Chandrababu Naidu receives well-deserved praise from corporate chiefs and private investors who see him as one of the best among the new breed of state leaders. Here is a forward-looking politician who not only understands better than most what market reforms are all about but is prepared to do something about it.He recognises the enormous promise of information technology, sells his vision to the Andhraites and puts `Cyberbad' on the international map. The more is the pity then to find such a leader blind when it comes to the tragedies and traumas of rural Andhra. For Chittireddy Madhava Reddy, a small cotton farmer in Warangal district, it matters not at all that Percy Barnevik, chairman of ABB, is hugely impressed by his Chief Minister's grasp of international capital flows. Reddy, in debt up to his neck and recovering from a failed suicide attempt, would wish to see some old-fashioned virtues and among them a grasp of present-day rural realities.Naidu's response to the condition of 60,000 small and marginal farmers in Warangal district whose entire cotton crop virtually has been destroyed by pests is to set up a committee to study broad issues pertaining to cotton as well as tobacco, groundnut and red gram growers, all of whom are suffering from the uncertainties of the weather. The Centre feels it is doing its bit by also setting up a committee, this one under the cabinet secretary to examine at this late hour whether calamity aid can be extended to the state. It took several weeks after the first signs of severe distress in Warangal were manifested in suicides by debt-ridden farmers, for the Cotton Corporation of India and the Market Federation to intervene robustly by buying up produce at higher prices. Agricultural experts are being trotted out belatedly to warn farmers against the excessive use of pesticides. All this may result in some temporary amelioration of difficulties but it is too little too late.It does not need new committees to figure out why ``white gold'', as cotton was called when first introduced in Guntur and other districts two decades ago, has led farmers to suicide this year and in earlier years as well. Three things most needed by small farmers, subject to the tyrannies of the weather and market, are information, credit and insurance. All three are missing for commercial crop growers in Andhra Pradesh. Extension services of the State Agricultural Department failed miserably first to monitor pesticide-use patterns and then to teach farmers the right way of doing things. In a State that boasts world-class institutes like the Icrisat, it is dismaying to find such expertise is not tapped on a regular basis. Small farmers would not be driven into the clutches of money-lenders had the government ensured that credit was available from banks and cooperative institutions. Inexplicably, Andhra Pradesh has been slow to take advantage of the Centre's crop insurance scheme. It should now concentrate on providing extensive coverage to small farmers before the next season starts. Naidu should drag himself away from his computer and go talk to farmers.
