The Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), an institution under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) started working on a kind of an early warning system called ‘farmers distress index.The main aim behind creating such an index is to minimise the agrarian distress in the form of crop loss / failure and income shock.The index will try to anticipate this distress and prevent its spread from a few farmers to the village or block level by pre-warning different stakeholders, including central, state, local and also non-government agencies.
Methodology for Monitoring Distress: The development of the index involves multiple steps
- Local newspapers, news platforms, and social media are scoured to identify instances of farmers’ distress, including debt repayment issues, suicides, pest attacks, droughts, floods, and migration.
- This information is then supplemented by telephonic interviews with small, marginal, and tenant farmers in the area.
- These interviews incorporate 21 standardized questions designed to detect early signs of distress.
The responses are then mapped against seven indicators
- Exposure to risks
- Debt
- Adaptive capacity
- Landholding
- Irrigation facilities
- Mitigation strategies
- Immediate triggers
- Socio-psychological factors.
Interpretation of the Index
- Based on the collected data and responses, the index will assign a value between 0 and 1 to indicate the level of distress.
- 0 to 0.5: Low distress,
- 0.5 to 0.7: Moderate” distress
- Above 0.7: Severe” distress.
- If the distress level is severe, the index identifies the specific component contributing the most to farmers’ distress among the seven indicators.
Significance
- Different agencies can then carry out interventions to prevent income shocks to farmers depending on the severity of distress.
- The current solutions that are being thought upon are direct money transfer, mid-term release of claims under the government’s crop insurance scheme in case of crop failures etc.
- For instance, the insurance claims under PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) are only given when a full survey is completed but, in this case, if the index suggests severe distress in the coming few weeks, then the government can provide interim relief under the scheme.