Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Burden of farming outweighs rewards: Is India staring at another Nandigram moment? - Rajesh Mahapatra

Burden of farming outweighs rewards: Is India staring at another Nandigram moment? - Rajesh Mahapatra

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jun 18, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 18, 2017
-Hindustan Times

Interventions such as loan waivers or MSP revisions can at best offer temporary succour. At worst, they deflect attention from the real issues behind the crisis that has been in the making for long

On March 14, 2007, when 14 farmers died in a clash between villagers and police forces in Nandigram of West Bengal over acquisition of land for an industrial project, few had imagined it would mark a turning point in the state’s politics. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of the then ruling Left Front in West Bengal had just stormed to power on the promise of reviving the industrial glory of the state, but Nandigram proved to be his nemesis. Overnight, farmers across the state turned hostile; the Opposition closed ranks; the intelligentsia distanced itself from the “bhadralok” chief minister and eventually, the Left lost the plot in a state it had ruled for 34 years.

Cut to 2017, the nation is perhaps staring at another Nandigram moment. The killing of six farmers in a police crackdown in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh earlier this month has put the spotlight on India’s worsening farm crisis. The farmers’ unrest that has since spread to other parts of Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere in India is a wake-up call. For it is a result of years of neglect of agriculture, something that still provides livelihood to two-thirds of the India’s 1.3 billion people.

At the core of the problem lies a growing mismatch between what it takes to grow food and what a farmer fetches for his produce in the marketplace. Economists explain this using the phrase ‘terms of trade for agriculture’, which improved for a brief period in the 1990s before turning unfavourable for most part of the new millennium.

Sample this: In 1992, a typical farmer in Punjab paid Rs 6 per litre for diesel to keep his generator sets running, bought a sack of diammonium phosphate (DAP) for Rs 200 and hired labour at a daily wage of Rs 40-50. Twenty-five years on, diesel costs 10 times more, DAP prices have increased more than five times and farm wages are 10 times higher. In contrast, the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat, which is what most of Punjab grows, has increased only five-fold during this period — Rs 330 per quintal to Rs 1,625 per quintal.

In other words, the burden of farming has grown much faster than the rewards it brings. Demonetisation made it worse. As my journalist colleague Harish Damodaran wrote, “We’ve entered deflation territory in farm produce, whose proximate trigger clearly has been demonetisation.” Much of the trade in farm goods is cash-based and financed through a chain of intermediaries — wholesale buyers, processors and retailers. Demonetisation crippled this network of informal credit, causing a free fall in the prices of farm goods across the board.

Please click here to read more.

Hindustan Times, 18 June, 2017, http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/burden-of-farming-outweighs-rewards-is-india-staring-at-another-nandigram-moment/story-as9KitRAy1UTNi00NqXKpN.html


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close