Abstract
India is currently in the grip of an unprecedented agricultural crisis, which has led to the suicide of over 300,000 farmers over the past two and half decades. The crisis has been caused by multiple factors including lack of a sustainable agricultural policy, globalization, and decreased state investment in agriculture concurrent with an increased role of private players and climate change. This has led to reduced income for farmers and increased farmers’ indebtedness, which in turn affects the nutritional status of farming families, particularly women and children. In 2017, India was ranked 100 out of a total of 117 countries by the Global Hunger Index. The focus of state schemes related to nutrition has been on ensuring food security rather than nutrition security.
 The agrarian crisis is increasingly making agriculture an unviable occupation and hundreds and thousands of farmers are opting out of working on the land to move to urban areas, where jobs are scarce, further deepening the nutritional crisis. The long-term sustainable solutions include sustainable use of resources of land, seed, and water through promotion of low-input agriculture that is tailored to the nutritional and income needs of farmers and their families, and to the agro-ecological conditions of the region. Agricultural policy must enable the small and marginal farmer to earn a fair income and to be free of debt by ensuring access to procuring agencies, an adequate price for produce, and low-interest micro-loans.
Highlights
On 30th November, 2018, over 50,000 subsistence farmers and landless peasants, agricultural laborers and trade unionists marched to the Indian Parliament (FirstPost, 2018) to focus on the agrarian crisis in the country, a crisis epitomized by the suicides of over 300,000 debt-ridden farmers in the past 25 years (Majumdar, 2018)
Stunting and undernutrition among under 5 children in India have improved over time (National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 3, 2006; NFHS 4, 2016), but the improvement is slow; and the incidence of wasting and severe wasting has slightly increased (NFHS 3, 2006; NFHS 4, 2016). 23% of women and 20% of men have below normal body mass indices (NFHS 4)
The combined impact of agricultural stagnation and unemployment have among other things led to lumpenization, caste conflict, communal parochialism and increasing destitution and suicides specially in India’s farm sector
Summary
On 30th November, 2018, over 50,000 subsistence farmers and landless peasants, agricultural laborers and trade unionists marched to the Indian Parliament (FirstPost, 2018) to focus on the agrarian crisis in the country, a crisis epitomized by the suicides of over 300,000 debt-ridden farmers in the past 25 years (Majumdar, 2018). In India, rainfed agriculture accounts for 60% of the cropped area, and supports an estimated 40% of the human population It contributes to about 42% of the rice production, 77% of pulse production, 66% of oilseeds production and 85% of production of coarse cereals like millet; it supports 78% of cattle, 64% of sheep and 75% of goats, which cater mostly to the meat market (11th Plan Working Group on Natural Resource Farming and Rainfed Agriculture, 2011). The Survey recommends that, given the declining trends of rainfall across the country and the increase in drought-like conditions, there is an urgent need for providing irrigation facilities across the country, especially to small and marginal farmers; it further recommends substantial increase in the investment for irrigation (Economic Survey of India 2018) Another major impediment causing uncertainty and stress for Indian farmers, small and marginal cultivators, is poor infrastructure. Agriculture as a source of income either through wages or through sales of food produced
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