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Now
Kamlabai Gudhe Says of Her $300-Cow in
Lonsawala. "It Eats More Than All of us Together"
There's
No Such Thing as a Free Cow
By P. SAINATH
"This is my demand," says Ravindra
Gowarkar bitterly. "I want every beneficiary of the Sixth
Pay Commission to get a cow like the one the government gave
me." No pay hike the next time. "Give them an acre
of land each if you like. And let the babus try and earn from
this system," says the angry, educated farmer in Vanjiri.
"This animal is destroying us."
"They landed up at my
house and made me take this cow," protests Kamlabai Gudhe
in Lonsawala, Wardha. This Dalit farmer's husband committed suicide
five months ago. "I said we don't want this. We have never
kept cattle and don't know how to. Give one of us a job, any
work. Instead, my son is full time in service of this cow. Were
he not tied down by it, he would earn Rs.50 a day [i.e., about
$1] as a labourer. This brute eats more than all us in this house
put together. And we don't get more than four litres of milk
in a day from it."
"The buffalo I got through
the government cost me Rs.120-Rs.150 a day," says Mr. Gowarkar's
neighbour. "It never stopped eating." He and several
others have sold their animals. Next door, Anjanabai Dolaskar
still has hers. "I feed it the wheat meant for my son -
who was the `beneficiary.'" As for suicide-hit households,
says a top official in Amravati, "none of them even applied
to government for an animal."
Giving quality cows to thousands
of poor farmers was a high-profile element in the relief `packages'
of both Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. The first would bring 40,000 new cows
to the district in three years. The second, 18,000 in the same
period. Even at the time, the idea was attacked as "insane"
by critics from Planning Commission members to farm activists
and others (The Hindu, July 14, 2006). Now the Chief Minister's
package has crashed. The Prime Minister's hasn't even taken off.
The chaos, points out Vijay
Jawandia, one of the region's foremost thinkers and activists,
was predictable. "It was not clever to give poor farmers
costly cows in places where there is no water or fodder."
Which describes much of Vidharbha. And the result is familiar.
Farmers without food, cows without fodder. No less predictable:
the State's fodder assistance scheme is a mess. Much of what
the farmers have got is inadequate, inedible, and the animals
won't have it.
At first, the `beneficiary'
was to go to the market with an official of the Animal Husbandry
Department and choose his or her cow. In practice, the AHD soon
began `choosing' on its own. The type of animal also changed.
The original plan was to buy sturdy local breeds. Or a buffalo.
Soon, as in much of the country, the idea of `Jersey' cows slipped
in. With each change, the costs of the game rose. Ms. Gudhe's
cow is worth Rs.17,500 [i.e., c. $350] . In theory, at least.
She calls the sorry creature an "aadha Jersey."
Mr. Jawandia, amongst others,
had demanded that the crores of rupees [crore = 10 million] directed
at these schemes be used to promote the growth of jowar instead.
Vidharbha's livestock disaster began with the decline of food
crop in the region. Jowar is where the fodder comes from. Up
to 30 per cent of the land in some districts here was once under
jowar.
Today, that's less than five
per cent. Less fodder implies fewer cows, less milk. Importantly,
it means less manure too, which affects soil fertility.
So milk production in the region
collapsed some years ago. Yavatmal district is a good example,
says Dada Rhode. He has been a milk collection contractor for
decades. "Just 12 years ago," he says, "around
35,000 litres a day was procured in this district. Today, that's
around 7,000 litres daily." An 80 per cent fall. In contrast,
western Maharashtra could produce three quarters of a million
litres in a day. Just two districts there, Kolhapur and Sangli,
produce more milk than all of Vidharbha and Marathwada together.
Over there, points out Mr. Jawandia, "there is irrigation
and water. The top of the sugarcane, a local by-product, is good
green fodder. And the climatic conditions are better for dairying.
For four months of the year, Vidharbha gets far hotter. The other
regions have Pune and Mumbai as major markets. That doesn't exist
here."
"Now," says Mr. Rhode,
"milk comes in here from all over. From other districts
and other States. Even all the way from Kakinada in coastal Andhra
Pradesh. Private companies have gained from the collapse. And
you'll find packaged milk all over the place."
"If jowar comes back,"
say farmers here, "farmers will begin to keep cattle once
again." Just now, farmers are trying to give them away.
Several have sold the animals. And lost money doing it. For these
cattle, though subsidised (between 50 per cent and 75 per cent),
did not come free. Ms. Gudhe in Wardha, for instance, paid more
than the Rs.5,000 required of her for the cow. The AHD man extracted
the standard Rs.500 bribe from her, tagging it on to the price.
This happened to most others who got a cow. If all these schemes
were fully implemented, the region's struggling farmers would
part with over Rs.25 crore for the animals. Not counting what
they would spend on maintaining them.
The cows given out may be "half"
jerseys, but their appetites are not. The animal needs five kg
of oil cake daily, which costs about Rs.45. Then there's the
green fodder it needs. There is also the cost of labor in looking
after a Rs.17,500 cow. "I'm tied to this thing," complains
Bhaskar Gudhe, son of Ms. Kamlabai Gudhe in Lonsawala. "Don't
forget I lose Rs.50 at least from not working elsewhere."
There is also, as Ashok Manchalwar in Vanjiri says, "the
bus ticket when I go to sell the milk." That's nearly Rs.30
for each trip. All in all, the costs of keeping the animal range
from between Rs.85 and Rs.150 a day depending on who you are
and where you live. Mr. Bhaskar Gudhe gets four litres and Mr.
Manchalwar eight in a day. With a
litre selling at Rs.9, they
make between Rs.36 and Rs.70 at the most. "Remember it eats
in the non-milking season as well," says a disgruntled Mr.
Bhaskar Gudhe.
"I think I'll go and leave
this creature at the Collector's house," says Mr. Bhaskar
Gudhe. "Let him raise it." If other angry `beneficiaries'
here act the same way, the Collector could end up with the biggest
herd in the region. And he won't have to wait till the cows come
home.
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