DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Images of thousands of farmers traveling in India’s capital with tractors and carrying banners to denounce potentially devastating changes in agricultural policy may seem like a distant world, but protests in New Delhi raise issues that resonate in The United States and have led to dramatic changes in rural America.
Indian farmers have left their homes to go through New Delhi in a desperate effort to force the repeal of the laws, they believe they will end guaranteed prices and force them to sell to strong corporations rather than government-run markets. Despite decades of economic growth, up to half of India’s population relies on growing crops on small plots of land, usually less than 3 acres, and farmers worry that without guaranteed prices they will be forced to sell. lands and lose their livelihood.
The dispute raises questions not only about agriculture but also about declining populations in rural India, where small communities are already struggling to survive – a problem reflected in parts of the United States.
“These protests have gone far beyond the bills, as this has turned into a broader conversation about the soul of rural India, which is very familiar to us in the Midwest,” said Andrew Flachs, a professor of anthropology at Purdue University. . studied extensively the experiences of cotton farmers in India. “We are always talking about the spirit of American agrarianism and the soul of rural America, and this has turned into a conversation of the same dynamic in India.”
Images of farmers marching through New Delhi are reminiscent of similar scenes in Washington, DC, during the agricultural crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when hundreds of trucks and tractors flooded the National Mall. Thousands of farmers have lost their land, in part because of government policies that have raised interest rates as demand for their products has fallen, leading to declining land values.
In Iowa – one of the hardest hit states – there were about 500 agricultural auctions a month in 1983, when families had no choice but to sell.
Decades later, these memories remain fresh for Rick Juchems, whose parents were forced to sell their 640-acre Iowa farm. Equally feared by protesters in India, American farmers have lost their livelihoods and sense of identity.
“We were just trying to stay alive,” said Juchems, who later managed to continue farming because of his in-laws. “That’s what you’ve been working on all your life and then it’s gone.”
The rural economies of the Midwest, which had been declining for decades, were devastated by the farm crisis. But while many surviving farmers emerged more prosperous, the communities near them continued to struggle. Researchers fear that the same could happen in India if New Delhi refuses to repeal the law that favors corporate agriculture.
After the crisis, many Americans in rural areas were able to adapt, moving to cities and finding jobs, but Indian social anthropologist Aninhalli Vasavi said Indian farmers had few options. Even though economic realities force them to leave rural homes, they often struggle in urban areas.
“India has not had a substantial industrial base to absorb the large population into profitable industrial or urban jobs,” Vasavi said in an email. “Instead, a large number of rural migrants are ‘negatively integrated’ into the urban economy and state-of-the-art construction.”
The challenges facing India are common to many developing countries in Asia, where agricultural land has been swallowed up, often for factories and real estate development, leaving legions of farmers without adequate compensation and without their livelihoods.
In countries, including Myanmar, Cambodia and China, many reach the edge of rapidly industrializing cities, finding low-wage jobs in jobs such as massage parlors and socially friendly delivery services, or security.
Vasavi and others are also concerned about the environmental consequences of the shift from labor-intensive agriculture in India to large-scale agriculture known in the United States. Such agriculture is not new in India, which implemented aspects of industrial agriculture – called the Green Revolution – in the 1960s and managed to increase production and reduce hunger on a large scale.
Although many 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 a boost to industrial agriculture might seem obvious to Americans accustomed to large-scale agriculture, it makes less sense in India, where there is much labor, but less money for expensive agricultural equipment.
As more attention is paid to the role of agriculture in climate change, American farmers will face even more in the coming years with the environmental costs of oil-based fertilizers, rather than relying on organic methods commonly used on small farms. , said Barlett.
Ohio State University researcher Andrea Rissing said there has been an increase in young Americans growing vegetables on a few acres, in a way more like in India than in the Midwest. These small farms respond to a growing demand for fresh, locally grown produce.
Rissing said many of her students have no choice but to think small because farmland is so expensive, but they are also attracted to non-mechanized farming, which improves soils and limits runoff. Others build food centers to market their vegetables locally, rather than sending them to markets nationally and abroad, as is typical of large-scale agriculture in the United States.
It’s the kind of agriculture Rissing prefers, but she admits, “Agriculture is hard. It is difficult for small farmers and it is also difficult for large corn and soybean farmers. ”
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Associated Press business writer Elaine Kurtenbach of Bangkok contributed to the report.