Can Mamata Banerjee Make a New Beginning in Rural Bengal?

All over rural India the most important livelihood of small farmers is confronted with multiple problems. There is a yearning for a new beginning but solutions are proving elusive because individual initiatives can only succeed up to a limit. Community level initiatives are needed and government help is also needed to create a situation in which people feel more encouraged to take steps in the right direction.

Basically the livelihood problems have to be solved in ways which are in conformity with the protection of environment. The technologies which emphasised expensive seeds which have to be purchased year after year, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, herbicides etc. linked to these seeds have proved harmful. Firstly, these were too costly for the low-resource small farmers; and secondly, even if temporarily this technology increased production to some extent, it destroyed the natural fertility of the land and also killed earthworms and micro-organisms that help to maintain the fertility of the land. Agri-chemicals also polluted water sources and damaged the health of the people.

So the solutions that we need have to meet the objectives of (i) giving the farmers a reasonable yield while keeping the costs as low as possible; (ii) protecting rural ecology as well as the health of the people. Fortunately such solutions are available. As hundreds of small-scale initiatives in India (not to mention the even more numerous examples abroad) have shown, it is possible for small farmers and groups of small farmers to bring down their costs to near zero levels by making the best available use of local resources (such as dung, cow-urine, tree leaves, crop-residues, extracts of certain local plants etc.) to prepare organic manure and pest repellants. If groups of farmers can work together to collect and save fast vanishing traditional seeds and multiply these on their farms, then they can be self-reliant in seeds. An additional advantage is that these traditional seeds are adapted to local conditions and the availability of diversity of traditional seeds will be a big advantage particularly in times of climate change to meet more the stressful situation in terms of unexpected weather conditions.

Unfortunately, however, governments under the pressure of various vested interests have not come forward to tap the potential revealed by different small-scale initiatives. There are various very lobbies which work against the spread of such initiatives with government help. There is the lobby to protect thousands of crores of rupees given every year as subsidy for chemical fertilisers. Similarly, big seed companies, which want to spread not just hybrids but also GM seeds, have very powerful lobbies.

Even when some half-hearted efforts have been made to promote organic farming these efforts have been linked to export orders, out of season export crops and not to the health and food-security of the local people. In several of these cases farmers are asked to pay heavily for certification of organic produce, so that the very purpose of providing low-cost alternatives to small farmers is defeated.

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HOWEVER in West Bengal where the people have only very recently given such a huge mandate to Mamata Bannerjee and her party, there are understandably high hopes of a new beginning in various areas, and perhaps in no other area would a new beginning be more relevant than in the field of rural development.

So it’ll be a very good idea if the new government in West Bengal can make a new beginning in agriculture which emphasises low-cost, self-reliant and ecologically protective farming systems. In addition villagers, particularly tribals should be given maximum opportunities to use minor forest produce for the improvement of their livelihoods and health.

Innovative ideas should be invited and promoted for the promotion of crafts and cottage-scale industry as well as small enterprises in the rural and semi-rural areas. Khadi, handloom, jute and leather crafts already have some base, but a whole range of other options can also be explored with government help. While one aim is to meet more rural demand for daily use goods and services by small labour and skill intensive enterprises, the other aim can be to supply the wider market for handicrafts and special skill-based products. In all this the emphasis will be on linking economic opportunities with local livelihood creation and promotion of skills for this purpose. Tourism need not be elite-based and many rural youth, specially fisher folk and others living near rivers and coastal areas, can be trained to benefit from tourism, apart from maintaining their links with traditional livelihoods.

Decentralised renewable energy systems can be very relevant to meeting rural energy needs as has been revealed by several initiatives in the context of solar energy, micro hydel etc. However, for rural people to get the full benefits of such initiatives, there should be suitable training of rural youth on the pattern, for example, of Rajasthan’s “Barefoot College”.

In all this the famous Gandhian principle of giving utmost attention to the needs of the poorest of the poor should be kept in mind. By emphasising this basic principle and environment protection, new initiatives in the area of organic, low-cost and self-reliant farms, animal husbandry, fisheries, minor forest produce and decentralised rural energy, small and cottage industry should be combined to give new hope to the rural people of Bengal.

The author is currently a Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.