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Rot unlimited although stories of suicides by farmers and weavers in Andhra Pradesh have been relegated to the inside pages of local newspapers, the scourge continues to haunt the state. The 13-member Commission on Farmers' Welfare, constituted to study the agrarian crisis, has started touring the districts. Economist Jayati Ghosh, who heads the commission, recently described the situation as a "crisis of unparalleled proportion'. But the ruling Congress and the opposition Telugu Desam Party (tdp) have typically taken recourse to mud slinging to save their skins.

Former chief minister and tdp leader N Chandrababu Naidu recently released a report that said over 2,000 farmers and weavers had committed suicide since the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government took over in the state on May 14, 2004. The maximum number of suicides was reported from Karimnagar district (210), followed by Prakasam (171), Mahbubnagar (150) and Medak (142). Reddy responded by saying that "the suicides were continuing due to the impact of the tdp government's farm policies during its 10-year tenure'. He also said the government was still ascertaining the death toll and a panel had been formed to identify the genuine cases. Claiming that his government had not taken any anti-farmer decision, Reddy said at public meetings in Kurnool district: "The tdp played havoc with the farm sector to such an extent that the crisis may continue for another two years.' Ghosh also attributes the crisis to the state's neo-economic policies in the last decade. In a lecture on "Overcoming Agricultural Crisis' in Hyderabad on November 24, 2004, she said land alienation, decline in public investment in rural areas and trade liberalisation policies had hit the farm sector hard. The government allowed marketing to be taken over by the private sector. This created a feudal structure in which the farmer suffered the most. She emphasised the need to revive public institutions and provide credit, genuine seeds and pesticides, marketing facilities, minimum support for produce, protection and stability to farmers.

Another senior academic on the commission pointed out that the government has stopped reviving water resources. Rural employment has gone down considerably, at 0.14 per cent. Even non-farm livelihood has become dismal with the closure of sugar and milk cooperatives. Crop prices have reduced due to the liberal trade policies of the 1980s and the withdrawal of public procurement policy of farm produce. But agricultural costs and inputs have risen. The state currently has the highest agricultural cost and use of pesticides.

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