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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | AP farmers on crop holiday in key sowing season

AP farmers on crop holiday in key sowing season

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published Published on Jun 11, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 11, 2011

-The Economic Times

 

It's promising to be a tumultous kharif sowing season notwithstanding the massive food grain stocks with the government which is forcing down farmer produce prices countrywide. Early arrival of a forecast normal to good monsoon should have ordinarily enthused farmers to increase the acreage under key summer sown crops this season. But, in protest against the Centre's persisting anti-farmer policies, small and marginal farmers in some villages in to rice producer state Andhra Pradesh have now decided to go on a " crop holiday."

Small and marginal farmers in around a dozen villages in the paddy districts of Warangal, E and W Godavari and Guntur have decided to apply for and work under the Centre's much vaunted MGNREGA programme to show their anger against the Centre's refusal to intervene in ensuring atleast declared support (MSP) plus bonus prices for their produce of the last season. hike paddy prices, and to open up exports urgently.The Centre has yet to announce the support prices__from which good hikes are expected by farmers countrywide who are planting more acreage under key summer sown crops__for kharif crops, preventing an informed sowing decision by farmers and paving the way for another season of plenty in stocks but poor farmer income.

Thanks to the MGNREGA, farm labour costs have gone up in a marked manner countrywide, according to the Labour Bureau. However, the costs have for long been suppressed, making the hike long overdue.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, CIFA (Consortium of Indian Farmers' Associations) head Chengal Reddy, pointing to the "crop holiday" resorted to by farmers in his homestate, urged the government to urgently open up grain exports of upto 2mt from the over 40mt of stocks with the government in order to advantage farmers in a global market where both the price of rice and wheat currently reign firm. Organisation such as the FAO have, infact, cautioned that the strain on supplies to importers in most vulnerable countries is likely to persist through 2012 despite and increase in production thanks to export bans by Russia and India.

The "crop holiday" comes in the wake of the fertiliser industry recently taking a "import holiday" on potash imports after global supplier cartels refused to reduce skyrocketing prices. That already means that farmers will have to regulate their use of potash-based fertilisers such as MoP, which is almost completely imported, this sowing season.

The Centre has been sitting on the key decision of openign up grain exports for until after a formal assessment is done of the requirements for its much vaunted right to food bill which is expected to be pushed through Parliament in the coming monsoon session. It has also been sitting on opening up additional cotton exports (another AP crop) in a limited manner to advantage cotton farmers in vulnerable districts.

Textile minister Dayanidhi Maran, currently under a cloud on account of the 2G kickback scam, was mainly responsible for backing millers and traders in the south against cotton exports and keeping prices suppressed for farmers a t a time when the yarn was fetching good prices in the global market.

Today's ministerial panel meet is expected to open up additional exports.

The Economic Times, 9 June, 2011, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-06-09/news/29638619_1_crop-holiday-sowing-season-marginal-farmers


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