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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Farmers ready to pay market rates for power, demand reliable supply by Madhvi Sally & Sutanuka Ghosal

Agrarian distress and growing awareness among farmers, tired of poll-time rhetoric and freebies, may make it tougher for political parties to woo this large electorate with worn-out promises in the upcoming assembly polls. 

Ahead of elections in five states, including in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous and politically-critical state, many farmers say they are ready to pay market rates for power and other inputs provided there is reliable supply. 

Swarn Singh, a farmer who has 20 acres in Nandpur village of Punjab's Fatehgarh Sahib district, rues that he has to spend half of his annual income on diesel, seeds, fertilisers, machinery and labour. Diesel alone costs a fifth of his annual income of 8 lakh, he says. 

Erratic power supply makes it necessary for him to use the fuel to power the pump to irrigate his fields, where he grows wheat, sugarcane, paddy, basmati and mustard. 

Former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal was critical of Punjab government's free power for 1.5 million farmers ahead of the polls, up from the 1 million covered earlier. Badal, who has floated the People's Party of Punjab, derides populist schemes and promises to develop the dairy sector in the state. 

"The panchayats want electricity and are ready to pay rather than being deprived of it for days. Farmers want an additional income, which can be achieved only if reliable electricity is supplied to agro-processing industry," says Rashpal Malhotra, founder director of the Chandigarh-based Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development. 

Yogesh Kumar Dahiya, chairman of the Farmers Forum of UP's Saharanpur, says the community across the state wants a share in the development on their land acquired for various infrastructure projects. 

Dahiya says farmers fail to get their due because of the stranglehold of middlemen in their mandis, which is India's largest producer of wheat and sugarcane, besides other crops. 

"We are apolitical," says Dahiya, who claims that farmers' earnings declined during the Mayawati regime, "Whenever a candidate comes for canvassing, we ask him to share his roadmap for developing agriculture and how it will be funded. We will vote for the candidate only if we get satisfactory answers." 

In Goa, too, usurpation of farmland is an election issue. "Coastal areas are being converted into residential areas and the interiors of Goa are being used for mining purposes," says Claude Alvares, director of the secretariat of Organic Farming Association of India, adding that policy interventions are required to boost income from agriculture. 

"The government has acquired agricultural land for sports complexes and airports, but it has not given any attention to increasing productivity of farming land," says Alvares. He adds that while the state government increased the plan outlay for the farm sector to 70 crore in 2011-12, up from 23.94 crore in 2009-10 and 51.57 crore in 2010-11, this hasn't made a difference on the ground. 

In the northeastern state of Manipur, plagued by recurring highway blockades, farmers find it difficult to sell their produce. The state was cut off from the rest of the country for 120 days last year, double the number of days in the previous year. "In 2010, we managed to supply over 50 trucks of passion fruit. 

However, the blockade did not allow fruits to move out of state in 2011," says farmer LB Sinate, who is also associated with the National Horticulture Board, "We want the government to rein in blockades and provide better marketing linkages. 

The new government must spend on setting up processing units for better remuneration to farmers. This will also control the cost of transportation from the hilly state." 

Farmers in Manipur grow a special variety of rice, passion fruit, pineapple, orange, plum and bhot jolokia (chilly). From Churachandpur, farmers could send only one truckload of passion fruit to Nagaland in the entire season last year. 

"Some farmers in Manipur are looking to export the special variety of rice. The place is naturally gifted as it borders Myanmar, through which farmers can have access to southeast Asia," says Bidyut Baruah, regional manager of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, which is setting up 10MT cold storage facility at Imphal airport. 

In Uttarakhand, the state government has become the first in the country to fix minimum support price for herbs and assure market access through its own machinery and yoga guru Baba Ramdev's initiative, Patanjali. 

"We have increased the subsidy allocation for poly houses and drip irrigation," says agriculture minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, adding that the state government has requested the centre to allocate land outside Delhi to set up a new market for farm produce as Azadpur Mandi is very cluttered. The Centre should also provide equipment such as anti-hail guns under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, he says. 

(With inputs from Bikash Singh)