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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Madhya Pradesh farmer protest: Loan waivers are worst form of populism, they won't solve real issues -Mihir Shah

Madhya Pradesh farmer protest: Loan waivers are worst form of populism, they won't solve real issues -Mihir Shah

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published Published on Jun 9, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 9, 2017
-Firstpost.com

I am totally opposed to farm loan waivers as it will undermine the integrity of farmers. When state governments announce farm loan waivers, it is a knee-jerk reaction.

Why are farm loans being given at all? Instead, the government should focus on the real issues that affect the agrarian sector. Since it hasn’t, you have agitations hitting the road with farmers protesting. The Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to waive off farmer loans was disastrous and it is snowballing now into a big issue.

The problem that is beset the country now dates back to the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution was introduced in India as an attempt to ensure food security and was a solution for the country in the 60s. But the problem with it is that it has completely gone off the rails. There is a crisis of sustainability in every sense of the term and we need a paradigm shift in agriculture.

The first crisis of following tried and tested methods of farming of the ‘60s is ecological. Farming is about nature. People who make decisions about farming do that in the comforts of their air-conditioned rooms without a clue that farming has to do with a sustainable supply of water, for instance. If the technology and inputs that a farmer puts in the land destroys the soil and water consequently raising the cost of farming, then farming becomes unsustainable.

Punjab is an apt case study where inputs and outputs got skewed over the years. The Green Revolution curve was going upwards in Punjab but over time it started sloping downward. This was because the yield response to fertilisers was causing much harm to soil conditions and the crop was affected. To get the same results when the land was fertilised initially, now more fertilisers had to be pumped in as the soil was oversaturated with fertilisers. This meant that the cost to the farmer had gone up and his income was declining. Farming thus became unviable as the natural resources on which it depended upon was destroyed.

According to the UN's World Urbanisation Prospects, urbanisation, combined with overall population growth, will boost the number of people in cities by 2.5 billion over the next three decades, with much of that growth in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. India, China and Nigeria will make up 37 percent of the projected growth in the next three decades, with India adding 404 million city residents, China 292 million, and Nigeria 212 million, by 2050. The key challenge for these countries will be to provide basic services like education, health care, housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy and employment for their growing urban populations.

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Firstpost.com, 8 June, 2017, http://www.firstpost.com/india/madhya-pradesh-farmer-protest-loan-waivers-are-worst-form-of-populism-they-wont-solve-real-issues-3529677.html


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