Much is spoken and written about farmers’ distress these days. As in everything else, many of those involved in the discussion have never done any farming but do express their opinion for other reasons – some because platforms are available and they comment on everything, some for political reasons, and some to promote their image. A number of them are likely sincerely concerned about the issue, but lack of correct information may support the wrong cause.
Who is a farmer? The person who owns the land and follows the general farming practices as everybody else; or the one who actually toils in the field – often a migrant labourer or member of a non-land-owning family? Sometimes, there is the practice of ‘adh batai’, under which those who labour are not paid but take a share of the crop. It is a gamble, because when crops fail, they are left with nothing, except maybe debt. Neither of these matches a present-day definition of what should be a farmer.
‘Farmers’ have been agitating for quite some time seeking government compensation for crop failures and minimum support prices. In other words, when there is a good harvest, the government should buy at a high price, when logically the market price should be low due to greater supply. This defeats the purpose of seeking to increase productivity. It means that the less a farmer produces, the higher the price should be – what does that incentivise?
India has plenty of agricultural universities and specialised institutions churning out scientists in every aspect of farming, but how much role do they have in influencing policy on the ground? India’s agriculture productivity is quite poor as compared to a number of countries. The reasons for this are many – high water consumption crops in water deficient areas; mono-cropping; ignorance of new techniques and potential for growing multiple high return crops; and climate change. In many cases there is also a high dependence of large families on small landholdings, which puts everything into a negative loop. All the initiatives such as cooperative farming, scientific interventions, improved quality of inputs are unavailable for numerous reasons to a majority of the agriculturists. There are, however, many cases of success with even well-educated and better off people taking to agriculture and doing well. It is important at this point for the nation’s leaders to stop politics on agricultural issues and unitedly work on real reforms that would bring about another green revolution.
