December of 2023 began with a rocky start when Cyclone Michaung emerged from South East Asia and clashed with coastal communities in Coastal India. In Chennai alone, videos emerged of entire sections of the city flooded with drain water and cars being washed away. Across the region, electricity and telecom disruption has been reported amongst residents. But the Achilles heel that Michaung particularly hit was agricultural economies across the coast.
In Odisha, Agricultural economies experienced a sledgehammer as crops were destroyed in the coast from the cyclone. The Bhubaneswar based newspaper Sambad reported on relief to compensate for crop loss up to 33% as farmers face a bleak month. The Visakhapatnam based newspaper Eenadu reported on the catastrophe many farmers are experiencing with farmers commenting especially on the unresponsiveness of the state government and the woes crop destruction has generated to both agricultural loans borrowed by small farmers, and the loss of income. While CM Reddy pledged to grant 2500 INR of aid to disaster affected households and farmers, opposition parties have been fiercely critical of CM Reddy, criticising his negligence to the issue during the initial aftermath of the destruction following cyclone Michaung and how he isn’t doing enough.
With the perils farmers are currently facing across all 3 states, Cyclone Michaung clearly exposes fault lines in the region's agricultural industries, and the need for action and development from state governments in terms of long term disaster relief and food security. The conservative news portal Firstpost reported on dwindling food supplies from the cyclone towards rural communities in the duration of the cyclone and the struggles of coping amidst the crisis, in the terms of sectors, it exposes the most impoverished of farmers being left out, and great inequalities in the agricultural sector. According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), Farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh have risen over the past couple of years with the motivation being financial woes contributing to a larger trend of farmer suicides not only region wide but also nationwide since 1995 where financial woes with disasters also being an included cause or even a catalyst.
While in the long run, disaster management infrastructure and farmer subsidies are some form of engagement, Michaung’s exposure of financial woes and the vulnerability farmers have, indirectly presents a debt crisis across eastern India in agricultural economies. In 2019, the National Statistical Office (NSO) reported that more than half of all rural households had debt nationwide that averaged to more than 70,000 INR in debt, with Andhra Pradesh being the highest at 240,000 INR in debt on average, with 93% of households in rural areas holding debt.
With this disparity, it shows the need for insights into both supporting farmers in financial ruin in terms of materials, labour, and even debt forgiveness. The exposure of fragility also should involve an insight into lenders of loans and even loan sharks in rural regions that target impoverished farmers, a problem that seems to have worsened across the region.
government-failed-to-prevent-large-scale-destruction-of-crops-in-andhra-pradesh-alleges-
chandrababu-naidu/article67618395.ece
留言