This year’s drought has shaken Karnataka’s economy once again. During the past three years, Karnataka posted impressive growth rates of 9.8 percent, 8.1 percent and 6.6 percent in its GSDP. Now there is a dark shadow over this performance.
The growth was contributed largely by the services and industrial sectors, which shadow the performance of agricultural sector. Unfortunately, the growth in the agricultural sector has been pathetic. This implies an uneven structural growth in income generation across sectors and that is a catalyst for increasing income inequality between sectors—between farmers and non-farmers. On top of this, it’s disturbing that between the census years of 1991 and 2011, the number of cultivators in the state has declined by 3.03 lakh and a few lakh hectares of net sown area has gone out of agriculture.
Among the major factors that explain the drag in agricultural growth is the large share of drought-prone areas in the state and the frequent visitation of droughts. Every drought resets development initiatives. History is replete with instances when droughts have manifested into dreadful famines during 18th and 19th centuries. Karnataka has had an unfair share of such devastating experiences.
The Second Irrigation Commission of India (1972) and the Agricultural Commission of 1976 identified Karnataka as having second highest share of drought-prone areas, with a probability as high as 20 percent. That indicates the onslaught of drought once every five years and the history of last six decades confirms this.
Once a farmer is struck by severe drought, it takes three normal years for him to get back to normality. By that time, another calamity strikes, inflicting a pathetic situation on the farm sector. No wonder, Karnataka was known as one of the leading regions in farmer suicides.
This time, Karnataka had a 73 percent aggregate deficit in rainfall, but it was spread over two seasons—there were prolonged dry spells and sudden spans of heavy rainfall. Both events are agronomically detrimental to crop growth. The footsteps of drought were quite loud in August 2023. The conditions further deteriorated by the time farmers reached the second season. By October 2023, the signs of the looming disaster were visible.
During the first phase of a drought, the impact is on the net and gross area sown, thereby reducing production. This also impacts farm employment and, consequently, reduces the purchasing power of those who depend on agriculture. Small and marginal farmers join the band of labourers, thereby swelling the ranks of job seekers. This year, as a result of the dry spell in kharif season, many small and marginal farmers have chosen to migrate for construction work in Bengaluru and other cities. Second, with the speculation of a low harvest, food prices have started moving up.
Speculators try to use such a situation. A cruel irony is that these exploiters get an opportunity for extracting profits from small and marginal farmers. The vulnerable groups among cultivators tend to sell off or pledge farm assets, livestock and even land, which pushes them out of cultivation in the next season.
In the absence of institutional back-up in soft loans for consumption or crop credit, these groups tend to borrow from village money-lenders at exorbitant rates; as a result, small and marginal cultivators are pushed irreversibly into the ranks of agricultural labourers. This also induces out-migration to urban areas.
The drought this year is quite intense. The state government has declared 223 taluks as drought-affected, out of which 196 are severely affected. This year’s drought is spread in two phases—a part in the pre-sowing season spoiled the farm preparation efforts and cultivators waited to make good their losses. In some areas, the farmers had to sow the crops a second time, and that increased the losses. Employment and the area sown declined, but some crops survived under the late spell of rains.
The early rabi season dry-spell further complicated the situation in the absence of availability of protective irrigation. Already-sown areas suffered input losses and only cultivators with strong resources could sustain rabi cultivation. Small and marginal farmers and agricultural labourers left the rural market in search of higher wages.
The intermittent spells of rain at least allowed some green fodder for the cattle. But the major disturbing factor was that the kharif and rabi droughts have come in succession. In such a situation, the final impact, without timely intervention from the government, can cause large-scale destitution in the farm sector. That will create severe agrarian distress.
Every drought devastates rural life and resets the development efforts. The Karnataka government has always been proactive in addressing the problem. It is the only state which stated a Drought Monitoring Cell way back in 1987 and later upgraded it to the State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre. It is the only state that has real-time rainfall data at the level of hoblis, or village clusters, for about 745 hoblis.
Following the Drought Manual of 2020, the state has estimated losses to the tune of `35,162 crore. So the state government has submitted a demand of `18,171.44 crore from the national and state disaster response funds to the central government. Such a demand often causes a debate between the Union and state governments. The inter-ministerial central team visited the state in October 2023 to estimate the relief requirement. It will be necessary for the Government of India to meet the intense need. It would, otherwise, lead to severe agrarian distress.
R S Deshpande
Nanjundappa Chair Professor, CMDR, and
former director, Institute for Social and Economic Change