the communities near them continued to struggle. Researchers fear the same could happen in India if New Delhi refuses to repeal the law that benefits corporate farming.
After the crisis, many Americans were able to adapt to the countryside, relocate to cities and find work, but Aninhalli Vasavi, the social anthropologist in Bengaluru, said farmers in India had few options. Even when economic conditions force them to leave their rural homes, they often struggle in urban areas.
“India has not yet had a significant industrial base to absorb the large population in a lucrative industrial or urban job,” Vasavi said in an email. “Instead, a large number of rural migrants are ‘adversely integrated’ into the cheap urban and construction economy.”
The challenges facing India are common to many developing countries in Asia, where agricultural land has been devoured, often to factories and property development, leaving legions of farmers without adequate compensation and their livelihoods.
In countries including Myanmar, Cambodia and China, many end up on the edge of fast industrializing cities and find low-paid jobs in services such as massage parlors and delivery services that offer no social benefits or security.
Vasavi and others are also concerned about the environmental consequences of the shift of labor-intensive agriculture in India to the large-scale farming known in the US. Such farms are not new to India, which implemented aspects of industrial farming – called the Green Revolution – in the 1960s and succeeded in increasing production and reducing the famine.
Although the very small plots make India less productive than in the US, researchers say Indian farmers are good stewards of their land and avoid some of the environmental consequences seen in American agriculture, such as fertilizer runoff. and soil depletion.
Peggy Barlett, a professor of anthropology at Emory University who studies agriculture and rural life, said that while Americans accustomed to large-scale farming seem to be pushing for industrial farming, it makes less sense in India, where there is a lot of labor but less money for expensive farm equipment.
As more attention is paid to the role of agriculture in climate change, U.S. farmers will also be more confronted in the coming years with the environmental costs of petroleum-based fertilizers, rather than relying on organic methods commonly used on small farms, Barlett said.
Andrea Rissing, a researcher at Ohio State University, said there had been an increase in young Americans growing vegetables on a few acres, in some ways more like in India than in the American Middle East. These smallholdings meet a growing demand for fresh, locally grown produce.
Rissing said many of her students have no choice but to think small because agricultural land is so expensive, but they are also attracted to non-mechanized farms that improve land and restrict runoff in waterways. Others build food centers to market their vegetables locally, rather than sending them to markets nationwide and abroad, as is typical of large-scale agriculture in the US.
This is the kind of farming that Rissing prefers, but she admits: ‘Farming is difficult. It is difficult for small-scale farmers and also for large maize and soybeans. ”
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Associated Press business writer Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok contributed to this report.