Agriculture in Orissa
The agricultural situation in Orissa
Today, Orissa stands at a crossroads. It can either intensify its agriculture further by continuing to adopt a model of more external inputs including GM seeds which would tighten the control of external agents on food & farming systems and disempower the people. Or it can get out of its ecological, economic, socio-cultural crisis in agriculture by adopting ecological agriculture as the only sustainable way out of the crisis. Local production, storage and distribution deepens food sovereignty, enhances cultural diversity.
Farmer Suicide in Orissa
In the last three months 39 farmers have committed suicide in different districts of Orissa. They are pushed into an highly external input dependent chemical intensive agriculture. This has made their net agriculture income negative and forced them to seek loan from formal and non formal sectors. The pressure generated out of not being able to repay the loan took the lives of the people who feed rest of us–the farmers. But the government insists that they died because of family problems.Suicides has nothing to do with the crop failure. How many more farmers need to commit suicide before the government wakes up? In Orissa on an average 328 farmers commit suicide every year.
Sustainable agriculture
We need farming systems which would sustain and improve agriculture, improve community food sovereignty. We want to move towards establishing farming systems that are appropriate for and tolerant towards a specific area. Farmers need to gain more control over the production resources and managing the support systems. They need help in dealing with risks, vulnerabilities and environmental change, including climate change.
Sustainable agriculture is based on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Climate change and agriculture in Orissa
Orissa is the Indian state that is most affected by climate change. The states ecology and weather have undergone a noticable change. The last years it has been prone to severely extreme weather conditions. The people have almost yearly been shifted between floods and droughts, resulting in many casualties. The already dry lands are drying up even more, while the flood prone areas get more drowned. This already has shown its undeniable impact on agriculture in the state. If nothing is done, we have to worry for the future.
